The most important federal antitrust suit in live music may have just ended with barely a slap on the wrist.
The announcement that Live Nation has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice, resolving a years-long suit alleging anticompetitive practices, likely answers the biggest question facing the concert behemoth. The promoter will be allowed to keep Ticketmaster — the reviled, essential ticket-selling platform — as part of its portfolio.
With a fine equivalent to a few days’ revenue and some marginal changes to its business practices, Live Nation will, more or less, plow ahead as the dominant force in live music.
How should fans feel about the settlement? The Times spoke to Bill Werde, the director of the Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University, for insight on what this settlement means for angry music fans — and if it changes much at all for the live industry.
This suit could have split up the biggest company in live music. Right now it looks like a win for Live Nation. What happens now for the company?
There’s too much we don’t know right now. The number one thing will be what happens with these state lawsuits. That’s a significant detail, because many of them are agreeing to go on with suits. New York, California and Tennessee are some of biggest markets for live music in world, and that could change the calculus here enormously.
What’s unclear is if these states believe they have a case to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, or if they’re just looking for their piece of a settlement. But the biggest question all along has been if the DOJ will split Live Nation from Ticketmaster, and the answer today is no, with the caveat if the states continue with this case.
If Live Nation had divested from Ticketmaster, that would be a huge deal, a Live Nation-changing deal. But if you look at how the markets are responding, today there’s an uptick in Live Nation stock. Any scenario that left Live Nation with Ticketmaster is a big win for them.
The key points of the settlement include an over $200–million payment, a divestment from some amphitheaters, a gradual end to exclusive ticketing contracts with venues, and opening up Ticketmaster’s platform to competitors. Is that in any way a real check on Live Nation’s power?
It would be generous to call that fine a slap on the wrist. It’s not a company-altering fine, to say the least. And Live Nation controls two-thirds of the top amphitheaters in the U.S., so divesting from 10 of them is probably not going to make the biggest difference.
The other big question is — what does it mean that competitors can now use Ticketmaster? That feels unclear to me. Live Nation’s access to Ticketmaster data gives it a lot of competitive advantages with projecting pricing, which could now include shows that are not its own. Are other companies going to have full access to that historic data? This is the most mysterious part of this for now.
Is this a settlement setback for those who want stronger antitrust regulation here? Is there a path for states to keep pushing for a Live Nation breakup?
The temptation here is to look where California dragged the auto industry into emissions protections. You can see where a state can force industry to the table. But that depends on how serious states are about seeing this though versus getting a check. Most of these are states where Live Nation built venues last year — that’s real leverage. Look at the size of the federal settlement, compared to what that investment could be worth. States are not going to take that investment lightly. A state attorney general might be skeptical of Live Nation, but a governor might be more appreciative.
Does this settlement do anything to address the core complaints fans have about ticketing, fees and prices?
I never believed this suit would do much for consumers, period. This settlement creates a cap on fees, but Congress setting a cap on resale prices would do a lot more. When there aren’t enough tickets, that drives up demand insanely on secondary sites. Either the U.S. decides that’s illegal, as other countries have done, or people with more resources bid up prices on tickets. That’s the heart of the issue most music fans care about, and the best I can tell from this settlement, it will not do much to change anything for a typical music fan.
Is the gradual end to exclusive ticketing contracts a meaningful step toward more competition?
At the end of the day, the concept of more competition is absolutely going to benefit consumers, but I don’t see that’s necessarily been created here in meaningful way. It’s still going to have that potential dynamic where they’ve been accused of leveraging their talent to get venues to utilize Ticketmaster.
Would a DOJ under President Kamala Harris have handled this settlement differently?
This has been tough case for the DOJ, because Live Nation is not outright saying that if you don’t use Ticketmaster, you’re not going to get our incredible roster of talent. It really comes down to finding hard evidence of this — and that’s a hard case to prove.
What makes this even more challenging for the DOJ is that they approved the Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger. At the time, people raised concerns that you’re going to have a talent broker also pressuring venues to utilize ticket sales in this way. But the DOJ created this leverage for them.
The fact that the DOJ settled at this level, after portions of the suit were thrown out, suggested they were feeling they didn’t have that strong of a case left. But the speed and the solidarity with which states came forward suggest the states don’t feel like the DOJ acted competently. There are other possibilities too, that the states see something the feds don’t, or the states want to see this through to the end and they are shooting for breakup of Live Nation.
How should music fans feel about all this?
There are three issues fans object to. The first is that Ticketmaster’s tech stack doesn’t work under enormous pressure. Taylor Swift puts her whole tour on [sale], and stuff breaks. Competition could be helpful here.
But the other two things are high fees and high ticket prices. With fees, Live Nation has said ticket fees mostly go to venues. That’s true but misleading, because they essentially bribe venues to use Ticketmaster. You could do away with that practice, but that’s not what this settlement is going to accomplish.
Artists by and large control ticket prices. Every few years, an artist will get great press for “standing up to Ticketmaster.” Olivia Dean just did, and God bless her, that’s awesome. But at what point do artists start taking accountability for this issue that’s been going on for years? If you’re an artist and want lower prices, you can do it. Ticketmaster offers its fan-to-fan exchange service. The Cure did this a few years ago and it worked. The only thing that will help fix prices is allowing for caps on resale prices.
California has introduced the Fans First Act, which restricts resales to 10% above face value, and there’s a similar bill in New York. None of these have gotten to law yet, though. It’s a fairly complex issue, but I do think it has reasonably simple solutions. As someone who advocates for transparency and for fans, it’s frustrating how convoluted it’s become to the public, that there’s so much misunderstanding of the dynamics of why people pay a lot of money for tickets.
I can say I deserve the best steak in New York but I don’t want to pay more than $25, and people would laugh. But people don’t want a free market with live music. We think about artists differently than a Fortune 500 company. No one’s comfortable saying that that pop music should be a bastion of the wealthy, but solutions to that are not free-market solutions.
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