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A decade ago, he purchased the South Bend Cubs and since has worked to transform the team, the stadium and Minor League Baseball in our region.

We're sitting down with Andrew Berlin, the owner of the South Bend Cubs.

Coming up on Economic Outlook.

He's a successful businessman and a big fan of baseball, and he's combined those things into a winning recipe for the South Bend Cubs as he's transformed Minor League Baseball in our region over the past decade.

Joining me today for a look back at the last decade and for a sneak peek at what's ahead is South Bend Cubs owner Andrew Berlin.

Andrew, welcome.

Good afternoon.

Hey, we're happy to have you been on several times over the year is grateful for your time.

So we're actually taping today on November 11.

So tell us a little bit about why November 11th is so important to Andrew Berlin.

Well, first and foremost, it's Veteran's Day.

So for that, we celebrate the service of our veterans.

But for the context of baseball, it's the day that--that Joe Kernan sold me the team.

He sold me the team November 11th, 2011, and we signed the contract together at 11:11 a.m..

So it was all 11s.

And as of right, this moment it is a ten year anniversary of owning professional baseball in South Bend.

Great.

Well, we're excited.

It's--it feels like you've been here forever.

We're thrilled that you've been here the last ten years and so we can talk a little bit more about that experience.

So, take us back a little bit to before this happens.

So--so tell us what you're doing before you decided to get into baseball.

Well, for a baseball context, I had rolled up several partners at the Chicago White Sox, and I had done well in the packaging industry and a few other companies that I owned, and so I had the appetite to buy a major league team.

And I kept reaching out to Mr. Reinsdorf, who is the chairman and majority owner of the White Sox.

And the answer was always, 'No, I'm not selling'.

And so I look for teams that were for sale in the--in the Central Division of the American and National League, and nothing was for sale.

And it was suggested to me that I start in the minor leagues like--like other players have started in minor leagues before getting to the major leagues.

So just so it happens, the South Bend Silver Hawks were for sale and Governor Joe Kernan, who led the investment group that owned the South Bend Silver Hawks, was selling.

So I met with him in the summer of 2011, and of course, it all unfolded from there.

All right.

So talk about--so at its core, you're a baseball fan, right?

So tell us about your love of baseball and where that came from.

Well, I played a lot of baseball as a kid.

Like a lot of kids.

Although I wasn't that good, I was better at football than I was baseball, but I still loved it.

And you know, I went to a lot of Cubs games as a kid.

Went to White Sox games.

My dad, who had a steel company on the south side of Chicago, was a working father.

Wrigley didn't have lights at the time.

Only Comiskey Park had lights where the White Sox played.

So I'd go to work with my dad.

We go to a White Sox game afterwards, and it became something that I--I really associated with--with family, and it's something I really enjoyed.

And of course, being outside and a warm summer night, it just always appealed to me.

And at Wrigley Field, just the--the sounds, the smells, the--the sights of Wrigley on a weekend or on a Friday afternoon was just something that was always appealing to me as a child.

And so as I grew up, I played some baseball.

I played Merchant League Softball.

You know, I was out on the diamond, but never really thought that I'd ever be in a position of ownership.

But it did happen that way.

Great.

So--So you're thinking about owning a team.

You're talking to Governor Kernan about this.

Governor Kernan says, 'Why don't you come to South Bend and check out what we have to offer?'

So help us understand your first impression when you came and got a chance to see baseball here in our town?

Well, it was the first time I've been to South Bend as well.

So it was the summer of 2011 and he invited me to a game.

He wanted to show me what he had and what I saw was something that was not terribly impressive.

Governor Kernan is a very impressive fellow and I was immediately enamored like so many people are when they first meet him.

But the baseball experience wasn't great.

The park was not that clean.

I think at the time, they cleaned the park only once every homestand, rather than ever--after every game.

So the park was--was fairly sticky and not that clean.

The playing surface was artificial turf, which--which I don't like.

Certainly not for a baseball development and training.

And there were only a few hundred people there.

So there were thousands of empty seats there.

And so I was very underwhelmed by the experience.

But I saw something that was maybe akin to a diamond in the rough.

I saw something that--that had potential, but it was going to require a lot of time and effort.

And frankly, it was time that I didn't have.

And so I told Joe at that time, I politely declined to buy the team, but he persisted in selling the team to me, and eventually he forced me to give him a number that--that I would buy the team for.

And so in an effort to ask him to go away and stop bothering me, in a very nice way, I say, 'Here's my number'.

And he said 'Yes'.

I remember hanging up the phone afterwards and thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what have I just done?

I just bought a team that's going to require a tremendous amount of work to improve'.

But as it turns out, when we eventually did close our deal together, it became a real labor of love.

It was so much fun.

I took so many of the practices and things that I had used and ideas and strategies I had used to build a packaging business and other businesses I was involved in.

I used that here as well, and we professionalized the front office and the leadership of the team and in so much so.

Plus, you know, for a few million dollars of my own money, that helps, too, to lubricate the process.

But we--we turned it around.

And opening day, we--we earned the trust of some naysayers along the way and we had a good crowd.

And it just kept going up from there.

Great.

So I want to expand a little bit on some of these business experiences because - -because your lessons in the--in the boardroom and in the companies that you worked in taught you some things you said to bring here.

So--so talk a little bit about that because--because I think one thing I'm enamored by when--when you and I have a chance to talk, I think we both have a love for baseball.

But so many times you talk about not being about the baseball as much as it is about the experience.

Tell us a little bit about the experience that you've tried to create at Four Winds Field.

Yeah.

So when I think about how people make the decision to come to our ballpark versus going to the movie theater, going to the beach or--or going to a friend's barbecue, you know, why come to our ballpark for their entertainment?

And it's--and that experience is--is very often or that decision is often made from an emotional standpoint, you know, will they have a good time?

Will it become an important event in their life?

And so in order to earn that kind of trust in the mind of the prospect, the perspective customer, you have to deliver the kind of experience that touches them emotionally.

You can't just be about selling tickets to baseball lovers because if you sell a ticket to only baseball lovers, you're not going to have a full stadium.

You need to sell the baseball ticket to moms who want to take a little time off, let the kids run around but enjoy her time there.

So we--we ran a lot of focus groups asking moms in particular because moms make the decision to come to our ballpark more than fathers.

So we asked them, 'What's important to you when you come to the ballpark?'

Well, security for the kids.

Comfort while they're there.

Good food, clean bathrooms.

It had nothing to do with how well our team was playing on the field.

As a matter of fact, there's--I saw a study years ago that eighty-five percent of our fans can't even remember the score of the game after they leave the ballpark.

And it's about whether or not they attended a great party in a safe place, a comfortable place, got some good food and the bathrooms are clean.

And so we focus just on those base--those base needs.

And so people started making the decision to come.

And we also studied the touch-points from the moment they pull into our parking lot to the moment they walk to the turnstile, to the moment they walk through the concourse, to their seat, to the concession stand and their entire experience in the ballpark, whether it's those two and a half, three hours, and then when they leave.

There's thirty-six distinct touchpoints that we've been able to identify.

And then we set out to make every one of those touchpoints surprising and delightful so that the aggregate experience of being in our ballpark was simply magnificent and we would survey them afterwards to kind of see, was it magnificent?

What touchpoints did you like?

Which ones you didn't?

So philosophically, for example, we set out to--you know--Joe Hart, who's the president of the team and I work so closely with--we said, 'Let's create a place where people can show up for some good food and maybe there's a baseball game going on'.

Right?

So we set out to bring in the best hotdogs, the best quality buns of the hotdogs.

The--the food had to be amazing.

And then we said, you know, let's make it so this place always smells good.

So, you know, we washed the stadium every--I mean, we power wash it after every game.

Even our mascots are sprayed with candy--candy scented, you know--candy--.

That's--that's the--perfume--.

Cotton candy.

Cotton candy perfume, excuse me.

And we spray the mascot with cotton candy perfume before every game.

So you smell so good for the kids.

Or we cut the grass just an hour and a half before we open our gates because every like--everybody likes the smell of cut grass.

And so we paid attention to the five senses; what you see, what you smell, what you hear, what you touch, what you feel.

And we really paid attention to the details.

And I have to say the business flowed from there.

People made the decision to come more often.

They told their friends to come.

Attendance shot up long before we became a Cubs affiliate and of course, was even further turbo--turbocharged when we became a Cubs affiliate.

So I learned that and--I mean--that approach to business works and packaging, aerospace, baseball, just about any business I can think of.

But eventually, the customer has to make the emotional decision to want to do business with you and then the--the theoretical or, say, the analytical part of the brain kind of takes over after the emotional decision is made.

Sure.

So it's--it's interesting.

So you and I have been together quite a few times.

We've been in front of board leaders, community leaders, CEOs at companies and--and each time I can remember talking about the experience and clean bathrooms about how important that is.

But--but I love that take away from folks about, you know, kind of taking care of those little things.

So--so let's--let's talk briefly about the stadium.

You touched briefly when you got here, it sort of needed some improvements.

You put some of your own dollars into this.

It's kind of a public-private partnership, a little bit, with--with the city.

So talk a little bit about just some of the things you've done to enhance the stadium since you got here.

Yeah.

So I spent about $9 million of my own money on a city-owned stadium.

That's an unusual step.

But I had--I couldn't wait for the city or for the constituency to kind of have the confidence in me to send the money over to the stadium for me to spend it, to improve it.

So it was a bet on my part.

My bet was that I could spend this money, encourage the public to come to a great stadium and then over time, you know, the--the--the profits from the team would pay me back and it did.

And so from that--from that perspective, it worked.

But, you know, it's very unusual to find an owner that will invest that kind of money in a city-owned asset.

But I think also for those who paid attention and for those who listened, they really appreciated the commitment.

They appreciated the faith that I had in our prospective customers and our current customers that I wanted to make something special.

And frankly, I wanted to make a stadium special enough for me that I would want to be there.

Every time I'm at the stadium with my family, they know that I'm going to walk a 360 around that concourse and I'm going to look for every speck of garbage I can find on the floor.

I'm going to make notes of unpainted places on walls or doors.

I'm going to be walking into the bathroom--bathrooms and, you know, trying the soap in every soap dispenser to make sure it's dispensing soap.

I mean, I love paying attention to the details.

There are some people--there's some people that are like that and some aren't.

And for those who are like me, we love being together.

For those who are not like me, I can be a real pain.

But at the end of the day, I joke with--with my--with my wife, I'm a little CDO.

You've heard of OCD, right?

Well, I'm CDO is just OCD, but in alphabetical order.

That's I take it to another level.

I like that.

Andrew, we're going to take a quick break here from the studio.

We're going to go out to the field.

I'm going to toss to George Lepeniotis, my co-host.

We're going to take them out to the stadium.

And George, let me toss it to you.

Thanks, Jeff.

While you get Mr. Berlin in the studio, I get our old friend Joe Hart on the field.

I think I win this battle, Joe.

Thank you for being with us.

Hey, not a problem.

Suns out, what a day.

Play ball.

Sun is out, we're at the ballpark.

If we only had some players.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's November, so we don't have players but we are thankful that you let us down here.

Yeah, and wanted to talk to you a little bit about 2021.

It was a successful year.

Yeah, it very much was.

I mean, obviously with the uncertainty when we started, you know, all the planning we needed to do.

The first sixteen games of the season, we were at fifty percent capacity, but by mid-June it opened up.

People came back out.

So it ultimately ended up being probably a better season than what we anticipated going into it just because of the unknown.

And it was just fun.

It was a lot of fun to see the fans come back out, families having a good time, nothing better than the sound of the ball hitting the bat.

You know, it's awesome.

That's right.

Got to have a seventh inning stretch, after all.

The last time we talked was this spring.

We were up in the--in the--in the suite because it was cold.

And you really were mad at work, you know, getting ready to open the stadium up.

As you look back, those preparations really helped you have a great season.

Without a doubt, and I can't thank the health department enough.

We worked hand-in-hand with them being able to make sure that one, we could be at the capacity level at fifty percent, but two, then do it safely.

I mean, we had, you know, hand sanitizer stations everywhere, we had pod seating.

I mean, there were so many things that, you know, I never would have thought we had to do before to plan for a season, but we did, and we had a lot of help from them, which made it that when the capacities went to a hundred percent, fans came back and we're still able to do it in a safe manner.

And that was the exciting part.

And not only were you able to host your regular season, I know it started late, but you had a regular season.

You also were able to hold some special events.

Yeah, we hosted two concerts last year.

Sunburst started here with--with Beacon.

You know, we did some charity events with Junior Achievement, so we still use the facility probably for another thirty or forty events beyond just baseball.

I mean, this is the community stadium and we want to be good community partners.

The more we can use it, the better.

Yeah.

And, you know, talking about the community and telling our viewers, what can they expect for 2022?

You know, hopefully a little more normalcy back the way it was, back in 2019, when we won the Midwest League Championship.

But the other thing too is, you know, this past year we started in May.

We started late because of COVID.

This year we'll be starting back in April.

Our home opener is Friday, April 8th, so it's nice if we get started on a Friday night, so we'll see more of the regular things that we used to and hopefully none of the restrictions when we get started.

That's awesome.

And looking beyond 2022, I know Mr. Berlin mentioned in the studio something about maybe some additional capacity.

Yeah, last week was really a fun week for us.

It was the ten-year anniversary of him buying the ball club and just the transition to the ballpark and all the improvements have been made.

And you know, as you know, anybody that knows Andrew, you don't rest on your laurels.

He certainly does not.

So yeah, the plan is to look at adding a second deck.

The hope is to be able to start construction after the 2023 season to be ready for opening day of 2024.

So got a lot of work ahead.

But I mean, when you visualize how nice the stadium is today, but to be able to add that second level, add some additional suites, add additional seating.

It's just going to continue to take a gem that's in South Bend and just make it a little bit nicer.

You know, you say that.

That's exactly right.

This is a gem.

I mean, you know, even to the point that we're in November in this field look spectacular, the facilities look spectacular.

It's always nice to meet out here.

Thanks again for having us.

I'll see you in the spring?

My pleasure.

Thank you Michiana for the great year.

Thank you for your support.

Looking forward to 2022.

Jeff couldn't say it better myself.

Having a great day at the ballpark like I do every time I'm here.

George, great to see you.

Thanks so much for the look out at the stadium.

Andrew, thanks for being a kind host and letting us come out of the stadium there for a second.

So we were talking right before our break about just the improvements to the stadium.

Anything for me as I've talked to some of my cohorts around the country, they're coming to South Bend now to--to check out our stadium.

So the people in Myrtle Beach, for example, talk to me about their trip to South Bend to better understand, sort of, what we've done.

You also too, though, have seen so--some opportunity within the four walls of the stadium, but some opportunity around the outside of it as well, too.

So--So you undertook a little bit of a project outside those outfield walls that we've become familiar with.

Tell us a little bit about your project there.

Yeah.

So if you build a brand of--of--of, you know, treating your customers well, the facilities are just so, you know, cleanliness, comfort and safety is built into all that you do.

You can take those kind of--that brand awareness outside and then start investing and in this case, in real estate around the ballpark.

And this is actually something that--I took this out of the Cubs playbook after they renovated Wrigley.

They did the same thing, you know, and they bought up a lot of buildings and real estate all around the ballpark.

The Red Sox have done that.

The Braves have done that.

I mean, almost every major league team is buying real estate around the--around the ballpark because the experience does extend past the walls before or after the game.

In my case, I had vacant land just outside the walls of the stadium and decided to build four apartment buildings with balconies and views outside the apartment--outside the buildings where they the tenants could sit down on their balconies and actually watch a game.

Home plate, I believe, is about four hundred and forty feet away, so it's even closer than the the building is across the street from Waveland and Chicago.

The glass is baseball proof.

So just in case someone gets a really--a hold of a home run and happens to hit a window, it's not going to break the window.

And even though--even the glass doors that we have that slide open to enter the balconies are soundproof.

So for those who are not in the mood to listen to a game on a summer night, they don't have to listen.

But otherwise, it is a spectacular view from our apartments overlooking the ballpark.

The green grass is almost luminescent at night.

The lights that--that illuminate the field are only shined onto the field and not into your--your bedroom windows.

Fireworks on the weekend are magnificent.

Concerts that we have, we had Pitbull and Snoop Dogg, and we did have some great concerts lined up for 2020 that, of course, had to be canceled, but we'll be doing a concert series throughout the summertime.

The point is is that we can extend this great experience beyond the ballpark into other arenas as well, and we're looking to attract office space and retail there as well.

So it's a--it became a good bet and we're 98 percent full.

And again, it's another home run, right?

So it's like maybe a year or so ago, a lot of news about Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, some changes in the relationships between the two.

Can you talk a little bit about just even that and how that's changed, or if it's changed anything related to how you're doing business here in South Bend?

It has changed in important ways.

It's made some changes and necessary changes.

The National Association of Minor Leagues was a separate organization that was kind of a governing organization over all one hundred and sixty minor league teams throughout the United States.

It had a contract that it would negotiate periodically with Major League Baseball, having to do with how the minor league teams would interact with the minor league teams--with major league teams.

That contract ran up and major league baseball didn't--did not feel the need to renew it, so there was a merging of minor leagues in major leagues and for, unfortunately for some cities, though, there were a hundred and sixty teams at the time.

Now there are a hundred and twenty teams, so there were forty cities that lost their affiliated team where baseball, as they knew it was no longer in existence.

For a very brief period of time, I was a little worried.

But having said that, also being a part owner of the Cubs and having worked well with the Chicago Cubs, I felt pretty confident that we had earned their trust and that the ballpark had already won--our ballpark, Four Winds Field--had already won a number of notable awards from Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball for being one of the best minor league ballparks throughout the United States.

So I felt comfortable.

And as it turns out, my--my comfort and my confidence was rewarded and we got a ten year agreement with the Cubs that will be renewed every--every decade.

And so that's where we stand today.

So let's talk--we've about four minutes or so left.

Let's talk about the Cubs a little bit because the people that grew up here are lifelong Cubs fans.

We all watched them on WGN as we were kids.

We couldn't have been more thrilled the day you made that announcement, what seven years ago?

Maybe something like that.

September 2014.

Okay.

So, talk a little bit about just that relationship and how important that is or how that helps you grow your brand here in South Bend.

Well, I always was asked about it.

You know, every time I do a press conference or--or even we do these, kind of, community gatherings where it was a unstructured focus group where fans could come and ask any questions of me about the future of the team.

And we'd also gather information about likes and dislikes.

But I was always asked, you know, do you want the Cubs to come here or do you or do you want the White Sox to come here?

Prior to being one of the owners of the Cubs, I was one of the owners of the White Sox, and so I spoke to leadership at the White Sox, and they had no interest in coming to South Bend.

They had been here already.

But then were also pretty committed to, you know, where they were now.

They didn't want to make a change.

And then, of course, when you know, being a Diamondbacks affiliate, the attendance grew.

It quadrupled.

Still, there aren't a lot of Diamondback fans outside the state of Arizona.

As a matter of fact, a lot of residents in Arizona are Cubs fans and not Diamondback fans.

So at the appropriate time, we did talk to the Cubs about coming here, and it was a very intense, very--had to be very quick because there's a small window that you're allowed to talk to the teams about selling them on the benefits and the virtues of coming to South Bend.

And they voted for South Bend.

They voted for our front office, our leadership team, what we were planning to do.

We built a performance center for them.

We put a great playing service down for them.

We improved the locker rooms, the clubhouse.

We essentially created a major league experience for their minor league players and dedicated ourselves to skill development and training for their players.

And that's what really ultimately sold them on coming to South Bend.

So in the last couple of minutes, I almost hate to ask because you've done so much in the last ten years, but--but from talking to you, I understand that--that you're not done yet, sort of, improving and enhancing the experience.

Looking ahead at things that should be on the radar for folks looking ahead at the ballpark or with the team?

Just for the record, I will never stop trying to improve.

Great.

Okay.

I like that.

A good lesson for all of our viewers, no matter what they're doing.

That just that's just who I am.

Yes, that's right.

I'm--I'm a work in progress forever.

Often pleased, but never satisfied.

Let's say it that way.

But having said all that, yes, we have an opportunity to increase the size of the stadium.

There is going to be by virtue of a--of a governmental entity where it's called a professional sports development area.

We can collect the taxes, the sales taxes and some income taxes that are collected here in South Bend and keep them in South Bend for purposes of improving the ballpark.

So the citizens here don't have to pay extra taxes.

Just those taxes that are collected don't make its way to the state coffers in Indianapolis.

Rather, they are allowed to stay in South Bend and be spent on a professional sports area like Four Winds Field.

And so to that end, we're going to--we're going to get enough funding from that to dramatically increase the size of the ballpark, improve the amenities there and just overall improve the experience.

So create baseball on the field an even better experience, you know, in the seats and in the concourses with a, I think, a world-class leadership team that is implementing all these changes.

I see a real recipe for success moving forward.

Great.

Well, we've been excited to watch the team store, the all-star game, the championship, the just the overall experience.

We can't say thank you enough for--as a community, for all the good work you've done and we'll be--look forward to having you back to talking more about the future of South Bend Cubs.

It's been a real pleasure.

Go Cubs.

Great, he's Andrew Berlin, he's the owner of the South Bend Cubs, thank you for joining us.

That's it for our show today.

Thank you for watching on WNIT or listening to our podcast.

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I'm Jeff Rea, I'll see you next week.

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