Sports Hospitality in 2024

Three Things I Learned In SaaS, Sports, Tech, and Live Events The "Hospitality" Conundrum The ticketing market has come a long way since I started at the LA Dodgers in 2001. Back then, tickets were dramatically underpriced and sold to season ticket holders for teams and "insiders" (read: brokers) for major events. In the mid-2000s, the NFL caught on to the price vs market disparity and created a program they called "On-Location," where consumers could buy tickets bundled with a room and hospitality for a price exponentially higher than face value. Simply: They could charge the actual market price for the tickets and hide the difference in the package. Nobody could break out what costs what. Since then, hospitality has exploded with private equity stroking huge checks to get in the game (Sixth Street & Legends, Arctos & Elevate, Endeavor-via-Bruin Capital & On-Location, Liberty and Quint, and so on). Hospitality is now offered at nearly every major event and, for many, business in the hospitality game is booming. Revenues are setting records annually, though we don't know how profitable the business is as there are usually large upfronts paid for the right to sell hospitality exclusively. Three things I've learned from being in/seeing all the hospitality over the past year at all the biggest events