Live Nation Entertainment and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an antitrust trial this week that could possibly force a breakup of the entertainment behemoth, which owns ticketing juggernaut Ticketmaster.
The DOJ alleges that Live Nation has an illegal monopoly that harms competition.
“Today, the concert ticket industry is broken. In fact, the concert industry itself is broken,” attorney David Dahlquist told jurors in his opening statement on Tuesday. “It is controlled by a monopolist. It is controlled by Live Nation.”
Dahlquist pointed to the company’s infamously problem-plagued effort to sell Taylor Swift tickets for the singer’s Eras Tour in 2022. He implored the Manhattan federal jury to end the company’s hold on the market.
Hopefully the beginning of the end of such a scumtastic company.
The warnings were there with many people trying to prevent it happening, but it was ignored enough to become what we have today. Globally.