• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 2, 2013

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, a Cox Media Group Company, will launch Tuesday AJC Tickets, a ticket commerce site for local buyers and sellers of Atlanta-based live events.

AJC co-branded the site with TiqIQ to offer tickets from PrimeSport, the Official Ticket Exchange of the Final Four, which gets underway this week, as well as TicketsNow, eBay and TicketCity. TiqIQ also works with Ticketmaster, Ticketfly and Veritix.

A widget on the AJC sports and entertainment pages at Access Atlanta take readers to a separate co-branded landing page where consumers can purchase tickets for local events at Atlanta venues, but also access tickets for events across the country from the TiqIQ site.

Research shows sports and entertainment as two of the top producing content segments on the site, according to Katie Tankersley, manager at ajc.com. She said the revenue sharing agreement aims to provide site visitors a service that will offer the best seats and price on tickets for Atlanta events.

"We know our readers come to the site for deals, and being a paper site, it's a natural fit," Tankersley said. "The best opportunity is to extend the deals for tickets into sporting and entertainment events."

The collaboration aims to diversify AJC's revenue stream and improve the newspaper's online user engagement. Content around sports and entertainment are two topics readers often search for on the site, especially Atlanta-based information around sports coverage and celebrity events. The 75th Annual NCAA's March Madness men's basketball tournament will conclude in Atlanta this coming week, the first finals rounds in the city since 2002.

Tankersley said the partnership goes beyond the co-branded ticket sales site and into content. The two built out an editorial calendar that offers readers stories on ticket sales, events and stats specific to the Atlanta market.

Jesse Lawrence, CEO and Founder of TiqIQ, said the platform incorporates social media and the ability to identify consumer markets for a specific sports team. "The idea is to drive page views for readers," he said. "We did an article on The Braves for them that got more than 500 shares."