Let's get started. Sorry for the delay. Cameron Mansson-Perrone, Morgan Stanley Research Analyst covering Live Events. Before we get started, just want to note important disclosures, including my personal holdings disclosures and Morgan Stanley disclosures, all appear as a handout available in the registration area and on the Morgan Stanley public website. With that, I want to welcome Stan Chia, Chief Executive Officer of Vivid Seats, and Lawrence Fey, Chief Financial Officer. Stan and Larry, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having us.
All right, let's kick it off, maybe for the broader audience in case anyone here isn't familiar or is less familiar with Vivid Seats. What is Vivid Seats, and how do you differentiate the product in the marketplace?
Yeah, sure. Vivid Seats, you know, we're live events, marketplace, secondary. We've been around for quite a while now. I hope that's where all of you go to buy your tickets. I know it's where Cameron goes.
Oh, yeah.
He's covering Live Nation, then I give him a lot of shit for that when he's not. But look, you know, I think we have continued to invest in what we believe are real marketplace assets, right? We believe we operate in a two-sided industry. We have what we believe to be leading and differentiated products for the buyers and the sellers in the space. On the buy side, you'll find that we are the only ones with a loyalty program. That loyalty program has continued to yield, you know, I would say, the consumer behavior and the long-term value that we prioritize, right? More frequent purchases, more retentive purchases, purchases of larger size, all of that in a buy 10, get 1 construct.
As we talk about that, you know, I think launch this program, as we disclose, we've started disclosing every year what is our mix of repeat orders. And, you know, if you compare where we were in 2018, right before we started this, repeat orders were at 47%. You know, here we are now at almost 60%, right? So a 1,300 basis point move into repeat orders. And by the way, we've doubled the size of the business since then. So not only is it a mix of more high-valuable customers, but, you know, it's a matter of scale too. We've done that mix while executing and continuing to drive twice that business. Beyond that, we've continued to invest in consumer-valuable elements like engagement vehicles. So live events isn't something you go to, well, generally not every day. And so how do we keep people in our ecosystem between events?
Vivid Picks was our first foray into that with real money Daily Fantasy. The user behavior is perfectly countercyclical to our core transactional business, which is exactly what we were looking for. Users on that platform are engaging with us, 15 entries a month, and we've now taken that real money product and moved that into a free-to-play product called Game Center. Between events now, we have an engagement vehicle that keeps users in our ecosystems. Every time they play, we also learn new information about them. Therefore, our personalization and ability to drive that, again, fueling the repeat behavior, is higher and with components of information that nobody else has. Game Center, as we talked about yesterday, now with almost no marketing, and, you know, we nascently launched that product embedded within our app last July.
It's now at 260,000 users, and climbing, again, with almost no marketing efforts tied to that. So we feel really good, on the retention and product differentiation side on the consumer side. And to stay on that element, you know, when you think about how we continue to acquire users, we acquired Vegas.com, in December of last year, Vegas being the domain authoritative platform for Las Vegas. Huge tailwind there. Profitable asset, customer-generating, and most customers sharing two attributes: A, they're not from Las Vegas, and B, they are big live event goers. So we look at that asset as a profitable, cash-generating tool. So as those folks go home from Las Vegas, we now have them in our CRM database. We know exactly what they like to see when they're in Vegas.
We introduce them into the Vivid Seats loyalty program, which, again, I think it allows them to stay with us more frequently, more often, and oftentimes with larger purchases. On the consumer side, very differentiated with propositions that drive engagement, repeat behavior, and also customer acquisition tools, I think, that are unique. On the sell side, we have the leading ERP for professional sellers. Our SkyBox platform is out there. We are now upwards of 55% of the professional sellers are on that ERP platform. You can think of professional sellers representing 80% of the industry. Therefore, over 40% of the entire industry flows through our infrastructure. That provides us unique data. We have real-time data that's available to us. We have historical data that's available to us. And because it's an ERP, we also run invoicing and have cost structure for sellers available to us.
So for 55% of the professional sellers, you can think of that as an embed MFN where we have, at worst, parity pricing to every other marketplace. A lot of times we have better pricing. We've announced, you know, we're building an adder to that platform in, SkyBox Drive, which is an auto-pricer. SkyBox Drive will allow sellers now to tap into the Vivid Seats marketplace data, which, you know, last year we did over $3.9 billion, so a very, very relevant sample for sellers to use, as they think about how to price, seamlessly integrated to the point of sale, for them. And therefore, another product that we have to offer. We're deep into the beta. When we think about that, you know, we've got hundreds of users on the waitlist.
You know, as that comes over, that again solidifies, you know, in our minds, the seller ecosystem and the products that we have there that fuel advantages across our ecosystem. So Vivid Seats, I go back to, I think, leading marketplace business. Pretty proud and excited about, you know, I think the fact that we have really differentiated products with huge adoption and proven results in the behavior that we're looking to drive. And I'll punt it over to Larry if you want to talk about that. I think our financial profile is fairly unique too, with a balance of growth and profitability.
Yeah, we can go into more depth, but the starting pitch is if you're into sustained double-digit growth, 20% EBITDA margins and growing over time, software-esque cash flow conversion, recently some accretive M&A on top of that, and you want all that for single-digit EBITDA multiples, come to the right place.
We'd like to change those multiples.
We ought to change the last part, but we're going to keep the first few elements.
You guys have sized a $63 billion global ticketing TAM. Could you maybe help unpack that a little bit between North America and international, and then maybe speak to the TAM that you guys have added with those acquisitions you mentioned, Larry, in 2013?
Sure, sure. So, we think of the core, North American secondary market TAM, which is the historical pre-acquisition Vivid Seats addressable market, as, you know, roughly mid-teens growing to about $20 billion, in 2024. The first of our acquisitions, Wavedash, market leader in Japan, expanded the international opportunity. Japan does not represent an incremental $30+ billion itself, but if you think about the global ticketing opportunity, both primary and secondary, across, you know, Europe and Asia, that's another $30 billion or so. Call that the, you know, largely untapped but, next up on the to-do list. And then a Vegas.com, you know, historically Vivid Seats was, entirely resale transactions. So a consumer buys a ticket, goes to sell it again. That was exclusively what we did. Vegas.com added a new dimension where we are, selling tickets directly from the venue.
So a lot of partnerships with the casinos and the hotels in the Vegas area, and so that adds another $6 billion or so of call it venue-direct opportunity on top of the existing North American business.
Great. Larry, you mentioned double-digit sustained double-digit growth, and you said that on your earnings call yesterday. I think that was the first time that you've mentioned that. Can you elaborate just on how you think about the growth opportunity for Vivid Seats going from here?
Yeah. As we think about the industry in North America as a starting point, and we've got some, you know, layers that we think give us further coverage and opportunity, we think the industry on a sustainable intermediate-term basis grows 7%-10%. And that's a mix of more events every year. That's probably 3%-4% of the growth. You see our average order size or ticket prices grow 3%-4%. That's been a long-term trend dating back 15-20 years. And then we're continuing to see more secondary transactions per primary ticket. I think consumers are increasingly expecting to be able to buy the ticket to the show they want to go to a week in advance, 10 days in advance, not six months in advance. And the idea of buying 81 baseball games as a season ticket package is, I think, to the younger.
Demographic.
Demographic kind of like a crazy proposition. And that is accruing to our benefit. So 7%-10% industry growth, Vivid Seats has historically been a share gainer against that backdrop. And so, on North America alone, we think, you know, clear line of sight to double-digit growth. On our earnings call yesterday, the big announcement was that we're expanding into international additional international markets. We're making that necessary investment. And with the size of the opportunity that you set up with that TAM question, I think that gives us another pathway, incremental confidence, to feel like even if there are oscillations in either geography, that we'll have a clear path to sustain double-digit top line.
Yeah, on that international investment topic, you obviously provided an initial 2024 outlook back in November. What changed between now and then?
Yeah, look, I think we've been assessing the landscape. I think we continue to truly get, I think, more bullish about that. You know, I'd start from, you know, I think we were, I think, very honestly looking at that in line when we did that. We were kind of out of typical cadence for us to provide guidance at that, at that point in the year anyway, right? We provided it. I think we did an acquisition. We wanted to make sure folks had line of sight into that. I'd frame it as, look, there's three things that we looked at that continued as we continued to do more, we saw more, more and more opportunity. You know, when you look at the international landscape, Wavedash has helped inform what we're seeing, certainly in Japan.
What you'll find, I think, in most countries is one or two local operators that probably don't have much scale, much prowess in this business. We continue to see that. I think that's largely true. There aren't a lot of international-scale players that have, I think, the benefit of the technology and the things that we can do probably better than some. I think the second, when you do look at that landscape of who is out there competing on an international level with some heft and some, you know, some scale, I think the existing player that's out there is, you know, I would argue, not wholly beloved by the consumers, not differentiated on the product.
And so I think as we've continued to look at that, we are quite confident that actually the offerings that we've built that continue to yield fruit here would actually compete very well on an international basis. Third, just financially, as we've done our research and we continue to do more, I think the take rates internationally are actually quite incremental relative to what we see in North America. And so not only do we see growth in the top line, we actually see margin accretion there over time. And I think we gain more conviction in our model being able to scale with, yes, some fixed expense, but we expect that fixed expense to get a lot of leverage through the operating model that we want to do there.
And then third, while it certainly wasn't a catalyst and, you know, a lot of people I know, Cameron, you covered Live Nation too. I mean, we look at their numbers and you look at the disproportionate growth you're seeing internationally, even reported from them, right? Like, I think they reported 42% international growth versus, you know, in the 20s here, North America. So I think all of those things in conjunction, as we were looking at that, said, look, we are well, well poised. We're well capitalized, great balance sheet, you know, the size of the opportunity versus our confidence and ability to do that, that's we said, let's go, let's go get it.
In the common practice of researchers asking for more information, any specificity on that relative take rate internationally versus North America?
Larry's got a great answer for you.
It is, multiple hundreds of basis points.
[inaudible]
[inaudible]
Yeah. What exactly are you, you know, can you maybe give us a little color breakdown, what exactly you're investing in this year?
Yeah, when we think about international, and look, I would start from, you know, self-critically, look, I think we can message some of this a little bit better, right? We loaded the guidance with all the cost and none of the upside, right? So I think what you're seeing in our reflected guidance, essentially the cost to build what we believe to be ready without any of the actual revenue flowing through the model. When you think about what we're investing in, again, back to our thesis on how we believe we can operate this, you know, scalably and efficiently, we're internationalizing the platform, right? So things like currency. How do we manage currency display? How do we manage payment across that, up and down the stack, up and down the supply chain, right? So how do we manage that? How do we manage service offerings, with language capabilities now?
Again, language and service, language up and down, you know, call it the front end, the back end. How do we do all of that so buyers, sellers can seamlessly operate with the platform today that is very centered around a US model? We're internationalizing all of those elements, to be able to do that. Our marketing, which we talk about, we have a marketing technology capability that also needs to be internationalized to make sure that we can tap into the same benefits that we have here, agnostic of country, and region. And then finally, ensuring that we have the right supply, to launch the marketplace, right? So I would frame all of the investments as really infrastructure that we think allows us to launch with our operating model when we're ready to go to market.
Because this is Morgan Stanley TMT, I have to ask, are you leveraging AI to roll out any and all of those capabilities?
I mean, do you know how much AI we are using? Like, let me. I mean, gosh. I would tell you, just like everything. Look, I think we are a tech company at the end of the day, right? I mean, we are fully baked and enabled by tech. And, you know, not just for this, but certainly AI is part of a lot of how we do a lot of the things that we do. Part of just look at our cost structure. Again, we are very lean and very nimble. And part of why we're able to be so lean is the ability to take advantage of, I think, technology in what we do.
Yeah, makes sense. What, as we look through the investment period and as you enter into these new markets, how do you see the business scaling in those markets? And what does profitability look like over time? The higher take rate, obviously, is a positive indication there in terms of relative profitability maybe, but if you could just expand on that.
I think as a starting point, we would point to a similar profile as what we have in North America with perhaps, you know, slightly better top line dynamics as we enter, offsetting the fact that we'll be starting at a smaller scale and so some of the inherent operating leverage will come in at a differing rate. Make sure those take rates persist. You know, no reason there's not incremental upside to margins and we can create some tailwind. But generally, we think the structure of the market is pretty comparable. And so our P&L should directionally match that over the intermediate term.
Great. Staying on the topic of profitability maybe, do you still think that Vivid Seats can reach a 30% adjusted EBITDA margin over time? And how should we think about the trajectory and what needs to happen to get from here to there?
Yeah, so, for those that have not been following us since 2019, I'd start with, you know, pre-COVID, we were running consistently in the roughly 25% EBITDA margin range. Shortly after the pandemic alleviated, we actually did run at a 30% EBITDA margin. So this is more than just theory that we can get to 30% margins. You know, full disclosure, there was a little bit of unique air out there post-pandemic that enabled that on an accelerated basis. But we then deliberately made very significant investments, long-term investments, in our loyalty program and a brand marketing campaign focused on ensuring folks were aware of our differentiated value proposition.
tens of millions of dollars took EBITDA margin down with the full expectation and understanding that this would be a, you know, four, five, six-year payback because it takes a while to get the awareness out there for then people to start using the loyalty program, then having the behavioral shift of, I have stored value, so I will come back more frequently in a what is a relatively low-frequency category, right? So everything is playing out over slightly extended time frames. But we believe, you know, sort of aligns us with the best customers in the space, right? Once you do your research and find that we have a fundamentally more compelling value proposition for folks who go to multiple events per year, your searching day should be over, right?
but we need to get the, you know, we need to proselytize and get everyone aware and embracing the product. So we're on that journey. You know, I think you saw from 2022 to 2023, our EBITDA margins increased about 100 basis points. Current guidance has flat for this year. We touched on the international investment, so I think you could look through and say that there's 100 basis points or so again. And I think that's a good, you know, methodical march that we'll be on absent, you know, other opportunities that would come up. But believe we can get there. Don't believe it's a, you know, 12-24-month path. It's a multi-year journey, but believe that's the long-term level.
As you think about, you know, profitability, competition pretty inextricably linked, do you think that the secondary market consolidates over time, or do you think that the industry can support three-four kind of scale players?
Yeah, you know, I think our take has always been the industry doesn't need that many players, right? And I think that's sort of when you go out there, back to almost the first question you asked, Cameron, right? Like, I think that's been part of it. We want to have a differentiated offering. I think I would argue if you go look at a lot of the other players, there is no differentiation, right? You're just literally transacting. And when you transact, maybe you choose on price, maybe you choose on perceived brand value. So I think our view is, you know, who has a right to exist? And if you then take the list of players that are out there who are just transacting and you say, who's got a model that drives growth and profitability at the same time, I think that list shrinks even more.
So I think if you believe that over time you must have a differentiation and self-sustainability on that, there has to be consolidation, right? Because that's just not true today. I would make the plug for us, as we've always said, you know, we also have a very strong segment of our business called distribution in our infrastructure, right? Which is, look, we power and we build Capital One Entertainment on a lot of these, right? Essentially, custom solutions for captive demand. In a consolidation environment, I think we're the one player out there who could say, I could literally take another brand, put it on my platform, and have day one synergies because I could then have the luxury of deciding whether or not to keep that brand, right? So I think that's certainly how we look at it.
Makes sense. Larry, I want to go back to the business model element of all of this. You know, you benefit from a nicely profitable business today, free cash flow generative model. Maybe can you walk us through that cash flow profile? And you guys have talked about a 65%-70%, I think, free cash flow conversion. Maybe just kind of walk us through how we should think about that.
Yeah, yeah. We are using what I believe is probably the most punitive definition of cash flow conversion that is out there. And that perhaps counterintuitively is by design because that is take our EBITDA times 65%-70%. That is how much cash will show up on our balance sheet at the end of the year, right? This isn't, with respect to the Morgan Stanley banking team, not the, you know, CIM version of cash flow. So how do we get there? It's EBITDA. We have modest CapEx, you know, less than 10% of EBITDA as CapEx. But offsetting that, we have negative working capital. So generally speaking, it averages out that CapEx and working capital offset to be no cash impact. Last year, working capital dramatically outpaced the CapEx, and so it was a net positive.
So the two deductions from EBITDA to cash generation are interest expense. We have about $12 million a year of interest expense, so a fairly modest number. Then Uncle Sam has his hand out, and that's it. So yeah, we're working on ways around that, but we'll let you know if we figure that out. But so yeah, as a result, you know, midpoint of our guidance, $165 million of EBITDA, we think that converts into well over $100 million of cash. This past year, we did $142 million of EBITDA, and that turned into $116 million of cash, which we turned around and turned into, you know, TAM expanding, a creative acquisition, bought some shares. We announced another share purchase program.
You can sort of see our clear capital deployment strategy of generate a lot of cash, find good M&A, buy ourselves, and alternate those ratios based on the opportunities that you see.
Got it. There's been a fair amount of investor focus on following your secondary offering late last year and just around potential future supply. What would be your message to investors around the outlook there and kind of what to expect?
Yeah, look, I'd start from maybe I'll go back in history for a moment, right? Like, I think, you know, we came out I always hate saying this because it's still true. We came out via SPAC before SPACs became a bad thing, right? And I think we were the company, you know, that, like, I actually still think this. I think we were the right type of SPAC deal, right? We had $100 million in EBITDA before we did that deal. We're a real company, proven. And we did it to find a great sponsor. And we did, right? Like, I think Todd Boehly, who owns the Dodgers, Lakers, just bought Chelsea. He's a wonderful, wonderful investor, super engaged, very accretive to the business.
The resulting outcome of how we came public, though, was as the markets turned, we therefore ended up with less float because there were more redemptions. Now, I'd argue again, in that case, Todd had backstopped the deal fully, right? So we got cash certainty on that, and Todd ended up owning more, of which he was happy to own. But we ended up as a public company with a SPAC label and probably less float than we would have liked to, right? At the same time, our ownership structure was also, you know, we had a controlled private equity owner at the time, and a combination of low float, heavy ownership. And they're also at a point in their lifecycle where it's probably time. They've owned the company for seven years now and need to start returning some liquidity.
And so I think what we saw last year was the effort, again, to try to correct those things, right? Which was, hey, let's add a little bit more liquidity into the trading profile of the business. At the same time, let's decrease the level of ownership, from a concentrated private equity perspective. And look, I think those two things objectively, I think, have been done, right? And we've done two secondaries. And, you know, outside of what we said, is obviously we hate the way that shares perform post-marketed secondaries on the backs of great quarters. You know, I think we sit here where you ask about what's the future. I think a couple of things are certain. You know, we clearly see share price that is very divorced from fundamental performance and execution of the business. And I think there is certainly an overhang effect.
They still own 36%, right? I mean, they still do own 36%, and they've sold a bunch of stock. So will there be more supply? I think what you know is, look, we're all committed to finding the right path there. I think we're all very loath to repeat what we did last year across the board. So I don't think, you know, I won't say never, say never, but I'd say certainly from my seat, from Larry's seat, we don't want to repeat that. I think from every investor's perspective, no one wants to repeat that either. So I think we are looking for clearly the right paths to decrease ownership in a way that, you know, allows the share price and kind of shareholders to see real value that is mirrored in, you know, what we believe to be fundamentally sound execution on the business.
On that note, and just kind of, you know, trying to unpack the technical element and the fundamental value element, maybe if I could ask you guys to put an investor hat on, which Larry, I know you have experience wearing, how do you think about the valuation of Vivid and where fundamental value lies?
Yeah, a few different vectors. You know, if we think about private market data points before we get to some public market data points or fundamental DCF value, this is an industry that's never seen a scaled marketplace trade in the private markets for less than high teens EBITDA multiples. We currently trade at seven, seven and a half. So frankly, levels that I wouldn't have thought we could have ever gotten to. On the public comparable framework, I know we're now stepping into your world with some of these comments, but, you know, I think the two buckets you'll hear folks compare us to, the one we like more is we think of ourselves as a technology marketplace and that you should look at other, similarly situated, albeit in adjacent or different industries, but similar business models.
So, you know, some of the names you'll see us mention, you know, the Etsys, Matches, Bumbles of the world, we think are good SMID-cap marketplaces. We'd love it if you threw, like, Airbnb and DoorDash in there, but we'll save those dreams for another day. On that basis, you know, we look at it and we're trading at a meaningful discount to a category that admittedly has not had the most spectacular run the last couple of years, right? So we're kind of underperforming an underperforming benchmark in that SMID-cap marketplace, but we do think that is reflective of the right economic profile. The other name that you'll often hear is Live Nation. Same end market, right? We generally see our results directionally match what they're seeing, but they're in different businesses. They're at different scale, right?
They're having the conversations they're having with the DOJ for a reason. But we look at that and, you know, today we're trading at, you know, roughly half the EBITDA multiple and a more than 100% discount on a free cash flow multiple basis. And so all data points on a comparable basis just point to, some meaningful disconnect unless there's a perception that there's a fatal flaw in the business model that we're not aware of. And then the last one, you know, where I spend my most time just making sure that we're grounded, is fundamental, you know, kind of cash flow. If you have double-digit growth at a 10%+ current cash flow yield, that's generally been a profile that people will line up to buy.
And so as we continue to put operating performance out there and validate that the growth and the profitability is sustainable, we think that fundamental view will ultimately carry the day.
Got it. I want to make sure we leave time for questions if there's anything in the audience waiting for the microphone.
Stan, can you talk a little bit about your primary competition in secondary? Because everyone kind of has their own more or less business model, right? You know, StubHub obviously has been around for maybe the longest, maybe has the highest brand value. But why is your approach to driving the business different and more sustainable than some of the big secondary competitors you face on a day-to-day basis? I think that'd be helpful to unpack a bit.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think, Larry, I think maybe back to that question on who are the scaled players and what do they offer, right? I do think, look, Ticketmaster is certainly a competitor, but I would argue is a very fundamentally different business overall, right? I think ticketing is an avenue under which they unlock, you know, their promotional business, the concerts. I think that is that segment. You know, I think StubHub, I come back to, is certainly, I'd almost argue, they're the category creators, right? They created the secondary online category, you know, in the early 2000s, and have built up massive brands along the way through partnerships, all of that. And I go back to credit to them, huge brand, I think very, very, very cognizant there.
But when you look at how they compete, and I think that's the important part, I think they have the advantage on the brand side, and I'd arguably say that might be it. Now, there's power in that, so don't get me wrong, right? I come back to, you know, I think they are certainly they've done a wonderful job now with viagogo's ownership, are also international, right, and have a lot of that benefit. Perhaps we see some advantage in that and think that the platform scales. But beyond that, you know, I look at, you know, what they've built out there, and there isn't a lot of differentiation. I come back to, and this is true, I think, of most other competitors. When you say, as a consumer who transacts on any one of these platforms, why should you go back to that platform again?
I think we're the only ones who give you a resounding reason economically and experientially to come back to Vivid Seats. If I'm not thinking about buying a ticket today, but I want to engage with a brand, zero platforms give you a way to do that. You go to that platform only when you know exactly what you want to buy or you're searching to transact. We give you a way to engage with us, derive, you know, call it utility out of that. And in that action in and of itself, we are learning more about you to facilitate that subsequent transaction. So on the buy side, I think it's very clear. And by the way, out of the gate, I should say the foundational things too that I think people make decisions on, are we cheaper?
We're generally priced very competitively because of our SkyBox advantages, service and trust and reliability. You know, 2024 again was another year we've been recognized by Newsweek as best customer service in ticketing. So I just come back to holistically, when you think about the offering, Larry framed it well, you might not know who we are just because our brand is not as out there as others. But certainly, once you transact with us, there shouldn't be a reason why you go anywhere else. And I think that is not a true statement of the others. The other big piece is, again, part of why our perspective is as a marketplace company, we know who we are. And therefore, as a marketplace company, why I spend my time here talking about the consumer tech a lot? Because generally, everybody in the room is also a consumer of technology.
We are equally focused on the other side of the marketplace where we also have leading technology that drives stickiness and value into the flywheel that we generate, right? And again, I think that is not a true statement of the other competitors. I think they are focused on either a brand and/or winning a transaction, at the consumer level, and that's where it ends.
Rising repeat rates, they're obviously in evidence that those loyalty efforts are paying off. Are there other external, metrics that we should have an eye on in terms of gauging your guys' success because we only get repeat rate data once a year?
Yeah, you know, look, I think the couple of things I would point out, you know, I think when you look at the maybe less visible but great signs of increased penetration, you know, lots of metrics on consumer brand awareness and unaided on an aided basis, you know, our last track on that is certainly, you know, we've probably added 1,000 basis points over the past couple of years to that. So continuing to make steadfast progress while being profitable on that, which I think has a halo effect. When you look at social as the other channel, right, to do that, you know, I think today we have the number one, if not the number two, followership on TikTok, right, as we see that as an emerging channel.
And we've done that through investing in that, working through ways to programmatically drive integrations into their system, which do that as well. So I think when you look at where consumers are doing, I think you look at social, we've maybe 5x-ed our Twitter following, all of these things that actually have a little bit of an impact, you know, across the broader ecosystem that are less obvious, in terms of what you see out there. And then, of course, like I said, I think customer service and winning, I would say, external benchmarks, which are completely—I mean, controlled by our service, but recognition for that. I think those are the things that would tell you these are why people are coming back to us, right? And it's, I think it's out there.
If we circle back to the brand point, I know you're not going to say that StubHub's brand is unassailable. So how do you go about strengthening your brand on a relative basis?
Yeah, I don't think unassailable. Look, I think, and I would separate, you know, propensity to purchase, affinity for the brand, and awareness as all very, very different things. So I go back to where they've clearly got a huge lead on us is brand awareness, right? And no doubt, and we're making strides there. I think we even talked about it, in our earnings call in the prepared remarks. Maybe we want to look. We conduct unbiased surveys on where NPS is. And right now, today, when you talk about that affinity, we are the clear leader on all the scaled marketplaces. Like, where people choose to buy, they choose to buy with us over StubHub, over Ticketmaster, right? So I think you are seeing those indicators. And then from a propensity perspective, I think that shows up clearly in repeat rates.
You're seeing that propensity to buy. That's partially driven by the fact that once you come in, we're able to personalize the experience for you. We know what you want because of all the tools, the platforms, whether it's Vegas, whether it's Picks, whether it's Game Center, we know how you engage. And therefore, we can drive that propensity up in ways. So I go back to unassailable, I think, probably not how we look at it. We want to go win, like, big time. And we have confidence to do that. But I do, I would separate, I think we clearly are cognizant, we got a lot of ways to go on the awareness front, but I don't think that gap exists on the propensity, nor does it exist on the affinity. We actually think we're winning.
Cool. Great. Anything else before I over there?
Alluded to a little bit when you mentioned about the SPAC transaction, it's a little bit of a backward-looking question with a forward component. Have you regretted at any point, you know, becoming a public company? Would you be better served, you know, remaining private like StubHub kind of still is? And is it potentially in the cards, you know, for you in the future to go back to the private side?
I'll see you at 6:00 P.M. for a drink, and I'll give you the unfiltered answer. Look, I know, I mean, I've actually looked, it's a really great question. I gave the backwards look only so people would understand the trading dynamics and where we see some of the why there's overhang issue. Less as a maybe regret is the right way. I will come back and say this, which I fully, fully believe. If that was the only way to get Todd Boehly into our stack as an investor in this business, I mean, we would do it all day. I mean, he is an amazing investor, hugely supportive of the business, very accretive on everything, right, in terms of relationships he's brought, his dedication to this, opening doors for us. Like, that is a really valuable strategic investor. That is the reason we did the SPAC.
And if that was the way to bring an investor of that caliber in who was that value of the business, we'd do that all day long. Now, do we love the dynamics, nine quarters, having beat every quarter, and the trading dynamics of that, the SPAC label, all of this, you know, the scrutiny on when we are, you know, taking EBITDA guidance down but still delivering 16% year-over-year EBITDA growth on, you know, $142 million, do we love that scrutiny and getting overly penalized for what we believe to be a cap structure problem, not a performance of business? No, we don't love that. We hate that. Could we perform better privately? Maybe, you know, I go back to performance of the equity we want to resolve.
I think our ability to compete as a business, I think, is grounded in how we execute and run the business and our strategy. That, I think, remains sound, is somewhat independent of whether we're public or private.
Great. That takes us to time. Stan, Larry, thanks for joining us.
Awesome.
Thanks, Cameron.
Thanks for having us.