PHOENIX — Chase Field is the proud home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but it's also a world-class music venue.
The ballpark has hosted some of the biggest names in the business and transformed itself even more to bring in college bowl games.
Derrick Hall, the CEO of the Diamondbacks, says Chase Field can do it all.
Hall says this is a new philosophy for the organization, "We were county-owned, right? We don't own the stadium. The county does and they have held the booking rights for years. And in fact, for the first 20 years of Chase Field, we only had five concerts. Well, we've now had 11 major concerts in the last few years since we took over, but we had negotiated with the county for quite some time to want to manage the bookings of the stadium. We thought we could do a much better job and they agreed. And so our partnership is - you're responsible for the maintenance of the building, you being us, but you also now have the booking and it's really worked out."
Now the ballpark is preparing to host its first-ever rodeo this fall.
"We're trying new events, like we're having a rodeo, the Hondo rodeo this year. And it's three days and it's basically two hours of live rodeo," described Hall, "It's supposedly like the World Series of rodeos. So, it's gonna be packed and then after the two hours of live rodeo, it's concerts."
Those concerts include big names like Brooks and Dunn, Zac Brown Band, Old Dominion and Hank Williams Jr.
Hall says the team has even looked at bringing in other sports outside of baseball and football.
"We looked at having hockey here. We were hoping that we could lay down ice here and keep the Coyotes, which is you know, tragic that they're not here. But we're always looking. Does it make sense to have soccer and MLS here? It's a great venue," said Hall.
He says considering Chase Field's location in the heart of downtown Phoenix, bringing in fans for all of these different events also brings major opportunities for business owners in the area.
"It's fun because when you have enough variety, you know, you're going to continue to get new people in the ballpark and for different reasons, but they get in the habit of coming here. More importantly, they're helping all the businesses around downtown because this is a part of downtown that has still not really been beautified yet," Hall explained.
He tells us it's all part of a long-term plan for the Diamondbacks to stay here in Arizona, continue improving Chase Field and help the rest of the neighborhood too.
"When you look at ballparks, especially new ballparks around the nation now, like in Atlanta. You have all the mixed-use. You have retail. You have a hotel. You have restaurants. It's not just a standalone ballpark anymore. We have that opportunity if indeed, we're gonna stay here, and we're trying to for several years. We hope to be able to build that around here as well. So, when you're coming here, it's not just about the event, you come and go. You hopefully spend time, because we hear from the business owners, the restaurants, the bars, how much they benefit from us. We have our 81 games a year, and we're going to draw over two million fans. They're definitely benefiting from that. The city, the county and the state benefit from the sales tax. Everybody does well when we have events here," said Hall.
It's not just major events that can be held at Chase Field. The ballpark can also host fundraisers, corporate meetings, conferences and even private tours. You can find more information on that on their website.
Last year alone, Chase Field had four major concerts and the World Baseball Classic which broke attendance records. Nearly 2.8 million fans visited the ballpark. The Diamondbacks expect that number to hit three million this year.
