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Byrom still speaks with a strong Mexican accent despite living in Cheadle for over 50 years, and particularly lights up when he talks about his most cherished memories – notably Mexico beating Germany in Russia in 2018.<\/p>\nWhen Jaime Byrom got Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst and Rudi Krol to be part of the welcoming team for his travel agency customers at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986, he was starting something he’s continued to do ever since, raising the bar on what a certain type of sports travel tourist expects on such trips.<\/p>\n
From that pioneering move to his plans for Beyond Hospitality to sell packages for the next Euro 2028 tournament in the UK and Ireland, he’s never lost his passion for a great sporting moment.<\/p>\n
Though I had to listen to his stories with a portrait of Diego Maradona staring at me from the wall of Byrom’s Wilmslow office, it was a fascinating journey through sporting history, with ups and downs along the way.<\/p>\n
Byrom still speaks with a strong Mexican accent despite living in Cheadle for over 50 years, and particularly lights up when he talks about his most cherished memories – notably Mexico beating Germany in Russia in 2018.<\/p>\n
But first – dynamic pricing, the issue that so enraged many fans at the FIFA World Cup in 2026.<\/p>\n
For a man who has spent decades building lucrative World Cup and Euro hospitality programmes, and who employs a crack team of technology experts from an office in Barcelona, Byrom\u2019s strongest opinions are not about margins, but about fairness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can imagine, I come from that background, and the idea of embracing dynamic pricing is something that I just find offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is unflinching about where he draws the line: \u201cAs a businessman, of course we are for profit. That\u2019s what this is about\u2026 But you have to do it in a way that you feel comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The target of his discomfort is the now-familiar model where prices drop and surge in real time, leaving early, loyal buyers feeling like mugs: \u201cWhat I would find very difficult as a customer is to find that package that I rushed to buy two years out because I needed to be part of that event, that I suddenly found I could have bought at half the price, simply because\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
In his companies \u2013 past and present \u2013 he says the rule is simple: no downward dynamic pricing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny downward reduction on ticket price is something that we would not do\u2026 If you buy today at 200 or 1,000 or 10,000, you can do so with the benefit of knowing that you will not find those packages sold by us at a discounted price sometime in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contracts, he stresses, make this explicit: \u201cOur contract with our customers, our terms and conditions of sale, specifically refer to the fact that we don\u2019t have downward dynamic pricing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reserves particular scorn for the arms race between bots and desperate fans: \u201cYou buy a concert ticket, and you\u2019re in the hands of however many bots people deployed to amass a volume of tickets and resell it. I don\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is, he says, \u201cmost excited\u201d about this the forthcoming Euros: \u201cOf all the things I talked to you about today, this is by far the most exciting thing for me. It\u2019s going to be an amazing event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byrom is keen that I am careful to distinguish between the companies he has chaired over four decades. The World Cups of Mexico \u201986, USA \u201994, and the long era of FIFA ticketing and accommodation belong to Byrom PLC and Match Hospitality, he insists, not to Beyond Hospitality, founded only in late 2023.<\/p>\n
But he also argues that experience is embodied in people \u2013 many of whom followed him into the new firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond became the vehicle that we created to give us an opportunity to continue bidding and competing at the highest level\u2026 In late \u201923 we became a startup, but fortunately for me, practically all the chiefs and all the senior management of Match Hospitality came to join me in Beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of dumping prices late or letting scalpers set the market, Byrom\u2019s answer is to change the product itself \u2013 starting with Euro 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt occurred to me that the reason why it\u2019s difficult to prevent unauthorised resale of tickets at huge premiums is because eventually some people will not buy a ticket for that final they have to attend unless their team has already qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n
His solution is what he calls a \u201cconditional\u201d final ticket: \u201cYou, as a fan of Andorra, can buy a ticket for the final today, knowing that if Andorra were to make it to the final, you\u2019d be there.
\nAnd if you are a fan of England, you can buy a ticket today, knowing that if England is there, you\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crucial detail is what happens when the dream dies: \u201cIf England does not qualify, you get your money back.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is keen to stress how radical, in industry terms, this is: \u201cThat\u2019s never been done before. That\u2019s the first. And that\u2019s the conditional final that we\u2019re introducing in hospitality for the Euro.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the innovation is a simple aim: keep ordinary fans out of the hands of touts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want to do is make sure that as teams progress, people start buying their final match at the official price, so that if their team make it, they don\u2019t have to mortgage their house to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He started Byrom PLC with his brother in the 1980s in Manchester, after they moved with their father from Latin America. He went to 15 different schools before his reached his 15th birthday, and his first business was the Bryom language schools based near Manchester Universityin the 1980s, before spotting an opportunity for travel services for football supporters going to World Cups.<\/p>\n
His new venture, Beyond, as been at the centre of the transformation of sports hospitality from a bolt\u2011on extra to a fully curated, tiered experience.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s clear that what he started doing in 1986 with a team of football legends in Mexico is now an entirely different industry: \u201cWhen we were doing it in Mexico, the services really were outside of the stadium. It was off\u2011site\u2026 Within the stadium, there wasn\u2019t at that time the infrastructure to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The modern era, he says, really only begins with South Africa 2010: \u201cHospitality, as we know it today, probably started in a small way in \u201998\u2026 It really took shape to a very significant extent in 2010, where people were getting gifts, people were getting a restaurant type of meal \u2013 not a snack or fast food.\u201d<\/p>\n
That tournament was a financial loss maker, partly because of the global financial crisis two years before, but also a caution about Africa.<\/p>\n
From there, the bar kept rising. In Qatar, his team went as far as bringing in Michelin\u2011star talent: \u201cFor the Pearl Suite in Doha, which was our apex product, we had Jason Atherton\u2026 We delivered Michelin\u2011star service at a football match throughout. He spent a whole month with us in Doha, and that was the highest level of service I\u2019ve seen in a sports venue environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Brazil 2014, it became an \u201caspirational pyramid\u201d of products: \u201cWhat we did there was we graded our different hospitality levels based on the Johnnie Walker label.
\nYou had the Blue Label, which was the Bossa Nova Studio. You had the Green Label, Gold Label, Black Label, Red Label, No Label. That was the aspirational pyramid of different products.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concept carries straight into Euro 2028 under his new vehicle, Beyond Hospitality: \u201cFor this, for \u201928, we\u2019re going to have an amazing product, which is the \u201928 version of what we\u2019ve done before with Bossa Nova Studio, Tsarsky Lounge, the Pearl Suite, etc. And that\u2019s going to be the Beyond Platinum lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not every host stadium will qualify: \u201cIn those stadiums that have got very special spaces, we\u2019re going to bring that level of service. If the stadium is not designed in a way that we believe the lounge has the right attributes, then we don\u2019t have a Beyond Platinum\u2026 If you have a stadium with a Beyond Platinum, then you know that you can expect the very best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the \u201cEuro\u201d label, Byrom insists the 2028 tournament already looks and feels like a global event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is almost as if it were a World Cup, except that it\u2019s Europe. The teams will be European.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since launching sales on 1 September, he says the appetite has surprised even a veteran of multiple World Cups:<\/p>\n
\u201cSales have gone well \u2013 in fact, very well. They surpass our expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bigger surprise has been where the money is coming from: \u201cWhat we found is that even though it\u2019s a European tournament, we\u2019ve got very big commitments from our sales distributors in China, in India, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds that the pre\u2011tournament pipeline has broken internal records: \u201cWhen we finished our tender for our sales agents around the world, we were genuinely surprised \u2013 amazed \u2013 that the commitments we secured from them, in fact, surpassed the biggest commitments we had ever secured for similar tenders in previous tournaments, even for 2022 or 2018 or 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there is the venue itself: a pan\u2011British Isles tournament with Wembley at its heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo include four British Isles countries is just amazing. So we\u2019re going to be in Dublin, we\u2019re going to be in Glasgow, we\u2019re going to be in Cardiff, we\u2019re going to be in England. Altogether, it just doesn\u2019t get any better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
UEFA\u2019s decision to put both semi\u2011finals and the final at Wembley is, in his eyes, a commercial and logistical masterstroke:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it easier for those international customers who will fly specifically for the highlight matches of the semi and final. [Wembley] will also host two of England\u2019s three group matches and, assuming they do well\u2026 they could end up playing the quarter\u2011final in London.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Byrom personally, there is an extra layer: after delivering tournaments on every continent, this is finally a major football event on home soil.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done Commonwealth Games in Malaysia, Asian Games in Bangkok, Ryder Cups, but the one thing we\u2019ve never done is a football tournament in the UK. So for us, it\u2019s absolutely amazing to be able to deliver a project of that magnitude in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is, he says, \u201cmost excited\u201d about this project of all:<\/p>\n
\u201cOf all the things I talked to you about today, this is by far the most exciting thing for me. It\u2019s going to be an amazing event.\u201d<\/p>\n
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