Scalpers are those who resell tickets for a large or quick profit. Scalpers often sell stolen or fake tickets. Nowadays, scalpers operate both offline and online. There is a greater number of scams happening online because it is usually illegal to scalp tickets at the event. Scalping bots buy up great numbers of tickets to later resell marked up. In 2016, the Better Online Tickets Sale Act was passed by Congress to curb this new form of mass resale. Online ticket marketplaces provide extra protection like refund policies in case the tickets you bought were actually fake.
How difficult or easy it is to get tickets for an event depends on how popular the event is. It may be very difficult to buy tickets for the biggest NFL games of the year like the Super Bowl or the college football Rose Bowl Game. This is because hundreds of thousands of people on the site are trying to buy stadium seats before they sell out. Ultra-fast bots also make it hard for people to buy tickets. This is because they buy out hundreds of spots only then to resell them on StubHub or Craigslist.
There are few things that you can do with tickets you no longer need. First of all, you can always resell the tickets on sites like StubHub, Craigslist, SeatGeek, or VividSeats. There are many ticket reseller sites where you can try your luck to get rid of the tickets. On ticket resale platforms, you can raise prices as you see fair and post across marketplaces. Make sure to remove the tickets from wherever you posted them once you sell them to prevent a double sale. You can also give away tickets to your friends or family or post to sell or give away on social media.
We find the 10 best options, so you can make informed decisions on tons of products and services.
Sporting events are a fun way to spend some time with friends or family. Looking to score the best tickets but aren’t sure which ticket site to use?
Going to the ball game or a good football game is one of the best ways to spend time. You’re cheering on your team, meeting other loyal fans, and the beers and nachos don’t hurt either. But as fun as going to a game is, the experience can also be an expensive one.
Buying tickets online can be frustrating when your seats end up being in a completely different section than you thought they were in at the time of purchase.
We’ve done the research and come up with the best ticket sites for sport tickets to help you find the best tickets no matter your requirements!
There are those sports tickets sites that have their core offering and specialize in one area or sport. We love the all-around solution because you will likely find what you’re looking for without having to go to any other sites or do any other external research.
An incredibly popular site that offers an all-around solution is StubHub. The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2000 and offers a marketplace-like platform for ticket sellers and buyers. You can buy tickets to NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA, college basketball, football, motorsport and other events, browse and compare prices, and even use its interactive seating map to really get a feel for the arena.
The site is extremely easy to use, and offers top-notch customer service in case you should need it. Say you bought 2 tickets to Sunday’s game but realized they were fake tickets or not what were advertised. You can contact support by phone or chat to get a refund and sort out the problem.
Other sites that offer all around solutions for your sport tickets needs are ScoreBig and Craigslist.
Owned by TicketNetwork, ScoreBig focuses on unsold tickets. Its main ticket categories are MLB, NFL, and NBA, and its website is extremely straightforward and simple to use. Just type in your location and the date you want your tickets for, and a list of relevant games will pop up. You can also find tickets by browsing its “popular events” or “top sports events” categories.
ScoreBig offers a 100% money back guarantee, as well as frequent 10% off promotions with special codes.
Another fan-favorite is Craigslist. It’s a great place to find tickets to pretty much any sporting event, but it requires more skill and attention to detail than the other ticket sites do. This is because Craiglist is an open platform where anyone can sell. The site also has lenient security policies and a less than ideal customer service department. So, if anything goes wrong or you buy counterfeit tickets, you will likely be stuck with them. That being said, tons of sellers use the platform, so if you know what you’re looking for, you can find incredible deals.
When using a ticket site, it’s important to consider the ones that have good mobile apps. The ones that do have easy-to-use apps will come in handy during last minute situations. Say you forgot your tickets on your desk at home or in your car. The last thing you feel like doing is driving back to get them. By using a ticket site that has a good app, you will always have your digital tickets with you in the palm of your hand.
A top ticket site that has a really good mobile app is TicketIQ. The site is very much like StubHub, offering a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers. TicketIQ is used by thousands of customers, has been awarded an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and offers the cheapest options for NBA, NFL, MLB, NBA, and soccer tickets.
The site also has a low price guarantee. So anytime you see tickets listed with an "LPG", you can be sure that you won’t find those tickets cheaper anywhere else. If you do, the site will give you 110% of your money back.
Its Android app is clean, crisp, and easy to use, and even lets you track sporting events and get price drop alerts. Downloading the app is free, but you will need to input your credit card details if you want to purchase tickets through it.
We also love the Ticketmaster app. It’s available for iOS and Android, and allows you to do everything you would do on the web version, just on the go.
The app is so smooth it won the Google Play Editor’s Choice award and is used by thousands of people. You can use it to get last minute tickets to all of your favorite sporting events and leagues, including the NFL, NBA, and NHL. And since the app uses GPS signals, it’s able to tell you about last minute tickets available for events near you.
Ticketmaster’s daughter company, NFL Ticket Exchange, is also a great place for NFL specific tickets.
To start your ticket search, you just need to choose the team you’re interested in seeing, and enter your zip code. From there, you will see an entire list of games happening in the future. You can also use the platform to set alerts that will notify you every time a game is happening with tickets in your price range.
The platform is also really fan-centric, meaning that you can read fan comments, write a review, or view fan pictures posted from various games.
If you’re price conscious and are looking to score the best deal on tickets, check out SeatGeek, TicketsNow, or Vivid Seats. They’re all sites known to offer the lowest prices on the market.
SeatGeek is extremely straightforward and shows you the price of the ticket with all fees and extra add-ons included. This is great, as no one likes clicking on the tickets, only to be charged extra fees at the last step of the checkout process. You can also sort through tickets by “deal score,” which tells you which seats are the best value for your money.
TicketsNow has been selling tickets since 1999, and is a safe, easy, and affordable reseller, while Vivid Seats offers a 100% buyer guarantee to give you full peace-of-mind, safety, and security.
Another site that offers some of the best ticket prices out there is Barry's Tickets. Its tagline is “Great Seats, Great Prices,” and it offers customers a 100% buyer guarantee.
Many ticket buyers have no idea where their tickets may have come from. That’s why it’s important to know the difference between primary and secondary sellers. Primary sellers own the rights to an event, game, or performance and sell those tickets directly, usually through an official site.
Secondary sellers are ticket resellers, brokers, or scalpers that sell tickets for a marked up price. Secondary sellers get their tickets from primary sellers. There are many reputable secondary seller sites where you can buy tickets to popular events like sports games, musical shows, or even horse racing.
The best sports ticket sites are filled with tons of tickets from both primary or secondary sellers. It’s important to know the low down about all the major leagues before heading out to buy tickets.
You don’t want to accidentally get a ticket to the wrong game, an enemy team, or off season tickets where the crowds will be lacking. StubHub, ScoreBig, Craigslist, and Razorgator Tickets are usually at the forefront of the best places to buy sports tickets.
The major professional sports leagues are the highest ranked professional sports teams in the US and Canada. The “Big Four” consists of the MLB (Major League Baseball), NBA (National Basketball Association), NFL (National Football League), and NHL (National Hockey League). All Major Leagues sports games usually have finals or world series like the Super Bowl or NBA Finals.
There are also single elimination tournaments like March Madness for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball, and the NBA Playoffs (postseason tournament).
The NFL includes famous and favorite teams like the Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, and New York Giants. The NFL’s season varies and tickets can go on sale anywhere from early spring to before the season starts, depending on the team or the division - professional or college football.
The MLB represents teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Kansas City Royals and more. Baseball's season stretches from April until October and tickets go on sale in January and February.
Playing times for basketball are different because of gender. The NBA plays from October to June. Tickets can be bought throughout the season, depending on how popular the teams are, when the game is, and what is the game’s location.
Tickets for the NBA go up for sale around August and September. For the Women’s NBA, the season lasts 36 games and usually runs from May to September. You can start buying tickets in March for the WNBA.
Beyond the Big Four, there are other sports worth catching live - especially when it comes to temperatures! The global sport of soccer has been making waves in North America with Major League Soccer and the Women’s Soccer League.
The MLS is a pretty new group in the States. They kick ball from February through October, and let fans buy tickets a month before the games begin. The Women's Soccer League plays from April to October, though ticket sales begin much earlier in August and September.
If you’re into colder sports, you may want to watch some hockey games with the National Hockey League. The NHL’s season, which goes from October to June, culminates with the finals and the Stanley Cup getting awarded to the winning team.
As soon as the hockey season ends, you can run to buy next season’s tickets in August and September.
No matter what you’re looking for out of a sports ticket site, you’re sure to find what you're looking for with our list. No matter if it’s a good mobile experience, low prices, or the best all around solution, you will be on court, or field side, with a smile on your face.
