Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and StubHub! Make Deals and Headlines

By Stacey Willets

TicketNews.com released its exclusive weekly Top Ten Primary and Secondary Live Event Ticket Sellers Rankings this morning. In case you missed it, here is a quick taste of where all the websites stand.

You just can’t keep Ticketmaster down. Despite bringing in lower than expected earnings for the second quarter and being sued by the Cleveland Cavaliers and Flash Seats, the ticketing giant does not waver from its position as leader of the industry. Ticketmaster remains number one on both the Top Primary Ticket Sellers chart and the Top Overall Sellers chart. Additionally, the company recently announced the opening of five new Ticketmaster Centers in Taubman Mall locations. . .
Although Tickets.com, TicketWeb, Etix.com, Telecharge, Tix, Groove Tickets, Wantickets, and TicketsWest take rankings three through ten with little fanfare, second-ranked Primary Seller Live Nation is also creating a buzz this week. Madonna is rumored to be considering an all-encompassing music deal with the concert promoter that could be worth more than $100 million .

Primary sellers aren’t the only ones making headlines, however. StubHub!, reigning leader of the secondary market, announced a partnership with Major League Baseball today that makes them the official online provider of secondary tickets for MLB.com. While Coast to Coast Tickets aren’t all over the news, they make a noteworthy leap from the number thirteen ranking to number seven. The other resellers have a relatively quiet week. TicketsNow, TicketLiquidator, and TickCo Premium Seating remain at positions two, three, and four, respectively. ABC Tickets moves up to the number five spot, pushing GoTickets.com to number six. RazorGator drops one place to number eight while Online Seats advances one place to number nine. Tickets Plus, last week’s eighth-ranked secondary site, takes the number ten spot.

Even with the flurry of media surrounding many of this week’s top sites, the Top Overall Sellers rankings don’t vary much from last week. The first nine sellers are repeated with Ticketmaster at one, StubHub! at two, TicketsNow at three, Live Nation at four, Tickets.com at five, TicketLiquidator at six, TickCo Premium Seating at seven, ABC Tickets at eight, and GoTickets.com at nine. TicketWeb is replaced by Coast to Coast Tickets at ten, giving the secondary market seven of the top spots this week.

To see all the Top Tens rankings, check out the press release in the Daily Buzz section of TicketNews.com. Visit the Industry resources section of TicketNews.com for full lists of the Top Twenty Secondary Ticket Sellers and the Top Twenty Overall Ticket Sellers, to read an explanation of how we calculate the rankings.