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The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster in an antitrust case accusing the company of abusing monopolistic power in the live entertainment industry.
The DoJ, along with 30 U.S. state and district attorneys general, filed a lawsuit Thursday against Live Nation-Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment, alleging they illegally maintained monopolies in ticket sales and concert promotion and that their “exclusive conduct’ harmed live concert halls. .
As a result of the alleged anticompetitive behavior, “fans are paying more in fees, artists have fewer options to perform concerts, smaller promoters are being squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said. , said in a statement on Thursday. “It’s time to split up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
The civil lawsuit comes as discontent surrounding the group, which was formed in 2010 through the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, has grown over the years among fans, competitors, artists and U.S. lawmakers who accuse the group of abusing its dominant market power. Frustration was compounded after a fiasco during ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in 2022, when Ticketmaster’s website was overwhelmed by massive demand.
The DoJ alleged that Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s misconduct reinforces what the group calls its “flywheel” business model. Prosecutors said revenue from fans’ sponsorships and concert fees was used to “lock” artists into exclusive promotional deals. A “powerful cache of live content” was then used to keep venues in exclusive long-term ticketing agreements, “starting the cycle all over again,” the DoJ said.
“America’s live music industry is broken because Live Nation-Ticketmaster has an illegal monopoly,” Jonathan Kanter, head of the DoJ’s antitrust unit, said in a statement.
Dan Wall, executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs at Live Nation Entertainment, said in response to the case that it was “absurd to claim that Live Nation and Ticketmaster exercise monopolistic power.”
He said the lawsuit “ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher ticket prices, from rising production costs to the popularity of artists, to the 24/7 online ticket scalping that shows audiences are willing to pay far more than the primary ticket cost.” . Wall added that “competition in the industry each year drives Live Nation to achieve lower take rates from both concert promotion and ticket sales.”
According to the DoJ, Live Nation directly manages more than 400 music artists and controls approximately 60 percent of concert promotions at major U.S. venues. It also owns or controls more than 60 of the 100 largest amphitheaters in the US. Through Ticketmaster, the group also controls about 80 percent of the primary ticket sales of top concert halls, prosecutors said.
The large group of bipartisan states joining the lawsuit includes California, New York, Florida and Texas, according to senior DOJ officials.
The DoJ greenlighted the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2010, subject to a 10-year settlement agreement with provisions including barring retaliation against venues that choose alternative ticketing or promotional services.
In 2019, it amended and expanded the agreement, saying the group had “repeatedly” breached the original deal.
Wall said the group was “yet another victim of this administration’s decision to hand over antitrust enforcement to a populist push that simply rejects how antitrust law works.”
It is the latest high-profile monopoly case brought by the DoJ’s antitrust unit, which has adopted a tougher enforcement stance under Kanter. He is among a new generation of progressive officials appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden who argue that anticompetitive behavior has increased throughout the U.S. economy due to decades of lax enforcement.