Alanna Durkin Richer, Wyatt Grantham Phillips (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly on live events in the U.S., and asking a court to dismantle a system that stifles competition and inflates prices for fans.
The wide-ranging antitrust lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, brought with 30 state and local attorneys general, seeks to break up a monopoly that they say crowds out smaller promoters, hurts artists and drowns ticket buyers in fees. Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation Entertainment, have a long history of clashes with big-name artists, including Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, and their fans.
“It's time for fans and artists to stop paying the price of Live Nation's monopoly,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “It's time to bring competition and innovation back to the entertainment industry. It's time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster, and the American people are ready for that.”
The government has accused Live Nation of a number of tactics, including intimidation and retaliation, and Garland said Live Nation has “suffocated competition” by controlling virtually every aspect of the industry, from concert promotion to ticket sales. Mr. Garland said that he had allowed him to do so. The impact on consumers is reflected in “an endless list of fees for fans,” the attorney general said.
“Live music should not be available only to those who can afford to pay the Ticketmaster tax,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Cantor of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. “We are here today to fight for the competition so we can reopen the doors to the live music industry for everyone.”
Live Nation, which has long denied violating antitrust laws, said Thursday that the lawsuit “does not resolve the issues our fans care about, including ticket prices, service fees, and access to popular shows.” .
“While casting Ticketmaster as a monopoly may be a short-term PR win for the Department of Justice, it ignores the fundamental economics of live entertainment and will lose in court,” Live Nation added. The company said the majority of its service fees go to venues and that outside competition has “steadily eroded” Ticketmaster's market share. The company said it would defend itself “against these baseless allegations.”
The Justice Department said Live Nation's anticompetitive practices included using long-term contracts to prevent venues from choosing rival companies, preventing venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues with losses if they did not choose Ticketmaster.
The Justice Department alleged that in 2021, the concert giant threatened financial retaliation against the companies if one of its portfolio companies did not stop competing with Live Nation for artist promotion contracts.
Live Nation has also gone after smaller promoters it sees as a threat, people familiar with the matter said. Live Nation's chief strategy officer told executives that one acquisition deal wasn't “very exciting” financially and felt like “more of a defensive move,” according to the lawsuit.
Michael Carrier, a professor at Rutgers University School of Law who specializes in antitrust litigation, said the Justice Department's case is strong. Professor Carrier said he expected Live Nation to “try to shift the blame elsewhere,” by claiming that prices are determined by artists and venues, but said such explanations are unconvincing.
“The Department of Justice has shown how Live Nation actually has tentacles extending into each element of the supply chain, which means it has more control than Live Nation actually does. That means,” he said. “And from a legitimation standpoint, there's really very little[Live Nation]has to offer in terms of how it's helping consumers.”
Carrier said there is a possibility of a breakup between Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Combined with other remedies, such as preventing some anti-competitive exclusive deals, fans can enjoy lower ticket prices, artists have more agency in choosing their venues, and in the long run, smaller He pointed out that it has the potential to boost the success of promoters.
Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010, is the world's largest ticket sales company. The company announced in its annual report last month that it distributed more than 620 million tickets through Ticketmaster's system in 2023.
About 70% of tickets to major U.S. concert venues are sold through Ticketmaster, according to data from a 2022 federal lawsuit filed by consumers. According to the Department of Justice, the company owns or manages more than 265 concert venues and dozens of top amphitheaters in North America.
Ticket sellers sparked outrage in November 2022 when their sites crashed during pre-sale events for Taylor Swift's stadium tour. The company said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots posing as consumers to pick up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. The debacle prompted congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures aimed at strengthening consumer protections.
The Justice Department approved the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster as long as Live Nation agrees not to retaliate for 10 years against concert venues that use other ticketing companies. The department conducted an investigation in 2019 that found Live Nation “repeatedly” violated that agreement and extended a ban on retaliation against concert venues until 2025.
“It's clear that the company has been breaking these promises for a long time,” Carrier said. “And I think over the last few years, as the Swift scandal has highlighted, this issue has really crept into the public consciousness.”
Ticketmaster has had its share of clashes with artists and fans over the years: Pearl Jam went after the company in 1994, years before the Live Nation merger, but the Department of Justice ultimately declined to take up the case, and more recently, Bruce Springsteen fans were infuriated by high ticket prices due to the platform's dynamic pricing system.
Live Nation has argued that ticket pricing is outside of its control, noting that artists and their teams set the price and decide how to sell tickets. Dan Wall, the company's executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, said in a statement Thursday that factors including rising production costs, artist popularity and online ticket duffing were “the real causes of the increased ticket prices.”
The lawsuit is the latest example of aggressive antitrust enforcement by the Biden administration. The effort targets companies accused of engaging in illegal monopolies that exclude competitors and drive up prices. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple in March, accusing the tech giant of having monopoly power in the smartphone market. Democratic administrations are also taking on Google, Amazon, and other big tech companies.
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Grantham Phillips reported from New York. Associated Press writers Michelle Chapman and Maria Sherman in New York also contributed to this report.
