Ohio State students in the Block ‘O’ North section participate in an “O-H-I-O” chant during Ohio State’s Aug. 31 football game against Akron. Ohio State won 52-6. Credit: Carly Damon | Asst. Photo Editor
Ohio State students will have a new way to buy and sell sports tickets beginning this month.
SeatStock, a students-only ticket marketplace founded by University of Iowa students, is set to launch at Ohio State during the week of Sept. 30, ahead of the Buckeyes’ matchup against the Iowa Hawkeyes, according to co-founder Brady Stein.
Fellow co-founder Josh Cohen said the company, which originally launched at the University of Iowa in February, aims to add security to the secondary student ticket market after Cohen saw his own friends lose money to ticket scams on apps like GroupMe and Facebook.
“I was buying and selling student tickets to make some money on the side, and I quickly realized that it was a really bad and fragmented market,” Cohen said. “A couple of my buddies got scammed, so I was like ‘Okay, this is a real problem.’”
Because most universities’ official ticketing partners — including Ticketmaster at Ohio State — don’t allow users to search for student tickets specifically, many students turn to online group chats to buy and sell tickets.
But according to Jay Ralston, an Ohio State third-year in business, these platforms can allow scammers to take advantage of buyers.
Ralston said he lost over $300 when attempting to buy a ticket to the 2022 Ohio State-Michigan football game in a GroupMe chat, despite taking multiple steps to confirm the seller’s identity as an Ohio State student.
SeatStock’s online ticket dashboard, accessible at seatstock.com. Credit: Courtesy of SeatStock
“As soon as I sent the money, I got blocked,” Ralston said. “I couldn’t contact them, so they took my money and I was out $300-350 and no Michigan ticket.”
Cohen and Stein said SeatStock has implemented security measures to prevent such scams from taking place, such as requiring a valid “.edu” email address to create an account in the first place.
Once a user’s university email address has been verified, they can sell tickets at their preferred price or buy them using the “buy now” and/or “place bid” functions.
Once a buyer and seller agree on a price, SeastStock holds the buyer’s money until the seller transfers the ticket on their school’s official ticketing platform — in Ohio State’s case, Ticketmaster. Cohen said if a seller fails to send the ticket, the buyer will be fully refunded.
On top of the agreed ticket price, Cohen said SeatStock will charge 10% of the ticket price from each the buyer and the seller in fees.
“We understand students don’t want to pay 40% fees,” Cohen said. “Ten percent is very reasonable, especially with the guarantee that you’ll get your ticket. To pay 10% more — maybe that’s 10-20 bucks to save whatever the initial purchase is — is totally worth it.”
Though the SeatStock purchasing process involves sending tickets through Ticketmaster, SeatStock is not officially partnered with Ticketmaster nor Ohio State.
SeatStock began operating as a minimum viable product in February during Iowa’s women’s and men’s basketball seasons, but will be operating in its current, completed form for the first time this fall.
In addition to Ohio State, SeatStock will be available at multiple other college campuses in the fall, including the University of Michigan and Penn State. Stein said when evaluating where to expand its operations, SeatStock prioritized schools with large student bodies and well-known athletic traditions.
“At Ohio State, it’s just a different culture there,” Stein said. “Those schools are the ones that really need this product the most because they’re all football schools and everyone’s filling up the student section every single week. The lowest tickets are a pretty expensive penny for a college kid, and the most expensive might be $400. So, there are definitely people losing out on that.”
At Ohio State, both football and men’s basketball tickets will be available for exchanging via SeatStock, Cohen and Stein said.
In addition to buying and selling tickets, Cohen and Stein said frequent users may have opportunities to earn rewards, including discounted tickets, reduced fees and prizes such as jerseys.
To learn more, visit SeatStock’s website.
