Brewers president Rick Schlesinger on Hank the Dog, $500 million taxpayer funded stadium deal, playing PlayStation on the big scoreboard

Covered a lot of ground Wednesday with Milwaukee Brewers president, Rick Schlesinger, on La Crosse Talk PM, including whatever happened to Hank the Dog, details on the $500 million taxpayer funded stadium upgrades, are we getting a beer district and playing PlayStation on the scoreboard during games.

La Crosse Talk PM airs weekdays at 5:06 p.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.

Began the show (2:30) talking about Schlesinger’s gigantic job description, before getting into the big mystery: Whatever happened to Hank the Dog (5:30)?

After that, discussed food pricing at the stadium (8:30) and why there might not be $1 beer nights or a radial tire night, plus some of the promotions that are happening.

Next (12:15), we hit on the Brewers playing the Cubs and facing their old manager, Craig Counsell, who left for a big payday in Chicago.
We also talked (14:00) about how the Philadelphia 76ers bought up 2,000 tickets, because NY Knicks fans flooded one of their home games, and if the Brewers would ever do that to keep Chicago fans coming.

To begin the second half of the show (16:45), asked Schlesinger how he got his start and into the role as Brewers president.

After that, I floated Schlesinger the first of my half-baked ideas, and that’s to take all the front row seats for one game and give them to kids throughout the state — so the entire front row of a game is all children.

Then (20:20) we got into the $500 million taxpayer funded stadium upgrades deal made with the state Legislature, but in a different way. Before talking about how that deal came about, I asked Schlesinger my second half-baked idea: Instead of taxpayers funding the stadium, what if the state sold the Brewers Am-Fam Field for $1.

After that (23:20), Schlesinger talked about the Brewers lobbying efforts to convince the state Legislature to agree to the $500 million deal, and if there was different strategies to convincing Republicans and Democrats to sign onto the plan since the state is so politically divided.

Next, (30:15) we got into whether the Brewers will have a “Beer District,” much like the Milwaukee Bucks have the Deer District, outside and around their arena

We wrapped up (31:30) with some more crowdsourced questions, including the Brewers should have their own brewery and the fermenting tanks should be in play for home run balls. Also, will MLB be going all in on electronic balls and strikes, since that cost Milwaukee one of the games against the Cubs. Lastly, the last half-baked idea: Can we get players that are off for the day, playing MLB the Show on PlayStation, during the actual game.