As my school's Assistant AD, MOST of my job is game management. This requires game set up, ticket set up, game tear down, etc...
In the fall of 2020, with COVID still going strong our district, along well most all other districts in my state made the decision to go to paperless tickets. Progressively as restrictions were lifted we continued to use paperless tickets during this 2021-22 school year. As the school year progressed we continued to use paperless tickets but did finally by winter sports offer a paper ticker option.
Contrary to some belief, paperless tickets had no impact on overall ticket sales (at least for my school). Post game clean up is not necessarily a concern when it comes to big crowds. Big crowds present bigger challenges when it comes to simply crowd control and other external issues that big crowds sometimes bring with them. It's cheaper to have the custodial crew clean the stadium post game than it is to hire X amount of sheriff's deputies to help with crowds before, during and after the games. In fact for this past winter our marching band parents volunteered to help clean up the gym after every home basketball game and our ROTC kids volunteered to clean up the stadium on Friday nights.
This spring I did try to encourage fans to buy paper tickets with cash since the surcharge on paperless tickets is an extra dollar. But, sometimes I also tell people, if a dollar is what's keeping you from attending a HS sports event, then maybe there are other issues going on in your life that go way beyond HS sports.
We've been doing this now for well 2 school years and have yet to see any revenues in any of our sports decline or slip. Now this could also be attributed to not having to spend as much money on athletics during the 2020-21 school year. This year we were more or less back to normal and while I won't know the final numbers until we close out our fiscal year on June 30th, I'm confident from giving the attendance at games the ole eye test that we'll continue to operate in the black.
My point is, expect paperless tickets to remain in those districts that have them. In these past two years we've had zero complaints at our home events regarding paperless tickets. I guess it doesn't hurt that we charge a dollar less for sporting events than the other 14 high schools in our district and 3 dollars less than the other schools in our conference.