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Business pouring in for company’s self-serve beer stands

Don Muret
The self-serve beer movement in sports is rapidly gaining traction for DraftServ Technologies at the big league level.

Ten months after Delaware North Sportservice tested DraftServ’s portable system at the MLB All-Star Game, the Suwanee, Ga., tech firm has deals with food vendors at about a dozen venues. The list includes four MLB parks, two NHL arenas and two NFL stadiums, plus Churchill Downs and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The same mobile unit DraftServ set up at the Kentucky Derby in a converted shipping container will operate at the Indianapolis 500 and the Rolling Stones concert at Ohio Stadium. Both venues are served by Levy Restaurants, as is Churchill Downs.

This summer, DraftServ is back for the MLB All-Star Game, set for July 14 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. Sportservice has 20 self-serve beer kiosks already operating at the Reds’ stadium. It’s DraftServ’s most extensive installation to date.

Fans help themselves at a DraftServ mobile unit at the Kentucky Derby.
Photo by: LEVY RESTAURANTS
DraftServ is in talks with Aramark and Centerplate, two other big league food providers, about installing the system at their accounts, but to this point, no deals are signed, said Jose Hevia, DraftServ’s founder and CEO.

Business has exploded since the Target Field test last summer, and the use went viral from fans getting a kick out of the experience, Hevia said. Jimmy Fallon mentioned it on “The Tonight Show,” and Time magazine ran a feature, among other publications.

“We have 500 systems on order [including the sports sector], and right now demand exceeds supply,” he said.

The DraftServ system is tied to radio frequency identification technology embedded in a stored-value card. To pour their own beer, fans buy a card typically sold in increments of $20, $40 and $100. Before buying a card, they must show proof of legal drinking age to individuals supervising the system or to one of the card sellers walking the concourse. To pour a beer, the customer taps the card against an RFID reader on the machine, unlocking the serving mechanism. As the beer is poured, a meter displays the ounces poured and amount deducted from the card.

The cards can be used over multiple games, and in Cincinnati they can be purchased at retail stores to use at the ballpark, said Don Dierig, Sportservice’s on-site general manager.

For concessionaires, the DraftServ systems cost $7,000 to $15,000 apiece depending on the size of the machines. The high-end price is for the shipping container and its refrigerated unit that can hold up to 80 kegs and has 28 taps, Hevia said.

DraftServ also generates revenue by selling a data analytics package to track sales trends. It’s that service that can prove most valuable to customers, Hevia said, because as the number of installations grows, the more data DraftServ engineers are able to collect and share with its clients within the same concessions company.

Concessionaires also benefit from what they have seen as a higher keg yield with less waste from fans pouring their own beers than traditional beer stands operated by food service employees, he said.

At Target Field, Sportservice generated higher DraftServ sales on the first two days of the All-Star Game festivities, beating projections for the entire three-day event, including the game itself.

“The beer brand loved it too,” he said. “Anheuser-Busch told us what a top beer stand can sell in three hours, and [during that same period] we sold 3 1/2 times that.”

Hevia’s background is in the restaurant business. For 23 years, including 16 years as a co-owner, Hevia worked for T. Mac, a restaurant chain formerly called Taco Mac. It features an exhaustive selection of craft beers and self-serve beer taps at dining tables. The self-pour idea originated in 2007, the year Hevia opened his first Cheeky restaurant and developed North America’s first self-serve system in a retail setting. As it started getting attention in the industry, other restaurants, including T. Mac, began developing their own DIY beer stations, Hevia said.

The concept evolved to the point that Hevia extended the system outside of the restaurant world. His first client was Carnival Cruise Lines, using the same technology applied at sports venues. At sea, cruisegoers swipe their room key to pour beers at stations situated around the ship. It proved to be a big test for Hevia for operating the system in a remote location.

“We thought concessions would be the perfect fit,” he said. “Delaware North was the first to believe in it.”

> NEW HEIGHTS: Eric Smallwood, formerly of the old Front Row Marketing, has started his own firm called Apex Marketing Group.

Eric Smallwood has started Apex Marketing Group.
Photo by: COURTESY OF ERIC SMALLWOOD
Apex will work with future clients to identify the value of sports sponsorships for their properties. It’s a service Smallwood provided for Front Row and for Joyce Julius & Associates, where he spent the first two years of his career.

Smallwood is seeking to expand business in extreme sports in addition to the big leagues and municipalities. Detroit-based Apex is in the final stages of contract negotiations to run analytics for an NFL team, he said.

> LEIWEKE TO NFL?: Tim Leiweke, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, wouldn’t bite when asked recently about his future after he leaves the group next month, but he sounded interested in potentially joining one of the groups proposing NFL stadiums in Los Angeles.

Four years ago, it was Leiweke, then AEG’s president and CEO, who championed Farmers Field as a stadium solution. He left AEG in March 2013, and two years later, AEG has pulled the plug on the project.

“Obviously, I’m not only a big fan but emotionally committed and involved in trying to bring the NFL back to L.A.,” Leiweke said. “It looks like they’re on the verge of that happening, and I’d be honored and excited to be part of that. But as of today, I’m not.”

Leiweke’s final act for MLSE is to redevelop BMO Field into one of Major League Soccer’s best facilities. The first phase of a $99 million renovation opened Sunday for Toronto FC’s first regular-season home game.

“I’m probably not nearly as focused as I should be on what I’m doing next,” Leiweke said, “but I think that time is coming.”

Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @breakground.

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