How to save money at a Seattle Reign game

Seattle boasts a stacked roster of professional sports teams, plus a handful of minor league and college teams. Everybody knows attending these sporting events has become quite pricey, but how much do you have to spend?

We’re looking into what it costs to see Seattle teams compete, from transportation and tickets to stadium refreshments. We’ve price-checked a Seahawks game, a University of Washington football game, the NHL’s Kraken, a Seattle Sounders match and a Mariners game. Now: how the Seattle Reign match up at Lumen Field (spoiler alert: it might be one of our most economical yet).

The game

Seattle Reign vs. San Diego Wave FC (2-1, Reign)

The all-in price

The least expensive ticket after taxes and fees for a game in May was $23.96. Add in light rail ($5), Sam Choy’s chicken teriyaki bowl ($18.06), popcorn ($13.23) and a glass of frose ($16.26), and you’re looking at a total of $76.51.

All-in-all, seems like a fairly cheap date for an incredibly fun evening of soccer. The food and drink lines move lightning-fast (not just because of Amazon’s “just walk out” tech, either) and the constant explosive drumbeats from the band keep the energy levels high. Fans are engaged and friendly, making it so easy to gleefully jump onboard the Reign bandwagon.

Tickets

You might think you’ve got a handle on an event at Lumen Field. But this is no Seahawks or Sounders game. Attendance lands somewhere around the 7,000 mark, whereas there can be more than 68,000 bodies packing the stadium to watch an NFL game (or 77,000 to listen to Brit rocker Ed Sheeran play), meaning tickets are cheap and plentiful — especially this early in the season. Lowest ticket price on game day was $15, with many others available for $20-$30 (even at the club level), but if one wanted to sit on the sidelines, expect to pay $300.

Transportation

At a mere $5, the light rail continues to be the most reliably economical way to get to the game. However, I also found street parking near the stadium for free (paid parking ends in Pioneer Square at 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday). Parking lots around Lumen Field were also cheaper than on other game days, with most advertising parking for $15.

Best food deals

Only the east concourse is open for Reign matches — but even along that east side, there were quite a few closed stands, making options limited. There is no set schedule for these concessionaires — everything depends on attendance. The only constants are Kidd Valley burgers and hot dogs sold at multiple vendors, like Local Dogs at Section 109, Sausage House by the Cascade Ramp and the PNW Grille, near Section 113.

There are a few deals to be found: $5 hot dogs (a plain footlong or footlong Seattle dog with cream cheese and caramelized onions are $15.49) and movie theater-sized candy for $5.99. If you’ve got club level tickets, there is a Ballard Pizza, while the main concourse has Pizza Hut ($13.99 for a personal cheese pizza).

I was tempted by the Mister Softee ice cream outside Section 116 until I saw the price tag of $10.49 for a cone or cup, and decided instead to spring for a jumbo popcorn for $13.23 after tax. There are also two food trucks scheduled to set up in the Muckleshoot Heritage Plaza, but during the game I attended, only one showed up (Reign representatives say this was the first time that has ever happened). The food truck was Sam Choy’s Poke to the Max, serving Hawaiian-inspired plates with kalua pork or fried chicken with rice and mac salad, plus salads and poke. I ordered the aloha chicken plate ($14.49 before tax and tip) with yakitori chicken. The chicken was nicely charred and coated in a saucy, salty/sweet sauce paired with perfectly cooked rice and a somewhat bland mac salad. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee Sam Choy will be back this season.

Specific food truck information is released to the public via “know before you go” emails sent out by the Reign each match week. Zoe Gano, the Reign’s director of matchday experience and event operations, says food trucks are always “minority-owned or female-owned” and they try to only have each truck come once a season to “feature a variety of cuisines and support as many of these small businesses as possible.”

Drinks

Lumen Field doesn’t have any “value”-priced branding, but you can get a 12-ounce domestic beer for seven bucks and a premium brew for eight. The most enticing for me were the offerings at the NW Wine Bar across from Section 109. Not only did it have a frose (frozen rose) for $13, there was a big selection of great Washington wines from producers like Novelty Hill, Nine Hats and Frog’s Leap.