A season ticket, or season pass, is a

ticket Ticket or tickets may refer to: Slips of paper * Lottery ticket * Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start) * Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a to ...

that grants privileges over a defined period of time.

History

The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' has illustrative quotations which show the term ''season ticket'' used in the United States in 1820 for

theatre ticket A ticket is a voucher that indicates that an individual is entitled to admission to an event or establishment such as a theatre, amusement park, stadium, or tourist attraction, or has a right to travel on a vehicle, such as with an airline ...

s; and in the United Kingdom in 1836 for

boat travel Maritime transport (or ocean transport) or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by watercraft has been widely used throughout recorded history, as it provi ...

and 1862 for

rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Sports

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

s, a season ticket grants the holder access to all regular-season home games for one

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

without additional charges. The ticket usually offers a discounted price over purchasing a ticket for each of the home games for a season individually. In some sports, season ticket holders are usually allowed to buy tickets for other home games (such as the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

) earlier than other fans, and may be given priority when buying tickets for their team's allocation at an

away game A road game or away game is a sports game where the specified team is not the host and must travel to another venue. Most professional teams represent cities or towns and amateur sports teams often represent academic institutions. Each team h ...

. Seats assigned to season tickets are generally the better ones in their seating section. Season ticket holders are frequently offered preferred seating at special events or extra games.

Margaret Donahue Margaret Donahue (December 13, 1892 – January 30, 1978) was an American professional baseball executive who worked in the front office of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1919 to 1958. Donahue was the first female executive ...

came up with the idea to sell season tickets for the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Division. Th ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

in 1929. Season passes are commonly used for winter sports, but were originally in American ski resorts a privilege for club members and investors. However, in 2000 a discounting movement across the US triggered a price war and increased the widespread use of season passes.

Arts

A season ticket is also an option for many music venues (including Opera, Ballet, Symphony houses) and repertory

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

companies. The season subscription usually offers a discounted price over purchasing a ticket for each concert or play in a series or all concerts or plays in a season.

Public transport

public transport Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whic ...

, a season ticket allows the user to travel by public transport an unlimited number of times within a period of time. The term "commuter pass" is used in some countries. Season tickets are typically sold for a week, month or year. The validity of season tickets varies. At one extreme it may only allow travel between two points (A to B) by only one operator and one route (if there are more than one competing). At the other extreme, it may allow unlimited travel within a geographic area, or even a whole country, allowing free choice of method of transportation (

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

, etc.) and free choice of operating company.

Television

In television, a season ticket refers to the term invented by the manufacturers of the

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...

digital video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SS ...

for the function which allows a user to program the device to record all the episodes of a

of a

television show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...

, even if their airings are rescheduled or pre-empted. Similar functions are available on competitive digital video recorder systems and software packages, such as

ReplayTV ReplayTV was a former DVR company that from 1999 until 2005, produced a brand of digital video recorders (DVR), a term synonymous with ''personal video recorder'' (PVR). It is a consumer video device which allows users to capture television prog ...

and

IceTV IceTV is an Australian company providing an independently curated Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for digital free-to-air television. It also produces Smart Recording Software. IceTV offers a TiVo-like service that provides series recording, key ...

. With the advent of digital streaming services, such as

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

and digital video stores like

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

and

Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

, one can also purchase a season pass to gain the ability to watch every episode of a chosen season at one's leisure on a computer or mobile device.

Video games

The use of

battle pass In the video game industry, a battle pass or rewards track is a type of monetization approach that provides additional content for a game usually through a tiered system, rewarding the player with in-game items for playing the game and complet ...

es as a means of

video game monetization Video game monetization is a type of process that a video game publisher can use to generate revenue from a video game product. The methods of monetization may vary between games, especially when they come from different genres or platforms, but ...

was first used within the ''

Dota 2 ''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve Corporation, Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created Mod (video gaming), mod for Blizzard Entertainment's ''War ...

'' esports tournament

The International 2013 The International (TI) is an annual esports world championship for the five-on-five video game ''Dota 2''. Produced by the game's developer Valve, the International is the final event of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and consists of 20 teams: 12 b ...

, which provided a purchasable season pass to viewers rewarding them with in-game items for their viewership. Such battle passes gained more in

free to play "Free-to-play" ("F2P" or "FtP") video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content for free. The term "free-to-play business model" or simply, "free-to-play model", refers collectively to business models tha ...

games following consumer and governmental backlash against

loot box In video game terminology, a loot box (also called a loot crate or prize crate) is a consumable virtual item which can be redeemed to receive a randomised selection of further virtual items, or Loot (video gaming), ''loot'', ranging from simpl ...

es. By 2020, games like ''

Fortnite ''Fortnite'' is an online video game and game platform developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in seven distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: '' Fortnite Battle Roy ...

'' and ''

Apex Legends ''Apex Legends'' is a 2019 Battle royale game, battle royale-hero shooter video game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, set in the same science fiction universe as Respawn's ''Titanfall'' series. It is offered ...

'' frequently used battle passes based around themed seasons and offering in-game items designed towards that theme.

Other uses

Other examples of venues that often offer season passes include amusement parks, recreational sports venues (ski areas), and paid-admission parks (state and national parks). Some passes may also grant additional perks, such as free or prepaid parking, or coupons exclusive to pass-holders.

References

{{Reflist Fare collection systems Tickets Entertainment