How to turn sports season into your winter war chest

The sports season is one of the strongest trading opportunities of the year for hospitality businesses. Yet it can be easy to spend the uplift in revenue without planning for what’s next. Here’s how to put your business in a better position come January. 

Peak trading periods like sports fixtures, summer events and the run up to Christmas give hospitality businesses the opportunity to earn money that can carry them through quieter months. Building peak-season revenue to create winter resilience is straightforward in principle, but in practice it’s easy to let the uplift disappear in day-to-day spending before it can do the work it was meant to. 

Katie Linstead, head of services and compliance of tipping and tronc platform Grateful, has visibility across hundreds of hospitality businesses and watches this pattern play out regularly through Grateful’s service charge data. Some clients triple their normal monthly revenue across November and December, yet arrive in January with no more financial cushion than they had the previous spring. “For a lot of businesses, they’ll go really quiet after Christmas and except for the one hit at New Year’s, stay that way until around March,” explains Linstead. “If they haven’t been prudent with their busier times, it’s more of a struggle.”  

Service charge data offers one of the most reliable early signals of how a peak season is performing. Directly linked to sales, typically calculated as a percentage of the bill, the amount collected each week should track revenue consistently. If it doesn't, something is likely amiss.  

For example, a business expecting 10% of sales in service charge but seeing only 7% is getting a live signal that revenue is lower than expected or that service isn't up to scratch. Track it weekly and you’ll have time to respond before the high period ends – adjusting staff numbers, investigating service quality, updating your prices and the like. 

Build your model before the season starts 

Your starting calculation should be the actual revenue difference between a match day or event weekend and an equivalent normal trading period. Then extend that calculation to see what it adds up to across the season. Take last year’s comparable trading data, identify the uplift on peak days and multiply it forward. The resulting figure represents the additional revenue available should the season trade as expected. 

The second number to calculate before peak trading begins is your winter shortfall. What does a typical January to March week cost to run, and how far does normal revenue fall short of covering it? The gap between those two figures is your reserve target: the specific amount you’re trying to build during the peak period to fund the slower months. 

Here’s a simple example that shows how this could play out (note these figures are purely illustrative): 

Peak season 

• Normal weekly revenue: £8,000 
• Average match-day or event week revenue: £13,500 
• Weekly uplift: £5,500 
• Season length (e.g. 14 peak weeks): £5,500 × 14 = £77,000 additional revenue available 

Low season 

• Typical January to March weekly revenue: £6,000 
• Weekly operating costs (fixed + variable): £9,500 
• Weekly shortfall: £3,500 
• Over 12 winter weeks: £42,000 reserve target 

In this example, the peak season generates nearly double the winter shortfall – but only if the uplift is actively captured rather than spent as it arrives. 

According to Zempler’s survey of 101 F&B operators, six in 10 (62%) forecast no further than four weeks ahead, while nearly one in 10 (9%) say they don’t forecast at all. Building even a rough seasonal model will change the decisions you make during peak trading because the target becomes concrete rather than theory. 

Ring-fence the uplift as it arrives 

When peak-season revenue sits in the same account as operating cash, it’s incredibly hard to distinguish it from what’s available to spend. Supplier payments, payroll, stock orders and utility bills can easily whittle it away without you realising you’ve spent it. 

The practical solution is to create a named separate account and set a weekly transfer into it based on your calculated reserve target divided across the weeks of the peak season. Make the transfer at the start of each week before paying operational costs rather than at the end of it from whatever remains. Treat it as a fixed part of your seasonal costs rather than a nice-to-have surplus and the reserve will grow.

Watch your labour costs in real time 

Peak trading sounds great in theory but it brings its own pressures, foremost among them labour costs. Aaron Resch, managing director, Eposability & Hops, which provides technology solutions and support to F&B operators, puts labour as one of the three variables a hospitality business can actively manage, alongside revenue and food and drink margins. When all three are in flux, it can be easy to lose track. “If a business gets to the end of the month and payroll time,” explains Resch, “and all of a sudden it’s at 40% labour costs when the target was 30%, it’s too late to do anything about it.” 

A busy night that demands calling in extra staff, absorbing higher last-minute supply costs and running extended hours can look like strong revenue while actually delivering a margin that does nothing for the winter reserve. Resch’s advice is to track revenue, margin and labour together in real time, on at least a weekly basis. Do it monthly and by the time you realise labour costs have drifted, four weeks of decisions have already been made. 

The question to ask of every peak trading week is how much money cleared after the cost of running each night. A very busy week that costs proportionally more to run than a regular week may generate less toward your reserve than a quieter week where it’s easier to manage tighter margins. 

Review in October, not January 

The final discipline comes in timing your review. Do it in the depths of winter and your position is already set by the decisions you made months earlier. An October review gives you the chance to adjust while there’s still peak trading time left, before the Christmas rush. How much of the reserve target have you reached? Is the Christmas period likely to close the gap, or has your model underperformed? Are there stock, staff or price changes you can make now to strengthen your position before winter kicks in? 

Linstead notes that businesses with a year or more of trading data generally know what’s coming and plan for it better than newer operators. That’s because the review process builds a seasonal data map that makes each year’s decisions easier and more informed than the last. The key then is to treat sports season and peak trading periods not just as immediate revenue opportunities but also as a data source and mechanism for funding your own survival through the months that follow. 

Zempler Bank works with hospitality businesses across the UK. We support restaurants, cafes, pubs, food trucks, and more. Our business accounts come with built‑in tools to help you stay on top of cashflow — from £0 per month. 

How to build your winter reserve during peak season 

• Calculate the revenue uplift from peak trading days and multiply it across the season. Then calculate your winter shortfall before the season starts. The difference between them is your reserve target 
• Open a separate, named account for the reserve fund and transfer into it weekly, at the start of each week. 
• Track labour, margin and revenue together in real time to build your reserve effectively. 
• Review your position in October while you still have Christmas trading ahead of you and time to adjust.