Groupama Arena: the profitable stadium

Could a football stadium be profitable in Hungary? It seems to be entirely possible, reports mfor.hu. The growing income this year at the Groupama Arena seems to prove that.

In Hungary, building football stadiums is a very controversial matter, mostly because the government is spending billions from the public fund to build or renew several stadiums, and somehow the costs are always rising, without any explanation. Read more about this in our article: Hungary is a rich country, stadiums are built for 1 billion euros. 

Although it has become harder than ever to find a facility operator, there is still one football stadium in the country that is very profitable: the Groupama Arena.

The Groupama Arena is home to the most famous Hungarian football club, the Ferencvárosi TC. The stadium was inaugurated in 2014 and received the best venue award a year after that. It is located in Budapest and has a capacity of over 23,000 people.

In 2016, only two years after it was opened, the stadium was already profitable, with 10 million euros in sales returns. Last year’s profits were even higher, thanks to the facility operator, Lagardere Sports Hungary Ltd. Of course, just the football matches would not be enough to make this happen. The Groupama Arena can hold many other events, like concerts, weddings or conferences.