The Sounders and Reign announced a long-term partnership with the fan-centric ticketing platform Jump, a company that focuses on fan experience and sporting event ticketing.
Beginning in 2027, supporters can use Jump to buy match tickets in a simplified and straightforward format, and the experience will include more transparent prices. The Jump ticketing platform will replace Ticketmaster, which served as the Sounders’ primary ticket distributor for roughly 14 years, from 2009 to 2017 and most recently since 2021.
The entire setup will be managed by the club, leaving out the need for a partner in between the club and supporters through Jump’s “direct-to-fan model.” Alongside purchases, Jump is designed to provide supporters more personalized matchday engagement, tailored to the individual.
As described in the press release, regarding supporter engagement, the partnership was explained as“a flexible and scalable platform to support continued innovation across the enterprise. Jump’s integrated technology – including embedded AI capabilities – enables the clubs to streamline operations, enhance decision-making and unlock new opportunities across fan engagement, marketing and business operations.”Specifically, supporters will benefit using the Jump platform with one login, one wallet, and one unified experience through ticket and matchday-related matters.
Jump emphasizes its use of agentic AI, which is a newer approach to artificial intelligence that is able to plan and execute a multi-step process to achieve a goal rather than only generating content from input. In other words, agentic AI can act autonomously as needed, allowing it to serve as a project manager that clubs can use at their disposal. The integration of agentic AI within Jump will allow clubs to better optimize content for supporters, fan engagement, and data analytics, which is within Jump’s fan experience-oriented vision.
The Seattle Sounders are the first MLS team that is partnering with Jump, and the Reign are the third NWSL team. A handful of clubs, domestically and internationally, have partnered with Jump. At the time of this post, the announced teams that have partnered with Jump are Aberdeen FC (SCT), North Carolina FC (USL Championship), NC Courage (NWSL), Denver Summit FC (NWSL), the Athletics (MLB), Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA) and Lynx (WNBA), and Bucknell University (NCAA).
