Blowout Insurance: Do We Need This?

Posted by Alex Dalenberg in Uncategorized on 08-25-11    2 Comments


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If you’ve ever walked o

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ut of an arena after a 30-point blowout feeling like you’ve been ripped off,  then I’ve got a startup for you.

Seriously.

Ticket Perfection sells “ticket insurance” to protect consumers against the scourge of lopsided games by providing refunds to customers if their game is decided by more than a certain number of points.

Here’s how it works. Purchasers can insure their tickets for up to 100 percent of their original purchase by paying 10 percent of the value they’d like to insure. Let’s say you purchase a $100 ticket, but you want to get all your money back in case your team gets utterly embarrassed. For $10 you can insure the entire value of the ticket.

Of course, if it’s what Ticket Perfection defines as a good game, then you’re out $10. Where oh where to begin?

For one thing, money-wise this makes no sense. The Ticket Perfection blowout standard is pretty steep. More than 23 points for NBA and NFL game, 8 runs for Major League Baseball, and more than 3 goals for the NHL and Major League Soccer. If you’re going to a lot of games, buying insurance for each game is probably to far exceed whatever you’re getting back, which to me means its worth it just to eat the cost for crappy games, you know, like sports fans have done since their were turnstiles. For single game tickets, they’re expensive enough as it is, why tack on an extra $10 or $20 for something that isn’t a sure thing.

Ticket insurance isn’t actually a new phenomenon. Ticket Master offers its own insurance plans in case you get sick or otherwise miss your event. That’s not crazy, especially for big ticket items or people whose schedules can change from minute-to-minute.

But, for a sports startup, Ticket Perfection seems to be missing some important facets of the whole sports thing. First you’ve got to agree with Ticket Perfection when they say “We believe that the quality of any sporting event is determined by the whether or not the score is close.”

I’d say that depends on who’s getting blown out. If you hate the Yankees, you’re probably inclined to believe that the quality of any sporting event is determined by how many runs the Yankees lose by.

Also, there’s something inherently entertaining in the act of sport. Blake Griffin plays for the friggin’ L.A. Clippers. No doubt he’s made a few ridiculous jams in some hopeless games.

Or, if you’d like a more historical analogy. Let’s consider March 2, 1962. The Philadelphia Warriors blow out the New York Knicks 169-147. That’s not quite the 23-point threshold but it’s still a blowout. Also, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points.

What a rip off.

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2 Comments on “Blowout Insurance: Do We Need This?”

  • Sean O'Hare

    I am the marketing director at TicketPerfection, and I would like to respond to some blatant and poorly researched inaccuracies in this article.

    The author says that money wise using our service makes no sense because insuring a lot of games is going to FAR exceed whatever the customer might get back. This is not at all accurate.
    Let’s take a look at last year’s NFL season and assume 32 fans (one for each team) insure 100% of a $100 ticket for every game. The total insurance price for each fan would be ($10 X 16) or $160 for the season (slightly more if the team makes the playoffs and plays more than 16 games). Here is a breakdown of what each fan would have by seasons end starting with -$160 (the price they paid for the insurance):

    Dolphins +40
    Cardinals +340
    Falcons +30
    Ravens -60
    Bills +240
    Panthers +140
    Chiefs -60
    Bears +60
    Bengals -160
    Browns -60
    Cowboys -60
    Broncos +40
    Lions -60
    Packers +300
    Texans -60
    Colts -70
    Jaguars +140
    Vikings +140
    Patriots +330
    Giants +240
    Jets +110
    Raiders +240
    Eagles +30
    Steelers +210
    49ers +140
    Seahawks +120
    Rams -60
    Buccaneers +40
    Titans +40
    Redskins +40
    Chargers +240

    9 out of the 32 fans ended up lost some money. Only one out of 32 fans lost their entire $160 investment. 21 out of 32 fans made money on their investment and some of them a signficant amount. 8 fans made over %100 on their investment and Cardinals fans made over 200%.

    The author goes on to say that we are missing important facets of the whole sports thing by believing that the quality of a game is affected by the closeness of the contest. Obviously this is a matter of opinion, but I don’t think we are missing the boat by believing a close game is a more valuable experience than a landslide. Just like the author, I dislike the Yankees. Even though I dislike them, I would not get much entertainment attending a game in which they lost 14-0. The author claims that to him this would actually be a better experience than attending a game in which the Yankees lost 6-4.

    The author closes with two anecdotes in an attempt to prove that a game with a lopsided outcome can still be great experience. Our company does not necessarily disagree with this. If you happen to use our service and see Blake Griffin do a circus dunk or see a player score 100 points in a lopsided game, then not only have you seen a great feat but you’ve attended the game for free.

    09-01-11 » 11:01 pm »

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