ESPN Food Safety Report: Baltimore Venues Safer Than D.C.

| Posted on |

Today, ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” team released the results of a deep-dive investigation into concessions at professional sporting events. They looked at “more than 16,000 food-safety inspection reports from health departments” at all U.S venues, including our local DMV facilities. Here’s how they stacked up to the rest of the country:

Of the 111 venues in North America, four didn’t have enough data to be counted in their report. Among the four, however, was Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., which had just six inspections throughout 2016 and 2017. Their rankings were based on the percentage of high-level violations at a given venue — the lower the percentage, the safer a stadium’s concession stand is.

Stadium Rankings: High-Level Violations

No. 11: Baltimore Ravens, 11.11% (M&T Bank Stadium)
No. 23: Baltimore Orioles, 15.63% (Oriole Park at Camden Yards)
No. 71: Washington Redskins, 47.50% (FedEx Field)
No. 81: Washington Nationals, 51.85% (Nationals Park)

As you can see, Baltimore’s venues fared much better than D.C.’s (though FedEx Field isn’t actually in D.C.). Only 30 venues (out of 107) had high-level violations ring in under than 20 percent; both of Baltimore’s were among them. On the other hand, both D.C. teams were in the bottom third of the report.

The three best venues, it should be noted, were Oracle Arena (Golden State Warriors; 1.12%), State Farm Arena (Atlanta Hawks; 4.17%), and NRG Stadium (Houston Texans; 4.44%). The three worst venues were the Spectrum Center (Charlotte Hornets; 92%), Palace at Auburn Hills (Detroit Pistons; 86.11%), and America Airlines Center (Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars; 83.08%). For the record, the Palace at Auburn Hills is now closed.

You can watch the Outside The Lines segment below:

(concessions segment starts at 10:00)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC5lQtc8MZI

You can read the full report from ESPN here.