Ticketmaster Partners With U.S. Soccer For Presence At All Games

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Ticketmaster Presence, TM’s identity-based ticketing platform with facial recognition technology and digital “chain of custody” tracking, will now be deployed for U.S Men’s and Women’s National team games. 

The deal between Ticketmaster and the United States Soccer Federation spans multiple years and will give the ticketer and U.S. Soccer detailed knowledge of who attended U.S. Soccer games and their in-venue behavior. Fan and live event intelligence will also be provided through LiveAnalytics as part of the deal, helping with U.S. Soccer’s fan marketing efforts. 

“What U.S. Soccer and Ticketmaster both value is forging lifelong relationships with fans by providing the best experiences from the moment they discover tickets are available for purchase to well after the game is over,” Ticketmaster President Jared Smith said in a statement. 

“Through identity-based ticketing and our suite of analytics tools, U.S. Soccer will be better equipped to reach more fans than ever before in much more targeted and tailored ways. We’re proud to marry our best-in-class technology with U.S. Soccer’s rich history of serving fans.”

U.S. Soccer hosted 20 home games in 2018, with more than 250,000 fans attending. 

Ticketmaster Presence not only tracks fan behavior and ticket ownership for commercial purposes, but for security purposes as well. Ticketmaster announced in May of last year it was incorporating Blink Identity’s facial recognition technology into the Presence platform, giving it the ability to identify people around the venue while they are in motion. 

Live Nation chief financial officer Kathy Willard told Pollstar that Presence is a “game changer” in fan connection, with the NFL on board and more than 500 venues expected to employ the platform by the end of the year.

Presence is also a big part of Ticketmaster’s plan to gradually eliminate paper tickets.