How to Buy Sports Tickets

How to Find Affordable Tickets to Sporting Events

Tickets to major sporting events can be expensive and hard to get your hands on. To find decent seats at reasonable prices, it helps if you know how and when to look for tickets, and learn how to navigate the secondary market. In addition to big-ticket events, there are plenty of alternatives that will leave you entertained and enthralled by the sporting action without leaving a gaping hole in your wallet.

Where to Look

First you need to know who has the tickets you want. Are tickets really that hard to get? Yes, and no. Most tickets are attainable if a fan has a little know-how. Cost is obviously a factor, but timing can be just as important, which is why knowing when leagues typically distribute tickets can be the key to attending the events you are interested in. Can’t I just buy tickets on StubHub or SeatGeek? Third-party companies like StubHub and SeatGeek have thrived in recent years by offering a secondary ticket marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets to events. It is a system with myriad benefits — the instant download of tickets makes it easy to attend an event at the last minute — but the laws of supply and demand often put what used to be a reasonably priced ticket out of reach for the average fan. In general, the site that has the ticket you want for a lower price is the better one. StubHub is a more established company, and has a strong reputation for fixing problems if people run into trouble at the venue; SeatGeek offers a feature where each ticket is rated on a scale of how good a deal it is. Always trying to keep up, Ticketmaster and plenty of other major ticket sellers have come up with their own versions of these services, so it’s worth checking all of your options before purchasing. There is even a secondary ticket marketplace for people who prefer luxury suites, with SuiteHop offering a chance to buy, sell or rent space in the exclusive areas of sports arenas in all of the major sports.

Buying Tickets Offline: Scalpers

The image of a shady transaction outside of an arena, where hushed tones are uttered and stacks of cash are exchanged, is slightly out of date even if scalpers definitely still exist. Many arenas now provide zones where the reselling of tickets is permitted, which brings the process more above-board. Fans willing to risk showing up with no guarantee of getting into the event might save some money using this method versus using an online ticket marketplace, but they will also forfeit the protection that those major companies provide should you end up with a fraudulent ticket.