New York City FC has chosen Legends to manage sales for the venue’s suites and premium seats.
Legends will provide the MLS team with multiple services including product design and consultation, valuation, research, strategy for selling premium seating and more. The sports hospitality firm will also build a dedicated team for the club in New York to help sell seats and provide other services.
“Our team is excited for this incredible opportunity to combine our deep knowledge in the New York market and experience in global football to bring New York City FC’s vision to life in their new stadium,” Mike Ondrejko, Legends’ president of global sales said in a statement.
NYCFC has been somewhat nomadic since it began play in 2013, spending its entire existence seeking approvals to develop a soccer-specific stadium just about anywhere next to a subway station. It has taken 11 years for its initial vision of a stadium next to Citi Field to become a reality–one that is still three years away—and the journey to Flushing Meadows had NYCFC playing “home” games in Connecticut, New Jersey and even Los Angeles for a CONCACAF Champions League match.
On April 11, NYCFC secured approval from the New York City Council for mixed-use development next door to Citi Field (home to the New York Mets) that will include a privately-financed 25,000-seat stadium, affordable housing, retail, a hotel, and a public school.
“Being a tenant does not allow you to control your own destiny, whether that’s fan experience or revenue streams,” NYCFC CEO Brad Sims said in an interview shortly after the approval. “With this new stadium, we will be able to monetize the stadium, through naming rights and hospitality, that we were not able to do while playing our games between Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.”
When the stadium opens in 2027, NYCFC will be the last major pro team to move in a new or fully renovated stadium of its own since the New Jersey Devils began the area’s sports stadium boom with the Prudential Center in 2007.
There’s already some familiarity between the two partners. Legends was originally co-founded by the New York Yankees along with the Dallas Cowboys to operate concessions and merchandise sales in new venues both teams moved into back in 2009. As it began to manage the same services for other venues, Legends expanded into other realms of the sports business, including negotiating naming rights for stadiums.
Just over a week ago in an unrelated move on April 19, Legends officially named Dan Levy its new CEO, succeeding longtime leader Shervin Mirhashemi in the role. Mirhashemi was elevated to vice chairman of the company, which is still in the process of completing its long-awaited merger with ASM Global.
(This story was updated in the first paragraph to correct that NYCFC has chosen Legends, not Legends Hospitality, to manage sales.)
