Suite Tooth: NFL Cardinals, Fiesta Bowl At Odds Over Suites

A dispute between the NFL Cardinals and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl over the number of suites at the new Glendale stadium “could delay suite sales and cost both sides time and money in the quest for big-name clients and sponsorship deals,” according to Ty Young of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC. The team and bowl are joint tenants in the new stadium, which opens next year. The Cardinals say there are 86 suites, while the Fiesta Bowl claims there “are more than 90 including” the Cardinals’ ownership suite and two units controlled by Insight.com. The ownership suite is “four- times larger than the others,” and the bowl said that counting the suite “as a single unit instead of four could cost [it] millions in lost revenue.” Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker: “To think that there are four suites to be used as one is just fuzzy math. It wasn’t in the spirit of the deal.” Fiesta Bowl Chair Mike Allen said the lost revenue is “vitally important for us. This isn’t a petty battle over a couple of suites.” The Fiesta Bowl is also disputing 20 suites that were either “not included in the Cardinals proposal or have been assigned to less-than-equitable locations, ... making it difficult to appease Fiesta Bowl sponsors and fans” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 12/23).