Dan Wall stood in a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday and said there’s “zero chance” the states will settle.
Judge Subramanian shot back: “Not with that attitude.”
(I like judges with the same dismissive attitude towards nonsense that I have.)
25 states are still fighting. They know this settlement is a bad deal. It doesn’t stop the systemic issues that made this case necessary.
So, it is a failure.
The DOJ and Live Nation seem to have thought they could ram this settlement down everyone’s throats.
The states are saying otherwise.
The settlement was trumpeted by the DOJ and Live Nation as a big deal. A real change for live entertainment.
What does it really do?
Let’s take a look.
No Ticketmaster breakup: The flywheel that drives the business remains.
Shorter exclusivity deals: A win for competition?
The flywheel remains. So venues renegotiate more often. Just more frequent reminders of who has power.
Amphitheater “divestitures”: These aren’t venues being sold. They are the end of a few exclusive booking agreements.
Without structural change, it is a show.
Fee caps of 15%…at amphitheaters: This feels like sleight of hand.
15% is a cap at amphitheaters.
It could easily be the floor everywhere else.
Now with government cover.
Open platform to competitors: SeatGeek, Eventbrite, and others can list tickets on Ticketmaster.
“Open Sourcing” of the system.
No one knows how this will work.
“Trust me, bro.”
$280 million fine: A small price to pay to keep the structure in place.
Four days of revenue.
As the price of business as usual, a bargain.
25 states and the District of Columbia ain’t buying it.
They know the case. They’ve worked on it. They know the evidence.
They aren’t buying this settlement.
A bipartisan group of states:
Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
Red states. Blue states. East coast. West coast. Across the nation.
Saying to Live Nation and the DOJ: “NO DEAL.”
Folks are speaking out:
North Carolina AG Jeff Jackson: “barely a slap on the wrist.”
New York AG Letitia James: “The settlement fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case.”
Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti: “Our resolve has not wavered.”
Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell: “Wholly inadequate.”
Seven states are okay with the settlement: Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota.
That’s it. That’s all.
Judge Subramanian ordered everyone into his robing room to negotiate. Made his space available. Told them to figure it out.
“Zero chance.”
The judge didn’t like that.
He has called Michael Rapino “a skilled negotiator.”
No deal? The trial resumes on March 16.
The states aren’t posturing. They are prepared to continue the case without the DOJ.
They’ve hired lawyers. Big time trial lawyers.
Requests to unseal documents have been made.
The states want the public to see what Live Nation wanted to hide.
They want the country to see that the DOJ folded. The states didn’t.
Look closely at what the settlement does.
Every provision that sounds like a concession is something else entirely.
The open platform.
SeatGeek, Eventbrite, and others can list tickets on Ticketmaster’s system.
“Open sourcing.”
A standalone ticketing technology that lets rivals sell through the same pipes.
Sounds good on the surface.
What does it really mean?
- How much do SeatGeek and others pay to list and sell?
- Who sets the service fees?
- Who holds the customer data?
- Can Ticketmaster prioritize its own tickets in search?
- What stops the rules from changing from month to month?
A lot of questions.
No clear answers.
To me, this doesn’t scream competition. It whispers dependency.
StubHub, SeatGeek, Eventbrite, and others get to exist. But they exist on Ticketmaster’s infrastructure. They play by Ticketmaster’s rules.
At the pleasure of Ticketmaster.
These companies have been trying to position themselves as alternatives.
They are about to become “inventory” on Ticketmaster’s servers.
The illusion of competition.
The settlement creates the illusion of competition.
More logos at checkout. Maybe a dropdown menu with options. A sense that something might have changed.
The truth is, the same system controls everything.
That’s not a competitive market.
That’s technofeudalism.
Ticketmaster is the landlord.
The landlord can change the terms.
You don’t have to look further than the secondary market platforms to see how quickly, “consumer-friendly” rules can change.
Fees appear. Inventory vanishes. The platform picks winners and losers.
Nothing in the settlement addresses that.
When there is a void, expect the worst.
Ampitheater “divestitures.”
These are just the termination of exclusive booking agreements.
No venues are being sold.
Live Nation can still own and operate the buildings.
They can’t be the only promoter in town.
One identified so far: Maine Savings Amphitheater in Bangor. The only New England venue on this list.
This isn’t competition.
Without structural change, this is meaningless.
The fee caps.
15% at amphitheaters.
Not arenas. Not stadiums. Not the places where the most revenue comes from.
A cap in one corner of the market becomes a floor everywhere else.
Have an issue with that?
“Take it up with the DOJ!”
The fine.
$280 million.
Four days of revenue.
To keep the flywheel spinning! A bargain at twice the price.
The through line.
Every provision that seems like a win is just a different tax.
Shorter deals = more frequent leverage.
Fee caps = regulatory ceiling becomes industry floor.
Open platform = competitors become tenants.
Divested amphitheaters = still own the building, but aren’t the exclusive bookers.
$280 million fine = paid permission to maintain business as usual.
This isn’t regulatory enforcement. This is just licensing a business and a business model.
The industry knows this.
SeatGeek called the settlement “surface-level consolations that have failed for the last 16 years.”
Stephen Parker at the National Independent Venue Association did the math: “$280 million is four days of their 2025 revenue. They could make it back by this Friday.”
Kenneth Dintzer, the former DOJ attorney who tried the Google antitrust case: “There isn’t an element in here that would seem to directly address [the monopoly].”
Ahmed Nimale, a former Live Nation executive now at TIX: The deal “is not enough to curb dominance.”
Kelly Morgan, a concertgoer who lived through the 2013 settlement, had the best summation of this when she talked about the vouchers we all received.
Those vouchers were “impossible to use.”
There’s a history of settlements between Live Nation and the federal government that sound great…in theory.
The real story.
The settlement won’t fix the monopoly.
It makes other players weaker.
Competitors become tenants.
Venues renegotiate from a weaker position.
Fans pay fees that are government approved.
The DOJ folded. The states didn’t.
The structure that made this case necessary?
Still there…largely untouched.
What now?
The judge wants a deal by Friday. If not, back to court on March 16 to discuss next steps.
Documents may be unsealed. The states are still fighting. The judge is watching.
But, the message to fans, artists, and venues is clear.
The Trump administration looked at the Live Nation case and said:
“We aren’t going to stop you. We will just go through the motions to make it look like we care.”
The fix was always in.
Artists are already adapting. Shirley Manson just talked about scaling back touring in the States. The numbers don’t work. The system is broken.
The only question: will the states finish what the DOJ abandoned?
Dave Wakeman writes Talking Tickets for leaders in live entertainment. Previously: The Met Opera’s Strategic Drift, Why Live Nation’s Stock Jumped 3.78%, and I TOLD YOU SO: StubHub’s Earnings and Stock Crash.
Hit reply. Tell me what you’re seeing in your market. That’s where the real story lives.
P.S. What in the world is going on?