Four years. Four SME Business Elite Awards.
Not a bad return for something that started with a camera, a hospitality ticket and a question: is it actually worth the money?
The Padded Seat has now been recognised in the SME News Business Elite Awards for a fourth consecutive year, this time as Best Football Hospitality Review Platform 2026.
The awards have followed our growth from a social media idea into a platform helping sports fans get a proper look inside hospitality experiences before deciding whether to splash the cash.
The four awards are:
The idea behind The Padded Seat has always been straightforward.
Hospitality can cost anything from a few quid more than a regular match ticket to several thousand pounds, yet fans have had very little to go on when working out what they actually get for their money.
So we go in and show it.
Food, drink, seats, lounges, service, those slightly mysterious VIP extras and, importantly, the price. Every experience is reviewed using the same format and rating system, giving supporters a proper look behind doors that, not too long ago, were rarely seen outside a sales brochure.
Since launching in 2022, we have produced more than 300 hospitality video reviews and built an audience of more than 1.4 million followers across our social channels.
And the padded seats have taken us further afield than we expected.
From Premier League grounds and non-league clubhouses to European football, international tournaments and major sporting venues around the world, the mission has stayed the same: show fans what the experience is really like.
Founder Kyle Mattison said:
“Winning the first one was a lovely surprise. What means most now is that the basic idea hasn’t changed. We go somewhere, review the hospitality experience, show people what they get and give our view on it.
“Hospitality can be a big purchase, particularly if it’s for a birthday, a trip away or a once-a-season experience. If our videos mean somebody feels a little more informed before spending their money, we’ve done our job.”
There is another side to that equation.
For clubs, venues and rights holders, hospitality is an increasingly important part of the matchday business. But selling it isn’t about producing glossier adverts.
The bigger challenge is helping supporters understand what an experience actually includes.
A dining room, tunnel access, a halfway-line seat, premium food and drink or a former-player appearance makes far more sense when you can see it.
That is where independent, consumer-led coverage can play a role.
We work with clubs, venues and official hospitality providers around the world while retaining editorial control over every review. Access to hospitality areas is provided as a practical requirement for filming rather than as remuneration, and every experience is assessed using the same structured review approach.
That matters.
Kyle added:
“There’s obviously a commercial benefit for a club when hundreds of thousands of people see inside a hospitality product they may never have known existed. But the content only works because the audience trusts what they’re watching.
“Our job isn’t to tell people that every lounge is brilliant. It’s to make hospitality easier to understand and help fans decide what’s right for them.”
The fourth SME Business Elite recognition is a nice milestone.
It is not, however, an excuse to start wearing a dinner jacket to every match.
There are still plenty of lounges to get into, menus to inspect, padded seats to test and suspiciously small hospitality desserts to analyse.
Browse our latest hospitality reviews, compare experiences and find official ticket options at thepaddedseat.co.uk.
And, as ever, we’ll keep asking the important question:
Is it worth it?