MLB ALL-STAR GAME

July 13, 2004

Jeff Becker

Bob DuPuy

Jill Pepper

Jeffrey Runge

Denise Singer

Michael Thompson

JILL PEPPER: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jill Pepper. I'm executive director of TEAM Coalition, Techniques for Effective Alcohol Management. We are an alliance with professional sports leagues, entertainment facilities, concessionaires, beer industries, broadcasters, government traffic safety experts and others all working together to promote responsible alcohol consumption and positive fan behavior at sports entertainment facilities. Here at this beautiful ballpark where the best players of the game have gathered I'd like to thank the people in this room as the All-Stars in our effort to ensure and promote responsible alcohol consumption and safe fan behavior and to provide a safe and fun experience for baseball fans at every ballpark at every game. TEAM champions three objectives to accomplish our mission: Training all ballpark employees in effective alcohol management; creation and enforcement of alcohol service policies in ballparks; and fan education programs like the designated driver program to remind fans to take responsibility and to act responsibly as well. Today we are launching a promotion called Responsibility Has Its Rewards. The Responsibility Has Its Rewards promotion encourages fans to continue making what they already know is a responsible decision, that is, signing up to be a designated driver, pledging to stay sober, and making sure their friends and family get home safely from the ballpark. At the end of the season, each of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs will select one designated driver as their designated driver for the season. The two clubs that play in the World Series, we'll be sending their designated drivers to the first game of the World Series played in this home ballpark for their club. In addition to these rewards, one designated driver of the season whose club doesn't play in the World Series will be randomly selected to win a trip to the 2005 All-Star Game at Comerica Ballpark in Detroit. This promotion will benefit the existing designated driver programs by providing added support at the league level which enforces positive fan behavior for the clubs as proof of the benefit to fans and highway safety. Collaboration is essential to the success of this initiative, and this public private partnership is a great model of how to successfully reach a target audience with important traffic safety messages. In the end everyone plays a role in responsibility in the ballpark, players and ballpark employees as well as the fans. Players are rewarded on the field if they follow the rules and act as a team with a win. We believe that fans should also be rewarded if they act responsibly. So I'd like to thank all of our speakers here today and the members of the press to help us communicate this message of responsible driving and positive fan behavior which is important for our fans to make sure they are safe at the ballpark. So now it's my pleasure to introduce our speakers. You'll be hearing from Bob DuPuy, President and Chief Operating Officer of Major League Baseball; Jeff Runge, who is here representing the United States Department of Transportation and the White House; next is Jeff Becker, President of Beer Institute and Chairman of the Finance and Membership Committee of the TEAM Coalition. Jeff represents the largest beer companies in the world including Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors. Next is Michael Thompson, Senior Vice President of business development for Aramark, the concessionaire at more Major League Baseball Parks than any other concessionaire in the business and they are providing the concessions I'm sure you'll enjoy at tonight's game. Finally you'll hear briefly from Denise Singer, Consumer marketing at ESPN and ABC Sports, representing the newest member of TEAM Coalition and we are glad to have all of our speakers here.

BOB DUPUY: Jill, thank you very much and Doctor Runge, thank you for being here, and Jeff, Richard, Denise. We thought in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of our All-Star Game and all of the celebrating that goes on celebrating Major League Baseball and celebrating the All-Star Game that this was a perfect opportunity for us to express how strongly we feel about the issue of alcohol management to the success and enjoyment of our game. Fan safety and security have been an important predicate of the tenure of Commissioner Selig, and fan safety and security in the ballparks and alcohol management is a way that we can ensure that fans will maximize their experience and be willing to come back time and time again to the ballpark. We'd like to think of ourselves as a family game, we'd like to think of ourselves as affordable and, in fact, I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to appear on Kudlow and Kramer, and the nice part was I didn't have to say anything because Kramer, the night before, the day before Father's Day, had actually taken his father and his father's friends to the new Philadelphia ballpark, and raved about the experience and what he particularly raved about was the fact that he didn't have to be embarrassed about being there. There were no drunks pouring peer on them, no vulgarity and he kept talking about what a wonderful family experience it was and how people didn't have to be embarrassed to bring their children out. For many years we've had the opportunity to work in conjunction with the TEAM Coalition. We are, in fact, particularly proud that our own senior vice president of security and facility management, Kevin Hallinan is, in fact, the chairman of the board of the Coalition TEAM too. Commissioner Selig and Sandy Alderson and all of us are proud of what Kevin does and they thank you, Kevin, for all that you are doing in the program we are launching today and we are excited about it of just one more example how seriously we take the issue of alcohol management. We have had designated driver programs in place in all 30 ballparks and they have been successful in all 30 ballparks but adding this premium of heightened attention, brings more attention to the program and hopefully gets more people to be involved in the program. That's why we think it's critical that the designated driver program continue to earn support and endorsement throughout professional support. We are very proud of the brood support these programs already enjoy. You look at the diversity of the groups that are here, including people that are in the alcohol industry and we think that this is a very exciting opportunity to introduce a new initiative for the 2004, 2005 baseball seasons. Thank you very much.

DR. JEFFREY RUNGE: Thank you, Bob, for those remarks. On behalf of President George W. Bush and Secretary Norman Minetta. I would like to thank Major League Baseball for the chance to join TEAM with you to ensure that fans have the most enjoyable time and the safest time at ballparks all across the country. Later tonight millions of baseball fans will be celebrating coming together to celebrate the best players of our generation. It's very special, but it's also special because we're here to focus national attention on preventing the leading cause of death for Americans from age 2 through 34, and that is road traffic crashes. Just like in baseball, statistics drive our national strategy and for us the numbers are staggering. In 2002, alcohol-related crashes killed nearly 260,000 people and injured -- they killed nearly 17,500 people, over 15,000 of whom were over .08, the maximum level limit for all 50 states. As the stadium fills up tonight, think about the enormity and the tragedy of the loss of 17,000 people, which is the equivalent to losing about half that stadium every year to impaired driving. The greatest tragedy is this is 100% preventable. As an emergency physician for 20 years, my goal is to prevent injuries, not just treat the aftermath, and that's why we are here today. Our goal is simple: To stop impaired driving and to move our culture towards designated driving. Every one of us has a chance to make the game-saving play, to become a designated driver, to stop a friend from driving impaired, and reminding everyone you see to buckle up and to buckle their children into age-appropriate child-safety seats. For nearly 20 years, NHTSA, my agency has worked with the TEAM Coalition and Major League Baseball to save lives by promoting safety belts and again this year with our "Click It or Ticket" program and to engage in "serve training" programs and the use of designated drivers. Baseball and NHTSA also have a unique relationship because we share a common audience. Adult men under the age of 34 are the most likely to drive while impaired and the most likely to crash their vehicles, most likely to take risks on the road which makes this partnership all the more valuable. The members of TEAM, the Beer Institute, the servers all know that increasing traffic safety is good for business. Every year, alcohol-related crashes cost our nation about $50 billion, mostly in medical expenses, lost productivity, property damages and administrative costs. These expenses get passed on to all Americans, not just those in traffic crashes. They drain our economy. TEAM's first phase of Responsibility Has Its Rewards campaign is the prime example the benefits of public/private partnerships such as this, and also as part of our Click It or Ticket national campaign, every team and stadium across the country participated in safety belt use campaign. This helped our agency reach nearly 5 million fans nationwide. One of best parts of my job is recognizing these types of successful efforts. So right now it's my honor to recognize TEAM and Major League Baseball for their leadership and commitment. They have truly been All-Stars in helping us reach our goal of 79 percent belt use nationwide, the highest usage rate in history. - This is a very small token of our appreciation to Jill and to Bob, again, these are your tax dollars at work, it's a very simple it's the Administrators Achievement Award presented in recognition for exemplary leadership and tireless commitment promoting the Click It or Ticket national campaign to increase safety belt use throughout North America. Thank you very much, Bob.

BOB DUPUY: Thank you very much. (Applause).

JEFFREY RUNGE: As we launch the next phase of Responsibility Has Its Rewards, we want to expand our efforts. Each have different slogans and you can see those behind me, the core messages are the same, whether it's our "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" message, or any of the others that you see here today, the goal is to remind everybody at the ballpark to make the right call by drinking responsibly and designating a sober driver, and always buckling up on every time, every trip. Our goal is to change our national culture to one of designated driving. We believe this is really the primary way to reduce deaths and injuries on the highways. We cannot do this from Washington. This has to be done locally. These are decisions that are made by every community about its own standings. It gets done in every town in every city and in every ballpark. It's the stadium managers, the concessionaires, the servers, who look out for people who might get behind the people while drunk, which is good for business, good for the community, and Bob, it's good for baseball. This is an urgent national need. So I ask you on behalf of President Bush and Secretary Minetta, please take a moment to protect yourself and your family and friends, designate a sober driver before you start drinking, and buckle up on every trip, every time before the wheels roll. We think that our nation deserves no less. Thank you very much.

JEFF BECKER: I'm Jeff Becker from the Beer Institute. And I'm very pleased to be here, particularly with all of the partners for the TEAM Coalition. We've been, the beer industry has been a partner with the TEAM Coalition for five years, and I certainly want to applaud Jill for the efforts that she's put into the coalition in trying to promote this very important issue. I also want to reiterate some comments Bob made with respect to Major League Baseball's activities with TEAM. Since we have been involved, Major League Baseball's clearly been the leader in the sporting community in promoting not only THE designated driver concept, but the TEAM concept, as well. And I want to thank Kevin for his leadership, as someone who serves on the board with him, for his leadership as chairman. It has been tremendous and all of those involved with baseball should be very proud of what Major League Baseball has done. It is really, really quite overwhelming. The beer industry for its part, as you know, also tries to lead in our industry responsibility efforts and as Dr. Runge mentioned several of our members are going to be actively participating in this campaign to reward people for doing the right thing by choosing a designated driver. Companies like Anheuser-Busch's Good Sport Program or Miller's program, Live Responsibly and Winners Designate by the Coors Brewing Company will all be part of this initiative. We are very, very pleased to see our other partners here, Aramark, who as you know is one of the nation's largest concessionaires and has certainly been a very, very active partner with the TEAM. And also ESPN/ABC for the work that they do, not only on this issue, but many, many more. It's very important for our members who are so very active in the sporting community to partner with other people who do care about not only the safety fans, but also the safety of the communities in which ballparks exist because there's no question that on any given night at any given sporting event, it's probably the largest bar or serving facility in the community. And so activities like this have meaning not only within the facilities themselves but certainly in the surrounding communities as well. And that's why it's so important to get the visibility for these kind of efforts so that the community can be sure that the sporting community, the industry, government are all working together, to try to create an environment that's safe for everybody. So I would just like to on behalf of my members thank all of the people here, and certainly you, the media, for helping us get the word out on this very important initiative, so thank you.

MICHAEL THOMPSON: On behalf of Aramark and our more than 200,000 employees, I want to take the opportunity to reinforce the commitment that we've made to the coalition. Over the years we've realized very seriously what our role is, not only are we a major player in professional sports as far as a concessionaire, but also in Major League Baseball. We have taken the initiative to taken the leading stance in trying to prevent accidents and promote responsible alcohol management. It is dear to our hearts at Aramark that we, being such an industry leader, we have to begin to work with the breweries, all of the Major League Baseball teams to begin to forge a working relationship that gets better as we develop it. We are so pleased to be associated with the coalition. Our support has been there over the years and we continue to monitor and go forward with an aggressive program to enhance the overall fan experience. Thank you.

DENISE SINGER: I'm Denise Singer from ESPN/ABC Sports. I just want to say very briefly that we are proud to be part of this initiative. We fully recognize its importance. As most of you in this room know, we have a very unique relationship with consumers of our product. They are avid sports fans and they are fans of our network. So we feel pretty well suited to be able to help get the message out, and most importantly from the top of our organization down, we feel pleased, proud, we've been working on this over a year, to just help NHTSA and TEAM Coalition get this important message out.

JILL PEPPER: Thank you for your time today and thank you to Major League Baseball for including us as part of their All-Star events.