Vivid Seats (NASDAQ: SEAT) and ESPN Enterprises, Inc. announced an extension of their existing ticketing partnership, which grants the ticket resale marketplace exclusive placement on the Disney-owned sports network’s websites and broadcasts. The multi-year deal extends Vivid Seats’ tenure as ESPN’s Official Ticketing Partner, a deal originally launched in 2017. With it, Vivid ticket listings are integrated into much of the ESPN product, including placements on schedule pages and display ads.
“Our partnership with ESPN will continue to leverage our state-of-the-art technology platform to ensure that it can provide ESPN’s impressive base of users with a highly personalized, seamless ticketing experience only Vivid Seats can provide,” said Geoff Lester, Chief Commercial Officer at Vivid Seats. “As we continue to partner with category leaders like ESPN, the extension of our relationship is another strategic step in solidifying Vivid Seats’ position as the marketplace of choice.”
“We are very proud of the long-standing relationship between ESPN and Vivid Seats,” said Andrew Messina, senior vice president, Disney Advertising Sales. “The continuation of this collaborative effort is a great win for both ESPN and Vivid Seats and we’re excited about the anticipated growth from here.”
The positive news of the continued partnership has done little to halt a recent slide in the stock price experienced by Vivid Seats amid a larger downturn of the market. After rising to prices as high as $13.75 in the first month following the closure of its SPAC deal with Horizon Acquisitions Corp. that brought it public, SEAT has been in a steady decline that has picked up steam of late. News of the Omicron variant surge knocked the stock price below $10 in late December before a slight bump back to nearly $12 just after the new year. But prices fell back below $10 at the end of last week, and have lost another 13 percent throughout this week, hitting an all-time low during the day on Thursday following the ESPN announcement and continuing the slide Friday.
SEAT is trading at around the $8 mark during the day Friday, having fallen as low as $7.85 shortly after the markets opened.
