Ticket Transferability Saves Sports Fans $351 Million Since 2017
Say you have tickets to the Yankees game, but you wake up that morning and aren’t feeling well. What do you do? The Yankees sure aren’t going to give you a refund. So, you sell your tickets of course! This is one of the reasons why ticket transferability is one of the most important consumer protections for fans of live events. The ability to resell your ticket allows you to recoup your money instead of wasting it on the ticket when life gets in the way.
However, critics who oppose transferability, including many sports teams, claim the secondary market only price gouges fans. However, that’s not the case. Fans can save big by buying tickets on the secondary market. In fact, fans have saved more than $351 million since 2017 by doing so. 2023 had the most consumer savings at $91.6M across all sports. This is equivalent to a 1,673% growth in consumer savings since 2017. These kinds of savings only come from a transparent, competitive marketplace.
So, how can price shopping on secondary markets save you money? To find out, we looked at data provided by Automatiq, a leading data provider for ticketing companies. This data provided an insightful snapshot of the industry and data on more than 34 million tickets sold for MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL games from 2017 through the end of 2023. Across all sports, tickets on the secondary market were sold below the original price more than a third of the time.
To make this seem even more beneficial for your life, fans in states where their ability to transfer their purchased tickets is protected by law saved, on average, almost twice as much as those in states that do not protect ticket transferability or where teams, venues, or others in the industry can restrict transfer. Currently, six states protect a fan’s right to transfer their tickets. Of those, only four have professional sports teams – Colorado, New York, Illinois, and Utah. Between 2017 and 2023, fans in these states saved $76 million, averaging $19 million per state. In those 26 states (including Canada) that have professional sports teams and do not protect a fan’s right to transfer their tickets, fans saved $274.6 million over that same time, averaging only $10 million per state in total fan savings.
These savings aren't small, either! Since 2017, tickets resold below face value have generated savings of $29.17 per ticket — enough to buy a beer and a pretzel at most major league stadiums! Football fans received the most significant savings per ticket.
We analyzed this data to inform sports fans of the significant savings opportunities found in secondary ticket marketplaces. An informed fan can make the best decisions for his or her situation. Sports fans should always comparison shop when buying tickets; you might not know what you’ll find!