Monopolies, scalpers, and the future of online ticket sales

Two years after a Taylor Swift ticketing debacle riled up fans and policymakers across the country, Ticketmaster is still fighting a multipronged battle against efforts to break it up and change the rules of the industry in ways resellers are vying for — in what’s become a multimillion-dollar and nationwide struggle over the future of online ticketing.

Live Nation Entertainment — a live events behemoth that operates Ticketmaster, owns hundreds of event venues, and manages and promotes major artists through numerous subsidiaries — has long been accused of running a monopoly. But it caught renewed attention from legislators and policymakers in late 2022, when its Ticketmaster platform crashed amid “unprecedented demand” for Swift’s Eras Tour. The disaster sparked widespread public anger around a simple question: why does buying tickets to an event these days feel so bad?

To many, the obvious answer is Ticketmaster’s lack of competition. The New York Times reported that the DOJ had already started investigating Live Nation for potential antitrust violations, culminating in a May 2024 antitrust lawsuit filed by the DOJ and 30 state and district attorneys general. Live Nation railed against the Biden administration, blaming the lawsuit on “intense political pressure” and “a long-term lobbying campaign from rivals.” And in 2025, a new DOJ antitrust chief will take over the case. But amid uncertainty in Washington, a review of lobbying disclosures shows it’s spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in many states across the country, fighting legislation that could limit its power.

From Ticketmaster’s perspective, that’s not a battle to protect a monopoly; it’s a fight against what it dubs the real big problem with ticketing: resellers that jack up prices. In its telling, that includes rivals like StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats — who, in some cases, are spending even more to make their own case.

In the past two years, more than half of all US states have considered legislation concerning event ticket sales, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The bills are meant to improve the often frustrating and expensive process of buying a ticket, but their targets vary. Some amount to a crackdown on Ticketmaster. Others, supported by Live Nation, are pitched as fighting issues like ticket scalping — as consumer groups, as well as online resellers, say they could make Ticketmaster even bigger.

The DOJ’s lawsuit accuses Live Nation — whose business spans nearly every part of the live events market — of crushing alternatives to its services. The government claims that Live Nation has exploited its cozy relationship with would-be competitor and live event venue manager Oak View Group, which has “avoided bidding against Live Nation for artist talent.” Live Nation has also allegedly retaliated against venues that choose to work with its rivals. The company has denied it wields monopoly power because its “overall net profit margin is at the low end of profitable S&P 500 companies.”

While some state bills appear to target Ticketmaster directly by seeking to ban exclusive deals with event venues, others focus on transparency of fees and increasing ease of resale, expanding beyond the focus of the DOJ case.

Reselling tickets, so far, has been a particular flashpoint. Some Ticketmaster tickets can be transferred and resold, either through a Ticketmaster system or a third-party site like StubHub. But artists (like Pearl Jam on its 2023 US tour) can also choose to make those tickets nontransferable. The stated goal is to prevent ticket scalping. But some critics, including resellers, point out that Live Nation manages huge numbers of major artists itself. They argue this muddles whose interests are at play, and that the results make ticket purchases that prohibit resale riskier for consumers — who have no option but to lose their money if they have to miss a show. Various ticketing bills fall on different sides of this argument: some would create more expansive reselling opportunities, while others attempt to lock the process down.

Live Nation argues blanket resale mandates take control away from artists and incentivize scalping, while resale players argue that enshrining resale rights gives audiences more choice. Without laws giving consumers rights to resell their tickets, StubHub global head of government relations Laura Dooley says, their only options are “dictated” by the original seller — typically Ticketmaster. “It’s hard to imagine another product or purchase that you might make as a consumer where you didn’t control how you used that product down the line.” StubHub’s seller policies prohibit practices used by scalpers and other bad actors. “What we don’t need to do is limit the choice of consumers in the marketplace,” Dooley says.

Dan Wall, executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Live Nation, argues resale-related bills are “distinct and separate” from the DOJ allegations. He says rival companies have managed to “cloud the conversation” by linking them, implying that “anything that we would be for must not be a good thing because we’re not good people.”

While Ticketmaster’s critics point to its alleged monopoly as a culprit for hiked-up ticket prices and occasionally chaotic buying experiences, Wall places blame on “big resale sites” like StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats — which he accuses of seeking laws that “fundamentally protect ticket scalping.”

For its part, Live Nation has thrown its weight behind legislation that cracks down on speculative ticketing, as well as other practices it believes incentivize bot buyers and people looking to flip tickets for a profit.

Resale industry players, however, say Live Nation’s dominance across everything from venue ownership to artist management is highly pertinent to these laws. “It’s all interconnected,” says Dooley. “It’s hard to distinguish one [issue] from the other in the context of the monopoly that Live Nation has created, from artist manager, to promoter, to venue, to exclusive ticketing partner with a specific venue — to then trying to enshrine the fact that they are the only ticketing retail partner that’s available to consumers.”

SeatGeek cofounder and CEO Jack Groetzinger shared a similar view in a statement to The Verge. “Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s claims are an attempt to shift focus away from the real issue: the lack of competition in ticketing and their flagrantly illegal, monopolistic behavior,” he says. “Limiting where fans can sell and transfer their tickets only makes live entertainment worse for fans—forcing them to choose between unsafe marketplaces that lack consumer protections or staying within Ticketmaster’s monopoly.”

In Massachusetts, where several bills sought to regulate ticket transfer and resale, both sides paid generously to get their arguments heard. Live Nation spent $120,000 in 2023 and 2024 lobbying the state legislature; over the same period, StubHub, Vivid Seats, and SeatGeek spent a combined $350,000.

One Massachusetts bill sought to require that paperless ticketing systems offer transferable tickets for no added price. Brian Hess, executive director of the Sports Fans Coalition, which receives funding from StubHub, wrote last year that the bill “would greatly benefit consumers.” Then, the bill was amended — with an update that allowed nontransferable sales as long as sellers informed buyers about the restriction. Hess, alongside consumer groups and other organizations backed by ticket resale companies like StubHub, lambasted the new version — saying it would “not only solidify Live Nation’s market dominance” but also “run counter to” Massachusetts’ support for the DOJ antitrust suit.

In response, Wall told music outlet Stereogum that “broker advocates are masquerading as consumer watchdogs.”

The legislation ultimately passed in November 2024 as part of the Mass Leads Act — which Live Nation’s critics worry will concentrate more power in the company’s hands.

California has been another major battleground. As legislators sought different ways of regulating the ticketing market, Live Nation spent over $300,000 between 2023 and 2024, and StubHub spent roughly $1.4 million in the same period.

Two of these bills illustrate the starkly different options. The first is Assembly Bill 8, which demanded transparent ticket pricing in both primary and resale markets and sought to bar primary ticket sellers (like Ticketmaster) from restricting resale. It was supported by the Consumer Federation of California and California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), but opposed by Live Nation — which said it would “steer more tickets to secondary markets,” where resellers would get a cut at the expense of “the artists and venues putting on the show.”

Live Nation supported a different California bill, SB 785, which would conversely set tighter requirements for resellers. The bill’s supporters, which also included California sports teams, the National Football League, and SAG-AFTRA, said it would protect artists and consumers while driving down prices. Opponents, including StubHub and Vivid Seats, argued it would simply “enshrine the control that event presenters and original ticket sellers enjoy today.”

In many of these cases, artists and ticket platforms’ interests here are tightly intertwined, leading to charges of astroturfing. Some of SB 785’s supporters, for instance, represent artists but also have connections to Live Nation. California political news site Capitol Weekly found multiple board members at the musicians’ advocacy group Music Artists Coalition with such links, including former Ticketmaster CEO and Oak View Group cofounder Irving Azoff.

Another supporter, the Black Music Action Coalition, lists Azoff on its advisory board and his son and business partner, Jeff, as part of its executive leadership council. Wall says these groups don’t receive funding from Live Nation, while accusing rivals of propping up consumer groups like the Sports Fans Coalition, which oppose them. (StubHub’s Dooley says, “We’re very fortunate that the policies that we believe in are shared policies with the consumer community.”)

In any case, the two sides remain at a stalemate in California — because last session, neither bill passed into law. But like Massachusetts, other states have managed to pass new rules. Colorado and Minnesota, for example, each enacted laws requiring upfront price transparency and creating protections for consumers who buy from resellers. But the devil’s in the details — StubHub has called Colorado’s ticketing consumer protections the “gold standard,” while a reseller-backed group warned that aspects of Minnesota’s legislation could harm consumers by restricting resale.

Live Nation and its rivals have also lobbied in states including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, and Florida. All have sought to rewrite the rules of the online ticketing industry and, in many cases, pitted primary ticket sellers against resellers. Their attempts include proposals similar to California’s bills as well as a range of other provisions, from banning ticket-buying bots to limiting taxpayer-funded venues from signing exclusive agreements with ticket sellers. Meanwhile, federal lobbying continues — Live Nation spent more than $2 million in Congress last year, and StubHub $220,000.

The Ticketmaster antitrust case’s future looks uncertain. President Donald Trump as well as Vice President JD Vance have attacked big tech monopolies, and Gail Slater, who’s been nominated to lead the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, is a former Vance aide. At the same time, Slater did not say directly in her confirmation hearing which cases she’d seek to continue, noting that she’d need to evaluate resources once she’s confirmed to the role. The administration has aggressively downsized enforcement in other regulatory agencies, and the DOJ’s antitrust wing may prove no exception.

But consumers are still mad about the high price of tickets, whether scalpers or monopolies are to blame. For legislators, passing new rules over the online ticketing industry can be a popular way to win over constituents — but which rules they pass will shape the balance of power between industry players for years to come.