Duopoly — What if Vivid Seats bought StubHub?

Tick-tock on the clock

But the party don’t stop

TiK ToK by Kesha

The drumbeat is getting louder. More and more traffic is coming through my channels. “Vivid is buying StubHub”, “The deal is very close”. If this were to happen, there would really only be two major players in the ticket resale game: Vivid Seats and Live Nation.

Is it true? I don’t know. None of us will really truly know until we know. But, let’s talk about what such a combination might mean. Isn’t that how forecasting works? Take a potential scenario and game out what it means now and into the future, then try to find a path through.

So, clues:

First, my Twitter feed shows something new. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the rarely seen president of StubHub has been strangely visible of late. She joined StubHub in April, 2018. There are two significant ticket industry conferences in Las Vegas each July. Normally, the president of StubHub presents there to the industry. Cassidy spoke at neither conference.

Recently though, Cassidy has been personally more present on Twitter, celebrating sports victories, and offering free tickets courtesy of StubHub to potentially viral recipients: a young disabled couple, police who dress in costume to brighten Halloween for patients at a children’s…