Rovell: 2009 is “The Year of the Sports Fan”

January 4th, 2009

 

I just read Darren Rovell’s (the sports business reporter at CNBC - and most recently with ESPN) article, “The Year of the Sports Fan,” in the New Republic.  His key theme is that a silver lining in the current economic situation is that sports fans should expect to see more lots more TLC from their teams.   

Darren mentions that, in recent years, many teams have been focused on corporate accounts, with premium tickets and services out of the reach of the typical fan.  What a difference a few hundred corporate bankruptcies and slashed client entertainment budgets can make.  He notes teams are now scrambling - freezing prices, lowering prices, and its promotional cousin - discounting multi-game packages, to reach out to the regular fans.  All good news for fans, of course.

He also notes that the ticket resale market has exploded.  He gives examples, using StubHub data, of how market prices in the resale market have declined year over year.  Of course, this has happened as well on many other resale web sites, such as eBay, TicketNetwork, Razorgator, and hundreds of licensed ticket brokers.  Teams and leagues now even endorse resale partners such as StubHub and Ticketmaster.  More good news for fans, as they are free to buy and sell to their advantage.

When fans have less money, they will be more careful how they spend it.  On the one hand, going to live events is clearly a luxury.  On the other, particularly in the current environment, experience has shown fans value experiences they can enjoy to help them escape their day-to-day worries.  At FanSnap, we know ticket market prices are always a function of supply and demand. For popular perceived-to-be unique events, the market value of tickets usually exceeds the original face value.  For other events, the market price can dip below face value.

Fans certainly do not lack for choices!  In this economy, season ticketholders will be selling many more of their tickets to individual games - tickets they used to use, give away, or eat. Now those tickets are a good source of cash, in a time when some can really make use of it.  All this new supply should put downward pressure on market prices.

What a great time for fans to have access to a ticket search engine!

Mike

 

Posted in Fan Focused

Check Back Often.

January 2nd, 2009

OK, what most real NFL fans consider to be the “pre-season” has ended and now things count. It’s the playoffs.  Not only the usual “one and done” excitement but also lots of great story lines. Can the Giants repeat?  The amazing turnaround of the Dolphins from 1-15 last year to division winners this year.  The Cardinals in their first playoffs since their move to Arizona. The Chargers’ late surge. The post-Michael Vick Falcons.

Here at FanSnap, we have integrated systems with dozens of ticket sites, so we can check constantly for available NFL playoff tickets. In some cases as many as ten or more sites have tickets for a given game.  Nothing is better for fans than choice!  We check 50+ ticket sites so you don’t have to.  A daily snapshot of our ticket search results from the last several days shows how dynamic the available tickets can be and, how the price of the “cheap tickets” can vary from game to game.

 

    Available Playoff Tickets    
           
  12/29 12/30 12/31 1/1 1/2
Colts-Chargers tickets 5,448 6,324 5,307 5,021 3,991
   low price tickets $100 $81 $85 $85 $76
Falcons-Cards tickets 11,738 7,815 4,753 4,884 3,381
   low price tickets $26 $25 $24 $25 $31
Ravens-Dolphins tickets 7,932 5,864 3,908 3,698 4,022
   low price tickets $68 $93 $93 $88 $71
Eagles-Vikings tickets 7,495 5,338 3,334 2,352 1,585
   low price tickets $40 $28 $28 $28 $31
TBD-Titans     tickets 4,081 6,463 7,343 7,084 7,159
   low price tickets $125 $109 $101 $99 $94
TBD-Panthers tickets 2,418 2,684 2,545 2,756 3,349
   low price tickets $169 $148 $148 $154 $155
TBD-Steelers tickets 5,325 4,753 4,883 5,848 5,712
   low price tickets $163 $149 $162 $162 $160
TBD-Giants     tickets 5,823 5,377 5,994 6,312 7,094
   low price tickets $193 $232 $232 $232 $220

You can see that available tickets for this weekend’s wild card games are generally declining, but many are still available.  Ticket choices for next week’s divisional playoffs are actually still increasing!  With all those tickets to choose from, surely we can help you find yours.  Of course, with all this buying and selling going on, if you have not yet found your perfect tickets, check back often!  Happy New Year!

Mike

Posted in Fan Focused

Go Bowling for BCS Tickets!

December 28th, 2008

I just went out with a bunch of Miami Hurricane friends to see their team play the Cal Bears in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco.  What a great game!  I was also reminded that, with less than a week to go, it is still not too late to see this year’s best teams, maybe even your team, play in the BCS bowl games.

It used to be that when your team was invited to a bowl game, all the available tickets went to the athletic boosters and corporate sponsors, and there were not always that many tickets left for regular fans. Fortunately those days have gone the way of leather helmets.

FanSnap partners with dozens of ticketing sites, displaying ticket-level search results for all the BCS bowl games and guess what?  There are thousands of tickets still available.  Not quite ready to head back to work? Check out all your choices!

FedEx Orange Bowl tickets 1/1/09  Va. Tech Hokies vs Cincinnati Bearcats
12 providers with 6,351 tickets, starting at $6  (official exchange has 384 tickets)
Rose Bowl tickets 1/1/09  USC Trojans vs Penn State Nittany Lions
8 providers with 5,490 tickets, starting at $105  (official exchange has 301 tickets)
Allstate Sugar Bowl tickets  1/2/09  Alabama Crimson Tide vs Utah Runnin Utes
13 providers with 4,180 tickets, starting at $69  (official exchange has 315 tickets)
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl tickets  1/5/09  Texas Longhorns vs Ohio State Buckeyes
11 providers with 8,025 tickets, starting at $50  (official exchange has none found)
BCS National Championship tickets  1/8/09  Oklahoma Sooners vs Fla. Gators
12 providers with 9,309 tickets, starting at $313  (official exchange has 508 tickets)

With so many choices, and games in such nice places, a road trip might be just the thing to bring in the New Year right.  Have a happy holiday!

Mike

Posted in Fan Focused

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