TicketMaster is the website you love to hate. It has nearly monopolized the event ticket industry and makes a nice chunk of change on every ticket it sells by charging a delivery fee, a convenience fee, a save the unicorns fee and a fee for charging the fees.
TicketMaster has enjoyed its market dominance, but has recently seen StubHub nipping at its heels. (To accurately represent the situation this is like a poodle nipping at the heals of a grizzly bear).
StubHub has created one of the first official secondary markets for event tickets. It originally launched in 2000 and set out to ‘reinvent the ticket resale’ market. At that time, all ticket resale occurred on eBay, Craigslist and with JoJo the street scalper… you know, the guy who is buying tickets, but then asks if how many you need.
StubHub struggled early on, relying solely on the consumer-to-consumer model, but then switched gears and began striking deals directly with sports franchises. Historically, franchises would independently try to sell un-used tickets or rely on Ticketmaster – StubHub offered to be their default inventory solution. Since this strategic move StubHub exponentially increased its inventory of available tickets and has experienced strong growth, motivating eBay to purchase the upstart outfit in January.
TicketMaster still controls the non-sporting event market, but there is no denying that StubHub has a real sports presence. The velocity graph shown below illustrates how attention on StubHub – a blend of visitor volume and time spent – has grown faster on StubHub since the beginning of the Major League Baseball season.
Ultimately I feel I’m overcharged by both services, all bands and each and every sports team, but it doesn’t stop me from going to Fenway or dipping into my retirement for U2 tickets.
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May 15th, 2007 at 2:46 am
There is a major factual error here. Stubhub’s business is all peer to peer. The deals are only a team endorsement for the team’s season ticketholders and others to sell, and for other customers to buy. StubHub does not sell tickets and has no deal for teams to sell their “excess” inventory through them.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
80% of the tickets listed on Stubhub’s website are from ticket brokers not fans or teams. Stubhub also is no where close to “nipping at the heels of ticketmaster” in the size of revenue or employees. I’ve been in this business longer than stubhub and actually consulted them in becoming who they are today. They (stubhub) are a company that is built on advertising and certainly not expertise. Stubhub also doesn’t own any of its inventory.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:11 am
StubHub did $400 million in ticket sales last year and is the eighth fastest growing company in the US according to Inc magazine. Nice job helping them. It’s always nice when friends can help one make up for the lack of expertise and inventory. Maybe you are in the wrong business! eBay paid $300 million for advertising? Right………
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
All the StubHub advertising I hear is to season ticketholders to sell their extras. I know many season ticketholders who sell through them. Look at where many of the tickets are on their website - in the lower sections. 80% of their tickets are from brokers? What year are you still living in?
May 24th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Are you kidding me? You are using advertising a basis for your logic? Yes, Stubhub has a lot of season ticket holders selling tickets on their site - but they are season ticket holders that happen to be ticket brokers…just like it was before stubhub. Wake up and smell the coffee - I think the 80% estimate is about correct and this is based on being able to see inventory that is uploaded to ticket broker databases then comparing it to the inventory on Stubhub. There are ways to tell which are uploaded by brokers to Stubhub. If it was all fans selling to fans, why would Stubhub have a Large Seller division dedicated to helping people (brokers) upload hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory in under a minute. What year are you living in?
May 25th, 2007 at 1:37 am
According to Time magazine (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1625205,00.html), “Its resale site, TicketExchange, sold 600,000 tickets last year, compared with StubHub’s 3.3 million.” It looks to me like StubHub is doing just fine vs. Ticketmaster.
May 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am
I don’t understand everyone’s heartburn. This sounds like a good strategy. If they have both fan and broker tickets and also work with some teams why would customers go anywhere else? Are you saying brokers would rather work with Ticketmaster than StubHub?
May 28th, 2007 at 1:40 am
This story has it backwards. The company started in 2000 providing teams with private resale spaces as was known as LiquidSeats. Only when they became StubHub, began advertising, and opened up to all buyers and sellers did they start growing like crazy.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
StubHub is a force to be recognized, and as the state laws about ticket resale go away, their business just grows by leaps and bounds. Sure, a large percentage of the inventory on SH is broker’s inventory, but 80% is a laughable figure.. I’d venture to guess it’s closer to 50%. Mad props to them, I remember when they first came on the scene, and I scoffed at their business model. $320 million later, I guess the joke’s on me.
June 10th, 2007 at 1:39 am
hey people check out http://www.sportsgator.com its a new web forum started by a Canadian who fell 30 feet sustained major injuries now sits at home going crazy and just love sports he is looking for people that know there stuff or just want to learn more because at sportsgator.com every opinion matters. I know its not great right now but with the help of everyone we can make this what we want, so get joined up and get the input flying. Thank-you.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
The secondary market has its purpose and that is of selling tickets after they sell out. Those fans wanting to see a sold out show wil go to secondary brokers and they fill a need to the fans that were unavailable to buy tickets or did not know when they went on sale. I also buy tickets from stubhub from time to time and happy when I can get the ticket I wanted that I originally missed out on.
Mary
October 26th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Stub Hub is absolutely horrible! You never know if you are going to get the tickets in three days or three weeks. I bought Garth Brooks tickets in KC three weeks ago and am still waiting for them.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:25 am
StubHub bills itself as the fans marketplace, but close to 90% of their business is broker inventory. They have a so-called “Large Seller Program” for high volume sellers. To qualify you must sell well over $200,000 a year! If the site was mostly fans, wouldn’t “Large Sellers” be anyone selling $1000 or more a month? The truth is - it is almost all brokers, and great marketing!
December 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Stub Hub is a great place to buy tickets they have a great selection and you can pretty much sit where you want to. Sure you may have to pay a premium for seats but if you like good seats like our family does then you shouldn’t mind. I use them all the time for sporting events that our family are planning to attending.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I was a buyer and seller on stubhub and a real fan of its service. However after running into a glitch with one transaction I discovered how difficult they are to deal with. Try to find a person with the authority or intellect to deal with a curve ball and you will see they might as well outsource their customer service to India. It just sounded like people were reading off of a script and they refused to let me talk to someone who could make a difference. Too bad, with this mentality and business model their days are numbered. Most sport teams are setting up their own sites for resale and will start cancelling season ticket accounts for those who try to sell through other channels. Bye bye stubhub.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
It’s true stubhub is alive only because of brokers. Their model is alive only because of mass ads and credibilty coming from those. No body trust ticket brokers but stubhub they look legitimate.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Those companies are all very respectable, however If you are looking for tickets in the Seattle area, such as Seahawks, Mariners, Huskies, or local concert or theatre tickets, try out http://www.seattletixx.com . You will get personalized service that you won’t get from the bigger ticket outlets. located in downtown Seattle which is real convenient to pick tickets up before any event. All tickets are backed with a 200% guarantee. Website also implements Visual Box Office ™ which allows online ticket buyer to purchase tickets from a 3D venue map rather than a standard seating chart like most “2D” sites..
April 21st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Does anyone have a copy of StubHub’s Large Seller book or manual? Apparently they will pay you if you have lots of tickets to sell. Thanks.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Good Graphs by TJ indicating unique visitors at Stub hub site. I would appreciate to a reponse to a question, if possible.
2nd Graph:
Stubhub visitor volume shows first spike happened in march 2003 for stubhub! After March 2004 started climbing! First 3 years progess was very low?
Question:
Do you think that spike start occuring along the time line when stubhub started striking deals with sports franchises?
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
My appologies for the mistakes in sentenses! Should have edited before posting!