Deep in the bowels of SoFi Stadium, an unlikely luxury event took place on the evening of March 13: The Golden Vines Wine Experience, a partnership between Robb Report and the Los Angeles Chargers to host a wine-paired dinner in the NFL team’s locker room.
The event, open to members of the team’s Lux program for suite owners as well as the Robb Report’s RR1 members’ community, was the first of its kind for the Chargers at SoFi, which has been the team’s home field since September 2020. (Robb Report is owned by Variety parent company PMC.)
Mostly, the event was designed to cater to wine lovers, including a number of industry insiders and well-heeled football fans who appreciate for fine cuisine and libations. Pre-dinner festivities included a tour of SoFi, including a trek down to the football field.
“We refer to the SoFi as the eighth wonder of the world, and I think if you really explored it today, you’ll see what we mean,” Fred Maas, L.A. Chargers chief of staff and counsel, told the assembled group during a champagne toast in the owner’s suite before everyone descended into the locker room for dinner.
Downstairs, several lockers were opened to appear as they would on game day. As is customary for Charger Lux events, the team invited a former player – in this case, Marcellus Wiley and his wife, Annemarie Wiley, who is on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” – to the festivities, which included presentations about the wine pairings for each course.
“What we try to do is find things that people can’t normally do on their own,” Cristina Cheever, senior VP of RR1 and live media for the Robb Report. Robb Report hosts about 30 exclusive experiences a year, including an upcoming Culinary Masters event in Newport Beach in May, and has expanded the number of members in its RR1 member community to more than 1,800.
The day prior to the Chargers event, Robb Report and the Brooklyn Nets hosted a wine-fueled experience at the Barclay Center in New York. That daytime Golden Vines experience took place in the facility’s Crown Center rather than the players’ locker room.
The SoFi stadium event took nearly six weeks to plan. “It’s the first one in a locker room,” said Cheever, who noted that the location was kept a surprise for attendees until they gathered at the venue. “There’s a first time for everything.”