Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On Monday, Live Nation settled its antitrust case with the US Department of Justice after just one week at trial. The lawsuit, brought by the Biden administration’s Justice Department and 39 states and the District of Columbia, in 2024, had threatened to separate the entertainment giant from its Ticketmaster subsidiary for its alleged illegal monopoly spanning numerous subsets of the concert market, using a flywheel of connected promotion, management, venue operations and ticketing to exert pressure on artists, venues and competition. The proposed deal, which would require Live Nation to pay $280 million in damages and implement structural changes to its business model, has been met with vocal opposition from several state attorneys and public critics of the company.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is a longtime advocate for reform in the live entertainment industry, from her co-authoring of the 2020 “Save Our Stages” act to her leading Live Nation’s 2023 antitrust hearing after Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour ticketing uproar and her vocal support for the FTC’s ongoing BOTS Act lawsuit. On Monday, Klobuchar responded to news of the settlement with a statement outlining the deal’s weaknesses: “Given Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly dominance in ticketing, venues, and promotion, the only way to make live events truly affordable and competitive for fans, artists, and venues is to break up Live Nation,” she said.

“The Justice Department’s previous agreements with Live Nation failed because they did not change its incentives to enrich itself over fans, artists, and venues. Today’s settlement appears to be more of the same,” Klobuchar added. “It is also troubling that the Justice Department settled this case less than a month after ousting the head of the Antitrust Division amidst warnings Live Nation was circumventing antitrust enforcers to cut a deal. These backroom dealings hurt consumers.”

In conversation with Variety, Klobuchar expanded on her comments, calling the settlement “weak” and characterizing the private, underhanded signing and announcement as an “absolute disrespect for the court and the jury — and, I would add, it’s absolutely disrespectful to fans.”

“If it looks like a monopoly and quacks like a monopoly, it is a monopoly, and that is Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” the Minnesota Democrat expressed. “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.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said yesterday that she and 26 other attorneys general objected to the Justice Department’s settlement terms, which she argued failed “to address the monopoly at the center of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers.” The state attorneys later filed a motion for mistrial, requesting a 60-day stay to prepare the case for continuing trial as they transition to the leading role previously held by Justice Department litigators. Judge Arun Subrumanian, who had called the delayed announcement of the term sheet signed on Thursday “entirely unacceptable,” clearly expressed that he expected the states to reach settlements this week or prepare to resume the trial on Monday.

On the possibility of states’ suits delivering better outcomes in the Live Nation antitrust case, Senator Klobuchar expressed, “We’ve seen state suits with the administration, of course, but also with companies, that have made a difference, especially when they’re sticking together.”