It took a Hall of Fame INTIX member to head the team that ticketed Major League Baseball’s 95th All-Star Game earlier this summer. With the Atlanta Braves being the host team, that responsibility fell on Anthony Esposito, the Braves’ Senior Vice President of Ticket Operations. And he and his all-star staff were up to the challenge!
Anthony Esposito
When it was all over and he could sit back and bask in a job well done, Esposito took to his Facebook page to describe the experience as “600+ days of planning” that had gone well. So, what was the most rewarding part of the whole All-Star Game experience for him? “For me, it was seeing how our entire organization came together to collectively put our best foot forward and showcase to everyone in attendance how unique and amazing the Atlanta Braves gameday experience and the overall Battery Atlanta — our 365 live/work/play space — experience is. For many attendees, it was literally their first time in the Atlanta area.”
Showcasing Everything Local to an International Audience
From Atlanta’s own Zac Brown Band singing the national anthem to former Braves All-Stars Andres Galarrago, Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, Georgia’s treasures were on full display for national and international audiences to see. In fact, all three former players previously played in the 71st All-Star Game hosted by the Braves back in 2000.
But perhaps the biggest “local” moments revolved around the late slugger Hank Aaron, who famously broke Babe Ruth’s home run record while playing for the Braves in the 1970s. Participants in the Home Run Derby from the American League wore uniform number 3, while National League entrants wore number 44 — the respective uniform numbers of Ruth and Aaron. There was also an emotional in-game tribute to that record-breaking home run.
Esposito remarks, “The Hank Aaron tribute was far and away the best part of All-Star Weekend. The TV broadcast did a great job presenting it to viewers. But nothing can beat having been there in person for it. It was a very special moment for a very special human.”
The Challenges
Esposito acknowledges that ticketing All-Star Game weekend was one of the biggest challenges of his career, but an exciting one. He and his staff ticketed 14 events during the course of five days and moved over 406,000 tickets between those events. “There were a lot of moving parts,” he says. “A lot! And only four of those 14 events took place inside of Truist Park. We had to provide Ticket Ops support staff at 13 of the 14 events, so piecing together the giant puzzle of setting up events, new venues, scanners and scheduling staff was the biggest challenge.”
How did it work from a staffing perspective? Did he have to add people? Was there a volunteer element? Does Major League Baseball allocate personnel to help support? Esposito states, “From a ticketing perspective, we did not add any staff. We ran the events like we do a Braves game. The All-Star Village — i.e., FanFest — was the largest location where staff were added, as they had to have over 1,000 [employees] there each of the four days while we simultaneously had events happening at Truist Park where we utilized our normal Braves gameday staff.”
Lessons Learned
Of course, you can’t go through an experience like the MLB All-Star Game and not be changed. Most importantly, such a momentous event offers a plethora of opportunities to learn. Esposito says, “I learned that the All-Star Week events come and go in the blink of an eye once they get started. We indeed had 600-plus days from when All-Star Week 2025 in Atlanta was announced to when the events were executed. The build-up was like that super-slow climb up a monster-sized ride at an amusement park. But once the events got here — which was the equivalent to getting to the peak of the slow climb on that ride — then they were here and gone before you knew it, and all that you could do was hold on and enjoy the ride.”
It helped that he was open to advice from other MLB/INTIX professionals who had been in his shoes previously. He recalls getting a text at 9:26 p.m. on the night of Home Run Derby that just said: “Go watch the finals!”
“It was from Andrew Bragman at SoFi Stadium, who had hosted the MLB All-Star Game in Washington, D.C., in 2018 when he ran Ticket Ops for the Washington Nationals. He had been-there-done-that and knew exactly where I would be at the moment he texted me. I immediately sent him back a picture of my current situation, which was my desk in my office with the event happening on TV. I took his advice and stepped out to watch the finals!”
And now Esposito is in a position to give advice to those now hard at work on the 96th, 97th and future MLB All-Star Games. The Philadelphia Phillies are hosting it next year, and their delegations made a few trips to Atlanta over the past few months.
Esposito concludes, “The biggest piece of advice would be to just try and enjoy it, because it truly does go by so quickly once the first event starts. For many of us in baseball, this is a one-and-done event in our careers since you should technically only host an All-Star Game once every 30 years due to the number of teams in the league. Just trying to appreciate the experience and enjoying what little bit of the events that you can is my biggest piece of advice!”
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