Sports News

By Brian Kebel

Over the past decade, the secondary ticket industry has become a booming market, built mostly around the sale of tickets to sporting events, concerts and Broadway shows. Because of this, many organizations have begun partnerships with secondary ticket companies in order to get their hands on a portion of the profits. This is especially true for professional sports franchises, and, more recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).  Full Story...

By Brian Kebel

At 10am Tuesday, June 16, the Philadelphia Eagles began selling tickets for regular-season home games, and by 10:15am, they were completely sold out. But no need to fret, as there are several ways to obtain tickets at reasonable prices on the secondary market.

One of the hottest tickets this year will be the November 1 game between the Eagles and their divisional rival, the New York Giants, at Lincoln Financial Field. StubHub is currently selling Standing Room Only tickets, ranging between $109 and $125. They also have Upper Level Sideline seats available for $128, and Upper Level End Zone tickets for $137. Lower Level seats are even steeper, but are listed at a good price compared to other secondary ticket outlets. Lower Level End Zone tickets start at $234, while Lower Level Sideline tickets start at $255.   Full Story...

Seeking to avoid the secondary ticketing snafus which fans encountered during the Beijing Olympics, the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) is in the process of developing its own authorized resale Web site for Olympic ticket purchasers. A VANOC staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, briefly outlined the Committee’s plans for TicketNews.

“There’s really not any info that we have other than that we are in development of a ticket resale site, so we don’t have any more info on things like whether people can sell for more than face value…we want people to use the site, so it’s likely that we will allow people to sell for more than face value. We want it to be a site that’s friendly to both buyer and sellers. [The resale site] is coming, and it will be a place where people can know that they are purchasing authentic tickets.”  Full Story...

Last season, the NBA got its dream match-up when the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers rekindled their rivalry in the NBA Finals, a match-up that benefited the secondary ticket market as well. This season's ideal scenario was supposed to be Lakers vs. Cavaliers, but the Orlando Magic spoiled those plans and tickets prices on the secondary market may have taken a hit as a result.

According to data as of June 4 provided by StubHub, the average ticket price for the four games in Los Angeles are down 20 percent from last season going from $884 to $678. For the potential three games in Orlando, tickets are selling for an average of $442. Last year in Boston, tickets went for slightly more than $700.  Full Story...

Three New York Jets fans have filed a lawsuit against the Jets, claiming the team manipulated the prices of the personal seat licenses (PSL) in the "Coaches Club" section in their new stadium during a public online auction. The public auction took place in late October of last year and was conducted on StubHub, which is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

When the Jets announced their PSL policy last August, they announced the 2,000 "Coaches Club" PSLs would be sold exclusively as part of an auction in order to allow the market determine the price. Once the auction had closed, the team had only sold slightly over 600 of the seats, withholding the 1,400 remaining seats from the auction and planned to sell them at a fixed price.  Full Story...

The debate continues about the practice of sports teams restricting ticket sales to certain area codes/zip codes.

Most recently, the Washington Capitals tried to keep Pittsburgh Penguins fans away from playoff games at the Verizon Center by blocking customers with Pittsburgh area/zip codes from access to tickets. Penguins fans have had better luck purchasing tickets for the upcoming playoff games versus the Carolina Hurricanes at the RBC Center, as the club did not block ticket sales for Games 3 and 4 of the playoff series.

Speaking about this practice, Kyle Prairie, director of ticket sales for the Hurricanes, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that "it's done to prevent the online ticket brokers such as stubhub.com from charging fans exorbitant prices well above the face value of tickets." (The club does restrict sales for the Stanley Cup Final.)  Full Story...

StubHub did some number-crunching earlier this week and found that nearly two-thirds of MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL clubs have seen a decline in the average price of tickets sold on the secondary market.

Looking at the average secondary market selling prices through May 3, StubHub said its average sales price for sports events is $81, down 9 percent from the same time last year. Major League Baseball has the lowest overall league average – $64 – compared to $72 for the NBA, $84 for the NHL and peaks at $180 for the NFL.  Full Story...

Reflecting the soft economy that nearly all pro sports are feeling, the publicly owned company that owns nearly one-third of the tracks visited each year by NASCAR’s Sprint Cup stock car racing series reported a less than stellar first quarter. Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI), reported a 34 percent drop in first-quarter net income to $20.3 million from $30.9 million a year ago. Total revenue for Concord, N.C.-based SMI fell to $133.6 million from $155.2 million a year earlier.

In the world of NASCAR, the only entity with more influence is NASCAR itself: NASCAR is a privately held company owned by the France family, which controls publicly traded International Speedway Corporation (ISC). ISC owns 12 of the 22 Sprint Cup racetrack venues, which translates into 19 of the 36 points-scoring races. SMI owns seven tracks, comprising 12 of the 36 events. In NASCAR’s post-season playoffs – the final 10 races of the year – three of them are at SMI venues.  Full Story...

As part of a decade-long outreach program to Pittsburgh-area high school and college students dubbed "Student Rush," yesterday (May 5) the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins inadvertently sent a cell phone text message to 460 kids telling them they won tickets to tonight’s home playoff game versus the Washington Capitals. That text message was supposed to go to just one student.

TicketNews spoke with Tom McMillan, the team's Vice President of Communications, who said as soon as they caught the error they were making phone calls and sending texts to explain and apologize for the mistake. That process of clearing things up was continuing as of today (May 6).  Full Story...