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Crowdsourcing Sales: Charlotte Bobcats

Imagine outsourcing your ticket sales team. But not to sales people – Instead, your fans sell tickets for you.

Sounds crazy? Well, it’s already happening… kind of.

Crowdsourcing is the concept of letting your audience decide or determine something. Consider a contest in which you allow your fans to come up with a name for a new team mascot. This is an example of crowdsourcing.

The Charlotte Bobcats are taking an interesting move in the crowdsourcing sales direction by tasking their fans on Facebook with selling tickets.

Fans can offer tickets at a reduced rate to their Facebook friends, and receive prizes and rewards for their efforts – top prize being the chance to meet (or “hang out” with) Michael Jordan before a game and receive 2 court side seats. There’s a bunch of other prizes as well.

Consider the reach and power of such a promotion – with the Bobcats’ current Facebook Page population of 46,000+, keep in mind that the average Facebook user has 130 friends (More Facebook stats by clicking here)… I think you get the picture. Now, not all of these fans will participate in the challenge, but the possibilities are intriguing to say the least.

I don’t foresee that in-house sales team will disappear, but such a campaign could bring good results.

What do you think about the idea of “Fansourcing” ticket sales?