The Justice Department and more than two dozen states sued Live Nation on Thursday, alleging the entertainment giant has a monopoly in ticketing and concert promotion and should be broken up.
The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court, alleges Live Nation used its power to squelch competition and retaliate against promoters and venues that threatened its dominance. The company chokes off competition in key pieces of the concert system, driving prices and fees higher for fans, the department said.
“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “It is time to break up Live Nation.”
Live Nation shares declined more than 4% Thursday morning.
Among the exclusionary practices the department challenges are long-term ticketing contracts that Ticketmaster has with venues where high-profile acts perform. Ticketmaster is a subsidiary of Live Nation. Those agreements typically run between three and five years and Ticketmaster often gives lucrative financial advances that entice the venues to sign up for long-term deals.
The lawsuit claims that Live Nation cooperated too closely with Oak View Group, an operator of stadiums, arenas and convention centers. The department says Oak View Group avoided bidding against Live Nation to attract tours and influenced venues to sign exclusive agreements with Ticketmaster.
Live Nation said Thursday that it doesn’t have a monopoly in ticketing or promotion and will fight the government’s case. Ticketmaster doesn’t set prices, according to the company, artists and teams do, and they are subject to high demand and low supply, while the majority of fees go to venues.
The department “will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment, such as the fact that the bulk of service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded TicketMaster’s market share and profit margin,” the company said.
Despite artists’ role in setting ticket prices, the Justice Department alleges that Live Nation is responsible for making fans pay more, according to a senior department official. The company’s dominance in one key business, such as promotion, allows it to exclude rivals from competing in other segments, such as ticketing, the official said.
The Justice Department’s move represents a second chance to challenge Live Nation’s structure. The government didn’t try to block its merger with Ticketmaster in 2010.
Department officials didn’t spell out Thursday how they want the company to be broken up, but analysts expect it would seek to separate Live Nation’s concert-promotion business from Ticketmaster.
The Justice Department has been investigating Live Nation since 2022, according to people familiar with the matter. The probe gained momentum in November of that year after Ticketmaster crashed during a fan presale of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.”
Live Nation has faced accusations of exorbitant ticket fees, flawed customer service and anticompetitive practices from lawmakers, regulators and state attorneys general. The company wields commercial advantages that most of its competitors lack. Live Nation has a roughly 50% market share in concert promotion, while Ticketmaster controls more than 80% of the market for primary ticket sales in the biggest venues in the U.S.