In addition to our presenting sponsor Louisville Slugger, we have received a lot of help from StubHub.com, which is the largest ticket marketplace in the world, based on sales. They have been around for a few years, and recently became a member of the Ebay-family. So how does StubHub help us? Sometimes MLB teams can’t offer us any help (promotion and ticket-wise) when we visit their stadiums, or only offer us one ticket when we need two or three tickets for a game. When this happens, the lovely people at StubHub (namely, Joellen) come to rescue and get us tickets for the game. Their contributions to the trip have saved us a bunch of money on spending money on tickets, and have allowed the Tour for the Cure Team to enjoy a bunch of Major League games.

For all those not too familiar with StubHub, here is how it works:

If you are looking for a ticket—any sporting event, concert, even Broadway, you search for your team/musical act/play by date and location, and all of the tickets that other people are selling show up. There are usually a bunch of tickets for any given event, and the more popular the event, the more tickets there are available. For example, August 4th the Tour for the Cure will be at Yankee Stadium, and there are currently almost 2,500 (!) tickets available ranging from $5 to $600 a piece—quite the selection. Once you find tickets you want, you just place your order and the tickets are yours.

There are three different ways you can get your tickets:

1. In the mail via FedEx — this is super quick, and in my experience you receive your tickets within 48 hours of placing your order. StubHub was able to order us tickets on a Wednesday, and they arrived at our hotel on Thursday (!) for a Saturday afternoon game.

2. Email tickets — the fastest way possible — as soon as you order, boom, your tickets arrive in your inbox. Simply print them out and bring them to the event. This is how we got tickets for the Pittsburgh Pirates game, and it was the simplest way to handle tickets.

3. StubHub Last Minute Service Center — if you order your tickets last minute, you have the option of picking up your tickets at a StubHub office located very close to the event. We arrived 15 minutes before the start of the Tigers game, picked up our tickets and headed across the street into Comerica Park. It’s just like will call at any ticket office.

Hands down, this is the best ticket service out there and the smoothest ticket buying experience I’ve ever had. Before the Tour I’ve used this service to get “sold out” tickets, and have been able to pay reasonable prices for some good seats. I highly recommend this service, not only because it’s awesome but because they have been more than generous in helping us out this year on the 2007 Tour for the Cure.