Ben Cesario

But it's such a problem when it comes to Ticketmaster.

Yes.

And it caught the attention of Washington.

There was a Senate judiciary hearing where senators from both parties were really beating up on Live Nation and Ticketmaster and asking them very tough questions and were very unsatisfied with the answers that they were given.

And senators from both parties called them a monopoly.

We know now that the investigation by the Justice Department was already in motion.

So it wasn't begun by Taylor, but that really focused a lot of attention on this all around the country.

And so a couple years later, the Justice Department brings their case.

The government brought the case in 2024, and they were joined by 40 state attorney generals, which is pretty rare to have that buy-in across blue states and red states.

It was a very popular issue all across the country.

And the case that the government was making was that because of its scale, because Live Nation is so big –

and that it's this many-tentacled beast.

It controls the music industry.

It's a monopoly in concert promotion.

It's a monopoly in ticketing.

It's stymied competition.

It's driven up ticket prices for everybody.

And that was the case that the government made and brought to trial.

So the trial opens, and one of the big claims that the government is making is that Live Nation threatens venues to use Ticketmaster.

And the way they do this is through part of their monopoly, that they have one side of their business that's selling tickets and one side of their business that's putting on concerts, and that they go to venues and say, you better use Ticketmaster or else you're not going to get our concerts.