ESPN has announced an expanded partnership with independent online ticket marketplace Vivid Seats. The new agreement will further integrate Vivid Seats services across ESPN’s digital platforms.
Chicago-based Vivid Seats has served as the official ticket provider of ESPN since 2017. In an official release, Tricia Bertron, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing at ESPN, highlighted the network’s use of data to reach audiences that may be interested in purchasing tickets to attend live sporting events via Vivid Seats.
“With this deeper level of integration on ESPN’s digital platforms, we are able to expand our reach and scale across numerous touchpoints to the right audiences and allows us to deliver seamless, data-driven ticketing solutions to drive media performance,” Bertron said in an ESPN press release.
Vivid Seats also maintains exclusive ticketing partnerships with the Los Angeles Clippers, Chicago Bears, Notre Dame, as well as the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences. Similar to companies such as StubHub or Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats provides an online marketplace for customers to not only buy tickets to sporting events and concerts, but also to sell tickets.
SportTechie Takeaway
Teams, leagues, and even media companies are always looking for opportunities to collect data about fans, and selling tickets is another way to do that. The New England Patriots are another organization to recently partner with a third-party ticket marketplace, through a deal with Ticketmaster. ESPN’s deal with Vivid Seats will give the network insight about the people who are attending specific sporting events, which is data they can use to tweak the kind of content and promotions offered to fans.