This Company Lets You Reserve a Seat for the Big Game

This company lets you reserve a seat for the big game
Rick Harmon, CEO of Forward Market Media
Karjean Levine photo / Crain's illustration
Rick Harmon has made buying a ticket to a championship sporting event a game in itself, and it's making both
his company and those who run the events a lot of money.
The CEO of Lake Forest-basedForward Market Media has been turning heads among event organizers with
a simple concept: There's value in fan excitement, even when there's no guarantee their team will play in the
big game.
“People spend a lot more time anticipating stuff than actually doing stuff,” Mr. Harmon says. “The question
was, 'How do you build a method by which to monetize anticipation?' “

His answer, dubbed TeamTix, essentially lets fans place a bet on their team: Forward Market Media licenses
its software to high-demand sporting events whose teams are yet to be determined—college football bowl
games, for example—and lets fans reserve face-value tickets contingent on their team advancing to that game.
If their team qualifies, they're obligated to buy the ticket. If it doesn't, they lose only their reservation fee,
which can vary widely depending on the team and what point in the season they made the purchase.
With dozens of teams in the running for major games, the result is a multiplier effect that lets event organizers
squeeze new revenue out of limited ticket inventory. It has generated more than $1 million in added revenue
for some of its biggest games and will help the company, which takes a piece of each reservation, nearly
double its revenue this year to about $7.5 million, according to Mr. Harmon.
College football's biggest bowl games have been using it for several years. The Big Ten Conference jumped on
board in 2012 for its football championship and added its basketball championship this year, and Major
League Baseball has used it for the World Series. This year, the TeamTix market is up and running for the
College Football Playoff semifinal and championship games.
“You're buying a small insurance policy to avoid the last-minute secondary market,” says Mr. Harmon, who
says most clients have seen revenue boosts of three to seven times face value of the tickets allotted to the
TeamTix system.
The question was, 'How do you build a method by which to
monetize anticipation?'
— Rick Harmon, CEO,
Forward Market Media
The goal is to make the option more attractive to a fan than waiting to buy on secondary marketplaces like
StubHub or Craigslist, where tickets for the biggest games often cost hundreds or thousands of dollars above
face value. Reservations for long-shot teams can start off as low as $10 for nosebleed seats. But they spike as
the event approaches and a team's chances of qualifying increase, some reaching as high as $750 to $800 for
good seats.
“It's a chance for us to get some incremental revenue without a fan having to pay the exorbitant rates that a
secondary market can drive,” says Jeff Hundley, chief operating officer of the Sugar Bowl organizing
committee, which has used the TeamTix platform since 2008. When the New Orleans group hosted the BCS

National Championship game in 2008 and 2012, revenue from TeamTix reservations totaled in the low seven
figures each time.
The company helps ticket sellers adjust prices to reflect each team's market value. Those who buy reservations
can resell them before the market closes, although Forward Market Media says about 80 percent of
reservations stay in the original buyer's hands until they either expire (their team doesn't make the game) or
they buy the ticket.
The Orange Bowl pulled in an additional $1.2 million in ticket revenue after 11,637 TeamTix reservations
were purchased for more than 100 teams for the national championship game in 2013. It also created a
valuable database of fans declaring their intentions of buying tickets, says Michael Saks, who was chief
operating officer of the Orange Bowl from 2007 to 2014.
“It's a way for us to engage fans 12 months out of the year versus just one month right before the game,” he
says, citing a partnership between bowl organizers and travel booking website Orbitz, which threw in travel
vouchers to anyone who bought the reservations in return for the chance to market itself to fans looking for
flights and hotels.
VALUE OF PERCEPTION
TeamTix may have a narrow target market because it is designed only for high-demand events, but it also
helps event organizers avoid the perception that they are “pricing out” some fans, says Joris Drayer, a sports
marketing professor at Temple University, whose research focuses on ticket pricing and consumer behavior.
“The second people think your pricing scheme is not fair, they really start to have bitter feelings toward your
product,” he says. TeamTix “is profit without changing the price of a ticket.”
Mr. Harmon learned some of those fan grievances the hard way. His previous venture, Ticket Reserve Inc.,
tried a similar reservation concept using ticket inventory from resellers instead of the teams themselves, but
was forced out of business when two sellers falsely claimed to be selling 250 Super Bowl tickets, resulting in a
class action lawsuit against the company.
It's a way for us to engage fans 12 months out of the year versus
just one month right before the game.
— Michael Saks, former COO, Orange Bowl
Now, having proven the value of teaming with event organizers themselves on bowl games and tournaments,
Forward Market Media and its 25 full-time employees are expanding beyond event tickets. On Aug. 28 the
company announced a partnership with American Airlines to use the forward market on airfare to the

college football championship and already has folded major hotel operators into its bowl game and tournament
ticket markets.
Mr. Harmon has been in talks with one hotelier in the Washington area about selling reservations for rooms
during the 2017 presidential inauguration tied to specific candidates winning the office.
“Consumers are telegraphing months and sometimes years in advance where they intend to be, why they intend
to be there and what they're doing when they get there,” Mr. Harmon says. “That's where we're driving value
proposition to the brands.”