StubHub IPO Puts Direct Ticket Sales Plan in the Spotlight

(Bloomberg) — StubHub Holdings Inc. is hoping to excite investors ahead of its initial public offering with its plan to expand its business selling new tickets for sports and other live events.

The company, which is primarily a marketplace for secondary ticket sales, has plenty of demand for its offering that could raise as much as $851 million. The deal, which prices late on Tuesday, is multiple times oversubscribed, Bloomberg News reported earlier on Monday.

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In a marketing presentation to investors, Chief Executive Officer Eric Baker and Chief Financial Officer Connie James focused on the company’s plans to expand beyond reselling tickets to primary sales, or what StubHub calls direct issuance. The company touted a $153 billion opportunity in direct ticket sales, which it sees as a larger market than the secondary one that makes up its current core business, and a space more insulated from regulatory and competitive risks.

The company’s push into new ticket issuance remains in its early innings, generating only $100 million-plus of its gross ticket sales last year out of $8.7 billion in total. A large proportion of those direct sales came from buyers of 2024 World Series tickets as a result of a partnership StubHub struck with the New York Yankees in 2023.

“We are only scratching the surface of this opportunity,” Baker said in the presentation.

Management also sought to compare the company to other consumer platforms, such as Etsy Inc and Shopify Inc.

“We operate a highly enviable financial model with double-digit growth, strong margins and great cash flow dynamics, all of which is similar to other scaled leading consumer marketplaces,” James said.

However, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kevin Near doesn’t see it the same way.

“I don’t totally agree with it,” said Near. “Almost all their tickets are not exclusive to their platform so you don’t really get any brand loyalty from that aspect.”

Near also pointed to challenges facing StubHub, including its heavy spending on sales and marketing and doubts about its ability to meet long-term profitability targets.

StubHub is heading into its IPO showing declining Ebitda margins in recent periods. The profitability measure fell from 26% in 2023 to 17% last year and 12% in the first half of 2025. The company has blamed this slide on increased spending to secure market share in the direct issuance market. Those figures are well shy of the company’s stated long-term adjusted Ebitda margin target of 35% to 40% that was in the marketing presentation.