Amy Klobuchar on DOJ’s Live Nation and Ticketmaster Lawsuit: ‘Enough Is Enough’
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For years, Sen. Amy Klobuchar has sought to reform the concert industry. On Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s alleged monopoly on the U.S. touring industry, claiming that the businesses have been feeding on ticket buyers since merging in 2010. (Live Nation issued a lengthy statement denying charges that it is a monopoly, claiming the lawsuit “attempts to portray Live Nation and Ticketmaster as the cause of fan frustration with the live entertainment industry.”.)
In Jan. 2023, Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, held a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to investigate the companies after fans of Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and other artists accused them of unfair business practices. Her intention with the hearing, she says, was to build evidence for a lawsuit like this one. Speaking to Rolling Stone by phone on Thursday, Klobuchar says she sees the filing as a victory for consumers and a launching pad for further changes.
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“This is a major victory for concertgoers, for sports fans, for people who really want to see a change,” she says. “So I hope it will be resolved as soon as possible.”
What are your thoughts on the lawsuit?
The evidence is clear: It is time to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. I’ve long opposed this combo. I raised concerns, years and years ago, when it was allowed to go through. And since that time, there’s been this consent decree that keeps being violated.
So if the Justice Department would have just done something small-balled, I don’t think it would have fixed this problem. So I’m really glad they’re going with the remedy that we need to see, which is a breakup of these companies.
How do you see the issue?
You’ve got a three-headed monopoly: One is on ticketing, two is on event promotion, and three is owning venues, and all the monopoly behavior that you expect would occur in such a situation is happening here: threats, retaliation, fees going up, messed-up processes. And the numbers are just so chilling: [Live Nation and Ticketmaster handle close to] 90 percent of the ticketing for Billboard Top 40 tours, as well as professional sports events; 80 percent of the monopoly for large venues; and [they control] 70 percent of all ticketing. Then let’s move over to the promotion: [they handle] 60 percent of promotion for all major venues. Then you go to the fact that they own venues or, for the ones they don’t own, and they try to lock them in for seven-to-10-year contracts. And if they won’t lock in, then there’s always the threats [not to book events there], which the Justice Department has laid out.
When we did our hearing, I said that there were three reasons we did it: One was to collect evidence for the Department of Justice; two was to educate fans so they can advocate for themselves and for change; and three was to introduce legislation, which we have done with things like transparency and ticketing and pricing, automatic refunds when concerts are canceled, and making sure that we don’t see bots buying up tickets. The biggest goal was to get this lawsuit going and filed.
What do you hope the lawsuit kickstarts within the concert industry immediately?
That depends on Ticketmaster and Live Nation. With the conduct that’s been outlined, sometimes that makes companies change conduct so they don’t create even more evidence for an ongoing lawsuit [laughs]. It’s going to be on them if they’re going to settle this or fight it all the way to the Supreme Court. Competition among promoters is about giving artists choice.
With regard to competition, what roles should the government play in regulating the concert industry?
We’ve gotten our start with this [Fans First Act] bill that Senator [John] Cornyn [R-TX] and I put together, and you’re seeing a lot of states doing it. I always applaud those efforts because eventually [people will say], “Oh, maybe we need a federal law.” [Our law is] focused on fan protection. And there’s more you can do on ticket prices and the like, and that may be yet to come. But today is the day to focus on the cause of a lot of these problems, and that is a three-headed monopoly that knows no limits.
What do you hope that people get out of seeing the DOJ file this suit?
I’ve seen parents of high school or college kids saying, “We can’t afford [tickets]. We’re going to have to mortgage our house for our daughter to see Taylor Swift.” So I think there’s a lot of people that know something’s wrong here and they want to see it changed.
My hope is that the Ticketmaster example of consolidation — which is a lot easier to understand than, say, Google or Amazon, which are just as bad — will be a springboard for more action on antitrust. There were a lot of things that happened during Theodore Roosevelt’s time — there was the trains and the agricultural movement in the Midwest that really captured people’s imagination — but there were other monopolies as well that then went down.
You’ve just got to get a movement of people to say “Enough is enough” to change the law. And what better place to start than with [helping] Swifties?
Do you think most people understand what a monopoly is?
A lot of artists and venues are afraid to speak out on this because they don’t want to become the one that [Live Nation and Ticketmaster] punish. And this is beyond Ticketmaster … Tech companies have spent over $300 million in advertising taking my bill and me on. So it is not an easy task, and that’s why our country has set up this system of checks and balances, so if Congress is afraid to act because they’re afraid of all the money and the ads and everything else, the courts can step in. So this is a moment for the Justice Department.
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