Oct 9, 2026 · 45 min · 13 segments
This week on the State & Main Podcast, Jonathan Bryant sits down with Eric Leach, owner of Atomic Kitchen. From the front office of professional sports to the kitchen, Eric shares the story behind his…
Since I feel like you're probably the most knowledgeable person I'll have the opportunity to speak about the Hot Rods with now.
how does a team like that end up here? I know Rick Kelly had a major play in it.
But I never really understood how we qualified to have a ball team here and can support that.
And any municipality that's going to build a stadium to attract a minor league team, that's definitely a green light.
And so Bowling Green now, though, it's the second smallest minor league affiliated baseball team in the country.
So that means you have a direct major league affiliation that are with the Tampa Bay Rays.
And if Bowling Green were to build a stadium today, I don't know if they would get a team because it's such a small market.
But Jack and the team has done such a great job of taking care of the players, taking care of the relationship with the Rays that they're not going anywhere.
And so that whole process is then what does the lease look like? How can you make the financials work? And just like a lot of major league teams, The money necessarily isn't in the day-to-day operation, but it's in the value of the franchise and doing different things with that.
So does a lot of the money come from the relationship with the raise and not necessarily the ticket sales or concession sales? No,
actually for the team, it is all about the ticket sales, the sponsorship sales, the concession sales.
The ownership group has to pay for the travel, pay for the uniforms, pay for all those things.
Since I feel like you're probably the most knowledgeable person I'll have the opportunity to speak about the Hot Rods with now.
how does a team like that end up here? I know Rick Kelly had a major play in it.
But I never really understood how we qualified to have a ball team here and can support that.
And any municipality that's going to build a stadium to attract a minor league team, that's definitely a green light.
And so Bowling Green now, though, it's the second smallest minor league affiliated baseball team in the country.
So that means you have a direct major league affiliation that are with the Tampa Bay Rays.
And if Bowling Green were to build a stadium today, I don't know if they would get a team because it's such a small market.
But Jack and the team has done such a great job of taking care of the players, taking care of the relationship with the Rays that they're not going anywhere.
And so that whole process is then what does the lease look like? How can you make the financials work? And just like a lot of major league teams, The money necessarily isn't in the day-to-day operation, but it's in the value of the franchise and doing different things with that.
So does a lot of the money come from the relationship with the raise and not necessarily the ticket sales or concession sales? No,
actually for the team, it is all about the ticket sales, the sponsorship sales, the concession sales.
The ownership group has to pay for the travel, pay for the uniforms, pay for all those things.
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