The Best Food at Spring Training Stadiums

Pineapple fried rice, Oreo churros, Chick-fil-A, and pork nachos can all be found on the menus at Charlotte Sports Park. The stadium offers a lot of variety as well as the ballpark basics, so it’s easy to see why fans like it so much.

Charlotte Sports Park is the home of the Rays’ spring training and their Class A Advanced minor league team the Stone Crabs. The fact that it shares its location with a minor league team may help the food options. The stadium crew has access to the same kitchen facility it would for minor league games, so they’re able to serve more robust options.

The Phillies’ Spectrum Field comes in second (again) and the main reason why is the cheesesteaks.

If we look across all stadiums and look at the most popular food items, we can rank them by how positively or negative fans talk about them:

And cheesesteaks really win out. Despite being 1,067 miles from Philadelphia, Spectrum Field’s spring training cheesesteaks are right out of Philly. Delco’s Original Steaks & Hoagies is run by Philadelphia-area natives who relocated to Florida and brought the secrets of grilled meats and cheese with them.

Spring Training Food Insights: BBQ, Food Trucks

This summer when we looked at food trends in MLB, we spotted something interesting about BBQ. Fans rate it as one of the best food options at the ballpark (if not the very best). But it’s much less popular than hot dogs.

At spring training, we see the same thing in our data. According to our sentiment analysis data, BBQ ranks second (behind cheesesteaks). At the same time, just like at MLB stadiums, we see that fans don’t actually like their hot dogs all that much.

There’s a clear lesson. Hot dogs are great for nostalgia, but in reality other menu options are probably much better.

One more interesting spring training note: food trucks. A few stadiums invite food trucks to set up shop and fans generally enjoy this. Most notably, Sloan Park (spring training home of the Cubs) has a food truck area in center field. Given how many teams use center field as a picnic area, having a food truck spot right there makes a whole lot of sense. This is an innovation we hope to see spreading.

Spring Training and Craft Beer

Craft beer has us all in its hoppy clutches. That’s especially true in baseball.

Spring Training has seen an increasing number of fans talking about craft beers and beer selection at their facilities. Here’s how those trends look over the last 8 years:

No surprise, right? Craft beer is an obsession. More and more teams are building craft beer sections at MLB stadiums, so it only makes sense that this trend would filter down to spring training, where teams offer beers local to Florida or Arizona, as well as microbrews from where the major league franchise is located.