Online ticket sales for sports events are expected to earn just $6.55 billion in 2021, 70% less than in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic tumbled the world and stopped everything. Industries that depend on group events suffered the most — and are still unable to recover.
Even though sports competitions have been held for almost a year now, there are still no viewers on most events. And without fans watching the events, the sports ticket industry is suffering.
Pre-pandemic, 150 million people in the US watched sports live once a month. Now the numbers are a lot lower. Since the US brings almost half of all online ticket revenue, the sales are dropping.
The silver lining is that a certain improvement compared to 2020 is visible.
Globally, in 2020, online ticket sales earned just $5.23 billion, because almost no games were played in front of a live audience.
By the end of 2021, the number earned from online sports event ticket sales is expected to reach $6.55 billion. This is 25.2% more than in 2020 but significantly less than $21.45 billion earned in 2019.
The problems are definitely present in sports. Even the pre-pandemic 2nd most valuable soccer team, Barcelona, had to stop working with their best player due to pandemic losses.
Live sports, as well as online ticket sales, are expected to start recovering in 2022. The increase projected for 2022 is 331.17% compared to 2021. More precisely, $28.22 billion are expected from the sales, which is 31.6% more than in 2019.
The industry is projected to recover by 2025 completely, when online ticket sales should reach around $32 billion.
The situation is still not perfect — sports are still suffering, clubs are losing money, players are losing teams, and ticket offices are losing money too. We can only hope that the predictions will come true and the industry will recover sooner rather than later.
