Tyler Thompson dreamed of working in baseball.
One morning when he was 16 years old he got the call that would eventually send him to the major leagues. It wasn’t a call from a team to come play, but from his grandmother, who saw an ad in the newspaper for a Spokane Indians job fair.
“She knew I had been looking for a job,” Thompson said. “I’d never put together a resume before in my life, but I put one together that morning,”
That summer 15 years ago, Thompson hawked baseball programs for $1 each at Avista Stadium. He had no idea that job would take him to the major leagues, where he currently serves as director of game entertainment and experimental marketing for the Seattle Mariners.
Thompson, a Central Valley High School graduate, plays a big role in the Seattle fan base that cheered the Mariners to the brink of its first American League Championship this season, missing their first World Series in a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday.
As one of the creative voices behind the Mariners award-winning game-day production team, Thompson oversees the in-game entertainment at T-Mobile Park – salmon races, hot dogs from heaven, everything that goes into the game behind the game.
Every player, coach and executive lauded the support the team received throughout the historic 2025 season and postseason.
A big factor in that fan support at T-Mobile Park is inspired by Thompson’s programs.
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After selling programs in Spokane in the summer of 2010, Thompson quickly moved through just about every position available to a seasonal worker at Avista Stadium – including section leader, clubhouse attendant and press box manager. Thompson also worked for the Spokane Chiefs in the winter as a game emcee and running in-game promotions.
All the while, he was studying and working in sports promotions at Eastern Washington, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration and eventually a master’s degree in sports administration.
“It’s where I learned by work ethic,” Thompson said of his tenure with the Indians. “I learned how to work with different personalities, dealing with players and coaches, (Texas) Rangers’ executives who would come to town. It was the best learning experience of my life.”
He’s not the only one to have started at Avista. The Mariners employ several former Indians staffers in capacities throughout the front office.
After Thompson completed his education , he headed to Seattle to pursue his dream of working in the big leagues. He started in the Mariners’ marketing department, worked his way up to a manager position, then in January was named director.
The “game entertainment” part of his job title is pretty self-explanatory. But “experiential marketing” might be a little trickier to define.
“The main part of my job is game entertainment,” he said. “Experiential marketing is made up of stuff like activation marketing, or the events we put together outside of the ballpark – community events, our kids club, our mascot program.”
Thompson oversees public address scripts, ceremonial first pitches, national anthems, and he’s instrumental in developing and producing all the fun and creative things fans go crazy for during the games. He is the co-creator of the incredibly popular – and viral – promotion “hot dogs from heaven” and the oversized mascot salmon run.
“Everything here with the Mariners is a team effort,” Thompson said. “The salmon run was kind of my brain child.”
“The most important race in our region is the salmon migrating back to their fresh-water streams. It was a natural fit and being able to create four different characters as four different Pacific salmon and each take on a different personality navigating their ladders back to Seattle was a lot of fun. Seeing the fans take to it has been incredibly rewarding.”
The “Humpy” mascot – slow, clumsy, wearing a life preserver – hadn’t won a race in two seasons. But during the 15th inning of the deciding Game 5 of the American League Divisional Series against Detroit, Thompson said they “decided to go off script.”
“When it goes that late, there’s nothing really scripted,” Thompson said. “When the lights shown the brightest, Humpy found his speed. It totally re-energized the ballpark. It was the spark T-Mobile Park needed that night.”
Two batters later Jorge Polanco delivered a walk-off single to send the M’s to the league championship series. Fans and players alike credited Humpy’s win for the change in momentum.
Thompson wasn’t on the field, but his creative inspiration may have made a difference in the outcome of the game.
“It’s incredibly humbling and validating,” he said. “Being a kid from Spokane and growing up watching the Mariners on TV at home, and now being here and putting together the show on the biggest television in the northwest on Marinersvision each night … I’m just so proud to be a Mariner.”