Phillies

We Don’t Hate GHOST Lifestyle… Or Do We? (UPDATED)

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Mar 24th, 2026 · 12:43 PM EDT

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Changes at Citizens Bank Park ahead of the season opener:

Ghost Energy signage is going up at Citizens Bank Park.

RIP Harry the K’s pic.twitter.com/SPNY6JJwCF

— Phillies Tailgate (@PhilsTailgate) March 23, 2026

When it was announced last week that Harry the K’s would be making way for the GHOST Energy Deck, there was a lot of “Fuck GHOST” stuff on the timeline. People should boycott or refuse to go up there or whatever, an act of defiance to fight the endless commodifying of Citizens Bank Park.

That seems… misplaced, doesn’t it? It’s the Phillies’ call, at the end of the day. They’re the ones who signed off on getting rid of Harry the K’s and bringing in a corporate sponsor instead. They could have put anybody up there – GHOST, IBX, Comcast, BIMBO, whatever. The brand itself should probably take optics into account when agreeing to any kind of ballpark signage deal, but, much like the Pirates replacing a Roberto Clemente tribute with a Surfside image, the responsibility belonged to the team, and they later apologized for it.

For what it’s worth, Ghost does have local ties. One of the co-founders, Ryan Hughes, is a Chesco native and graduated from West Chester University back in 2010. GHOST has been the official energy drink of the Phils for a couple of seasons now, so it’s not like they came out of nowhere as some big corporate behemoth to smother Harry Kalas and erase him from memory. And you can’t run a good team with a good ballpark and a good roster without a strong group of sponsors that are willing to spend.

To use a Philly analogy, think of it this way –

You move into a new house in Fishtown in 2015.* You’re all excited and you get this tax abatement and blah blah. Then you settle in and your neighbors give you the side eye because you’re a dirty G-word. You’re a gentrifier. You’re taking up a parking spot and flipping the neighborhood and you’re the worst person in the world. You’re scratching your head and you do the 50 Cent meme – “what he say fuck me for?” All you did was buy the house, which is already leaking after 3 months (shitty fiberglass roofdeck). The previous owner sold it to a developer and Philadelphia City Council decided to hand out the tax abatements. So shouldn’t the anger be directed there?

I think that’s where we are with GHOST and with these other sponsors -ASPLUNDH, etc. Hate the game, but not the players. Something like that. We reached out for a comment and we’ll see if we get something in return, but I think the ire has to be directed at the Phillies. They’ve got the final say on all of this stuff, not the sponsors.

*partially based on a true story

EDIT – It’s probably worth pointing out that GHOST was acquired by Keurig Dr. Pepper a few years ago. For what it’s worth, Hughes is still involved, according to a CNN article from October of 2024. – “Ghost’s co-founders, Dan Lourenco and Ryan Hughes, will continue to lead operations, according to Keurig.” That’s useful information in regard to what I think is a good point here:

Ghost Energy being owned by someone local makes it worse. You can almost forgive the company if they were from East Jabip and didn't know any better. Someone local should be able to read the room and pass on being the company responsible for taking down Harry's name

— Ray Moffo (@RayMoffo) March 24, 2026

EDIT 2 – a reader emailed us saying that Hughes called up 94 WIP the other day to talk about this. It took me a while to locate the audio, but it was around 9:25 a.m. on Monday, and he said the following:

“We’re excited to not just take over the space, but pay homage to what Harry meant to this city. His name is not going to be forgotten (by us) or in our space. The name itself was not ours to claim obviously, and for me as a Philly kid born and raised in the area, it was important to me personally that if the space was going to change it was going to go to a brand with Philly roots.”

Hughes, who lives in Chicago now, went on to ask fans to give GHOST a shot and says it was “a thousand percent” a conversation about trying to incorporate his name somehow with the rebrand. So we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks and see if Harry’s name is worked back into this space at the ballpark.