Palace Sports and Entertainment is in the early stages of planning an event-level lounge at the
St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa.
The idea is to provide new amenities primarily for the 330 Tampa Bay Lightning season-ticket holders sitting in the first two rows around the ice, patrons who don’t have access to the arena’s high-end restaurants exclusive to club seat and suite holders, said Sean Henry, the arena’s chief operating officer.
The 25,000- to 30,000-square-foot Players Lounge should open in September, part of the facility’s multimillion-dollar list of offseason projects, which includes building two lounges on the upper concourse for regular ticket holders and expanding the suite level’s XO Club to include 400 additional seats, Henry said.
“Some very basic questions still need to be addressed [for the Players Lounge] — design, programming, size, decor, amenities and price,” he said.
 |
| Construction at Alabama will put fans in “The Zone.” (above) |
Sportservice, the building’s concessionaire, would operate the new destinations, including the Players Lounge, space freed up by converting two storage rooms and a staging area outside the locker rooms.
BDG Architects of Clearwater, Fla., Palace Sports’ exclusive designer, has also planned renovations at the
Palace of Auburn Hills.
As a “backstage restaurant,” the Players Lounge would join an industry trend for new and existing facilities, an opportunity for premium-seat holders to have a drink, grab a bite to eat and catch a glimpse of players as they enter and exit the playing surface. In Tampa, the ground-floor site will allow diners to observe the path Lightning players take to go on and off the ice, Henry said.
The seats tied to the Players Lounge may include food, drink and valet parking in the ticket cost, Henry said. Season tickets are now $7,500 for Row A and $3,999 for Row B.
PS&E plans to sell naming rights to the Players Lounge, Henry said. The Memphis Grizzlies recently sold a five-year title sponsorship for their backstage restaurant at FedEx Forum to luxury automaker Lexus, a deal valued at a little less than $500,000 annually.
TIDE ROLL CALL: The University of Alabama recently advertised in three newspapers after Crimson Tide athletic department officials found themselves in the unusual position of having more than 6,000 lower-bowl tickets to sell to the general public for the 2006 season.
The seats became available after Alabama officials decided to move fans of visiting teams to the new upper deck in the north end zone, part of the $50 million expansion opening this fall at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.
Alabama has sold 4,500 season tickets at $320 apiece since running two full-page ads in January in the Birmingham, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa papers, said Johnny Williams, senior associate athletic director for external affairs. The school expects to sell the remaining 1,500 season tickets in the next couple of weeks, he said.
The end zone structure, designed by HOK Sport and local firm Davis Architects, contains 38 suites on two levels and another floor called “The Zone” containing 1,600 club seats and indoor lounge space, in addition to the 6,000 to 7,000 upper-deck grandstand seats.
The suites, club seats and grandstand seats will generate an additional $6 million annually for the athletic department in ticket sales, skybox lease revenue and “Tide Pride” licensing fees, the annual donations that Alabama football fans give to the athletic department to retain their seats. About 48,000 fans will now pay those fees in addition to buying season tickets, Williams said. Donations range from $80 to $1,300 a season ticket. The Tide Pride program has produced $190 million since 1988, Williams said.
Alabama leases all 122 suites on one-year contracts, has not had a vacancy since the first of the original 84 suites were built in 1997 and has a waiting list of 200 names, Williams said.
XP MARKS THE SPOT: XP Events was in the process of acquiring the Charlotte Bobcats Arena retail contract from AEG Merchandising last week, said Chris Weiller, the NBA team’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer. XP Events co-owner Alan Fey previously was vice president for AEG Merchandising, and had an agreement with Los Angeles-based Anschutz Entertainment Group to keep the Bobcats’ contract when he started his new company, said Michael Roth, AEG’s vice president of communications.
“Alan Fey was the main reason we connected with AEG in the first place,” Weiller said.
The Bobcats will continue to collect a portion of merchandise revenue under terms of the existing five-year contract when the transition is completed, Fey said. The deal started in 2004 at Charlotte Coliseum, where the Bobcats played their first season.
Fey managed the Staples Center retail store in Los Angeles and also sold merchandise for the old Vancouver Grizzlies, the Denver Nuggets and the NBA. Fey and his business partners, Jeff Newman and Tripp Wall, formed XP Events last year and signed their first deals with the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks for retail operations at US Airways Arena and Chase Field.
Sean Ryan, formerly at Facility Merchandising Inc., replaced Fey as vice president for AEG Merchandising.
Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
