In the past five years, ticket collecting has come a long way. From being thrown out or at least tossed into a shoe box, ticket grading grew so quickly at PSA that, last year, it built its own office to bring in submissions.
What’s next?
A group of ticket collectors are opening up Front Row Auctions, an auction house that will at least begin as a ticket only auction house.
“We got together and just thought that tickets deserved to have their own place,” said Howard Citron, who, along with fellow ticket collectors Shaun Daugherty and Ryan Hotchkiss, founded the site.
Front Row’s website is now taking registrations for the first auction, which will come after the National in late summer. The group will begin to take consignments early next month at the Philly Show.
“I’m really excited to start writing some of these descriptions,” said Citron, a lawyer by day who hosts an Instagram live ticket collecting show called Stub Luv Live. “We’ll also have video. I mean, how can you have a ticket from a great sports moments without video?”
Citron said the auction house was created partly because the ticket collecting space is now big enough, but the auction’s owners hopes that its dedicated sales lens will help grow the sector even more.
“We’ve seen a big push from card collectors who can’t afford the cards anymore,” Citron said. “Tickets are still relatively affordable versus cards. I think we are still in the first inning.”
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.