StubHub, the eBay-owned distributor of live entertainment tickets, has its first registered lobbyist.
Franklin Square Group, whose clients have included Apple, Google and Intel, registered Monday to lobby for StubHub, a digital ticket marketplace for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events. Former Hill staffers Joshua Ackil, Kara Calvert Campbell, Brian Peters, Matthew Tanielian and Ryan Triplette will lobby for StubHub on "issues related to innovation in the online consumer-to-consumer marketplace and online ticket sales."
StubHub made national news late Sunday when it gained an ally in British comedian John Oliver, host of the HBO show "Last Week Tonight." He ripped the New York Yankees and Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost for the team's new policy of not accepting printed tickets from StubHub, which often sells premium tickets at discounted prices. Trost said fans who paid full price for premium seats in the Legends Club behind home plate might be uncomfortable co-mingling with "someone who has never sat in a premium location. So that's a frustration to our existing fanbase."
Oliver bought six of those premium seats — two each for the Yankees' first three games — and vowed to sell them for a quarter apiece to fans who "dress like you have never sat in a premium location before. What that means is up to you." Those tickets can sell for nearly $700 apiece at Yankee Stadium.
ABC has called StubHub the "ticket scalper of the digital age, the ultimate middleman to shake up the way people interact to buy and sell tickets to almost any concert, theatre performance or sporting event."
