What many consider the lifeblood of the sports industry is being regularly challenged by some who say the season ticket is on the endangered products list.
In addition to the many times I’ve been told to my face that season tickets are dying, here are a few articles I found proclaiming the demise of season tickets and declaring the secondary market as the culprit over the past decade:
- R.I.P Season Tickets? 2010
- Why Sports Teams Still Selling Season Tickets Are Doomed 2015
- The End of Season Tickets 2017
The thing is, none of these even had quotes from people in the business. You might say, “Of course not; people selling tickets wouldn’t admit their main product is dead!” To that, I say sellers of anything are fairly adept at finding ways to sell what they have. If season tickets were truly dying, the sports teams and industry as a whole would change course to meet fans’ demands. In fact, partial plans (packages that contain 10–50% of the season’s games) and group tickets (buyers of 10 or more at a time) are ways to supplement season ticket and single game ticket demand. They each remain a consistent 5–20% of ticket sales. Turns out that even now they haven’t been required toreplaceseason ticket demand. Which means that teams deem it more efficient to find ways to sell more season tickets than to find other ways to fill buildings. Are they missing something?
The NBA shared record season ticket numbers as recently as the2015–16 season and announced heading into 2016 withstrong season ticket and attendance numbers. In this article it is even mentioned that many teams have capped season ticket sales, meaning there are some teams in the NBA who could sell more season tickets that are opting to use tickets differently — to continue getting new faces in building and in their pipelines. On the flip side, this coincided with Major League Baseball beginning athree year decline in both season ticket membership and attendance. Let’s explore what these details tell us about the proof of life of season tickets.
Public numbers are difficult to procure on the topic since teams like to keep mum on the number of season ticket holders they have. This is mainly because vagueness is the ally of low demand. A recent unflattering example of teams hiding behind season ticket trickery is the Redskins. They officially admitted they did not, in fact, have the extremely long waiting listthey’ve been touting for years and season tickets can be bought at any time. Conversely, sold out teams happily direct you to their wait list.
Attendance numbers areregularly published for games and teams, but what kinds of tickets comprise those numbers is often a mystery. Full season tickets, group tickets, single game tickets, sponsor tickets, and comped tickets all appear in attendance figures.
Furthermore, recent seasons are when teams have done some work onridding themselves of mass amounts of known professional resellers, “brokers” as they are commonly called. Insiders estimate about 5–15% of season tickets as still being held by resellers across most leagues. In almost all cases this number is tracked, the relationships are closely managed, and the brokers are really just another outlet for teams to get more fans in the building through various ticket sales channels while mitigating a little risk.
Until the secondary market made ticket transactional values so transparent, ticket brokers were able to buy season tickets and make a fair amount of money in the arbitrage. They knew what it took teams much longer to understand: for a flat season rate, they’d make their money up in a handful of high demand games. Now the margin for ticket resellers is much smaller and they are taking more of a long term risk in hoping teams get to playoffs or ensuring they always have access to desirable seats. However, they are still buying season tickets, and in many cases up to the limit the team will allow. Keep in mind, these buyers are the ones supposedly responsible for killing the very product they continue to buy.
Okay, so let’s see how many season tickets we’re talking about.
Methodology: I found attendance for all 5 major leagues for each of their last complete seasons. At the top, I took 5% off for comps to be conservative in numbers and account for any ticket sales inflation. From this total, I calculated percent of season tickets by using best available data and/or estimates of each league’s season ticket holder percentage: NFL, 75%; NBA, 70%; NHL, 60%; MLS, 55%; MLB, 40%. Finally, I took another 20% off of that for brokers.
First, it’s noteworthy that in all five major leagues attendance was over 142 million people throughout their last season. This was “official” attendance, which most of us know is at minimum a slight exaggeration of actual attendance, but is very close to tickets sold. That total is also 40 million more than how many tuned into theSuper Bowl in 2018. When weighed against the ease and affordability of turning on the tv to watch the Super Bowl versus going to a live event, that people did it over 140 million times in the US for MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL is remarkable on its own. Add another 40+ million forMiLB,WNBA,G-League,AHL,ECHL,CFL and you’ve got quite an impressive sports ticket sales number.
As for season tickets, based on league averages this points to about 70 million tickets sold in a season package. This tally is by event, so for football that’s 8 tickets per season ticket holder, 41 for basketball, 17 for soccer, etc. When all boiled down, we’re talking about approximately 1.1 million people holding an average of 2.5 tickets each that account for all the tickets sold as season tickets. That’s a tiny number when you look at the 327 millionpeople in the US.
We’re not talking about keepingSears in business, here.
The 49 cities with at least one major league team have a combined metro population of 178 million people; median size 2.5 million. For each team let’s say they need 7,000 season ticket buyers who would represent well over 15,000 season tickets, that’s less than 0.3% of the local population. This is an extremely favorable target market penetration rate, especially considering season tickets are not a super luxury product with prices starting at $20/event. Compare that to movie tickets which number over1.3 billion sold each year.
As someone who has spent more time in my adult life selling sports tickets than almost anything else, I’m not saying this is an easy feat. It takes a monumental effort by organizations to get fans and businesses to buy season tickets. But, it’s still much more reasonable to find those buyers, however few, than to try and refill these buildings for every single event through marketing magic. Season tickets are certainly a niche product yet there is the market to support this niche.
There are a couple cultural shifts occurring that happen to support the growth of sports entertainment purchases. One is the well-known move from buying more stuff tospending on experiences.
Another trend to help our the struggling ticket sellers all over the country: urbanization. According to a2018 article from US News,“For the first time in history, more people are living in cities than rural areas. And this way of living is only going to continue: by 2050, the urban share of global population is projected to surpass 66 percent (up from 30 percent in 1950).” In order to get to sporting events on a regular basis, one must live within a manageable distance to them. Most teams thrive in medium to major markets, and an increase in attendance might have some thanks to give to the attractiveness of city life.
Of the various reasons people are opting for urban lifestyles is increased connection with communities, along with varieties of ways to feed our curiosity while exploring who we are. We demand options in everything: cuisine, entertainment, shopping, exercise. A city can indulge these caprices, giving inhabitants never-ending ways to spend time and money. Having season tickets is a way to join a tribe in a bustling metropolis.
Along these lines, social clubs are seeing a resurgence in popularity.Perhaps as a revolt against a too digital lifestyle, people are looking to connect in person. Social clubs provideexclusivity, experience, and connection currently sought by active professionals. Sports season ticket memberships feature these same benefits with more entertainment and less perceived stuffiness and cost.
Finally, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence showing positive news for season tickets. We are seeing excitement for expansion teams, enthusiasm for new buildings, and loyalty for legacy teams that prove the product to be alive and well.
- Atlanta United caught a little flak for raising prices but, “the team saidit has more than 37,000 season-ticket holders with a waiting list in the thousands.”
- The Milwaukee Bucks opened Fiserv Forum to the tune ofselling out of season tickets by drumming up public support and creating an intentional basketball specific experience.
- A new soccer stadium just opened in Minneapolis. The leadership invested in a ‘virtual’ stadium to show off its goods to both future ticket holders and corporate sponsors. It was such a hit that Minnesota United’s season ticket base grew from 4,000 to14,000 and sold out months priorto opening Allianz Field.
- According to the Seattle Times, “The official announcement that the league’s 32nd team will launch at KeyArena in October 2021 could be followed next year by the actual sale of season tickets. The NHL Seattle group collected33,000 season ticket deposits of $500 and $1,000 last March and has been renovating space at Seattle Center to use as a showroom for seat locations that should open next month.”
- Newest addition to the MLS, FC Cincinnati, announced they broke the goal of20,000 season tickets sold prior to their first kick off.
- The Dallas Cowboys, aka “America’s Team” have season ticket holders that literallyspan the country.
- The LA Lakers Season Ticket Waitlist webpage is dated as built in 2005 and the Denver Broncos as 2006. They’ve been rolling with the same waitlist and webpages for a while now because their season ticket bases are so committed. There are dozens of teams with perennial waitlists — at least a handful in every league.
Season tickets are doing just fine, thank you. They evolve to meet some changing needs including preference for sport, but they’ll remain ticket packages that contain almost all of the games where fans can get the best seats at the best prices. These fans also get some extra goodies and events for their commitment to the club. It continues to be a win-win for all parties.
If you don’t believe me, how about Front Office Sports, who put out a piece while I was researching for this one?Season Ticket Sales Change But They Remain Backbone of Attendance.
What’s your experience with season tickets?
