NASCAR has announced the continuation of a huge partnership with Ticketmaster, making the ticketing giant the Official Ticketing Partner beginning with the 2025 season. This collaboration comes with the objective of improving the fan experience when it comes to ticket management across all NASCAR-owned tracks.
For years, Speedway Motorsports, which owns ten NASCAR Cup Series facilities, has enjoyed a robust relationship with Ticketmaster. This new deal extends that partnership to include all NASCAR-owned tracks, creating a unified ticketing platform for fans. Kari Gritton, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Consumer Strategy, said the following via TobyChristie.com:
“We partnered with Ticketmaster as our new ticketing solution based on their advanced capabilities, deep industry insights, and proven best ticketing practices in sports.
“Their expertise will be key in consolidating all NASCAR-owned race events onto one efficient and accessible platform, improving our overall operations.”
Alex Bowman, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet, leads the field during the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 21, 2024 in Bristol, Tennessee. NASCAR has confirmed its continuation of its partnership with Ticketmaster.
Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Marla Ostroff, Ticketmaster’s Managing Director of North America, added:
“NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports have the vision to build a frictionless fan experience, and we’re the right partner to help them achieve that goal,” Ostroff remarked.
“This partnership aims to leverage Ticketmaster’s cutting-edge technology, providing NASCAR fans with a streamlined and user-friendly purchasing experience.”
The integration of Ticketmaster Ignite with the new NASCAR Tracks App is also a substantial upgrade to their selling process. This system allows fans to manage their tickets on their smartphones, ensuring a smooth and efficient process from purchase to race day. Tools like SafeTix and Smart Queue will be instrumental in offering a great ticketing experience tailored to the needs of NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports. And therefore you – the fan.
Kevin Camper, Speedway Motorsports Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, discussed the benefits derived from their longstanding relationship with Ticketmaster.
“Our longstanding partnership with Ticketmaster has provided efficiency and consistency through the purchase process as well as the operational excellence to serve our fans on race day,” Camper said.
Beyond technological integration, social media will play a huge role in the new strategy. Through Ticketmaster’s distribution network, fans will be able to discover upcoming racing events on popular platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, opening up the marketing potential.
Historically, NASCAR has worked with various ticketing partners, including Tickets.com and SeatGeek. The switch to Ticketmaster represents an evolution towards a more cohesive and technologically advanced approach, designed to meet the dynamic needs of modern and maybe younger sports fans.
However, the partnership comes amid legal challenges facing Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Ticketmaster LLC. A recent antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 40 state and district attorneys general alleges monopolistic practices by the company. United States Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated:
“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators.
“The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
Predictably, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has refuted the claims, calling them “baseless.”
F1 has seen similar innovations. This has resulted in the likes of Silverstone, the track of the British Grand Prix, exercising adaptive pricing that changes in real time depending on how popular an event is. This has seen huge backlash from fans who were incredibly unhappy with how they were getting priced out of tickets that were much cheaper merely years earlier.
Saying this, no current deals link NASCAR or Speedway Motorsports directly with Live Nation, shielding this new partnership with Ticketmaster from the controversy for now.
