Want to see the Patriots go undefeated? In person? Tickets are hard to come by for New England's remaining games, but you can always count on eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY ) StubHub to have seats available for those willing to pay.
StubHub is teaming up with Disney's (NYSE: DIS ) ESPN to offer the ticketing site's resale opportunities to visitors of ESPN.com. Sure, someone who hits up the website just to optimize a fantasy football roster, or get the latest A-Rod chatter, is unlikely to pony up big bucks for game tickets.
That's not the point. StubHub will be there for the hungry local fans who do want to make it to the next home game.
This couldn't have been an easy decision for ESPN. Incremental revenue is at stake, but does it want to be perceived as aiding and abetting potential scalpers?
Since I brought up the Patriots, I should point out that things got heated between the team and StubHub last year. The team sued StubHub for offering premium-priced home game tickets. Then StubHub fought back, countersuing by alleging that the team was violating the state's anti-scalping laws by attempting to monopolize the resale of its own tickets. That didn't stop the Patriots from demanding the names of the season ticket holders who have sold their tickets through StubHub last month.
Teams like to milk their own cows twice. Down here in Miami, IAC/InterActiveCorp's (Nasdaq: IACI ) Ticketmaster -- which will soon be its own publicly traded company -- has allowed Florida Marlins and Miami Heat season ticket holders to resell their tickets, often at substantial markups, for years. Last week, Ticketmaster opened the process to the lowly Miami Dolphins.
Then again, if even Major League Baseball handed over the keys to StubHub at MLB.com this summer, who is ESPN to shoot the event-reseller down?
StubHub offers sellers the opportunity to unload tickets for upcoming games, concerts, and shows. Listings are free -- unlike eBay -- although the 15% commission bite is larger on completed sales.
StubHub works. That's why eBay shelled out $310 million to acquire the trading site this year. It's not the only game in town. Hollywood Media's (Nasdaq: HOLL ) Broadway.com is major seller of premium live theater tickets. Ticketmaster and Live Nation (NYSE: LYV ) are expanding their concert promotional offerings. However, eBay can only buy one verb at a time. Besides, it got the best one in StubHub.
So who cares about watching the Patriots go undefeated? Let's see whether someone can knock StubHub off its perch. Now that would be impressive.
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