Sports Arena ‘Entry-Level Premium’ Seating Helps Bring in Millions

For many live sports fans and businesses, increasingly, it’s either go big or go home.

Sports arenas are rethinking their premium seating, offering a much wider range of options. And it’s leading to millions more in money made for teams, Forbes reported.

To begin with, the shift does mean fewer traditional suites in many arenas. But the suites that remain are now becoming more customizable and available in more configurations. Including sometimes as many as five different types of suite offerings, in different sizes and featuring different amenities.

The suites are also reaching new levels of opulence, with new spaces at modern stadiums going beyond marble countertops and fancy meals from celebrity chefs. Experiences now often even start outside the actual building with VIP parking or drop-off, and dedicated arena entrances.

Premium customers are also getting access to otherwise restricted areas of stadiums. And in some premium experiences, guests can even fly with teams to games, or get visits from team mascots or legendary retired players. Not to mention purchase limited-edition merchandise, or find other smaller perks such as in-suite ice machines.

In some cases, the suites are meant to elevate an already-desirable location, such as the 50-yard line. But in others they’re helping turn arena dead zones with less-than-ideal sight lines into hot spots.

An increasing emphasis on business-to-business marketing and corporate hospitality is helping fuel this luxury suite trend, according to Forbes. With the Super Bowl and its NFL House members-only hospitality space, among other offerings ranging from cocktail parties to brunches with Hall of Fame players being a major locus for this type of corporate activity.

But teams are currently just as excited about premium seating opportunities at lower price points. Or what some are calling “entry-level premium.”

These offerings, sometimes called “mini suites,” can have a capacity of 10 or 12 rather than the usual 18 to 25. They can also include even smaller semiprivate groups of seats, an increasingly popular offering that can go by many names, including “loge boxes” or “opera boxes.”

Loge tickets are significantly pricier than what teams could command for a regular ticket. Often requiring six-figure leases for a typical season-long or multi-season reservation. But they’ve also opened up opportunities for arenas to reach a whole new type of upmarket customer.

Typical profiles for these customers might include small business owners who want to entertain just a client or two for a sporting event. Or HENRYs, a marketing term meaning “high earner, not rich yet.”

The exact approach of these offerings differs by sport, due at least in part to the wild variance in the number of home games among leagues. With NFL team schedules featuring eight or nine home games per season, for example, and those of MLB teams featuring 81.

But across all leagues, premium offerings still mean a major source of additional money. Leading to $54 million in yearly revenue on average per team in the NFL, $45 million in the NBA, $41 million in the MLB and $35 million for NHL teams, according to the most recent season of Forbes data. Which is an increase of between 14% and 36% over the last pre-pandemic season.

For 15 teams across the four leagues, premium seating revenue during the most recent season actually exceeded general ticket sales. And two teams, the Golden State Warriors, who opened their Chase Center in 2019, and the Los Angeles Kings, who play at Crypto.com Arena, made more from premium seating than from any other revenue stream, including media rights.

The premium spaces also open up additional revenue streams by, for example, giving sponsors another place where their names can get featured.

Which could all chalk up to one more reason for teams to update their arenas regularly, should the trend last.