Roger Dixon – OMAHA BLOG: OMAHA EVENTS AND MORE!

CWS Pre-Game Press Conference, 11 June 2025

The College Word Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning at the Charles Schwab Field Omaha.

In attendance were:

Jim Pillen, Governor, State of Nebraska
John Ewing, Mayor, City of Omaha
John “Jack” Diesing Jr., Chairman and President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, NCAA Vice President of Championships
Roger Dixon, President and CEO of MECA

The format this year was different with each speaker taking a turn to speak and then receive questions from the press.

Here is the transcript:

2025 College World Series Pregame Press Conference

JOEY = Joey Gardner, Marketing and Creative Manager at College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

GOV = Jim Pillen, Governor of Nebraska

MAYOR = Mayor John Ewing, Jr., Mayor of Omaha

JACK = Jack Diesing, Jr., College World Series of Omaha

ROGER = Roger Dixon, MECA

ANTHONY = Anthony Holman, NCAA

FATHER = Father Hendrickson (Rev. Daniel S. Henderson), president of Creighton University

MT: Michel Thornhill, OmahaNebraska.com

MP: Mike Patterson, Omaha World Herald

Transcript

Joey Gardner, Marketing and Creative Manager at College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

JOEY: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I’d like to welcome our distinguished guests. We have Governor Jim Pillen, Mayor John Ewing, Jack Diesing Jr. from the College World Series of Omaha, Roger Dixon from MECA, Anthony Holman from the NCAA, and Father Hendrickson from Creighton University. I would like to start by welcoming up Governor Pillen for some remarks and questions.

GOV: Well, good morning, everybody. I think the most important thing to say is “Welcome to Omaha,” and “Welcome to Nebraska.” As I was meeting some young ladies who are working with the College World Series, I said, “Do you know what’s going to happen to you in the next two weeks?” And they said, “We’re not sure.” I said, “You are falling in love with the people in Nebraska, and you’re going to stay here. You’re not going to go back home. So you’ll be welcome.” You know, let me say, on a very, very serious note, this is an extraordinary celebration. Seeing people here like Jack that have been working their whole lifetimes for the College World Series, in the 75th year. And from my viewpoint, as I said earlier, you know, I’m fighting this aging stuff. I’m working out and lifting weights and doing all this stuff because I want to be here 25 years from now when we hit 100 years and have an incredible celebration. And maybe lastly, I think the thing that’s so extraordinary that we in Nebraska gotta brag about a lot… Just think about it: Any little boy in the United States of America that grows up swinging a bat… his dream isn’t talking about Major League Baseball. The dream is Omaha: “How do I get to Omaha?” And every kid that’s playing college baseball…my guess would be if I was a coach, I’d be breaking… from the time we start to the end of every day: “Omaha, Omaha, Omaha.” It’s really, really a big deal, and we’re incredibly proud of all the work that everybody’s doing. It’s gigantic for Omaha, it’s gigantic for the State of Nebraska, and it’s extraordinary for the youth across the country that we have an event that is unrivaled to anything any of these kids are gonna experience in the coming weeks, to compete and play here. And then think about Murray State. Holy cow, I can’t wait to meet the coach of Murray State because he cuts the grass on his field. And I’m gonna get him over, and we’re going to cut the grass in the county. By the way, I love to cut grass. Any questions? I’m happy to take…

JOEY: Governor, can you start by talking about the economic impact in the state of Nebraska and what it means?

GOV: Well, the economic impact’s gigantic. What’s really incredible is people that come here, right? I have friends in a number of states, and they say, “You know, once we came, we got hooked.” So people come here more than we even know besides the World Series. The hotels are filled up, and it ends up being millions and millions of dollars, several hundred million dollars of economic activity. But it’s even far greater than that, because there’s lots of people that come here whether their team makes it or not, and then they find out how extraordinary this city is. Think about this city. We are the safest place of any city over 500,000 people in the United States of America. And we have the best people. Who doesn’t want to come here? We have people coming here all the time, so it’s kind of immeasurable.

JOEY: Now we can open it up for questions.

PRESS: Will you come cut my grass? Just asking.

GOV: I wish. I tell this talk all the time. When we’re young people… and if we all ask ourselves who are the three most important people in our life, 100% of the time—I’ll bet the farm on it—one of the three is a teacher or acoach. So I’ll come and coach you how to cut your grass. I wish I’d been a coach. I’ll coach you how to cut your grass.

JOEY: Any other questions for the governor?

PRESS: Governor Pillen, I know we’re here for the CWS, but I also feel like you can’t ignore what happened yesterday. Would you be able to comment on what the state controlled involvement is in what happened yesterday in Omaha?

GOV: We’re here to celebrate the College World Series, so I think we ought to keep it focused on that. I’ll be happy to talk to you offline. Anything else? Yes, dear.

MT: Michel Thornhill with OmahaNebraska.com. What’s your favorite baseball or sport or team memory?

GOV: I didn’t get the chance to play baseball when I was a kid in Platte Center in the summer. A couple little times, but I didn’t really get to play baseball, so I got extraordinary team memories from my high school days. And then I had the privilege to play for Coach Osborne, and a cool memory. Because when I was a kid growing up, we would play Alabama and there was this guy named Bear Bryant. And I’ll never forget…in my junior year we’re playing Alabama in Lincoln and before the game we’re going through calisthenics and doing stuff and I look over and the Bear is leaning against the uprights, leaning against the pole with his fedora hat on, smoking a cigarette. And I’m saying, “Holy cow, I’m playing against the Bear today.” It’s something I’ll never forget. It was really cool.

MT: Thank you.

JOEY: All right. Thank you, governor. So, next up will be Mayor John Ewing.

MAYOR: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Omaha. And as the governor said, you will fall in love with Omaha, and you will want to stay. If you would like to know more information about staying in Omaha, I have some cards that I can share. But this is the road to Omaha, the greatest show on dirt, and we’re always excited about being able to celebrate the College World Series here in Omaha 75 years… and I know the governor talked about 25 more years, but what I’ve been talking about is laying the foundation so we can be here another 75 years. This is where the College World Series belongs. We’re excited that you’re here. We’re excited for the eight teams that will be here, and this will be an amazing two weeks of baseball and also great activities for the people that come to Omaha and get to experience Omaha. So thank you all for being here.

JOEY: Mayor Ewing, can you start by talking about the economic impact on the city of Omaha and what it means?

MAYOR: Absolutely. We know last year just from the College World Series—and we can’t talk about second visits or anything like that because we don’t know—but we know this was $115 million of economic impact, 75,000 hotel rooms filled, and $3.5 million of sales tax revenue. And as a former county treasurer, I pay attention to things like that, because that tells us how well we’re doing as a city when it comes to bringing people here and sharing the good life with you.

JOEY: Any questions for Mayor Ewing?

PRESS: Mayor?

MAYOR: Yes.

MP: Mike Patterson, World Herald. Do you love baseball? Have you gone to the College World Series very often in the past?

MAYOR: I’ve come to the College World Series almost every year since I was a 21-year-old rookie police officer, and so I’d usually come down two or three times a year. This year I’ll probably be down every day, but I get this new, exciting opportunity to be the ambassador for the city of Omaha, and I am absolutely thrilled.

PRESS: You mentioned, Mayor Ewing, that you wanted this to stay here over the next 75 years. I know it’s a little early in your tenure. What plans do you kind of have in place to ensure that that happens and that contract does get renewed in 2026?

MAYOR: Sure. Well, one of the things I think we have to do is we have to be great hosts as I said. We have to build the right partnerships and continue those partnerships with the College World Series, with Creighton University, with the NCAA and other people who come here to this city, just letting them experience the greatness of this opportunity and the greatness of this event.

JOEY: Yes.

MT: I enjoy learning about economic development and how things change over time. With the College World Series right here and Hot Shops spurring a lot of growth in the area, what other types of things do you see are going forward? And I also know that’s a little early.

MAYOR: Well, one of the things I want to see is more venues for people when they come to Omaha to be able to enjoy it, but also for the people of this community…as well as looking at expanding, as I’ve talked about quite a bit, the urban core further north and south to increase opportunities for businesses there, shopping, retail, those type of things so that people can have a fuller experience when they’re here in Omaha.

MT: Thank you.

JOEY: Any other questions for Mayor Ewing? All right. Thank you, Mayor.

MAYOR: Thank you.

John “Jackl” Diesing, Jr.,President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.

JACK: Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the diamond anniversary of the College World Series being hosted here in Omaha, Nebraska. We were just at an investment being made by Creighton University and others in some new baseball facilities, and it’s a testament to what this event has meant and continues to mean and all of its participants in this community and of course, institutions to the success of this event. I’ll just say that Anthony Holman mentioned this morning something that was great. He called this a jewel. So it’s definitely a jewel to be here. It’s nice to be part of it. We’ve had such a great partnership with the NCAA and various individuals who’ve been responsible, working with us to make this event the best it could possibly be for the kids who get to play this game and for the fans. We all seem to be rowing the boat in the same direction, which is a very important thing to be doing for the future. And it was alluded to this morning…it’s been talked about…we all want to have this here for another 25, if not 75 years. But think about it: 75 years ago nobody wanted to host the College World Series. Now everybody…it’s on national TV, and we…together with the NCAA and our partners here in Omaha, we’ve made this a bucket list item for fans. And as people have alluded to, they talk about the road to Omaha; they talk about getting to Omaha. One of my favorite phrases is from Mike Martin, who unfortunately passed away within the last year or so…a famous coach at Florida State…the last time his team qualified here, he said, “My favorite four words are ‘See you in Omaha’.” So there you go. Thanks, all, for being here.

JOEY: Jack, you and your father are the fifth and sixth recipients of the All Star Award. With this being 75 years, can you talk about the legacy of your father as well as the foundation you’ve helped lay for this event?

JACK: Well, it’s really an honor—I’m humbled, and I know my father would be, too—being recognized in the same breath as people like Rod Dedeaux and Skip Bertman and Augie Garrido and Dennis Poppe who is on that plaque also. So what it means is you’ve done something right and you’re working with our partners at the NCAA and the American Baseball Coaches Association. And we’ve formed good partnerships, we’ve listened to them, we’ve shown them that we care. We’ve pulled together, collaborated with partnerships and their relationships here in Omaha that’s made this all work. There’s no “I” in “team,” so one or two people can get recognition, but there’s usually a lot of people behind them that deserve the credit. And I guess I would say that in summary, to me, what it mostly means to me is we’ve been successful in forming collaborative relationships and partnerships in Omaha with the city, MECA, the business community, Creighton, and another host institution, the University of Nebraska at Omaha to pull everybody together so that we can realize how important this is Omaha. And then secondly, we’ve been fortunate enough to work closely with the NCAA to develop a level of trust between the two organizations. And nobody has an ulterior motive. Our motive is basically to do what’s in the best interest of college baseball. So it’s a great honor, and we’re very humbled.

JOEY: Any questions for Jack?

JOEY: Next up is Roger Dixon from MECA.

ROGER: Well, it’s always an honor for MECA to host this great event, working with the NCAA, CWS Inc, the City, and all the people that make this happen. We couldn’t do it without a great team, the MECA employees, and the support from the community. And also the support of our board—Diane Durren is with us here today. So let’s play ball.

JOEY: Can you talk about the importance of this facility and how long… having hosted it for a number of years, what it means to have this come back to your facility each and every year?

ROGER: Well, this facility was built for this event, and—most people don’t realize it—so it generates enough to pay it off, so it’s never been a drag on the taxpayers by any sense. It’s also been a great venue for this community to showcase Creighton baseball, Big Ten baseball. And we’re too big for some things, we’re too small for others, but we make it work with the help of the community. We like to keep our facilities as if they look brand new, whether it be CHI Health Center, Charles Schwab Field, or the RiverFront, and we do that by whatever we make at these facilities we pour back into these facilities. I will say one thing: there will be a change next year. Next year you will see a video scoreboard in the left field.

JOEY: Any questions for Roger?

[None]

ROGER: Easy.

JOEY: Finally, we have Anthony Holman from the NCAA.

Anthony Holman,NCAA Vice President of Championships

ANTHONY: Well, it’s a tough act to follow, but I am excited to be here for our 75th anniversary of the College World Series being in Omaha. We’re excited to be back here, obviously. Roger just said something that’s really important. Oftentimes in my role with the association, I oversee site selections and bids and our business strategy for hosting of other championships in other locales and venues and things like that. And oftentimes we’ll hear from cities or things that say, “Hey, we want to be the Omaha of this sport” or “We want to be the Omaha of that thing.” Right? They coined that together to say that when people think about baseball they think about Omaha, right? For other folks, this has become the blueprint of a long-term partnership. And what I share with them is they’re not just the hosts, right? These are true partnerships that we have in Omaha. This is a marriage, right, that we have to nurture, we have to water. It doesn’t just happen overnight, and that comes from commitment from the city, from the state, from the leadership of MECA, the leadership of CWS Inc, and all of the community partners that were so influential in both bringing the championship here and then keeping it here. So with that kind of spirit and that kind of partnership and collaboration, I expect that not only will it be, I think it won’t be 25 years. I think we’re safe to say 75 years and beyond. I think the foundation has been laid for us to have to have that going forward. So we really appreciate you all coming out and supporting the championship, not only today for the announcements, but also throughout the next two weeks of baseball. So I’ll take a couple questions.

PRESS: I was going to ask you about the partnership. There’s a rumor that the CWS is gonna move or somebody’s gonna…

ANTHONY: I love it. Competition is excellent, right? It’s a good thing. It’s a great thing, but it’s the champ, right? Think about a price point. Nobody’s even been able to get the ring. So I think it’d be hard pressed for another city to make this type of commitment: to build a facility. Right? We’re the primary tenants. I’ve got an office here, right? So that’s a pretty cool thing. The College World Series is our second-highest grossing in terms of revenue and attendance of all our championships. And that doesn’t happen without it being in Omaha, so we’re really appreciative of that.

JOEY: Any other questions for any of them?

[None]

ANTHONY: You guys just want to eat. All right, no problem. Thank you.

JOEY: And finally, before doing that, Father Henderson from Creighton University. If anybody has any questions for Father…

FATHER: You’ve said it and the governor and others made reference to it, that Creighton’s been a host for 75 years of the College World Series. Here in Omaha, the partnership with CWS has been terrific. It’s an exciting year, because as we step into a new chapter, another 25 or 75 and another life of CWS… UNO is also a host institution with us. Doctor Lee and I were here in this room at the press conference with Jack and others and the governor and the mayor. We’re excited to share those responsibilities and privileges of working with CWS. So, thank you to Doctor Lee and to the University of Nebraska at Omaha and to my team at Creighton and Marcus Blossom and his leadership as we continue to move forward in this great event. Happy to take any questions. (Silence) That’s the way I like it.

JOEY: Thank you all for coming today. We have the media tasting, which is behind us here. If you also would like to meet with the individuals for individual comments, please let us know. Thank you all.

Omaha Interview: Roger Dixon, President and CEO- MECA

Roger Dixon announced his retirement from MECA last week after 25 years. We interviewed him on Friday.

Omaha.Nebraska.com here with…

Roger Dixon

You’ve led MECA since the beginning. What was your original vision for the organization, and how has it evolved?

I came in September of 2000. And we were at the Twin Towers [also called The Duo], which are now being converted into an apartment complex. Basically it was me and my executive assistant, and basically our first mission was to bring on some staff. I brought on a contract administrator for construction, a director of operations, and a finance person, and the process at that point was to validate the GMP, which is the gross maximum price of what this facility did working with DLR, the architect, and Kiewit, our construction management company. We went through the process, and then we got through that, and then construction started in March 1 of 2001. We kept bringing on staff. The vision was to operate this facility at the most optimum level that we could. David Sokol, the chair at the time, said he wanted the staff to be as Disney-like as possible in how we treated our customers, and fortunately in my career I had participated at Disney University in Orlando. And so I had a little background in how they did it, and it’s basically that you treat your front-of-house customers the same as you do your back-of-house customers, so it’s making sure everybody was as happy as they could be… they got what they needed and either enjoyed the event or enjoyed working here. So we just progressed through that and went through the construction aspect. We opened in September of 2003, and then it was just “Katie bar the doors” because it all started coming out so quickly.

Wow. So the successes here helped other things be attracted to it?

So this area, as everybody knows, was the Union Pacific Railroad yard. They were starting to close it down, move it over to, I think Council Bluffs is where it ended up. And to see it today and to see it back then, I tell the story and most people have heard it from me before. My first interview was in June of 2000. I landed at the airport, got in a cab, came down. Back then there was a viaduct that went…which was actually part of Abbott Drive, and it came up, and I looked to the left as I was coming into town. At that time it loaded into Dodge Street, I believe, and to the left was what was left of the smelt plant, not much… dilapidated oil tanks, the Port of Omaha, and to the right was the beginning of the shutdown for the railroad yard. And I asked the cab driver, “Where is the new arena convention center going in?” and he pointed to the right. I thought to myself, “This community has vision.” And that night I was at the DoubleTree. That’s where I spent the night, and I had all the material, and I was reading everything. One of the most fantastic thunderstorms I’ve ever seen. So a nice little welcome to Nebraska.

So there was no Convention Center, just the idea of it and blueprints?

So they had done a design, they had basically priced it out, and there were some glitches in that, and we figured it out. Found out we were… in the pricing out of it, they had forgot to put in a lot of the pilings that needed to go in, so there was a big gap in what was there. So…went back to DLR, went back to Kiewit, went back to the City, and we had to increase the price of the facility by about 20 million.

Which…it all worked out. There were some design changes. The initial renderings showed more of a spaceship-type roof on the facilities. In the pricing out of the project, that didn’t fit the budget, so that had to go. There was a walkway up on the upper level. You walked, and it went to the back end of the property, and there was kind of a room up there. It could have been an observation room, it could have been a restaurant, but it looked into the arena, looked into the exhibit hall. That didn’t work in pricing either. So we ended up with what we have now.

Wow. So you had to make a lot of changes and pivot because of the extra 20 million in one location?

Well, you design it, they price it out, and then you come back in. They call it value engineering. You start cutting things out that just doesn’t work or can’t afford to do it.

You had the previous experience. You just told me about Disney and prior roles in other cities. How did that influence your approach for Omaha?

So I’ve been in the business 49 years. Been here 25, so 24 prior to that. I started out in Louisville, KY, as an event coordinator, got promoted to assistant director of the new convention center downtown. It was open, but we hadn’t done all the furniture and equipment: F and E. I got to finish that off, so that was experience I got.

I was in Louisville for approximately 9 years and then went to Miami, FL, and that was more of a large theater, 5,000, but you could play basketball there, so we did a lot of concerts there—we would do 70, 80 concerts a year. That’s about all we did. And then they took out the retail space in that building and put in meeting rooms and exhibit space. Not a lot. So I had some experience in the construction aspect of that. Again, fitting the furniture and equipment.

Left there, went to Saint Louis. If you’re familiar with Saint Louis, you may remember what was called the Checker Dome. That’s where the Saint Louis Blues Hockey Club played. And that was just keeping up an old, old facility. Not really any… other than just maintaining a facility at the time that was probably 70, 75 years old.

Left there and went to Philadelphia and worked at the Spectrum and was there three years, and during that time they were negotiating with the city to build what is now Wells Fargo Center, which is the new facility, and had a little experience in that…not much.

Came back to Saint Louis and then helped build, then manage, what is now Enterprise Center. It was the Kiel Center back in those days. Again, that’s where the hockey team moved to. So I got a little bit more experience in the construction aspect of it and more of the F and E aspect of fitting out a new facility. I was in Saint Louis another 8 years and then came up here, been here ever since.

There was a little interplay. I went to Cincinnati for about 3 or 4 months in the summer of 2000. And that was just babysitting an old facility. Then came up here, been here ever since.

I’ve fallen in love with Nebraska and the Omaha area since I’ve been here. You must have so many favorite things and stories of your time here.

Too many that…most of them I can tell; some of them I can’t.

Well, it’s always interesting to be involved in the construction and then the opening and the management of a facility. Just the number of people that you encounter, and even on the aspect of when it was under construction, the number of people that weren’t in favor of this facility.

I’ve always found that interesting.

I’ve always said it was the vocal minority, because the vote to get this place was well over 60%. So the overall community supported it, but it’s just the vocal minority as I say, the few people that were in the newspaper and on radio talk shows. But I think we proved everybody wrong, because this place would never work. Actually, I was told from a lot of the concert promoters that I dealt with prior to coming up here that Omaha was never a city you could make money in, and all they had was the Civic Auditorium. And I got that, because it wasn’t big enough. And so I thought once this happens…we started out with 16,000 seats. We upped that number in 2006 up to 18,300. And even with 16, we made things work. We have been profitable from day one. Even through the COVID period we were profitable.

Wow.

And all the monies that we have generated came back in to make this facility what it is and it remains to be, because most people that come in here, they will look around and say, “This facility is 20, 22 years old,” and it is, because we maintain everything.

With COVID, a lot of businesses and organizations had to pivot or at least do some things a little differently. What did you do here?

So we were a little bit different than what most of my contemporaries did in the business. Most people just shut their facilities down. We had a little bit more progressive governor, as far as business-wise, and Governor Ricketts allowed us to stay open and set percentages that we could do. So we turned in, as far as the number of people in attendance, and more so the numbers of people watching, not really participants…and so we kind of turned into volleyball central, basketball central. I didn’t lay off much staff because we let the part-time people go, but we started bringing them back because we became so busy. And I think the fact that we stayed quasi open… I think it saved several of the hotels in the downtown area. And I’m not taking credit for that. That goes to the governor. But we made it through it.

I know there are so many businesses here and then related businesses that really depend on Omaha being alive and active and attractive for a variety of things, including the College World Series being open. It’s amazing the amount of economic impact that MECA has had.

I think the number is, we generate probably about 90 to 100 million a year, just on a normal year, as far as economic impact. So it’s been several billion dollars that we’ve generated for this community. It’s been more than enough to offset the cost of the city’s expense to build this place.

Yeah. I didn’t do the math, but it’s pretty impressive.

Yeah. And it’s the same with Charles Schwab Field, where we have… Creighton baseball plays there, and NCAA with the Men’s College World Series. Most people are like, you know, “It just sits empty.” And it does, a lot, but it was built primarily for the College World Series. It’s not a drain on the taxpayers; it pays for itself, both to retire the debt and to operate it. So it’s kind of a hybrid stadium. It’s too big for Minor League Baseball. It’s too small for a lot of the touring shows that go out in stadiums over the summer, so we kind of deal with that as much as we can. We’ve done some concerts there, but it’s not like what some of the other stadiums do in the country that have 60, 70, 80 thousand seats.

The College World Series is coming up on 75 years. Hard to imagine.

Well, I’ve not been around for that long…at least I’ve not been in Omaha that long. I’ve been around…I’m almost 75. But it’s an exciting time of year. People look forward to it. We’re gearing up. Everybody’s gearing up. We’ll find out the teams that are going to play Sunday, maybe Monday if there’s playoff games that have to have them. But there’s a 16 field out there now. It’s going to pare down to 8. We’ll see who shows up.

One thing that’s going to be a lot of fun, and having covered this for several years now, it’s always an amazing experience and always a positive experience.

Yeah, we do thousands of people that come in…and most of them, they’ll start out in the parking lot or some of the area bars and restaurants, and then they all come in. We’ll put 24, 25 thousand people in the facility, and it’s baseball, and it’s good baseball.

What legacy do you hope to leave behind in Omaha? And what’s up next for you?

I’ve always operated as a—this is a for-profit business and whoever replaces me after I move on at the end of the year, hopefully they’ll continue that process. And I’ve always kept in the back of my mind this facility was built for the city, so it has to benefit the city, either in putting people in hotel rooms, restaurants, or utilizing, where we can, vendors that provide service to it that are from local business. So whoever replaces me, I hope they’re as successful at running this facility as this team has been.

Thank you. What qualities are you hoping that the new person will have and bring to here?

My hope is it’s someone from the industry that understands…but we’re unique. Not many facilities that have an arena have a convention center attached. A baseball stadium sits right off and then a 70-some-acre park that they have to do. That was a little stretch, but I think we’ve done a nice job of running all of them.

My office is right across from the Leahy Mall, and it’s been real interesting to watch all the development here…going on.

Yeah, downtown…I think, from what they did at the riverfront, which is the Gene Leahy, Heartland of America Park, Lewis and Clark…especially at Gene Leahy, filling that lagoon in or whatever you want to call it, really brought the south downtown area and connected with the north downtown area. I thought that was a great idea.

I love watching the economic development, and when I do different stories…you know, what was it like before or how did it thrive or fall into decline… and your story earlier, too, about what this earlier area was and all of that is really a great testament to the work you’ve done and how people have thought about things in the city. And thank you.

Well, I can’t take credit for much other than operating this facility to the point where people want to develop around it. But that’s a driver by the business community and the city administration, so they’ve done a great job. Just had 12 years with Mayor Stothert, and she was an excellent shepherd in getting projects through and getting them done. The streetcar is going to be here. I know there’s a lot of naysayers out there about it, but there’s also a lot of businesses that are…and facilities being built that wouldn’t happen without the streetcar. So I think it’s all good.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

Omaha Event: College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference, 12 June

The College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning.

Speakers included:
Jack Diesing, President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships & Alliances at NCAA
Mayor Jean Stothert, City of Omaha
Marcus Blossom, McCormick Endowed Athletic Director
Roger Dixon, President/CEO MECA

Topics included:
App is available for the CWS.
Cashless Concessions- No cash will be accepted at concessions.
Reverse ATMS- For people needing to turn cash into a card, reverse ATMS will be available.
Clear Bag Policy- Still in effect.
Paperless Tickets- Tickets will be digital. If you do not have a cell phone or computer, you will still be able to attend. Admissions will be open and you can buy your ticket there.
Food- Favorites will be returning from years past.
75 year anniversary_ It is next year not this year.

Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com

Jack Diesing: So good morning, everybody. Thank you all for coming. Welcome to the greatest show on dirt. I wanted to first of all recognize some of the College World Series…my board members that are here: Herb Hames, Tarci Slaybaugh, George Wachtler, Lisa Diesing. Thank you all for coming. As president of the College World Series Omaha, Inc. I’m excited to be here leading off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, NE. Today is the…really, the culmination of the Road to Omaha Journey. Omaha has become synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, much like Louisville is synonymous with the Kentucky Derby and Augusta, GA, is synonymous with the Masters, and Indianapolis is synonymous with the Indianapolis 500.

We really are proud and privileged to be able to be integral partners with the NCAA in both the past and the successive wonderful championships that this event ends up with. So we’re really looking forward to it. And as one head baseball coach said, “There are no bad days in Omaha.”

So up here with me today are Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships at the NCAA; Mayor of the City of Omaha, the Honorable Jean Stothert; Marcus Blossom, the McCormick Endowed Athletic Director at Creighton University, the host institution; and Roger Dixon, the CEO of Metropolitan Entertainment, Convention Authority. And all of them will make a couple of comments here in a few minutes.

Just a few other things. We really, as I said, are at the Mecca of college baseball. To be clear, it all started on a much smaller stage: typically, local community fields across the nation, and that’s why every year CWS and the NCAA provide grant money to baseball and softball programs throughout the city. The “Restore the Diamond” program is what we call it. It’s a grant program that’s been supporting the community organizations’ baseball and softball programs since 1972, and this year is no different. This year, we supported eight different fields and facilities across the Metro, surrounding areas, and over the course of time from 1972 we’ve contributed about $5.3 million to these organizations to give something back to baseball and softball in the community, and that’s not to mention some of the larger contributions we’ve been involved with… with the UNO baseball field and soon to be Creighton baseball field, both of which are serving as practice fields for this wonderful event.

Finally, I do want to say—and I hate to use the word announce, but I’ll use it and know I’ll get in trouble for doing that, but we’re going to be celebrating the … College World Series 75th anniversary here in Omaha, but not this year. We missed a year. So this is the 74th of like, old Tom should tell…. He’s a hard guy to get rid of. And I kept telling this was the deal, and he said, “No, they want to do a story anyway,” so… but as part of this process, the planning is going to almost be a year-long process, and you all will be getting more information about this what will be taking place in the coming weeks following this year’s College World Series. So our partners will share a little bit more about what else is happening this year. And now it’s my pleasure to introduce Anthony Holman, the Vice President of Championships at the NCAA…Anthony.

Anthony Holman: Okay, I’ve got a few notes here, and I’ve got to change my glasses because I’m getting older and I couldn’t hit the slider before. They didn’t know that I needed glasses. I’d tell my parents I’d be in the big leagues if only they’d got me glasses earlier.

Jack was so kind to talk about the 75th anniversary that’s coming up and what the College World Series is synonymous with. I get so many calls, emails, text messages from folks that this is a bucket list type of event for them, just like Jack was saying for the Derby and the Masters and other events like that. And part of the reason why that is… it’s not just the location, it’s the people, it’s the community, that’s embraced and taken ownership in those events. And that’s certainly what we have here in Omaha. We’re so thankful for that. So we really appreciate all the support that we continue to get.

So a couple of things that are coming up with the championship. I think everybody… hopefully you’ve seen that the teams that are going to be here, we’ve got a number of institutions that are back for returners, some who were here more recently. We’ve got one that’s making their first appearance, but we’re excited to have Tennessee here for their seventh time; Kentucky is here for their first time. The Aggies of Texas A&M, making their eighth appearance. North Carolina, in for their twelfth appearance. They’re so excited they came yesterday, so we’re excited to have them. Florida State, making their 24th appearance, and the last time they were here was in 2019. And then both Virginia and Florida were both here in 2023, so we’re excited to have them back, and then NC State, excited to have them back, and I’m sure we’ll get questions about the last time that they were here.

But we’re just excited that… how resilient all of the teams are, and the opportunities that they come. There’s been so much talk, and I’m sure you guys are paying attention to it. So we’re not going to ignore the elephant in the room about what’s going on with name, image, and likeness and student athletes as employees and all those types of things. I’ll guarantee you nobody will be talking about that on the field here this weekend, right? Those…the excitement you’ll see from these young men in competing will mirror what you’ll see in August at the Little League World Series, where they’re playing for the enjoyment and the love of the game. And that’s what we want to celebrate over the next two weeks, so we’re excited about that.

A couple of announcements about our fan fest. We’re excited that our fan fest will continue to be available and open at 11:00 tomorrow and then it will be open on each of the days of competition. There’s a number of additional activities that that we would encourage folks to take part in. Thanks to our friends at MECA for helping us secure additional space to add some additional items and activities for our fans to take part in out there, so we’re really excited about that. Our partners, Capital One, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Buick, Great Clips, Rawlings are all returning with baseball activities, photo ops, giveaways, prizes, tons of activities. So we encourage everyone, even if you don’t have tickets, come on down and check that out for sure.

And we’re never sold out. There are always tickets. We don’t say that “sold out” word. Come on down; there’s something for everybody. And one of the other… last things that I’ve wanted to talk about was that we’ll also be inducting our fourth ever College World Series All Star, recognizing outstanding contributions to this wonderful event. And I’m so thrilled and excited that this year we’ll be recognizing one of my mentors and good friend Dennis Pope. And many of you know Denny, who was so integral in the development and the growth of this championship for a number of years for… both in attendance and exposure, and even bracket expansion. We were… folks won’t remember, not everybody remembers, but this was 48 teams for a long time and it went to 64 and Denny helped to usher that in. So we’re excited to have him and Donna and his family here to recognize them during the series, so please come out and help us thank him for his support.

And then the last thing is that if you if you want to stay up to date and in the know on all of the Men’s College World Series games, news, and happenings at the stadium, we encourage fans to download our Men’s College World Series app. My social media and communication team was all over me to make sure I got a plug in for that. So download the app. Plenty of information and activities to follow through that app. So we really appreciate that.

Thank you again, Omaha, for all the continued support and excitement that that we have. Folks come here in droves for a number of reasons. We’ve got tons of people who make this an annual trip and others that it’s a bucket list item for them and they can’t wait to get here. So thank you for your continued support. And we look forward to another great Series. So now I’ll ask our Honorable Mayor Jean Stothert to come up and provide a few remarks.

Mayor Jean Stothert: Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Anthony. I’ll take my sunglasses off. I don’t need reading glasses like you do, and I believe I’m a little bit older than you. But you know, just a few months. But it’s so good to be back at Charles Schwab Stadium, and we are very, very proud to be the host once again of this of the Men’s College World Series. And just thank goodness you don’t ask me to do the first pitch. I did that once at a Storm Chaser game, and I’ll never do that again. That was quite embarrassing. But again, thank you to all of our partners, the NCAA College World Series, Omaha and Creighton University, and of course… back up, the College World Series again brings great athletic competition to Omaha and thousands and thousands of visitors. It also brings Omaha together to make the next two weeks a great success that grows even bigger and better every single year, and we are ready for another record-breaking series.

This year, fans, families, and teams can visit the Heartland of America Park at Lewis and Clark Landing for the first time. It just opened last year, August 18th, and they will have a real treat walking through our new parks. The riverfront parks have exceeded all of our expectations. More than two million people have visited the parks for family movie nights, concerts, live theater, fireworks festival, walking their dogs, and special events. And so it will be a real treat for our fans this year too.

And next year. our fans can use the Baby Bob pedestrian bridge to walk from 10th Street to the Bob Kerrey Bridge and then cross over to Iowa. So those people in Council Bluffs can walk from Council Bluffs all the way to the ballpark, and that should be done later this year, this fall, and it’s another way that we are improving connections to all of our downtown events and venues, and it’s great to be downtown right now.

I would also like to thank the Men’s College World Series for supporting our community. One example of this is their continued support of the Readers Become Leaders program, which I love. Each year the College World Series of Omaha, Inc, and the NCAA partner with our schools to encourage enthusiasm for academics. This year, they partnered with 65 Omaha public schools, 3,700 third-graders, to help increase their reading proficiency. Students received incentives to read and complete reports on books. They earned prizes for their participation, including the opportunity to attend, of course, a College World Series game. Young readers completed more than 30,000 book reports, and that’s really great. Next Monday night, we will recognize Saddlebrook Elementary as the winning school. Thank you for supporting programs that teach young people about leadership and the importance of academics. I look forward to welcoming the student athletes tomorrow night at the opening ceremony and the opening games then on Friday. It’s going to be a good week. I wish I could guarantee good weather, but I can’t. But hopefully we’ll have good enough weather during the whole season this year. So now I am very, very pleased to introduce Creighton University Athletic Director Marcus Blossom. Marcus.

Marcus Blossom: Anthony talked about expansion. You get 88 in there… I think we earn that in there this year. We could talk about that a little bit later, but I do want to start by thanking Anthony and Randy and the rest of the NCAA staff. They do a great job. I happened to work with these two guys when I was at the national office, and it is a lot of work. They work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure we put on a very, very special event. Like the great game of baseball, Creighton University is full of cherished traditions and one of our most favorite traditions is having the honor and privilege of being the host institution for this special event, the Men’s College World Series. I speak for all Bluejays when I say how proud Creighton is to be partners with CWS of Omaha and the NCAA. On behalf of our vibrant community, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our President, the Reverend Daniel S. Hendrickson of the Society of Jesus; the entire Creighton Community; baseball head coach Ed Servais; and our dedicated athletic department, who spends tireless amounts of hours helping CWS Omaha and the NCAA put on this great event. Their efforts behind the scenes for the Men’s College World Series are definitely immeasurable. I do want to also acknowledge…I know she’s on the board of MECA, but she’s also our new chair of the board at Creighton, Miss Diane Duran. She helps a lot to bring this event to Omaha and she’s a big partner of Creighton University as well.

And now I have the pleasure of introducing one of the real big partners of Creighton and the one and only President of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, Roger Dixon.

Roger Dixon: Well, Diane, he introduced you, so welcome and thank you for your support. And on behalf of MECA, our extensive team of events staff, baseball management, we are proud to welcome everyone back to Charles Schwab Field. We are thrilled to be entering our 13th year as the home of the Men’s College World Series. Above all else, we are focused on creating an atmosphere here that gives fan baseball fans from far and wide a seamless experience, and that starts with hard-working staff months before the first pitch is even thrown. We are also dedicated to making the guest experience feel new and exciting every year. With the help of our talented and creative concessionaire at Levy, we are once again featuring a menu that caters and customs to the Men’s College World Series. These signature creations will be available to taste following today’s news conference, so make sure you stick around for a preview of this year’s menu.

Aside from the fun food, we want to make sure all our guests are prepared for what our venue has to offer. As a reminder, Charles Schwab Field is a cash-free environment. Only digital or card payments will be accepted throughout the building, including in our concession stands. We have multiple cash machines on site that function as a reverse ATM which will disburse a VISA gift card equal to the amount of cash deposited. Also, the stadium is digital enter only, meaning tickets must be downloaded in advance and then scanned right from the phone. Our box office staff is standing by to help anyone who needs assistance with this process.

Like every year, safety is a top priority for MECA during the Men’s College World Series. Our clear bag policy remains in place. Additionally, each visitor who walks through our doors must undergo a screening process, which will again include walk-through metal detectors at each of our gates to both enhance and expedite the entry.

We also want to remind the public that our guest service desk is available via text message for any issues or concerns that arise during the game. Simply text Omaha space your issue and location to 69050, and we will dispatch the appropriate assistance. However, it is important if you see something that requires immediate attention, never hesitate to alert a nearby MECA staff member or on-site law enforcement. We are thankful to have a productive partnership with Omaha police to ensure this event goes without a hitch. We are looking forward to another fun, exciting, and safe Men’s College World Series and our confident everyone’s visit to Charles Schwab Field will be the best one. Thank you.

Jack Diesing: Well, thank you to Anthony. Thank you to the mayor. Thank you, Marcus, and thank you, Roger, and also thank all of you in the press and everyone else for being here to help lead off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, Nebraska. Feel free after this is over to ask questions of anybody that you want to, or if you prefer to just go have food, feel free to go do that. And as we said, Omaha is synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, so it’s about time to… let’s go play some baseball, okay? Thank you all for coming.

2024

Please check out our posts on the College World Series and share!

Omaha Interview: Alec Woockman, the Executive Sous Chef at Levy Restaurants
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-alec-woockman/

Omaha Event: College World Series Food Tasting, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting-12-june/

Omaha Event: College World Series- Food Tasting-The Fan Food
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-food-tasting/

Omaha Event: College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference, 12 June
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-event-college-world-series-pre-game-press-conference-12-june/

Omaha Interview with Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-with-amy-hornocker-executive-director-college-world-series-of-omaha-inc/