With all the talk of new stadiums and arenas in sports, it’s not often that teams and/or cities put up the money to make an old venue viable. The word “relocate” is thrown around far more often than the word “renovate.”
Then again, there aren’t many venues - in sports and beyond - that carry Madison Square Garden’s prestige. The arena is undergoing some renovations during the next few summers, with modern nods to corporate suites ranking among the highest priorities. (Check out the bottom of this post for a nifty time lapse video of the construction via the New York Post.)
The most interesting alteration might be the “Delta SKY360 Club,” though. Darren Rovell reports that 800 deep-pocketed Rangers fans will be able to watch Rangers players leave the locker room to go onto the ice with this deal. Rovell compared the feature to Cowboys’ Stadium’s Miller Lite Club, which allowed Dallas fans to sneak a peek at the Cowboys before they set foot on Jerry World’s field.
There are some differences between the two plans, though. The biggest is that there will be a glass divider between fans and players, which might not be a bad idea considering all the times hockey and/or basketball players mixed it up with fans. Differences aside, it sounds like a thrilling opportunity for people with fat wallets to heckle sweatier people with even fatter wallets.“We obviously gutted the whole place so we had an opportunity to do what we wanted,” said Hank Ratner, president and CEO of Madison Square Garden. “We did surveys and fans, not surprisingly, told us they wanted to get closer. So we did this.”
The area in the arena is called the Delta SKY360 Club and fans can watch the Knicks and Rangers go from their locker rooms onto the court and ice before they go to their seats. Those fans can also watch through the glass to see what is going on in the MSG studio.
There are 800 season ticket holders (sold separately for Knicks and Rangers fans) that have access to the club and they pay an undisclosed amount for the all-inclusive tickets, which include a seat just above the floor, food and non-alcoholic drinks.
Here’s that time lapse video from the New York Post.
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(H/T to Deadspin. Pro Basketball talk also took a look at this story. Main image via Madison Square Garden.)