Whether you’re looking at local, national or global sports, venue operations have changed dramatically over the last several years. In building sports facilities, you’ll see developers, architects and engineers pay very close attention to how fans move through a building. This is because a fan needs to be able to get to their seat, get to the merchandise, get to the restaurants and enjoy the entire fan experience. And they need to be doing all this while engaging with the sponsorship opportunities that occur in the building.
These buildings are now being constructed to manage traffic flow, not only from a crowd standpoint but also to give the fan an opportunity to enjoy all that the venue has to offer. However, it doesn’t end there.
Everything about the venue is a key part of it, beginning with your arrival—the trip over to the sports facility. Once you arrive, it’s then about how you move around the venue and how you leave the venue. All of it matters; all of it is important. It’s all about this sense of the experience you have from the moment that you set out and take your first step toward the stadium on your way to the game. There isn’t anything at the sporting venue that isn’t key to how people experience that event.
Think about it: imagine that it’s tough to get there, to the point that it’s almost like a commute to work. If it’s that tough to get there, you’re going to have an even tougher time getting started and getting motivated to be part of what’s happening.
Facility management is also focused on the athlete and how the athlete uses the building. Often, we’re seeing training assets inside the facility itself. It’s also about how the players come and use their training facilities. It’s about how they use prep areas and how they move from their car to the locker facilities, to the dressing rooms, to the field of play. These venues should allow them to do these things in a way that ensures they’re not being overworked or overtaxed, and they’re ready for the game that evening. Because they want to be sure the athletes are bringing their best to the court or the field or the ice, architects spend a fair amount of time working through the planning process to allow the them and their competitors to move through the building with ease.
Success for a sports venue is measured in many, many ways. As opposed to how success is measured for a sports team—which is typically by financial success or wins and losses—success for a venue means that people enjoy going there, and that it not only draws crowds but also that it draws successful events.
So, when you’re looking at a major outdoor venue, it won’t have hundreds of events per year. This means people enjoy the experience of going to the building. Consider a venue like Wembley in the UK. It’s an iconic event facility that is for the national football team—or national soccer team, if you’re from the United States. They hold NFL events there as well, but it isn’t home to a particular team; it’s home to the national team. Yet, people enjoy going there because it’s an iconic building. It’s enjoyable to watch a game there and think about the fact that so many great things have happened at that venue.
Interested in learning more about the world of sporting venues or concepts relating to sports management? If you are, consider trying out online sports management education. Don’t let a shortage of time or resources prevent you from getting the sports management education you want.
