BookSeats, an online platform that allows travelers to custom-build flight, hotel and game-day ticket packages, is helping teams address the long-standing dilemma of how to monetize fan travel.
The company’s platform, which pulls from sites such as Expedia, Kayak, StubHub and the NFL’s Ticketmaster Exchange, has in the past few months added the Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints to a roster that includes the Carolina Hurricanes, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Wild, New England Revolution, New York Jets, Vegas Golden Knights and the University of Utah athletic program.
It’s a revenue-share partnership that can be further enhanced and expanded to include a team’s hospitality partners, said BookSeats founder Joseph DeMarinis. JetBlue, for example, the Jets’ official airline since 2009, gets preferential placement on the platform when the team’s fans are assembling their packages. Texans sponsor United Airlines enjoys the same treatment on the team’s platform, and BookSeats is partnering with the team’s annual Club Member trip, when hundreds of VIP season-ticket holders will head to Los Angeles for the Texans-Rams matchup.
For a team such as the Packers, who have sold out every home game since 1959 and play in a market that has only 53 hotels with about 5,000 rooms (according to hospitality industry analyst CoStar), it’s an overdue way for teams to generate revenue, regardless of where the game is.
“Considering the fact that we’ve got one of, if not the largest, fan bases outside of a home market, it’s about having our fans go to the away destinations in addition to all those fans from around the country or the world that want to come to Lambeau Field,” said Craig Decker, Packers manager of corporate sales.
More than 1,500 fans from 10 countries packaged trips to a Packers game last season, including a company-best 400-plus who journeyed to Nashville, according to DeMarinis.
BookSeats was one of the startups in the 2022 Comcast SportsTech accelerator program.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals will debut a luxury offering with the club’s Nov. 3 “Monday Night Football” game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. Cardinals Premier Travel is a new business unit offering three tiers of all-inclusive experiences for up to 275 fans that include round-trip, private air transportation aboard a Cardinals-logoed plane (provided by team owner Michael Bidwill’s Gridiron Air charter flight business) identical to the team’s jet; two-night hotel accommodations and transportation in Dallas; a welcome reception hosted by Cardinals legends and team executives; a pregame tailgate experience at the stadium; and game ticket options that include lower-level seats, club tickets or all-inclusive suite experience game tickets. The package prices start at $2,500, $4,500 and $6,000 per person, depending on the level of luxury (for example, the platinum tier provides lie-flat seats on the plane and seats in a stadium suite).
More than 90% of the packages sold within the first four weeks of availability, according to Mark Dalton, the club’s senior vice president of media relations.
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