Club Level: The New Meadowlands Stadium

One of the New Meadowlands Stadium’s luxury suites

There’s room in the New Meadowlands Stadium for both the Jets and the Giants. Carrying a price tag of $1.6 billion, the state-of-the-art sporting complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is a definite step up for both teams. “It’s really night and day,” says New Meadowlands Stadium CEO Mark Lamping. 

With approximately 10,000 of the stadium’s 82,500 seats falling in the premium “club” category, the ownership has taken the game-day experience upmarket. Designed by the Rockwell Group, the premium suites are outfitted with sleek glass partitions and custom-designed furniture, including chairs made from football leather. To accommodate both teams, the earth-toned palette tactfully avoids hints of either Jets or Giants colors. Instead, changeable lighting setups add to the home-team atmosphere.

“They don’t feel like boardrooms,” Rockwell Group designer Ed Bakos explains, adding that the culinary element is now front and center. “We like to think that a favorite sport of most New Yorkers is food, so we explored the great tradition of combining food with watching the game.” Or just hanging out: The suites open three hours before kickoff and stay open for an hour after the game.

Suite Spot
Located along either sideline, the Touchdown and Lexus Gridiron suites feature luxuries like a wine bar in the former and a wood-fired pizza oven, sushi station and martini bar in the latter. At the top of the pile is the 20-suite, 15,600-square-foot Commissioner’s Club. The main room—which has two stone fireplaces with a giant flat-screen TV above each—adopts the ambience of genteel NYC hangouts. Stone surfaces and glass dividers add contrast, and Bakos notes another important update: “Those older clubs were places where service happened behind the walls, whereas we’ve brought the food out into the open, to be on display and celebrated as part of the social aspect of game day.”

Some notable guest chefs—including David Burke, Le Cirque’s Marco Maccioni and Nobu’s Matt Hoyle—have already helped the stadium’s new breed of football fans chow down in style. But as Lamping is quick to point out, “Hot dogs and nachos are still available.”