Sports Bars Have Ticket to Sunday Business

 

The sports bar is entrenched in American culture. All across the country people congregate on the weekends for matches, races, tournaments, finals and series. Beer, burgers and wings are on the menu, and the drama unfolds on big-screen HDTVs.

With its weekend bonanza of blowouts, nail-biters and breathtaking plays, the pinnacle of the U.S. sporting world is football. While college games consume Saturdays, it’s the National Football League and its associated fantasy leagues that reign supreme on Sundays. With the the rise of Thursday games and the enduring appeal of Monday Night Football, the NFL has no problem captivating the attention of fans during its annual fall-winter season.

Enter DirecTV and its exclusive, signature package — NFL Sunday Ticket. First offered in 1994, the program provides access to all NFL games every Sunday. Nationwide, as many as 35,000 bar/restaurants and about two million homes subscribe to the service.

The ubiquity of Sunday Ticket is likely to increase. Fantasy football, where fans pick their own teams and compete for prize money, continues to prosper. And DirecTV recently inked an eight-year Sunday Ticket extension with the NFL. Most importantly, the proposed $50 billion merger with telecommunications juggernaut AT&T is expected to go through, giving DirecTV enhanced platforms through which to deliver its products.

While Sunday Ticket is largely associated with national brands like Hooters and Buffalo Wild Wings, the game package can also be found in regional chains and mom-and-pops. Subscription rates are computed on fire code occupancy. A bar with seating for 50, for example, pays $1,289 per year, while a bar that holds up to 750 people pays $9,219.

Sunday Ticket flourishes in places where there are a large number of transplants — places like Los Angeles, Charlotte, Atlanta and Dallas. A retail executive from Philadelphia can’t live without her Eagles, and a math instructor from Cleveland can’t live without his Browns. With Sunday Ticket, they don’t have to.

While Northwest Arkansas is not a top-10 metro like Dallas-Fort Worth, it has seen its share of transplants. Having recently eclipsed the 500,000-population mark, Northwest Arkansas welcomed nearly 19,000 out-of-state arrivals last year, according to the American Community Survey, a division of the U.S. Census Bureau. The survey also shows that about 43 percent of the people, or about 215,000, who live in Northwest Arkansas are from another state.

Where do a lot of these people go to watch their favorite NFL teams? If the numbers are any indication, they are heading to sports bars that have all the games. According to DirecTV, there are now more than 50 Sunday Ticket locations in Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville.

 

A Friendly Experience

With 63 TVs, 6,000 SF of space, a patio, pool tables, dart boards, giant Jenga and board games, On the Mark in Fayetteville is not only among the oldest of the area’s sports bars, but is also among its largest.

Housed in a redbrick building tucked in a high-density residential area at the intersection of Sunbridge Drive and Gregg Avenue, On the Mark lays claim to being Fayetteville’s version of “Cheers.”

“We are a local bar, and we live and die by the people who live within two miles of us,” said owner Drew Turner.

In addition to its niche as a neighborhood bar, On the Mark has two other distinguishing characteristics — it’s not on Dickson Street or College Avenue and, equipped with a large air filtration system, cigars, cigarettes and e-cigarettes are allowed indoors.

“We try to make that as our niche,” Turner said. “We’re the only ones.”

On the Mark, the successor to a sports bar known as Coach’s, has carried Sunday Ticket for over a decade, making NFL games part of the bar’s brand. While fans of all stripes go there on Sunday, its busiest day during the season, most of them support the Dallas Cowboys, once lauded as “America’s Team.”

Saturdays are busy, too, as On the Mark carries game packages for the biggest collegiate leagues — the Pac 10, Big 10, Big 12, ACC and SEC.

Turner said he’s well aware of the competition from other bars, yet all but dismisses the threat posed by corporate chains like Tilted Kilt, Twin Peaks, Hooters and Beef O’Brady’s. People in Fayetteville are loyal to local brands, he said, and as a business born and reared in Fayetteville, On the Mark has little to fear.

“If we were in Benton County, yes [I might be worried],” he said. “But we’re in Washington County and we’re in Fayetteville and this is a Fayetteville business.”

Referencing the customer experience promoted by some of the chains — one that entails young waitresses in revealing outfits — Turner had this to say: “We’re not selling sex. We’re selling a friendly experience.”

And On the Mark has been able to do just that. Each Sunday, locals and regulars stop by for food, drink and games. Some leave happy, some leave heartbroken, high-fives are given and expletives are shouted. That, said Turner, is what it’s all about.

“It’s normally absolutely electric in here,” Turner said, referring to the thrill of an NFL Sunday. “It’s a lot of fun to go that route.” 

 

Local Flavor

The slogan “Wings, Burgers & More” seems to work for Jeff Hodges, the owner of Fayetteville-based sports bar Foghorn’s. In business since 2004, and a subscriber to Sunday Ticket since that time, Hodges has two Fayetteville restaurants and is opening a third one in Springdale early next year.

An accountant by degree and trade, he got into the hospitality business as a bartender in the early 2000s and never looked back. He believes in the basics: good service, good food and cold beer.

Himself a supporter of the Denver Broncos, he knows what it means to be a football fan in need of a game. Having carried Sunday Ticket for 10 years, he’s got it down to a science.

By the time customers come into his place on Sunday, staff has already programmed all of the 55- and 70-inch LED TVs, and the volume has been set to reflect the importance of the biggest game. Loyal and longtime customers like the ones who follow the Tennessee Titans are rewarded with use of the private viewing room. Sundays at Foghorn’s are powered by nine DirecTV boxes and two Cox Cable boxes.

The only DirecTV package Hodges uses is Sunday Ticket, but the provider also offers League Pass for the NBA and Center Ice for the NHL, among others. The Green Acres location has 32 TVs, the location near Baum Stadium has 54, and the upcoming store in Springdale will feature 40. That’s what it takes to compete, at least on Sundays, with national chains.

“I’ve got to have Sunday Ticket,” Hodges said. “You can’t call yourself a sports bar and not have it.”

While a big game day produces a spike in sales, Hodges said one of the best parts about Sunday is the fun people are having. Fans of some of the league’s most beloved teams like the Green Bay Packers, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears crowd into Foghorn’s, cheer for their teams, and with a half-dozen games going at once, create a chaotic, festive scene.

“It’s fun to see all the games at once,” Hodges said.

 

Sunday Funday

The lure of Sunday football was just too much to ignore. With the exception of its seasonal Beaver Lake location, JJ’s Grill had never opened on Sunday and thus never had a reason to install Sunday Ticket at any of its stores. The signature piece of its brand was, and still is, free live music by local and regional acts.

That brand was tweaked a bit this year, however, when JJ’s owner Jody Thornton decided to try something new. The local chain’s fifth location in Bella Vista, which opened in October, offers the full slate of NFL games, as will a sixth location opening next year in Fort Smith. So far, the Bella Vista experiment has been a big hit, and if the second half of the season plays out like the first half, Sunday Ticket could be at all JJ’s locations next year.

“We’ve had great success up there,” Thornton said. “We’ve never been open on Sundays. But what we were hearing up there [in Bella Vista] is that they wanted a sports bar.”

Thornton’s move into Bella Vista comes at a time of continued health for the entertainment industry. Nationally, nearly 70,000 bars and nightclubs generate about $24 billion in revenue and employ over 371,000 people, according to global market research firm IBISWorld.

In Arkansas, state taxes on liquor, beer and wine for fiscal 2014 were $25.5 million, compared to $24.1 million in fiscal 2008, a 5.8 percent increase. And in this region, the entertainment industry has been rounded out by a “wet” Benton County and an explosion in the production of craft beer.

Thornton said his establishments had always been closed on Sunday so staffers could spend time with their families. Thornton, however, concedes that NFL Sundays could generate welcome revenue both for JJ’s and the people who man the new shifts.

“Many have suggested that Sunday is a day we should be open,” he said.

Thornton said plenty of market research went into the opening in Bella Vista. One of many things that became evident during due diligence was that affordable housing for retirees and young Walmart professionals has helped create a strong demographic, he said. According to the Multiple Listing Service of the Northwest Arkansas Board of Realtors, Thornton’s right. Houses in Bella Vista, at an average sold price per square foot of $74, are much more affordable than they are in Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville.

Not surprisingly, the Bella Vista location is frequented by a lot of people who are not from Arkansas and, when they come in on Sunday, a lot of them are wearing jerseys for the Steelers and the Packers.

“It’s northerners coming down here,” Thornton said, referring to the core Bella Vista crowd. “It’s young professionals to retirees. I don’t consider us a sports bar, but sports is something we do.”