Front Row Ticket

How TSE Sports & Entertainment turns corporate executives into little kids again through luxury sports hospitality

Source: Elements Magazine The Essential Components of Fine Living

By: Iyna Bort Caruso

Need a ticket to the MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium? How about the Masters in Augusta or the Super Bowl? An indebted friend may score you passes to one of these events, but Robert Tuchman can make sure you’re cheering from the front row at all of them.

Tuchman, the president of Manhattan-based TSE Sports & Entertainment is in the sports fantasy fulfillment business. The company books athletes for appearances, speaking engagements and autograph signings at corporate events or individual parties. While many of his clients are self-splurging C-level executives, tailored packages that fulfill long-unrealized fantasies are the gift of choice for big-0 birthdays, milestone anniversaries and even father-son bonding trips.

Over the years, Tuchman, 36, has built a multi-million dollar company by giving people inside access to some of the biggest sporting events on the planet. He started the company out of the corner of his parents’ apartment on the Upper East Side a decade ago. Today, TSE is a leader in the high-stakes business of luxury hospitality travel. Sports travel alone is an estimated $16 billion industry, and companies like TSE…. have gotten in on the action.

“We get some amazing requests,” says Tuchman, a one-time News 12 sports intern, “but there are some things we can’t do.” Sometimes it’s a matter of security or too many logistical hurdles to overcome. Don’t ask about a red carpet stroll to the Academy Awards for instance. But for that dreamed-of, 50-yard-line seat at the Super Bowl, just bring your checkbook.

Peter Appello of Merrick, a Bank of America regional executive, hired TSE to wow clients using the star power of ex-pro athletes. It worked: The likes of Wesley Walker, former wide receiver for the Jets, and ex-Knicks Bernard King and John Starks appeared at four different corporate events. “They were like kids,” Appello said of his clients. “It brought them back to their childhoods.”

This season’s hottest ticket is the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in July, particularly since it’s the last year the pinstripes will be playing in The House that Ruth Built. “It’ll be huge. On a par with the Olympics the following month in Beijing,” Tuchman predicts. TSE’s All-Star Game package includes a pre-game party, tickets to the game and Home Run Derby, deluxe hotel accommodations and a meet-and-greet at a cocktail party hosted by a former Yankee player. Prices start at around $4,000 and go higher based on seat selection.

For other marquee events, expect to pay at least $6,000 per person for a VIP Super Bowl Package and $7,000 for an inside track to the Masters.

Professional sports teams are surprisingly amenable to Tuchman’s requests. Credit the sports industry with a change of perspective. “They see these customized experiences as a new revenue stream,” he says, which are a lot more lucrative than the old standard of luxury – waitress service at a box seat.