For NHL Arenas, There is No Offseason

On this balmy April evening in Newark, New Jersey, the game experience for NHL fans walking from Penn Station to the Prudential Center starts before they even step into the venue.

It’s outside at the area they call “championship plaza” where food trucks tout various fare, a local band plays and fans of both the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders toss bags at cornhole boards. That type of fan experience occurs for more than Devils games. When arena owner Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment hosted the League of Legends North America Summer Finals in 2023, four years after it organized the Rocket League World Championships, it took advantage of the event’s timing to do a full block party outside of the venue.

“It’s become very important and our partners love the championship plaza we have there,” said Dylan Wanagiel, vice president of sports properties and special events for HBSE. That is the area where UFC will have its fan fest ahead of UFC 302 on June 1. It’s also where the Devils held open-air events in the leadup to its NHL Eastern Conference playoff series against the New York Rangers.

“Concerts, food trucks, games — we think that’s important to get the atmosphere going as soon as you walk up and know that you’re there for a big event,” Hanousek said.

Once in the arena, the Prudential Center still has a new feel for a venue that opened in 2007. As with many arenas, while there are spots for the traditional game-night food, there are also opportunities for a little “New Jersey flavor,” as described by Pete Albietz, senior vice president, communications and team operations for the Devils.

There are games that remind one of the boardwalks on the Jersey Shore in between intermissions. And the concourses are wide enough for activations for Devils promotions but also for local community groups even when a game gets a big crowd, as it was for the Devils’ home finale against another regional rival, the New York Islanders, whose fans sprinkled the seats (and who went home happy after a win clinched a playoff spot).

“We’ve created areas that are access touchpoints, like a high-five tunnel for fans right outside the locker room for season ticket holders,” Albietz said. He added that HBSE has made eight-figure investments in renovations and updates throughout the building, including “a lot of stuff you don’t see.” But of interest is the reduced number of suites — 74 when the building opened but 58 this summer.

“Fans can congregate, it’s more open areas versus having suites,” Albietz said. “(Years ago) it was all moving to the suite business and now it’s moving more to the congregation business.”

Putting ‘Multi-Purpose’ in Arena

The arena’s value may be most recognizable on nights the Devils are not playing. The venue has hosted UFC, championship boxing, Seton Hall basketball games — even sumo. Billboard recently ranked Prudential Center as the No. 5 building in the world and it has hosted everything from country and Latin music to the Video Music Awards.

The responsibilities for booking non-sports dates at Prudential Center, plus other smaller HBSE venues such as White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, Lowe’s Theatre in Jersey City and its biggest venue in Commanders Field in Landover, Maryland, falls to Sean Saadeh, HBSE’s executive vice president of entertainment. Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment took over programming of special events at the Commanders’ home stadium after Josh Harris purchased the team in July.

“We like that we’re becoming a one-stop shop,” Saadeh said. “You want to play in front of a 3,000-seat venue, we have it. If you want a 17,000-seat venue in New Jersey, we have it. You want a 40,000-seat stadium in D.C., we have that. We envision there’ll be an artist that starts their career at White Eagle Hall and then maybe do Prudential Center and then two or three years later do Commanders Field.”

Prudential Center can also be customized to allow for different capacities. “When they build these arenas now they are specifically designed to be flexible to the needs of the events that come through,” Saadeh said. With a curtaining system in place at the arena, “it allows for a lot of flexibility and also lowers costs. We call Prudential Center the town hall of New Jersey.”

The curtaining system also helps on sports events, not just concerts and other activities. When Prudential Center in February hosted the International Sumo League, the curtaining system closed off the upper bowl and a portion of the lower bowl and “we had 5,200 people but it sure sounded like 18,000,” Wanagiel said.

The venue operations staff is also invaluable in those times — or, in the instance this season, when a Seton Hall game against Creighton went triple overtime and compressed the changeover time before a Devils game that night but was pulled off without a delay in doors opening for hockey.

That type of turnaround will happen again when UFC comes to town in June. The show and its VIP package opportunities will keep the venue open until past 2 a.m., with the massive amount of rigging and lighting that the show brings. As those trucks move out, trucks will be simultaneously moving in for the Latin group Aventura’s three-night run at the venue.

“These are the conversations that you have,” Wanagiel said. “This is not going to be easy but this is a massive opportunity for our business so let’s figure it out.”

The ability to have options is one advantage the Devils and HBSE have in owning Prudential Center. Albietz has a person on his staff that works with the booking team when submitting preferred dates for 41 Devils home games in advance of next season’s schedule. Because of that streamlined system compared to having three or more stakeholders fighting over dates, Albietz said the Prudential Center had two open dates in each of October and November 2023 with seven double days of basketball in the afternoon and hockey at night, or vice versa.

And knowing the NHL has national TV broadcasts on most Wednesday and Saturday nights, that allows the venue to be more aggressive in booking potential non-sports events on Friday nights.

“We’ll do a lot of horse trading — I want the Wednesday before Thanksgiving for a Devils game because that’ll be an awesome atmosphere but I’ll go on the road and you get Saturday night because you’re booking Drake, for instance,” Albietz said.

“The good news is working with the Devils, they get that the venue needs to be maximized while also not putting the team in the situation where they’re on the road too long or they have a back-to-back,” Saadeh added.