Features
Fire Sale For ScoreBig
After a bumpy week that saw the site temporarily close down, the ScoreBig ticketing marketplace is officially up for grabs and its creditors are hoping that one of the big players in the secondary space will buy it and end a crisis that could hurt thousands of unsuspecting fans.
Los Angeles firm Sherwood Partners is handling the sale, and closed bids to buy ScoreBig were due Sept. 30 at 5 p.m. PST. According to its prospectus, ScoreBig has had impressive growth over the last four years, posting $45 million in sales in 2015, $28 million in 2014, $13 million in 2013 and $7 million in 2012.
The ticket marketplace temporarily halted transactions Sept. 23, deleted its Twitter account and released most of its staff after a liquidity crisis made it nearly impossible to operate. The shutdown angered hundreds of ticket brokers, who said they haven’t been paid in months for tickets listed on ScoreBig. A number of brokers have started canceling barcodes as a way to recoup their investment, causing fans to unknowingly show up to venues with tickets that don’t work.
The cancellations are starting to unnerve the secondary market’s biggest players, who are pleading with brokers not to punish unsuspecting fans. SeatGeek CEO Russell D’Souza offered to “cover 50 percent of all unpaid orders for future events referred by SeatGeek,” according to a letter to brokers obtained by The Real.
“In return, we ask that ticket sellers deliver these tickets to consumers.” While the ScoreBig brand is damaged, the company assets may be valuable to a secondary ticketing company like TicketNetwork or Curtis Cheng’s consolidation firm DTI. According to the prospectus, ScoreBig has a database with 2 million names and valuable technology that allows it to interface with Ticketmaster’s API.
ScoreBig also has historical pricing information. Much like Priceline, ScoreBig lets fans name their own price and the company has retained pricing data from sports teams; namely the face value of a ticket and how low an offer teams would accept through ScoreBig’s bidding technology.
About 60 percent of ScoreBig’s inventory was sold through the “name your price” engine. Whoever buys ScoreBig will have the responsibility of paying off hundreds of angry brokers and ending the ticket cancellation crisis.
Even if that happens, it could take weeks to sort through the fiasco and determine which tickets are valid, which have been canceled and which can be clawed back and resold.