[Love sports and technology? Sign up for our sports tech newsletter to receive this rundown from GeekWire’s Taylor Soper via email every week.] TAYLOR’S TAKE: There’s only one place this week where you can catch a Cardinals game, eat mouth-watering BBQ, go on a Budweiser tour, and attend an awesome sports business conference — St. Louis, of course! I’m on the road this week in St. Louis, where Washington University is hosting the Olin Sports Business Summit. Today I’m helping emcee the event, which invites business and tech leaders from the sports world to speak on stage about the latest innovations… Read More
Goodbye, Ticketmaster. Hello, SeatGeek. The Seattle Sounders on Wednesday announced a new deal with SeatGeek, a New York-based startup that offers a unique “open ticketing platform” and a focus on mobile apps. SeatGeek will become the official ticketing partner of the Sounders starting in 2018. It marks the end of a nine-year partnership with industry incumbent Ticketmaster. Founded in 2009 and equipped with $160 million in investment, SeatGeek has differentiated itself from other ticketing platforms with SeatGeek Open, which lets teams, artists, and others sell tickets across the internet and directly within other apps and websites. It’s different than Ticketmaster,… Read More
A leading NFL executive; a mobile ticketing guru; an eSports innovator; a sports science expert; a women’s basketball legend; the CEO of a sports media entertainment company; a top football reporter; and much more. The second annual GeekWire Sports Tech Summit is shaping up to be another action-packed event that brings together leaders across the sports technology landscape — ranging from data science to sports marketing to virtual reality to fan engagement to wearables and more — on June 21-22 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. There are only 350 tickets available for this much-anticipated event, which also includes fantastic networking opportunities from attendees… Read More
SeatGeek upped its stature in the ticketing industry on Tuesday with a $57 million investment and acquisition of Israeli startup TopTix. The Series D investment, led by Glynn Capital, enabled SeatGeek to acquire TopTix, which powers ticketing technology for 500 clients in 16 countries and processes 80 million tickets per year. The deal will help SeatGeek expand SeatGeek Open, its primary ticketing platform that is taking on Ticketmaster. SeatGeek Open lets artists and teams sell tickets directly within other apps and websites, versus a closed system that restricts how people buy and transfer tickets. “TopTix has by far the best backend primary ticketing… Read More
