Stadium box · hospitality · rugby, football · Bordeaux
Stadium boxes and hospitality: the bottle your guests take home
A company that rents a box at Chaban-Delmas or the Matmut Atlantique invites its clients a dozen times a season. The food and drink in the box usually come from the stadium caterer; what is left to the company is the memory it leaves behind. A bottle from the club's year, a magnum for the big match: the calculation below prices the season and checks the VAT threshold for gifts.
The season's gifts
Nothing is sent until you click on the quote.
Before you buy: what the box allows
The stadium caterer
In most stadiums, the food and drink in the boxes are supplied by the venue's caterer, on an exclusive basis. Read the box contract before planning to bring wine to the table.
Security at the entrance
Bottles rarely get through the checks. The gift is handed over at the office the following week, or delivered to the guest's home with a note about the match.
The law
In a sports venue, the sale and distribution of alcohol are regulated by the French public health code; hospitality areas follow the framework set by the stadium. And the Loi Évin (France's law on alcohol advertising) forbids a wine brand from sponsoring the club: the company gives the wine, it does not advertise it.
Which bottle to give
A wine from the year the club was founded or won a memorable title gets people talking; the birth-year vintage tool tells you whether the year still drinks well. For the big match, a magnum: it keeps longer and stands out on a table, see magnum, jeroboam, imperial. To choose according to the guest, which wine to give.
Under French rules, VAT on a gift to a client can be recovered up to €73 incl. VAT per recipient per year, all gifts added together: a guest who comes three times and leaves each time with a €30 bottle goes over the threshold. The detail is on VAT on wine, and the year-end total on client gifts.
Can you bring your own wine into a box?
Rarely: the stadium caterer usually has exclusive rights to drinks. Some contracts allow it with a corkage fee; ask the club's hospitality department before you buy.
When should you order the season's gifts?
Before the first match, all at once: a single delivery to the office, a single quote. The bottles keep lying down, somewhere cool, until the end of the season.
And for the club or the stadium caterer?
A club that runs its own lounges, or the caterer who serves them, buys as a professional: see wine for caterers. For the post-match drinks and prize-givings of an amateur club, see sports club.