Mike Birling, Vice President – CBC Sports, Durham Bulls

Invest: spoke with Mike Birling, vice president of CBC-Sports, which includes the Durham Bulls, about the organization’s shift toward year-round venue activation, the staffing and cost pressures affecting operations, and the role baseball continues to play in bringing people together. “When people come out to Bulls games, they never leave here saying, I didn’t have a great time,” Birling said.

What have been the most important changes in how you operate the Durham Bulls over the past year?

I would say the biggest change has been hiring. It is becoming much more challenging. We used to be a baseball team that had 75 baseball games, but that is not the reality anymore. We have a stadium here that pretty much requires us to activate it 365 days a year.

We are trying to figure out how to align staffing with that reality. Yes, we are a baseball team, but we are also an events company. It is about doing right by our employees while also doing right by the company and trying to find that balance. That is one of the biggest things we have been working on over the past six to eight months.

The other big change is the speed of everything. The landscape is changing so fast. The ability to understand our customers is getting harder and harder. It used to be that we could send out an email blast and sell a bunch of tickets. That does not work anymore. You have to constantly find ways to meet people where they are, and it is getting harder to cut through the noise.

What we offer is a two- or three-hour break from the chaos of life. Whether that is bringing your company out or bringing your family out, we offer a place where you can just come and have fun. A big part of the job is making sure people understand that that is what we do, and then cutting through the noise to get them to buy a ticket.

What are you seeing in terms of attendance and fan behavior, and what is driving those changes?

Across our industry, the concerning thing is that costs continue to go higher and higher. The success of Minor League Baseball over the last 30-plus years has been that we were the affordable entertainment option. We were the place where you could bring your family without spending $40 on parking or $100 on a ticket. While we still are that, I would say our industry is creeping up a little more quickly than it should because everything from gas prices to food costs is going up. We are starting to lose a little bit of that identity, and that is a concern across the industry.

Our costs continue to go up as well, so it is not like we are raising prices without those pressures being put on us. From an attendance standpoint, it is not stopping people from coming to Bulls games. On the season-ticket level, we are not seeing any dip. That is still strong. On the single-game side, what we are noticing is that people are buying later and later. They used to buy a little more in advance. That could be the economy, it could be the weather, it could be a lot of things.

Our job is to find promotions or other things that make them feel like they cannot miss it, so they buy seven to 14 days in advance instead of waiting until the day before. When people wait until the last minute, the weather has a much bigger impact on us.

How has the use of the ballpark outside of baseball games grown, and what role does that play in your overall operations?

That is our growth area. The Bulls have been in this stadium for 31 years, and we grow on a steady basis, but it is not going to be exponential growth on the baseball side of the business. Where we can see that is with events.

This past year, we had a Holiday Lights show that ran for 40 dates. We went from 75 baseball games and what used to be an offseason to now having 40 more dates where we are entertaining fans. We had over 60,000 people come through over those 40 dates. It is a walk-around holiday lights experience with music tied to the lights, igloos on the infield that people can rent, and fire pits in the outfield. It is a really fantastic event.

What we noticed is that it brings in a different fan base that may not necessarily come to Durham Bulls games. For us, the challenge is figuring out how to grow that side of the business without overburdening our staff because we have all these events. It is a balance between growing the business and being mindful of what that growth does to our employees.

What is the Bulls’ role in driving activity for the surrounding area, especially on game days and major events?

That is a huge part of our company. The Bulls are owned by Capitol Broadcasting Company, which is a family-owned, diversified company. A big part of it is our real estate division, and most of the buildings that surround the ballpark are owned by that division. From their standpoint, this is part of a live-work-play strategy.

You have apartments down here, you work down here, you have restaurants, and then you have a Durham Bulls ballpark if you want to come to a game. You also have the Durham Performing Arts Center right next to the ballpark. What we have created in Durham is an amazing space for people, whether they want to come to a theater show, a ballgame, or just come down to American Tobacco and get some good food.

We are looking at that same model in other places as well. In Holly Springs, we are working on a project where we are going to be putting apartments across the street from the stadium. Sports as an anchor for real estate is working all across the globe, and I do not think that is going to stop. Sports is one of the last things that can get a lot of people to come to a certain area, and that is enticing to developers.

What are the biggest operational challenges in running the ballpark, and what strategies do you and your team have in place to navigate them?

The biggest challenge is staffing. It is harder and harder to find people who are willing to do what is required in our industry. We are not a 9-to-5 business. Post-COVID, there is this whole new world of wanting to work from home, not wanting to work more than eight hours a day, and not wanting to work weekends. I respect that, but unfortunately, that is just not our world.

Then there is the push and pull around AI and trying to learn different systems. We are asking ourselves how we can become more efficient. Not necessarily to have fewer employees, but to become more efficient so we do not need people working 10-, 12-, or 13-hour days and weekends. We are spending a lot of time talking about our processes and trying to become more system-oriented and process-oriented, while also making sure people can have a normal life outside of sports.

What are your main priorities for the next couple of years as the Triangle continues to develop?

Our main priority is to spread the news of baseball and entertainment. I am passionate about changing the narrative in a world where everything is so negative. Sports is one of the few areas that can still bring people together. 

That is what I love about us. You have the UNC Tar Heels, the Duke Blue Devils, and NC State, and all these fan bases do not like each other, but they all come together at a Durham Bulls game and enjoy each other’s company. I love that, and I think we need to get that to more people. When people come out to Bulls games, they never leave here saying, I didn’t have a great time. Most of them do not even know the score of the game, but they had a fantastic time.

For me, it is about pushing that as far and as wide as we can with all three of our teams; the Bulls, the Holly Springs Salamanders, and the Zebulon Devil Dogz. I do think we have an important place in the community, and I think we need to remind people that you can enjoy life, you can have fun, and not everything has to be so divided. Let’s just have a great time.