Types of Tickets In Sport Facility Management

Introduction

Over the years sports as an industry on itself has grown tremendously as a mode of recreation, in many parts of the world. This increased growth in the sports industry has necessitated the need for injecting professionalism in the day to day running of the respective sports facilities like the theatres and stadiums. Various clubs especially in Europe have employed specialist in sport facility management (box managers) to market and sell their tickets to customers in order to raise revenue for their respective clubs and also build and maintain the existing sport facilities.

Basing on the above, this essay thus seeks to determine and discuss the various types of tickets used in sport facility management with a view of elucidating on how they work and contribute to the box office management of sport facilities.

Box office

The term, box office can be traced back to the 18^th century, when it meant a place where one hired his/her private box for an occasion or performance.(Lisa,2004)as years went by this developed to where tickets were sold out in theatres in a tiny room(box like)in the foyer, thus the name box office. The Box office manager, heads the box office, and in liaison with other staffs, are charged with the duty of selling, promoting and marketing of the tickets.

Today due to the tremendous growth in the sports sector, it has become difficult to cope with the increase in the number of clients, and in order to cope, the IT-information technological component has actually been incorporated, with the ticket issuance being computerized. (Lisa, 2004)The following are some of the tickets that are sold.

Personal seat ticket/license

A personal seat ticket can be basically described as a ticket sold to clubs supporters by the club, specifying the particular seat that the holder is entitled to sit on while watching the clubs team play. (Dinette, 2006)  This type of tickets since its inception in 1971and a follow up in 1993 in charlotte by the pioneers-Carolina panthers who raised $150million through the sale of personal seat tickets to construct a stadium for the club

Public seat licensing being a new innovation has contributed immensely to the sport industry in revenue generation. Its now easier for clubs to recoup the money spent in construction of big stadiums for that can accommodate their supporters, thanks to personal seat tickets.

Seasonal tickets

These are sports tickets that are sold by the box office managers to the fans, enabling them to watch their favorite team play throughout the season. (Gottdiener, 2000) Seasonal tickets provide greater convenience to the holders since they do not have to repurchase tickets for each and every match. In the same perspective seasonal tickets also enable the respective clubs to plan adequately since they get to collect the seasons revenue in advance thus offer better services to their clients(supporters)and run the club well.

Conclusion

From the above discussion it’s clear that the sports tickets discussed are basically instrumental in generating revenue for the club, but on the other hand there is growing discontent generally emanate from the misunderstanding of the contracts that the purchasers enter into with the clubs while purchasing the personal seat tickets/licenses and the season tickets. (Ortfield, 1995)  As much the personal seat ticketing method could be a timely innovation in helping out clubs run their own programs and build stadiums, it should not be used as a tool of exploitation in any case capitalizing on the fans fanatical desire for sport entertainment and especially in football.

References:

Dinette, D.R. (2006) the myth and mystery of personal seat licenses, saint Louis

            University Journal

Gottdiener, M. (2000) new forms of consumption: consumer, culture and co modification

Lisa, P (2004) Principles and practice of sports management, second edition, Jones and

            Bartlett publishers

Ortfield. (1995) Selton hall Journal of sport law.