Fans looking for an easy way to get tickets to the Super Bowl, NBA Finals or just about any other major sporting event are by now familiar with the digital options available to them. But that wasn’t always the case.
Microsoft co-founder (and then-Portland Trail Blazers owner) Paul Allen acquired 80% of Ticketmaster in 1993 for roughly $300 million, just after the ticket service announced a partnership with America Online that would allow Chicago fans to—get this—“sort through concert and sport schedules and buy tickets,” all from their personal computers. Maybe Allen saw what was coming.
Now, tickets are almost entirely bought and sold (and sometimes resold) online today, and Ticketmaster currently serves about two-thirds of U.S. demand. Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation Entertainment is worth more than $22 billion. The DOJ is even suing the company, alleging that it is operating an illegal monopoly across live concerts.
At the same time, Ticketmaster’s competition has grown. While several sites can show the same tickets, the prices often differ due to varying fee structures and underlying business model differences.
Here’s what goes on behind the scenes at the most popular sports ticketing websites.
StubHub, Ticketmaster and SeatGeek’s Fee Differences
Whether fans buy tickets directly from a team via a platform partner (primary market) or from a reseller, including brokers with team tie-ups (secondary market), fees are often added onto the ticket price.
The biggest primary markets charge fees to the buyer, sometimes broken down into components such as “service,” “processing” and “facility” fees. Many teams and sports venues have exclusive contracts with individual ticket companies to manage their primary inventory. For example, Ticketmaster is the primary ticketing partner for most NFL teams, though SeatGeek has done deals with the Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Washington Commanders, Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans.
Ticketmaster and SeatGeek host both direct offerings and fan-to-fan listed seats. Stubhub has done primary deals but is generally focused on the secondary market, as are newer entrants such as Vivid Seats and TickPick.
In 2018, a US Government Accountability Office report found that primary and secondary ticketing companies charged total fees of roughly 30% of each ticket’s price. However, in separate cases, that number could range from 13% to 58%. Platforms can even charge different fees for different events.
Ticketmaster says that, at least in the case of concerts, the service generally receives one-third of a stated service charge, with the rest going to the venue. After covering costs, it aims to make 2% of the average ticket price in profit. As its website explains, fees “are determined by and shared between the parties who have a hand in making live events happen including venues, Ticketmaster, sports teams, leagues and promoters.”
In sports, the team generally sets ticket prices, featuring season-long packages, partial season packages and single-game rates—the last of which can vary based on the quality of the game being played.
For secondary marketplaces, fees are generally charged to both buyer and seller. Fees added on at checkout can be as much as $500 per ticket in certain situations. On its website, StubHub says, “There is no set percentage for fees, and fees can change based on ticket price, time to event, updated event information and supply and demand.”
GAO investigators also noted that fees were often hidden until the end of the transaction process. A 2021 study found that the last-minute fee strategy (sometimes called “drip pricing”) convinces interested parties to spend 21% more on tickets than when they’re shown all-in pricing up front. “I can’t think of a good reason to allow this practice in any country as the harm to consumers is clear from our study,” UC Berkeley business school professor Steve Tadelis said at the time.
The strategy has been banned in Canada, which settled a deceptive pricing lawsuit with Ticketmaster in 2019. The company paid $4.5 million in that deal.
StubHub agreed to pay more than $20 million in cash and credit to consumers in 2022 in settling a US lawsuit waged over allegedly false advertising tied to listed prices.
How much are Ticketmaster, StubHub and SeatGeek worth?
As of summer 2024, Live Nation (which owns Ticketmaster) is worth $22.7 billion. StubHub is privately owned but reportedly recently explored an IPO at a $16.5 billion valuation. SeatGeek, meanwhile, almost went public last year in a $1.4 billion deal. Publicly listed Vivid Seats has a current market cap of $1.1 billion.
Put together, those marketplaces are roughly worth the same as all 32 NHL teams combined, according to Sportico’s valuations.
Can sellers list tickets on multiple platforms?
With so many ticketing sites running today, many fans wonder about the ability to cross-sell: to take tickets they bought on Ticketmaster and sell them via StubHub, for instance. Most platforms are not directly designed with such functionality in mind. However marketplaces including StubHub give sellers the option to complete the transaction using Ticketmaster or other apps’ transferring tools. In some cases, the selling marketplace requires confirmation that the final handoff has been made.
It’s worth noting that some tickets are non-transferable, making the process more difficult. Others have gotten around the limitations. “Scalpers have solved almost every restriction that Ticketmaster has implemented,” 404 Media recently reported.
For professional brokers, software options offer the ability to list tickets on multiple major marketplaces without risking the same ticket being bought twice on separate sites.
What is all-in pricing?
In general, “all-in pricing” refers to showing the total cost—including fees—in the original listing, rather than adding fees in later. Today, artists, venues and sports teams can choose to have primary ticket prices display all-in rates up front. Some platforms advertise the feature as well.
In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the TICKET Act, which would require the total prices to be shown, while also banning the practice of resellers offering tickets that they have yet to purchase themselves.
How will the Live Nation antitrust lawsuit impact Ticketmaster?
In May, the Justice Department, along with 30 state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation. The 124-page suit claims that the company has built illegal monopolies in both ticket selling and concert promotion.
The company has defended its practices since, settling in for what will likely be a long legal battle. Early on, experts have questioned the strength of the government’s case.
In the short term, changes for fans are more likely to come from potential legislation that would limit ticket marketplace pricing practices.
