Season tickets as an investment

[k24a2fast4ya 0]

The first half of the season is kind of hard to sell but the second half they sell pretty quick. You can make most of your money back from play offs. what i did was save enough to pay for the first round of play offs then sold the tickets for the face value of the next round that way no money comes out of your pocket for the later rounds

[Havok19 0]

I am still in the waiting room for mine.Habs have the longest period of wait.

[phonak 0]

Just buy it.. It's a good deal ;) aaaand I'll buy a couple of tickets from you.

[Ital79 0]

How can you make your money back? That depends on the Sharks...

The way you can make money w/o violating any 'scalper' rules of selling over face value is easy: turn it into a derivative.

You sell the 'rights' to the ticket to be sold at face value. (this only works for post-season tickets)

For instance; if the Sharks have a chance at a WCF or SCF - people will want tickets. You can sell the right, not the obligation, for a person to buy your playoff tickets at face value. That agreement can be entered whenever you wish. You're not selling a ticket, you're selling the right to give someone 1st dibs "right of first refusal" to purchase the ticket at face value.

So, a couple can enter a contract w/you for the right to buy SCF tickets at face value...the contract costs $500 or so. The closer it looks for the Sharks to advance, the higher the contract cost can be.

A SCF game 1/2 (3/4) call option can be $500 if you sell during the reg season...$1000 if it is during the WCF.

A SCF game 6/7 call option can fetch much much higher as it can be a potential clinching game. I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot pays $5000 for the right to one ticket.

When the Chicago Cubs make the playoffs, ticket holders have sold call options on their World Series tickets for more $$$ than a new Porsche 911...and people buy.

Here's the beauty; if the Sharks choke and miss the SCF - you are not obligated to refund the money. The only contingency is that if the Sharks make the SCF, they have the right to purchase the ticket at face value. If they do not make the SCF, the contract expires.

A good example of this would be home insurance. If your house burns to the ground within the term limit of the contract, you collect. If your house isn't destroyed when the contract expires, you do not collect.

A cash-only exchange for the call should be enough to keep the tax-man away as you can/should accept PayPal for the face value of the ticket+PayPal costs. If you want something a bit easier and involves less stress, enter a contract w/a ticket broker to sell them the rights to buy your tickets at face value...do this AFTER you talk to a lawyer though. I don't trust ticket agents.

[saveourpens 0]

In Mellon Arena I had seats in C22. In the new arena I'll have seats in 110 in the lower bowl. Both are pretty good. They are close to center towards the end the Pens shoot 2x. It varies by game but anywhere from 0% (yes games in the beginning of the season against the Panthers I was sometimes just looking for my money back) to 40% to more than 100% profit (most of these were on Ticketexchange). So yes I know exactly how much I make by keep a spreadsheet detailing every game I've ever sold, how much I made and where that money is (Paypal, cash, ticketexchange)

I wouldn't necessarily go for cheaper tickets. You can only make so much money off those. I have no idea about the HP Pavillion center situation, but look up what you can get and make a judgment in terms of price and profit ratio.

For instance, at Mellon Arena we were considering getting Igloo Club seats (close dead center "premium" seats), but just didn't have enough money. I have sold tickets for a friend who has seats here (7th row from the ice) and many people buy these seats for a present, a kind of "once in a lifetime time of thing". Even though they cost a lot, you make a lot of money in return.

Both my brother and me put down all the money we had when we were 17 to get these seats. We got in right before they started the waiting list (so we were kind of lucky), but needless to say it turned out to be a very worthwhile investment.

[shooter27 116]

How can you make your money back? That depends on the Sharks...

The way you can make money w/o violating any 'scalper' rules of selling over face value is easy: turn it into a derivative.

You sell the 'rights' to the ticket to be sold at face value. (this only works for post-season tickets)

For instance; if the Sharks have a chance at a WCF or SCF - people will want tickets. You can sell the right, not the obligation, for a person to buy your playoff tickets at face value. That agreement can be entered whenever you wish. You're not selling a ticket, you're selling the right to give someone 1st dibs "right of first refusal" to purchase the ticket at face value.

So, a couple can enter a contract w/you for the right to buy SCF tickets at face value...the contract costs $500 or so. The closer it looks for the Sharks to advance, the higher the contract cost can be.

A SCF game 1/2 (3/4) call option can be $500 if you sell during the reg season...$1000 if it is during the WCF.

A SCF game 6/7 call option can fetch much much higher as it can be a potential clinching game. I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot pays $5000 for the right to one ticket.

When the Chicago Cubs make the playoffs, ticket holders have sold call options on their World Series tickets for more $$$ than a new Porsche 911...and people buy.

Here's the beauty; if the Sharks choke and miss the SCF - you are not obligated to refund the money. The only contingency is that if the Sharks make the SCF, they have the right to purchase the ticket at face value. If they do not make the SCF, the contract expires.

A good example of this would be home insurance. If your house burns to the ground within the term limit of the contract, you collect. If your house isn't destroyed when the contract expires, you do not collect.

A cash-only exchange for the call should be enough to keep the tax-man away as you can/should accept PayPal for the face value of the ticket+PayPal costs. If you want something a bit easier and involves less stress, enter a contract w/a ticket broker to sell them the rights to buy your tickets at face value...do this AFTER you talk to a lawyer though. I don't trust ticket agents.

There was a company called Ticket Reserve that attempted to set up an exchange for forward contracts on tickets. The idea is exactly what you describe - you buy a forward contract to buy a face value ticket for a specific event, say game 1 of the scf in a certain city, or tickets to the super bowl if your favorite team makes it. The forward contracts were traded on the website's exchange. If your team was doing well and it looked like they were going to get to the finals then the price of the forward would go up, similar to the actual derivatives market. At the end, if your team went to the finals or the super bowl you had the opportunity to buy a ticket at face value - or sell the derivative to someone else at a profit.

They were up and running for a few years and really tried to market it to the young executive set as just another derivative you could trade and either make money on or get the tickets. They had a decent amount of VC funding behind them to, but they went belly up. At the end of the day they couldn't get enough people trading the forwards the create enough liquidity in the market to make it a viable model. The company still exists, but today it is a technology platform that drives other ticket sites.

The problem I see with doing this as an individual is that the forward is not tradeable, there is no secondary market for it, and the people have no recourse if you decide to screw them. I've got to believe its going to be hard to get people to pay for the right to buy a ticket to a playoff game well in advance with just your word backing up. Its not like they can go to the cops because then its a he said-he said issue with no real resolution.