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Shares of stub Hub. We'll start trading today with the shares haveing in priced at twenty three dollars fifty. That values the company in around eight point six billion dollars. The ticket reseller is the latest company to go public in a USIPO market. Experience a bit of a hot Streak's speak with StubHub CEO Eric Baker, who joins us now from the nys E. Eric, the history. You set up this company in the year two thousand, sold it to eBay, bought it back, amalgamated with a European giant
you'd already built, and now it goes public. How does it feel.
It's it's tremendous, a lot of gratitude to reach the smilestone for the company. It's certainly been a long journey, as you say, from two thousand, but now we're really focused on the next twenty five years and the bright future ahead.
Take us to the next twenty five years. Because there are regulatory headwinds, there are people worrying about bots. There are a way in which you can beef up this business to add more things in secondary market ticket sales where do you go when do you focus?
Yeah, So our focus really is we've always wanted to make it easier for people to access live events, and so what we started with is, as you noted many years ago, was to make the resale market safe and secure and easier for people to access tickets. What we're focused on now is we realize consumers don't care whether it's a primary ticket or a secondary ticket. They just want to access the live events that they want to
go to and discover easily, safely, and so forth. And that system has been pretty broken for a long time how those tickets are originally distributed. So we're really working on creating a better experience, and we've already had exciting partners like the Yankees and Major League Baseball. We started selling tickets directly in this open distribution network.
You look at going public in a time where Taylor Swift had gone through the EARS tool, there was a lot of hype and mentum and you hit pause. You're doing it now, And I think a big question everyone's got for you, Eric, whether they're a consumer or not, is what happens next with a regulatory crackdown. The practices of your industry are very much under the microscope at the moment.
Well, I think, first of all, we're always excited to be at the intersection of technology and live events because we're very bullish on the future live events, and we think that doesn't change to your question about regulatory focus, I think two of the things really people have looked at.
One was transparency and pricing that we at subub have always advocated for, and that all in pricing that we lobbied for a pass at the federal level in May, and that's just a better experience for consumers, and the key is it's now a level playing field for everyone
in the market. I think the second real regulatory focus, quite frankly, has been what the Justice Department is looking at with the primary issuance of tickets and making sure that networks are open and fan friendly, and that is something we certainly applaud because you know, we're on the side of the fan. Eric.
Is aus Fisher Intelligence a headwind or a tailwind for the secondary ticketing market.
Yeah, we see it as a tremendous opportunity to tremendous tailwind. And I think if you think think about it again, we're a technology and product company and I think Alex Karp at Palentier, I don't want to miss a tribute and put it really well that he said, the artificial and talence technology for companies that have tremendous data allows you to provide a better product while increasing your revenue
tremendously and reducing costs so that everyone wins. And we're seeing that across the board, how we deal with customer service, how we're releasing new features in the product to make it easier for people to locate the tickets they want. So we're very excited about it. And again with the leadership position we have and the scaled proprietary or proprietary data we have, we think this guy's the limit.
We are speaking with Eric Baker, founder CEO stub Hub to our radio and TV audiences. You say AI could help drive revenue tremendously. Let's talk about your revenue thus far, because the first half of the year is about three percent growth. That is significantly slower than the previous Now we know that maybe we haven't had Tata Swift on tour this year, but Eric, are you seeing a slowdown in demand?
Yeah?
So, thank you. Note we're really seeing people continuing to buy tickets and growth. I think you note it's important to note two of the things that happened that are unique this year. One is Taylor Swift and her tours behind us, and there is only one Taylor Swift, so I think she's so tremendous. We even broke her out in the S one, so it's great to be that popular.
Second is, as I mentioned all in pricing past in May, and when we lobbied for it, we knew that that creates a one time hit to the market as consumers just adjust. We've seen that already in states like New York that had passed it before. So when you look through those headwinds, the business is growing extremely nicely, north of twenty percent.
I'm interested, though, on your profitability or lack thereof, Eric, because it's interesting you've gone to public without that story to tell. When will it become the story you can tell?
Yeah? No, I think what you're referring to is by the accounting metrics like net income that it shows a loss. But I think when we went on the road show and when investors look, they really look at EBITDAH, which is your earnings before more interest, tax, appreciation, amortization, as well as your cash flow, and on that dimension, we've been profitable for a long time and generating hundreds of
millions of dollars. That's the way we've been able to service the debt that we've had, and obviously now that we're deleveraging and taking the debt down, our cash flow will even go up further. So I think that's one of the many reasons that our story was very well received when we went out on the road show and buy our new partners.
Eric Bloomberg did some deep reporting on the FTC looking at ticket master arrival on the issue of bots hoovering up sale tickets for resale, and they're inaction. Have you discussed that issue with the regulator and how are you addressing the problem.
Yes, we've always in bots, and it's interesting, as you note, is really about how these tickets are distributed in the first place, and so one of the things we've always lobbied for is enforcement of the Bots Act, and that's really because we believe that these tickets need to be distributed in a way that's safe, secure, democratic, through open channels.
As you mentioned, they're looking at I believe ticket Master and others who are handling the primary issues of the tickets, and they really need to make sure that their technology and safeguards are in place to make sure this doesn't happen. But again it's something that we're very pro consumer. That's how we win. So we hope that all that stuff gets cleaned.
Up, Eric, very quickly. Next year's soccer or football World Cup. How big an opportunity is that for Subhub.
Look, we love the World Cup. It's been a phenomenal event because think about it, we run the largest global platform in the world for ticket exchange for all kinds of events. And if you had to say what is the largest global event in the world, I think you canonymously say it's the World Cup. It's people from all over the world traveling to come see events. It's going
to be in North America. It's extremely exciting and we're excited to hopefully help as many fans as possible make their dreams come true to access getting to the World Cup. So we're all football fans, so to speak, and twenty twenty six.
Were football fancied too. Eric Baker, founder and CEO Stubbub Holding's great to have you on the program. Thank you