The DOJ has been contacting venues and “ticket market players” in recent months to ask about the company’s practices, the agency said. NYT, meaning the probe predates this week’s debacle. DOJ spokesman Arlen Morales declined to comment.
Live Nation has responded to antitrust issues in a post on its website and states that its practices are not anti-competitive. “The Justice Department itself recognized the competitive nature of the concert promotion business at the time of the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster,” the post reads. “That dynamic has not changed.”
Many government officials also have Live Nation and Ticketmaster in their sights. The attorneys general of North Carolina and Tennessee are each to research Ticketmaster. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, wrote a letter to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino (pdf) on Wednesday expressing “serious concerns” about competition in the ticketing industry. And Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted Tuesday that “Ticketmaster is a monopoly” and called for it and Live Nation to be split up.
Update, Nov 19 11:58 ET: Updated to add a comment from Ticketmaster on its website.
