SUPERFAN
When Sonnenberg attends a game, she often doesn’t watch the court or field. “I’m always intrigued by stuff that the public doesn’t necessarily think about—like the width of concourses and the mix of seating types,” she says. (Photo: Benjamin Norman)

When Stacy Sonnenberg (MBA 2003) first took a job managing Yankee Stadium for the New York City Parks Department in the 1990s, nearly every professional playing field in the country was owned or often operated by a local government. But with post-COVID construction costs soaring, political winds have shifted away from solely taxpayer-funded venues toward public-private partnerships.

As the global head of sports finance at Goldman Sachs, Sonnenberg works to develop creative financing solutions when teams seek a new home or renovate an existing one—like using the game’s predictable income to entice lenders. Sonnenberg has expanded her work on what she calls the “debt side of sports.” The addition of teams, leagues, and sports-adjacent businesses, including concessionaires and sales agencies, to her deal portfolio has drawn new interest from private equity investors.

“There is a mortgage on these stadiums, but it’s a little different than the mortgage on your house. Here the revenues being generated by the project—tickets, suite and club seat revenue, naming rights and sponsorships, concessions, and other events—are pledged to the investment. You have not pledged to have your salary go to a set account to pay back the bank [for your mortgage], right?”

“The revenues generated at Yankee Stadium are sufficient to pay back the debt associated with the project. It’s different in a middle or small market, like Milwaukee and Sacramento, where we worked on arenas and the public sector funded 50 percent of the construction costs. Even at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas it was 50-50.”

“We sell to the private placement bond market. That’s primarily life insurance companies that have long-dated funding needs and want stable cash flows to pay their liabilities. Sports are very stable. In recessions, people will cancel vacations, but they won’t necessarily cancel their season tickets.”

“We’re going to see more modular construction. At Everton Stadium, just opening this year in Liverpool, they used modular construction on the bathrooms, facades, and concrete work. It can speed up construction, which would save costs and improve quality control.”

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