Name: Steve Kobelski
Company: Ticket Galaxy
Title: President
Twitter Handle: @TicketGalaxy

Company Profile

Ticket Galaxy is the nation’s leading secondary market consultant and reseller, collaborating with professional sports teams, collegiate athletics and other primary market participants to help them achieve their goals. With deep-rooted relationships formed over the last three decades, we are committed to helping our partners actively manage their resale markets. Through a unique collaboration blending consulting, ticket investment, sponsorship, data sharing and analytics, we establish customized solutions that maximize distribution, share profits, and deliver long-term value.

Our signature website, TicketGalaxy.com, provides consumers with a first-class experience and access to live events across the world, with unmatched inventory selection, premiere customer service and secure ticket transactions, all in an easy-to-navigate environment.

Describe why you chose to sponsor such a new association?

Ticket Galaxy is a forward thinking organization that sponsors organizations which offer compelling value for their members, and have a defined vision and purpose that align with Ticket Galaxy’s own interests. NAATSO meets all of those criteria and more, so it was an easy decision for us, especially since we already work so closely with many great partners in the collegiate space.

Describe your company's innovative practices that are currently helping to advance the industry.

We are investing heavily in a few key areas — data and analytics, inventory consolidation and sponsorship. These aspects of ticketing have tangible benefits and have a major impact for colleges and the advancement of their athletics programs.

This year we rolled out an interactive, real-time data portal where our partners can log-in and view their secondary-market sales and inventory, with powerful visualizations that make it easy to understand and interpret the data. This allows ticketing departments to better price their primary inventory and evaluate how they are performing in conjunction with the secondary market. We are also able to help them look at this on a game-by-game, seasonal, or multi-seasonal basis.

Consolidation is another major trend happening within the industry as teams look to manage their secondary markets. By working with a single trusted partner such as Ticket Galaxy, a program is able to provide a great experience for their fans while retaining pricing integrity across all secondary channels, keeping season ticket holders happy, and supporting their own primary market sales.

Additionally, we are working with schools on a combined ticketing and sponsorship model that substantially grows their overall revenue. We want to be invested in our partnerships in ways that extend beyond tickets. We have partnered with IMG and Learfield on many of these endeavors and have developed a well-rounded partnership model that creates value in multiple ways.

How do you see the ticketing environment changing in the near future?

I see the points mentioned above really advancing the industry as colleges continue to explore the advantages that the secondary market can offer. In the end it’s all about the fans, and fans want to be able to buy game tickets whenever and wherever they choose. The secondary market is just another channel to connect with them, but it’s becoming the first stop for many fans. Professional teams have really embraced a consolidated secondary market, and as college athletics evolves, schools need to select resale partners that are invested for the long-term and that have a proven track record of success.

What challenges do you see for ticket sales and operations due to the changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics?

As the industry evolves, programs need to set clear goals and identify their plans to reach them. On average, the base of season ticket holders is shrinking, and it’s getting harder and harder to sell to them. With limited sales resources, most schools need all the help they can get with this. Since each program has a different fan base, it’s critical that they know who is buying their tickets and whether those are the same people attending games. If they aren’t, how do you reach those folks to bring new leads into the pipeline and convert them into season ticket buyers, mini-plan buyers, or single-game customers for the future?  This is where a great secondary market partner can help.

What is the biggest misconception people have about the ticketing industry?

The biggest misconception is that all ticket resellers are in it for short-term success and to make a quick profit – that they want to work with you in a year when you have a great home schedule, but they walk away when times are tough. While this may be true for some in the space, we have worked very hard to change that perception by investing with teams for the long term, providing transparency and adding valuable insights through shared sales and consumer data, and being a true partner by contributing sponsorship and other things that can benefit the partner over the long haul.

What is the best motivator for employees?

Everyone is unique and responds to different types of motivation, but as a general rule I’ve always believed that employees like working on something meaningful and having the ability to drive results. At Ticket Galaxy, we try to set each team member up for success by putting them in roles and on projects that are good fits for them. We urge them to really think things through and offer their input into every stage of the process, no matter what they’re working on. Great ideas can come from anyone. Ultimately, when we’re successful, they should be recognized and rewarded for that.

How do you measure success at your company?

The success of each partnership varies on a case-by-case basis. Each partner has different set of goals and how they measure success. It could be more fans in the seats, investing in an inventory consolidation plan to create a sustainable secondary market, or generating the most possible revenue from a combined ticketing and sponsorship model. We pride ourselves in collaborating to develop customized solutions that provide tangible results. We want each partnership to be transparent and invested in each side’s long term plan for success.

What is your favorite college tradition/rivalry?

I’ve always loved Army/Navy. They may not always put forth highly-ranked teams, but there is such a deep tradition and rivalry between those two programs, and they play with such pride, not just for their schools, but as protectors of our great nation, that it’s just very special. 

Where is your favorite city in the world?

I grew up in New England, but moved to San Francisco after grad school, where I spent some of the best years of my life. The Bay Area is such a wonderful region, with amazing year-round weather, parks, beaches, and mountains just a short drive away. As someone who loves the outdoors, it’s hard to beat. You combine that with great people, excellent collegiate and professional sports, top-notch food, and wine country, and you’ve got a winner. Of course, if you’d asked me my favorite place in the world, I’d say the small hometown where I grew up and currently live with my wife and two kids. There’s no better place anywhere than that.

What is your most vivid sports memory? 

Sometimes your most vivid sports memories are also the most painful ones. I grew up a long-suffering Red Sox fan, like generations of my family before me, so when they were an out away from winning it all in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, I was on cloud nine. When Mookie Wilson hit the ball that went through Bill Buckner’s legs, it was devastating - the low point of my sports life and by far my most vivid sports memory. That said, it made 2004 all the more special. 

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Honestly, Spider-Man, but I realized pretty early that wasn’t going to happen, so I figured pro baseball player was my next best option. That didn’t pan out either, so I started looking at the world of business, and am glad that I did. Now I get paid to do something that I love every day, which I think was always my real goal.

What is your favorite meal of the day?

Breakfast, no question.  I mean, name a bad breakfast food. You can’t right? They’re all delicious! Nobody ever serves broccoli or brussel sprouts before 11 am. I’m pretty sure that’s actually a law.

What is the best advice you have ever received?

I’ve had so much good advice over the years that it’s hard to pick just one, but a good friend of mine shared something with me that really resonated with how I’ve always tried to live my own life. He said his father always told him, “It’s free to be nice.” No matter who you are, what you do for a living, how many friends you have, how successful you are, how easy or hard things seem, you can choose to be nice to people and it doesn’t cost you anything. Even when you’re in a confrontational situation, you can achieve an outcome based on the issues, not whether you’re nice or not. So be nice.

Whom do you admire most as a business leader?

I’m going with my grandfather on this one. He ran a Naval shipyard back in the 1960s and had tremendous success, bringing in project after project ahead of time and under budget – nearly unheard of for government projects today. But the impressive thing to me was that he took the time to get to know people, and help them understand how important they were to the success of the organization, even the most junior worker on the job, which I think ultimately helped drive that success. Then he’d follow through by recognizing them for outstanding performance.  When he died a few years ago, I found a box he’d kept that contained a huge stack of commendations he’d written for people over the years.