The $1 Million Sports Ticket
Jonathan Stern@jonny
· 1
−1.0%
since Sep 29
The idea
I believe someone will buy a $1 million sports ticket within 5 years. Along these lines, I believe real-world scarcity, courtside seats, and other waitlist-only goods will be repriced as status wins vs screens and AI-generated everything. So this basket spreads wide across the teams and leagues that own scarce seats, live event platforms, capped-capacity travel, waitlist brands, and the rails premium spending runs on, with a small cash reserve rather than betting on any single name. It's built to play out over years, and I'd rethink it if genuine scarcity stopped commanding a premium.
What it owns
- Teams and leagues own the seats no one can make more of, so a million-dollar ticket lands in their pockets first. · TKO Group HoldingsIt owns the only supply of live UFC and WWE events, where front-row seats are exactly the kind of scarce physical experience that reprices as a status asset., Liberty Media Formula OneIt owns Formula One, where a paddock pass is already one of the most status-loaded tickets on earth and supply is fixed at roughly twenty-four race weekends a year., Madison Square Garden SportsIt owns Madison Square Garden and controls the supply of premium seats and suites in one of the world's most sought-after venues, giving it pricing power as demand for courtside experiences remains strong., Atlanta Braves HoldingsIt is one of the only ways to directly own a major league team, making franchise valuation the cleanest read on whether scarce sports assets reprice as expected., Manchester UnitedIt is one of a tiny number of globally recognized football clubs anyone can buy, and there will never be more of them to supply growing global demand.26%
- Ships, high-end rooms, and mountains have fixed capacity, so richer demand shows up straight in the price. · Royal Caribbean GroupIt sells capped-capacity travel where a ship holds only so many people, and the priciest suites and private destinations sell out first as affluent demand rises., Viking HoldingsIt serves only affluent travelers on smaller ships, so its entire business is the capped premium experience that this take says gets repriced as demand shifts., Hilton WorldwideIts luxury brands capture the shift toward paying for real physical stays, and its pipeline skews toward premium tiers where repricing happens first., Wynn ResortsIt sells scarce high-end hospitality in Vegas and Macau, the best suites and tables where status spending shows up first and reprices fastest., Vail ResortsIt owns mountains, and nobody is making more of them, so lift access at the best resorts is hard scarcity where pass prices reprice with affluent demand.22%
- The companies that stage, host, and resell live events take a cut of every price increase without owning a team. · Live Nation EntertainmentIt stages and tickets more live events than anyone, capturing the shift toward paying up for being physically in the room as digital alternatives wear thin., Sphere EntertainmentThe Sphere is a venue that cannot be experienced anywhere else, making it a pure test of whether genuinely scarce and physical experiences reprice upward., Madison Square Garden EntertainmentIt owns Madison Square Garden itself, an arena that cannot be duplicated in Manhattan, where premium event pricing and suite demand set the floor for scarce-asset repricing., StubHub HoldingsIt is where scarce tickets find their true market price, capturing a cut of every repricing along the way as sports ticket values climb.20%
- When the product is the queue itself, the maker controls scarcity and prices like a status asset. · FerrariIt deliberately builds fewer cars than people want, turning the waiting list into the product itself and pricing power into a pure function of scarcity., American ExpressIt is the card scarce experiences get charged to, and the Platinum card is itself a status good people pay a fee to carry and renew.13%
- Booking sites, premium cabins, and charge cards clip a fee on experience spending wherever it goes. · Booking HoldingsIt takes a cut of global travel bookings, so as spending shifts toward pricier scarcer trips, its revenue per booking rises without owning a single property., Delta Air LinesIt makes an outsized share of money from premium cabins and lounges, the scarce seats of air travel where repricing happens ahead of the main cabin., AirbnbIts edge is one-of-a-kind stays that a hotel chain cannot copy, which is exactly the scarce physical thing this take says gets repriced as demand shifts upmarket.11%
- Cash8%