There has certainly been a lot of interest in Passbook since it was released as a part of iOS 6, and MLB, Major League Baseball, has certainly been at the forefront of that.
However its announced that it wants to take its use of the app, and other similar apps to the next level, such has been the huge adoption rate so far, MarketWatch reports.
Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB Advance Media:
That adoption rate [12%] really floored us – there is no question our fans want digital tickets. Fans can use the tickets, forward them to a friend, resell them, or even donate them to charity – and they never get lost or left at home.
From a team perspective, the biggest advantage is knowing who is at the ballpark, how many times they come, and where they sit.
If you know someone goes to the Brewers game every time the Cardinals are in town, they may be as much a Cardinals fan as a Brewers fan – and you want to send them different types of communications. Or, if you have a fan who always sits in the third tier, but goes to 20 home games – you can upgrade his ticket on the 21st game to right behind home plate.
That adoption rate is definitely impressive – less than a third of seats sold in MLB were paper tickets, and that should continue to fall as more and more fans make the transition to email and Passbook based tickets.
A side effect of this though is the price of collector’s tickets has risen sharply. A mint, unused ticket to a perfect game can reach thousands, so if you’re a collector, things have just got a lot more expensive.
It will be interesting to see if the NBA, the NFL and the Premier League start looking into this. Ticketless is definitely practical however some might argue that it’s not as memorable and authentic. It’s up to you to decide.
