The ticketing world got a jolt this month when a CBC News investigation revealed something fans have long suspected but rarely seen confirmed in black and white. StubHub, the self proclaimed "marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets," is run by a CEO who is also part owner and managing director of a hedge fund that resells millions of dollars worth of tickets on that very same platform. According to SEC filings uncovered by CBC, StubHub CEO Eric Baker's fund, Andro Capital, along with an affiliate called Colloquy Capital, helps bankroll large scale resellers who then buy up tickets and sell them right back through StubHub itself.

Let that sink in for a moment. The platform that positions itself as a neutral, fan first space for people to buy and sell tickets they can no longer use is, according to its own regulatory disclosures, financially entangled with the very scalpers it claims to simply "connect." Randy Nichols, a band manager who has researched the ticketing industry extensively, put it plainly to CBC, saying the arrangement is deceiving because StubHub wants to be treated as a neutral marketplace while leaving out that its own CEO is a large ticket seller. Fans who spoke to CBC, including a Vancouver buyer who lost money on World Cup tickets, described the revelation as exactly the kind of conflict of interest that erodes trust in an industry already struggling with it.

An Industry Under Pressure, and Fans Are Paying Attention

This isn't happening in a vacuum. StubHub has been under intense scrutiny in recent months after cancelling thousands of World Cup ticket orders, a mess that has since drawn investigations from Consumer Protection BC and the Texas attorney general, along with more than one proposed class action lawsuit in the United States. One suit filed in the Southern District of New York specifically alleges deceptive practices and fraudulent misrepresentation tied to StubHub's marketing language, arguing that buyers would have made different decisions had they known about the CEO's financial ties to bulk resellers.

Zoom out and the numbers only reinforce why this story matters so much. StubHub moved 9.2 billion dollars in tickets in the US in 2025 alone, making it the largest player in the resale industry. Industry estimates suggest that professional scalpers control somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of tickets sold on major resale platforms, a figure that has been echoed across multiple markets and investigations over the years. When the company sitting at the center of that ecosystem turns out to have its own leadership financially benefiting from the scalping it claims to merely facilitate, it raises a legitimate question that goes well beyond one company. Who is the secondary ticketing market actually built to serve?

Why the Conversation Keeps Turning to StubHub Alternatives

It's no surprise that search interest and industry chatter have increasingly turned toward StubHub alternatives and competitors offering a different model. Fans, artists, venues, and promoters are all asking the same thing right now, whether there is a way to buy and sell tickets without wondering if the platform itself has a stake in the scalping. That question is exactly why the alternative ticketing conversation has picked up so much momentum lately, and why more people are actively researching options beyond the legacy players that dominate headlines for the wrong reasons.

The reality is that trust has become the defining currency in this industry. Fans don't just want lower fees or a cleaner checkout flow, they want confidence that the person or entity on the other side of a resale transaction isn't secretly the same company profiting from both ends. That kind of transparency has to be built into the architecture of a platform from day one, not bolted on after a CBC investigation or a class action forces the issue into public view.

Our Take: Ticketing Without the Conflict of Interest

At Sellout, we've been watching this unfold with a mix of concern for fans and validation of the direction we've been building toward. We believe ticketing should be built around genuine fan to fan exchange, not a system where the house quietly holds a stake in the game. That's part of why we're excited about our upcoming native resale feature, which is being designed with exactly this kind of transparency in mind so fans can buy and sell with confidence rather than guesswork.

We'll have more to share on that soon, but the short version is this. As the rest of the industry gets asked hard questions about who really benefits from ticket resale, we intend to keep answering that question the way it should be answered, with clarity, fairness, and the fan experience front and center.

The Path Forward

Stories like this one tend to accelerate change rather than cause it outright. Fans have been frustrated with scalping, hidden fees, and opaque marketplace practices for years, and this investigation simply put hard evidence behind what many already suspected. Transparency isn't just a nice thing to have anymore, it's the baseline fans are demanding, and the platforms that build around it honestly, rather than claim it as a marketing line, are the ones that will earn lasting trust.

Sellout is already one of those platforms, an independent venue ticketing partner built to support artists, protect fans, and elevate organizers. Native resale is the next piece of that, and we're excited to bring it to fans soon. If you want to learn more, contact Sellout today, and follow us on X and LinkedIn to stay ahead of the rollout.