Live Nation-Ticketmaster already controls 80 percent of the live events market. It has been sued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and more than 40 state attorneys general, which have accused it of raising ticket prices, imposing punitive fees on fans, and threatening venues to prevent them from working with competitors. The case against Ticketmaster is clear: it is a cartel using its size to punish rivals and squeeze fans.
That’s why Sept. 27 matters. The Trump administration has set that date to unveil a blueprint to rein in “exploitative ticket scalping” and “egregious fees.” It’s a chance to break up a system that has gouged ordinary Americans for decades.
However, instead of bracing for reform, Ticketmaster is lobbying Washington to twist this effort into a government protection racket for itself. This is one of the biggest, dirtiest, money-in-politics stories of the year and yet it has gone completely under the radar.
Trump’s Executive Order
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump directed his administration to clean up the messy live event industry so that fans stop getting priced out of concerts and ballgames.
In announcing this new priority, Trump made clear that while “America’s live concert and entertainment industry has a total nationwide economic impact of $132.6 billion and supports 913,000 jobs,” it’s been exploited by bots and unscrupulous corporate business practices that leave fans paying the price.
He put his best minds at the DOJ, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Department of Treasury to the task of making the industry less exploitative of fans and families, with a Sept. 27 deadline put in place for a first draft of their plan.
Ticketmaster’s The Problem
Beyond the DOJ and 40 states’ antitrust suit, Ticketmaster has been accused of looking the other way while scalpers use bots to snap up highly sought-after tickets and resell them at a huge markup — on Ticketmaster’s own resale platform, of course, from which the company also takes a generous cut. In other words, customers get fleeced coming and going.
An August FTC complaint against a massive ticket-scalping ring included an email from a defendant admitting to Ticketmaster that he had purchased more tickets than permitted for a 2024 Bad Bunny concert. He even offered to cancel the orders. Ticketmaster responded that “as long as the purchases were made using different accounts and cards, it’s within the guidelines.” In other words, scam approved.
Ticketmaster’s ‘Reform’ Proposal
Given this track record, most would agree that this is not exactly a company that can be trusted to fix anything. Nevertheless, Live Nation-Ticketmaster is still trying to spin the president’s call for live event marketplace reform around in a way that will help its business interests instead of stopping its predatory practices.
The monopoly’s grand idea to fix the live entertainment ticketing industry is to impose price controls on resale tickets. That’s a terrible, backwards plan. Sometimes, price caps can be used to fight rigged systems, like stopping Big Pharma price-gouging, but this isn’t one of those cases. This is the Ticketmaster monopoly writing its own corporate welfare-style regulation so it can wipe out the smaller players who dare compete with it.
If these price controls go into effect, independent resale competitors will be driven out of business very quickly. Ticketmaster would be left as the only game in town, free to jack up its own fees even higher, lock down artists and venues, and cement total control over the live events market.
In short, Ticketmaster would be using the language of “reform” to create the very monopoly the Trump administration is trying to break.
It’s a classic case of crony capitalism. When you’re the biggest player, you ask the government to regulate in ways that protect your dominance. It’s like a toddler caught with his hand in the cookie jar suggesting “cookies for dinner” as his punishment, turning wrongdoing into reward.
Where Should Trump Go from Here?
If Ticketmaster gets its way, the ticket industry will be locked down for decades. Fans will keep paying higher prices, smaller competitors will be wiped out, and — worst of all — Washington will have been duped into doing the monopolist’s dirty work.
Trump’s executive order was about protecting fans from exploitation, not protecting Ticketmaster’s monopoly. Conservatives should make sure this distinction is clear. Otherwise, the Sept. 27 blueprint risks becoming a bailout for the very company it was meant to hold accountable.
True reform would require strict measures to block the scalping bots that inflate event prices (and which Ticketmaster profits from), while enforcing purchase limits and stopping Ticketmaster from enabling or profiting from these predatory practices. Only then can the live event market become fair for fans, venues, and independent competitors alike.