Providing our users with the best seating maps in the ticketing industry is a top priority at SeatGeek. Seat location is one of the most significant factors in the decision-making process behind a ticket purchase, and it’s important to us to give that variable as complete and accurate a context as possible.

To that point, for years we’ve provided best-in-class features in our seating charts, like row-level mapping (above and beyond the industry standard of section-level mapping), view-from-seat images and interactivity, and most recently, we’ve focused on enhancing the beauty and dimensional accuracy of the playing surfaces at sporting venues.

We’ve approached this enhancement the way we have many other mapping projects before it – with an eye for detail and care for the user experience that you don’t find elsewhere in our industry. We’ve used a combination of primary sources – architectural floor plans, 3D renderings, high-resolution photography and satellite images – in an effort to take into account everything from dimensions and playing lines to on-field designs.

These enhancements are live for the following venue types:

• Basketball (NBA & NCAA)
• Football (NFL)
• Soccer (MLS & UEFA)

NBA basketball

We’re big basketball fans, especially this time of year. Football season is over, baseball season is only warming up, and many of the most exciting live events in February and March happen on the hardwood. We’re excited to have these beautiful new seating charts live for all 30 NBA arenas:

Notable NBA floor designs

I also want to take the chance to call out a few truly unique design additions we’ve made to a handful of NBA venues:

Hardwood parquet floor: Boston Celtics (TD Garden)

City skyline floor design: Cleveland Cavaliers (Quicken Loans Arena)

“Giant pelican” floor design: New Orleans Pelicans (Smoothie King Center)

NCAA basketball

Rather than copy the dimensions and playing lines from our NBA maps, we’ve incorporated NCAA-specific elements (e.g. the shorter three-point line and smaller size of the key) into the seating charts of our college basketball venues:

NCAA basketball: Final Four (Lucas Oil Stadium)

NCAA basketball: Rice Owls (Tudor Fieldhouse)

Football (NFL)

Let’s use the Baltimore Ravens’ M&T Bank Stadium as an example of the new on-field look we’ve given our NFL maps.

The following are side-by-side comparisons of a primary source and the current version of the SeatGeek seating chart for that venue, followed by a before-and-after. Note the added specification of team sidelines:

Satellite image source vs. current SeatGeek map

Old version vs. current version

Hockey (NHL)

Want to know on which side of the venue the penalty box is located, on which side of center ice you can find each team’s bench, or on which side the home team shoots twice? Now you can on SeatGeek. Let’s look at the Boston Bruins’ TD Garden as our example:

3D rendering source vs. current SeatGeek map

Old version vs. current version

Soccer (MLS & UEFA)

FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou is a great example of the special care we’re giving to soccer venues. In addition to more accurate section and field dimensions, we’ve added details like the stenciled “MÉS QUE UN CLUB” (“More than a club”) in the mezzanine and the “BARCELONA” and “VISITORS” team dugouts:

Satellite image source vs. current SeatGeek map

Old version vs. current version

Future enhancements

In the coming months, keep an eye out for similarly awesome redesigns of these venue types:

• MLB and NCAA baseball
• ATP, WTA and ITF tennis
• Formula 1 and NASCAR racing
• IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO boxing
• UFC fighting
• WWE wrestling

Want to help us create and improve the greatest seating maps in the world? We’re hiring!