According to a new investigative report, StubHub’s CEO also operates a fund that resells millions of dollars’ worth of tickets.
The report by the CBC discovered in StubHub’s November IPO filing that StubHub CEO Eric Baker also manages a hedge fund that scalps tickets and finances scalpers. As such, this would seem to indicate that the scalping industry is significantly integrated with StubHub, despite the company’s slogan that it is a “marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets.”
Baker revealed in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that, in addition to overseeing the massive resale platform, he is the managing director and part owner of Andro Capital, a fund that sells millions of dollars’ worth of tickets on StubHub.
“It’s just very deceiving. StubHub’s told the public they’re a marketplace, they want to be treated as a marketplace,” said Randy Nichols, a band manager based in New York who has done extensive research into the ticketing industry on behalf of the National Independent Talent Organization. “What they leave out is that their CEO is a large ticket seller.”
Stubhub and its CEO declined to be interviewed about the obvious contradiction
When repeatedly asked to discuss his companies and the contradiction between mass scalping activities on StubHub and its marketing as a “marketplace for fans” in an interview, Baker and StubHub declined.
Instead, a company spokesperson wrote in an email, “This information has been fully disclosed in StubHub’s public SEC filings, and we don’t have anything to add beyond what is in those filings.”
StubHub is currently facing a multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit alleging that the company “lied” to them about World Cup tickets they purchased but never received. Another proposed multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit was filed on Monday. It is also currently under investigation by the Texas attorney general and British Columbia’s attorney general.
According to the CBC, mass scalpers control between 70 and 80 percent of all tickets on international resale websites.