Is eBay's (EBAY) StubHub Doomed?

In an article in this week's Wall Street Journal, there was a column discussing Ticketmaster's (Nasdaq: TKTM) move to go paperless. Essentially, this means the only way a ticket buyer could enter an event would be with the credit card the buyer used to purchase the tickets. By only permitting the buyer of the ticket to the event, Ticketmaster has effectively wiped out the secondary ticket market place.

eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) Stubhub is concerned with Ticketmaster's move to go paperless for Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Hannah Montana concert since Stubhub makes close to all its money from ticket sales in the secondary market.

Concert promoters object to the way scalpers grab hold of tickets early and resell them for sometimes many multiples of their face value so this paperless ticket technology will prevent scalpers from doing that.

Stubhub says that the paperless arrangement will cause long lines at venues and force parents to accompany children who don't have their own credit cards. A Stubhub spokesperson told the WSJ that this move by Ticketmaster could put Ms. Cyrus's young fans at risk: "On Craigslist you're going to see these listings saying, 'Hey, 13-year-old girls, I'll meet you at the venue and get you into the show.'"

eBay has had some successful and poor acquisitions:
Successful: Paypal
Failure: Skype
Failure: StumbleUpon

Stubhub could be a big success for eBay, but it could run into some trouble if Ticketmaster takes this paperless technology to other types of events.

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