Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Shares of stub Hub. We'll start trading today with the
Speaker 2: shares haveing in priced at twenty three dollars fifty. That
Speaker 2: values the company in around eight point six billion dollars.
Speaker 2: The ticket reseller is the latest company to go public
Speaker 2: in a USIPO market. Experience a bit of a hot
Speaker 2: Streak's speak with StubHub CEO Eric Baker, who joins us
Speaker 2: now from the nys E. Eric, the history. You set
Speaker 2: up this company in the year two thousand, sold it
Speaker 2: to eBay, bought it back, amalgamated with a European giant
Speaker 2: you'd already built, and now it goes public. How does
Speaker 2: it feel.
Speaker 1: It's it's tremendous, a lot of gratitude to reach the
Speaker 1: smilestone for the company. It's certainly been a long journey,
Speaker 1: as you say, from two thousand, but now we're really
Speaker 1: focused on the next twenty five years and the bright
Speaker 1: future ahead.
Speaker 2: Take us to the next twenty five years. Because there
Speaker 2: are regulatory headwinds, there are people worrying about bots. There
Speaker 2: are a way in which you can beef up this
Speaker 2: business to add more things in secondary market ticket sales
Speaker 2: where do you go when do you focus?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So our focus really is we've always wanted to
Speaker 1: make it easier for people to access live events, and
Speaker 1: so what we started with is, as you noted many
Speaker 1: years ago, was to make the resale market safe and
Speaker 1: secure and easier for people to access tickets. What we're
Speaker 1: focused on now is we realize consumers don't care whether
Speaker 1: it's a primary ticket or a secondary ticket. They just
Speaker 1: want to access the live events that they want to
Speaker 1: go to and discover easily, safely, and so forth. And
Speaker 1: that system has been pretty broken for a long time
Speaker 1: how those tickets are originally distributed. So we're really working
Speaker 1: on creating a better experience, and we've already had exciting
Speaker 1: partners like the Yankees and Major League Baseball. We started
Speaker 1: selling tickets directly in this open distribution network.
Speaker 3: You look at going public in a time where Taylor
Speaker 3: Swift had gone through the EARS tool, there was a
Speaker 3: lot of hype and mentum and you hit pause. You're
Speaker 3: doing it now, And I think a big question everyone's
Speaker 3: got for you, Eric, whether they're a consumer or not,
Speaker 3: is what happens next with a regulatory crackdown. The practices
Speaker 3: of your industry are very much under the microscope at
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, first of all, we're always excited to
Speaker 1: be at the intersection of technology and live events because
Speaker 1: we're very bullish on the future live events, and we
Speaker 1: think that doesn't change to your question about regulatory focus,
Speaker 1: I think two of the things really people have looked at.
Speaker 1: One was transparency and pricing that we at subub have
Speaker 1: always advocated for, and that all in pricing that we
Speaker 1: lobbied for a pass at the federal level in May,
Speaker 1: and that's just a better experience for consumers, and the
Speaker 1: key is it's now a level playing field for everyone
Speaker 1: in the market. I think the second real regulatory focus,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, has been what the Justice Department is looking
Speaker 1: at with the primary issuance of tickets and making sure
Speaker 1: that networks are open and fan friendly, and that is
Speaker 1: something we certainly applaud because you know, we're on the
Speaker 1: side of the fan. Eric.
Speaker 3: Is aus Fisher Intelligence a headwind or a tailwind for
Speaker 3: the secondary ticketing market.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see it as a tremendous opportunity to tremendous tailwind.
Speaker 1: And I think if you think think about it again,
Speaker 1: we're a technology and product company and I think Alex
Speaker 1: Karp at Palentier, I don't want to miss a tribute
Speaker 1: and put it really well that he said, the artificial
Speaker 1: and talence technology for companies that have tremendous data allows
Speaker 1: you to provide a better product while increasing your revenue
Speaker 1: tremendously and reducing costs so that everyone wins. And we're
Speaker 1: seeing that across the board, how we deal with customer service,
Speaker 1: how we're releasing new features in the product to make
Speaker 1: it easier for people to locate the tickets they want.
Speaker 1: So we're very excited about it. And again with the
Speaker 1: leadership position we have and the scaled proprietary or proprietary
Speaker 1: data we have, we think this guy's the limit.
Speaker 2: We are speaking with Eric Baker, founder CEO stub Hub
Speaker 2: to our radio and TV audiences. You say AI could
Speaker 2: help drive revenue tremendously. Let's talk about your revenue thus far,
Speaker 2: because the first half of the year is about three
Speaker 2: percent growth. That is significantly slower than the previous Now
Speaker 2: we know that maybe we haven't had Tata Swift on
Speaker 2: tour this year, but Eric, are you seeing a slowdown
Speaker 2: in demand?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So, thank you. Note we're really seeing people continuing to
Speaker 1: buy tickets and growth. I think you note it's important
Speaker 1: to note two of the things that happened that are
Speaker 1: unique this year. One is Taylor Swift and her tours
Speaker 1: behind us, and there is only one Taylor Swift, so
Speaker 1: I think she's so tremendous. We even broke her out
Speaker 1: in the S one, so it's great to be that popular.
Speaker 1: Second is, as I mentioned all in pricing past in May,
Speaker 1: and when we lobbied for it, we knew that that
Speaker 1: creates a one time hit to the market as consumers
Speaker 1: just adjust. We've seen that already in states like New
Speaker 1: York that had passed it before. So when you look
Speaker 1: through those headwinds, the business is growing extremely nicely, north
Speaker 1: of twenty percent.
Speaker 2: I'm interested, though, on your profitability or lack thereof, Eric,
Speaker 2: because it's interesting you've gone to public without that story
Speaker 2: to tell. When will it become the story you can tell?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I think what you're referring to is by
Speaker 1: the accounting metrics like net income that it shows a loss.
Speaker 1: But I think when we went on the road show
Speaker 1: and when investors look, they really look at EBITDAH, which
Speaker 1: is your earnings before more interest, tax, appreciation, amortization, as
Speaker 1: well as your cash flow, and on that dimension, we've
Speaker 1: been profitable for a long time and generating hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. That's the way we've been able to
Speaker 1: service the debt that we've had, and obviously now that
Speaker 1: we're deleveraging and taking the debt down, our cash flow
Speaker 1: will even go up further. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the many reasons that our story was very well
Speaker 1: received when we went out on the road show and
Speaker 1: buy our new partners.
Speaker 3: Eric Bloomberg did some deep reporting on the FTC looking
Speaker 3: at ticket master arrival on the issue of bots hoovering
Speaker 3: up sale tickets for resale, and they're inaction. Have you
Speaker 3: discussed that issue with the regulator and how are you
Speaker 3: addressing the problem.
Speaker 1: Yes, we've always in bots, and it's interesting, as you note,
Speaker 1: is really about how these tickets are distributed in the
Speaker 1: first place, and so one of the things we've always
Speaker 1: lobbied for is enforcement of the Bots Act, and that's
Speaker 1: really because we believe that these tickets need to be
Speaker 1: distributed in a way that's safe, secure, democratic, through open channels.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, they're looking at I believe ticket Master
Speaker 1: and others who are handling the primary issues of the tickets,
Speaker 1: and they really need to make sure that their technology
Speaker 1: and safeguards are in place to make sure this doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: But again it's something that we're very pro consumer. That's
Speaker 1: how we win. So we hope that all that stuff
Speaker 1: gets cleaned.
Speaker 3: Up, Eric, very quickly. Next year's soccer or football World Cup.
Speaker 3: How big an opportunity is that for Subhub.
Speaker 1: Look, we love the World Cup. It's been a phenomenal
Speaker 1: event because think about it, we run the largest global
Speaker 1: platform in the world for ticket exchange for all kinds
Speaker 1: of events. And if you had to say what is
Speaker 1: the largest global event in the world, I think you
Speaker 1: canonymously say it's the World Cup. It's people from all
Speaker 1: over the world traveling to come see events. It's going
Speaker 1: to be in North America. It's extremely exciting and we're
Speaker 1: excited to hopefully help as many fans as possible make
Speaker 1: their dreams come true to access getting to the World Cup.
Speaker 1: So we're all football fans, so to speak, and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six.
Speaker 3: Were football fancied too. Eric Baker, founder and CEO Stubbub
Speaker 3: Holding's great to have you on the program. Thank you