Some Bucks season ticket holders will pay less for their seats next year. Here's why.
Most season ticket holders know the drill: If they want to get their seats for next year, they’ll probably have to pay more.
But some Milwaukee Bucks season ticket holders may have been surprised to learn that their tickets won’t cost them more next season — and, in a few cases, will be cheaper.
Here's why.
The Bucks organization used data to check its pricing — and found that some season tickets were too expensive
Dustin Godsey, chief marketing officer for the Bucks and Fiserv Forum, said the organization instituted a new pricing model that evaluated each seat based on 90 different data points — including how it is priced in the secondary market, promotions used for that seat and how often the ticket is used.
The Bucks used 25 different pricing models to judge the cost of nearly 18,000 seats. The process took roughly a month to complete.
“It really spit out a price in an area where, perhaps we were above market and could come down a little bit and help us with our goals of selling more season tickets in those areas,” Godsey said.
“It was really done by a seat-by-seat, price level by price level process that at the end of the day, netted out 50% of the current season ticket prices will remain flat ... or in some cases go down slightly just to match what the market rate, what the value in those areas are.”
Jamie Weinstein, senior vice president of ticket sales and service for the Bucks, said in the past, the organization may have priced tickets at a level the fans weren’t willing to pay “and it’s OK to admit that perhaps, we were a little off this year.”
Many Bucks upper level season ticket prices will be 'pretty drastically' reduced
“In the 100 and 200 level, taking all the data aside and what the pricing recommendations are, we made the conscious decision to decrease pricing pretty drastically in a couple hundred seats, so that we could create an entry-level price point for all types of fans,” Weinstein said.
“We wanted to expand the number of people that could get in the 100 level, expand the number of people that could get in the 200 level at extremely reasonable rates.”
“There are fans who in the past, may have felt like they were priced out of a season ticket package, that are (now) going to be able to get a season ticket package for under $1,000, likely for the upper level for the season,” Godsey said. “That allows us to get people in the right seats but also get people who didn’t think they’d get an opportunity to buy season tickets to have that opportunity.”
Some courtside and lower-level Bucks season tickets did see price increases
While roughly half of season ticket prices are flat or slightly cheaper, the other half of the season ticket seats saw price increases.
“As a whole it’s not that we’re lowering prices, it’s that we adjusted to make sure (tickets were priced appropriately) and took this data-first approach to make sure that this value was there,” Godsey said.
The increase occurred for courtside seats and others closer to the court.
“We have a waitlist for folks who are interested in getting onto the court as well into those courtside seats,” Weinstein said. “In those areas, where there was an extremely high sell through and we have people clamoring to get in, those prices did increase.”
What's next for Bucks season ticket holders
The Bucks have started reaching out to current season ticket holders to renew for next season and are also offering them a chance to sign a three- or five-year contract that locks in their seats and caps the price the seats could increase in the future. The long-term contract was previously only offered to more expensive season ticket packages.
Weinstein said she’s worked for multiple NBA teams where it was customary to increase prices across the board.
“Many teams do just take an increase over every seat in the building. So they might just say ‘Hey, we’re going to increase pricing by 5% across every single price level and seat in the building,’” Weinstein said.
But other teams, like the Bucks, look at data when it comes to ticket pricing.
“We are excited that we’re really evaluating every single price level and making the best decision with all the data on price adjustments to get here.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks season ticket prices may be lower for 2023-2024
