While Swifties have gotten most of the credit for shining a light on all the ways Live Nation and Ticketmaster have corrupted the touring industry, one group already had a great deal of bad blood with the monopoly. Investigators in the DOJ's antitrust division have been working to bring down the two-pronged behemoth for years, launching a potentially paradigm-shifting suit this past May after an 18-month investigation into the company's stranglehold on the market.
A lengthy new report from Rolling Stone gives us our closest look at what's been going on with the legislation behind closed doors since a bunch of senators spoke about it almost exclusively in Taylor Swift lyrics last year. The gist of the report is that lawyers and investigators like Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general heading up the operation, have had their eyes on Live Nation-Ticketmaster for years. They insist that the Eras Tour did not play a role in their decision to move to break up the monopoly; instead, it was "a steady stream of concerns coming from both industry and consumers" about the conglomerate. "If you had seen what we’d already seen at that point, [the Eras Tour] did not strike me as any notable event in our investigation," said principal deputy assistant attorney general Doha Mekki. "Ticketmaster had its explanation for what happened. Obviously, there are times where demand outstrips supply. That’s just the way the market works. Our claim was about something different; [it was] about abuse, exploitation, and self-dealing."
The DOJ—many of whose members believe that the merger should never have been allowed in the first place—paint the monopoly to RS as a "mob-like organization." They're accusing the company of offering artists huge contracts no other vendor can compete with (which fans then partially supplement through exorbitant ticket prices), securing exclusivity deals with venues, and repeatedly violating a "consent decree," which was supposed to safeguard venues from Live Nation retaliating and withholding or revoking access to major artists if those venues opted to use a different ticket vendor like AEG or SeatGeek.
"When I came in [as assistant attorney general], I asked [staff] about it, and the response I got was a very strong degree of concern that had accumulated over the course of many years," Kanter said of launching the suit. "It was pushing on an open door."
The only real solution, he goes on to imply, is a total breakup of the monopoly. "We were very clear in our lawsuit and in our statement around our lawsuit about what we think the proper remedy is," he said. "We are not that direct in all of our cases."
You can read the full deep dive over at Rolling Stone.
