StubHub Holdings, the secondary ticketing marketplace, just threw its hat back in the ring to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after postponing its initial public offering (IPO) plans earlier this year. According to a September 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company is now eyeing a valuation of around $9 billion.
In the filing, StubHub reported that it plans to offer just over 34 million shares of Class A stock for an estimated price of between $22 and $25 per share. If approved, the company will join the NYSE under the ticker symbol “STUB.”
No listing date was shared in the filing, but according to a source familiar with the company, it could come as early as next week.
StubHub has been eyeing a solid IPO date for months. The company paused its initial IPO plans in early July amid uncertainties around tariffs and a cooling IPO market, according to media reports.
However, in the wake of exciting recent listings from companies such as Figma, Bullish, and others, investor interest in IPOs is back up—and StubHub is giving it another go.
Why investors want StubHub to go public
StubHub was created in 2000 after founder and CEO Eric Baker faced a very particular problem: He was unable to purchase tickets to a sold-out showing of The Lion King on Broadway.
“The box office was a dead end, and he had no idea who to call for help,” the SEC filing recalls in a section on the company’s history. “Should he canvas the streets around Times Square and hope to find someone with a ‘tickets for sale’ sign? With no clear answers, he found himself at the mercy of an opaque market.”
To solve this problem, Baker founded StubHub at a time when secondary ticketing existed only as a fragmented offline market. Today, StubHub believes that it operates the “largest global secondary ticketing market for live events,” selling over 40 million tickets to buyers in more than 200 countries in 2024.
After merging with the rival ticketing platform viagogo (also founded by Baker) in 2022, StubHub has been actively working with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to solidify its IPO listing plans.
In its SEC filing, StubHub said its revenue jumped from $1.37 billion to $1.77 billion between 2023 and 2024.
IPOs are back in the spotlight after a rough patch
StubHub was initially planning to list on the NYSE sometime in the early summer, but it reportedly put its IPO on hold in the midst of economic uncertainty brought on by President Trump’s tariff regime.
At the time, a source familiar with the company cited “stagnant market conditions” and a lack of major consumer IPOs as two of the main reasons for the delay, according to CNBC. The fintech startup Klarna similarly paused its long-awaited IPO earlier this year.
Now, though, as the market has held relatively steady despite new tariffs, both Klarna and StubHub are reentering the IPO game.
Successful recent IPOs from companies including the design software startup Figma, the crypto exchange Bullish, and the stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group have put public listings back into the spotlight and stoked investors’ interest.
