Jury Rules That Live Nation Acted as a Monopoly

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]Welcome once again to Leato's Law.

[00:00:02]Here's Steve Leato.

[00:00:04]>> I go and see about 10 or 15 shows a year, actual shows where bands come out and play songs. You know that rock and roll the kids are listening to. And uh one of the things of course that's changed in my lifetime is how much tickets have cost. Uh I I mean don't get me wrong, prices go up everywhere. But tickets to concerts have grown exponentially in price largely because of the people who sell the tickets. It's not it's not the bands, it's the people who sell the tickets. the venues and of course those companies that handle the tickets. So a lot of people sent me this story widely reported huge huge court case. Uh this version is by the New York Times. Ben Cesario wrote this jury finds it. Live Nation acts as a monopoly in a victory for states because states filed lawsuits against Live Nation over their ticketing pricing practices. Federal jury found that Live Nation, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, has operated as a monopoly in violation of federal and state antitrust laws, ending a closely watched trial in New York that could have far-reaching consequences in the music industry. Took the jury 4 days deliberation. Nine people on that jury went through a long list of questions they were asked to consider in a complex case that involved weeks of expert testimony. The judge now will determine remedies in a separate proceeding which could include significant divestments by Live Nation, even a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which is an outcome the federal government had called for when filing its case almost two years ago. But of course, Live Nation is fighting that. And by the way, they are saying they're going to appeal if necessary. They could also face monetary damages as a result of verdict.

[00:01:42]Uh the case was brought by 33 states and Washington DC. The jury determined that ticket master had overcharged consumers by $1.72 per ticket on average, $1.72.

[00:01:54]The judge will next set an overall damages amount based on the jury's finding because they sell a lot of tickets each year. During the 7-week trial, Live Nation consistently argued that it is not a monopoly, that it competes aggressively but legally in a market filled with other ticketers, concert promoters, venue operators, and sports teams. Countering one of the government's central claims, Live Nation also denied that it ever threatened venues to sign deals with them or risk losing access to their popular concert tours. The lawyer for Live Nation said, "We are fierce competitors, but uh we are trying to win the business." Simply, we are trying to win. Whatever remedy the judge orders will likely shift the competitive landscape in the multibillion dollar concert business where Live Nation has been a colossus with no equal. Last year the company put on 55,000 events and sold 646 million tickets worldwide. According to uh testimony, Ticket Master sells about 10 times as many tickets as its closest rival. So after news of the verdict in Wednesday, shares of Live Nation fell by 6%. In a statement, the company noted that it had a number of motions still pending in the case, including one for judgment is a matter of law. So they're asking the court to just toss the verdict and and award uh, you know, in their favor. The jury's verdict is not the last word on this matter. The company said the trial served as a high-profile test of antirust enforcement, which um recently there's been a lot of cases settled, but not a lot go to trial. Uh just a week into the trial, the Justice Department exited the case after reaching a settlement separately. But 34 of the 40 plaintiffs that had joined the federal lawsuit boed at the terms and continued the trial on their own. in the settlement, which still requires approval from the judge. Live Nation agreed to set aside as much as $281 million to settle claims from states involved in the case, but only six states have said they'll take that money. Uh, and if they got a share of that, that worked out equally be about $18.6 million, but there was simply a lot of back and forth on this. Uh, there was not a lot of star power. Um, but Ben Lovevet from Mumford and Sons, who also operates venue business, was heard in a video deposition. Uh, Kid Rock never testified. Um, the the reason they mentioned that is that he had been named as a possible witness, but he did not testify. Uh, in its complaint filed in 2024, the government accused Live Nation of operating an illegal monopoly that stifles competition and hinders innovation in the live entertainment industry, driving up ticket prices for millions of fans. The story is quite lengthy, but that's all you need to know. Keep in mind that simply being successful is not illegal. Okay? So, you run a business, it goes really, really well, you're making lots of money.

[00:04:52]That's fine. That's the American way.

[00:04:54]where it gets legally sticky is if you start doing things to uh stifle your competition in ways that are against the law. And there are laws on on monopolistic practices such as the Sherman Antirust Act, which you may have heard of. And so what a business can do, I'm just talking hypotheticals here, is you know, let's suppose that I'm in business and I've got a competitor.

[00:05:20]um if I threaten customers and say, "Hey, if you deal with them, we're you know, you can't do things like that."

[00:05:28]However, if you simply say, "Hey, you know, we provide better business to them, go with us." Well, you're allowed to do that. And so, the big problem that most consumers have with the concert industry is the cost of tickets. Now, you might say, if you're not sophisticated to understand this, you might say, "Steve, aren't ticket costs named by the artists."

[00:05:55]Oh, bless your heart if you think that.

[00:05:57]Um, if you see how tickets are broken down, and I apologize. I actually went and dug through some tickets, but I've got a bunch of ticket stubs actually on the set over here, and I was poking through these trying to find if any of them actually gave a breakdown of the prices. And unfortunately, they don't.

[00:06:14]It just says how much the tickets cost.

[00:06:17]And quite often the ticket costs are are extravagant to say the least. And so I couldn't find any that said, you know, here's the breakdown of the cost. And so I can tell you that it's not uncommon that tickets to a show now can run hundreds of dollars. And it'll actually say here's the cost of ticket, here's how much the fee is for the company that provides the tickets, which would be in this case Ticket Master. Uh and then of course is usually a a venue fee.

[00:06:48]Sometimes there's a city tax, a state tax, some other double secret tax that you don't know about. But when you look at these different line items on the breakdowns and and you might say, "Steve, why don't you have those?" Well, those would be on the screen when you're buying the tickets. You buy them online, which nowadays you have to do if you want to get good tickets. Uh so you go to the venue um website and you and you order tickets and it'll say here's how much the tickets cost and you say, "I want to buy them." And then it puts it into a column and it's almost like buying a car. how complicated the paperwork gets for a second because it'll say cost of ticket, uh, the ticket master fee, venue fee, tax D, and by the time you get this number up here is very, very different than this number down here. The numbers grow as they go down. And so, you wind up paying this crazy amount of money for these tickets.

[00:07:42]And that has happened. I I mean I I don't I don't want to be the old man shaking his fist at clouds, but I mean I remember buying tickets to good shows back in the 70s and 80s for 10 15 bucks a ticket. 10 15 bucks. Nowadays, ticket master like 105 bucks. No, that's how much we charge if you want to pay per ticket. Actually, probably more than that. Um, but but some of the shows where you're looking at it, you're going, "Wait, all this company's doing is whatever this website is required to do to kick out a virtual ticket, and they're getting 30 40 bucks a ticket to do that." That seems a bit exorbitant, doesn't it? I I I would think so. But the interesting thing is the jury came back and said, "Yeah, they overcharged about $1.72 a ticket." And now, interestingly, and this is where being a lawyer would come in handy, if you think about the fact they said that the jury was given a list of questions to answer, they weren't simply given the simple verdict form that just said, "Who wins how much?" Cuz that's not uncommon.

[00:08:51]Okay? So, let's suppose somebody gets hurt in a slip and fall. Okay? I sue the place where I slipped and fell and they defended it. and a jury is asked who wins, plaintiff or defendant. If you said plaintiff, how much do they win?

[00:09:08]Okay, who wins how much? That's the simplest jury verdict form you can have.

[00:09:12]Okay, more complicated jury verdict form is something like this where it says, do you find that ticket master acted unlawfully with respect to how much they charge for tickets? Yes. No. If yes, do you find that they did it in every single state that's listed here? If yes, proceed. If no, and it winds up being this huge, like almost like a flowchart.

[00:09:37]And now the defendants here can go through that jury verdict form and see if it makes sense. And then of course if they can get one of the earlier questions reversed on appeal then of course everything that follows after it might go away. So it's interesting and most people don't think about this stuff but attorneys spend a lot of time strategically thinking about whether or not a complicated verdict form is going to help them or hurt them at which point you know and and a lot of a lot of the pre-trial stuff is fighting over things like that. But the jury appears to have found that Live Nation Ticket Master was exerting some influences in the market that were unfair competition. And I know some people who say, "But Steve, hang on a second. Capitalism um is like the foundation of our economy. And isn't it true that I just try to make a product and sell it for as much as I can to increase my profits? What what's what's wrong with that? Well, you have to go back in our history and look at some things that happened such as Standard Oil and so on where companies got so big that they could not just influence but they could control their industry.

[00:10:59]And the government recognizes with laws like the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Act and others that followed that you want competition because competition is good for consumers if the competition is fair. So we've all seen this. There's a company out there making money and somebody else enters that field and the competition actually then causes prices to come down or service to get better or both. Think about I don't know cell phones. remember how expensive cell phones used to be? And um there's a few companies now that make cell phones and sell the service to operate a cell phone. And cell phone prices appear to have come down vastly over the years because of competition.

[00:11:51]And so, you know, getting back to Standard Oil, there was a time when Standard Oil was so big that they would do things like buy up all the oil fields, they'd buy up the railroad lines. They'd buy up the refineries.

[00:12:02]They controlled such a huge chunk of the market. They could charge anything they wanted. And if a competitor came along, they'd go, "Well, are you guys for sale?

[00:12:12]We'll buy you to keep our prices high."

[00:12:16]And if the competitor said, "No, we're not for sale. We want to compete with you." Standard Oil is say, "Oh, okay.

[00:12:22]Tell you what we're going to do. We're not going to let you use any of the railroads around your area. Uh if we can stop you from doing that, we're also not going to let you use any of the uh tanker cars on the railroads cuz we're going to rent those or buy all those up." And uh good luck. Good luck with your little company there. And then when the company starts faltering, they go, "Now, do you want to sell to us?" And so it made it where prices were quite high artificially so because of the manipulations of the market by the company. And again, I'm not trying to give you a history lesson here. I'm not.

[00:12:53]So, so you know, but the point is that if you've got two or more competitors in a field that are duking it out with prices and services, uh, it's good for consumers. the moment you lose competition for whatever reason, then that's when you see prices tend to go up. And as somebody, like I said, I've seen in the last two years probably 25 or 30 shows. And I always look at those price breakdowns in the tickets and I buy them and I'm like, "Wow, what a what what a business to be in. Some band has got to come out and perform and then jump into a tour bus and drive to another town and perform again. And they got to do all this hard work to make money. And meanwhile, here's this company. All they're doing is is is printing tickets.

[00:13:48]It's a great gig if you can get it. So, it's a fascinating story. We'll see what happens. Appeals are coming, but first there's going to be postjudgment motions in the court and then appeals and so on.

[00:13:58]And the judge hasn't even yet ruled on what the actual fines would be or the damages. However, a jury has found that Live Nation acted as a monopoly and that's a victory for the states. Ben Cesario wrote that for the New York Times. Questions or comments, put them below. Let's talk to you later. Bye-bye.

[00:14:16]>> Thank you for watching Leato's Law. Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?