Sports leagues boast billion-dollar revenues — and the venues where these games unfold hold significant commercial potential in their own rights. Many stadiums host concerts and other shows in addition to regularly held sporting matches and can accommodate tens of thousands of spectators at once, creating massive retail, dining and advertisement opportunities.
The three major U.S. sports leagues — the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Football League (NFL) — play at different points of the year, and the number of games each league holds during the season also varies.
MLB leads in game frequency, with each team playing 162 games during the regular season, which runs roughly from April through September. Basketball season is also around six months, running from mid-October to mid-April, but each NBA team plays only 82 games per season. And the NFL has both the shortest season, covering 18 weeks from early September to early January (with the preseason starting in August), and the fewest number of matches per team. Understanding the monthly visitation patterns for the various types of stadiums can help advertisers, stadium operators and other stakeholders ensure they are leveraging the full potential of the venue throughout the year.
VISITATION PATTERNS, ON- AND OFF-SEASON
Unsurprisingly, the sports arenas serving the different leagues see visit spikes during their leagues’ respective season. But comparing visit numbers throughout the year to the average monthly visit numbers for each category in 2023 reveals the relative visit increases and decreases during the on- and off-season vary for each type of stadium.
MLB stadiums display the steadiest visit strength during the on-season, perhaps because of MLB’s packed game schedule. MLB tickets also tend to be relatively affordable compared with tickets to pro football or basketball matches, which may also contribute to MLB’s consistently strong visit numbers throughout the season. During the MLB off-season, baseball fields (which tend to be uncovered) are relatively empty.
The seasonal visit spike to NBA arenas is less steady. The beginning and end of the season see strong peaks, and visits slow down slightly during the midseason months of January and February. Visits then drop during the off-season spring and summer, but the off-season visit dip is not as low as it is for MLB fields, perhaps because NBA arenas’ indoor nature makes them suitable locations for concerts and other non-basketball events.
Meanwhile, NFL stadiums see the least dramatic drop in visits during the NFL off-season, as these venues’ enormous size also makes them the ideal location for concerts and other cultural events that draw large crowds. These arenas’ strong almost year-round visitation numbers mean sponsors and advertisers looking to expand beyond sports fans to reach a diverse audience may have the most success with these venues.
STEALING BASES, WINNING RETAIL
Although MLB offers the most budget-friendly outing, combining STI: Popstats demographic metrics with trade area data reveals MLB stadium visitors reside in higher-income areas when compared with visitors to NBA or NFL venues.
Baseball fans tend to be older than fans of other sports, which could partially explain MLB stadium visitors’ higher household income (HHI). The combination of lower ticket prices, higher median HHI among fans, and many games per season offers baseball stadiums significant opportunities to engage effectively with their fan bases.
But while NBA and NFL stadium attendees may not come from as high-income areas as do MLB stadium visitors, fans of live basketball and football still reside in trade areas with a higher HHI compared with the nationwide median. So, by leveraging stadium space, advertisers and other stakeholders can reach tens of thousands of relatively high-income consumers easily and effectively.
Sports fans are known to be passionate, engaged and willing to spend money on their team, but stadium visitors also shop for non-sports-related goods and services. Retailers and advertisers can draw on location analytics to uncover the consumer preferences of stadium visitors and tailor campaigns, sponsorships and collaborations accordingly.
DISTINCT RETAIL CHOICES BY TEAM
Visitation data to the top five most visited MLB stadiums during 2023 showed differences between the apparel and sporting goods shopping preferences of the various stadiums’ attendees. While 39.4 percent of visitors to Truist Park also visited DICK’s Sporting Goods in 2023, only 30.8 percent of Yankee Stadium visitors stopped by the sporting goods retailer in the same period. Similarly, while 29.9 percent of visitors to Yankee Stadium frequented Kohl’s, that percentage jumped to 47.3 percent for Busch Stadium visitors.
Harnessing location intelligence to see the consumer preferences of a stadium’s visitor base can help retailers, stadium operators and even team managers choose partnerships and merchandising agreements that will yield the most effective results.
BEYOND THE BLEACHERS
Sports and snacks go hand in hand. What would a baseball game be without a hot dog or peanuts? But while every stadium likely provides a similar core of traditional game-day eats, each venue also offers a different set of dining options, both on- and off-premises. By leveraging location analytics to gain visibility into stadium-goers’ dining habits, stadium operators and local food businesses can understand how to best serve each arena’s audience.
Mapping where stadium visitors dine before and after games can help stakeholders in the stadium industry reach more fans.
The data reveals a correlation between pre-stadium dining and post-stadium dining; stadiums where many guests visit dining venues before the match also tend to have a large share of guests going to dining venues after the event. For example, the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home to the Dallas Cowboys, saw large shares of visitors grabbing a bite to eat on their journey to or from the stadium, while the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore saw low rates of pre- and post-stadium dining engagement.
These trends present opportunities for both local businesses and stadium stakeholders. For example, venues with high dining engagement can explore partnerships with local restaurants, while those with lower rates can build out their in-house dining options for hungry sports fans.
DIFFERENT EVENTS AND DINING PATTERNS
Stadiums looking to enhance their food offerings — or local entrepreneurs thinking of opening a restaurant near a stadium — can also get inspired by stadium visitors’ dining preferences. For example, psychographic data taken from the Spatial.ai:FollowGraph dataset reveals that visitors to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., have a much stronger preference for Asian cuisine compared with New Jersey residents overall. With that knowledge, the stadium can enhance the visitor experience by expanding its Asian food offerings.
On the other hand, MetLife Stadium goers seem much less partial to brewery fare than average New Jerseyans, so the stadium operators and restaurateurs may want to avoid offering too many brewery-themed dining options. Stadium stakeholders can reserve the craft beers for Caesars Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium and Soldier Field, where visitors seem to enjoy artisanal brews more than the average resident in Louisiana, Maryland and Illinois, respectively.
All of the stadiums analyzed exhibited unique visitor dining tastes, a reminder that no customer or fan base is alike. Aligning on- or off-site dining options with offerings that align with a given customer base’s preferences can improve overall visitor satisfaction and boost revenues.
PITCHES TO PLATES
Zooming in to look at consumer behavior around individual events reveals further variability in dining preferences even among visitors to the same stadium, with different types of events driving distinct dining behaviors.
State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., is home to the Arizona Cardinals. The stadium hosted the 2023 Super Bowl, but the NFL stadium also acts as a concert venue for acts ranging from Taylor Swift to Metallica. And location intelligence reveals the dining preferences of stadium visitors vary based on the events held at the venue.
During the Super Bowl, sports bars such as Yard House and Buffalo Wild Wings saw the largest increase in visits compared with the chains’ daily averages. A month later, attendees at Taylor Swift’s concert gave fried-chicken leader Raising Cane’s a significant boost.
Local restaurants can leverage location analytics to see what types of events are popular with their visitor base and craft collaborations and advertising campaigns that resonate effectively with their patrons.
FINAL BUZZER
Sports stadiums and arenas are not just spaces for sports and music enthusiasts to gather; they also offer significant commercial opportunities for the surrounding communities. Stadium operators and local businesses can fine-tune their offerings by utilizing location analytics to better connect with their visitor bases and uncover new retail opportunities.
This article and sidebar were excerpted from a report researched and reported by Placer.ai. Download the complete report here.
