ABD ESPN Baseball adventure

[Grifdog22]

Don't know if you folks have seen ABD is teaming up and running an ESPN baseball trip over labor day. Five day four night Major League baseball adventure "powered by ABD." Game tickets and tours at Fenway Park in Boston, Yankee Stadium in New York and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Includes a private tour of the Jackie Robinson museum and exclusive access to the ESPN headquarters in Bristol CT, as well as interactions with ESPN talking heads. They are using this as a field test for future ESPN experience offerings. Limited tickets remain.
Experiences.espn.com

If you like baseball, and like the ABD treatment, this may be a new opening for you. Would love to hear from anyone that goes.

 

[Eastridge]

Well, this trip came out of left field...

Apparently the Adventure Guides are called Coaches on this trip.

 

[aggiedog]

Ha!

I thought my DH would take a swing at this one, but turns out "I'm not that much into baseball." Who knew? I feel like he watches sports nonstop.

 

[sayhello]

While it sounds cool, I'm not quite THAT into baseball for the pricetag!

Plus it's during my Nova Scotia ABD, so I couldn't go even if I wanted to. I wonder if the short notice is going to hurt turnout?

Sayhello

 

[dt14890]

I have to agree that the price tag on this one is not reasonable. While I agree inflation will cause the prices I am going to quote to be higher, it certainly would not be that much higher.
In 2015 and again in 2017, I participated in destination weekend trips the Kansas City Royals had (other teams do the same thing). While these stopped when COVID hit and I am not sure if teams have started them back up, what the weekend trip entailed was arriving on Friday, going to a game that night, getting a VIP tour of the stadium Saturday morning followed by a lunch that featured a Q&A with a member of the Royals (2015 was Salvador Perez - possible HOF catcher and 2017 was pitcher Danny Duffy) along with getting a picture with the player and a signed item of your choice. Then, going to the game Saturday night. Sunday you flew back home.
Each of those trips were in the range of $1500-1600 a person which included hotel accommodations for 2 nights, the tickets to the games and of course the lunch and meet and greet. You had to arrange your own airfare and getting to and from the airport to hotel. Oh, and the seats while not in a luxury box, were in good parts of the stadium for watching games, including in 2017 in a section where wait staff came and took your food orders.

This ESPN experience is 5X expensive (based on a single traveler so I based it with single supplement). Yes, you see 3 stadiums and 3 games, sit in a luxury box in 2 of them, tour ESPN (while cool, not worth that much extra cost) and some museums, they need to lower the cost by a few thousand dollars. And, talking with team announcers is not a highlight of a weekend for me. I would rather have the opportunity to talk to the players.

I call this one a swing and a miss. Strike 1.

 

[lanejudy]

Holy cow! I might actually have considered such a trip but not for that price.

 

[Steven G]

While I may not be much of a fan of baseball, I consider myself even less of a fan of ESPN. I'm sure there'd be someone really happy to meet all those ESPN personalities, but not me.

If you were promised having time with some of the players, I'd almost consider this worthwhile for a baseball fan.

I could also see the interest if there was a city specific tour, where you get to see all the parks of all the professional teams of that city (like all the Chicago sports teams). and yes, I understand that it is probably impossible to see a game from all the sports teams of a city due to scheduling.

Focusing just on baseball from various cities, and you don't meet the players (or at least it isn't advertised?) meh.

Sorry that I didn't include a baseball pun.

 

[figgy999]

I am doing it. I'll let you know how it is.

 

[jimmymc]

It sounds like a cool concept, although I'm not interested in this exact trip. I would be interested going behind the scenes at an LSU or Alabama football game. It would be cool if they did 3 games in 3 days, Thursday to Saturday. I could also see them doing hockey games in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Detroit as one big trip.

Edit: just checked the price and that is extreme. It's a lot higher per night than AbD trips.

 

[Eastridge]

Sorry that I didn't include a baseball pun.

I'm sure Disney is hoping for a home run with this trip.

Disney owns most of ESPN, so it is probably easier for them to schedule meeting ESPN sportscasters than current baseball players. But maybe they could get retired players if that is what guests want?

 

[Eastridge]

Did anybody go on this ESPN trip over Labor Day? Seems like a whole new ballgame for ABD... would be interesting to hear how it went.