Wimbledon will change their current ticketing sales process to reflect the changing times.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Wimbledon could look to give away the pen and paper option and embrace the online one from the 2020 season of the competition.
While an official announcement is yet to be made, it was said the authorities will bring about the change by the end of this month.
Currently UK residents can apply for Wimbledon tickets using a postal ballot while overseas residents are allowed the online option. Those in the UK and Ireland applying for the tickets are given a deadline a few months before the start of the tournament to send across the filled document through a ‘snail mail’ using a stamped-addressed envelope.
Very few tickets are available to overseas fans and those can be bought by applying for a ballot online.
Other than the ballot option, tennis fans can also buy Wimbledon tickets using the Queue option whereby they can camp outside the arena a night before and enter the arena using the grounds pass. Some Centre Court and Court No. 1 tickets are also sold around that time.
And of course there’s also the Debentures option for the super-rich.
In an interview earlier in the year, Philip Brook, the Wimbledon chairman, had intimated there was a good chance the organisers would looking to change the system to make it more tech-savy.
In a podcast for the 2Barrys hosted by Barry Millns and Barry Cowan, he had admitted the age-old method was cumbersome and could be replaced. However, he had also added that method had its own advantages.
He had explained: “We are a bit worried about that we might be completely swamped with demand. Secondly we think with a paper based system it is harder for people to cheat.”
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