Nobody Likes The Ticketmaster Monopoly
It has become increasingly hard in our politically divided country to find any one single issue that pretty much everybody agrees with. The Biden administration just found one, though -- one that will resonate with football fans, hockey fans, basketball fans, country and western fans, rap fans, blues fans, rock-n-roll fans, and fans of almost every other type of music, sports, or pretty much any large performance of any type. And that's even before you add in the considerable power of the Taylor Swift fans. All of the people who enjoy all of these performances and sporting events have one thing in common no matter what their politics may be -- because nobody likes getting forcibly and brutally ripped off for ticket prices. Nobody. So the news today that the Biden administration and 30 individual states have filed suit against Ticketmaster/Live Nation for being a monopoly will be hailed as good news by pretty much everybody who doesn't directly earn their paycheck from the conglomerate.
Two days ago, President Biden's former "special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy" (described as being an "architect" of Biden's antitrust agenda) spoke out about the issue, in rather strong terms:
If or when the Justice Department of the United States files suit against Ticketmaster/Live Nation, that will be a happy day for the republic. I just want to point out if you ask a person in the street, they may have whatever feelings about Google or Apple, but nobody, nobody likes the Ticketmaster monopoly. And I think there's something to that. I think that we have to be showing we're taking people's concerns seriously. It's just like sitting in front of everybody's faces that Ticketmaster/Live Nation is this untouched monopoly.
. . .
Going back in history again, Theodore Roosevelt started antitrust, and he was like, "We have to break up Standard Oil. Like, what is this? If this law was written for something, it was written for the Standard Oil monopoly." And in our times, if this movement means something, it's going to be taking on Ticketmaster, which is the monopoly of our time that everybody hates. Now, I don't want to prejudge the case, but I guess I just did. But I do think it's important that popular will says something.
He's right. Nobody likes Ticketmaster. For good reason. Buying a ticket to a concert or football game used to be somewhat of a hassle, but at least a somewhat manageable one. Nowadays it is a free-for-all of corporate greed run amok that is absolutely excruciating for the consumer to navigate, only to wind up paying what can only be described as skyrocketing prices and skyrocketing hidden fees. The price of an afternoon or evening's entertainment is simply staggering, these days. And again, this was all true before the Taylor Swift "Eras Tour" fiasco, which brought down the wrath of the Swifties upon Ticketmaster in a way nothing else could.
It's not just the universal hatred of the paying public. Ticketmaster/Live Nation is just too big and too dominant. It should be broken up. The merger between the two never should have been allowed to happen, in fact. It made what was already a nightmarish experience even more horrifying for consumers. Which is a pretty good definition of "monopolistic behavior," in fact.
This is going to be a big fight, and it will not be resolved quickly. In fact, it will likely continue until the next presidential term. Monopolies don't go gently into that good night (as it were), and Ticketmaster/Live Nation is going to fight back with everything it can bring to bear -- a huge legal team, an army of lobbyists, proposed bills in Congress, and perhaps even a big public relations campaign to attempt the impossible (getting people to feel better about its predatory business model). Even if they lose their case, they will doubtlessly attempt to appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court (which is, to put it mildly, rather friendly to corporations in general these days).
But it is a fight worth having. This is one of those political issues that everyone will be cheering for. Biden has been the most antitrust president in a very long time, and this will only bolster his reputation in that regard. A lot of people in politics tend to scoff at many of the things Biden has done to directly affect people's lives, but they live in a different reality than most of us. For most people, anything the government does either doesn't affect them much or does so at such a remove that they barely notice it -- or even when they do, they have no idea which political party effected the change. Tax cuts are a good example of this, since whether it is Republicans reducing rates or Democrats boosting the Child Tax Credit, by the time most people do their income taxes they aren't even aware of the differences (most people focus on the bottom line but pay almost no attention to all the other numbers on the tax forms), much less which political party changed things.
There are all kinds of other examples of this. Some gigantic sweeping multibillion-dollar bill passes and by the time anything changes in the average person's life (like a local bridge being rebuilt, for instance), they simply do not connect the change with anything any politician did. Which is why I've always been a big fan -- ever since I first started writing about politics, in fact -- of Democrats championing causes that directly affect people for the better.
Biden, much to my surprise, has done this in all kinds of ways. Or at the very least, he has attempted to do so. Forgiving student loan debt, forcing the airlines to compensate passengers when flights are cancelled or massively delayed, getting bank fees down, attacking all kinds of industry "junk fees" -- there's a long list of policies Biden has instituted which will save average people money and time and hassle. I do wish he would do a better job linking himself to all these good changes, but that's a complaint I have about most Democrats (sadly enough).
Taking on Ticketmaster is a big one, though. If Biden can win this court battle and force the breakup of the monopoly, it will not only be a big antitrust win for him it will also force the entire industry into a much more competitive model -- which should bring prices down for concert-goers and sports fans everywhere. Tens of millions of them, in fact, of all political stripes.
This all came to a head with the absolute fiasco over Taylor Swift tickets, of course. The Swifties are so numerous that they are a political force all on their own. They lit a fire under both Congress and the White House with their vociferous complaints at the injustice of it all. And they were right. They weren't the first group of fans to become enraged at Ticketmaster, but they certainly were the largest group of fans to ever do so.
For whatever the reason though, this is a good political fight to have. Because, as Biden's former antitrust policy architect pointed out, it's not just the Swifties. Nobody likes the Ticketmaster monopoly. It's time to break them up and get them to change their ways for good.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
I am all for fair concert ticket prices and artists being properly compensated for the live product they provide. So, I'll be following this pretty closely.
But, lately, I've been preoccupied with a whole other situation when it comes to live performances and the exorbitant ticket prices.
Case in point: the Eagles
I recently learned something very disturbing about at least two fairly recent Eagles concerts. It was demonstrated that Don Henley was not actually singing Desperado. He was miming to pre-recorded vocals. And, this wasn't the worst part of it. Not only was he miming to a pre-recorded vocal but that pre-recorded vocal was pitch-corrected! In other words, the concertgoers in attendance were not getting the live performance that they paid for. Was it just this song that was being mimed to or were there other songs not actually being sung in those two performances?
The sad thing is that we don't even know anymore what a "live" performance is. When I saw the Eagles a couple years ago in Toronto I assumed all of the songs were actually being sung live and definitely unedited by pitch correction. Now, I'm not so sure. Our tickets were purchased through Ticketmaster and were a little over $100, the average ticket price. Some tickets went for as much as a couple thousand dollars, I believe.
It is one thing if you are getting an actual live performance - it is quite another thing if you are paying big money and the 'live' part of the performance means only that the musicians and singers are actually present on stage and nothing more!
Here is the analysis video by Fil Henley of Wings of Pegasus that reveals what Don Henley was trying to get away with during at least two recent 'live' performances, one from 2023 and one from earlier this year.
I hope this is only the first of a series.
nypoet22,
Sorry, I was offline for a few days. I had stated:
Let’s be honest, Israel has never seriously considered a two state solution.
You responded:
this is demonstrably false, and needlessly lumps in the entirety of the Israeli political spectrum with their right wingiest right wing. at the moment most of the Israeli public has lost hope of it occurring in the near future, but for the most part it's what a majority of voting Israelis would like to have happen, if and when conditions permit.
I should have been more specific and said, “The government and those running the government of Israel have never been serious about a two-state solution.”
Sure, the vast majority of Israeli citizens may have been supportive or at the very least open to the idea of a two-state solution, but those in charge have not. How can I be so sure? Its been over 50 years
Crap! Hit “Submit Comment” when typing on this dang mini keyboard!
Are you telling me that in all this time, no one could have figured out how to create a separate Palestinian nation? It won't be perfect and it won't make everyone happy, but there are an infinite number of solutions that could work if they were allowed to be tried. We won't know for sure until someone actually tries. It is like the ending of apartheid in South Africa and why the US doesn't have single-payer healthcare: no changes occur until those in charge are forced to act on behalf of the people! Change requires action. Those in power profit too much by keeping the conflict going and can keep the public masses pacified with their excuses for why change is impossible. Israel’s conflict with its Arab neighbors has meant hundreds of billions of dollars in aid being pumped into their economy over the decades. Conflict keeps the public distracted and allows those in charge to keep the focus off of corruption taking place. Until the people demand change and force the change to occur, change isn't going to occur. Well, at least until those in power figure out a way to make the change more profitable than the norm.
I know this is an oversimplification, but when discussing such a complex issue it is often the best way to keep focused on the final goal. Lots of very intelligent people have proposed solutions, but those solutions have been dismissed for not fixing everything that both sides demand. No solution will EVER FIX EVERYTHING! But demanding that it does is the perfect way to maintain the status quo.
Citizens United has made taking down monopolies virtually impossible. As long as elected officials can be bought with dark money and it be considered completely legal, we won’t have any real change. Ticketmaster’s glut and greed make it the perfect sacrifice for those in power to offer up as proof that they are fighting for us.
Russ,
It won't be perfect and it won't make everyone happy, but there are an infinite number of solutions that could work if they were allowed to be tried. We won't know for sure until someone actually tries.
Indeed! And, the same could be said of other geopolitical issues, if you know what I mean. Sadly, diplomacy has been a dying art for a long time and it may, I fear, be dead.
Another reason why we know that successive Israeli governments have not been serious about a Palestinian state is that, even in the 90s when there were a lot of negotiations taking place in an effort to reach the 'end goal' the land for a Palestinian state was never going to be a contiguous land mass - not even in the West Bank.
Israel has continued apace with the building of settlements throughout this period and is stepping that effort up now ... so, there is really no way for a Palestinian state to emerge. I certainly gave up hope for that a long time ago. But, recently, I have begun to wonder again, especially based on comments made since 10/7 by Ehud Barack essentially saying that there is still hope for a two-state solution - in fact, it may be the only hope for long-term security of Israel.
Of course, none of the above is to say that the PLO and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist entities do not share a huge amount of blame for the state of affairs today.
And, by state of affairs I mean in the specific context of reaching agreement on a two-state solution.
And, here's Kick ... five, four, three, two ... one! Heh.
@liz,
ugh, give it up, you're seriously and malignantly unfunny.
@russ,
how much do you actually know about the israeli-palestinian conflict? fifty years ago was the aftermath of the yom kippur war. in 1973 the Israeli government was EXTREMELY open to negotiating statehood for the Palestinian refugees, and remained so roughly until the millenium. the key term here is NEGOTIATING. The Israelis absolutely wanted to make a deal with the PLO and Syria, as they did with Egypt and Jordan. what you're saying about those in charge being unwilling to change the status quo because they continued to profit from it is true of the Arab side, but NOT the Israeli side.
~JL
—Abba Eban
ugh, give it up, you're seriously and malignantly unfunny.
Okay, now THAT hurt.