Stadium managers supervise the general maintenance of stadiums. They are in charge of hiring and firing personnel, marketing the facility to prospective clients and managing activities.

Qualities such as excellent organization skills, strong customer service experience and multitasking skills are required to become one. If you have the necessary qualifications and skills and demonstrate a lot of zeal and promise, you can rise to become a successful stadium manager to a earn living with sports. 

• What is a Stadium Manager?
• Factors to Consider Before Being a Stadium Manager
• What makes a Stadium Successful?
• What are the Main Issues With Stadiums Today?
• What Technology is Used in Stadiums?
• What Does a Stadium Coordinator do?
• What do Stadium Operations do?
• Are Sports Teams Profitable?
• What Stadium Makes the Most Money?
• How do Stadiums Benefit the Economy?
• How do you Become a Stadium Manager?
• How can I Improve my Stadium Experience?

What is a Stadium Manager?

The stadium manager is responsible for the safety, security, cleanliness, athletic field and appearance of the stadium facility. There are 2 different cycles in a Stadium that dictate the rhythm of a stadium managers day: non-event days and event days.

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Depending on the team the Stadium Manager works for, will depend on the scale of the operations they run. This can include overseeing pitch management, security and safety, ticketing, service delivery at hospitality level, supplies and more.

The Stadium Manager will work in close collaboration with the marketing and sales departments, but also have very close working relations with the other departments such as finance, legal, HR and the communications teams.

The role has both a global and a support function, which means that while the Stadium Manager is involved in every aspect of the venues management, they can also be involved in more specific areas focusing on a particular requirement. 

The main responsibility is to deliver the experience of the stadium, as imagined and designed by the other departments. The underlying objective is to deliver the most successful event experience possible to customers (which includes not just fans but also spectators, sponsors etc.), so that they will want to return again and again.

During the event days, the Stadium Manager’s responsibility which is supported by services and teams including catering, cleaning, security, audio-visual services and equipment rental is to ensure they deliver event success in the eyes of the customer.

On non-event day the Stadium Manager is preparing upcoming events and during periods where events are not being held, he/she will be working on the development of the stadium in order to increase the number and quality of activities and events that are delivered by the venue.

Sporting stadiums today host a wide range of event types, from concerts to fundraising and even festivals, all of which require a very different approach and management requirements. During concert preparations for example, there are a lot of external logistics coming into the stadium bringing in staging and equipment and thus requires more administration than for a football or rugby game for example.

However, non-event days are increasingly rare. Venues are today increasingly commercially focused with a drive to diversity opportunity and revenue. In Europe, during the summer months, concerts take over stadiums and it’s also a popular time for guided tour activities. This means that the Stadium Manager will have to carefully plan tour routes that not only provide a great experience but avoid any works and developments that are taking place in the off-season.

During school holidays and weekends, family focused events are often planned, attracting families to the venue, facilities and onsite shops. During the week seminars, trade shows, conventions and forums are planned to attract business users, so there is rarely a down time!

Factors to Consider Before Being a Stadium Manager

Consider the factors listed below.

Education requirements

There are no standard educational requirements for stadium managers. However, a Bachelors degree in sports management or recreation management or any other related field should satisfy most employers. 

It is rare to find an entry-level stadium manager position but if the stadium is not a large one, an applicant with a four-year degree in sports management coupled with a graduate business degree (MBA) may be given a chance to oversee the stadium.

Passion for excellence

No sport event is ever held without being promoted to the public. As a stadium manager, you should make extensive preparations and planning to guarantee the success of each event. This means that you should be passionate not only about your job but about sports as well.

With an increase in activities, the stadium manager performs a wide range of jobs such as overseeing the maintenance of the facility,  assigning specific  tasks to staff, hiring other staff if the occasion calls for it, promoting and finance and ensuring that the main facility where the team plays is in perfect order.

The environment must be conducive to play and everything must work well. A successful stadium manager who earns a living with sports must have a passion for excellence.

Marketing skills

If you have sales and marketing experience, you are more likely to win the approval of prospective employers. Stadiums need to keep on making money otherwise they would not survive. A stadium manager should be able to promote the facility to sports clubs and other sports organizations whenever the need arises.

Although this duty may not be the most important, it is expected that you should be able to present the benefits of using the stadium to this set of people as you come in contact with them. This is why you also need to have excellent interpersonal skills as well.

Indoors or outdoors

As a stadium manager your job will be mainly out of doors. Although you will have an office where you do your paperwork, store documents and make necessary contacts, you have to be on your feet so see that everything is running as it should especially when there is an event.

The work of a stadium manager is also full time since weekends or holidays are usually scheduled for sports events. If you are unable to make it due to one reason or the other, you should ensure that you properly delegate responsibilities and put a supervisor in charge of different aspects of maintenance. This is why you need people skills to be an effective manager.

What makes a Stadium Successful?

Ask just about any supporter how they’d like their team’s owner to spend their money and they’d prioritize quality players over a shiny new stadium or upgrades to their existing ground.

That said, a great stadium can add to the experience of watching a game and fans are often happy to brag about the quality of their ground compared to their rivals. 

Over the last few decades, an almost infinite supply of money has poured into professional football sparking a race between the wealthiest clubs as they try to outdo each other. Other clubs have taken a different approach, choosing to develop their existing grounds, incorporating historic elements and modern features together. 

But some stadiums receive more praise than others. Why is this? And what makes a great stadium?

Good Design

Most stadiums are now designed like pieces of art. Architects attempt to make them unique, creating an iconic mark on the landscape that will stand there for decades. 

But good design is not just about making a pretty way to mould steel support structures and curtain walling. It’s about ensuring every fan, no matter where they sit, has a great view of the pitch.

You can find plenty of examples of terrible stadium designs online, with upper decks so high fans can’t see the action, support beams and columns that obstruct a fan’s view, and even seats placed directly behind walls.

Good stadiums give everyone an equitable view of the pitch, provide comfortable temperatures, and shield fans from the extreme elements that can come from playing during heavy rain, wind, or snow. 

Safety

When you go to a football game, you expect to enjoy the match, chant and cheer with your fellow supporters, hopefully watch your team win, and go home feeling jubilant. However, too many times in history, some fans have gone to a game and not returned. 

Structural integrity and safety design are vital in constructing a great stadium, and thankfully, we don’t see the issues today that we saw in the 20th century. Because of this, you may not consider the safety of stadiums that much anymore. But the architects and engineers do, and it’s this hard work, using the most innovative designs, and the highest quality materials from the best hex nut manufacturers usa, for example, that ensures you can go to the game focused on one thing: football.

Fans

While the fans aren’t part of the stadium’s construction, they are a vital part of the overall experience. A lively crowd can make a stadium great, while a sombre one can have the opposite effect. 

Fans of English football will often cite Liverpool’s Anfield as being a stadium with one of the best atmospheres in the sport. Of course, the design of the structure itself can make a difference as it can alter the acoustics that are experienced by your ears. But that wouldn’t matter if the fans weren’t there in the first place. 

Back in 2018, the club’s manager, Jürgen Klopp, even told fans to “produce an electric atmosphere” ahead of a crucial Champions League game at home. The supporters certainly delivered, helping the reds to a 1-0 victory. 

Fans can sometimes be prevented from entering a stadium. This is often for safety and security reasons, such as to prevent rivals from clashing in or outside the stadium.

A lack of fans can have a big impact on the players too. In the first few months of the 2020-21 Premier League season, several peculiar results and an abnormally high rate of goals per game were witnessed. Everton’s Michael Keane commented on this, saying he believed quiet stadiums put players under less pressure, giving them the confidence to try things they wouldn’t normally do. 

Location

The location of a stadium is important too. While die-hard football fans would walk for days to watch their team, casual fans may be put off if getting to the ground is an inconvenience. Most of the most famous stadiums in Europe are located in or near city centres. Liverpool’s Anfield and Everton’s Goodison Park stadiums are located in housing estates, with the traditional fanbases coming from the surrounding streets. 

Barcelona’s Camp Nou is a short drive from many of the city’s most famous landmarks, while AC Milan’s San Siro Stadium is surrounded by homes and local businesses. They make it easy for fans to get there without spending hours in traffic, something that would take away from the experience. 

What are the Main Issues With Stadiums Today?

A stadium environment is a complex one, with varied areas of security, multiple services provided in different areas of the arena, tiered accesses for VIPs, talent, staff, and others, and of course, the huge crowds that sports, concerts, and other events draw.

Properly securing every area of a stadium, while also ensuring that appropriate access is efficiently granted to authorized persons, is a massive undertaking for stadium security, that can create big security risks. Below are some common challenges faced in a stadium or arena facility:

Different Areas of Access

Stadiums often have several areas within that require varied levels of security. Areas such as practice fields, locker rooms, and healthcare facilities that are accessible to athletes and staff shouldn’t be made accessible to attendees, while stadium employees require their own set of accesses to concessions, ticketing, and other locations.

On some occasions, such as concerts, ticketed attendees may require special permissions to access the field, while on other occasions visitors may be denied field entry. And most stadiums have VIP areas that are not only rendered inaccessible to non-VIPs, but also to certain members of staff—problems can occur if employees gain access to empty VIP areas and make use of those facilities to relax.

Ensuring that all of these separate areas are easily accessible for authorized persons but secured against those without access—when keys and keycards for these areas may number in the thousands—is a major issue for stadiums.

Security Across a Large Venue

Installing access control that functions for a large facility such as a stadium is a massive undertaking. The varied areas of access each require their own security, with their own set of authorized users. Some users may be authorized for areas across the stadium from each other, but not for areas in the middle (such as VIPs with access to boxes, but not to concessions or maintenance areas).

Often, taking out a key will require returning to a single location every time to access and return keys—which may be a long undertaking if returning from a practice facility or locker room in an entirely different part of the facility.

Making sure that access control keys and keycards can be easily accessed, returned, and accounted for across such a vast facility requires a key control system that easily inventories keys and can be installed across the entire facility, with many places to remove and return keys.

Ensuring Proper Use of Vehicles

Many stadiums employ fleets of vehicles for various uses—delivering items from one part of the stadium to another, emergency vehicles in the case of injury or illness, and transport of staff or talent. The keys for these vehicles need proper security, to ensure that not only are they accounted for when the vehicles are in use, but that only those with proper authorization to drive the vehicles are allowed to remove the keys.

In addition, vehicle keys will often need to be secured in locations far from where they were originally accessed. Key control systems installed throughout a stadium facility can ensure that keys are locked up when not in use, even if the vehicle in question has been driven to an entirely different part of the stadium.

Access Notification

Keys in a stadium are often in use 24/7, with a large variety of areas requiring access by a variety of different users. Key control systems that provide notification when keys are accessed—and notification when keys that have been removed are not properly replaced—help security officers to keep abreast of which keys are in use, which areas are being accessed, and when an accessed key has not been replaced when expected.

Notifications in place on a key control system help to make more efficient the process of keeping track of which areas in a vast stadium are being used, by whom, and when they are properly locked up.

Temporary Access

Stadiums often require temporary access to specific areas—whether for contractors doing temporary work, a team using the venue for a one-time event like a concert or trade show, or VIPs requiring one-time access to normally secured areas.

A key control system that easily provides this temporary access—preprogrammed or programmed at the key control cabinet—while also providing security with notifications that keys have been temporarily used and when those keys are removed to prevent fraud—can help ensure simple access for temporary users while maintaining high levels of security.

In addition, many key control systems offer two- or three-factor authentication, giving another layer of security to temporary authorizations by requiring that a second or third person authorize the usage and verify the key replacement.

Stadiums and arenas present very specific access control challenges with both the vastness of their facilities, their multiplicities of use, and the varied users that may require access to any of the areas within the facility.

A key control system can help you keep track of every key in this massive system, send notifications when keys are in use or replaced, and grant varying levels of access to users can help to ensure that everyone who needs access is granted it efficiently—while also ensuring that those without access are denied entry.

What Technology is Used in Stadiums?

Advanced technology is finding a home in a whole new arena — the sports arena. For high-intensity sports like football, this is a total game-changer. Sensors, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things (IoT) all have the power to transform football stadiums from analog arenas to cutting-edge coliseums.

Some stadiums, such as the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Atlanta Falcons and the location of this year’s Super Bowl, are already making use of advanced tech to create an enhanced experience that benefits everyone — players, owners, and, most importantly, the fans.

By connecting fans to stadiums’ IoT via mobile devices, social media, and proprietary apps, stadiums can tap into a huge reservoir of real-time market data. When data and analytics are utilized together properly, stadiums can make a big difference simply by addressing some of the little annoyances inherent in the live sports experience, including:

• Navigation — Fans can now secure a parking spot using a special stadium app on their mobile device, eliminating the headache of searching aimlessly for an empty space. Once an attendee parks, the same app can lead them down the quickest route to their seats. And when it’s time to leave, the app can help guide visitors out of the stadium and parking lot.
• Convenience — Utilizing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sensors, and apps, stadiums can use crowd-sourced data in real time to track foot traffic, crowds, concession-stand inventory, and even bathroom cleanliness. While stadiums use the data to keep their amenities in top-notch condition, fans can use the same data to monitor lines for the bathroom, order food and drinks, and navigate through the stadium.
• Security — Technology can be used to monitor massive crowds in a way that would be impossible for a human security detail unit, alerting security guards of dangerous situations or visitors displaying problematic behavior in order to ensure fans are kept safe at all times.

The Thrill of the Game, Now With Technological Enhancement

In addition to all of these practical benefits, the IoT can also significantly enhance how fans experience a live game, through the following applications:

• Replays — Using the IoT and cameras, stadiums can stream replays from multiple angles directly to fans’ mobile devices. Attendees can even continue watching the game on their devices while grabbing a snack or using the restroom. This is especially convenient during action-packed football games.
• Real-time statistics — Using sensors implanted in player uniforms and footballs, fans can see up-to-the-minute details about a player’s speed, position, distance, and more. This information can be particularly useful for fans involved in fantasy football. This kind of tech can also be useful for coaches, who can use the data to predict future player performance, strategize game plans, and monitor the health of the athletes.
• Social media — During games, fans can upload their reactions and thoughts via social media platforms like Twitter or Snapchat, and stadiums can then display these posts on media screens.

While the game may stay the same, fans and the technology they use are constantly evolving. Eventually, advanced tools like the IoT will likely mean the difference between a stadium fumble and the winning tech touchdown.

What Does a Stadium Coordinator do?

They assist in the game-day operations with the Stadium Coordinator. They set up and tear down stadium items

Job Responsibilities:
• Assist with setting up stadium for athletic contests.
• Put up and take down conference flags along Southwest border of stadium
• Put up and take down USA, KS, SC flags on the North end of stadium
• Set out trash cans and bags throughout stadium.
• Pick up trash following and during events
• Depending on event depends on set up of field for events.

What do Stadium Operations do?

A Stadium Manager or Sports Facility Manager is like a building superintendent or a resident innkeeper. This is the job of taking care of the physical venue day-to-day. The Manager may be the one in charge of booking the stadium to make sure it’s used as much as possible by paying customers. This may also be the person who’s responsible for turning a basketball court into a hockey arena in three hours flat.

In addition to supervising all the people who work there, the Manager has to hire and fire them; contract for special services like plowing snow from the parking lots; and work with specialists in advertising, marketing and public relations.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of paperwork and administration to balance the financial books. The pay for a sports facility manager can range from twenty-something a year to as much as $125,000, depending on the facilities and the owners, as well as on whether there’s an Executive Director there.

A Sports Events Coordinator is the person who makes all the things happen to suddenly transform a football field into a huge concert at halftime. Everything that happens on the field or court is the responsibility of this one person. Whether it’s keeping the hockey ice at exactly the right temperature, getting the marching band to yield to the players or dealing with a wardrobe malfunction, the buck stops here.

For a coordinator, this involves working with a lot of different departments and staffs in a sports venue, and among different facilities, whether as an employee of the stadium or working for a promoter.

The job involves everything going on, and everything that’s needed to make it all work: parking, seating capacity, facility modifications, traffic, media, public relations, players accommodations, concessions utility hookups and hooking up with the press at cocktail parties; whatever it takes to bring it all together.

If you like to take charge and run the show, making all the arrangements from start to finish for a special event, you can love this job. Hopefully so, because you can expect to put in some very long days to make around $50K per year.

Are Sports Teams Profitable?

Generally speaking, no. Most teams operate at a net loss. Most of the revenue generated by the team is paid out to the players in the form of salary, and the rest is used to cover the operating expenses of the business. Like any other company, they also employe lawyers, finance people, marketers, sales people, HR, etc. Obviously every league/team/country is different and some teams may turn a small profit on occasion.

The economic value in owning a team is that it appreciates over time, much like owning art, rare coins or other collectibles. There are also a number of non-economic reasons to own a team (prestige being the most obvious, diversification of wealth, passion for the sport, etc.).

The way football clubs are owned have changed now with the owners mainly being millionaires who are willing to splash their cash into a football club they probably hadn’t heard of until they purchased them. A good example of a club that received a significant amount of investment is Heart Of Midlothian FC.

The owner of Hearts, Vladimir Romanov who made millions in Lithuania, spent millions on the club and they achieved short term success with European football being the norm and progression into the latter rounds of the League Cup and the Scottish Cup being common.

However, once the money dried out and Romanov was millions of pounds in debt everything went pear shaped. The club were forced into administration and were very close to going out of existence. Then along came Anne Budge, a businesswoman from Edinburgh who was willing to take majority ownership in Hearts and eventually transition into giving the fans ownership.

It may seem as if she is just trying to help Hearts out and get nothing in return but in doing this she is helping improve her fortunes in various ways such as giving the club loans which she will earn interest on, which makes Hearts a good investment for her from a business perspective.

So in answer to your question, it depends. Some owners will just use a football club as a vanity project but others will see the profit that can be made and take advantage of a situation where there’s money to be made.

Vladimir Romanov ran Hearts without having the club live within their means and therefore he was guaranteed to make a loss. Anne Budge is doing the exact opposite: she is thinking about the club from a business perspective and making profit for herself in doing so.

What Stadium Makes the Most Money?

Each year, there are changes made to the list of the world’s costliest stadiums. Every year, cities replace dated stadiums with modern facilities that have greater possibilities for making money. More seats, more luxury boxes, more parking, higher ticket prices, and high-priced concession fare are all factors that make new stadiums attractive to cities and sports franchise owners.

However, it isn’t just the construction of new buildings that changes the rankings of the top five. Elaborate renovations propel the overall construction costs of these buildings up the rankings as well. In the meantime, here are the five most expensive stadiums in the world.

1. SoFi Stadium

Inglewood, CA
Capacity: 70,000
Estimated cost: $5.5 billion

The biggest price tag goes to SoFi Stadium, the new home for both the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers. Completed in September of 2020, the enormous facility is scheduled to host the Super Bowl in 2022, and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2028.

Because it was privately financed, there are no public figures on the cost of SoFi Stadium. Based on construction costs, it is estimated to have cost around $5.5 billion.

SoFi Stadium was originally priced at just under $2 billion, but after numerous construction delays and cost overruns Rams owner Stan Kroenke would ultimately pay more than double that amount for the 70,000 seat arena. After borrowing an additional $500 million from the NFL to get the project over the finish line, the SoFi Stadium finally opened in 2020–just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Allegiant Stadium

Las Vegas, NV
Capacity: 65,000
Cost: $1.9 billion

Completed in 2020, the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders clocks in at a whopping $1.9 billion. The 65,000-seat facility is also the home stadium of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. With nearly two million square feet, it’s no surprise that the stadium cost a pretty penny. The facility includes a translucent roof for outdoor daylight and walls that can be opened up for a view of the Las Vegas Strip.

But the walls and windows aren’t the only reason Allegiant costs nearly two billion dollars. One of the most expensive features is on the ground: the stadium was built with two separate playing fields. The first, made of artificial turf, is used for college games by the UNVL.

The second field is made of real grass, planted in a giant tray of soil that can be rolled out on hundreds of electronic wheels. The four-foot-deep, twenty-million-pound field allows the Raiders to play on real grass and dirt–even in the middle of the desert.

3. MetLife Stadium

East Rutherford, NJ
Capacity: 83,000
Cost: $1.6 billion

New Jersey currently lays claim to the world’s most expensive stadium, but when you learn the details of the financing, it’s little wonder they were able to build such an impressive stadium.

Two of the NFL’s most prominent teams, the New York Jets and the New York Giants, shared the construction costs equally and they continue their stadium-sharing plan that they had when they played in the old Giant Stadium. Completed in 2010, and currently known as MetLife Stadium, the new building is the largest NFL stadium without a dome.

Some clever technology was incorporated into the design of Metlife Stadium, such as lighting the exterior in either Jets’ green or Giants’ blue (depending on the home team), installing over 2,200 HD displays throughout the building, and the ability to track concession sales as they occur.

The last capability allows the stadium’s management to quickly address shortages, long lineups, and other customer service issues. Of course, even alien technology won’t fill the stands if your team stinks, which was duly noted by Giants’ owner, John Mara.

4. Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Atlanta, GA
Capacity: 81,000
Cost: $1.5 billion

Not to be confused with Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, La., the Mercedes-Benz Stadium replaced the Georgia Superdome as the home of the Atlanta Falcons in 2017. It was the site of the Super Bowl in 2019, marking the first time that Atlanta hosted the event since 2000.

The stadium’s signature feature is its retractable roof, which operates on a sophisticated rail system and is intended to give the visual impression of a set of bird wings when open. Meanwhile, the stadium’s “100 Yard Club” is an expanded concession and viewing area that extends the length of the football field. In March 2019, Mercedes-Benz Stadium became the first to go totally cashless and only accept credit and debit cards for concession transactions.

5. Yankee Stadium

New York City, NY
Capacity: 50,000
Cost: $1.5 Billion

Along with his crusty temperament, pseudo-guest appearances on Seinfeld, and passion for hiring and firing Billy Martin, former New York Yankee’s owner George Steinbrenner will also be well-remembered for his $1.1-billion contribution to the Yankees’ new ballpark.

Many baseball fans were hesitant to see the original Yankee Stadium demolished, but impressive efforts were taken to keep the history of the old building present in the new park.

From the layout of the field to the design of the entrance, the overall shape and design mimic the original 1923 ballpark blueprint. Even old-school touches were fostered into the new design, such as manually operated scoreboards in the left and right fields.

And of course, Monument Park, the shrine from old Yankee Stadium that honored baseball legends such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, was relocated to the new park as well.

How do Stadiums Benefit the Economy?

Major league sports in America are in the midst of a major restructuring. There have been several new teams that have entered the major leagues, as well as several relocations. They’ve all either needed to renovate stadiums that were in their respective cities, or completely construct new ones that meet their requirements. 

Most of the money comes from public sources. The subsidy starts with the federal government, which allows state and local governments to issue tax-exempt bonds to help finance these sports complexes. It lowers interest on the debt and as a result, reduces the amount cities and teams are paying for a stadium. However, that money comes from taxpayers, so municipalities must consider what is in the public’s best interest. 

“Build the Stadium – Create the Jobs!” exclaimed the San Francisco 49ers as they campaigned for a new stadium in the 1990s. Building stadiums create a lot of buzz, but do they truly impact the local economy? Proponents claim having sports facilities improve a city’s wealth in four ways. 

1. As the 49ers said, building new stadiums creates jobs in construction, maintenance, customer service, and engineering.
2. People who attend games or work for the team will produce new spending power within the community, which will expand local employment.
3. Teams attract tourism to the city, further increasing local spending and jobs for the community.
4. All of the new spending will have a “multiplier effect,” where the increased local income will cause more spending and job creation.

Advocates argue after the team’s successful launch, they will create so much economic growth they will become self-financing. However, proponents believe the four benefits can be overstated. Economic growth occurs when a community’s resources become more productive.

Building sports stadiums is only good for the local economy if a stadium is the most productive way to make capital investments and use its workers. According to the Berkeley Economic Review, the average stadium makes $145 million per year, with none of the revenue going back into the community. 

How do you Become a Stadium Manager?

Many of the job functions of a Stadium Facility Manager are similar to a Director. One reason for this is that only the larger venues have both a Director and a Facility Manager. In the smaller sports facilities the Facility Manager is the step before VP.

The Facility Manager has a significant amount of responsibility and it is commensurate with the size and structure of the specific sports/entertainment facility. Many of the job functions are financially driven. The Manager must work with accountants, marketers, team personnel, and often outside strategists to help produce creative ideas that allow the facility to be financially viable. This all breaks down to creating and managing a facility budget.

The Facility Manager is also required to hire and fire the staff that sells the facility for different sporting events. Those events include; company meetings, boat shows, car shows, additional sporting events, trade shows etc.

Not all responsibilities relate specifically to booking and running events at the venue. There are also other responsibilities such as hiring contractors to make sure that the facility looks great and all of the electrical runs properly.

These contractors include; snow plowing/shoveling in places that need this such as in Buffalo, grounds crews to maintain the irrigation and cutting of the lawn inside and outside the facility, and all electrical related functions.

As with the Facility Director, most Managers have at the minimum a four year-degree in marketing, communications or sports business related field.

Facility operating companies also want someone with five plus years experience managing events as well as understanding and being able to handle contractual issues. It should be noted, that many people are hired into these positions from other sports sales job functions such as group ticket sales, sponsorship sales and sometimes marketing.

Compensation:

Salary levels vary substantially, depending upon the level of managerial responsibility, length of service, education, professional level (minor league versus top professional league), location, and sport. Because some facilities have only a Facility Manager and others have both a Facility Manager and Director of Operations, there is a larger range of potential salaries.

Major League Baseball: $64,000 – $120,000
National Football League: $68,000 – $125,000
National Basketball Association: $56,000 – $105,000
National Hockey League: $50,000 – $92,000
Collegiate: $42,000 – $90,000

How can I Improve my Stadium Experience?

1. Traffic infrastructure will change and improve

Imagine yourself on your way to the stadium in a self driving car with a smart navigation system. Your car is parked automatically after you have been dropped of at the stadium. That should make your traveling experience an awful lot more pleasant.

No long walks from the parking lot, no traffic jams, just straight delivery. The alternative for the ‘green ecominded’ future fans clearly is to take their bicycle to the stadium with purpose bicycle lanes to and from the stadium.

2. Ticketless entrance and no queuing

Nobody likes waiting, long queues often are a nuisance. It takes away drinking or playing time with your buddies. It also means that stadium owners lose potential revenues. Hence avoiding queues is essential. With todays technology, this is not that difficult.

Ticketing will increasingly be paperless due to new technologies such as facial recognition and other biometrics. Users will be identified within a second, which should be much more efficient and hence convenient. Moreover fraud is now excluded, whilst it also is an awful lot more ecofriendly.

Conclusion: fan happy and stadium owner and right-holders happy!

3. Food and Beverage: quicker, better, more variety and ordered by app

Food and beverage consumption is one of the most important rated elements when visiting a sports event. It means it also is one of the main revenue generators besides ticketing. Nevertheless many fans do not like to wait in line as they don’t want to miss the game. Almost half of them actually have decided more than once to abandon concession lines as this Oracle report explains.

In order to improve the fan’s F&B experience, more attention will be paid to quality, speed and costs I believe. Again, technology will play a big role. The widespread use of ordering your food by means of an app whilst watching the game from your seat, will be a matter of time.

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This will save you queuing time or even better, your order will be delivered to your seat. Who knows, possibly by a drone. With that same app, it also will be much easier to implement loyalty programs.

Besides technology, also expect variety and quality of food to improve. In order to improve your experience and raise your engagement, it will mean that a larger part of the stadium will be attributed to this.

4. Real time betting will become the new normal, microbetting the new opportunity

Betting is one of the big opportunities going forward and no doubt very engaging to the fans. With rapidly evolving technology, it is now possible to have real time live betting in stadiums. This is important as any delay in streaming data results in a non equal level playing field. Actually in stadium betting has already been around for some time.

In 2014 Celtic in partnership with Unibet allowed fans to bet from their smartphones while watching the game. Also in the US in stadium betting has been introduced. In fact in September 2018 in the Metlife Stadium in New jersey, the first NFL game was played where fans could place a bet by using a mobile app. It means live betting while watching the game. To many this gives the game an additional dimension.

The big opportunity here is micro betting! Huh? Yes, micro betting. This is the idea of betting on every down in a football game, the number of tackles made, yardage run, the winning high jump, the number of penalty kicks, heartbeat of a player etc etc.

You can track it online as it happens and will immediately know whether you have won your wager. Look for example at Fanduel, they are already pretty well advanced. Taking it a step further, what about the opportunity in the future to fabricate your own bet with your friend.

Although micro betting is still in its infancy, everything is basically there: the data, the stats, the fan, 5G and a seamless functioning Wifi network and the arena! It will still take some time, but it will be there sooner than you would think. No doubt it will put an extra layer to the fan experience and it will generate big bucks.

5. Crowd management systems will improve safety

Fans do want to feel safe and do not want to worry about terrorist threats or hooligans. If they feel safe, they will stay longer at the venue and spend more money. Facial recognition, smart blockchain ticketing and crowd control systems are just a few examples of how fans might feel safer in the future.