Ticket Reseller StubHub Plots A Return to Wall Street — Will Controversy in the Live Events Industry Derail Its Dream IPO?
If the live events business didn’t have a problem, it wouldn’t be so popular (and bipartisan) to hate them — misleading pricing, service fees, and all. Opponents say these practices have helped make businesses like Ticketmaster parent Live Nation and ticket reseller Vivid Seats bigger, bolder, and more profitable than ever. But even though investors love money, do they have the appetite for another live event business that functions just like the others?
Stub-what? We might be about to find out. After more than a decade as a private company, StubHub is looking to make a return to Wall Street. Acquired by eBay in 2007 for $310M and later sold to Viagogo for $4B in 2019, the firm is reportedly seeking a valuation of at least $16.5B in its forthcoming IPO. The listing will be a barometer for investors’ appetite for the industry — and an indicator of whether business risks outweigh the robust and growing demand for live events.
- In its form S-1, StubHub reported $1.77B in revenue and a loss of $2.8M in 2024 — compared with $1.37B in revenue and a $405M profit in 2023.
- The enterprise’s bigger loss came from sales and marketing, which helped the world’s “largest global secondary ticketing marketplace” sell a record 40M tickets in 2024.
Ticket Trends
StubHub, of course, comes with many warts. It encourages reselling, a practice which has been discouraged — and even made illegal in certain stages — in recent years. It has also been sued for its misleading pricing, breach of contract, and the practice of drip pricing. But those risks might be worth it, especially with economics like this.
- StubHub’s blended take rate in 2024 was 20.4%, meaning that it charged a little over one-fifth of the amount of a transaction in fees — the average order value is about $250.
- If StubHub can continue to expand like this into international markets and primary ticketing while balancing its risks and managing trust, it could appreciate considerably.
But buyer beware: Everyday shareholders won’t have much of a voice at StubHub, which is largely helped by founder and CEO Eric Baker. He owns just 5.2% of the company’s Class A shares, but thanks to preferred shares, he owns more than 90% of the company’s voting power — allowing him to control the company outright. Those factors might make investors weary of investing at all. Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see if the firm can raise the amount it wants — more than $1B — at the valuation it wants.
