Collectible Cups Are Sending Sports Fans Into a Frenzy

The concession line was the place to be at the Lenovo Center on May 2. Fans rushed to shell out for the viral 28-ounce beer-skate mug: $19 each, or $12 plus the cost of a beverage. 

The venue sold out of the souvenir cup instantly: 4,687 pieces, according to WFAN. That’s more than a quarter of the attendance for the game. It won’t return this season, and fans are reselling them for hundreds of dollars.

Jerseys, hats, and foam fingers have long been the fan merch of choice. Increasingly, though, to mark their game-day experiences, spectators are buying alcohol—because they want the souvenir cup it comes in.

The signature vessel is not new—think the coveted cup from the Kentucky Derby’s mint julep (some of which are 24-karat gold plated). The craze goes well beyond sports, like McDonald’s or Disneyland collectibles that date back decades. But social media has turned the keepsake into a status symbol at both one-off and multiday events.

“As these tournaments become higher profile, you want to be seen. So what do you want to be seen holding?” says Sandeep Satish, CCO of food and hospitality company Levy Restaurants. “Not only can we have a signature cocktail that’s approachable, easy to sip and fun, but the collectible nature of it has become, honestly, just as important.”

The beer skate is part of a wave of new collectible cups in the NHL, including the Sabres’ beer sabre and the Mammoth’s tusk mug. In MLB, the Red Sox’ cooler-shaped cups available at Fenway Park are also a coveted souvenir. All of these have also hit the secondary market.

“It’s a lower entry point to get something that’s collectible,” says Sam Stewart, director of beverages at concessions provider Sodexo Live. “Sometimes, these things are even more exclusive than things you can get at the merch store, because the merch store stuff you can probably order online compared to these signature cups that are branded to the event.”

No sport has embraced the signature cup quite like tennis. The US Open welcomed the Honey Deuce at the 2007 tournament, and it’s turned into the most popular drink in sports. Last year, attendees bought more than 738,000 cups at $23 per drink, generating $17 million in revenue.

The Honey Deuce’s signature cup has helped drive its success, despite a rather mundane design; it’s a hard plastic, clear cup with the US Open logo on the front, and the names of all the past men’s and women’s singles winners on the back.

“The way it came about, we asked ourselves: ‘How do we offer fans a piece of history and a memory of that experience from being at the tournament?’” says Aleco Azqueta, VP of global marketing at Grey Goose, which is the base alcohol in the cocktail. 

The Honey Deuce has spawned replicas across other tennis tournaments, from Grand Slams to smaller ATP and WTA events, including the Australian Open (Lemon Ace), Miami Open (Ace Paloma), and the Charleston Open (The First Serve). They all, of course, come in collectible cups.

The closest facsimile to the Honey Deuce is The Drop Shot, introduced in 2025 at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif. The cocktail is different—it’s a pineapple-flavored, tequila-based drink—but it also comes in a hard plastic cup with the tournament logo and names of past winners. At $27 a pop, it’s more expensive than the Honey Deuce—and most of the already overpriced cocktails around Los Angeles or New York. But it’s a bargain compared to $100 souvenirs at the gift shop.

Satish believes tennis tournaments are the perfect fit for signature cocktails. Each event happens only once a year, giving it a level of rarity, but they run long enough to give it a “food festival” atmosphere, where alcoholic beverages slot perfectly. “People will come at 10 a.m. and they may not leave until 10 p.m.,” he says.

The sales are an obvious win for hospitality companies and their partners—though profit margins for signature cocktails vary significantly, says Stewart, who works as the concessions partner of the BNP Paribas Open. Drinks with plastic signature cups like the Honey Deuce and The Drop Shot have a much larger profit margin since the cost of a hard plastic cup is only about $1, while the price increase could be twice as much as a normal cocktail.

“Say a cocktail is $15 for just a standard cocktail in a disposable plastic cup or at the bar in a regular glass. We see 50 to 100% surcharge when they’re served in some sort of a souvenir or collectible cup, and that covers significantly more than the cost of the cup,” he says.

Collectible cups that have more bells and whistles may have higher prices just to offset the cost of the cup. Such is the case for the $45 cocktail at the Texas Memorial Stadium served in a Yeti tumbler that costs more than $25 on its own.

While signature cocktails and collectible cups have fueled the latest sports-fan merch craze, Satish says the opportunity may extend to the entire concessions menu: “While it may be a cocktail one day, it could be a signature nacho or the next evolution of nonalcoholic beverages.”

Expect the next wave of food collectibles to go way beyond soft serve—or even tiramisu—in a plastic helmet. “We’re always tinkering and thinking about what’s new,” says Satish, “but it has to be done authentic to that specific tournament or venue.”