Three Things: Ticketing Explodes On The Scene Week

Three Things I Learned This Week In Saas, Sports, Tech & Live Events - Ticketing Week 1) Michael Rubin isn't "frightened by ticketing" - as he said at the SBJ World Congress this week. He sees it for what it is: clean data. Which is really expensive. Part of what made Apple and Google so valuable was direct access to the consumers using their products - think app store and PPC. With ticketing going fully digital, primary ticketing companies are privy to clean data. Customers have to go through their entrance points to attend the event. That data is invaluable in the gaming, NFT, Merch, collectibles and F&B world. Ticketing is going to get even more commoditized and won't surprise us if it eventually becomes a loss leader - think rooms and drinks to the casino gaming model. Rubin knows tickets. His last CCO was Cole Gahagan, who was CRO at Ticketmaster and now runs Learfield. They're coming. Soon. Either direct or through a massive strategic deal. 2) Seat Geek goes public- I met Jack and Russ back in 2009 at a ticket conference in NYC. Their ideas were data driven. More efficiency into an inefficient market. My goodness how that's evolved. They've followed the enterprise b2b2c blueprint - landing customers for validation, getting the big names as loss leaders, and are now hitting a market ripe for disruption (see #1 this week) with a scary team which includes Ryan Smith (Utah Jazz) who has about as good a reputation as one can have. They see vertical integration as something done through multiple vendors - interesting bet. Plenty of room. See #1. 3) MLB is making a nine figure push to move all baseball teams to TDC. This rumor has been out there for weeks now and we've heard it from a dozen people so it's no real secret. TDC tried this in the early 2000's and ran into some holdouts. With the StubHub deal up for renewal and all the new business opps tied to tickets (see #1), wouldn't surprise us if those rumors are true. What a week. It's good to be back to normal with some news. Ticketing is not just tickets. It's access control and data at scale. And it's about to change everything.