States — including Ohio — win monopoly suit against Live Nation, Ticketmaster
A New York jury on Wednesday sided with 34 state attorneys general, including Ohio’s Dave Yost, ruling that entertainment giant Live Nation abused fans and artists by engaging in monopolistic practices.
The win comes after the Trump Justice Department and six states quit the case a week into the trial. It agreed to a settlement that critics said was a giveaway to Live Nation.
Despite the settlement, 34 state attorneys general fought on.
The jury presiding over the case in a federal court in Manhattan deliberated for four days before finding for the plaintiffs.
The Biden Justice Department in 2024 sued Live Nation Entertainment under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Live Nation is the largest concert promoter and artist manager in the United States. It’s the largest entertainment venue owner in the world. And it owns Ticketmaster, the world’s largest primary ticket seller, long known for its high “convenience” charges.
The lawsuit against the company said Live Nation was using its dominance in various parts of the marketplace to exercise “its power through a coordinated pattern of anticompetitive conduct that serves a variety of ends: expanding its scope and reach into every crevice of an increasingly more complex and interconnected ecosystem, eliminating rivals, continuing to increase barriers to entry, and inhibiting competition on the merits,” the lawsuit said. “Each act is exclusionary on its own. But the acts also work together across the ecosystem, enhanced by the flywheel and scale effects, to magnify the anticompetitive force of the scheme.”
A week into the federal trial, the Trump Justice Department settled the case in a way that U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian said “shows absolute disrespect for the court, the jury and this entire process.”
The terms of the settlement similarly enraged 34 state attorneys general and consumer advocates. They said it required the company to pay out only a few days worth of revenue and required Ticketmaster to give resellers access to its platform — something they said would make scalping worse.
Subramanian will now determine remedies in a separate proceeding. They may include breaking up the company.
Yost’s office didn’t respond when asked to comment on the Trump Justice Department’s decision to settle the case. But on Wednesday, he took to X to laud the verdict.
“BREAKING: a jury has found LiveNation/Ticketmaster GUILTY of violating antitrust laws, all counts,” he said. “Ohio was one of the states that brought the suit and the verdict includes a finding of liability under Ohio law as well as federal law. Massive win for competitive markets!”
Ron Knox is a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, an antitrust advocacy group. He also praised the ruling.
“Today’s verdict is a victory for every music fan who has ever stared in disbelief at a checkout screen full of fees, every independent venue that has been forced to play by Live Nation’s rules, and every artist who has had no real choice but to do business on Live Nation’s terms,” he said in a written statement.
Knox also called out the controversial 2010 decision to allow Live Nation and Ticketmaster to merge in the first place.
“In the nearly two decades since Live Nation was wrongly allowed to buy Ticketmaster, the combined company has used its unquestioned power in the live music industry to rip off concertgoers and bully artists, promoters, and independent venues,” he said. “The evidence state enforcers revealed during trial overwhelmingly demonstrated the harm this monopoly inflicted, and the hubris with which Live Nation inflicted it. The jury’s verdict confirmed that Live Nation’s monopoly, and the predatory tactics it used to preserve and grow it, broke the law.”