Ottawa-based tickethippo.com today will announce deals
to manage the corporate ticket programs of the Senators,
Avalanche and Nuggets, according to Jennifer Campbell of the
OTTAWA CITIZEN. Campbell notes that tickethippo.com will
provide an "online ticket management system that can be
custom fit for each of the [teams'] individual corporate
clients." As a result, large companies such as Nortel,
which sponsors the Senators, "will have their own ticket-
granting service to administer the tickets in their block,
whether for clients or staff." The Web site "can also
perform an e-commerce role for the many companies that buy
blocks of tickets and resell them to employees at a reduced
rate." Campbell notes that tickethippo.com's service is
"completely free" to pro sports teams and the companies who
implement the system. The only charges are administrative
fees paid by the companies for tickets that are re-sold to
their employees through the Web site. Tickethippo.com
"makes its money by leveraging its extremely large, well-
known demographic base" for affiliate marketing
opportunities and event-based advertising. In addition to
the Senators, Avalanche and Nuggets, the company has deals
with a "few" AHL teams, and "at least five" NHL and five NBA
teams "are seriously considering the product" (OTTAWA
CITIZEN, 7/10). Tickethippo.com CEO Joel Milne projects
revenues of $18M next year (OTTAWA SUN, 7/10).
MORE TICKET NEWS: BUSINESS WEEK's Arlene Weintraub
examines Tickets.com, which laid off a third of its workfoce
around the same time it announced a three-year deal to
handle ticketing for all MLB teams. Ticketmaster Chair
Charles Conn, whose company competes with Tickets.com, said,
"There's lots of room in this market for more than one
player." Weintraub: "But to survive the dot-com shakeout,
Tickets.com is going to have to grab a significant share of
the [Ticketmaster] audience by scoring many more coups like
the baseball deal" (BUSINESS WEEK, 7/6 issue).
