StubHub CEO says recent change to all-in ticket prices will dent revenue
StubHub CEO Eric Baker said Wednesday that recently introduced federal regulations around transparent ticket pricing will cause a “one-time” hit to its financial results.
Revenue is expected to dip year over year as consumers digest the new rules, Baker told CNBC, which require online ticket sellers to prominently show the total cost upfront.
“We’ve seen this in states like New York that have done it. You have a drop off and it hits about 10%. … Then it’s just back to normal,” Baker said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “You’re growing off the base because you now normalized it. So it’s just a one-time hit to conversion, resets the market, and then onward and upward you go.”
The online ticket marketplace is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the symbol “STUB.”
StubHub late Tuesday priced its IPO at $23.50, landing at the midpoint of the expected range it gave last week of $22 to $25. The share sale values the company at $8.6 billion.
Online ticket sellers such as StubHub, Live Nation’s Ticketmaster and Vivid Seats have had to adjust to the Federal Trade Commission’s “junk fees” rule that took effect in May.
The rule “prohibits bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics used to hide total prices and mislead people about fees in the live-event ticketing and short-term lodging industries,” the agency said.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued StubHub last August for “predatory drip pricing,” or deceptively advertising low prices for tickets, while a countdown clock creates a false sense of urgency and the total cost at checkout climbs “vastly higher than the originally advertised ticket price.”
Baker said the company has advocated for ticket providers to have “all-in pricing.”
“If you’re the only person in the market doing it for the reasons I said, you end up with a problem,” Baker said. “So now that everyone’s doing it, everyone’s happier, and you have a level playing field.”
The San Francisco-based company was co-founded by Baker in 2000, and was acquired by eBay for $310 million seven years later. Baker reacquired StubHub in 2020 for roughly $4 billion through his new company Viagogo.
StubHub delayed its planned IPO in April as President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs jolted markets.
Direxion signage at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. The holiday-shortened week started with gains in stocks amid a broad advance that saw a continuation of the bullish momentum on Wall Street.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Motive, a company with software for managing corporate trucks and drivers, on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MTVE.”
The paperwork puts Motive among a fast-growing group of tech companies looking to go public in 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX have all reportedly considered making their shares widely available for trading next year.
Motive is smaller, reporting a $62.7 million net loss on $115.8 million in revenue in the third quarter. The loss widened from $41.3 million in the same quarter of 2024, while revenue grew about 23% year over year. The company had almost 100,000 clients at the end of September.
Ryan Johns, Obaid Khan and Shoaib Makani started Motive in 2013, originally under the name Keep Truckin. Makani, the CEO, is Khan’s brother-in-law.
Investors include Alphabet’s GV, Base10 Partners, Greenoaks, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Scale Venture Partners.
Motive’s AI Dashcam device for detecting unsafe driving “has prevented 170,000 collisions and saved 1,500 lives on our roads,” Makani wrote in a letter to investors. Most revenue comes from subscriptions, although Motive does sell replacement hardware and professional services.
The San Francisco company changed its name to Motive in 2022, and as of Sept. 30, it employed 4,508 people. Motive employs 400 full-time data annotators who apply labels that are meant to enhance artificial intelligence models.
Motive has ongoing patent-infringement litigation with competitor Samsara, which went public in 2021 and today has a $22 billion market capitalization.
WATCH: AI IPO boom next year? The changing 2026 IPO landscape
Technology
Why an analyst sees Meta shares getting back to record highs – plus, another tariff reprieve
A silicon wafer with chips etched into is seen as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris tours a site where Applied Materials plans to build a research facility, in Sunnyvale, California, U.S., May 22, 2023.
Pool | Reuters
The U.S. will increase tariffs on Chinese semiconductor imports in June 2027, at a rate to be determined at least a month in advance, the Trump administration said in a Federal Register filing on Tuesday.
But in the meantime, the initial tariff rate on semiconductor imports from China will be zero for 18 months, according to the filing from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
As part of an investigation that kicked off a year ago, the agency found that China is engaging in unfair trade practices in the industry.
“For decades, China has targeted the semiconductor industry for dominance and has employed increasingly aggressive and sweeping non-market policies and practices in pursuing dominance of the sector,” the office said in the filing.
The decision to delay new tariffs for at least 18 months signals that the Trump administration is seeking to cool any trade hostilities between the U.S. and China.
Additional tariffs could also become a bargaining chip if future talks break down.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a truce in the so-called trade war in October, as part of a deal that included the U.S. slashing some tariffs and China allowing exports of rare earth metals.
The USTR’s Tuesday filing states that tariffs will increase on June 23, 2027.
The notice is the next step in a process focusing on older chips that started during the Biden administration under Section 301 of the Trade Act.
The new 2027 date gives clarity to American firms that have said they are closely watching how U.S. tariffs could affect their businesses or supply chains.
The tariffs are separate from other duties threatened by the Trump administration on Chinese chip imports under Section 232 of the law.
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