

An App That Moves Sports Fans to Better Seats - siliconbeach
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225785#

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bluetidepro
> " _A fan logs into the app, which determines through geolocation the user's
> exact position within the venue..._ "

In terms of the indoor venues/stadiums/etc. I have ever been to ( _honestly,
quite a few_ ), I ALWAYS have absolutely HORRIBLE reception on my iPhone ( _AT
&T_). I feel like this could be a massive issue for this sort of app. How can
I use it, if it can't even figure out where I am or display the data inside
the venue?

 _Possible solution:_ It would be nice if the venues that they teamed up with
started offering free WIFI to help with this problem of poor reception or no
data. Almost always, the venues have WIFI, but it is password protected. Maybe
there are security concerns for having public WIFI at places like this that I
am unaware of?

 _EDIT:_ I will also add more of a "real world" example of this. When I use
Foursquare, I always have to "check-in" outside of the venue, because it can't
even find where I am when I'm inside. Luckily, Foursquare's model allows you
to do these "check-in's" manually ( _by searching_ ), or before/after you
attend the event. I think that is why they can get away with it, unlike an app
like this. It seems like a big problem they would need to figure out before
they launch.

~~~
sharkweek
Most modern stadiums are moving that direction --
[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/03/the-49...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/03/the-49ers-plan-to-build-the-greatest-stadium-wi-fi-network-
of-all-time/)

~~~
bluetidepro
That is true, there are some moving that way. What about the hundreds of other
stadiums that are not upgrading anytime soon, though? Again, seems like a big
issue they have not addressed or mentioned.

~~~
pmarsh
Yeah connectivity is going to continue to only slowly get better. The cost of
upgrading the infrastructure is just so high and older venues don't always
have the room for upgrading DAS systems.

It'll be another 3 years before things are really ironed out in the newer
buildings. Not sure how older ones will manage to deal with the situation.

~~~
zcuskelly
Zach from pogoseat here. You guys bring up a great point about connectivity
and it certainly is something worth noting. To help address we do our best to
make the app as lightweight as possible. Additionally we look to partner with
venues that have solid connectivity and thus far have had no issues in this
area with our deployments at Stanford and the GS Warriors.

Cisco is helping improve the situation as well although it is expensive as was
noted earlier. <http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/sports/stadium_wifi.html>

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roldie
To me, this is similar to the music industry/pirating example. Find a black
market, go to the source of the problem, improve the experience so that users
will choose your legal method as the best alternative. In music/movies, it's
providing easy-to-access, high quality streams and downloads; here it's
providing a way to improve your experience at the ballpark.

Finding the right prices will be key, and take some time, but even less than
optimal fee (from the stadium's perspective) will recoup some of the otherwise
lost revenue.

How much can stadiums realistically expect to earn a night? Several thousand?

~~~
abelcuskelly
Potential is there to make much more than. depends on the size of venue &
unsold / unused # of premium seats, type of event, sport, etc

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zavulon
This is a great idea, but it's bad news for me if it picks p at the stadiums I
go to. I am always one of those "seat pirates" and with the app, the situation
for me will change for the worse: instead of getting cheap tickets and then
switching to a $200+ seat for free, I would have to pay for this from now on.

~~~
nlh
This is an example where, I hope, market equilibrium comes into play and works
for the best. Like a hotel, a stadium would rather get >$0 for that $200 seat,
even if they can't get the full $200. Right now, when you hop into it, they're
getting $0 and you're hoping an usher doesn't check your ticket. It's sort of
like jumping into an empty 1st class seat on an airplane, only you're
(currently) less likely to get caught in a stadium.

Ideally, you should pay an amount that's fair to you and fair to the team
without going to either edge case -- you paying $0 and "stealing" the seat,
and you paying full boat.

The trick is finding that equilibrium price - and sometimes the stadium won't
act logically. In theory, they should take anything >$0, but if they charge
too little then people will stop paying full price in advance and just wait
until the last minute. If they charge too much (I.e $150), it won't have any
effect and they'll be right where they are now.

The illogical part is that they might not actually care about "revenue
maximization" in the way a hotel or airline does - which is where this could
all break down.

~~~
zcuskelly
hit the nail on the head nlh. finding that equilibrium price is something we
are constantly analyzing data to refine. we need to be careful not to have the
upgrade cost so cheap that it cannibalizes ticket sales but also need to make
it cheap enough that it makes sense. currently we take into account your
original seat value plus time-based price decay. it's up to a venue what
percentage discounts they want to apply across their inventory.

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dclaysmith
There seem to be a couple of these services popping up. This one
(<http://www.findexp.com/>) services the Braves games at Turner Field in
Atlanta. I can't really see more than one of these businesses taking off and I
would think Ticketmaster would get involved if it proves lucrative (either by
integrating it into their own app or acquiring one of these companies).

~~~
zavulon
I'm sure being acquired by Ticketmaster is an exit all of these guys dream
about.

~~~
wcfields
For sure, their entire "service" depends on APIs from ticketing services being
open and accessible.

The code change needed to make this work (auctioning / dynamic pricing / after
event start upgrading of ticket) would require the ticket provider to enable
this, they might as well not even bother buying a startup if they have to add
all this to their own system.

~~~
zcuskelly
So far we have had a positive response from the various ticketing services in
regards to partnering. We are currently deeply integrated with Ticketmaster's
Archtics ticketing system and are working on completing the same for
Tickets.com.

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Timothee
_the fee may actually be lower than the difference in ticket price_

Isn't the main point of getting a cheap ticket and then moving to a more
expensive one to not pay the price of an expensive ticket?

~~~
zcuskelly
It may not always be about getting a better view, at times you may just want
to escape a bad seating situation or impress a date/client/etc

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craino
This model works pretty well if you have plenty of empty seats, this could be
a problem for fans who come a little bit late to the game. How do you handle
fans that come late to a game?

Last year, I went to a baseball game a few innings late (maybe 2nd inning),
how do you determine the time at which point to sell the seat? I would be
upset if I paid $64+ bucks per ticket to have my seats sold based on getting
to the stadium a little late.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
The article didn't mention reselling seats that had already been paid for.
Some venues always have unsold seats. (This may sound odd to those of us in
places like Boston, where the Red Sox like to brag about selling out Fenway
for NNN days straight.)

~~~
zcuskelly
Correct. We don't just grab seats that are empty and sell them. We currently
offer only the venues unsold seat inventory. In the future we plan to allow
fans and other third parties to upload their inventory into our system as
well.

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lgray
Wow, it's nice to see that these guys are still going. They posted here a
while ago, about not getting into Y Combinator, but that clearly didn't stop
them.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2507662>

I think it's an interesting read, and it puts things in perspective.

~~~
zcuskelly
Thanks lgray! Those were definitely the early days of pogoseat and I don't
think we had quite fleshed everything out well enough at the time.

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jokecamp
Makes me think of the not-so-fun idea that stadiums would need to prevent
"seat pirates." Ushers get an app that indicates if there is a butt in a seat
for a ticket that was never used. They just need a sensor on the seat to
indicate the status.

Much easier to enforce when you don't have to ask people to see their tickets.
Everyone hates that.

~~~
relic
This made me think that thought as well. Judging by the number of ushers
usually at events like this, in practice they probably wouldn't even need
sensors on the seats. The ushers probably know the system better than anyone,
and given a list of seats that should be empty, I'd bet that it would not take
them very long at all to check if someone was sitting there.

