Earlier this week, I conducted an email interview with Andrea Pagnanelli, CEO of LeapSeats (and a former colleague of mine) to learn more about her company.

First off, tell us, what is LeapSeats?

LeapSeats is an in-venue seat upgrade application designed to enhance the in-venue fan experience, while also improving the effectiveness of teams’ ticketing departments. LeapSeats focuses on lead generation, retention touchpoints, and maximizing revenue from all attendees through upgrades and selling new game-day inventory. Spectators simply download the app (or a teams’ app), scan the barcode, choose an upgrade, enter payment, and enjoy new seats.

You have a deep background in ticket sales. What from that experience pointed you to the value that LeapSeats might offer?

Working in ticket sales, you are trained to continuously think of new ways to drive revenue and bring more value to fans. With the landscape of technology in-venue changing, it was the perfect time to develop a product that accomplishes both these goals. We are rethinking the way organizations monetize unused ticket inventory, the way attendees purchase tickets, and the way organizations interact with their fans.

Is there a risk that LeapSeats could cannibalize a team’s own ticket sales efforts?

No. LeapSeats only sells any unsold ticket inventory on game-day.

How does LeapSeats compete with secondary ticket options?

LeapSeats does not compete with secondary ticket options; we are not a ticket marketplace. It is simply a tool for fans to utilize come game-day to get closer to the action and purchase unique experiences.

Can LeapSeats be used for teams that are traditionally sold out?

Yes, LeapSeats goes beyond offering seat upgrades. It can also offer unique and one of a kind experiences. We create new game-day inventory that doesn’t exist – think selling tours of an arena on game-day, pre-game field access, post-game photos, or any asset a group sales department does not move by game-day.

How do you see this space evolving over the next 3-5 years?

With the adaptation of Wi-Fi and DAS infrastructures in-venues, the smartphone is providing us with a new way to interact with our fans. I would anticipate more companies will develop technology and applications to capitalize on this market.

You can connect with Andrea via Twitter at @apagnanelli, on LinkedIn or by email at apagnanelli@rseventures.com.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Christi Goza. Ticket data to support this article provided by Razorgator.

Did Russell Westbrook’s Knee Injury Impact the Price of Oklahoma City Thunder Playoff Tickets?

Just prior to the start of the NBA Playoffs, Thunder Playoff tickets vs. the Houston Rockets were averaging $300 a seat , with Game 5 (if nec) at Chesapeake Energy Arena averaging $270 and Game 7 (if nec) averaging $459. Thunder ticket prices were fifth most expensive of the sixteen NBA Teams. Many felt the Thunder were destined for an NBA Finals rematch with the Miami Heat.

The morning of Game 2, ticket prices for Game 5 were averaging $297 and Game 7 $492 – both games had increased in price since the start of the Playoffs. It was later that evening in Game 2 Russell Westbrook tore his lateral meniscus. Following the team’s announcement that Westbrook would undergo surgery and would not play for the remainder of the 2013 NBA Playoffs, Oklahoma City Thunder ticket prices for Game 5 and Game 7 dropped 3% and 10% respectively. The cheapest seat in the house for a possible Game 5 (Home Game 3) fell 21%, from $90 to $71. The long term impact of the injury is also telling as potential Conference Semifinals tickets in OKC saw an average of a 6% decrease. Rockets fans had a different outlook as tickets following the Thunder’s announcement of Westbrook’s injury rose 15% for Game 3 in Houston.

In comparison, following Derrick Rose’s torn ACL in Game 1 of the First Round last year – Bulls tickets fell 5% for Game 5, 2% for Game 7 and an average of 11% for the Eastern Conference Semifinals Games in Chicago. And, although the injury didn’t take place during the postseason – when Kobe Bryant went down April 12 with a torn Achilles tendon, Los Angeles Lakers tickets took a similar fall. The Lakers had not secured a playoff spot at the time; however tickets for a potential first round series and semifinals were down 18% and 15% (in that order) following the Black Mamba’s season ending injury.

In last year’s AL Championship Series opener, Derek Jeter broke his left ankle in the 12th inning and would not return for the rest of the postseason. Different from the NBA teams’ tickets, New York Yankees tickets for a possible ALCS Game 6 and 7 at Yankees Stadium following a key player’s injury increased on the secondary market, rising 27% and 37%. Yankees World Series tickets for home games 1, 2, and 3 however, fell 6%, 22%, and 18% respectively.

Losing a star player to injury during the postseason not only hurts the team’s aspirations of winning a title but directly affects the potential revenue a team can earn. The impact is immediate as demand is affected by the fact that players that fans want to see are out of the lineup. Tickets further into the playoffs are also significantly impacted as fans lose confidence that their team will actually advance without one of its stars. Basketball tickets are particularly affected in a star driven league where the best players drive a team’s popularity and play a huge role in the success of their franchise.

Christi Goza is the Community and Social Media Manager at Razorgator and an alumni of the Graduate Program in Sports Management at Long Beach State.

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Emily Huddell, SVP of Sales & Service for Turnkey Intelligence.

Last week, sports business executives converged in Brooklyn to attend Sports Business Journal’s Sports Facilities & Franchises Conference and Ticketing Symposium. For the third consecutive year, SBJ held the two events back-to-back, focusing on facility and franchise content during the first half of the event and then honing in on ticketing topics for the remaining sessions.

I attended the ticketing portion of the event, which kicked off with a “state of the industry” panel that set the tone for the next 24 hours. During that session, Legends COO Mike Ondrejko called ticketing “the accumulation of data”. To me, this perfectly sums up the current state of the ticketing space. Thanks to technologies like digital ticketing, mobile, and robust customer tracking via CRM, the sports industry has evolved to a point where data is incredibly easy to obtain. We are not at a loss for data. The key for properties, though, is to figure out how to analyze and interpret that data to better understand and relate to their customers, and ensure that the value of their inventory is being appropriately assessed and maximized.

Admittedly, there are still individuals in sports business who don’t recognize the merits of devoting resources to the implementation, collection and (most importantly) analysis of such data. In the conference’s “Big Data Conversation”, moderated by SBJ’s Abe Madkour, Frank Wheeler (SAP) observed that “non-believers” often don’t understand the potential ROI of data-related spends. However, when data resulting from such efforts can be presented cleanly and simply, obtaining that universal buy-in becomes a much easier process, as data recipients become “addicted” to the information they’re receiving.

Another commonly mentioned topic was the concept of real-time precision marketing, and teams’ desires to establish a true 365-day relationship with their customers. These concepts relate back to both the effective use of consumer data and smart brand management. Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard pointed out the music industry, and Kid Rock in particular, as examples sports business ticket sellers should look to (and learn from) when looking for guidance on how to build fans’ lifetime value. “As we all talk about dynamic pricing and getting that price right, in the back of our heads, we need to think about not how do we extract the most value tonight, but how do we extract the most value over the next month, over the next 25 years,” said Hubbard.

Though technology and data-related themes occupied center stage for the majority of this event, Friday featured a more classic ticket sales discussion. Participants on the lively “Developing Sales Talent” panel, moderated by Bill Sutton, bantered about what they look for when interviewing potential sales candidates (passion, initiative, and the ability to self-start), the importance of “consultative selling”, and the increased role of technology in sales, with Lightning EVP Jamie Spencer identifying a robust CRM system as a crucial tool for reps to use to build strong relationships. All emphasized the importance of ongoing recognition for meeting incremental goals, whether in the form of a WWE-style championship belt, extra time off, or the title of “Sales Captain”.

Other fun facts and takeaways:

• The rapid emergence of digital delivery of tickets, and success of the large-scale digital ticketing distribution implemented at this year’s Final Four.
• The continued threat of the secondary market and how different teams/leagues are fighting back.
• The opportunity for musicians to improve ticketing practices by considering the variable pricing models in place in sports business.
• The quandary of identifying how fans are using their mobile phones “from purchase to event attendance”, and breaking in/adding value to that lifecycle.
• The importance of creating “value markets” in the sports business ticketing space.
• The ability for teams to successfully position dynamic pricing as a selling point to season ticket holders to increase timely renewals by guaranteeing that they’ve receive the lowest-offered price by renewing by a given deadline.

Overall, the Symposium was a fun, power-packed day of networking and education. Thinking about future iterations of this event, it’s likely that the collection and use of data will continue to be the major topic of conversation, especially as each property and team fights to find the key to becoming an everyday presence (and asset) in the lives of its consumers.

At Turnkey, Emily Huddell is responsible for overseeing all sales and service efforts for the company’s primary products, Surveyor and Prospector. She’s a proud graduate of Boston University and the UMass Amherst Sport Management MS Program. 

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger David Simmons.

As the season begins and fans everywhere are buying tickets I thought it would be a good time to take a look at the secondary market for all 30 MLB teams to see what it means for you the fan.

I requested data from SeatGeek showing all 30 teams total inventories listings. From there to get a better idea I used a 2.6 ticket per listing multiplier as SeatGeek recommends using 2.5 tickets per listing and Ticketmaster sells 2.7 tickets per sale. I then took the total tickets available on the secondary market and put them into FSE (Full Season Equivalent) counts to get the average tickets available per game to get better idea of what was on the market compared to last year’s average sales by team.

The goal of all teams is to maximize its season sales while protecting it fans from what can sometimes be a predatory secondary market. “Why buy season tickets?” is question asked throughout the industry and the growth of the secondary market helps fuel the discussion. It’s important to note that naked short selling is now common practice in MLB secondary markets and therefore data might be skewed higher due to this practice and due to double-posting of tickets as well.

Teams face a predicament when it comes to selling to bulk buyers, speculators, and brokers. Depending upon the market, there are two schools of thought. Sell anything and everything you can to boost your season ticket totals which protects you from poor team play but can come back to bite you if the market is flooded leaving a minimal individual primary market. Or team’s can cut off these buyers like the Angels to focus their efforts on the protecting the individual sales by curtailing efforts on the season side to produce a higher yield on week of and day of game sales. Selling season tickets can sometimes just be “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as you are just moving revenue from individual to season due to the growth of the secondary market. This is why pricing your tickets initially and using dynamic pricing is so important to MLB teams.

For the time being, the data presented below is the best overall snapshot we can find on the secondary market. What does the SeatGeek data tell us? The Dodgers, Giants, Tigers, Angels and Yankees are top 5 in volume all with over 600,000 tickets on the secondary market led by the Dodgers with 1,027,676 tickets for the 2013 season.  How high is that? If you add up all tickets on the secondary market in Oakland, Arizona, Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, Miami, Seattle, and Toronto it’s still less than the Dodgers. Worth reminding everybody that the Dodgers have the highest season ticket base in all of MLB at 31,000 per Team President Stan Kasten and the largest stadium of 56,000 so the volume should not come as a surprise. The Dodgers sales team has outsold 17 MLB teams 2012 overall attendance teams in just season tickets this year. They also have the highest percentage of tickets on the secondary market in relation to their overall sales.

Other teams that will be challenged to sell individual tickets besides the Dodgers (31%) this season due to high levels of secondary market activity and season tickets in years to come are Giants (26%), Tigers (26%), and Nationals (25%). It’s important to note the Dodgers and Tigers use variable pricing, but the Nationals and Giants use dynamic pricing to better protect their primary markets. This helps them when prices fluctuate to keep the dollars flowing into the team rather than the secondary market. The teams with the least amount of tickets on secondary in comparison to their overall sales volume are the Cubs (12%), Twins (9%), Phillies (11%), Brewers (9%), and Cardinals(12%). These teams all sell 34,000 tickets plus a game but find that only a handful windup on the secondary market. The Athletics, Diamondbacks, Astros, Padres and Indians have the lowest volume on the secondary market.

So what does this mean to you as a fan? If you live in a market that does not use dynamic pricing and has large quantities of tickets on the secondary market you might be better off buying off the secondary market to save a few bucks. On the other hand buying a season ticket can offer you plenty of amenities you won’t get if you just buy your games off the secondary market including guaranteed postseason tickets and a large discount. To see where your team falls check out the full data below. It’s worth noting that I used 2012 sales AVG for my analysis. Teams like the Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Nationals have had huge strides sales and therefore their secondary market percentages will be overstated until we have 2013 data to benchmark it against. All data is via SeatGeek from March 21, 2013.

Earlier this week, the Association of Luxury Suite Directors (ALSD) released a comprehensive report on The Corporate Ticket Marketplace (click here to download). In the era where corporations needs to make sure they maximize every dollar spent on corporate hospitality and the challenges that face premium sales staff, the information in this report is extremely valuable. It features:

• A detailed evaluation of the changing marketplace by Bill Dorsey, Chairman of ALSD.
• Analysis of what companies are spending on premium seating, by both industry type and company size, compiled by Ron Contorno of Full House Database Marketing and Dr. Heather Lawrence of Ohio University.
• Insights from interviews with 15 Fortune 100 companies on their use of premium seating, put together by Dr. Peter Titlebaum of University of Dayton and Dr. Heather Lawrence, Dr. Christopher Moberg, & Ms. Christina Ramos of Ohio University.
• Summary reports on the size of the premium seating market from ALSD’s research group.
• Changes in the ownership of premium seating as compiled by Dr. Peter Titlebaum.
• Detailed reports on how companies are using sports tickets, from Spotlight TMS.

Here are a few interesting facts from the report and one of the helpful charts provided by SpotlightTMS:

• There are approximately 30,000 suites and 800,000 clubs seats that comprise the premium seat marketplace in North America.
• In terms of dollar volume, the market has been conservatively estimated to generate $10 billion per year which only accounts for sports, not the concert or entertainment side of the equation.
• For a new building in a major market, premium seating now generates nearly 50% of the total ticketing revenue. Much of this income is not considered part of revenue sharing with the league or its franchises.
• The average ticket owned by a business is used to entertain $107,624 in potential or current revenue.
• Fortune 100 companies’ primary objectives for ticket usage include driving business growth and adding new business, retaining and providing hospitality to current clients to nurture an established relationship, and establishing relationships with teams and properties.

Credit: SpotlightTMS (Provided by ALSD)

Click here to download the full report from the ALSD website.

In addition, ALSD has organized a new event called the Corporate Ticketing Impact Conference (CTIC), taking place on April 16, 2013 at MetLife Stadium. This one-day event is designed to bring together buyers and sellers of premium seating so that corporations can share best practices to drive ROI and teams can gain better insight into their customers’ needs. Visit www.ctic2013.com  for more information.

Next Tuesday, November 27 at 1PM ET (10AM PT), I have the opportunity to participate in a National Sports Forum / Paciolan webinar on Social, Data, and Ticketing Best Practices. This industry webinar will give attendees the chance to learn technological best practices to make informed business decisions, engage fans and drive your brand, sales and revenue. We are going to discuss proven techniques in social media, data mining, and ticketing.

By attending this webinar you will learn:

• Social media content, creation and sponsorship activation best practices
• Techniques to append information and profile customer data
• Strategies and methods to improve lead scoring
• Leveraging a data warehouse to build executive reporting across disparate databases

Joining me on the panel are Brian Gainor, Director, Strategy for Freshwire and Founder, PartnershipActivation.com, and Steve Hank, Associate Athletic Director, Revenue Generation for Arizona State University Athletics.

For more information and to register, click here. There is no cost to attend and you can join us online from your desk. Please feel free to pass this on to any friends and colleagues that may be interested in attending.

I get LOTS of emails from sports teams, because I’ve pretty much signed up for every newsletter I can find. This helps me track best practices in digital marketing and fan engagement. I wanted to share some recent email images that I’ve received over the last few weeks from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I really liked all three of these, especially the use of their logo on the waving flag. The short headline phrases and the bold fonts also catch the eye. These images really grab the recipient and should do well to drive a high click-through count.

Email 1:  The Battle Begins

Email 2:  Choose Your Battles

Email 3: The Night Practice

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Flavil Hampsten, Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales & Database Marketing at Bobcats Sports and Entertainment (originally posted on his blog).

Fact:  SALES MANAGERS LOVE CRM

Fact: SALESPEOPLE HATE CRM SYSTEMS

Why is this?  It’s because there is a disconnect between salesPEOPLE and sales managers.

Sales managers want to ensure their salespeople are working…while sales people, especially veteran sales people, want to do things their own way and not be micro-managed.

Can’t we all get along?

Here is the true fact, if the system is used correctly it is a benefit to both parties.

How can it be used effectively?

Sales Assistance: This is a big one.  Sales managers and salespeople have one thing in common…they all want to generate revenue.  Having a trackable pipeline of prospects allows your manager to give tips on how to close, resolve objections, or to conjure next steps to move the sale forward.

This also allows sales management to view who is buying the products which will lead to them giving salespeople the most profitable lead list to call upon.

Lead Organization:  Unless you are a company that only sells to 4-5 clients, the chance is that you are calling on hundreds if not thousands of prospects.  If you don’t use CRM properly, how can you find which ones have kids to invite to the circus?  How do you know which ones you’ve been calling on for 64 straight weeks and need to make a new approach on?  How do you know who to call when a new promotion or product price is released?

The trick of CRM is sorting through who should get calls, when they should get calls or emails, and what type of messaging should be sent.  If you do not have a solid system you are having leads fall through the cracks.

Legal: No one wants to get sued.  If you are sending mass emails and do not have certain opt-out options, legal action can be taken against you.

Builds Culture: Unless you like to be in a wild, wild west sales environment where leads are stolen and only the conniving survive, then you need a system in place.  Specifically, you need a system that encourages sales proactivity without the fear of someone swooping in at the end to steal the rewards.

In the end, CRM is not a waste of time, it actually saves time if managed correctly.  Mangers need to set processes that help salespeople and salespeople need to manage their own database to ensure they’re hitting goals.  This is a program that is not going away, so we better all learn how to maximize its potential.

This summer, I have the opportunity to attend and speak at a couple of excellent conferences, one of which has already passed and two more that are right around the corner. I just wanted to take a minute to highlight each of them. Depending on your particular area of focus, I highly encourage you to attend one or more of these. In all cases, you will come away with new ideas and best practices that you can share with your own organization. And of course, the professional networking opportunities that these events offer cannot be undervalued!

- Sports Business Journal’s Facilities and Franchises & Ticketing Symposium

This event covers so many pressing topics for sports teams, leagues and venues, including ticket pricing, mobile, sales culture, social media, emerging revenue streams, facility management, corporate sponsorships and the fan experience.  I had the opportunity to speak about how teams can capture and convert data into ticket sales. While this event has passed, keep it on your radar for next summer, and in the meantime, enjoy SBJ’s blog recap of the conference here. I still hope to write some of my own session recaps in the coming weeks (time permitting).

- Association of Luxury Suite Directors (ALSD) Conference and Tradeshow / Venue Technology Group

For anyone working in a function related to premium seating (clubs, suites, hospitality, partnerships), this is probably the best resource to keep up with what the rest of the industry is doing. The conference offers deep dive sessions into all aspects of premium sales, service, retention, facilities and more, plus the tradeshow is full of new ideas for amenities you can add to your venue. In addition, ALSD has a dedicated IT track called the Venue Technology Group, which covers the infrastructure, application development, sales technology, CRM and more that any modern venue needs to deliver a quality customer experience.

The conference actually starts this Saturday in Minneapolis, so it’s not too late to attend. I will be speaking the last day on the value of CRM for premium sales and service initiatives. If you can’t attend, make sure to follow the #ALSD2012 hashtag on Twitter!

- Sports & Entertainment Alliance in Technology (SEAT) Conference

Finally, for those on the technology side of the business, SEAT is completely dedicated to the IT needs of any sports organization. Topics include digital signage, mobile access, venue infrastructure, data security, social media, application development and more. This year, the conference has also created a special full-day CRM and Database Marketing track, which over the course of the day will cover everything from project planning and vendor selection to leveraging analytics and social media integration. I will be talking as part of this track, specifically on short-term and long-term strategies to maximize the benefits of a CRM deployment.

SEAT takes place August 5-8 in Boston, so there is plenty of time to sign up and attend. In the meantime, you can follow them at @SEATConference on Twitter – I’m sure there will be a hashtag once the event starts!

If you are thinking about attending or going to attend either ALSD or SEAT, please reach out so we can connect at either event!

Yesterday I sat down with Justin Cener, Founder of Crowd Seats, to discuss how sports organizations can use group-buying deal sites as part of their sales efforts and what’s unique about the Crowd Seats product compared to other options.

Justin, give us a brief overview of Crowd Seats?

Crowd Seats is the first and only daily deals site for sports tickets. We offer amazing sports ticket deals for 50-90% off face value with no added ticket fees. Consumers love us because we offer great tickets for great games at unbelievable prices. Teams and events love working with us because we’ve created a medium to generate revenue on distressed and last-minute ticket inventories. We focus on one niche – sports, and our business is built to meet the needs of sports teams.

In general, how do you see discount and group-buying sites adding value to sports organizations? What trends have you seen in this area?

Sports tickets are the ideal match for the daily deals model. Sports ticket inventory is perishable – if you don’t sell it, you lose it. Teams have an incentive to offer discounts in order to salvage this perishable inventory.

Further, the nature of attending a sporting event solves the issue of overage spending. Deal sites have had to battle a lack of overage spending as customers would buy a deal and not spend a dime extra. For each ticket sold, teams can count on additional per-cap revenues in the forms of parking, concessions, and souvenirs. $20 parking, $8 beers, and $6 hot dogs add up quick and represent a significant revenue stream for teams.

How should teams best manage the risks associated with discounting tickets? Are there any best practices you recommend?

Teams know they need to discount to salvage distressed/last-minute inventory, but they hate offering discounts to their full-price-paying customers. Teams can alleviate this risk by utilizing services like deal sites to promote the offer to their own user bases. We do recommend that the team provides as big of a discount as possible without going too far past their season ticket price.

How important is the group/social component of these sites in driving sales?

Going to a sports game is a social event, a group event. Further, getting a great deal is a social event as well so the two mesh nicely together. In order for these deals to be really successful, there needs to be a social element to it. That means social media needs to play a huge role in both increasing deal exposure and driving sales from social proof. There is no better advertisement than one that comes from a customer that is sharing his/her purchase. As an example, with Crowd Seats, over 1/3 of our sales come directly from Facebook or Twitter.

What is different about Crowd Seats compared to other non-sports-specific sites like Groupon and LivingSocial?

As a niche daily deal site focusing on sports tickets. we’re able to build our business to meet the needs of sports teams. We’ve spoken to over 50 teams and events nationwide and listened to what they were and were not happy with when working with deal sites. Armed with this data, we built Crowd Seats to give teams another avenue to move inventory on their terms.

Most importantly, we differentiate ourselves from Groupon, Living Social, etc in two major ways. First, we offer the most aggressive revenue split in the industry – by far. Our revenue split gives the team a much larger share, leaving them with far more revenue per ticket than they would receive with other sites. Second, we provide full customer contact information to our partner teams so they can build their customer base. So, we’re not only generating revenue, we’re driving highly targeted leads to teams. This has been extremely well received by teams and has been a driving force behind a lot of our relationships. As a niche site, users who sign up show a pre-determined interest in our partner’s products and we consider them to be highly targeted leads for teams.

What’s next for Crowd Seats?

Currently, we’re live in two markets, New York and Los Angeles. We’ve sold over 250 tickets to date and we’re aggressively targeting new markets to enter. In total, we see 16 potential markets nationwide and we’ve already begun to build relationships with many teams in those regions.

You can connect with Justin Cener on LinkedIn or on Twitter at @CrowdSeats.