SECONDARY TICKETING company StubHub has signed its second marketing partnership in as many weeks by agreeing a three-year deal with English Premier League football club Everton.
StubHub also signed a deal with Sunderland, to commence at the beginning of the 2012/13 season, last week and will become an official sponsor of both clubs.
While the value of each deal is likely to be below £1m, the terms of the partnerships are of great significance.
In the US, StubHub acts as an online broker between fans wishing to sell tickets and fans wanting to buy tickets, including facilitating the trading of season tickets for individual matches.
StubHub will provide such services for fans of Everton and Sunderland, introducing a method of ticket sales which has never been officially explored in the Premier League before.
The operation has enjoyed great success in the States, transforming the ticket purchasing habits of professional sports fans who are able subsidise the cost of season tickets by selling tickets to individual games.
For the two clubs, the rationale is to boost attendance figures, especially when regular season ticket holders are unable to attend certain matches. Sunderland, for example, will be hoping the initiative will raise last season’s average attendance of 39,000 closer to the Stadium of Light’s capacity figure of 49,000.
The deals represent an opportunity for fans to buy tickets to matches which may have otherwise been unavailable and, potentially, cheaper than the tariffs set by the respective clubs as a result of ticket holders being able to dictate the price of sale.
For StubHub, the deals form part of the company’s marketing push following the launch of the digital service in the UK in March.
Having identified the British sports events markets as a key target area for growth, StubHub is likely to unveil further sports deals in the coming months and will use the UK as a launch pad into other western European markets and beyond.
By Luke Harman
Follow Luke on Twitter: @lukeharmanSBG