Saints — as usual — sell out of premium seats

SAINTS MARCHING: Caesars Superdome, shown here during the Saints-Titans preseason game on Aug. 25, completed a $560 million modernization that extends to upgraded suites and club lounges. (Don Muret/Staff)

Huge appetite for NFL never wanes in NOLA

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The New Orleans Saints have some of the NFL’s most fiercely loyal fans, and the 2024 season is no exception. In one of the league’s smallest markets, the Saints have once again sold out all premium inventory among the Caesars Superdome’s 165 suites and 19,421 club seats, according to Mike Stanfield, the team’s senior vice president of sales.

The sellout became official in mid-August, Stanfield said. Most premium is sold on a season-long basis, but some suites and club seats are sold for single games.

In that respect, it’s standard operating procedure for Stanfield, entering his 25th season with the Saints. During his tenure, the only season in which the Saints did not sell all premium seats was in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Superdome and forced the team to play its eight regular-season home games at LSU Stadium, the Alamodome and old Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

“It’s a good situation to be in, especially for a two-team organization,” said Stanfield, referring to the Saints and the New Orleans Pelicans, both of which are owned by Gayle Benson, widow of the late Tom Benson, who acquired the NFL team in 1985 and the NBA club in 2012. “We have 40 ticket sales people for premium and they also focus on the Pelicans.”

For the Saints, most inventory is sold as season tickets, with the exception of the single-game premium options. The only general admission single-game tickets available are those held back for team sponsors, visiting teams and NFL commitments, Stanfield said.

Capacity for Saints games runs about 68,500. The number of fixed seats has decreased over the past few years due to Superdome renovations, which carved out new ADA seating and standing-room spaces in the four corners of an oval-shaped venue.

“The joke is that people have to make a hard decision between buying Saints season tickets and going on vacation,” said  Evan Holmes, the Superdome’s general manager.

For the coming season, the Saints increased season ticket prices by 6%, due to inflation and the long-term sustainability of the franchise in New Orleans, a city with only one Fortune 500 company, utility firm Entergy.

The increase hasn’t fazed “Who Dat” Nation.

“Our wait list is 140,000,” Stanfield said. “It’s a way of life down here. There’s five of us in the executive management group, and between Mrs. Benson and (team president) Dennis Lauscha, they provide resources for us to get our jobs done and they want results. What more can you ask for from a family environment?”

This season, fan excitement has escalated to a higher level after the Superdome completed a five-year, $560 million renovation. The centerpiece of the project was removing a pair of pedestrian ramps on the east and west sidelines that were part of the original construction of a building that opened in August 1975.

As a result, 100,000 square feet of space was recaptured and filled with new entry lobbies, wider concourse space, new restrooms and kitchen space and new grab-and-go concessions.

Most important, new escalators transport fans from the 100 level to the 500 level one floor below the upper deck in one continuous motion. For those with seats at the top of the building, they take a shorter ride to reach the 600 level. All told, it now takes a fraction of the time it took to reach the upper levels under the old configuration, Holmes said.

Suites on the 300 level were renovated and expanded with more interior hospitality space. Additional kitchen space for Sodexo Live!, the Superdome’s concessionaire, provides fresher food options for those patrons.

New club lounges include a field-level club sponsored by Mercedes-Benz, which held the stadium naming rights for 10 years before Caesars Entertainment took over in 2021. The new club replaced the old visitors locker room, which was relocated elsewhere at field level. Situated in the north end zone, it supports 10 rows of club seats, plus a dozen bunker suites that opened three years ago with long term leases and which immediately sold out, falling line with the trend at other NFL stadiums.

Overall, the upgrades essentially tripled the amount of club lounge space overall, Stanfield said.

“We’ve made it a 2024 building,” Stanfield said.

The Saints worked closely to map out the improvements with the Louisiana Sports and Exposition District, the Superdome’s owner, and ASM Global, which runs the nearly 50-year-old stadium. Gensler and local firm Trahan Architects designed the improvements. Broadmoor, another local company, was the general contractor. Legends served as owner’s representative.

“We broke any (physical) barriers that existed with the ramps,” Lauscha said. “Circulation was top of mind; it was so compact and closed, something had to be one. The stadium has roughly 2 million square feet and a big portion was taken up the ramps. Now, we can reshape it in any way if trends change. We can do a lot there. Having the (additional) volume under the roof is an advantage to us.”