Niners: Mobile app produced $800K in food orders at Levi’s Stadium

Screen shot from Levi's Stadium app showing active in-seat delivery option.

Screen shot from Levi’s Stadium app showing active in-seat delivery option.

Having a mobile app that allowed for in-seat food and beverage delivery helped produce $802,791 in revenue at Levi’s Stadium last season, according to San Francisco 49ers execs Wednesday.

In a panel presentation at the Veritix Sports Facilities & Franchises/Ticketing Symposium presented by SportsBusiness Journal/Daily in Santa Clara, Niners chief operating officer Al Guido and VenueNext CEO John Paul presented some statistics about Levi’s inaugural season, including the $800 grand number for both in-seat orders and express window pickup orders, which are both facilitiated by the VenueNext-produced Levi’s Stadium app.

According to Guido, the split between the two options was a surprise, with in-seat accounting for 54 percent of the total, against 46 percent for express window pickup. However, he isn’t mad about the outcome, since he said stats showed that fans increased their average spend for delivery orders by two to three dollars per seat by the end of the season.

Though Guido and Paul didn’t mention any concrete new options planned for the upcoming football season, Guido wondered out loud about ideas like dynamic pricing of concessions, such as having half-price hot dogs advertised through the app.

As the data from the inaugural season reveals, in-seat ordering has proven to be a popular choice among fans, leading to increased spending and a more convenient experience. Looking ahead, enhancing the app’s functionality could further boost fan engagement and revenue. One key aspect of this is the push notifications role, which can significantly influence purchasing decisions by delivering timely and relevant offers directly to users’ devices. This approach not only personalizes the service but also encourages higher spending by keeping fans informed about available deals and promotions.

Overall, Paul and Guido said that the Niners had 203,925 unique users of the Levi’s Stadium app last season, including 65 percent of the team’s season ticket holders, who now manage their seats through the app.

Guido also said that if there was one area where the Niners could have done better it was to improve the experience outside the stadium, namely the parking and public transportation services, which experienced numerous problems during the Levi’s Stadium opening season.

“We probably didn’t focus on it enough,” Guido said.

In-seat food delivery returns to Levi’s Stadium for Earthquakes soccer game

Screen shot from Levi's Stadium app showing active in-seat delivery option.

Screen shot from Levi’s Stadium app showing active in-seat delivery option.

In-seat food delivery, the feature perhaps most unique to Levi’s Stadium, will return this Sunday for a MLS game between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Orlando City SC, a 4 p.m. start at the 68,500-seat home of the San Francisco 49ers.

While in-seat food delivery was active for all the Niners’ home games this past NFL season, the feature ran into some issues during the Coors Light Stadium Series hockey game at Levi’s in February, a still not-fully-explained problem of either too many orders or too few staffers to deliver that led to an unspecified number of incompleted orders and angry fans. At subsequent Levi’s events like the March WrestleMania 31 event, fans were not able to order in-seat food and beverage delivery by request of the event’s organizers.

But the latest refresh of the Levi’s Stadium app by VenueNext shows an active in-seat delivery menu, though it appears only food and beverages, and not merchandise, will be available for soccer fans to have brought to their seats. One reason why it may be easier for delivery to be available is that from seating maps it appears that the 300- and 400-level seating areas (the upper decks at Levi’s) won’t be open for the Sunday soccer game, making it a smaller overall crowd.