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StubHub
American ticket brokering company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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StubHub Holdings, Inc. is an American ticket exchange and ticket resale company for sports, concerts, theater, and other live entertainment events. It operates under the brands StubHub and Viagogo. It is largest ticket reseller worldwide and has brokered 450 million tickets since its inception.[2][3][1] It is accessible via websites and mobile apps.[4] The company is also in the process of expanding into primary ticket issuance,[5] advertising, sports merchandising, sports betting, and leisure attractions and experiences.
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StubHub charges fees to both the buyer and the seller in a transaction.[6][7][8][9] StubHub has no price ceiling, but does inform buyers what similar tickets have sold for. The high resale prices for certain tickets have attracted criticism for being prohibitive to average earners.
The company does not operate the international StubHub websites as those were sold to gain antitrust approval for its merger with Viagogo.
The company has offices in Los Angeles, Irvine, New York, Salt Lake City, Ireland, Switzerland.[10] It faces competition from Ticketmaster,[11] Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek.[12]
StubHub applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android also allow users to decide where they want to sit using interactive venue maps and the number of seats, and to plan the event by finding local restaurants, bars, and parking facilities.
StubHub was founded in 2000 by Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr.[13] The company was acquired by eBay in 2007 and merged in 2020 with Viagogo.[13][14][15] The company became a public company via an initial public offering in September 2025.[16]
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History
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2000–2007
Eric Baker had the idea for an online secondhand event ticket marketplace after he struggled to purchase secondhand tickets for a showing of The Lion King on Broadway.[12] He began developing the concept with Jeff Fluhr as part of a competition while both were students at Stanford Graduate School of Business.[17] In March 2000, the pair incorporated StubHub in San Francisco to act as that marketplace. The company raised US$600,000 in seed funding by August 2000. Fluhr left school to be chief executive officer of StubHub; Baker graduated in 2001 and became company president.[18] In 2002, eBay was in talks to acquire StubHub for US$20 million, although the agreement had later "fallen apart over price."[19] That year, StubHub signed its first deal with a professional sports team, partnering with the Seattle Mariners.[20] By its third year of operation, StubHub had 60 employees.[18] After having a falling out with Fluhr in 2005, Baker left the company, retaining 10% ownership.[21]
In 2005, the company raised between $10 million and $25 million from Pequot Ventures (now FirstMark Capital).[22] That year, the company generated $50 million in revenue, was cash flow positive.[23] and generated over $200 million in sales.[24]
In 2006, Inc. ranked StubHub as the eighth fastest growing private company in America on its annual "Inc. 500" list.[25]
In January 2007, eBay acquired StubHub for $310 million.[26][27]
Following the acquisition, Fluhr left the company,[12] and Chris Tsakalakis became the CEO.[28]
In 2007, the company brokered 5 million transactions, more than in the previous six years combined.[2]
2008–2013
By 2008, StubHub had become a $5 billion-a-year business.[29] That year, the company announced that music-related sales had seen the biggest growth and that music had become a "priority".[30] It had 2.1 million visitors per month, generating over $100 million in sales annually.[11] In 2009, transactions on StubHub climbed 65% from the previous year, and revenue increased by 40%.[31] By 2009, StubHub was the largest secondary-market ticket reseller in the United States.[2] However, in April 2009, StubHub reported that the price of second round Masters badges had declined by 43% from $1,073 in 2008 to $612 in 2009.[32]
StubHub had 62 official partners by May 2011, including the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Boston Red Sox, and Ultimate Fighting Championship. While StubHub marketed its partners' tickets and facilitated connections between buyer and seller, it does not acquire the tickets directly.
In July 2011, StubHub launched a mobile app for Microsoft Windows Phone.[a]
In late 2011, Raji Arasu became chief technology officer.[34]
In 2012, StubHub integrated with Apple Passbook.[35] Also in 2012, StubHub announced that Adele was the best-selling British act of 2011–2, with sales worth $35.18 million for her performances and merchandise alone.[36] After StubHub opened a beta site in the UK in December 2011, it launched the full site in the UK in March 2012, also announcing plans to open stores in London and near major venues for last-minute ticket sales. At the time, StubHub said that 35% of tickets sold on its site came from professional brokers, and the rest came from part-time sellers or individuals.[37]
In 2013, StubHub created an application especially for the South by Southwest events in Texas that gave users the opportunity to buy a range of tickets to all of the different shows.[38] In January 2013, StubHub launched "The Rising Stars program", which offers grants of $25,000 - $100,000 for locally based, grassroots organizations to aid youth in sporting and artistic development.[39] StubHub has also supported major benefit events, such as 121212, the Concert for Sandy Relief, including a $1 million donation to the Robin Hood Relief Fund for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.[40] StubHub and other reselling sites were criticized by concert producers of the 12-12-12 benefit concert in Madison Square Garden for allowing the resale of the tickets at above face value. In response StubHub stated it lacked the technology to require sellers donate their profits to charity, but noted it was donating all earnings on the concert's tickets to the organizing Robin Hood Foundation for Hurricane Sandy victims,[41] ultimately donating US$1 million.[40]
2014–present
On November 4, 2014, Tsakalakis resigned from his position as president,[28] and was replaced with Scott Cutler. In 2014, StubHub also announced the appointment of Jonah Freedman as its editor-in-chief,[42] and has since announced plans to become a resource for finding and planning events.[43] StubHub has also announced a plan to integrate with ESPN as part of the company's plans to offer more personalized content.[44]
In September 2015, the company announced that it would no longer present inclusive ticket prices with fees and other charges included, switching to the practice where a user has the choice to have a lower price displayed at first and fees added at checkout, or fees displayed upfront.[3] In 2013, StubHub started its own series of benefit concerts,[45] and by 2015 had partnered with the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.[46]
StubHub was active in the US, Canada, the UK, Mexico, and Germany by 2016, and was the world's largest ticket resale platform.[47] In 2016, StubHub had revenues of $940 million.[48] In June 2016, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a compliance review of the four main secondary ticketing platform websites in the UK, including Viagogo, StubHub, GetMeIn, and Seatwave.[49] At the conclusion of its investigation in 2018, the CMA demanded all four sites make "various changes" to comply with UK law.[50]
In 2016, the United States Senate commerce committee introduced legislation called the Better Online Ticket Sales, or BOTS, Act which was later signed into law in December 2016 by President Obama. This law makes using bots to purchase tickets under certain circumstances illegal and holds bot owners liable for obtained tickets.[51][52] StubHub expressed support for the legislation.[53]
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy was made president of StubHub in 2018, replacing Cutler.[54]
In 2018, StubHub sold $4.75 billion in tickets with $1.1 billion in fees, and sold tickets in 44 countries, particularly the United States.[12]
In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, StubHub merged with Viagogo, also founded by Baker, in a $4.05 billion transaction and both platforms were then owned by StubHub Holdings.[55][12][10] To satisfy regulators, StubHub agreed to sell its business outside of North America, including its UK business, to Digital Fuel Capital LLC.[56][10]
In July 2022, Nayaab Islam was appointed StubHub president.[57]
The company became a public company via an initial public offering in September 2025.[58] The IPO came after previous delays in 2022 and early 2024.[56][59][60]
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Lobbying activity
In 2006, StubHub became involved in several disputes over the resale of season sports tickets in New England, involving the New England Patriots and New York Yankees.[61] In the U.S., 38 states had laws allowing the reselling of event tickets as long as the sale did not take place at the event site. The other 12 states had varying degrees of regulation, including registration requirements and maximum markups.[62] StubHub, Ticketmaster, TicketNetwork, and others began to lobby state legislatures to repeal or modify the stricter anti-scalping laws.
In Florida in 2006, StubHub made over $6,500 in campaign donations to members of the state legislature in support of bill to amend Florida's 61-year-old anti-scalping laws. Many consumers, as well as lobbyists for the leisure and entertainment industries were opposed to the bill, and claimed it would drive up prices for consumers while hurting their share of the ticket market. The bill's sponsor argued its passage would modernize the state's ticketing industry. The bill passed in June 2006, resulting in 35 states having no restrictions on ticket resale.[63]
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Legal issues
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In 2006, more than 100 New York Yankees season-ticket holders suspected of reselling their regular-season seats on StubHub received letters denying them the right to buy playoff tickets and barring them from buying season tickets for the 2007 season. StubHub criticized the policy as "a witch hunt against us and eBay for giving fans more access to these games".[64]
New England Patriots lawsuit
In 2006, the New England Patriots sued StubHub to bar it from reselling Patriots tickets in Massachusetts, arguing StubHub was illegally facilitating the sale of phony or voided season tickets. StubHub accused the Patriots of attempted monopolization, conspiracy to restrain trade, and unfair trade practices. On October 19, 2007, a court upheld an order forcing StubHub to turn over a list of all New England Patriots season ticket holders since 2002 who had used the site. The Patriots stated that they may strip the season ticket holders of their seats. eBay acquired StubHub during the dispute and later settled.[65]
New York Yankees lawsuit
In December 2012, it was reported that the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Angels, and the Chicago Cubs had dropped StubHub and declined a new five-year deal, which MLB Advanced Media had signed.[66][67][68] The Chicago Cubs later opted back into the partnership.[citation needed] In 2012, The Yankees sued StubHub for its storefront near Yankee Stadium, arguing that it violated New York law prohibiting ticket resale within 1,500 feet of a venue. StubHub argued that the location was not a ticket sales office but a printing station for tickets purchased online. The lawsuit was settled in 2013.[69] eBay has announced that from May 2013 it will retire some of its ticket categories on its UK website and will redirect users to the StubHub website to purchase them.[70] They began the merging process in January 2013 when listings on StubHub also appeared in search results on the eBay UK's tickets category.[70] In April 2013, a new pricing structure was established, and the fee will be displayed upfront without going through an auction.[70] In May 2013, cancellation of the Spice Girls' musical Viva Forever! saw a 220% increase in online ticket searches on StubHub UK, as fans rushed to buy tickets for the remaining shows.[71]
Scalping
One of StubHub's top sellers (as of 2017) in the ticket reselling industry is a thirty-year-old man from Montreal, Canada, Julien Lavallée,[72][73] According to a November 9, 2017 article published in The Toronto Star, Lavallée was able to expand his business using "exploitative tactics" that "gam[e] the ticket marketplace and put entertainment beyond the reach of millions of fans who can’t compete with large-scale scalping operations."[72] The leaked documents included Lavallée's business records that showed that along with StubHub, he also used Vivid Seats and Ticketmaster as "'main channels' to scalp his tickets".[73] Prior to October 2017, Lavallée used his company, I Want Ticket Inc, which was "registered on the British Isle of Man, to post on StubHub in the U.K."[73]
A UK law was passed in 2017 that targeted sellers using software to purchase tickets. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) then sent out information requests to all four major UK platforms (Get Me In, Seatwave, Viagogo and StubHub) in August that year asking for information on sellers. When StubHub refused the request the CMA instead pursued a warrant,[73] raiding StubHub's London office in August 2017[72] and confiscating records related to touts selling mass quantities of tickets.[73] By November 2017, no charges had been laid against StubHub.[72] According to the Toronto Star and the CBC News, Lavallée drew the attention of U.K.’s National Trading Standards (NTS) and CMA when he succeeded in controlling 310 seats for three of Adele's shows in London in 2016 for a total transaction of over $50,000 in less than a half an hour.[72]
In late 2017, the Canadian press, using a "superscalper", Lavallée, exposed in the Paradise Papers as an example, reported that highly successful touts on StubHub were being openly incentivized for high sales volumes, arguing that StubHub was potentially incentivizing bot operators in the process.[73]
Drip pricing
StubHub has faced backlash from consumers and regulators for drip pricing, in which the final price for tickets significantly exceeds the original quoted price due to additional fees.[74] In July 2024, the D.C. Attorney General filed a lawsuit against StubHub for drip pricing tactics.[75]
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Partnerships
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StubHub has partnered with multiple companies and sports teams including Apple Inc, Spotify,[76] BandPage,[77] Amazon.com,[78] and Uber.[79] In May 2023, the company partnered with The Athletic to offer tickets for sale on its website.[80]
Sports
In 2007, StubHub reached an exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball (MLB), which gets part of the commissions StubHub earns on either end of a season ticket buy and sell transaction.[2] Ticketmaster filed a lawsuit against StubHub and eBay in 2007, alleging "intentional interference" with Ticketmaster's contractual rights.[81] In 2012, StubHub renewed deals with Major League Baseball Advanced Media. By December 2012, about half of the 30 MLB teams had separate partnership agreements with StubHub as well, with several teams such as the Los Angeles Angels not renewing.[66][82]
StubHub is active in college sports, and has partnerships with many teams and venues.[83]
In May 2013, StubHub signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Jockey Club Racecourses to trade tickets on Sandown Park, Epsom Downs and Kempton Park Racecourse.[84]
From 2013 to 2019, StubHub owned the naming rights to the home pitch of the Los Angeles Galaxy, which was renamed "StubHub Center".[85]
On May 16, 2016, the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA announced that it had reached a three-year jersey sponsorship deal with StubHub to take effect beginning in the 2017–18 season—where the NBA will begin piloting jersey sponsorship. It marks the first time that a team belonging to any of the four major North American sports leagues has ever sold a jersey sponsorship.[86]
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External links
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