Ask someone to name the best thing they have ever bought. Most people will talk about a car, watch, house, or other meaningful purchase. Then ask a different question: What is the best experience of your life? The answer is almost always changing. People smile. Their power is changing. They started telling stories. They remember who they were with, where they were, and how they felt. It could be watching the FIFA World Cup with their dad, taking their kids to their first Olympic Games or celebrating a Super Bowl win with lifelong friends. The memory comes back in vivid detail because moments like these become part of who we are. Very few people describe something that way. That difference has a lot to do with how we define value.
For many years, the commercial engine of major sporting events was straightforward: sell tickets, negotiate media rights and secure sponsorship. Today, an increasing share of value is created through hospitality, paid access and curated experiences that go beyond the stadium seat. For organizers, teams and host cities, the experience itself is increasingly becoming a product.
That evolution reflects a broader shift in luxury. For decades, luxury was measured by what people had. Now, it is increasingly defined by what people experience. The latest McKinsey & Company Research has found that consumers across all income segments are over-represented prioritize luxuries as a final result. Many people choose memories over possessions because experiences provide something that products cannot.
That consumer preference is reshaping revenue models across sports and entertainment. Premium Hospitality packages, VIP experiences, behind-the-scenes access and field trips have become some of the fastest-growing and highest-grossing segments of major events. With traditional ticket inventory limited in nature, organizers are creating new value by expanding what fans can get rather than just sitting where they can sit.
Expensive purchases may bring happiness for a while. Unforgettable experiences become more important over time. We tell the story again. We share with others. We revisit it years later and remember not only what happened, but who we were when it happened. Memory becomes part of identity.
A competitive game with customers can be the start of a relationship built on trust rather than jobs. A trip with lifelong friends becomes a story retold for decades. Taking a child to their first major sporting event becomes part of family history. After years, people rarely remember all the games. They remember emotions, conversations, and the feeling of being fully present together. The event provides a backdrop. People create memories.
That’s why experience costs a premium. A clock tells time. Good experiences become part of your life. Great hospitality helps make those moments happen. Fine dining, exclusive lounges, curated itineraries and personalized services create premium experiences while strengthening long-term loyalty among fans, partners and corporate customers.
It is not defined only by luxury finishes or special places. It is defined by how people feel. Good service removes friction, anticipates needs and allows guests to be fully present. Food, designs and accessories are important, but people rarely remember them much. People remember the warmth of the welcome, the ease of the experience, and the feeling that everything just worked out. The human factor is still the biggest difference.
Comfort itself is also becoming increasingly personal. For years, the premium experience has been limited to choice. Today, they focus on choice. Some guests want private lounges, unique dining, and backstage access. Others are simply looking for a comfortable way to experience a great cultural or sporting moment. Both groups want the same thing: close and timely communication.
That change is reshaping the way experiences are designed. The important thing is not to separate from the crowd, but to be immersed in it.
For years, sports executives focused on making money from media rights. The next frontier may be another equally important asset that can be called experiential rights: paid access, hospitality and immersion moments that cannot be broadcast, summarized or produced. AI broadcasters can broadcast the entire game to millions of viewers, but they cannot replicate the feeling of going to the stadium, meeting athletes, happy clients or sharing with family once in a lifetime. That experience remains rare by nature. As digital content becomes more abundant—and increasingly produced, personalized and aggregated by AI—materials become more valuable precisely because they cannot be duplicated. The more infinite digital content becomes, the more valuable the experience of limited live sessions.
The next wave of global events reflects this change. The FIFA World Cup in North America and the LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games are shared cultural moments that bring millions of people into cities and communities in ways that feel immediate and unfiltered. These events are no longer measured by attendance, television ratings or sponsorship revenue. Their commercial success depends on how they effectively monetize the hospitality, travel, dining, local experience and entertainment businesses in all participating cities. The platform is still the priority, but the economic opportunity is moving beyond it.
But the lasting impact will be measured by how cities transform into sports arenas. The Super Bowl, for example, temporarily reshapes a city into something bigger than itself. Streets become gathering places. Common spaces have meaning. The city begins to feel like a shared stage where strangers are connected at the same time. The NCAA Tournaments create the same result on a much closer scale. All communities are alive. The team’s colors appear throughout the storefront and dialog. For a few days, the city itself becomes part of the experience.
That expansion is important because today’s sports economy reaches far beyond the venue itself. Hotels, restaurants, transport providers, shops and cultural centers become part of the products that fans buy. The value created by major sporting events extends beyond the ninety minutes played on the field everywhere.
When people attend these events, they don’t stay inside the places. They check. They roam without plans. They eat where the locals eat. They discovered parts of the city they had not intended to visit. Above all, they miss people.
This summer provided an early glimpse of what that might look like. Scottish supporters and Bostonians embrace with enthusiasm and curiosity, sharing stories about the kindness of strangers they meet along the way. Norwegian supporters turned Times Square into a spontaneous celebration, drawing passers-by to spontaneous chants and celebrations. In many cities, tourists and locals mingle in ways that feel informal and deeply human.
Those periods may not appear in official statistics, but they are often the ones that people live with the longest. It’s not the end points, but the sense of acceptance. Not the event, but the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place. That may be the biggest value the experience economy makes.
In a world where so much of life happens through screens, shared experiences remind us why we travel, celebrate, and come together in the first place. They create stories that transcend families, friendships that deepen over time and relationships that begin in moments of genuine connection.
The more complex the digital experience becomes, the more physical it can seem. AI can personalize highlights, generate comments and recommend exactly what every fan wants to watch. But it can’t recreate the collective anticipation before kick-off, the atmosphere inside a packed stadium or the relationships built over time. those times together. Digital abundance increases the relative scarcity of presence.
Consumers still appreciate good products and luxury goods. Increasingly, however, they want that purchase to create something that can’t be put on a shelf. They want memories. Years from now, most people will struggle to remember the best thing they ever bought. They will never forget the people they were with when they encountered something extraordinary. Because in the end, we don’t remember what we had. We remember when we were alive.
As media multiply infinitely, the live experience becomes one of the few remaining forms of scarcity. Organizations that learn to design, monetize and deliver those moments will shape the next era of value creation across sports, hospitality and entertainment.
