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As teams prepare for the return of MLB & NFL, potentially with fans at reduced capacities - there is a tremendous amount of work being done by teams to figure out social distancing protocols. What is not being discussed as much are secondary market challenges.
For every jurisdictional requirement or stadium requirement, that is an additional requirement that secondary resale sites such as @Stubhub, @Ticketmaster, & @VividSeats needs to understand and adhere to, in order enable teams and venues to meet regulations.
However, due to the distributed nature of resale this is a complicated problem that could be challenging to solve. An obvious solution could be no more splitting tickets (buying 2 of 4 available in the listing) but the problem is much more challenging than that.
How will the exchange know that the holder did not just sell 2 or 4 of the 8 seats they own? How will you know as a buyer that your seats will be appropriately distanced within the requirements? How will teams be forced to handle potential issues?
Another solution could be to turn transfer functionality off for all tickets at the team level which would upset a lot of stakeholders and partnerships, especially if tickets were already purchased before there were restrictions.
Reality may be that unless there is mass venue layout and restrictions sharing for all marketplaces, even those that are not league / team partners, and in addition completed sales sharing – teams could be left to solve problems on game day.
Not surprising, but reintroduction of sports fans in a COVID world stretches far beyond stadium configurations and social distancing, but goes to the core of the secondary market and ultimately ticket control.
