Buying Tickets for Games in the US
Ticket ownership in the US is very different to here in the UK.
Whilst re-selling is frowned upon in the UK and actually illegal for Football (Soccer) tickets, in the US, it’s a legitimate, thriving industry.
To be in a position to buy a Season Ticket, some US teams require that you purchase a seat licence first, which can be paid over a few years. In most cases, the fee is non-refundable.
Some Seat Licenses come with added benefits, like 1st dibs on other events at the venue, there was a lot of money to be made on the 2023 Taylor Swift Tour, also free Swag.
This leads to Season Tickets becoming investments to be bought and sold. The best way to see this is by looking at Ticketmaster for a particular game and looking at the available tickets which will be either Blue or Pink, Blue dots are tickets that are being sold by the team themselves, the pink dots are from verified sellers.
If you do not see both coloured dots, check the filters that both ticket types are checked and if the blue dots are still not visible, the team may have sold out completely to season ticket holders. Some teams have waiting lists, such is the potential income.
The Main Ticketing sites
First thing to mention, with all US Stadia being mobile entry, StubHub International, Ticketmaster and Vivid Seats have apps that can be downloaded to your UK phone, to keep your tickets in. Seat Geek do not yet have an app that can be downloaded on to a UK phone. You access your tickets from the confirmation email link.
Ticketmaster is the official ticketing partner of choice with 4 of the 5 Major League Sports, with the MLB being the exception who are officially linked with Seat Geek.
That said, some teams have relationships outside the Leagues Official Ticket Partner, which I will list on the respective team page.
There are some differences between buying from the Leagues Official Ticket Partner and the other Ticket buying sites, in that as the ticket was originally offered for sale on the Partner site, which means that that they will only put up for sale, tickets that have physically been added by the seller and will be transferred to you fairly quickly if not instantly.
The other sites are reseller sites, where the seller will add the details of the tickets they have for sale and if you purchase it, then you have to wait for the seller to transfer you the ticket, which happens as it should in a vast majority of cases.
When it doesn’t work, is when the seller has the ticket for sale on various reseller sites and its sold already but they haven’t taken the listing down on the other sites yet or the seller may be engaged in short selling, which is the practice of putting a ticket up for sale that they do not have and if they get a sale, they then search for a cheaper ticket to purchase and then pass it onto you, pocketing the difference.
In all these cases, you will get your money back automatically with an apology from the ticket site, but that doesn’t help you when you couldn’t get into the venue to see the game.
This happened to me once in Boston for a game 7 decider for the Bruins and I purchased a ticket at quite an expense which then didn’t materialise, so ended up in a Sports Bar just over the road from the TD Bank Arena, watching the game on TV. My refund and apology email arrived a few hours later.
At the end of the day, it will be your preferred choice who you use to purchase ticket through and when to buy tickets, whether it’s through familiarity or price, so here are my observations.
The main ticket buying sites are:
As previously mentioned, SeatGeek do not have an App the UK fans can download, also, when you go to purchase a ticket via the SeatGeek website, it only shows the USA, Canada and Mexico in the drop down list of countries for your Billing Information.
Fear not, there is a workaround, enter your card details and the 1st parts of your address, but select a random US State and enter 00000 in the Zipcode box, it should then progress through to completion. I have successfully tried this workaround.
Prices and Fees
Prices do differ between the various sites and even between different sellers on the same site. I previously mentioned the Pink & Blue dots on Ticketmaster, they carry different fee’s to be added and as some fees are % based, it can add up to a saving worth looking for.
All the sites show a price for the ticket before fees are added and the fees added vary dramatically.
Here are the prices being advertised for a single ticket for the Carolina Panthers @ Atlanta Falcons on Sunday Sep 10th 2023.
The search was carried out on 2nd of June 2023.
All tickets were in Section 340 Row 11
I believe it was the same seller on all sites as all were for 3 tickets that could be purchased singularly.
| Visible Price | Total Fees | Total Price | |
| Ticketmaster | $100.00 | $19.95 | $119.95 |
| Vivid Seats | $83.00 | $38.78 | $121.78 |
| Seat Geek | $87.00 | $38.95 | $125.95 |
| StubHub International | $93.00 | $52.00 | $145.00 |
For the comparison above, I did select seats in the same section and row and whilst the Ticketmaster seat @ $100 was the cheapest available in the section, there were cheaper visible priced tickets in the same section on the other 3 sites, but in different rows.
As you can see, the highest priced ticket when initially viewing the seat turned out to be the cheapest ticket after all the fees had been added.
This is probably due to the fees that the different companies charge the seller, so they build it into their initial offering.
To view the fees for each ticket, you need to put it into your basket and whilst the fees will be visible in the basket, I had to go through 7 screens to get to the basket in StubHub International before I was presented the total.
Once its in your basket and you have viewed the total price, if you decide against it, only Ticketmaster had a cancel order button, the other three, I just had to leave them there, which means I get follow up emails letting me know that I still have tickets in the basket.
Of the 4 sites, only Vivid Seats had a loyalty programme which offers discounts, ticket upgrades, and perks:
Vivid Seats Reward Programme Details
Definitely something to think about if you buy tickets regularly or buy tickets for a group.
When to Buy
When the league schedule is released, the tickets are available to buy straight away, it may look like there aren’t many tickets available and you may jump straight in to secure your ticket, however not all Season Ticket Holders will have put their spare tickets up for sale yet, also Season Ticket holders may be paying for their tickets in 4 parts, with the last part and they can’t put their spare tickets up for sale till they have paid in full. So expect more tickets to become available a few weeks after the league schedule release.
The teams use dynamic pricing for their own tickets and I’ve seen their ticket prices fall after the 1st couple of weeks rush had taken place.
I do go across to see US sports quite regularly and I am in the habit of not purchasing my tickets until quite close to the game, sometimes on the same day.
I find that prices, by enlarge, do come down nearer to game day, especially if the weather turns for the worse.
This applies to regular season tickets, play off tickets and finals tickets, including the Superbowl will always sell out and expect to pay a premium.
Please follow my Facebook page, (link at top of page), as I will post a link there for the next blog about travelling to the US to watch your team.
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