With 10 years' experience working in brand and content for some of the UK's biggest hospitality brands under her belt, Bella leads marketing for Togather's Live events. Owning the go-to-market strategy for festivals, stadia and event partnerships. Recent work includes the Palate Shift trend report and the concepts behind a number of Togather's biggest tender pitches.
For sports operators, food and drink isn’t just a service — it’s a vital part of your fan experience. Oracle’s Fan Experience Report showed that fans in the UK and US ranked food & beverage above entertainment and amenities, and only below safety & overall venue environment.
Across the board, operators are waking up to the fact that F&B can be one of the most reliable, scalable, and fan-friendly ways to increase matchday revenue. Clubs aren’t just looking to keep fans entertained from the moment they arrive at the stadium: they’re looking to drive excitement and engagement before they even purchase a ticket and to ensure that they deliver on that promise on event day.
In their first game at their new stadium Tottenham Hotspurs brought in £800,000 from food and beverage sales. It’s not a coincidence that their F&B offering is at the front and centre of the stadium design, with over 58 food outlets across a dedicated floor and social-friendly innovations like their “bottoms up” pint pouring solution ensuring that attendees are engaged and ready to spend.
The Premier League now requires every club to publish a Fan Engagement Plan ahead of each season, and a Fan Engagement Report at the end, and with food, hospitality and atmosphere playing a major role in how fans rate their experience alongside aspects like accessibility, inclusivity and ticketing.
Investing in those touchpoints means that your fans will have a great time on the day, ultimately leading them to spend more and come back next time. Investing in them can pay dividends.
As one expert on The BBC’s Thinking Allowed podcast put it:
“The stadium has always been a site of spectacle — but now, it’s also a site of consumption.”
The key is making sure that consumption feels worth it to your fans.
From Premier League grounds to external activations around global events like the Olympics, fanzones are transforming how sports teams engage their audiences — and how they grow their revenue. It’s not about selling more pies. It’s about building memories.
So What’s Next?
Whether it’s an external fanzone, a revamped hospitality programme, or a shakeup of in-stadium technology, there are countless levers operators can pull to drive more revenue from F&B and, crucially, build a stronger emotional connection with their fans.
F&B at sports events and venues isn’t just an obligation to keep fans fed. It’s a way to round off a truly unforgettable experience for ticketholders of every kind. A great fanzone offering, with well curated food & beverage options and dwell areas that encourage fans to stick around and spend, can help you:
As The Possible put it:
“Stadiums that can create an emotional, experiential connection will drive long-term success. And much of that happens off the pitch.”
Fanzones aren’t a fad: they’re the future. They make sport more welcoming, more enjoyable, and more accessible to fans of all types, and the sky is the limit when it comes to creating, collaborating, and building something truly unforgettable.
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