Everton to ink StubHub deal

Lyndon Lloyd , 11 July, 12comments | Jump to most recent

The Daily Mail are reporting that Everton are set to conclude a £1.7m deal with secondary ticketing company, StubHub.

The US-based company launched its UK operations in December and if the report is true, Everton would become the first Premier League club to sign up. Aston Villa are running a similar scheme with Viagogo.

StubHub allows fans to sell unwanted match tickets securely and directly online and has proven to be particularly attractive to season ticket holders for major sports teams across the Pond who can't always to get to all their team's games.

Quotes or other material sourced from Sports Pro Media

Reader Comments (12)

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Andy Callen
1 Posted 11/07/2012 at 18:50:14

Why do we need a third party company to sell unwanted season ticket tickets? Surely this can be done via the official site. The cheapest season ticket is £443.00, which works out to be £23.32 per match. The cheapest standard match day ticket for a category D game is £31.00

If the £23.32 was reimbursed to the season ticket holder, then the club could keep the £7.68 profit per ticket.

If this really is big business, can we assume up to 100 tickets could be old like this per game? Potentially that would be another £768.00 match day profit, which over a season is £14,592... Actually when you do the sums it might be worth to just pocket the £1.7 million on offer... NSNO

Phil Sammon
2 Posted 11/07/2012 at 20:17:09

Good comment Andy. Haha

Mark Riding
3 Posted 11/07/2012 at 21:18:49

How do you sell tickets, if a season ticket is on the credit card style one ?Can you still get a paper one with tickets to each game ??

Tony Doran
4 Posted 11/07/2012 at 21:59:03

What happened to the good old days when the drug addicted patrons used to sell tickets behind the park end. They would pay maybe a tenner for them and sell them for just below face value. If you waited untill just on kickoff they would start to panick and be glad to just get their money back. It's where I got mine for years and saved a fortune.

Matt Traynor
5 Posted 12/07/2012 at 06:40:12

I doubt this deal is as good as it's set up to be. The £1.7m is probably what Everton would be expected to earn. The fan who sells his seat will get an amount back less "admin fee", and the buyer will pay face value, plus another "admin fee", and I expect it's a portion of this admin fee that Everton would earn.

Of further benefit to Everton is it's one more person in the crowd to spend on secondary revenue (program, pies, pint) but I would hope these projections aren't included in that £1.7m.

Many believe these are legalised ticket touts (or scalpers), and there's been a backlash in the US market amid calls for tighter regulation. Many music events are sold out quickly as the ticket seller often puts out a proportion of tickets on consignment to resellers (reduces their risk) - the same thing happens in the UK.

For football, it's probably a good thing for fans as for in demand games it should mean a chance of getting a ticket without paying massively over the odds, or buying a fake. For the season ticket holder, it might mean a chance to recover some money, although how many ST holders give to friends / family when they can't go, maybe for a few bob, couple of beers?

I'd be amazed if this really does yield significant income for Everton, but as long as there's no cost, can't complain.

Chris Leyland
6 Posted 12/07/2012 at 07:18:32

Unless the game is a sell-out then why would anyone need to buy a ticket this way when they can quite easily just buy a normal ticket at face value from the club with no admin fees etc put on top of the face value? The club won't want these season tickets 'spares' each week sold at below the price of a regular ticket as this wouldn't make any sense either.

Chris Williamson
7 Posted 12/07/2012 at 08:41:17

I know how modern business runs. It'll be 1.7m to Everton over the next hundred years. Stubhub - yet another middle man to cream off a living by providing a service previously unneeded. Nobody in the west seems to EARN money any more by making things - they just seem to COLLECT it by 'servicing'.

Harrumph!

Noel Early
8 Posted 12/07/2012 at 09:05:04

Sounds a bit like the Kitbag deal to me; rubbish!

Dan McKie
9 Posted 12/07/2012 at 10:58:18

Like somebody has already mentioned, Everton rarely sell games out, so the need for this is questionable. Hopefully it just turns out to be an easy couple of mil to the club. To be honest, if I cant go to a game for any reason, I just give my season ticket to a mate for that game.

Rob Keys
10 Posted 12/07/2012 at 11:18:24

Well, we all complain that the club hasn't got the slightest clue to marketing and growing revenues. And we still don't have an idea what is their masterplan. But this is at least an attempt to explore another revenue stream, while allowing ticket holders some reprieve.

The rules of the game typically is that when you outsource, it is because it is cheaper than to manage it in-house. So in this case, I won't knock the club.

Thomas Lennon
11 Posted 12/07/2012 at 11:39:42

When I owned a season ticket there were eventually enough matches a season I could not attend (4 or 5) to make it a waste of money as paying on a match by match basis was cheaper.

Now I often have to put up with quite poor seats so still not too happy.

I assume that this service enables me to think about owning a season ticket again and just selling on those I can't use. I don't lose much money and I get a good seat - I think this could be a winner!

Jack Okell
12 Posted 12/07/2012 at 20:03:28

Mark #310

In my experience they post the credit card season ticket. They put a return Special Delivery envelope in with it too. The rules stipulate that you will be charged for the proceeding game if it isn't returned on time.

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