#7 New York City
▶ RÉSUMÉ: Annual events include the Belmont Stakes (since 1867); U.S. Open Championship (1968); college football Pinstripe Bowl (2010); and NBA Draft (since 2001). Other recent events: 2017-18 WWE SummerSlam and WrestleMania 35 (2019); 2021 Army-Navy Game; 2022 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament; 2022 Division II Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Championships; 2023 Manchester United-Arsenal friendly; UFC 288 and UFC 295; 2023 USA Track & Field NYC Grand Prix; 2023 USA Wrestling Final X; 2023 USA Dance Breaking Regional Qualifier; 2023 Division I Men’s Basketball Regionals; 2024 NHL Stadium Series; and 2024 Copa América.
RECENT WINS: This week’s NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball first and second rounds; 2024 USA Curling Men’s and Women’s Nationals; 2026 NHL Allfrom Star Game; and 2026 FIFA World Cup (eight matches, including the final).
VENUES: Madison Square Garden, Prudential Center, Barclays Center and the new UBS Arena are all competing to secure arena events, making it one of the most competitive regions in the space. On top of that, MetLife Stadium has become a major force in the event bidding space, bolstered by nearby hotel rates less than half the cost of those fewer than 10 miles away, across the river in Manhattan. Among the biggest U.S. markets tracked by CoStar, New York City had the country’s highest hotel occupancy rate in 2023 (81.6%, up 8.8 percentage points year-over-year), but also among the highest average nightly room rates. The hotel market is strong on both sides of the border, including Brooklyn, where the 216-room Moxy Brooklyn Williamsburg opened last March near Barclays Center.
▶ FORWARD PROGRESS: A $35 million New Jersey Transit project is in the final planning stages to build a new bus route between the Secaucus Junction transit hub and MetLife Stadium ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Transit officials on both sides of the river are still facing backlash the long lines that fans endured during the 2014 Super Bowl and WWE’s WrestleMwania 35 in 2019. On the future venues front, New York City Football Club revealed last fall plans to build a 25,000-seat stadium in Queens that would become the country’s first fully electric stadium.
▶ STAY AND PLAY: The venues themselves are steeped in history — put together a “Sopranos”-Meadowlands and a “Seinfeld”-Yankee Stadium package.