Personally, though, I found it disappointing. On February 13, , the sale process concluded, and I began mentally preparing for my upcoming departure. My Secret to the Success of Amazon? Then came the coconut, an event none of us could have predicted. Overnight, every sports league in the nation postponed its season, and promoters and venues canceled thousands of planned music events.
Within a seven-day span, StubHub went from handling more than a billion dollars in ticket sales in any given quarter to almost nothing. This was not just big—it was unprecedented. What had initially been a relatively low-risk career move for me with mostly upside morphed into a high-risk situation, with the company now in unexpected peril.
Now, as a newly private company owned by another private company also strongly affected by the pandemic, we had a much smaller balance sheet and faced an industry shutdown ruining our entire business. Instead of a smooth and happy departure, I now had to scramble to keep the company going for an indeterminate period of time until the live entertainment sector managed to recover.
During March and April of , our leadership team and I rapidly restructured multiple parts of StubHub and its operations. We ourselves chased thousands of sellers who already held these same funds in their own bank accounts since we remitted cash to sellers very quickly after any ticket sale in the course of normal operations. We did the best we could, offering a combination of percent credits on the site toward future purchases and cash refunds in certain states, and trying to communicate transparently.
Understandably, the situation remained difficult and challenging, with many still frustrated as we managed the tangled mess between sellers, buyers, leagues, venues, and more. While all of this was going on, we were also forced to quickly restructure every part of our internal cost base. Among our most difficult decisions was the need to let go roughly two-thirds of our U. Although we did our best to offer reasonable severance packages and other resources, there is no denying the dislocation and pain people experienced.
The entrepreneur co-founded StubHub but was forced out after a falling out with business partner Jeff Fluhr. As recently as 21 February, a week after the deal closed, Baker played down the danger posed to this new empire by coronavirus. Weeks later, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. Then he had a better idea.
When he left StubHub, the company had never asked him to sign a noncompete agreement. That was wrong. Barely a month after getting let go, while planning the first leg of his trip, to London, Baker realized his former colleagues were years away from expanding into Europe.
He decided to beat them to it. W earing a powder-blue button-down—no tie, as always—Baker made his grand reveal in Europe in August After a year of stealthy planning, he held a press launch for Viagogo, flanked by executives from Manchester United and Chelsea Football Club, its inaugural partners. He had little time to revel in his revenge.
Outvoted, he pocketed the cash and returned his focus to Europe. Lest he be forced out of yet another company, Baker gave himself supervoting shares that guaranteed him total control. Baker claims Viagogo grew faster than StubHub did in its early years, and by the platform was processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions each year. By it processed billions, and profitably. Pro Roster: Viagogo gained credibility thanks to early investors such as tennis pros Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi, and luxury-goods titan Bernard Arnault, whose Groupe Arnault remains an investor.
But a litany of negative press accompanied that ascent: Artists griped over inflated ticket prices; customers complained of hidden fees and counterfeit listings. In , Margot James, then the U. They are the worst. We need to do a better job of that. B ack in the U. Ticketing site Viagogo will have to sell all of StubHub's business outside North America to satisfy competition concerns.
However, an investigation by the UK's competition watchdog found the merger could harm customers' interests. The CMA decision will mean that StubHub's international business - which includes the UK - will be independently owned and run by a separate company, with no input from Viagogo, the authority added.
The CMA will decide key conditions of the sale, such as the right of the purchaser to use the StubHub brand for the next 10 years. The watchdog will also need to approve the purchaser of the business before any sale. Aside from the acquisition costs, anyone wishing to operate a successful uncapped ticket resale business in the UK would require two things: significant relationships with large-scale ticket touts to supply inventory, and deep enough pockets to outspend Viagogo on Google search advertising.
0コメント