4 Ways to Make Game Day at Your Sports Bar Even Better

Game Day is always a great day for sports bars, especially during football season. Guests are pouring in wearing team shirts and jerseys of their favorite players, orders are flowing, and there’s an energy in the air unmatched by anything else in our industry.

There’s a lot that goes into having a successful game day at your sports bar. It takes more than just a TV and fans. There’s even more that goes into creating a great game day at your restaurant.

Here are four ways of making your sports bar’s game day even better.

Have an All-Star Level Game Day Menu Set

Make sure you have a special menu set for the big game days.

This starts with looking at historical data of what your typical guest likes to eat and drink when watching the game at your bar. Take the seasonal differences into account, too. From there, build out an exciting menu. You’ll probably want the classics like wings and burgers, but don’t forget about your vegan guests, either.

Consider creating game day “team platters.” Think of these as similar to charcuterie plates but full of various apps and snacks your restaurant is known for but sized for a group of four or more.

You can even create a game day “course special” where guests and fans get an app, drink, entre, and dessert. Give it a slight discount on what it would all cost if they bought the items separately. It’ll entice hungry guests to invest in their stomachs.

This doesn’t need to be a full-fledge game day menu. It can be as simple as creating a few specials only available during the games. Aim for things that are easy for your kitchen staff to make when your restaurant is busy, items that your guests love, and, ideally, also a high profit margin item.

And don’t forget about drinks, too. Obviously make sure you’re carrying your fan clubs favorite beer, but also try to think outside the box. What sort of sports-centric cocktails and mocktails can you and your bar staff come up with? What batchable drinks is your staff able to produce that guests will love?

If you want more thoughts on building the perfect game day menu, we have a free download ready for your use.

Alert Your Fan Club(s)

Sure, you’ll get guests rolling through your doors even if you don’t do this, but why settle for a middling group when you can get a packed house? The goal is turn your sports bar into the HQ for fans.

Whether you’re courting independent fan clubs or have created your own in-house team fan club, you’ll want to let folks know when the big games are and what you have in store. If you want to make things really special, you can set up a whole big watch party. If you don’t have the bandwidth for that, you’ll at least want to tell folks what day/time the game is, what food and drink specials are on the menu, and anything else you have planned.

Post on social but don’t forget to leverage your sports bar’s email list. Email continues to be the premier way of talking to your guests, even more so now that social media platforms charge you to access the following you worked hard to cultivate.

You can learn more about starting and growing a sports fan club at your sports bar in this free download.

Make Sure You’re Equipped with the SportsTV Guide Services

You know your guests are showing up to watch the games, so your staff better know when they’re on and on which station(s). Instead of having them fumble through stations for 10 minutes, give them a professional tool to get the job done and get back to serving guests.

The easiest way to do this is subscribe to the SportsTV Guide (STVG). The STVG takes every sports game and entertainment event on traditional TV and streaming. It’s fully customizable to your location and content providers. And you can filter out teams/sports you don’t want to show and let the ones that do come to the top.

While the STVG is a digital service, printing it out may also make sense for your staff. We recommend putting a copy at the bar, the host stand, and in your A/V station for quick and easy access.

STVG subscriptions also come with the STVG Web Widget for free, so you can embed what games you’re able to show directly onto your website and then send that info out via Twitter, Facebook, and email.

And for sports bar operations super serious about sports, there’s also the SportsTV Guide for Digital Signage. This service lets you display what your sports TV schedule directly on your screens in custom graphics. Better to market what games you’re showing than whatever random brands the networks are pushing. So not only are guests already there, they know when to come back to watch the next game they’re interested in. It’s a powerful inward marketing tool for operators looking to get an edge over their competitors.

Capture the Moments: The Highs and Lows

When bars and restaurants think about photos and video, they’re usually thinking about capturing the perfect food porn for their website or social media. But with sports bars, there’s a lot more excitement you can capture.

Get photos and video of your guests watching the game at your bar. Capture them in their moments of bliss enjoying your food and drink, or celebrating when their team scores. Even moments of defeat can create for some good social media fodder.

Drop these photos into a file-sharing service so your guests can pick through and find their favorite ones of themselves having fun. Be sure to watermark the photos so other viewers know where the event took place.

While we recommend hiring a professional photographer to capture these moments, if you got the talent in-house, let ‘em run free!

You can then use this media to further cultivate your following online and leverage it to get more folks wanting to come to your bar to watch the next slate of games. Let your current events help you market the next ones.

Good luck and have fun at your next big game day!