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No sooner had Live Nation/Ticketmaster secured a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in their antitrust trial than music industry organizations spoke out on the matter, calling it a failure of the justice system. Meanwhile, a group of state attorneys general vowed to continue pursuing their own lawsuit against the live events and ticketing giant.
“Live Nation’s reported settlement amount—$280 million—is the equivalent of four days of their 2025 revenue, which means they could potentially make it back by this Friday,” said Stephen Parker, Executive Director of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), in a statement to Digital Music News.
"The reported settlement does not appear to include any specific and explicit protections for fans, artists, or independent venues and festivals. Reported details also indicate that ticket resale platforms could be further empowered through new requirements for Ticketmaster to host their listings, which would likely exacerbate the price gouging potential for predatory resellers and the platforms that serve them,” Parker continued. “If these facts are true, NIVA views this as a failure of the justice system.”
The Ticket Policy Forum, a coalition of the country’s leading ticket marketplaces and competitors to Ticketmaster, also issued a statement in response to the news.
“While we await the details of the settlement agreement, it seems the DOJ has capitulated and the behemoth Live Nation has secured a token tap on the wrist. After a strong first week at trial, it appears the DOJ has once against failed to protect live event fans and market competition with a settlement that will equate to less than a speed bump for the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly,” said Brian Berry, Executive Director of the Ticket Policy Forum.
“Live Nation reported $25 billion in revenue and $500 million in profit last year, making the fines alone in the reported settlement extremely weak. We hope the details of the settlement prove otherwise, but if reporting is true, the only winners are Live Nation shareholders and the company’s lobbyists.”
“The evidence presented during the first week of the trial showed that Live Nation doesn’t win on technology or service, but rather through fear, costing fans and competitors untold millions each year,” Berry continued.
“Thankfully, the opportunity to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly is not over. We are confident many state attorneys general will stay the course to hold this market manipulator accountable. Fans, artists, venues, promoters, and competing ticketing companies deserve a fair and competitive ticketing market, and what we have heard so far about the settlement will not deliver.”
To that end, the National Consumers League (NCL) echoed much of those concerns in their own statement.
“Live Nation has long been the poster child for monopoly power in the live entertainment industry. 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,” said John Breyault, National Consumers League Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud.
“Equally troubling are reports that Live Nation hired Trump-connected lobbyists while the case was pending and that senior antitrust officials, including antitrust chief Gail Slater, were pushed out of the DOJ during the litigation. That sequence of events raises fundamental questions about whether the outcome of this case was driven by the public interest or by political influence.”
“When a company accused of monopoly hires well-connected lobbyists, and suddenly the government’s case collapses into a modest fine, consumers have every right to ask whether justice was truly served.”
“The fight, however, is not over. The states that joined this case did so because they recognize the harm that Live Nation’s conduct has inflicted on fans, artists, and independent venues,” Breyault concluded. “If the federal government is unwilling to finish the job, state attorneys general must step up and hold Live Nation accountable for years of anti-competitive and anti-consumer conduct.”
“Congress should lead an investigation into corruption at the Department of Justice, and the states must continue litigating this case until there’s a breakup,” said Lee Hepner, Sr. Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “The reported settlement would be a travesty for the fans, artists, and independent promoters and venues who have risked their livelihoods to build this case and waited years for trial to proceed. Anything short of a breakup is a betrayal.”
“It is highly unorthodox for the Justice Department’s lead litigator to be left out of the loop on the settlement and highly prejudicial to the jury’s deliberations,” Hepner added. “According to every observer, this trial was already going well for the Justice Department and states. They had just won summary judgment, and a jury had already heard evidence of Live Nation’s longstanding pattern of retaliation against venues who had attempted to open the market to competition. State AGs are once again left to clean up the mess left by this Administration’s incompetence.”
Even Judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over the case in the Southern District of New York, said the DOJ and Live Nation’s conduct in the matter “shows absolute disrespect for the court, for the jury, for this entire process.”
Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James said the Justice Department’s deal “fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case,” and that she would not agree to it.
“My attorney general colleagues and I have a strong case against Live Nation, and we will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry,” said James.
She added that New York state was joined in its decision to continue pursuing claims by attorneys general in the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.
Adam Gitlin, an attorney for the District of Columbia, told Judge Subramanian that several states had not decided what they would do. These include Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, though he said Texas had expressed “serious concerns” about the deal.
On Monday, Gitlin requested a mistrial, while Live Nation lawyer David Marriott opposed the request. Meanwhile, Judge Subramanian told the jury about the proposed deal and said that “certain states are proceeding” with their claims, and that the trial is expected to resume next week.
“Today’s settlement represents an important step toward accountability in an industry that has long lacked transparency and meaningful competition,” began a statement from Dustin Brighton, spokesperson for the Coalition for Ticket Fairness (CTF). “We commend the leadership of the U.S. Department of Justice for taking action and shining a light on practices that have frustrated fans, artists, and independent businesses for years,”
“At the same time, the underlying structure of the marketplace remains largely unchanged. When a single company continues to operate across venues, promotion, and ticketing, the conflict of interest remains,” Brighton continued.
“The live entertainment ecosystem is constantly evolving, and fans deserve a ticketing marketplace that evolves with it—one that prioritizes transparency, competition, and consumer choice. While this settlement begins that process, much more work remains to ensure a truly fair and open market.”
“We encourage State Attorneys General to continue their oversight and enforcement efforts, and we look forward to working constructively with policymakers and regulators at every level to strengthen competition and restore trust in the ticketing marketplace,” the statement concluded. “CTF will continue advocating for a future where innovation is encouraged, independent businesses can compete, and fans have the freedom to buy, use, transfer, or resell the tickets they rightfully own.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has argued for years that Live Nation is a monopoly, called the settlement with the DOJ “weak.”
“If it looks like a monopoly and quacks like a monopoly, it is a monopoly, and that is Live Nation-Ticketmaster. They have more than 80% of the primary ticketing market for major concert venues; they own 40 of the top 50 amphitheaters; and they control 60% of promotion revenue at major concert venues—and of course, they have huge percentages of the pro sports and college sports games as well,” said Klobuchar.
“This settlement does little to lower costs or preserve independent venues, or protect fans. There are some good things in it, like exclusive contracts—that was a bill I introduced—being limited to four years. But without breaking them up, which has successfully worked in the case of AT&T, I just don’t think fans are going to get the deal out of this that they deserve.”
“Adding to the smell of the whole thing and how they got there, it starts with getting rid of [former assistant attorney general for the antitrust division] Gail Slater, right before this happened,” Klobuchar continued. “Then you go into how they did this—where they reached an agreement and didn’t even tell their own lawyers. As Judge Arun said today, the Justice Department showed absolute disrespect for the court and the jury—and, I would add, it’s absolutely disrespectful to fans.”