Hello, reader, and welcome to the SBJ Facilities newsletter. If this is our first time meeting, it’s my pleasure. I hope we bond over steep seating bowl rakes, soaring per-caps, elegant tech integrations and sustainable, urban placemaking. If you’ve read my work during the last five years at SBJ or stumbled upon renderings I’ve posted on Linkedin, hello again!
This twice-monthly newsletter will be devoted to the beat I’ve covered since the start of 2021, best summarized as “the live sports experience.” It’s centered on sports venues and facilities and everything happening in and around them, such as ticketing, food and beverage, tech, fan experience innovation and design, engineering and construction. My newsletter will reflect how broad this beat can be.
As much as I'll report and analyze news and trends, I’ll also try to share ideas from adjacent industries, like hotels, theme parks or immersive design. If you read this newsletter and get an idea or see something interesting that you share with someone else, I will consider my weekly mission accomplished. If you see something interesting elsewhere and share with me, I’ll consider your mission as reader accomplished (seriously, this can be a two-way street, and you can email me here).
I’ll also be in Frisco, Texas, this week for the AXS DRIVE event. Say hello if you’re going to be in town!
Auburn picking the low-hanging revenue fruit at Jordan-Hare Stadium
At least there is plenty of low-hanging fruit for college athletics departments as they scramble to generate new revenue streams and make long-needed fan experience upgrades. For Auburn, that meant creating new premium options and modernizing Jordan-Hare Stadium’s food and beverage service this past offseason, following multiple successful trials in 2023.
“All of us are right now trying to find ways to not leave revenue on the table,” said Rhett Hobart, Auburn’s deputy AD/external affairs.
Last year, 5.7% of Jordan-Hare Stadium’s capacity was premium seating, well below the SEC average of 10.2%. There also was a premium waitlist of nearly 1,000 accounts (equivalent to more than 4,000 individual seats), meaning Auburn had plenty of impetus to create new premium.
That manifested in six new permanent field-level suites that sold out for the 2024 season in weeks. An area behind the Tigers’ bench was converted into an on-field space accessible as a purchasable add-on for any ticketholder, while a 1940s era storage space was renovated and turned into the new Locker Room Club (designed by Goodwyn Mills Cawood).
Those two projects cost roughly $1.5 million, but Hobart expects the investment to be repaid in less than two seasons, after which, the athletic department will begin netting roughly $1 million annually.
The second focus of Auburn’s offseason was the F&B experience, which, at most college sports venues, frankly, is stuck in the 1970s. Working with Aramark, Auburn spent $2.8 million modernizing its F&B setup and rolled out stadium-wide alcohol sales for the first time this fall.
Fifty Mashgin units were introduced as part of a grab-and-go market overhaul. Some 60% of the stadium’s lower-level concessions now consist of that setup, which is extra helpful in a stadium that has no kitchens (all cooked food comes from the basketball arena across the street).
In the Tigers’ season opener -- the Tigers play the first five games at home this season, giving Hobart plenty of early data -- overall transactions increased by more than 10,000, a 25% increase year-over-year. In the second game, transactions went up by 9,000 from the first game, topping 59,000 (Auburn averaged 43,000 per game last year). Some stands saw 30% increases in sales.
Alcohol sales are catching on quickly, too, with 11,000 more units sold in the second game vs. the first.
The venue's average transaction total also rose from $16.42 to $21.34 (likely thanks to alcohol).
Virginia Tech shows renovation isn’t the only path to new football revenue
Virginia Tech offers another example of how to pursue new revenue, but in this case, opting against the big renovation. The school added new mesh chairbacks, in conjunction with Learfield Amplify, to 32,000 seats at Lane Stadium, generating a $2.3 million increase in season-ticket revenue.
“This is a way we felt like we could provide an improved fan experience without having to dig out a whole side of our stadium,” said Brad Wurthman, VT's executive associate AD/external affairs and advancement.
Lane Stadium has only bleacher seating in its bowl areas, but now half of its 65,000-plus ticketed fans can lean back and not fall into their neighbor’s lap. Wurthman, who is 6'3", 220 lbs., confirmed that the chairbacks supported his frame. Season-ticket prices for fans with chairbacks increased between $325 and $540 for the season.
The total expense of deploying the chairbacks was around $1 million (part of a seven-year contract with Learfield), a figure that pales in comparison to the eight- or nine-figure cost of a major renovation.
Plus, the school didn’t have to engage in the tedious and tricky reseating process that accompanies renovations, and they can leave the seatbacks installed year-round, unlike vinyl seats, which must be stored.
Speed reads
- Check out the new SBJ Sports Facility Naming-Rights Directory, the most comprehensive listing that includes over 500 verified deals worth over $13 billion.
- CrowdSync Technology installed 6,500 rail-affixed LED lights at Hard Rock Stadium for the Dolphins’ "Thursday Night Football" game last week to enhance the in-venue game presentation, notes my colleague Rob Schaefer.
- The Golden State Valkyries shared plans for the team’s locker room at Chase Center and the Valkyries Practice Facility in Oakland expected to be completed and open ahead of the team’s debut 2025 WNBA season.
- ANC has won the contract to provide the NFL's largest 4K video board at the 49ers' home, Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, reports SBJ's Terry Lefton.
- The Hurricanes and Dallas-based developer Pacific Elm Properties unveiled plans for the first phase of the 80-acre, $1 billion mixed-use development the NHL team is set to build around their home arena in Raleigh (which is adjacent to N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium), notes SBJ's Alex Silverman.
- NYCFC and Legends opened their Stadium Experience Center for the club’s Willets Point Stadium, which opens in 2027.
- RevelXP is offering a solution for those in need of more suite space without the hassle of major construction projects, writes SBJ's Ben Portnoy.
- The Wild are Fanatics’ newest in-venue retail customer after the two sides agreed to a multiyear deal. The agreement includes a capital investment by Fanatics into a revamped Wild team store at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
- Rutgers baseball will be the first tenant for a new 6,500-capacity ballpark that will be located on the campus of Middlesex College, and the town of Middlesex, N.J., is also issuing a request for qualifications seeking other franchise tenants.