Bill Lohr, GM for Delaware North Companies at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., meets with Dan Fetcho, regional VP for Delaware North Companies.
When the final report card came out, the Seattle Seahawks graded an A+ for its 43-8 shredding of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
The Seahawks were not the only ones at the stadium that day who earned near-perfection status. Delaware North Companies Sportservice, the food and beverage and merchandise contractor for the game, announced that consumers spent an average of $141.72 ($94.60 in food and beverage and $47.12 in retail) on the way to setting a record for the Super Bowl. On game day, 950 points of sale for food and beverage and 210 for retail were set up throughout the stadium.
“I think we did an A+,” said Mike Phillips, COO of Sportservice. “The game itself actually turned out to be fast compared to previous Super Bowls that lasted longer, sometimes until 11 p.m. The game was over at close to 10 o’clock, so there is no telling what the spending would have been in a longer game and had the score stayed close.”
While the route to Seattle’s rout was fueled by a relentless defense that harassed Denver and its record-setting quarterback Peyton Manning all day, DNC Sportservice took to a proactive offense that included more than 3,000 personnel on-site to handle anything and everything that came up on the big day.
“In addition to about 3,000 hourly associates, we had more than 100 managers and chefs from around the country on-site,” Phillips said. “We probably even overstaffed in some areas, but that’s okay.”
Phillips credited the fact that the company had four-plus years to plan and prepare for the event as well as bringing in staff who were involved with other Super Bowls. While Delaware North is a 100-year veteran in working championships of other major sports, this was the company’s first Super Bowl.
“We were pretty well prepared,” Phillips said. “We tried to play devil’s advocate with a lot of different scenarios but all in all I don’t know if there is much we would have changed.”
There were nearly 1,000 points of sale at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (Photo by Ariele Goldman Hecht/MetLife Stadium)
Brad Mayne, president and CEO of MetLife Stadium, was also overseeing his first Super Bowl from a venue management perspective and was quick to credit the game-readiness of Delaware North.
“What was great (about Delaware North) is they reached out to specialists, experts and managers within their whole system,” he said. “They had them travel to New Jersey in advance of the Super Bowl for planning and menu creation and then had them come in specifically for the Super Bowl itself.
“When you’re a company that has those kinds of resources and can pull out all the stops and bring all of your assets into a big event like this, you are going to be successful.”
In addition to being Delaware North’s first Super Bowl, it was also the first time in the game’s 48-year history that the same company that managed food and beverage ran the retail merchandise operations.
“We brought in Jeff Hess, the corporate vice president on the retail side for Sportservice, and he brought in some staff from a lot of our baseball and football operations who knew various aspects of our business,” Phillips said. “The retail side was somewhat of an unknown for us. A lot of the events were in New York City and no one really had a feel whether people were going to come early or late. We had guessed and hoped that they were going to come early but we didn’t know. We also didn’t know how much people were going to buy in New York City. There was a lot of planning that went into the retail side and all in all everything was outstanding and people obviously spent (on retail) while at the stadium.”
No piece on the Super Bowl is complete, however, without discussing the weather. As for all the hand-wringing and nail-biting about the prospects for a frozen Super Bowl, let the record show that a kickoff temperature of 46 was downright balmy with the normal high for this northern New Jersey area being 40 degrees at this time of year.
“We were prepared for colder weather,” Phillips said, “but the warmer weather actually helped and kept people returning to the concession lines.”
Mayne returned to the stadium the morning following the game before the sun had risen and while the stadium lights were still on and took a picture from one of the tunnels that he tweeted. The image was picked up by NBC Nightly News, ESPN, Yahoo Sports and made the local news.
“There’s no question when you have decent weather and, specifically for us, it was incredible football weather, that it enhances the experience when people are coming to something like this,” he said. “I know that if it had been snowing or icy, which it had the potential of doing, it may have hurt us a little bit for the overall experience, which obviously included food and beverage.
“My hat is off to John Wentzell (president of Delaware North) and his crew for really paying attention to the finite details that included weather scenarios and, of course, Chef Eric (Borgia, Delaware North executive chef at MetLife Stadium) did an amazing job in creating a menu that was well received and was something to behold. This was an event that you will always look back on with fond memories of the challenges that you faced and overcame in order to make a prestigious event be so successful.”
Interviewed for this article: Brad Mayne, (201) 559-1565; Mike Phillips, (973) 707-2800