It wasn’t long ago that fans at sporting events had only a handful of ticket options: Box seats, reserved seats and general admission seats, with perhaps a premium for the most desirable locations, like behind home plate or on the 50-yard line. Clubs and suites were often tucked into the ends of stadiums and the upper decks.But like airlines, hotels and other service providers, teams have increasingly sliced and diced their stadiums and arenas to generate more revenue by appealing to fans with ever more refined tastes and a craving for status. This trend has been driven in part by teams trying to extract as much money from fans for whom cost is no barrier, like the hedge fund managers and entertainers who pay thousands of dollars to sit, and be seen sitting, courtside at a basketball game.At the same time, teams are creating what they call “premium experiences” for fans in the least expensive corners of stadiums and arenas so they do not feel left out.“There is envy and class structure in every stadium,” said Robert A. Boland, a professor of sports management at New York University.
“There are some consumers who want the access and proximity and will pay any price for it, so you want some areas that create exponential revenue. But you also want to create expectations and aspirations if you’re a longtime fan and you can’t afford what you’re accustomed to.” Madison Square Garden, which last year completed a three-year, $1 billion renovation of “the World’s Most Famous Arena,” provides a window into this phenomenon. Prices increased, but the number of new seating and club options exploded. Before the face-lift, the Knicks had 10 tiers of tickets priced from $30 to $3,000. Now, they have 29 price points between $49 and $3,700. Rangers fans can buy 27 levels of tickets, up from 14 before. The cheapest ticket fell $5 to $32, while the most expensive ticket rose $175, to $1,300.Before the renovation, suites were at the highest level of the arena. Now there are three levels of suites much closer to the action, a new lounge and club seats.Madison Square Garden is not shy about promoting its most expensive seats during every Knicks home game, when an announcer from the MSG Network interviews celebrities sitting courtside.
But Howard Jacobs, the executive vice president for tickets, clubs and corporate hospitality, says that the vast majority of seats are far less expensive and that each area of the arena has novel features, like food courts, lounges and distinct views of the court or rink.“We saw the value in segmentation,” Mr. Jacobs said. “In many respects, it’s a hospitality strategy. Just because you sit in the upper bowl doesn’t mean it is not a premium experience.”Selling status can backfire if fans feel they have been priced out of the market. The New York Yankees were mocked in 2009 when their new stadium included tickets that cost $2,500 a game. Attendance has declined 8.5 percent since the new stadium opened. In 2010, as the Jets and Giants prepared to open their new stadium, the Jets slashed the price of their personal seat licenses, which entitle fans to buy season tickets, after blowback from longtime supporters. Fans who had waited years for Giants season tickets declined to buy them because they could not afford seat licenses that cost as much as $20,000.Teams are also segmenting their stadiums to confront another challenge: Drawing fans who can just as easily watch games at home on affordable high definition screens.
Teams need fans in their seats and suites to generate income, but also to make the games look dramatic to viewers at home. They also know that attending a game is the best way for a fan to get hooked on a team.“Those kids that come out on game day, those are your future fans, and if you don’t have that experience growing up, then the odds of you becoming emotionally attached is less,” said Bill Johnson, senior vice president and design principal at HOK, a leading stadium designer. “It’s not about just making the revenue, but protecting the legacy of the game.” Arthur Blank, owner of the Atlanta Falcons, is wrestling with how to compete with television while convincing fans that attending games is affordable and unique. In the 71,000-seat stadium he plans to open in 2017, Mr. Blank wants to ensure that even the fans in the cheapest seats have an enticing enough experience so that they will leave their living rooms and come to the game.The stadium, which Mr. Johnson was involved in designing, will include a 360-degree five-story high-definition video board that will be visible to every fan;
a 61,000-square-foot plaza for entertainment before and after the game; a 100-yard bar on the upper concourse with various food and beverage options; and a lounge with game-day content to appeal to fantasy football fans.At the same time, the stadium will include about 7,500 club seats and two “ultraexclusive V.I.P. clubs,” some with sideline access, parking and private entrances. While the number of premium seats is up, the total number of seats is down from 74,000 in the old stadium.“These stadiums are obviously getting more and more costly to build, but in my opinion you want to ensure that you have the same demographics within the stadium that you have in the greater community,” Mr. Blank said. “When you’re watching something on television, you say to yourself that you were wish you were there and not on the couch.”Baseball teams face perhaps the biggest challenge getting fans because they have 10 times as many home games as football teams and many of them are played midweek and at night.
So they are adding distinctive options to entice fans with different budgets. The Boston Red Sox, for instance, built a 35-person party suite adjacent to the Green Monster, the left field wall at Fenway Park, while the Washington Nationals have already sold out a new club with six private opera boxes.Teams in smaller, less affluent markets without the surfeit of big corporations and wealthy fans found in cities like Los Angeles and New York must promote affordable options. The Cleveland Indians built a two-story bar aimed at young professionals and expanded the children’s clubhouse and family deck; both will open this season. The Arizona Diamondbacks sell about a third of their 67 suites on an annual basis for $130,000 to $170,000, not including food and beverages, less than half of what they would cost in New York. The rest are sold individually for up to $4,000 a game.Teams often maintain exclusivity by barring fans without a suite-level ticket from entering that level. But Derrick Hall, president of the Diamondbacks, took the opposite approach, allowing fans from other levels to walk through the suite deck to see what they could buy.“