Inflation Gas Prices Looming Over Sports Biz Concessions
“What’s historically accurate for teams is that they tend to try to take less on the ticketing side because once somebody comes in they typically will make up for it once they are inside,” said Ron Li , a senior vice president at Navigate, a consulting firm in sports and entertainment. “But with costs rising pretty much across the board after the turnstile, I think they have some decisions they need to make.”Despite the jump in prices, Americans have largely kept up their spending, particularly on entertainment and other services like travel that they missed out on during the pandemic. Still, there are signs the solid spending won’t last: Credit card debt is rising and savings have declined as consumers, particularly low-income ones, have taken hits to their finances from the spike in inflation .Casey Lynn, 43, a low-voltage technician from Minneapolis, and his wife, Lori, 44, a commercial lender, aren’t big football fans , but they decided to check out the Bears on a trip to Chicago. While Casey Lynn said he is bothered by the ticket surcharges, the couple didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to see the game.The brothers got something to eat a couple hours before the game. Dave Coyne normally stays away from the concessions at Soldier Field, but “I only had to pay for myself tonight,” he said. “I didn’t have a kid or my wife with me.”“The whole model has been kind of disrupted in a pretty big way as we’re dealing with inflation of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30% when we have typically underwritten 2 or 3%,” said Jamie Obletz, president of Delaware North Sportservice . “And you can imagine the impact that that’s had on us and what it’s forced us to think about and do over the past six to 12 months, like a lot of companies.”“In reality, costs are up across the board, but we certainly try to do as much as we can to keep that down and not have that affect the average fan or guest who comes to our events,” he said. Concessions companies also are experiencing lingering issues with their supply chains, which have improved recently but remain a factor. Obletz recalled his company running out of peanuts midway through the 2021 World Series in Atlanta, so two workers drove a truck to another venue, loaded up and then drove through the night to get back to Truist Park .
“The whole model has been kind of disrupted in a pretty big way as we’re dealing with inflation of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30% when we have typically underwritten 2 or 3%,” said Jamie Obletz, president of Delaware North Sportservice. “ And you can imagine the impact that that’s had on us and what it’s forced us to think about and do over the past six to 12 months, like a lot of companies.”
“In reality, costs are up across the board, but we certainly try to do as much as we can to keep that down and not have that affect the average fan or guest who comes to our events,” he said.
Obletz recalled his company running out of peanuts midway through the 2021 World Series in Atlanta, so two workers drove a truck to another venue, loaded up and then drove through the night to get back to Truist Park.
