Getty Image / David Berding
The MLB season is incredibly long, as it’s the only sports league (in America at least) where teams play over 150 games in the regular season.
As a result, clubs typically have a surplus of tickets that never get sold. For that reason, the Minnesota Twins are experimenting with a new way to sell tickets.
According to The Athletic, the Twins are joining a startup called TicketRev that will allow fans to essentially purchase a “name their own price” ticket.
Jason Shatsky, the founder of TicketRev, explains how it works.
“For whichever event or events you select, you will see a suggested range. There’s essentially a horizontal slider in orange. A portion of it is green, that’s where we suggest placing your offer — the closer to the green, the better chance that it’s accepted. We find that a lot of people will go just below the green in hopes of catching a deal. But as we know, prices often drop closer to an event. And so our technology will automatically purchase when it hits a certain price point and your request.”
The Athletic also explains, “TicketRev does not promise that a ticket will be available at the price one bids, and the company to this point doesn’t maintain its own ticket inventory. Rather, it takes the bids and brings them to brokers and secondary markets to see if a match can be found.”
So, in come the Twins who see this as an opportunity to sell those “leftover” tickets that are never purchased year in and year out.
Minnesota aims to work alongside TicketRev for the 2024 season. Chris Iles, the Twins’ senior director of brand experience and innovation, shares his reaction to the “name your own price” ticket concept, per The Athletic.
“I am honestly, and I don’t know why we haven’t thought of it. But we’re really interested to see where it can go from there. Anything that we can do to make the ticket-buying process more fan-friendly is a step in the right direction. The ticketing game has been notoriously tough on fans over the years.”
So, we’ll see if the Twins can generate more ticket sales in the 2024 season. If they find success, then more teams would likely jump on board with TicketRev as a partner as well.
We could be witnessing a completely new way tickets are bought and sold. Especially if this idea avoids jeopardizing the prices of season ticket holders.