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Philadelphia Baseball Game Changes Hot Dog Deal
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Intermediate
Intermediate
FILE - The Phillie Phanatic comes out with his Hot Dog Launcher during the fifth inning of a baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies, Monday, July 4, 2016, in Philadelphia. For more than a quarter-century, Phillies fans thought dollar hot dog night was the best ballpark promotion — but the team has now decided it was the wurst. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola, File)

Philadelphia Baseball Game Changes Hot Dog Deal

February 29th, 2024

In Philadelphia, people used to love getting hot dogs for just one dollar when they went to watch the Phillies play baseball. But some fans began to throw hot dogs during games, which caused problems. So, the team decided to stop selling one dollar hot dogs. Now, they will sell two hot dogs for the price of one on some days in April instead. The team thinks this change will make the games nicer for everyone. Back when the Phillies played in a big stadium, they started the cheap hot dog nights to get more people to come to games on quiet nights. Over time, younger people started to enjoy the hot dog nights, especially in April and May. Even though they sold many hot dogs at games, the team tried to have fewer cheap hot dog nights last year, which fans did not like. A senator even said he wanted more hot dog nights. Some fans are sad about the change and talked about it online. One shop even made a special T-shirt about it. But the team hopes fans will still think two hot dogs for five dollars is a good deal for the two games in April they have planned. If people in Philadelphia really want cheap hot dogs, they can go to other places, like Pittsburgh or Wilmington, where they still have hot dog deals. Or they can try to catch a hot dog from the Phanatic's hot dog launcher at the Phillies games.
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💭 Discussion Questions


1
. Why did the Philadelphia team decide to stop selling one dollar hot dogs?
2
. What is the new deal the team will offer during some days in April?
3
. How did some fans react to the change in hot dog pricing?

📖 Vocabulary


🌐 Cultural context


Philadelphia is a city in the United States known for its sports fans, especially for baseball. The Phillies are the city's Major League Baseball team. Baseball games often have special promotions like discounted food to attract fans on less popular game days. The Phanatic is the official mascot of the Phillies, famous for entertaining crowds, sometimes using a launcher to shoot hot dogs into the stands.

🧠 Further reading


List of stadiums by capacity
There are big sports stadiums around the world where many people can watch games. These stadiums can hold lots of fans. Some can have 100,000 people or more! We only talk about the number of seats a stadium usually has. This does not include extra seats that are sometimes added. We also only talk about stadiums that are open and have sports events. Big race tracks are not in this list. We use the number of seats from the official websites of the stadiums or from the sports events they have had. Some stadiums have a * next to their name. This means the home team does not play all of their games there. They might have another place they usually play. This list starts with the biggest stadiums, which can hold more than 100,000 fans. Then it shows stadiums with less seats, like those that can have between 90,000 and 100,000 people, and it goes down to the stadiums that can hold 40,000 to 50,000 fans.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema
The sickness called COVID-19 spread around the world and caused a lot of problems for movies. Many places where we watch movies were closed, and big movie events didn't happen. New movies had to wait to be shown or were stopped for a while. Because of this, less money was made from selling movie tickets. Instead, more people watched movies at home on the internet. Movies that were supposed to come out before the middle of March 2020 had to change their plans. Some movies stopped being made. However, this was a chance for smaller movies to get more attention. In China, the movie business lost a lot of money when they closed movie places during a very important holiday. The movie that made the most money in 2020 was a cartoon movie from Japan called "Demon Slayer: Mugen Train." It did not make as much money as the most popular movies in the past, but it still did well all over the world. By 2021, things started to get a little better for movies. Even though the sickness was still a problem in some places, a new Spider-Man movie came out in December and made a lot of money very fast. It was the movie that made the most money in 2021 and one of the movies that made the most money ever. Before all this happened, people thought that the money from movie tickets could go down a lot because of the sickness. Countries where the sickness was very bad had to close movie places or make special rules about going to see movies.

Esports
Esports are games played on computers or consoles by professionals. These games are often played by many people at the same time, and players can be on their own or in teams. Before, these games were mostly played for fun, but now there are big contests with people who play these games as their job. People started watching these games online a lot around the late 2000s. Websites like YouTube and Twitch made it easy for more people to play and watch. By the 2010s, playing video games as a sport became a big thing. Even people who make video games started to help with the contests. Esports got very popular in places like China and South Korea. South Korea even made special rules for professional players in the year 2000. But in Japan, it's not so big because they have strict laws about playing games for money. Esports are also liked a lot in Europe and the Americas, where they have big contests. There are many types of games in esports. Some are about fighting, others are about shooting, or having battles with cards. Some famous games are League of Legends, Dota, Counter-Strike, and Overwatch. There are lots of big tournaments where the best players compete, like the League of Legends World Championship. Most people who like to watch esports are men, but there are some women too. Even the people who organize the Olympics are thinking about including esports as a sport in the future.