How Will the DOJ/Ticketmaster Lawsuit Affect Casinos and Their Concert Schedules?

On Thursday, the U. S. Department of Justice, joined by thirty Attorneys General across the country, sued the venue owner/ticket vendor Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster.

In announcing the lawsuit, U. S. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated, “It is time to break up Live Nation.” 

What would such a dissolution of the company look like, especially since many casino companies have contracted deals with the company to provide entertainment for their properties, including casino destinations?

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Monopolistic Practices Alleged by DoJ

The lawsuit by the legal eagles is a simple one. They are accusing Live Nation and Ticketmaster of monopolistic practices, and there is ample evidence to support this.

Live Nation, the venue ownership arm of the company, owns and operates sixty of the top one hundred venues in the United States of America. Additionally, Live Nation has exclusive contracts with over 400 artists and bands that lock them into collaborating exclusively with them for all aspects of their tours.

That ownership of 265 of the biggest venues in the U.S. includes the Hollywood Bowl, the House of Blues clubs across the country, and top festivals such as Bonnaroo, the Electric Daisy Carnival (which was just recently held in Las Vegas), and Lollapalooza.

Venue ownership is not the only thing in which Live Nation has a hand; they are also integrally involved with Roc Nation, the Jay-Z-founded artist management company.

The crux of the monopoly accusations has been in Live Nation’s ownership of Ticketmaster. 

That company deals with 80% of the major venues in the U. S. to provide their ticket sales. This means that Live Nation, through either its ownership of the venues, management of the artists, or through the sale of tickets, has a hand in virtually every segment of the entertainment industry.

It also means that the DoJ and the different Attorneys General view it as a monopolistic practice.

History of Questionable Practices

This is not the first time that Live Nation or Ticketmaster have run afoul of the DoJ. 

Many might remember the grunge band Pearl Jam’s Quixotic attempt to take on Ticketmaster in 1994, when the band alleged that the company was charging excessive fees and utilizing their force to keep venues under their control. 

The band would cancel a summer tour that year because venues would not join them in trying to keep these fees down and the ticket price under $20. 

Pearl Jam would eventually end up in front of Congress, testifying about the situation, but would eventually give up the fight when no other artists or groups joined with them.

In 2010, Live Nation and Ticketmaster wanted to merge their operations, but Congress was wary of the situation even back then. There were fears of monopoly domination of the concert industry, which Live Nation gave lip service to in Congressional hearings. 

That merger was allowed to occur, with several caveats that had to be met to display that the merged company was not violating federal anti-trust laws.

Ten years later, the companies found themselves back in front of Congress, accused of violating the agreement that they reached with the government and facing breakup motions from the government.

They were able to stave off those moves at that time and were given a five-year window to clean up their business operations, but then came 2023 and an artist who was only a blip on the map when their partnership began.

In 2023, megastar Taylor Swift went on her massive Eras Tour, and Live Nation was enlisted as the only company that could manage the humongous challenge. 

Live Nation would ultimately fail, with ticket sales bogged down by inadequate computerization, soaring prices (the Ticketmaster practice of “dynamic pricing,” or setting a higher sale price due to demand) and dropped customers waiting in an online queue. 

That very instance and the outrage of the Swifties (fans of Taylor Swift) have brought about the antitrust lawsuit from the DoJ and the states.

The Casinos Would Be Affected

If the DoJ and the states are successful in the breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster (something that has not been seen since the breakup of the Ma Bells into fifty different entities in the early Eighties), it would have a significant impact on the concert industry. 

Because Live Nation has been able to extend its tentacles into so many areas of the industry – a practice called “vertical integration,” or having ownership in several contributing parts of an industry –  divestiture of their ticketing operations (through Ticketmaster), the sale of their concert venues, or some other method of limiting their reach would be felt across the industry.

This impact in several scenarios would not be beneficial.

Because of its power, Live Nation has negotiated lower insurance fees to cover their venues and their patrons. The ticket-selling monolith they have created has brought about innovations, both good (bringing tickets to customers around the world) and bad (the aforementioned dynamic pricing), that have simultaneously aided and frustrated concertgoers.

Even though it might not appear so, Live Nation has also been able to keep the prices lower than they could be for going to concerts.

People forget (or were not alive for) the days when you had to line up at the local Sears (remember them?) to buy tickets to see a concert or actually go to the venue itself to purchase tickets for a show. 

There was no such thing as Joe Sixpack in West Virginia being able to buy tickets to a show in Texas. These individual outlets could also charge whatever fees they wanted (just like Ticketmaster) so customers could buy from them.

Imagine this process not only operating on fifty different levels across the country and hundreds of venues overseeing their ticket sales. Insurance costs would go up as each venue would now have to take responsibility for ensuring the safety of their patrons, and these costs would be passed along to the ticket buyers. 

It would result in potentially higher prices for casinos to book their artists, especially since now the entirety of the operation will be coming out of their pockets instead of sharing the exposure with a major company like Live Nation.

The antitrust lawsuit is in its infancy, and it will be several months, perhaps years, before it will ever see the inside of a federal court. 

There is also potential for the two sides to come to some agreement where Live Nation breaks up their operations voluntarily (a highly likely outcome) rather than face a massive fine from the government. Thus, it could be quite some time before casino concertgoers need to worry about the ramifications of U.S. Department of Justice et. al. v. Live Nation.