StubHub to close SF office as tech exodus continues

Online ticket reseller to build up offices in LA and New York

StubHub CEO Eric Baker and 199 Fremont Street (Stubhub, 199 Fremont Street)
StubHub CEO Eric Baker and 199 Fremont Street (Stubhub, 199 Fremont Street)

StubHub, a ticket reseller born in San Francisco, will close its SoMa office and lay off more than a hundred workers.

The Utah-based firm announced on LinkedIn it would shutter its office at 199 Fremont Street by the end of the year, SFGate reported. It will also close an office in Shanghai, China.

StubHub co-founder and CEO Eric Baker said “the majority of our employees in both locations” will be laid off. The online ticket marketplace has 161 employees based in the Bay Area, according to LinkedIn, though it’s unclear how many will lose their jobs.

Baker attributed the decision to the need to “streamline and optimize operations following the merger of StubHub and Viagogo.” He claimed that “the business is performing strongly.”

The company said it will build up offices in New York and Los Angeles as key hubs for in-person work. It will also focus on “in person participation” at its offices in Switzerland, Ireland and Taiwan, as well as its corporate headquarters in Draper, Utah.

Baker and Jeff Fluhr founded StubHub in San Francisco while they were students at Stanford Business School in 2000.

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Baker was fired from StubHub in 2005 and later founded Viagogo, a company with a similar ticket resale model, based in Europe. He bought StubHub back and merged the company with Viagogo in February 2020 – just before the pandemic froze in-person events.

eBay, which sold Stubhub to Viagogo for $4 billion, had signed a 140,000-square-foot lease at 199 Fremont in 2013, primarily to accommodate its growth, the San Francisco Business Times reported. After its split from eBay, StubHub consolidated to the third, fourth and fifth floors.

The layoffs at StubHub follow employee cutbacks this week at Menlo Park-based brokerage Robinhood Markets, which will lay off 23 percent of its staff; San Francisco-based shoemaker Allbirds, which plans to lay off 23 workers; and genetic tech firm Invitae, set to lay off 700 employees at its San Francisco headquarters.

In June, San Francisco-based brokerage Side laid off about 10 percent of its workforce, citing overexpansion during an uncertain market.

– Dana Bartholomew

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