Ticket marketplace StubHub to see if its stock is the right price for Wall Street

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NEW YORK (AP) — StubHub is set to enter the public arena Wednesday after the ticket marketplace priced its initial public offering at $23.50 per share.

The company's shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “STUB." StubHub offered just over 34 million shares and raised approximately $800 million. At the offering price the company has a market valuation of about $8.6 billion.

It plans to use proceeds from the sale to pay down debt and for general corporate purposes.

The company, which is based in New York, said buyers in more than 200 countries and territories used its platform to purchase more than 40 million tickets in 2024. It was co-founded in 2000 by current CEO, Eric Baker. He will remain CEO and maintain a controlling share in the company.

EBay bought StubHub in 2007. Baker left the company ahead of that sale and founded international online ticket exchange Viagogo in 2006. EBay sold StubHub to Viagogo in 2020 for $4.05 billion, essentially returning it to Baker, who then changed the name of the combined company to StubHub Holdings. It is among the largest platforms for secondary ticket sales. Its competitors include SeatGeek and Vivid Seats.

StubHub reported just a 3% increase in revenue to $827 million during the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. That puts the company on pace for slower revenue growth after notching a 29% jump for all of 2024.

Live Nation, which dominates the primary market for ticket sales through Ticketmaster, reported a 12% jump in revenue to $25.9 billion in 2024.

StubHub has come under criticism along with the broader ticketing industry over hidden fees and inflated ticket prices. The attorney general for Washington, D.C., sued StubHub last year, accusing the ticket resale platform of advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping up prices with extra fees. The company is also facing pricing and fee inquiries in Pennsylvania and New York.

Ticket prices for concerts and sporting events have been among the sharper rising costs for consumers over the last few years. Ticket prices rose 5.2% in 2024 after rising 6.8% in 2023. Rising ticket prices outpaced the broader increases for overall inflation in both years, according to the consumer price index. That trend has continued through 2025.