StubHub IPO Fizzles: Stock Closes Down 6.4% on First Day of Trading Todd SpanglerSeptember 17, 2025 at 10:03 PM 0 Getty Images StubHub had a disappointing stockmarket debut: The company, which operates the leading secondaryticketing marketplace for live events, saw its shares close 6.
- - StubHub IPO Fizzles: Stock Closes Down 6.4% on First Day of Trading
Todd SpanglerSeptember 17, 2025 at 10:03 PM
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Getty Images
StubHub had a disappointing stock-market debut: The company, which operates the leading secondary-ticketing marketplace for live events, saw its shares close 6.4% below the IPO price Wednesday.
Shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 17 under the ticker symbol "STUB" just past noon ET. The stock's IPO price was $23.50/share. It climbed as high as $27.89/share (+19%) in early trading but slumped to close at $22.00/share at the end of the regular session, giving it a market capitalization of roughly $7.55 billion.
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StubHub raised about $800 million from the IPO, which it has said it will use in part to pay down debt. As of June 30, the company had $2.38 billion in long-term debt obligations, according to its amended SEC registration statement.
Following the IPO, StubHub CEO and co-founder Eric Baker owns 4.2% of Class A shares and 24.75 million Class B supervoting shares that give him a controlling 88.3% of the voting power in the company, according to the SEC filing. Baker's 2024 compensation included $2.5 million in salary, a $2.5 million bonus, $61.95 million in stock awards, $110,000 for child-care expenses and $88,000 for private school tuition.
The company filed to go public with the SEC in March of this year. StubHub had reportedly been looking to launch an IPO since 2022. It was eyeing a public debut last year after sales boomed in 2023 thanks to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour but tabled the plans given the down market for IPOs.
In 2025, StubHub projects that the second-ticket market will decline approximately 5%, primarily due to the conclusion of Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour in December 2024 and the implementation of federally mandated all-in pricing in the U.S. in May 2025.
For the first half of 2025, StubHub generated revenue of $827.9 million (up 3%) while its net loss widened to $76 million versus a net loss of $24 million in the year-prior period. (Per the company's financial statement, the net loss for the first six months of 2025 included a $85.2 million loss attributed to foreign currency exchange rates.) For 2024, StubHub reported $1.77 billion in revenue, up 29%, and a net loss of $2.8 million compared with net income of $405 million in 2023.
Last year, buyers in 200-plus countries bought more than 40 million tickets on StubHub from over 1 million sellers, according to the company. As of Aug. 8, 2025, the company had 895 full-time employees (down 2.5% from 918 in March), of which 368 provided customer service support.
On Tuesday, StubHub announced the $23.50/share pricing for its initial public offering of about 34 million shares of its Class A common stock (representing 9.3% of shares outstanding). In addition, the company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 5.1 million shares of its Class A common stock at the IPO price (minus underwriting discounts and commissions).
Post-IPO, major equity owners of StubHub include Madrone Partners (which holds 22.1% of Class A shares), WestCap (11.1%), Bessemer Venture Partners (7.9%) and PointState Capital (5.3%).
Baker co-founded StubHub in 2000 before leaving and launching European ticket reseller Viagogo in 2006. In 2007, eBay bought StubHub for $310 million. In February 2020, Baker's Viagogo completed the acquisition of the StubHub business from eBay for $4.05 billion and changed its name on Sept. 8, 2021, to StubHub Holdings.
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