StubHub Disclosed the Relationship. It Never Disclosed the Rate.

Every broker on StubHub knows exactly what they pay. Roughly fifteen percent of the sale, deducted automatically, not negotiable unless you move enough volume to argue about it. Sell a hundred dollar ticket, keep eighty five. That number is the business. It sets your floor, it decides what you can bid for inventory and it determines whether a listing is worth making at all.

Nobody knows what Eric Baker's fund pays.

What the Filings Say

On July 10 the CBC reported that Baker, StubHub's founder and CEO, is part owner and managing partner of Andro Capital, a fund that has used StubHub to manage, list and fulfill its tickets since 2008. The same filings show StubHub has an arrangement with Colloquy Capital, an Andro affiliate, that lends money to other resellers who then list on StubHub.

And there is a line an equity research firm pulled out of those filings back in March, months before the CBC piece landed: StubHub reported $0 in fee revenue from Andro in 2024.

Zero.

That firm publishes a bearish view on the stock, so weigh it accordingly. But you do not need their reading to see the shape of this. Go to the filing itself and StubHub tells you plainly, in its own risk factors, that it is controlled by Baker and that his interests in the business "may be different than yours." That is not a critic talking. That is the company warning its own investors.

The Number That Kills the Easy Version

Before anyone builds a conspiracy on that, here is the figure that should slow you down. I am putting it high in this piece instead of burying it where it would be more convenient.

StubHub's pre IPO filings say Andro's fund generated more than $5 million in proceeds since 2022. Call it a little over a million a year. StubHub moved $9.2 billion in tickets in 2025.

That is a rounding error. Andro is not flooding the market, not undercutting your listings and not taking your sales. Anyone telling you the CEO's fund is crushing independent brokers on volume has not looked at the number. It also means the $0 has a boring explanation sitting right there. If Andro barely sold anything in 2024, zero fee revenue is just arithmetic.

So the easy version of this story is dead. Good. Now the part that survives.

The Only Number That Matters Is the One Missing

Look at what the filings do and do not tell you.

They tell you the relationship exists. They tell you Baker runs both sides. They give you $0 in fee revenue for 2024 and roughly $5 million in proceeds since 2022. Separately, the class action complaint says StubHub has earned fees from Andro's sales at some point.

They never tell you the rate.

And you cannot derive it. Proceeds since 2022 is not broken out by year. Fee revenue for 2024 tells you nothing about 2024 volume. Two disclosed numbers that never touch, so the one figure that would settle whether this is a level game stays incomputable from outside the building.

On a marketplace where sellers compete almost entirely on price, the commission is the game. And it is not a small game. The filings put 2024 revenue at $1.77 billion against $8.68 billion in gross merchandise sales. That is a blended take of roughly twenty percent skimmed out of every dollar that crosses the marketplace, counting both sides. StubHub disclosed everything about Andro except its share of that.

My Read and I Will Show My Work

This next part is what I think, not what has been proven. Treat it that way.

Every other broker sends money to StubHub. The disclosed Andro relationship runs the other direction.

In 2023 StubHub paid Andro $1.6 million to unwind a prior inventory partnership. In April 2024 it agreed to cover certain costs incurred by Andro for ticket management services. For 2024 it reported no fee revenue from Andro at all. In March 2025 it signed a services agreement to sell and service tickets that Colloquy owns.

I do not know Andro's rate. My read is that it is mitigated and here is the reasoning rather than the assertion. A platform does not normally pay a seller, then cover that seller's operating costs, then report no fee income from it and also charge it the standard fifteen percent. That pattern does not describe a customer. It describes a partner.

Here is what would prove me wrong: StubHub publishing the rate. They have had a week of front page coverage and have not.

Worth noting, no waiver is even required to get here. StubHub already discriminates on fees in the open. Standard is about fifteen percent. High volume sellers negotiate toward ten. Roughly fifty legacy brokers pay five to seven and a half, inherited from an old acquisition. Preferential rates are not a scandal on this platform. They are the rate card.

The Structure, Not the Man

Take the personalities out of it.

Baker holds roughly ten percent of StubHub's economics and about ninety percent of the votes, through Class B shares carrying a hundred votes each. He never needs to sneak a discount. He controls the schedule that sets every rival's floor.

None of that is hidden either. StubHub registered as a controlled company under New York Stock Exchange rules, which lets it skip certain corporate governance requirements and it says so in the prospectus. Public shareholders do not get those protections. Neither do you.

Other markets settled this a long time ago. A registered exchange is legally required to allocate its fees equitably among its members. That rule exists because a venue that both sets the fees and trades in its own market can quietly bury the people who depend on it. StubHub performs the exchange function and carries none of the exchange's duty. It compares itself to eBay while holding the powers of a market operator.

That is the conflict. Not that Baker trades. That one participant writes the cost of goods sold for everybody else.

The Part That Actually Touches Brokers

If Andro at a million a year is not the threat, what is?

Colloquy.

StubHub refers certain of its sellers to Colloquy for short term financing. Colloquy lends them the money to buy inventory. StubHub then routes those sellers' proceeds straight to Colloquy to repay the loan. Colloquy is Baker's affiliate.

Watch it grow. Colloquy's security interest in seller proceeds was $100,000 at the end of 2024. It hit $4.8 million by June 2025, $7.9 million by December and $9.2 million by March 2026. That is not a rounding error and it is not slowing down.

Now think about that if you buy tickets for a living. Capital is the binding constraint in this business, not commission. Inventory has to be bought before it can be sold and the broker who can carry more of it wins. Under this structure your lender is the platform owner's private company, the platform decides which brokers get referred to it, the platform can see your sales history and the platform holds the collateral because it controls your payout.

Your access to growth capital runs through your competitor.

So What

The coverage went hunting for a victim among fans and had to reach for it. A fund doing a million a year is not why World Cup seats cost ten thousand dollars. That is why this story is already fading.

The party actually exposed is the broker and nobody will write that, because writing it requires sympathy for a scalper. Which is exactly how this business has always worked. The reputation the broker carries is the thing that keeps everyone above him from being examined.

So the point is not that Baker is a villain. The trade is defensible. Liquidity is real, lending against receivables is a normal business and all of this was disclosed to the SEC.

The point is that nobody can tell whether the game is level, because the one number that would answer it has never been published. StubHub answered whether the relationship exists. It has never answered what it costs.

Publish the rate. That is the entire ask. If Andro pays fifteen percent like everyone else, one line ends this. The silence is doing the talking.