Looking to maximize their future ticketing contracts, the National Basketball Association reportedly is considering a requirement that teams run future ticketing agreements through the league instead of teams cutting their own deals.
Most of the league’s teams use Live Nation’s Ticketmaster division for primary ticketing, though a growing number of teams have turned to digital ticketing firm Veritix, Comcast-Spectacor and others for such efforts. As for secondary ticket deals, many teams again use Ticketmaster and its TicketExchange initiative to resell tickets, much like the National Football League, though teams over the years have cut separate deals with StubHub and viagogo.
According to a report in Sports Business Journal, the NBA now wants to corral those various deals in a leaguewide approach to leverage its power and brand for stronger agreements. During a recent Board of Governors meeting, league officials discussed the possibility of centralizing ticketing deals, but no action was taken, and it is unknown when the issue will be debated again.
“It is about increasing the scale and leverage. We are exploring the issue and we want to be able to give teams other options,” NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver told Sports Business Journal.
“We are a ‘state’s rights’ league and we are not looking into a team’s business, but we are trying to support our teams and help them,” he added.
Individually, NBA teams are among the most aggressive in North American professional sports to court brokers in the secondary ticketing space as a way to help spark ticket sales and mitigate some of their risk. This year, with the creation of a new Big Three with the Miami Heat, secondary ticket sales have been strong and will likely stay that way for several teams throughout the season.
