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2023 Was StubHub’s Year of the Women

StubHub’s latest Year in Live Experiences report found women captivated audiences in 2023 and generated massive ticket sales.

Photo of Minnesota Lynx vs Las Vegas Aces WNBA game
Photo by Lorie Shaull via CC BY 2.0

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It’s not just Taylor Swift and Beyonce.

StubHub’s latest Year in Live Experiences report found women captivated audiences in 2023 and generated massive ticket sales.

Who Runs the World?

There’s no escaping coverage of Swift and her still-ongoing Eras Tour, which is expected to inject nearly $6 billion into the US economy alone. Plus, there’s all those Kansas City Chiefs games she attended that drove higher attendance. But it wasn’t just a one-woman show: Swift, Beyoncé, Adele, and Pink accounted for nearly three-quarters of ticket sales among StubHub’s top 10 artists overall. Sure, Harry Styles got a few million people to show up at his concert, but the other boys have some catching up to do.

In addition to driving record-shattering concerts, women also made healthy gains in sports:

  • For the first time ever, demand for women’s college basketball Final Four tickets on StubHub was higher than for the men’s counterpart. Also, the WNBA saw its attendance rise 16% and viewership jump 21% year-over-year, making it the most-watched season in more than two decades.
  • Ticket sales for the National Women’s Soccer League doubled from 2022, while tennis player Coco Gauff’s presence alone at the US Open finals helped boost total sales to the event 20% overnight. And a University of Nebraska volleyball game set the world record for women’s sports attendance with more than 92,000 fans.

I Am Kenough: Of course, no news on female-led ticket sales would be complete without mentioning the biggest names in film this year: Barbie, which earned nearly $1.5 billion, even beating out The Super Mario Bros. Movie. We’d pitch the sequel as The Super Mario Sisters.