Secondary ticket giant StubHub, which already boasts a deal with Major League Baseball, is adding one of college basketball’s premiere conferences to its roster of ticketing agreements.
StubHub announced today that it has signed a multi-year deal with the BIG EAST Conference to become the Official Fan to Fan Ticket Marketplace for the conference’s men’s basketball tournament. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Among the high-profile colleges in the BIG EAST for men’s basketball are University of Connecticut; Syracuse; Louisville; Notre Dame; Pittsburgh; Cincinnati; and Georgetown.
The move is a potential marketing boon to both StubHub and the conference, but especially for StubHub because the Big East championship is the only college conference tournament to have all of its games nationally televised, and StubHub will now be highlighted in BIG EAST TV ads.
And in StubHub, the BIG EAST gains a partner already popular among college students and sports fans, and it will likely receive an annual check from the ticketing exchange, and possibly a cut of each ticket StubHub sells. According to TicketNews’s exclusive ranking of top ticket sellers, StubHub is the nation’s largest secondary ticket seller and the second-largest overall ticket seller behind Ticketmaster Entertainment.
“This is an event we’ve been interested in for some time because it represents the very best of men’s college basketball,” Eric Freeland, manager of Business Development for StubHub, said in a statement.
In addition to the TV ads, StubHub will also be featured on “signage at every BIG EAST Championship game, radio spots, signage outside of Madison Square Garden [home of the BIG EAST championship], complete BIG EAST Web site integration and inclusion in the Official Fan Guide,” according to the company.
