StubHub has signed a multiyear deal with the University of North Carolina to be an official sponsor of its athletic program, a key expansion of StubHub’s ticketing partnership with Paciolan.
Electronic secondary ticketing will be integrated directly into UNC’s primary ticketing for men’s basketball beginning this season and then for football starting with the 2011 season.
UNC is the third school to blend Paciolan’s primary ticketing with StubHub’s reselling, following Florida State and Purdue, who both launched the pairing for football this year. Those schools, like UNC, are Paciolan clients that added the StubHub service to their ticket offerings.
GETTY IMAGESSecondary ticketing will
be integrated into UNC
basketball ticketing this
season.
The StubHub-Paciolan alliance was announced in August, adding an online-resale component to Paciolan’s primary ticketing systems. The deal continued StubHub’s aggressive march of the past two years into the college market. The pairing also allows StubHub to do more business in the last 48 hours before any game, when ticket listings are often discontinued and overnight ticket delivery models no longer work. Instead, the alliance is predicated on electronic, barcode-based ticket delivery.
The UNC deal furthers that push for StubHub by bringing one of college basketball’s premier programs into the fold.
“Chapel Hill is a market and a program that we very specifically targeted and believe is poised to deliver very substantial growth for us,” said Danielle Maged, StubHub head of partnerships and business development. “It works for us geographically, works for us given that they’re in the ACC and that’s a big play for us now too, and, of course, it works because of who UNC is.”
Financial terms were not disclosed, but StubHub will receive a mix of online and offline assets, including venue signs, radio spots, and presence on Tarheelblue.com. The pact was struck with the aid of Learfield Sports, which owns and manages the multimedia rights for UNC.
