The Real Ticket

The real story of what's happening in the ticket industry.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

It is possible, but unlikely they sold because the ticket prices this morning on those seats were higher than many of the red dots (resale tickets) listed in same section.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

For Game 5, Spurs appear to have removed the primary seats (blue dots) they had listed for sale this morning. Side by side (morning -> now) screenshots of same section at Frost Center.

30+ seats in Sec 117, 118, 219, 220 no longer showing on Ticketmaster.
#spurs #nbafinals

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

@howiemationg This is common practice for teams, who have a bigger $ incentive in Eventellect selling on secondary market rather than to fans thru the box office.

When teams do sell through box office, Eventellect & Ticketmaster push them to set high prices.

It's tough to be a fan.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

SA Spurs execs are unhappy Knicks fans took over their building. 2 reasons it happened:

1) Spurs got bad advice from their aggregator partner, Eventellect, & priced unsold tickets too high. Eventellect has been listing tickets they got from Spurs at less than the team.

#Spurs

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

@MaxTFortune Here is Gm 5. Those blue dots are unsold ticket that team listing for sale. For Gm 1 & 2, the Spurs overpriced (based on advice from Eventellect) and did not sellout of their unsold tickets.

The team left $ on the table and saw Frost Center overrun by NYK fans. #doublewhammy

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

Teams working with aggregators (Eventellect, Prolific 1, Victory Live, etc) should recognize that advice can be flawed on pricing from "experts" who use data without knowing the local market & history of ticket sales there. Spurs got burned trusting their partner on NBA Finals.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

Eventellect profited from seats they got from Spurs to sell while the Spurs wind up donating many of their unsold tickets to charity (a nice gesture).

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

@ArashMarkazi @TickPick An open & free market on tickets allows demand to set the price of tickets. When fans are not willing to pay the prices listed then the price comes down.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

The same can be said about Ticketmaster and many others in the primary who by maintaining absolute control over inventory, force fans to pay more.

Put all the tickets out and let everyone openly buy, sell & transfer. Free market economics work - artificial manipulation does not.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

“Being honest about ticket sales is not complicated,” added (NJ AG) Davenport. “But FIFA has turned buying a ticket to the World Cup into a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity, and impossibly high prices – all at the expense of consumers..."

https://t.co/1rxC0bwuJ7

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

You want to wipe out fraudulent tickets and make life easier on fans who buy tickets? Require open transfer & allow all bar codes to be verified from source.

Allow without requiring fans to login & create an account. The tech is there to do this, but LN/TM don't want to do it.

[tommy @tommydprimetim1]

Pollstar isn’t independent news.

It’s owned by @OakViewGroup, a company that operates right inside the live entertainment business. That group was co-founded by Irving Azoff, who used to run Ticketmaster and was chairman of Live Nation.

So when Pollstar is talking about @LiveNation, it’s not coming from the outside. It’s coming from within the same system.

Then you see headlines like “a Live Nation breakup won’t lower ticket prices.” That’s the framing.

That’s written from @OakViewGroup and @LiveNation’s point of view, not from a fan’s perspective.

People should know who’s behind what they’re reading. Independent press actually matters right now.

[tommy @tommydprimetim1]

From my research, the publication being cited here, Pollstar, is owned by Oak View Group.
https://t.co/9CyCeQ81cv

Oak View Group was co-founded by Irving Azoff, who was also a former CEO of Ticketmaster and played a major role in the Live Nation–Ticketmaster era.
https://t.co/QJyZ7udpoD

Pollstar itself is a trade publication for the live music industry, not a neutral consumer outlet.
https://t.co/9CyCeQ81cv

Oak View Group has also been tied into agreements involving Ticketmaster that came up in the DOJ antitrust case.
https://t.co/ophGmqluLU

And Oak View Group leadership was involved in a DOJ bid-rigging case related to an arena project in Texas.
https://t.co/GGCc7owiYS

So when you see a take like this coming from Pollstar, it’s fair to understand it’s coming from an industry publication with deep ties to Live Nation.

At the very least, people should question whether it reflects the perspective of fans, or the perspective of the industry itself.

Independent press matters.
Any please fact check if I’m
Correct or if there are two publications with the same name ?
@Ticket_Help2022

[Front Office Sports @FOS]

Los Angeles Olympics tickets include a 24% service fee, compared to 1.5% charged for Paris 2024.

LA28 told FOS that it accounts for processing and delivering tickets in a manner that will “align with standard industry practices for ticketing live events in the U.S.”

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

Is Sports Illustrated Tickets tracking towards one of the bigger success stories in the industry?

Or spending a ton of money to wind up being the next Ticket Smarter.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

Sports Illustrated tickets spending big $$$. They paid to be "verified resale" for LA 2028 Olympics. Also paying 7 figures to NFL (bar code integration) & stadium naming rights to NY Red Bulls.

SI Tix has raised $130M ($50M is debt). Their founder says they are profitable.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

They use a TND white label platform to power the SI Tix website.

David Lane can raise money & spend big dollars on marketing partnerships. He told SBJ they do $500M in revenue. The have a small team with limited experience outside of tickets. Their CFO was consultant prior.

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

“Our fees are too high. We can’t defend them,” Rapino wrote back, according to his testimony.

CEO of Livenation / Ticketmaster said this to a band.

https://t.co/Qz1ZY2eGGa

[The Real Ticket @therealticket_]

Live Nation owns Ticketmaster. They also own or operate 60+ amphitheaters, which each sell from 5,000 to 30,000 tickets per show.

LN pushes TM onto those venues to capture fees from each of those ticket sales.