MLB season tickets, Netflix style? How teams and startups are rethinking ticket buying

When it comes to baseball’s efforts to reach younger audiences, season tickets are usually not the top priority. But at the same time that the league is working to create new streaming his packages for viewers at home and on the go, teams are also looking to sell new in-stadium experiences, like ClassPass, HotelTonight and Netflix. I have found a way too.

In the days of StubHub and SeatGeek, people have less incentive to buy season tickets than they used to because they can make last-minute decisions to attend almost any event. It’s a team issue. As MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said a few years ago, “If you sell 2,430[games]he’s not in the business of selling one ticket at a time.”

“Consumer habits are clearly changing, and our team is changing our products to adapt,” said Oliver Marvin, Director of Revenue Strategy at SeatGeek. “We’re starting to see teams not just think of it as a season ticket, but more like a season his membership, with perks beyond the ticket and the in-venue experience, making it a bit more. .MORE PERSONALIZED MADE-TO-ORDER.

“But then we’re starting to look at other buckets of inventory that the team has available to get consumers who want more flexibility and don’t want a long-term commitment. And that’s the lowest level of commitment. , and primary single tickets will be available, and there will be something in between…you will see a lot of themed packages targeting different demographics and cohorts.”

Some are always partial to the classic full season or partial season plan.

“Traditional season tickets are still our lifeblood, and I think they will be for a long time,” said Brewers chief commercial officer Jason Hartland. We’re looking to tap into a younger, more diverse demographic that spends a lot of time, so the flexibility and ability to not have to commit to every single game can be appealing.”

The idea of ​​subscriptions itself is not entirely new. In 2017, several teams began offering ‘ballpark passes’. It still exists today in various forms. Last season, 13 teams — the Astros, Brewers, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Mets, Nationals, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, Royals, Twins and Yankees — or nearly half the league offered subscription-style plans. bottom.

Last year, there was a monthly fee ranging from $24.99 to $75, depending on the team, with regular or standing room access to the stadium. (The Yankees changed prices from month to month, but the Nationals only offered his option for a $405 full season.)

Those who sign up for Ballpark Pass Plus in Milwaukee are “significantly younger than traditional season seat holders,” Hartland said.

“In a mid-sized market like Milwaukee, you have to be a little more cautious,” he said. “If you’re in a market of seven million people, eight million people, nine million people, there’s probably enough of a population that planning for 40 games and planning for a full season makes sense. must be demonstrated.”

The team is now taking subscriptions a step further and beginning to expand their offerings. Not that the front office ever wanted to, but they lacked the ability (and possibly the courage to try them) to implement new services. When A’s in Oakland experimented with a bold program called A’s Access in 2019, he realized he needed to hire more employees to make it work.

“Maybe we had these ideas, but we just didn’t have the technology to actually make them work the way we wanted them to. How do we do that?” Kenny Farrell, senior vice president of marketing and analytics, said: “Years ago, we gave people paper vouchers and told them to take the paper vouchers back to the window. We were still doing that, probably in the 2010s.”

Two developments are currently underway to push the offering to new locations. One is the environment after the arrival of the new coronavirus infection.

Season Share CEO Aaron Holland said: “Staying at home is more appealing than ever.”

Another is the rise of companies like Season Share and FanRally. Season Share started out as a platform for people to split their season tickets, but in 2020 it turned around and now offers multiple ticket options.

“One is the pass product, which overlaps with (FanRally), but the product itself runs very differently, but it’s similar to the ballpark pass,” Holland said. “You get access to the games, but you never know where your seats will be. …Think ClassPass, HotelTonight. provide a way to take advantage of

Season Share also has a “flow” product, often used for last minute ticket offers. For example, Diamondbacks uses these to offer a 3-month “summer pass” for $99.

“We help teams sell more of their primary inventory and identify potential future season ticket holders,” said Holland. “And there have been many teams trying to revitalize our product and take a direct sales approach to buyers to elevate them to full-season tickets.”

Holland believes the future lies in bundles beyond just baseball games, and plans to launch new products in that vein this summer.

“In the NBA, the Utah Jazz rolled out the Jazz Fun Pass last year,” Holland said. “They were bringing basketball together with live events, concerts, comedy, baseball.

Meanwhile, the Astros and Brewers have FanRally powering their passes. FanRally can handle a variety of models, but CEO Chris Giles believes what makes ticket reselling more difficult.

As head of A’s Access during his time as A’s COO, Giles remains one of the most famous attempts to rethink the season ticket. It was the enhanced Ballpark Pass, as it was enacted in place of the old season ticket model, not just as an alternative.

“I think even today most team executives know it’s a bad model,” Giles said of the traditional season ticket. That’s a tough Band-Aid, right? It could be 70-80% of total ticket revenue.”

The 2019 A’s Access plan started at $240 and included perks like concessions, parking, merchandise discounts, and ticket upgrade opportunities.

“We haven’t added season tickets in a really long time,” says Giles. “We had absolutely no insight into what was going on with season tickets because they were being sold in big bundles to one person. You both have one model, which means you have a number of shared partners … As a team, you are only related to that main account holder. , we can’t really figure out what it’s going to be.The other[model]is they go and sell all the seats they don’t need on the resale market.”

According to Giles, season ticket holders were in their late 50s and few members were under 35.

“What are consumers in the target age group doing?” Giles said. “They were subscribing to services rather than buying products.”

The idea received a lot of media attention and was successful in some ways. July 2019, the team said New season ticket holders are 11 years younger on average, with 9,535 new members.

Giles said the club made about $9 million in new member revenue. But the program is difficult to manage without the right software, and perhaps more importantly, says Giles. The team had no way of controlling what people did on the seat, and the earnings per game dropped to “almost the same amount.”

A’s Access was set to continue for the 2020 season, but did not return after the pandemic. Giles has left the team. Oakland president Dave Kaval did not answer the call. athletic.

Enter FanRally. Giles believes he’s solved some of the issues he found with A’s Access, including resale.

“Our software allows members to enter reserved seats,” says Giles. “The way the Pass works is modeled after the original Netflix DVD business model. There is a cap on the number of concurrent reservations a member can hold.…This allows consumers to really gamify and optimize the games they get, so if you want a better seat, go early. Must make a reservation.

“It’s very similar to how you book a seat on an airplane. You can go on and see all the available inventory and change your seat at any time. You can upgrade to a better seat, but you’re going to resell it.” I can not do it.”

One minor league team, the Wichita Wind Surge (the Twins’ Double-A affiliate), still offers season tickets to anyone who inquires, but the team is pushing hard for its Fan Rally membership plan. . Either it’s A’s Access 2.0 or it’s shy.

Team General Manager Bob Moulette said: “Season ticket holders living in traditional locations cannot go to every game.”

Moulette attended college with Giles, but said the team was on this path even though the two hadn’t reconnected.

The question from here will be one of demand. It’s easier for teams to adopt new plans, but will they become more popular as younger generations get older?

Today’s team primarily uses Path as a supplement, creating different products to capture different demographics. The D-backs Summer Pass (37 games) and his D-backs Student Pass (32 games) accounted for his just over 7% of the team’s total attendance in 2022, Farrell said. But over time, these numbers could change even more.

“It’s not there, is it?” Farrell said. “We’re never there. A shift to more ballrooms and ballparks at the macro level, a shift in terms of building structures, or other types of new seating products, new ticketing products. I think we have to keep innovating all the time, whether we do or not. Our goal as a team is to make sure we listen.”

(Photo above: Jeffrey Phelps/MLB Photos via Getty Images)