CWS 2024: Downtown Omaha businesses gear up for crowds

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The town is ticking down the days to the start of the College World Series.

Eight teams are in Omaha, hoping to take home this year’s trophy and bragging rights.

The businesses who talked to 6 News said preparing for this year’s CWS is something that started as soon as last year’s ended.

Bars and other venues downtown said that means making room in their buildings and making sure the beer is stocked up.

In the case of the Old Mattress Factory Bar and Grill, that also included setting up a stage for DJs and the Chase Matthew country show, which it’ll be holding right in the back of its building.

General manager Peter Violi said they’re already seeing a rise in business, but that that might not be only because of the CWS crowd.

“There’s a first responders convention at the CHI Center, so there’s other things going on,” Violi said. “There’s a big baseball tournament also, there are two youth baseball tournaments that are bringing in a ton of people into town.”

Rocco’s Pizza and Cantina is bringing back its Jell-O shot competition, which starts Thursday morning. Owner Kevin Culjat said it became so popular over the last couple of years, that he converted the entire party room into a Jell-O shot room.

“Last year... we built a 16-foot shot bar,” Culjat said. “We figured we’d get that away from the bar a little bit, that that would be enough to adequately handle the volume of shots we were going to do. Then, we quadrupled the number of shots we did, so that kind of took up the space and made things more crowded in the bar.”

LSU fans bought the most Jell-O shots during last year’s competition—more than 68,000 of them.

The businesses aren’t the only ones feeling the electricity in the air.

Already, there are some fans from out of state who were downtown Wednesday.

Miles Butler of Paducah, Kentucky talked about how exciting it was to be in Omaha while the University of Kentucky is making its first CWS appearance this year.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Butler said. “I’ve never been to Omaha, never been to the World Series. So first, just getting to take in the whole experience of the whole deal here, but having the Kentucky fans here—Kentucky baseball here—kind of bringing a piece of home with me here, it’ll be really cool to see.”

He told 6 News his team is going to go all the way.

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