Revenue through the sale of tickets remains the biggest single source of income for many sports, including the GAA. An NBA Playoff game in Atlanta tonight could be a game changer for how tickets are bought.
The Atlanta Hawks are the first major sport to use Twitter’s commerce platform to sell tickets direct to fans. Given the large followings that sports teams and players have on the social network the experiment will be keenly watched and measured against the more expensive traditional means of advertising.
The Hawks have a follower base of 344,000, comparable to the biggest sports brands here of irish Rugby with 323,000, the GAA with 202,000 and Leinster Rugby with 139,000.
The twitter sales tool is simple to action and can be used to reward loyal fans with small advance or even late availability tickets for the big games.
Because it is so flexible it can be tested around a number of different dynamics of price, exclusivity and engagement.
The way fans are communicated to is the future of how sport and those brands who attach themselves to it make the most of a relationship that is stronger than almost any beyond family.
Finding ways to do that consistently in a manner in which fans are comfortable with will inevitably replace the less flexible high cost alternatives of taking out brand led advertisements where the reach may be higher but substantially less targeted.
The same of course applies to any tickets or goods. While Apple’s closed system of retail payments comes at a very high cost, the commercial arrangements through social media are likely to be much more vendor friendly and we will watch the experimentation in sport closely to see what lessons can be learned and new streams opened over the coming months and years.
