Let’s say you’re a Green Bay Packers fan. Could there be anything better than going out your front door for a short walk to Lambeau Field?
This is the reason the Packers intend to build +200 houses just one block from Lambeau.
Green Bay isn’t the only NFL franchise developing real estate around their sports stadiums. Franchises think that Millennials will scoop up these houses if not to live in themselves, then to rent out to other Packers or Astros or which ever franchise fans via Air BNB.
Patrick Riche, a sports economist and director of Washington University at St. Louis’s Sports Business Program, thinks real estate has tremendous potential to become a moneymaker for individual sports teams.
The NFL, like every other professional sports league, has revenue sharing agreements that every franchise team in the league has to honor. Such revenue sharing agreements cover things like revenue generated from ticket sales and monies generated from television rights. Revenue generated from real estate, however, does not have to be shared with all the other franchise teams in the league. In other words, a sports team acting as a real estate developer is acting on its own behalf for its own individual benefit.
Nola Aga, another sports economist who teaches at the University of San Francisco, thinks differently about sports teams and real estate. First, Aga is unconvinced that sports teams actually make money for their respective communities. Second, Aga is concerned that people currently living in, most likely, under-market or affordable housing near the stadiums will be pushed out and forced to find other affordable housing wherever they can find it.
Think about it, agents. There may be opportunities for you to deliver your real estate expertise and services to your favorite team.
