ESPN: Milwaukee sports venues have some of the healthiest eating conditions in pro sports
ESPN's Paula Lavigne published "What's lurking in your stadium food?" on Thursday, a comprehensive study of health violations at pro sports arenas around the country.
The ESPN Outside the Lines study found some off-putting results in some stadiums ... but not as many in Milwaukee, which were among the "healthiest" in all of sports.
Lambeau Field? Not so much.
Collecting data from more than 16,000 food-safety inspection reports from health departments, the review analyzed results from 111 pro sports venues (which includes The Bradley Center and doesn't yet have data for newly opened Fiserv Forum).
From the article: "The review of routine inspection reports from 2016 and 2017 found that at about 28 percent of the venues, half or more of the food service outlets incurred a high-level violation -- one that poses a potential threat for foodborne illness. Outside the Lines also calculated the average number of high-level violations per inspection at each venue, and compared that to the average for restaurants and other food outlets in the surrounding area, for the 82 venues for which we had community data provided by Hazel Analytics."
The use of Hazel enabled to study to produce findings even though stadiums are evaluated differently by different jurisdictions, both in terms of frequency and in procedure.
Most arenas are in pretty good shape. Seventy-three venues had good or better rating than those in the surrounding communities.
"Arash Nasibi, chief executive officer of Hazel Analytics, said he expects stadium outlets to perform better because, in some jurisdictions, health departments notify stadium operators when they are planning an inspection because of stadium-access restrictions and security concerns. He said most concession stands inside sports venues serve simple menus with much of the food precooked."
Types of violations ranged from poor temperature control, employee-related issues, poor food condition, equipment failure and the presence of pests.
The Bradley Center, which is of course now in the process of deconstruction in downtown Milwaukee with the Bucks relocating next door to the Fiserv Forum, was given a percentage of 6.67 percent, fourth-lowest of any venue. The percentage relates to the number of food outlets within the arena that registered one or more "high-level" violations in the past two years.
The lowest violation rates were from Oracle Arena, home to the Golden State Warriors (1.12 percent); State Farm Arena, home to the Atlanta Hawks (4.17 percent) and NRG Stadium, home to the Houston Texans (4.44 percent).
Miller Park, meanwhile, had the best rating of any Major League Baseball facility at 8.7 percent, seventh lowest overall.
Lambeau Field was ranked 75th on the list, at 49.09 percent. Nine NFL stadiums had worse ratings.
The Spectrum Center in Charlotte garnered the worst percentage at 92 percent, and the now-defunct Palace at Auburn Hills in the Detroit area was rated at 86.11 percent.
If you like being grossed out, read the accompanying story about some of the discoveries, with a deeper explanation of how the results were calculated.