Capital markets are beginning to test investor appetite for the IPO market. StubHub became the latest high-profile private tech company to file its S1, following CoreWeave and Klarna filings earlier this year.
Below, we leverage expert transcripts and other insights from the AlphaSense platform to assess StubHub and the competitive dynamics of the live events space.
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StubHub Winning Share Through Superior Business Model
StubHub was founded in 2000 as the first online marketplace for secondary tickets. In its early years, the company established itself as the go-to destination for buying and selling tickets to live events within the United States. Its growth accelerated through strategic partnerships, such as with Major League Baseball, helping the company to establish itself as the industry leader.
StubHub saw its market share dwindle as more competitors, such as Ticketmaster, SeatGeek and Vivid Seats, entered the space. Then, StubHub’s share took another substantial hit from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of live events.
But in 2025, StubHub — still led by its founder and CEO, Eric Baker — is mounting a comeback. The return of live events following the pandemic was a shot in the arm for the broader industry, and StubHub reaped most of the benefits, according to expert transcripts sourced from the AlphaSense platform.
StubHub’s business model features compelling unit economics. Recent breakneck growth has happened at the expense of its peers. Estimates peg StubHub’s market share at 30%-40% today, up from 10%-15% at the height of the pandemic. The vast majority of these gains have come by winning market share from Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats. The company generates revenue through transaction fees, with high gross margins (82%-83%) and strong cash flow generation.
More so than its competitors, StubHub has been able to successfully navigate a challenging environment of rising ticket prices on the primary market as demand for live events has rebounded.
The company has also differentiated itself from the competition through its global reach, with its integrated platform supporting 33 languages and 48 currencies, thus enabling buyers from 200 countries to participate in events around 90+ countries without regional operations. StubHub has achieved this international expansion through strategic planning and influenced by its acquisition by Viagogo, which had a heavy presence across Europe and the United Kingdom.
Branding and Strategic Spending Set StubHub Apart
Experts pinpoint brand recognition as a key differentiator for secondary ticket platforms as a whole. The biggest names like StubHub, Ticketmaster and SeatGeek have a leg up over their smaller peers due in large part to their established trust with consumers.
This marks a change from prior years, when partnering with primary sellers was the main business model for secondary ticket companies. At the heart of this strategy is pricing power, as developing key partnerships enables secondary platforms to secure tickets at the lowest prices. Vivid Seats is a key example experts cite as a company that did this particularly well.
Yet as the industry has evolved and the balance of power has started to shift away from platform companies and toward ticket owners, partnerships have become less of a difference-maker. This shift to a more consumer-centric model has been a headwind for companies like Vivid Seats, allowing StubHub to gain market share.
The consensus among analysts and industry experts is that StubHub is well-positioned to defend its lead in the secondary ticket market. Experts appear particularly optimistic about StubHub’s longer-term prospects relative to the competition, pointing to the strength of its ownership group and its ability to spend strategically.
StubHub appears to be focused on new areas of growth for the future. Experts believe that, over the long term, ownership wants to position the company as much more than a ticket resale platform.
The company has accumulated an extensive global first-party dataset over its years of operations across StubHub and Viagogo businesses, which may serve to inform business decisions ahead. Increasingly, StubHub is applying generative AI tools across its tech stack, helping to match buyers and sellers, boost buyer conversion rates, and generate leads for sellers.
Seasonality: Prime Season for Live Events
Seasonality plays a significant role in StubHub's business, particularly in the context of sports and events. The start of 2025 has been abnormally light on live events versus the historical norm. Yet a busier slate is ahead, as late March is the unofficial start of prime season for live events, according to experts. With NCAA March Madness games, the start of the MLB regular season, and the NHL and NBA playoffs on tap over the next few months, sports ticket prices are broadly expected to rise, benefiting the industry at large.
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