Season Tickets in 2020 – The Definitive Guide

Have you ever wondered about how to buy season tickets? Or how do season tickets work?

This is your ultimate guide to buying, managing, and selling season tickets in 2020. This will cover the basics, benefits, and the negatives of season tickets. We hope it will help you in your decision making in purchasing season tickets for any sports league or team you support. 

What are Season Tickets?

Season tickets in the sporting context allows a person to attend all regular season home games for an agreed upon price. Those who attend a lot of games of a particular team opt for season tickets to avoid purchasing single game tickets throughout the season. It may be cheaper to buy Season Tickets if they attend a certain amount of games. Conversely, it may make sense to purchase single game tickets if they don’t attend enough games for the season.

In short, if you attend a lot of games per season opposed to a handful then it may make more sense to buy season tickets. You won’t have to deal with varied pricing per game. Pricing tends to fluctuate with marquee games versus teams who aren’t doing as well. 

How do season tickets work?

You’ll reach out to a team via email or through their website to express your interest in Season Tickets. Then the Season Ticket representative will reach out to you to discuss which packages are available. You’ll discuss the rows, seats, and of course the cost.

Season Ticket packages are sold during the off-season. Some teams allow prospective Season Ticket holders to walk around the stadium and get a true eye view of what’s available and best fits their needs. Teams are shifting to an immersive online resources to get a better sense of the view. Once the terms are agreed upon, the tickets are delivered to you prior to the season beginning. 

In the past, some teams still do this, teams would send you a booklet of physical tickets. You’d be responsible for tearing out the tickets and using it as your admission to the game.

Now, most teams have their own app tied to a ticket management site like Ticketmaster or Stubhub where you can access all your tickets on your phone. 

In 2020, everything has moved digitally for a number of reasons. Mobile ticketing spend is set to increase by 64% by 2023.

Why sporting events are starting to use digital tickets instead of paper tickets:

1. Assurance – If you lose a physical ticket, you’re unable to gain entrance. If you explain the situation to a Season Ticket representative, they may be able to help you. They’d have to verify on their backend that your unique code tied to your ticket has not been used so you can still enjoy the game. 
2. Fraud – Be wary of PDF tickets. A person can generate the PDF ticket, post on a secondary site or sell in person, then generate a brand new ticket thus making the sold one null and void. In order to combat this, teams have opted to mobile transferring and no longer allow PDF tickets at the door. 
3. Control – Teams want more control of what’s happening with the tickets. Are you selling all your games for profit? Are you attending the games? Are you giving them to a friend? This data is being tracked with mobile ticketing. 
4. Contractual agreements – Teams typically have a vendor who manages their ticket inventory, the most popular being Ticketmaster. To incentivize Season Ticket holders to sell through their app, Ticketmaster reduced their commission fee to 5% for the Golden State Warriors at one point.

How much are Season Tickets?

Season Tickets can range from $300 to $100,000 or more depending on sports league, team, and demand.

There are a number of varying factors to keep in mind when it comes to cost:

1. The numbers of seats you want
2. The location of your seats
3. The number of home games occuring
4. The average ticket price
5. The average home attendance
6. The team’s past performance

A season ticket representative will lay out how much each section and seat costs. They’ll also give you the average ticket price for the season. Each game is worth a different amount due to demand. Think of the superstar or superteam effect here again. 

Many teams offer various payment plans for Season Tickets. For example, the Golden State Warriors typically break their Season Ticket payment plans into quarters, which begin when the season is near its end. This acts as your renewal for the next year. The Detroit Lions have a 12 month payment plan. Each team is different in how they navigate this space, but most will certainly have an arranged payment situation.

What is a Private Seat License/Personal Seat License (PSL)?

Private Seat Licenses give a person the right to buy Season Tickets and/or tickets to events happening in the stadium before others.

Private Seat Licenses can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $100,000 or more. 

PSLs are essentially a surcharge for you to purchase Season Tickets for the stadium. Teams started implementing this as a way to increase revenue to invest in other areas such as a new stadium, facilities etc. They go this route instead of using public tax money to build the stadium and a number of other reasons.

The money you paid towards the PSL is lost If you do not to renew your association with the team. The only way to recoup this cost is to sell them to a prospective purchaser, which can be another headache for you to navigate. Some teams will help you sell your PSL to someone on their waitlist or in their list of interested people. 

The Golden State Warriors took a unique approach to their PSLs. They did in fact use the money to help build Chase Center which cost $1 billion. They look at their PSL as an interest free loan you’re giving the team which will be paid back in 30 years. 

Do Season Tickets include playoff tickets?

Season Tickets generally don’t include playoffs. But, you’re the first to purchase playoff tickets before the general public. 

While regular season pricing is determined by the team, the governing body of the respective league is more directive on how much playoff tickets will cost. 

For NBA playoff pricing, you can purchase the first two rounds of playoffs, then purchase the conference finals, then lastly the finals. You cannot skip any rounds. If your team doesn’t play out the remaining games, the difference will be issued as a credit on your account. 

Why do people buy Season Tickets?

People buy Season Tickets because they plan on attending a high number of games. The higher upfront cost saves them money on the variable pricing throughout the season, and the processing/ticketing fees from the secondary resell market. People use their Season Tickets as a business opportunity as well. They can impress a client by bringing them to a game or use them as office giveaways. 

Others buy Season Tickets because they feel more connected and a part of the team, establishing a community feeling. Teams enhance this experience with various perks. Season Ticket Perks can include meet-and-greets with players, Q&A with players and staff after games, free bobbleheads, exclusive events, and discounts at team stores, etc. 

Lastly, people buy Season Tickets to make money off them. 

Can I make money off my season tickets?

People make money off Season Tickets by selling their tickets for a mark up to friends and family, and on the resale market. Season Ticket representatives can provide a breakdown of how much each game is worth before the season begins and base their prices off of that.

People look into selling a certain amount of tickets before the season begins so they can break even and reduce the financial burden. They may attend 10-15 games they really want to attend or fits in their schedule then sell the rest. 

Also keep in mind that not all Season Ticket holders are local. Some may have moved to a different part of the country and still want to hold onto their seats. They’ll sell almost all their games to cover costs to hold onto their connection to the team they love. 

There is also a group of people that make up 5-15% of ticket sales on the resale market. They’re professional resellers, more commonly known as brokers. A lot of teams are trying to rid themselves of brokers; a way they’re being tracked is through web crawling their inventory on resale sites and mobile ticket transfers as mentioned under the “How do Season Tickets work?” section. There are a number of advanced pricing and insights tools brokers to ensure they’re making profit. 

A common question is “are Season Tickets worth it?” or “are Season Tickets a good investment?” It’s a speculative bet on whether your team is going to do well in the season or not. 

Can you share season tickets for sporting events?

Yes, approximately 70% of Season Ticket holders share their tickets with other people to cut costs. This is what inspired the story of Ticketholdr. We were tracking the games manually using spreadsheets to ensure equity on a cost-basis and marking our calendars to see what fit the schedule.

A majority of Season Ticket holders have a similar process for tracking and dividing games. 

What is the best way to sell sports tickets online?

Ticketholdr is the best to sell sports tickets online. 

There are only two options available to Season Ticket holders to get their tickets sold. First is to use the resale platform their team is using. More often than not it’s either Stubhub or Ticketholdr. Second, in order to get more visibility on their tickets, many will post on various resale sites such as Vivid, SeatGeek, GameTime etc. 

The issue with this is that if your tickets sell on two platforms at the same time, you’re exposing yourself to the risk of a double sale. The risk of being charged a fee for not being able to fulfill your tickets on one resale site. If the behavior persists, you could be banned from posting on their site. Also, it can be difficult managing to change the price of each ticket on each site you’ve posted on.

Ticketholdr is the best option because our system will post your tickets to all the major resale sites and a few that are lesser known. By doing this, you can update the price of your ticket from one place and if your tickets sell on one platform, we’ll remove them from the rest. In addition to giving your tickets the most exposure possible, we’ll also allow you to trade and share tickets with the people you are sharing Season Tickets with directly on the application. 

How will COVID-19 affect Season Tickets?

COVID-19 will most likely force teams to remove seating to abide by social distancing protocols. This in turn may limit the amount of Season Tickets a team can issue, unless they find a way to accommodate who can attend what games. They may tier who is eligible to certain games based on cost or other factors. There are a lot of options being explored at the moment. 

COVID-19 has made a lot of resale sites to change their policies on refunds. A lot of teams are issuing credits for next year and some are reluctantly giving cash refunds. Teams across the various leagues have also paused on the renewal process until they have further guidance of when in person attendance can resume. 

The Last at Bat

So what do you think? Are Season Tickets for you? Are you going to continue purchasing tickets on the resale market? Either way, we hope this guide was informative. If you do decide to get them, be sure to sign up for Ticketholdr, we’ll be sure to give you the best Season Ticket experience.