As if Phillies fans couldn’t get more hype, energy drinks are now on the menu at the ballpark
Ghost energy drinks will join the Citizens Bank Park roster on Friday, in a first-ever partnership with a Major League Baseball team.
Given the frenzy over the Phillies’ hot start this spring, it should be no surprise that the team is the first in Major League Baseball to sign an exclusive energy-drink supplier.
Starting with Friday’s game at Citizens Bank Park, Ghost will offer three varieties of its smaller, 8.4-ounce energy drinks — the Original “OG,” Orange Cream, and Tropical Mango. Priced at $6.29, they will be sold at concession stands and kiosks throughout the ballpark. In addition, Ghost — which contains no alcohol but bills itself as a “feel-good” drink — will be served as a backbar mixer and available as a cocktail. Ghost will host samplings and special events throughout the season. Logos will be posted all over the ballpark, including the dugout “lips.”
Terms were not disclosed.
The Phillies got MLB’s first dibs in part because Ghost cofounder Ryan Hughes, 36, is a West Chester native and University graduate who grew up in a die-hard Philadelphia sports family. (His mother has a Flyers tattoo, he said.) “They’ve been my favorite sports team for a very long time,” Hughes said. “From the front office down to the players and the fan base, they embody the city of Philadelphia, which in a lot of ways parallels the brand that we’ve built and that kind of work-hard-play-hard mantra that we go by.”
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Hughes and friend Dan Lourenco founded Ghost in 2016 on the floor of a condo in Las Vegas, starting with dietary supplements, before expanding into energy drinks in 2020 through a partnership with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest brewer in the world. They’ve created numerous flavor partnerships in the energy-drink space — hence Sour Patch Kids- and Warheads-flavored drinks.
The bubbly Ghost drinks, which have 5 calories and no sugar, contain caffeine, taurine, Carnipure (a brand of L-Carnitine), Neurofactor (a brand of whole-coffee fruit extract), and alpha-GPC (purported to help memory).
Ghost also will be the new presenting sponsor for Phillies’ “Strike Out the Stigma” initiative to support healthy life habits and mental-health awareness. Monthly pregame theme night events will bring conversations surrounding mental health to the forefront.