MLB and SeatGeek have agreed on a five-year deal worth at least $400 million, according to a report.
MLB has named SeatGeek the league’s official secondary ticket marketplace, replacing StubHub effective immediately.
Per Forbes, the mobile platform has agreed to pay MLB $100 million per year over five years. Sportico later reported that the “minimum” floor of the five-year deal is a $400 million guarantee.
“SeatGeek is a data driven company that is relentlessly focused on improving the fan experience from purchase to post-game,” MLB Chief Revenue Officer Noah Garden said in a statement. “We’re eager to tap into SeatGeek’s extensive user base across numerous categories to reach an even wider audience of potential attendees.”
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Attendance accounted for about 40% ($4.32 billion) of MLB’s record-high $10.8 billion in revenue this past season, with Forbes reporting that the league brought in 45.3 million more fans in 2022 than the COVID-impacted 2021 season.
“Baseball is the largest spectator sport in the world in terms of total attendance, and the nature of the league’s 162-game season makes it ripe for innovation on the ticket resale side of the business,” said Russ D’Souza at SeatGeek. “With MLB, we get a chance to re-imagine what the ticketing experience is like while bringing new fans to the ballpark.”
Two factors worth noting:
- MLB’s $35 average ticket is the lowest-priced among the four major U.S. sports, per IBISWorld.
- SeatGeek had the highest percentage of Gen-Z users among all top ticketing platforms.
“It’s like distributing content,” Garden told Forbes. “You used to distribute on your website. Now, you distribute on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Why? Because they have different audiences. And even though you’re distributing in all those places, you’re doing it slightly differently. No different from ticketing.”
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