In a widely condemned move, the U.S. Justice Department last week settled an antitrust suit against Live Nation Entertainment, a company that owns hundreds of concert venues, a huge promotion business and Ticketmaster, the world’s largest ticket-selling platform.
But Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 33 of his colleagues in other states are fighting on. The case was expected to go to the jury in federal court in New York late last week.
In 2024, while Joe Biden was still president, the Justice Department sued the entertainment middlemanunder the Sherman Antitrust Act.
It accused Live Nation Entertainment of using its dominance of several parts of the entertainment business to set itself up as a huge middleman, jacking up prices while starving the artists patrons are paying to see. It accused the company of using its dominant ownership of the most desirable concert venues, its ticket-selling platform, and its concert-promotion business to lock artists and patrons into its services and to lock competitors out.
The settlement caps the company’s fees at venues, opens its platform to third-party ticket sellers, forces it to sell off about 12 of its 400 entertainment venues, and pay $280 million to the states that sued.
Critics were not impressed.
It came “after years of evidence that Live Nation, the largest artist manager and concert promoter in America, in coordination with its in-house event-ticketing monopoly Ticketmaster, consistently ripped off fans and bullied venues and artists.” antitrust activist Ron Knox wrote in The Sling. “The government’s case had finally made it to trial — only to end a week after it began. How could a company that has so blatantly abused its outright power in the live music industry for so many years, earning scorn from artists, independent venues owners, and consumer advocates, get off with the most cursory slap on the wrist?”
President Donald Trump ran on claims that he would lower prices for consumers. But the Live Nation settlement is one of several maneuvers to gut antitrust enforcement that had been reinvigorated by the Biden administration.
In a move of questionable legality, Trump removed two Democratic appointees to the Federal Trade Commission and he forced out the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
Among other actions, the newly Republican FTC last year dropped a lawsuit that accused the country’s largest grocer and food supplier of colluding to drive out competition while driving up prices.
The sudden settlement of the Live Nation suit enraged interested parties — and the federal judge who was presiding over the trial.
“It shows absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and this entire process,” U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said, according to the New York Times. “It is absolutely unacceptable.”
Critics pointed out that the $280 million settlement amounted to just four days’ worth of Live Nation’s 2025 revenue. And they said that requiring Ticketmaster to host other vendors could make scalping even worse and drive ticket prices ever higher.
“Live Nation has long been the poster child for monopoly power in the live entertainment industry,” John Breyault of the National Consumers League said in a written statement. “Through its ownership of Ticketmaster and its dominance in concert promotion and venue management, the company has amassed extraordinary control over the live music ecosystem. This has left fans, artists, and independent venues with nowhere else to turn.”
Disappointment over the settlement was shared by 34 state attorneys general, including Ohio’s Yost, Politico reported.
The Ohio attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did Yost appear to issue any public statement about it. But others did.
“For years, Live Nation has made enormous profits by exploiting its illegal monopoly and raising costs for shows,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a written statement. “My office has led a bipartisan group of attorneys general in suing Live Nation for taking advantage of fans, venues, and artists, and we are committed to holding Live Nation accountable.”
She added, “The settlement recently announced with the U.S. Department of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers. We cannot agree to it.”
In a related matter, Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill aimed at curbing the conduct of Ticketmaster and other sellers who are accused of acting as middlemen artificially inflating prices.
Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.