Crowd Seats - The "Groupon" of Sports Tickets

Crowd Seats has launch to provide daily deal crowd sourced buying for sporting events. Their deals on tickets result in a 50-90% discount off face value and there are no ticketing fees. Once you purchase a ticket you will be able to print the voucher and bring it to the ticketing booth or will call to receive your ticket.

Currently the deals are available in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. They plan to offer tickets for MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, and many other including colleges and local teams. It may take a while for the service to gain traction, and I would think many of the tickets that would be offered are ones left over when nearing the event.

This is an interesting take on the group buying phenomena that could disrupt the current model. You can sign up here, and join them on Facebook or Twitter.

Four Deal Sites To Join And Follow

Over the past year we have seen daily deal sites explode. There are so many of them now it is hard to know which ones are good and trustworthy. Some are filled with so much junk we end up waisting our time while having our inboxes filled with worthless emails. Below are the best I have found and use that offer great deals and products while excelling in service. If you sign up for these and receive some of the emails you can save some serious money.

DealPop is owned by WhitePages so we know we can trust them. Their deals are with some of the lesser known brands or products, but still very valuable when you see something you like. (Update: DealPop was acquired by TIPPR in May 2011 and as part of the agreement has shutdown their website and service.)

Groupon needs no introduction as it started the craze. They have the best deals on national chains and brands as well as compelling coupons for local services and businesses. There biggest selling deal was a $50 Gap gift certificate for $25. By far, I use them the most.

LivingSocial hit the big time with its Amazon gift card offer; spending $10 got you $20 on Amazon.com. The deals they have can be a bit low brow on the local scene. Watch out for their national deals though, I have snagged some really nice offers.

LevelUp is new in the arena. They are owed by SCVNGR (a location check-in service that is funded in part by Google). Since they are so new I have not found an offer compelling enough to buy. Their innovation is that when you purchase a deal you unlock a second deal for the same vendor that is even better.

*As a bonus, if you like the outdoors, Steep and Cheep and The Clymb are a must.