I suspect that designated drivers are economically worse than sponsored rides. A designated driver is a person not buying drinks and yet still taking a spot in your capacity. If you can sell $1000 more drinks by sponsoring rides, and those rides cost $500, it's totally worth sponsoring rides.
Soon, analytics will find the teetotalers that are buying tickets and automatically tack on a surcharge so that their non-drinking spot is amortized at a rate that is determined by the average revenue generated by a drinker. Past ticket holders who have shown themselves to be exceptional at both consuming alcoholic beverages may be eligable for a reduced price ticket.
You make this seem like a bad thing, but as someone who doesn't drink a lot, I would prefer to pay a surcharge rather than deal with a 2 drink minimum.
On the other hand, you can sell a parking spot if there's a DD. I don't know the going rate, but it's at least a couple drinks' worth ($45 spot = 3 x $15 beers)?
On the whole, stadiums may prefer to have a big line of ubers/lyfts lined up to take people home, but it's not like it's a total loss to have DDs.
From a strictly economic perspective: Free rides homes may mean charging overtime for the spot because they leave their car there overnight and also selling more liquor.
But I don't see why this should be viewed in terms of pure economics. What if people who make beer et al are actual human beings and are bothered by the fact that drunk driving kills people? Since their product is involved, what if some of them feel some personal sense of responsibility to reduce death's due to drunk driving?
Totally agree that it's not just a pure business decision. I was just responding to the sentiment of the GP that indicated that stadiums might be supporting plans like this because more drinkers means more revenue. That isn't to say they want people to drive drunk — this was just comparing getting people home via DDs (who don't buy alcohol) or getting more drinkers in the stadium and getting them home safe on uber/lyft.
Except that you're paying for a lot of overhead for those parking spots year round... Not just during the event. Everything from infrastructure (land, buildings), personnel, etc. That's a heavy, real cost to the stadium and surrounding community compared to a few drinks. And that space could be better utilized for shops and housing.
Levi's Stadium in particular has horrible traffic accessibility (you can get there easily until the 4th quarter but good luck getting out of the area quickly afterward).
All pedestrian crossings to/from the stadium compete at ground level with all other traffic (cars, buses, light rail). They spent over US$1 billion on the building but wouldn't even consider things like pedestrian overpasses (which Candlestick Park had for 50 years before).
I actually pointed that out to the Legends people and 49ers people as soon as I saw the first model.
You may have money to get a ride home, but prefer to drive drunk. An incentive will change the minds of some percentage of those people, resulting in less drunk drivers.
Or you could awaken yourself to reality, where that does not happen. And the politicians here are looking at a potential solution to not having so many drunks on the road, where they can potentially kill someone.