An alternate take on the Barclays Center-SeatGeek split: ticket company faced "recurring tech issues" that frustrated concert promoters, led to one cancellation.

Now there's some plausible, if not completely convincing pushback, on the suggestion, based on circumstantial evidence and past industry practices, that the Barclays Center short-circuited its ticketing contract with SeatGeek to rejoin Ticketmaster because of the latter's partnership with the concert promoter Live Nation.

So, my recent headline--"At Senate hearing, new evidence of Ticketmaster's power: SeatGeek CEO says Barclays Center sought to retain contract for Nets games, not concerts"--might be amended to "new evidence of Ticketmaster's value."

At least if we believe the sources, some unnamed in Billboard's 1/26/23 Barclays Center Ditched SeatGeek for Ticketmaster After Recurring Tech Issues, which cites problems in selling tickets for certain concerts.

That said, it should be noted that it was problems with Ticketmaster--notably bots invading a Taylor Swift presale--that led to a Congressional hearing. Both systems add significant charges beyond the ticket's face value.

Pressure from Barclays

The lead:

In December, Barclays Center and BSE Global chief executive Sam Zussman arranged a meeting with officials at SeatGeek and offered the ticketing company an ultimatum: Either terminate the seven-year contract they signed with his predecessor, John Abbamondi, the year before, or else Zussman would publicize SeatGeek’s tech failures as they happened, multiple sources tell Billboard.

SeatGeek quietly complied and the ticketing company’s third NBA contract would come to an end, losing one of New York’s most popular venues. Starting this month, all new concerts at the arena are now ticketed by the team’s previous ticketing provider, Live Nation’s Ticketmaster — the world’s biggest ticketing service — under a deal term that runs for three to five years, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The information is unsourced, but, given that it reflects badly on SeatGeek, which otherwise communicated in a statement, it's hard to think the latter provided the information. More likely it came from Barclays and/or industry figures close to Barclays.

SeatGeek, not specifically denying the anecdote, noted that Barclays Center sought "to amend the contract which would offer us the ability to continue ticketing the teams, but not third party events,” but then the firm "offered Barclays the opportunity to simply end the agreement."

Barclays Center separately offered limited praise: “SeatGeek provided our fans with a first-class gameday ticketing experience." That's not the same as pre-sale ticketing.

Digging down

While Barclays Center would not officially comment--who else was the source?--Billboard quoted booking agents for The Strokes, who claimed "SeatGeek mishandled an October 2021 presale that cost the group several hundred thousand dollars."

“They just aren’t designed for high-demand ticket sales, like concerts,” said booking agent Jared Arfa. A concert promoter said Ticketmaster has deeper reach through its long history, email lists, and search engine optimization. 

A lesser performance on those fronts, though, doesn't necessarily translate to "mishandled."

Billboard also cited a Genesis 2022 tour date that was canceled, because it "suffered from technical issues after going on sale and never came close to hitting the promoter’s sales goals."

While SeatGeek officials disputed those claims, and cited "number of fan-friendly strides in how we handle onsales, from utilizing state-of-the-art 3D view-from-seat imagery to providing ‘similar seat’ recommendations when multiple customers are vying for the same inventory," it didn't--at least in Billboard's reporting--directly refute them.

The benefit to Barclays

Billboard reported:

Abbamondi signed the SeatGeek deal in 2021 with a $10 million signing package, sources say, that included cash, savings on the fees SeatGeek charged and a lucrative sponsorship agreement. The contract was seen as a means of helping reduce owner and Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai’s $50 million to $100 million annual losses operating the team and arena since he bought out majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov in 2019. Just seven months later, however, Tsai agreed to accept Abbamondi’s resignation, despite the executive signing a record number of sponsorship agreements for the Nets that brought in an additional $30 million in annual revenue.

That sponsorship agreement presumably included SeatGeek Plaza.

Billboard pushback

Billboard made note of last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the ticket industry:

SeatGeek chief executive Jack Groetzinger testified during the hearing that Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger should be unwound due to a monopolistic behavior, saying it “it stifles competition completely.” (He was not, however, asked about his company’s own outages selling tickets to five of the concert dates for which the company has exclusive deals — including one reported instance where it charged a woman’s credit [card] 14 times for $9,000 in total.) 

That's another piece of unsourced, insider information--or lore. 

Why did Barclays lose events?

Billboard suggested that the Department of Justice will be looking into the Barclays switch in its analysis of the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger.

One issue is whether the loss of Ticketmaster is why Barclays had fewer shows in 2022 than in 2019.

While the number of Live Nation shows dropped 23% and revenues more than 50%, Billboard suggested it was not necessarily evidence of retaliation. Even Madison Square Garden saw 11% fewer Live Nation shows and 20% drop in revenue, while three other major arenas "experienced double-digit event night declines."

But Barclays had it worse, likely at least in part because of the opening of the UBS Arena at Belmont Park, in its honeymoon phase.

Perhaps, at the least, Department of Justice investigators can sort out the conflicting claims.