Senators from both sides of the aisle are reportedly urging the DOJ to zero in on the recently announced deal between Live Nation and Fanatics. Photo Credit: Bernini123
Besides fending off a Justice Department lawsuit — and regulatory obstacles across the pond — Live Nation is now grappling with a new round of bipartisan antitrust scrutiny.
That scrutiny pertains to the sports side of the Ticketmaster parent’s operations, but is certainly important from the perspective of Live Nation’s broader antitrust woes as well.
According to Sportico, the fresh pushback arrived in the form of a letter penned by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee. Though on opposite sides of the aisle, the senators have long been critical of Live Nation; this isn’t even the first time the lawmakers jointly called out the promoter.
For a bit of quick background, Ticketmaster and the self-described “global digital sports platform” Fanatics unveiled a ticketing tie-up early last month. The companies have been partnered for a while, but the March agreement brought the official rollout of a standalone “Fanatics Ticket Marketplace.”
(In detailing the “two-way” tie-up, Sportico outlined a means of selling Ticketmaster passes via the Fanatics app, with the merch business then listing its own products on Ticketmaster.)
As reportedly described by the senators (who wrote to assistant AG Abigail Slater, the DOJ’s antitrust division head), however, the bolstered Live Nation-Fanatics union is the latest example of “‘anticompetitive behavior’” from the former entity.
Fanatics higher-ups, instead of opting to “‘innovate, disrupt and compete themselves as they have in numerous other sports-related markets,’” united “‘with an online ticketing monopolist,’” the senators reportedly said.
Driving home their point, the lawmakers asked the DOJ to identify and pursue remedies for possible antitrust-law violations. Here, those potential violations refer to the alleged use of Live Nation’s “‘monopoly power to prevent Fanatics from entering the online ticketing market, depriving consumers of the benefits of competition,’” per the mentioned report.
Unsurprisingly, a Ticketmaster representative refuted the letter’s claims in a statement shared with DMN.
“The agreement simply provides that Ticketmaster can sell secondary tickets to sporting events on Fanatics websites and mobile apps, giving fans additional ticket-buying opportunities,” this rep told us. “The secondary ticketing market is extremely competitive. Ticketmaster competes with StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats and numerous others and is in no way the leading secondary ticket seller, as the Senators’ letter suggests.”
Especially because the U.S. government’s initially mentioned Live Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case remains active, it’ll be interesting to see whether the DOJ feels the same way. In any event, the bipartisan criticism appears to underscore the legislative mood when it comes to competition concerns.
Said mood could set the stage for the passage of not just the reintroduced TICKET Act (which Live Nation actually supports), but different ticketing-competition and -resale legislation yet.
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