LETTER: Las Vegas Ballpark hinders the fan experience

We made the trip to see our team (the Brewers) take on the Oakland Athletics in the recent “Big League Weekend” series at the Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin. To our surprise they eliminated game programs for the fans for the first time since the MLB inception. With the elimination of physical tickets across venues, this was the last game-specific souvenir that fans could take home after seeing their favorite team in a unique exhibition series.

The Oakland Raiders are well-known for issuing a comprehensive program for each home game with hundreds of pages on the current team and club history. The Vegas Golden Knights have a roster/program/poster that is unique to each match-up. What did the Big League Weekend offer in 2024? You had to go to the “Guest Services” booth if you wanted game information of any sort. They offered pieces of cheap copy paper with the lineups on them. Rocks were on top of these papers as they were blowing away. They also ran out and had to print more. Is this really the type of fan experiences the LV Ballpark, Aviators and Athletics want to show off?

The excuse was “our program has gone digital, click on the QR code.” Have they ever tried opening their digital program on a phone? The digital book (built more for a PC) has to be zoomed in three-times to read. The data is too small for a flip book, it’s impossible to read in the glaring sun on Saturday and five of the 18 pages were not produced right … they were blurry.

Nobody is expecting an up-to-the-minute program. The point of having a game program was to give MLB fans travelling to Las Vegas for their team something to hold onto from this cool experience. Not to mention it could be a way to promote the A’s in 2028. Unfortunately, the Big League Weekend people changed course and went in a different direction. So will we in 2025.