In a suit against Live Nation, President Donald Trump’s settlement gave way to anti-business practitioner Ticketmaster and its parent company — Live Nation — allowing it to exercise its entertainment market dominance by setting excessively high ticket prices and practicing monopolistic behavior.
The settlement includes the company’s $280 million payout to states, an agreement to establish non-exclusive agreements for venues seeking business with other ticketing companies and making their technology available to competitors to perform alongside Ticketmaster. While the settlement grants Live Nation competitors a larger stake in the entertainment business, the monopoly at the heart of this case — Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s merger — remains.
Live Nation’s ownership of Ticketmaster allows the company to remain a monopoly because the business owns a vast share of ticketing. Ticketmaster controls 80% of major venues’ ticketing and has grown to own an increasing share of resale tickets. Live Nation has leveraged this position by operating 64% of amphitheaters in the U.S., with the top 100 generating $814 million in 2022.
Ticketmaster was the sole provider for 77% of the top 88 amphitheaters in the U.S. and was the sole provider for 82% of those amphitheaters operated by Live Nation. The ticketing power of Live Nation’s subsidiary, paired with the artist management and venue operating power of the aforementioned company, has acted as a powerful mechanism in allowing the business to control ticket prices and how brokers and competitors function in the industry. Live Nation helps manage artists and operate the venues where artists perform, while Ticketmaster sells tickets for venues operated by Live Nation. The business merger suffocates competition — a necessary component for the industry.
While the settlement is a step in the right direction, the mutual symbiotic relationship between Live Nation and Ticketmaster still places competitors at a disadvantage and fails to address high ticketing charges. The Federal Trade Commission details how Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s shady business practices resulted in ticket price gouging. The company engaged in a bait-and-switch technique, where it would deceive consumers and artists by displaying lower prices than the consumer’s final payment. Additionally, it claimed to set a limit on how many tickets a buyer could purchase, even though brokers exceeded those limits. Brokers would resell those same tickets at higher prices, from which Live Nation would gain a profit because of the resell fees and markups. As a result, consumers spent $82.6 billion on inflated ticket prices from 2019 to 2024, a product of unquenchable greed.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster are not deterred from this behavior; they are simply guided to encourage competition while still being allowed to engage in the business practices that first gave rise to the suit. This simple fact is the reason why states have declined to drop the case because consumers should not need to shovel out a down payment to see their favorite artist.
The settlement is yet another example of how the Trump administration will support big business, even if it is at the cost of the consumer. The federal government’s clear lack of care for shady techniques is not only a detriment to consumers but also to the economy, which relies on competition for a diverse set of businesses operating in a sector.
