Discussion Session: Best of 2025 (December 10, 2025)
Sorry! We forgot to hit record on this one until half-way through the session!
In this session, we discussed the best ticket sales promotions of 2025.
Here's the shortened video recording of the session along with a summary of what was discussed.
The most powerful drivers of attendance for 2025 were rooted in authentic cultural connection, inclusive programming, and creative partnerships — a playbook that turns individual games into must-attend experiences.
Heritage Nights and the Apparel Advantage
Themed heritage nights succeed only when built on authenticity, which means investing in cultural advisors who genuinely live within the communities being celebrated. Family-focused themes follow the same logic: the Tucson Roadrunners' Barbie-themed father/daughter night moved nearly 400 tickets bundled with pink fanny packs and post-game upgrades, demonstrating how thoughtful packaging turns a theme into a full event arc. MLB fan survey data reinforces what practitioners are finding on the ground — apparel giveaways are the single most powerful attendance driver, with jerseys first, T-shirts third, and hats fourth, while fireworks rank second and concerts a distant fifth, signaling that fans want something tangible to take home more than entertainment add-ons.
Women's Empowerment as a Breakout Category
Women's empowerment programming has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the promotional calendar, consistently outperforming expectations when it blends sports access with professional development. The Blue Jackets' "Hockey and Her" skills clinic, the Trail Blazers' business-focused arena panels, and similar experiences have drawn audiences who were not traditional ticket buyers — and the momentum is strong enough that several teams are expanding these programs into standalone marquee events in 2026, removing them from the game-night calendar entirely.
Cross-Team Partnerships and Collaborative Selling
Cross-franchise collaboration is gaining serious traction, with teams co-branding giveaway items alongside local professional sports partners, sharing presale offers with each other's member bases, and hosting joint gameday experiences. A collaboration involving the Colorado Avalanche illustrates the model: by reaching into a partner team's communication channels, franchises access pre-qualified, high-affinity audiences that traditional marketing cannot easily touch, reducing acquisition costs while adding cross-sport novelty.
Flexible Ticketing and the Perennial Performers
Flexible multi-game voucher packs are consistently outperforming pre-assigned multi-game plans, with the Salt Lake Bees' 10-game voucher model proving especially effective as a giftable holiday offer by removing the friction of calendar commitment at the point of purchase. A core set of proven promotional pillars — military and first responder nights, Star Wars games, school sing-alongs, and running community 5K tie-ins — continues to generate reliable volume year over year, and the right affinity partnership can deliver scale beyond any standalone promotion, as a MasterCard PGA Tour offer driving roughly 20,000 tickets demonstrates.
