It's not GrizTix. It's not Bots. It's Learfield Sports.

[EverettGriz]

I called (yep, phone calls still work) the ticket office about 20 minutes ago, identified myself as a Bison fan, and was able to get 5 tickets in section 103. Everyone needs to calm their tits. Call the ticket office - it rang a few times, and the person sounded a little exhausted, but was able to hook me up.

Section 103 would be from the 500 allotted to ndsu.

 

[indiancoyote]

Terrific and informational post. And well-written.

What I would like to know and/or have verified, are:

How many tickets got to the resellers/scalpers and how did they get there?

Who/what were the "real people" who bought quickly and got them to the resellers (real people, some bot types, some people just trying to make a profit and quick to the site, some people who work for the resellers, or a direct insider allocation?)?

Did the resellers buy the tickets or are they selling for the people who purchased, i.e. who has the risk of a weak market or no-sale?

What will happen with remaining tickets if demand is soft (I assume prices will drop, but people out of town aren't necessarily going to be able to make last minute trips)?

Will this ultimately reduce actual attendance, butts in the seats, or Griz fans in the seats?

When I bought my season tickets on Sunday I also bought 10 in the south end zone. The first two were by accident and I didn't notice until I received the email with the tickets and I downloaded them to my Apple Wallet. I'm guessing I could have bought as many as available in the south end zone if I would have wanted to.

 

[Da Boyz Mom]

I called (yep, phone calls still work) the ticket office about 20 minutes ago, identified myself as a Bison fan, and was able to get 5 tickets in section 103. Everyone needs to calm their tits. Call the ticket office - it rang a few times, and the person sounded a little exhausted, but was able to hook me up.

Section 103 would be from the 500 allotted to ndsu.

I guess he's telling GRIZ fans to lie and say that they're Bison fans to get tickets in their section? Sounds like a very Bison thing to do...

 

[mthoopsfan]

It's BS if tickets are going from the online site easily and quickly to any company associated with the resellers. If the Learfield agreement(s) allows or provides for this, that's wrong. Griz fans and normal people should have first crack at these tickets, especially for a big game like this. Also, some Griz fans are old school, and old, and not techies, and need better opportunity to call or walk into the ticket office, as opposed to being lightning fast online.

As others have said, a prior explanation or warning should have been issued, at the very least. Perhaps people could have taken corrective action. Or, a special procedure should have been set up for this call. Griz fans calling a special number, or some way to identify Griz fans. For say, the first day.

 

[hilinegrizfan]

well said. Tickets going on sale at 5pm, when the box office is not staffed, is less than ideal for folks that just want to buy a ticket the old fashioned way, or that have questions.

 

[3-7-77]

MiningCityDude, great OP. :thumb:
That said, F Learfield and everyone associated with them. Keep F'n with the fans, don't be surprised when they just walk away.

This Learfield contract sounds like a scene from 'The Godfather' where Vito reportedly sees a man about a contract, taking Luca Brasi along, gun in hand, and tells the man 'Either your signature or your brains will be on this contract.' Organized crime.

 

[granitegriz]

University of Montana shouldn't allow Learfield/Paciolan to do that, plain and simple. If a contract issue, next round of contracts need to address that issue.

 

[MiningCityGrizFan]

Thanks OP, pretty typical, but wish UM was making the extra money.

Only way I have found to be fast enough for high demand events is to be at internet backbone site.

However, if paciolan runs the site and the capacity. How did the little old Griz Nation overwhelm their servers? The run the tickets for Georgia, that would obviously have more demand. This was an oversight by them and obviously a big one.

Slightly educated guess:
Paciolan probably pay for some cloud services and only allocated UM at a lowish amount of resources. Wouldn't want to impact some other major event and probably cost extra to have dynamic scaling.

I think you're probably right. Pacolian is most likely deployed on some public cloud service and only has so much compute allocated for UM.

It's weird they wouldn't increase capacity knowing that a rush was coming on Tuesday, but they also probably knew there were a relatively small number of tickets available so they didn't bother.

Keep in mind they support universities with 100K seat stadiums, so even if we had 10K tickets available to sell, they'd probably be like, "Aww, that's cute."

 

[BadlandsGrizFan]

People on Twitter (X) are venting at GrizTix, President Bodnar, Kent Haslam, etc. because unsold tickets ended up on secondary markets.

Here are few details you should know about.

UM/GrizTix doesn't manage the ticket sales in house.

Instead, they contract ticket management through a company called Paciolan.

Paciolan manages ticket sales for most division one schools:
https://griztix.evenue.net
https://gobison.evenue.net
https://georgiadogs.evenue.net/

This is actually a good thing, it's why Griz fans have the ability to manage their tickets online (which I realize some people hate) but more and more fans across the country expect to be able to buy tickets online and download them to their phone -- and is a major way to combat ticket counterfeiting.

The ticketing and digital ticket management is what Paciolan specializes in and something that Montana -- and most schools -- would never have the budget to develop and manage on their own.

Paciolan's parent company is Learfield.

And the reality is, UM sold it's soul to Learfield in 2007.

And now Learfield is the sole owner for all things Griz online . When you see Grizzly Sports Properties, know that it is Learfield.

They own gogriz.com.

Riley Corcoran works for Learfield/Grizzly Sports Properties, not UM.

Learfield owns all of the content Riley produces - game broadcasts, podcasts, coaches show, etc.

https://twitter.com/VoiceoftheGriz/status/1734328533051400597?s=20

All the ads you hear on those podcasts are sold by Learfield.

They installed and sell ads on all of the video boards in WaGriz and in the Adams Center -- They are the reason that obnoxious commercials are constantly playing DURING football games on the smaller screens next to the scoreboard.

Sidenote: I'll never do business with Parkside Credit Union after that annoying bouncing ball ad was played on a loop. I'm not sure if it was the night games, or that I sit in the north endzone, but it was infuriating to deal with that distraction the ENTIRE friggin' game. Brian Toone, you're a close second...

If you want to complain or vent at someone, don't waste your time calling out GrizTix or Haslam or Bodnar.

The guy you want to voice your displeasure with is Kyle Krueger.

Kyle runs Grizzly Sports Properities. Thier entire purpose is to monetize the UM athletic program.

With respect to the ticket sales for the NDSU game, just realize that SeatGeek is a partner with Paciolan.

And remember, Paciolan's parent company is Learfield. And this arbitrage model is a way for cash strapped schools to get some incremental revenue.

So follow the logic:

1. NCAA sells tickets for $35
2. Paciolan manages the ticket sales for UM, season ticket holders get the opportunity to purchase their tickets
3. Paciolan gives SeatGeek direct access to their inventory of unsold $35 tickets
4. SeatGeak has an algorithm that determines which tickets are most valuable and each ticket's optimal selling price (keep in mind they work with much larger schools with much larger stadiums, so they have refined their algorithms to maximize their return)
5. SeatGeek then lists the tickets they chose to purchase for $35 for $100+ or $200+ or $300+ (this is why some people were able to by less than ideal tickets on GrizTix -- SeatGeek didn't want to sell those tickets.)

https://twitter.com/ctbigsky/status/1734752385757835319?s=20

The NCAA doesn't care because it sold all of the $35 tickets at the largest FCS venue, which for them is gravy.

The secondary market though is all new revenue.

Like it or not, the stadium will be filled on Saturday -- I actually like it -- and SeatGeek will make tidy profit from their secondary market sales because they are the seller, so they get the markup and collect the fees!

Paciolan/Learfield will also get a cut of that money -- thanks to their partnership with SeatGeek.

And it wouldn't surprise me if UM also got some kind of cut as well - but don't know for sure.

So bottom line, we can complain all we want, but when you understand all the players and the game that is being played, the only real option is to buy season tickets. Or buy directly from a season ticket holder you know that is willing to sell them to you at face value.

And AntiTrust laws be damned in America

 

[BadlandsGrizFan]

Terrific and informational post. And well-written.

What I would like to know and/or have verified, are:

How many tickets got to the resellers/scalpers and how did they get there?

Who/what were the "real people" who bought quickly and got them to the resellers (real people, some bot types, some people just trying to make a profit and quick to the site, some people who work for the resellers, or a direct insider allocation?)?

Did the resellers buy the tickets or are they selling for the people who purchased, i.e. who has the risk of a weak market or no-sale?

What will happen with remaining tickets if demand is soft (I assume prices will drop, but people out of town aren't necessarily going to be able to make last minute trips)?

Will this ultimately reduce actual attendance, butts in the seats, or Griz fans in the seats?

It seems like after season ticket holders get their shot then the seats open up to the bots “aka resellers”

My understanding of the way those work for Seat Geek and others is that it’s essentially instantaneous.

After the season tickets and resellers pick over the seats. Then it seams like everyone else gets their shot to fight it out online over the couple thousand remaining. Which causes a log jam on GrizTix.

 

[BadlandsGrizFan]

One positive if the Griz win this weekend is that Learfields HQ is literally ten minute drive down Dallas North Tollway from the stadium in Frisco. We can all drive by and give middle fingers and maybe hang a Griz flag or two on their building.

 

[BadlandsGrizFan]

It's BS if tickets are going from the online site easily and quickly to any company associated with the resellers. If the Learfield agreement(s) allows or provides for this, that's wrong. Griz fans and normal people should have first crack at these tickets, especially for a big game like this. Also, some Griz fans are old school, and old, and not techies, and need better opportunity to call or walk into the ticket office, as opposed to being lightning fast online.

As others have said, a prior explanation or warning should have been issued, at the very least. Perhaps people could have taken corrective action. Or, a special procedure should have been set up for this call. Griz fans calling a special number, or some way to identify Griz fans. For say, the first day.

You and I and everyone in America knows that corporate America couldn’t give two shiiits about being fair and doing what’s right. All they care about is getting their cut.

 

[BadlandsGrizFan]

We can all agree that the world would be a much better place without third party ticket sale companies.

They’ve made everything more expensive for the fans across every entertainment industry

 

[MrTitleist]

There must be a lot of lobbyist money flowing through places like Ticketmaster because if the Swifties couldn't bring 'em down I'm not sure anything can.

 

[grizzlygrumpa]

It's only good old American capitalism....everything must be cooped to make a buck ....doesn't do much fo school spirit..."That old college try" does it. No wonder all these players are eyeing the portal. Go GRI$$

 

[mthoopsfan]

We can all agree that the world would be a much better place without third party ticket sale companies.

They’ve made everything more expensive for the fans across every entertainment industry

They have also made tickets more available. And sometimes the prices are below regular price. For example, people and companies by seats and boxes for the whole tournament, but no sell the tickets they don’t use through resellers. Like earlier in the tournament. Great seats available on Court 1 for affordable prices way under market. The resellers also provide a service for individuals who can’t use the tickets and want to recoup some
money.

 

[grizzlygrumpa]

It's only good old American capitalism....everything must be cooped to make a buck ....doesn't do much fo school spirit..."That old college try" does it. No wonder all these players are eyeing the portal. Go GRI$$

 

[grizzlygrumpa]

"Co-opted" not "cooped"

 

[grizzlygrumpa]

"Co-opted" not "cooped"