It is still not known what the demand for tickets will look like when major sports teams are able to open their gates to spectators again, and for mobile ticketing apps, that uncertainty can be doubly troubling. In the latest episode of “SBJ Unpacks: The Road Ahead,” our Bill King and Karn Dhingra discuss the future of the last-minute ticket sales market during and after the pandemic as well as other developments around two unsettled aspects of the sports industry, ticketing and facilities.
On what Gametime, a mobile ticketing app, is doing to try to boost fan confidence in last-minute ticket sales during the pandemic:
Dhingra: They’ve got lightning refunds for canceled events, so customers can automatically receive a credit worth 110 percent of their original purchase, or they can offer a refund that will be processed within a few days after an event might be canceled. There’s going to be no forced credits or lengthy refund process, so with that, they were kind of alluding to the controversial practice when COVID first hit. There was a lot of chatter in the ticketing industry about companies not being completely forthright and fast with their refund process.
On how Gametime’s CEO sees the future for ticketing companies:
Dhingra: There’s always the chance of consolidation, he says. He doesn’t expect many of these ticketing companies to go bankrupt, partly because of the Fed’s program to lower interest rates and have a lot of capital available to companies to access on the capital markets. He doesn’t think we’re going to get back to where we were before COVID without a vaccine. We’re not going to have sold out venues without that vaccine.
On venues' new hygiene strategies:
It kind of kicked off with the Miami Dolphins. They decided to go and get this rating from a group called the GBAC STAR. It’s the gold star in ratings for facilities world wide, and they got it. Shortly thereafter, you had Staples Center in L.A. and Chase Center in San Francisco get this rating. Chase Center told me their going to increase their cleaning budget by 20 percent to get this rating. I don’t know when NBA indoor arenas are going to host fans or if they’re going to host fans, but it’s something that a lot of folks in the industry have said, "We should have been doing this type of stuff before COVID." We can always be better.
