An App That Moves Sports Fans to Better Seats

Re:An App That Moves Sports Fans to Better Seats by nlh on Friday March 29, 2013 @11:40AM (#5461260)

This is an example where, I hope, market equilibrium comes into play and works for the best. Like a hotel, a stadium would rather get >$0 for that $200 seat, even if they can't get the full $200. Right now, when you hop into it, they're getting $0 and you're hoping an usher doesn't check your ticket. It's sort of like jumping into an empty 1st class seat on an airplane, only you're (currently) less likely to get caught in a stadium.

Ideally, you should pay an amount that's fair to you and fair to the team without going to either edge case -- you paying $0 and "stealing" the seat, and you paying full boat.

The trick is finding that equilibrium price - and sometimes the stadium won't act logically. In theory, they should take anything >$0, but if they charge too little then people will stop paying full price in advance and just wait until the last minute. If they charge too much (I.e $150), it won't have any effect and they'll be right where they are now.

The illogical part is that they might not actually care about "revenue maximization" in the way a hotel or airline does - which is where this could all break down.

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Re:An App That Moves Sports Fans to Better Seats by zcuskelly on Friday March 29, 2013 @08:51PM (#5463881)

hit the nail on the head nlh. finding that equilibrium price is something we are constantly analyzing data to refine. we need to be careful not to have the upgrade cost so cheap that it cannibalizes ticket sales but also need to make it cheap enough that it makes sense. currently we take into account your original seat value plus time-based price decay. it's up to a venue what percentage discounts they want to apply across their inventory.

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