In: Economics
The San Francisco Giants leverage business analytics to price game tickets. What factors are considered? What are the risks associated with allowing prices to fluctuate?
For San Francisco Giants, Dynamic Pricing Software Hits a Home
Run
Factors such as starting pitchers and Friday-night fireworks help
the San Francisco Giants boost revenue by matching ticket prices to
demand.
Dynamic pricing does have some limitations: it is best in industries with capacity constraints, those like ticketing, hotels and vacation packages and car rentals, and customers must accept that in some instances they’ll pay more. But for the Giants, it not only gave them greater flexibility, it increased ticket sales revenue by 7% after just the first year. Now many MLB teams are turning to dynamic pricing.Differential pricing has been the standard bearer of sports ticket pricing for a long time, but in a weaker world economy and competitive environment for gaining spectators, sports teams in North America and Europe have been trialing new strategies. These strategies vary from clever bundling approaches to complex algorithms estimating demand.