“The traditional ticket stub accounted for less than a third of [Major League Baseball] single-game seats sold this past season, down from 55% in 2011, league executives say, as fans continue to embrace digital tickets delivered by email or text message,” Jeremy Olshan reports for MarketWatch. “That number should drop to less than 10% by next season with the help of apps like Apple’s new Passbook feature on the iPhone, they say, and in coming years paper tickets may be Cooperstown relics.”
Olshan reports, “In fact, Passbook – which allows tickets and loyalty cards from a variety of outlets to be delivered to one iPhone app – proved to be an instant hit with fans, Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB Advance Media, tells MarketWatch. In its test run with four teams for the final two weeks of the season, 1,500 e-ticket buyers (12%) chose Passbook delivery. ‘That adoption rate really floored us – there is no question our fans want digital tickets,’ Bowman says. ‘Fans can use the tickets, forward them to a friend, resell them, or even donate them to charity – and they never get lost or left at home.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Passbook….that’s the ticket!!!
really good one!
John Lovitz for spokesman.
A few days ago there was a post decrying Apple’s lack of innovation after Steve…. Yeah we’ll innovation doesn’t always floor you immediately…sometimes it takes a while for mass adoption…. When the hardware is spot on… Innovate through solutions to problems we didn’t know we had … Until Apple shows there is a better way …. This is but one… And it will be HUGE.
So which of the apps in Passbook from MLB is the one to use for tickets?
I guess you can say of the fragmented alternative NFC = Not For Consumers.
Would that mean that the $4 to $5 “handling fee” per ticket will go away?
Nah. They’ll just rename the fee to something else, like “Customer Data Management Fee”, and keep right on charging through the nose.
How about “bandwidth surcharge?”
With souvenirs, advertising, etc. going paperless, what will people be bringing to Pawn Shops 100 years from now? Are baseball cards paperless yet?
Baseballs are not paperless yet (as far as I know), but sports star signatures are….
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/10/08/162530439/baseball-autographs-get-a-digital-upgrade
Edit: Oops, I ment to say ‘Baseball Cards’ are not paperless yet….
What a great idea, though again I wonder how this would pass down through generations. At what point would the media not play. But for the here and now it’s a great gift!
“and they never get lost or left at home”
Unlike mobile phones, which never get lost or left at home.
I have NEVER lost my phone or EVER left it at home!!
Other professional sports leagues should be embarrassed at how far ahead MLB is when it comes to technology.
MLB has certainly embraced the digital age.
I have no sources to back this up at the moment but I’ve been reading many stories about how a dozen or so of the 32 NFL teams have adopted iPads as their primary playbooks as well as the source for studying film.
The downside was illustrated when the Tampa Bay Bucs forgot to recharge their iPads… 🙂
Consumer-facing technology*