Tickets.com and Los Angeles Dodgers Sign New Ticketing Partnership Agreement

Tickets.com,Inc. and the Los Angeles Dodgers today announced a new long-term ticketing agreement for use of the ProVenue^® ticketing platform at Dodger Stadium, beginning with the 2014 Major League Baseball season.

“We’re excited about leveraging the ProVenue platform and continuing to improve the ticketing experience for Dodger fans – especially around digital ticketing,” said Lon Rosen, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the Dodgers.

Los Angeles will become the 17^th MLB Club to utilize Tickets.com’s ProVenue platform, a technology solution built on a hosted, open architecture. In 2014, MyTickets Mobile, a new feature launched in September within the award-winning MLB.com At The Ballpark app for iPhone and Android smartphones, also will debut for the Dodgers, giving fans mobile access to any ticket purchased for Dodger Stadium.

“The Dodgers have made a huge commitment to using new technology to improve every facet of the experience for their fans – both inside and outside of Dodger Stadium.  We’re thrilled they’ve chosen Tickets.com to lead that effort around ticket purchasing, digital/mobile delivery and managing season tickets,” said John Walker, President and CEO of Tickets.com.  “We’re very proud to be partners with such an iconic professional sports franchise.”

MLB’s Baltimore Orioles Choose ProVenue® From Tickets.com®

Club desires more flexibility and tighter integration of systems for better fan experience

Tickets.com and Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles have signed a long term contract for the use of the ProVenue ticketing platform for all events at the team’s iconic Oriole Park at Camden Yards ballpark.

The Orioles are eager to be part of the leading-edge technologies that Tickets.com has developed with the ProVenue platform. Tickets.com were pioneers in Mobile Ticketing, being the first ticketing company to allow fans to search for, purchase and have tickets delivered to a mobile device. Recently, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and Tickets.com took mobile options a step further by being first adopters of Apple’s Passbook application for iPhones.

“It is important that the Orioles utilize new and emerging technologies to benefit our customers,” says Greg Bader, Orioles Vice President of Communications and Marketing. “We have very sophisticated fans in our region, and they request that we deliver content to them in the latest manner. This includes access to their game tickets and will extend to other programs we will be launching in the future such as loyalty and stored value programs. ProVenue and Tickets.com are positioned to help us get there quickly.”

Tickets.com now provides ticketing solutions for 16 teams in Major League Baseball, as well as prominent sports and live entertainment organizations around the world.

Read the complete release here.

Dynamic Pricing Drives Significant Returns During 2011 MLB Season

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Qcue today announced the 2011 Major League Baseball (MLB) season was the most active season to date for dynamic pricing, resulting in significant gains for all clients, including increases in total revenues, full-price ticket sales and revenue per seat(1).

With the regular season now complete, Qcue conducted in depth analysis across clients, concluding that the frequency of price changes has a direct impact on incremental revenue. In fact, Qcue estimates that a team can generate an additional $900,000 in incremental revenue over the course of a season by making one additional change to each of its prices(2).

Results like this show why dynamic pricing is quickly becoming an industry standard with more than one-third of MLB teams, as well as teams across other leagues, implementing the practice. Qcues roster continues to grow, with the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners set to implement dynamic pricing for the 2012 season. Qcue clients now represent 95% of all dynamically priced baseball tickets.

On average, teams approached 2011 with conservative on-sale prices, often lower than previous years, providing substantial values for many fans.

Additional findings include:

Average price change per seat: $1.55 increase
Average percentage change per seat: 3% increase
Average price decrease: -$13.63
Average price increase: $3.27

The market has definitely hit a tipping point, where teams are no longer wondering if they should embrace dynamic pricing, but rather how often to leverage the intelligence and flexibility a solution like ours can provide to drive incremental revenue, said Barry Kahn, CEO of Qcue. Our analysis demonstrates the relationship between the frequency of price changes and incremental revenue and the value of understanding real-time market dynamics in setting more accurate prices. Teams that adjust prices more frequently make more money that can be invested back into the club.

In addition to regular season pricing, teams are finding ways to extend dynamic pricing to new scenarios such as spring training, which the San Francisco Giants successfully did this year in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Qcues turnkey software solution helps teams analyze sales data and other external pricing variables, providing sales and revenue projections, strong reporting capabilities, as well as market-based price recommendations. Additionally, integration capabilities remove the management burden teams often face by directly communicating price changes to the teams ticketing system and website. With Qcue, thousands of price changes take just a few minutes.


(1) Metrics do not reflect season ticket revenues, which are not used in dynamic pricing.
(2) A price is defined as a single section that is priced together and adjusted at the same time/rate.

Boston Red Sox Go Live With ProVenue®

Tickets.com recently converted the Boston Red Sox to ProVenue, the industry’s most technologically advanced ticketing platform. The Red Sox upgraded to ProVenue for state-of-the-art features including the system’s ability to facilitate high-volume transactions with optimal speed and efficiency, and the technology platform’s flexible open architecture, allowing for additional applications, data management programs, and features from Tickets.com and other third parties—including a best-in-class virtual waiting room—to be easily integrated at any time.

“We are extremely pleased with the performance of ProVenue, and have great confidence that the system will meet all our consumer facing ticketing needs, as well as support our organization internally,” says Ron Bumgarner, Senior Vice President, Ticketing, the Boston Red Sox. “We have already received positive feedback from fans on the new and improved virtual waiting room, and are tremendously excited about our partnership with the Tickets.com team, and their outstanding attention to detail.”

A member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division, the Boston Red Sox went live with ProVenue on December 11th for the first public on-sale date for tickets for the upcoming 2011 season.

In the first hour of the onsale, ProVenue facilitated 32-percent more ticket transactions than during the time period last year. The day’s robust business was executed without incident.

An unprecedented number of fans passed through ProVenue’s “First In, First Out” (FIFO) virtual waiting room, the best in the industry. Customers are automatically filed in a queue in the order in which they entered, and have the extra advantage of being advised as to expected wait time. In addition to this equitable and orderly process, the virtual waiting room also allows ticket buyers to check inventory for alternate game dates while in queue.

“We couldn’t be more satisfied that the Boston Red Sox organization’s out-of-the-gate-experience with ProVenue was so successful for them,” says John Walker, President and CEO, Tickets.com. “It is a pleasure to be this outstanding club’s technology partner as we continue to expand the functionality and features of ProVenue in service of our clients.”

Select 2011 home games are still available for purchase in April, May, and September while supplies last by phone at (877) RED-SOX9 or online at www.redsox.com. The remainder of the 2011 regular season tickets for Red Sox home games will go on sale on a date to be announced after the first of the year.

Tickets.com, Others Follow Google, Amazon in Opening Up

Opening up an internal resource to outside developers, a la Amazon Web Services and Force.com, isn't just for the big guys anymore.

Smaller organizations with systems that may be aimed at narrow markets are also deciding to open up their platforms to third-party developers. They may do so as a way to create a new revenue stream or to make their own offerings more attractive.

Tickets.com is one such company that has opened its platform to third parties. The company, a subsidiary of MLB.com, provides the back-end ticketing engine for some Major League Baseball teams.

About four years ago, Tickets.com set out to revamp its platform, which at the time was composed of incompatible legacy systems. It decided to build an entirely new platform with a service-oriented architecture and a Web-based front end, said John Rizzi, senior vice president of product management and strategy at Tickets.com.

The decision to open that platform up to third parties came about by chance. "Somewhat by accident, we came to this spot," he said.

As it began building the new platform, Tickets.com hired technology experts to help with the process. "It took us bringing in people from outside the ticketing industry who were much more technology-centric to understand that we had a lot more in this platform than just something more modern and cheaper," Rizzi said.

Tickets.com isn't making its APIs available to just anyone, though. "It's not like we're going to say, 'here's the API, go develop and have fun.' Our clients aren't asking for that," he said. "They are asking for more flexibility and options, and we want to give them that."

Some third-party companies have already started offering services to Tickets.com customers using the new platform, and others are in the works.

Ballena is offering a product, built on Tickets.com's system, that lets online shoppers see in 3D the view from the seat they are considering buying. StubHub, the official secondary ticketing provider of the MLB, is also using the new platform. Its offering is integrated with Tickets.com, which ensures the tickets offered on StubHub are valid.

Tickets.com is also working with Qcue and Digonex, which offer dynamic pricing tools. Qcue, for example, feeds data, including sales inventory provided by Tickets.com and other data about the team's record, the weather and the game's pitching matchup, into its algorithms to recommend that baseball teams adjust ticket prices.

Developers may pay for access to Tickets.com in different ways, depending on how they operate. "My intent is, yes, to profit from this," Rizzi said. Qcue pays a subscription to receive the data feed. Stubhub shares revenue.

Rizzi's advice to other companies thinking of opening up their offerings in a similar way is to carefully think about the revenue model. "That's huge, because in the end, we could wind up opening our system and having a great system and making all the third parties really wealthy, and not participating in that. We don't want to do that," Rizzi said. "We want them to prosper... but I think having a plan in terms of how to monetize it before you implement is pretty important."

He also suggested that it's important to think about how to support the third-party developers. "Supporting an ecosystem of third parties is a lot different from supporting a client who is the end user of the system," he noted. He recommends that other companies make sure to consider those kinds of structural and business components and factor them into their revenue models.

At a recent cloud computing conference, Rizzi said one central theme was making the cloud about more than cost savings.

That's what Tickets.com and some of the pioneers in offering infrastructure or platforms as a service have done. Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com are among companies that have opened up their internal resources so third parties can develop on them.

For complete article: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3235305

Source: Nancy Gohring, PC Advisor

MLB teams step up to the mobile ticketing plate

13 major league baseball teams let fans purchase seats using mobile devices.

Internet Retailer
Brian Rogal

With m-commerce picking up steam, concert halls and sports teams want in on the action (and sales). Thirteen major league baseball teams including the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s, recently began allowing fans to purchase seats using such hand-held devices as the BlackBerry or iPhone.

The teams, which all operate mobile sites on technology provided by Tickets.com Inc., decided to begin offering ticket purchasing on their sites within the past year to take advantage of strong growth in traffic, says Sheri Fink, head of e-commerce and strategic alliances at Tickets.com.

Steve Fanelli, executive director of ticket sales for the Oakland A’s, says his team sends about 1,000 bar-coded tickets for each game to fans’ mobile phones, though so far only a few hundred of those tickets are also purchased on a phone, with most of the rest bought through a PC. When a fan arrives at the ballpark with a mobile phone ticket, a gate keeper scans the bar code on his mobile phone screen.

Fanelli adds that, even though he expects mobile commerce ticket sales to grow slowly, it holds a lot of long-term promise. “It’s not huge right now, and it’s certainly not taking over as the dominant channel to purchase tickets,” he says. “Most people still prefer to go to a regular PC or use cash.”

However, he believes it’s important to offer the option, pointing out that when baseball clubs first began selling tickets over the web it took several years before customers got comfortable with that method.

Before the A’s and the other teams began offering mobile ticket sales, Tickets.com had already been providing each team with its own mobile web site through the company’s branded mobile web site technology, ProVenueMobile, developed in partnership with Usablenet Inc., an m-commerce technology vendor. Usablenet translates the information sent to and from the mobile devices.

Several years ago, the teams began offering game schedules, player statistics and other bits of information on their mobile sites, and many eventually added the more advanced features offered by Tickets.com, such as streaming video. But in the past year, traffic on the teams’ mobile sites doubled. That’s when the teams decided to let fans purchase tickets via the mobile sites, Fink says.

Baseball fans do not need to download an app onto their mobile device to buy tickets, Fink adds. They just get on their team’s mobile site, even if it’s a few minutes before game time, register an account, select the seats they want and pay with a credit card. They then receive a ticket on the mobile device in the form of a bar code.

All major league teams already used bar code scanners for traditional paper tickets, and making them usable for mobile devices required only minor upgrades, Fanelli says. He declined to provide costs related to developing the mobile sites, noting that each team has different contractual terms with Tickets.com to provide a variety of services, with the mobile option being just a small part.

Fanelli says the A’s have pushed mobile technology harder than most teams, and began experimenting with sending bar-coded tickets to mobile devices as early as 2006, although it was not until this April that customers could complete a purchase.

He adds that he believes as mobile devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhones and those that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system get less cumbersome and more powerful, purchasing tickets via a mobile device will eventually become as standard as web-ticketing is now.

ESPN Taps MLBAM to Provide Web-Streaming Services for Live Events

ESPN Retains MLBAM To Operate
ESPN360.com; Will Rebrand Site As ESPN3

John Ourand
Sports Business Daily

ESPN has retained MLBAM to operate the ESPN360.com broadband site. The deal will be announced today, with MLBAM starting to work with the broadband site April 4, coinciding with its name change to ESPN3. The move will allow ESPN to offer more HD streaming of live events, plus picture-in-picture and split screen applications. It also will allow ESPN360 to roll out new features, like scores, chats and schedules.

"Our seven-year relationship with MLBAM has grown from collaborations like ESPN.com and ESPN Insider, and the new ESPN3.com in April will take that relationship one step further," said ESPN Digital Media Senior VP & GM John Kosner. ESPN360 has about 50 million homes thanks to deals with companies like Comcast, Cox, AT&T and Verizon.

Baseball coverage bigger, better on MLB.com in '09

New additions and upgrades for following baseball onlineBy Mark Newman / MLB.com

This momentous decade began with a January 2000 unanimous vote by Major League Baseball owners to centralize baseball's Internet operations and create MLB Advanced Media, which would manage MLB.com, all 30 club sites and a digital baseball road map. The Yankees beat the Mets in a Subway Series that year, marking the last time that a World Series champion has repeated.

Now it is 2009 and the final season of this first decade in the new millennium is about to get under way. It remains to be seen whether the Phillies can end that long drought and finally give baseball another repeat champion, but one thing we do know is that fans embraced the technology MLBAM went on to introduce, and today you can experience baseball essentially anywhere in the world and in almost every way.

MLB.TV, Video Alerts, online ticketing, All-Star Game voting, MLB.com At Bat 2009 for the iPhone, MLB.com Shop orders, MLB.com Gameday, Fantasy games, MLBlogs and boards, detailed Draft scouting reports, live studio programming, 24/7/365 coverage from a network of 30 traveling beat writers -- those are just some of the advancements that came along this decade. As we welcome the new chase for a World Series title to close this decade of baseball tech, here is a guide to those favorite fan staples today:

MLB.TV Premium
Courtney Heitkamp, 21, of Sioux Falls, S.D., recently posted to Twitter: "Oh my gosh I'm watching the Twins...I love you MLB.TV!"

In case anything actually needs to be said other than that, then just let MLB.TV Premium speak for itself. If you are among the millions who have experienced live baseball over your computer with MLB.TV in the past, then brace yourself because it is more captivating than ever. Developers threw the kitchen sink in for the 2009 model, building a new Flash media player that has received rave reviews throughout public beta testing this spring. Many fans who do not have actual HD televisions at home are seeing what that crystal-clarity looks like on a computer screen. MLB.TV Premium is $109.99 for a year's subscription, a $10 markdown from last year despite numerous enhancements. You'll enjoy the proprietary speed detection; playback controls with DVR and jump-to-inning functionality; home-or-away and TV-or-radio swapping; picture-in-picture; archived games; and much more. Like Heitkamp, you will love MLB.TV.

Video Alerts
Video Alerts were added to the MLB.com Mobile team text menu last season, and that was a smashing success. Fans enjoyed receiving video highlights over their enabled handheld devices, and that will be an important element again this summer. You can be working on a project around the house or walking through an airport on a business trip, and suddenly one of these highlights pops up and your mood changes and you just want to show it to the person closest to you.

Just sign up by texting "GET Club name" to 65246. For example, if you are a Cincinnati fan, you send the text "get reds" to 65246. Once you sign up for the text alerts, MLB.com will send eligible fans a second text message offering the Video Alerts service. The price hasn't changed, so this is the throw-in of all-time. As always, you can manage your Team Alert selections in the "m-dash" (Mobile Dashboard).

Fantasy Games
Remember when someone almost won a million bucks last summer playing MLB.com Beat the Streak? That was close. Maybe you will win that amount by playing the easy-to-manage game this season. Or take your chance at winning $10,000 by entering MLB.com 2009 Fantasy Baseball. Go to MLB.com Fantasy and look through all the opportunities, and dominate your leagues by taking advantage of the wealth of advice from experts. Fantasy has only grown in scope over this decade, to the point that our Player Rankings now are even being used to predict final standings based on aggregate fantasy rankings per team. Unlike 2000, a massive segment of today's baseball fandom get into the game because of fantasy.

"We've learned a lot this decade about the kinds of games fans are looking for, and most importantly, how to get new fans involved and enjoying fantasy baseball," said Gregg Klayman, VP of content development. "Back in 2000, you had a hardcore base of fans playing games online, whereas today you have millions of experts and novices competing in all different levels of games."

Video Search
Want to see B.J. Upton highlights? Looking for examples of why Tim Lincecum won the last NL Cy Young Award? Just go to http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp and search for their names or any others. Search for anything around Major League Baseball, and there is a strong likelihood you will be satisfied.

As with Video Alerts, this is a demonstration of the penetration that online video has reached in today's world. It's one of the first things many fans look for, something they can actually see, immediate gratification at watching their favorite players in action. Video Search was added last season, and fans enjoyed the larger (512x288) viewing size and faster bit rate. MLB.com editors tag the clips and make them available for you, and then you decide exactly what is needed in that split-second.

MLB.com At Bat 2009
This was released in the Apple App Store last week and immediately shot up to No. 3 overall and No. 1 in Sports among all apps there. The big new feature for this year is the add-on of MLB.com Gameday Audio for the regular season. Fans will be able to listen to live audio broadcasts of every Major League Baseball game from the Sunday opener through the World Series clincher. It also features a live scoreboard with statistical data from current, previous and future games; MLB.com Gameday's detailed data featuring five interactive screens and exclusive pitch type, location and speed data; and high-quality video highlights quickly after they happen on the field. Just go to the App Store in iTunes and click on Sports, and you will find MLB.com At Bat 2009 there for $9.99.

MLB.com Gameday
Every year this decade it has grown more addictive by incorporating more technology. The same will be true for this popular real-time app as a season is ushered in with the Opening Night game between the Braves and Phillies on Sunday, followed by 13 Opening Day games on Monday. This season Gameday adds exclusive real-time scouting data to the mix, with pitcher and batter tendencies, hot and cold zones and head-to-head stats. These rich new data features complement the existing pitch-by-pitch data, including the Pitch-f/x technology that provides pitch speed, trajectory and location data for every game in every Major League park, along with Game Previews, in-game highlights and other game-specific video from right inside the app.

Registration
Before you do anything at MLB.com this season, create a free account so you are registered here. It's free and easy, and it is the gateway to many things that happen during the course of the year -- including ticketing, Shop offers, contest prizes, All-Star voting, blogging and posting messages, subscription signups and more.

News and opinion
Nowhere is there more comprehensive baseball coverage than at MLB.com. It blankets the game with 30 traveling reporters who are at the source, constantly filing news and features and Inbox replies to your e-mails as well as their regular MLBlogs and more. Fans can consume the information through headlines on MLB.com and the club sites, as well as RSS feeds, on the MLB.com Mobile WAP site and as text alerts.

MLBAM also operates Minor League Baseball's site, and the team of writers provide even further meaningful insight to Major League fans about how their organizations are doing and which prospects to anticipate in the big leagues. Perspectives from such veteran journalists as Hal Bodley, Mike Bauman and Tom Singer help shape the views of many fans and provoke arguments and agreement alike.

Online ticketing
It is hard to say exactly what one facet of the Internet has been most important to baseball fans over this decade, but this is as likely a choice as any. Online ticketing gradually rose in popularity to the point that -- by the middle of the decade -- it was how most MLB game tickets were purchased, and then it became a de facto standard in fan life, with many fans simply printing their tickets out at home and bringing them straight to the gate. Right now, online ticketing further enables you to take advantage of the new MLB.com Fan Value Corner, showcasing the many ways that all 30 clubs are helping spectators get more for their money amid a staggering recession. From the My Team Account Manager to make season ticket payments to StubHub.com for secondary ticketing, this is a key reason many people keep coming back to their favorite MLB sites.

MLB.com Shop
Anyone who might have been jittery about online transactions at the start of the decade is likely well over it by now. The bigger question is more likely when to say enough is enough and just put the shopping cart through checkout. Just as you probably went to the MLB.com Shop to do your last holiday shopping, you probably are browsing through there these days, and maybe you noticed that the new Spring Virtual Catalog has just arrived, offering convenient selection of the baseball fashion of the times. Order one of those Stance II Fashion Jerseys by Majestic Athletic and get a free cap.

Scoreboard, Standings, Stats, Schedule
Those four words are at the top of the homepage, just as they have been for most of this decade. It's hard for baseball fans to imagine life without them.

Blogs and Boards
Everyone seems to be blogging and social networking now. There is a huge increase in player MLBlogs, with a prospect blog for every organization, and blogs by such big leaguers as Torii Hunter, Reed Johnson, Glen Perkins, Andre Ethier and Collin Balester. You probably noticed that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has an MLBlog where he can talk about his favorite sport instead of politics. All 30 MLB.com team reporters now have MLBlogs, and even the Rangers Captain just started one.

Last year in this space, we mentioned a fan named phillies6phan26, who boldly predicted on the MLB.com Fan Forum message boards that the Phillies would win it all, Evan Longoria would be AL Rookie of the Year, Dodgers, Cubs and Angels would all win divisions, among some other prudent choices. It only makes sense to tip the cap here given what happened.

Every now and then, you see some expert fan opinion like that around the boards and at MLBlogs. And every now and then, you see some stuff that just makes you laugh. But whatever the case, this decade has become a giant snowball of user generated content, with you in control of your own spaces.

Whether uploading ballpark photos of yourself to put on products, customizing a new authentic jersey, bidding on game-used items, watching a live MLB.TV Premium stream, checking scores, commenting on a favorite player's blog or following the action with your new smartphone, you are fully immersed in a way of life that you might have found hard to believe at the dawn of this decade. Now that this decade is about to finish up with another long and fabulous season, it is time to take stock of how far we have all come together, take a deep breath, and start it all over again.

Mark Newman is enterprise editor of MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Elton John, Billy Joel to play inaugural concert at Nationals Park

John, Joel to play Nationals Park
Pop legends will perform at ballpark's inaugural concert

By Bill Ladson / MLB.com

VIERA, Fla. -- Elton John and Billy Joel, two of the most popular performers in pop history, are returning to Washington, D.C.

In what will be the first concert in Nationals Park history, the dynamic piano-playing duo will perform on July 11 at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Tickets will go on sale on Saturday at 10 a.m., exclusively through Tickets.com.

As the inaugural concert at Nationals Park, John and Joel will open the concert together with a series of duets, playing twin pianos and trading vocals. Each artist will then perform a set with his own band. The grand finale reunites the two at center stage with their supporting musicians for a closing encore.

The two superstars are excited about the joint performance.

"I love touring with Billy," John said. "I have the greatest respect for him, and we're such good friends."

Joel is looking forward to the competition.

"The great thing about performing with Elton is that he is such a good piano player and that makes me have to dig deep to keep up with him," Joel said. "Not to mention I've got the best seat in the house -- only one piano away from Elton John!"

John and Joel launched their first tour in Philadelphia at the former Veterans Stadium with three sold-out shows in July 1994. Their first venture to Washington came in 2002, when John and Joel performed during three sold-out engagements at the former MCI Center.

John and Joel returned to the District as a part of the 2004 Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. After John received an award for "exemplary lifetime achievements in the performing arts," Joel took to the stage to perform a rendition of John's classic "Benny and the Jets." The ceremony was filmed and broadcast to television audiences nationwide.

"The Nationals are thrilled to host the 'Face to Face' tour with Elton John and Billy Joel for the first-ever concert at Nationals Park," said Nationals president Stan Kasten. "Elton and Billy are beloved throughout Washington, D.C., and have a rich history performing in our city. Undoubtedly, this will be an remarkable inaugural evening of music out under the stars, showcasing the ballpark's capabilities as a premier summer concert venue."

Bill Ladson is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Get Tickets at Tickets.com >

Tickets.com at the 2008 MLB All-Star Game

Tickets.com joined the week-long festivities in New York City for the 2008 MLB All-Star Game. It started with the MLB.com party at the Roseland Ballroom hosted by Alyssa Milano and Joba Chamberlain with a special performance by Wyclef Jean. The event was so popular that even Yankee Derek Jeter joined in the fun.

The next day's line up included a meet and greet at Nation's Bar & Lounge followed by a 25-minute subway ride directly to Yankee Stadium where the All-Star Workout Day and Home Run Derby were just getting started. People without tickets were lined up on all sides of the stadium looking for someone who could grant them access into the historic building that will soon be torn down to make way for the new Yankee ballpark. Once inside, we were witness to the new record set by Josh Hamilton who had a whopping 28 hits in round one. The crowd went nuts each time Hamilton hit one over the fence. In the end though, Minnesota's Justin Morneau wins with a 5-3 victory over Hamilton.



After the Celebrity & Legends tournament, the pre-game party with a Joan Jett performance, and, the always popular FanFest at the Jacob Javits Center, the 2008 All-Star Game was finally upon us. The National League was the reigning nine-year champion going into the 2008 All-Star Game. Guest appearances by Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, and George Steinbrenner were all the rage. The starting line announcement was followed by the national anthem performed by Sheryl Crow. The game was underway after a US Air Force stealth bomber fly-by. Little did any of us know we would be witness to a record-breaking 15 innings and an American League championship in a stadium that will say goodbye forever at the end of the 2008 baseball season.

This was truly a legendary event and Tickets.com staff and guests will remember this trip for a very long time to come.