Every once in a while an otherwise innocuous story "gets my goat" as it
shows the lopsided nature of the economy. Here is one.
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Wednesday, January 17, 2001
Business Travel: Look to the Super Bowl to see how far
corporations will go to entertain clients. ---
The New York Times via Dow Jones
Publication Date: Wednesday January 17, 2001
New York Times Company
By Joe Sharkey
HEADACHE after headache after headache,'' Robert Tuchman was muttering
fretfully one day
last week.
An odd complaint, maybe, for a young passionate sports fan who's all set to
attend the Super
Bowl extravaganza in top-shelf style 10 days from now. But then you don't
know the trouble he's
seeing, running a company that arranges lavish business trips for corporate
Good-Time Charlies
who are really looking to impress a client with, say, a three-day fling at
the year's top sports
event.
Mr. Tuchman and others in his line of work see a side of business travel
they don't tell you about
if you're one of the working stiffs flying back there in steerage on a
three-day swing through the
Northwest, hoping to catch the red-eye back home in time for the kid's
school play. This is the
realm where top-level corporate America, private jets fueled up, party hats
on, shows what you
can really do with an expense account if you put your mind to it.
''Corporations are willing to pay the dollars to go to these events,'' said
Mr. Tuchman, 29, who
founded Tuchman Sports Enterprises in New York five years ago when he
decided there was a
growing demand for a high-end corporate travel packager to arrange elaborate
trips for
businesses to entertain clients or reward employees at illustrious sporting
events like the Super
Bowl, the Olympics, the Masters or the Final Four tournament.
''An event like the Olympics -- where we had packages for 10 days and 9
nights, all inclusive --
there are companies that will pay $15,000, $20,000 per person and bring 20
or 30 people,'' said
Mr. Tuchman, whose company has been frantically at work putting out fires
and making
last-minute arrangements for the Super Bowl trips.
''We're going to have between 400 and 450 people going to the Super Bowl in
various separate
packages -- 10 from this company, 20 from that one,'' said Mr. Tuchman,
whose company has 17
employees and had $6.5 million in revenue last year.
At these levels, you don't just get a good seat and a bag of peanuts. You
get luxury
accommodations. You get parties and hospitality suites, and tee-times at the
best golf courses.
You get sports stars and other celebrities who will actually sit down and
talk to you.
At the highest end of this party spectrum, which is also the fastest
growing, ''you take a
corporate jet to the event,'' Mr. Tuchman said.
''You stay at a four- or five-star hotel, or what we'll do in some cases is
we'll rent private
mansions for your party. We'll bring in a butler, a maid, a cook. Then we'll
also have a limo on
call. There's dinner reservations arranged at the best restaurants.''
He added: ''We'll bring in players who will come and meet and greet at these
homes or at the
hotel, or go with people out to dinner. We can pretty much get anyone except
Michael Jordan or
Tiger Woods. Most of these famous people are more than willing to put in a
couple of hours of
their time to just show up somewhere and greet people for $50,000 or $60,000
at a clip.''
Clients of Tuchman Enterprises include about 100 companies on the Fortune
500 roster. Getting
them and their parties in grand style to sports extravaganzas or on
customized golfing trips and
other events is a major production. It requires vast attention to detail and
a network of sources
in the sports, travel and hospitality industries who can come up with that
elusive block of luxury
rooms or that precious 50-yard-line ticket, or make that table appear in the
best restaurant in
town.
Scalpers are now asking $2,000 and up for Super Bowl tickets in the
nose-bleed sections. Mr.
Tuchman said his company got enough tickets to serve clients from the usual
outlets, and also
from National Football League players, coaches and staff, most of whom
receive two free
tickets. ''We have our sources,'' he said.
The Super Bowl used to be just a great big football game. But as corporate
America's
entertainment and business-account spending grew, it was no longer enough
for the boss grandly
to dole out a pair of tickets to a desirable client. Enter the stadium
luxury box as a fixture of
business entertainment. And now, the all-expense-paid trip.
For some well-heeled companies, ''it's not good enough to have tickets or
even a luxury box,''
Mr. Tuchman said.
''Now you're all going after the same business, and the idea is to really
impress clients. So you
take them to the Super Bowl. You have them meet a celebrity. You get tickets
to the best parties
so that your client will choose to go with you and not the other company
that's offering another
package to the Super Bowl. These events have become the places where
corporate America
comes to party.''
Remember the old dispute over why the venerable three-martini lunch was a
tax-deductible
business expense, while a couple of baloney sandwiches shared by
construction workers was
not?
That was a long time ago. The baloney sandwich still isn't deductible, but
hiring some retired
N.F.L. quarterback to visit a hotel party during a football weekend is now a
cost of doing
business.
''It's kind of surreal in a way,'' Mr. Tuchman said.
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