[nanidin]

Stubhub collects a fee every time a ticket changes hands. It's in their interest to buy the tickets off people and then resell them themselves, since they will collect two fees in that case. Couple that with the fact that they're in a unique position to measure demand and model future pricing, they can effectively double dip with little risk.

Further, the shell companies could be something Stubhub is doing to derisk the arbitrage portion of the transaction to isolate losses associated with inability to sell the tickets for a profit to the shell company rather than to Stubhub.