36 | JANUARY 11 • 2024

to present him an award at
a Jewish Historical Society
event. Not sure if he was the
first member of the Jewish
community to work in the
front office for the Tigers, but
I’m certainly proud that people
like Jeff, Ben, Mike and I have
been able to follow in Irwin’s
footsteps.

MEET MIKE SINGER
Mike Singer, 42, lives in
Birmingham and is the vice
president of Business Strategy
and Activation with the Detroit
Tigers.
JN: Could you describe your
role?
MS: This role has respon-
sibility for the Detroit Tigers,
the Detroit Red Wings, 313
Presents (music and entertain-
ment division) as well as spon-
sorship strategy for the District
Detroit.
I lead our corporate
Partnership Strategy Team,
which generates new sponsor-
ship ideas, constructs our part-
nership presentations, manag-
es the Corporate Partnership
budget and maintains the rate
card of our sponsorship assets,
among other special projects.
And I lead our Activation
Team, which implements all of
the sponsorship assets in con-
tracts and are the day-to-day
relationship experts with our
clients.
JN: What is the most excit-
ing part of working with the
Tigers organization?
MS: The people, by far. Each
day is different and having
the opportunity to work with
so many great internal and
external people in different
departments and industries,
both local and national, is fan-
tastic. I learn something new
every day, and I get to spend
time with the most talented
sports marketers anywhere in

the world.
JN: Is there a particular day/
game/moment that stands out
the most?
MS: Opening Day 2022 for
the Tigers after the pandemic
ended was a fun day. Tigers
fans were eager to get back to
the ballpark and enjoy the day,
and you could feel the excite-
ment in a sold-out Comerica
Park. The Tigers won on a
walkoff, and all of the hard
work from planning Opening
Day was experienced by every-
one in attendance. Those are
the moments that are fun to be
shared with your teammates.
JN: What has it been like to
work in Detroit?
MS: I grew up outside of
Chicago, so Detroit sports
were always a rival. I moved
to Detroit in 2013, and I love
the comeback nature of the
city. There is such a sense of
pride for living in Detroit and
there is a desire to continue to
improve. The Detroit versus
everyone mentality is real, and
it helps they are very passion-
ate about all of their sports
teams.
JN: What connection points

might you have to the Jewish
community?
MS: With my wife’s fami-
ly residing in Michigan, we
celebrate the major holidays
around family. The High
Holidays, Passover, Chanukah
highlight our holidays. We
belong to Temple Shir Tikvah
in Troy and participate in sev-
eral programs there.

MEET BEN FIDELMAN
Ben Fidelman is the direc-
tor of Communications and
Broadcasting — Ilitch Sports
+ Entertainment. He lives in
Downtown Detroit.
JN: Could you describe your
role?
BF: I work with our
senior vice president of
Communications and
Broadcasting. We handle two
specific areas. For our group,
it’s the strategic communica-
tions of the clubs — a lot of
larger scale campaigns and
emerging issues that face our
business, some positive and
some crisis situations, and then
also the day-to-day broadcast
operations. We work a lot with
the social media teams and

the media relations teams to
make sure that the way that we
engage with fans is consistent
and highly engaging.
JN: What is the most excit-
ing part of working with the
Tigers organization?
BF: I think the most pow-
erful thing that we do is the
everyday nature of base-
ball. People choose to be at
Comerica Park and in the
offices of a baseball team
because everyone’s rowing in
the same direction. Everyone’s
making the same sacrifices of
their summer holidays and
weekends to make sure that
we give our fans a first-class
experience and make sure the
players have a first-class expe-
rience. That probably is my
favorite part.
That was particularly on dis-
play with the Miguel Cabrera
celebration for his retirement.
It was an incredible weekend
that I had the good fortune to
be project managing alongside
our director of marketing;
the full season celebration of
Miguel, one of the greatest
players of all time. But, specif-
ically, that final weekend was

OUR COMMUNITY

continued from page 35

Ben Fidelman, Jordan
Field and Mike Singer
sharing a laugh.