RazorGator bites into corporate travel sector

RazorGator last week completed a purchase of Sports Tour Classics, a move designed to expand the secondary ticketing company’s foothold in corporate sports travel services.

Sports Tour Classics will be folded into RazorGator’s PrimeSport subsidiary.

Beverly Hills, Calif.-based RazorGator will fold Sports Tour Classics, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., into its PrimeSport subsidiary, which buys tickets to high-profile events and resells them in travel packages for Fortune 500 companies.

Terms were not disclosed, but Sports Tour Classics investors received both cash and RazorGator equity in the transaction. RazorGator raised $26 million from investors earlier this year, which came with a charge to expand the company in part through deals such as this.

“Overnight we’ve doubled our corporate travel business. It will be about a quarter of our company now,” said David Lord, RazorGator chief executive. “This is a very important sector of our business, and a real differentiating factor when you compare us to our competitors in the secondary ticketing industry.”

Beyond broadening the palate of services, RazorGator’s acquisition also pushes it into a higher-margin business. The company, which serves the online secondary ticket market through its “Fan2Fan Exchange,” faces increasing competition from StubHub, Ticketmaster, eBay and hundreds of local ticket brokers.

“The corporate travel business is very attractive, and it brings a very high-end customer,” Lord said. “But it’s not something you can get into overnight. It requires a lot of skill, service and contacts. We’ve had that, and it’s only expanded through this deal.”