{"id":10819,"date":"2026-05-29T18:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/will-live-nation-ticketmaster-get-broken-up-after-monopoly-verdict\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T18:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T18:07:13","slug":"will-live-nation-ticketmaster-get-broken-up-after-monopoly-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/will-live-nation-ticketmaster-get-broken-up-after-monopoly-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Live Nation & Ticketmaster Get Broken Up After Monopoly Verdict?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tBack in May 2024, when then-Attorney General Merrick Garland<\/strong> announced that the U.S. Department of Justice had filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, he didn\u2019t exactly mince words: \u201cIt is time to break it up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd now two years later, after a coalition of states decisively won that case, they\u2019re asking the judge for exactly what Garland promised: A court order forcing Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster. They say it\u2019s the only way to end the company\u2019s harmful monopoly over live music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tBut such a ruling would be extraordinary, in the truest sense of the word. Breakup orders (known as \u201cstructural remedies\u201d in antitrust law parlance) on the scale of Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been granted only a few times over the last century. Experts tell Billboard<\/em> they can be effective, but that judges view them as a drastic, last-ditch option.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s often been anxiety on the part of judges about restructuring industries,\u201d says William E. Kovacic<\/strong>, a law professor at George Washington University and a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. \u201cThe power is there. Judges have the capacity to put a bold structural remedy in place. But they\u2019re looking for assurances that it\u2019s going to do more good than harm.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA federal judge famously ordered John D. Rockefeller\u2019s Standard Oil be broken up into dozens of companies in 1911 \u2014\u00a0a landmark ruling of the trustbusting era that eventually spawned today\u2019s oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. Then in 1982, AT&T agreed to a settlement in a federal antitrust case that saw the massive national telephone monopoly broken up into \u201cBaby Bells\u201d across different regions of the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMicrosoft almost got broken up. After a judge ruled it had violated antitrust law by crushing competition for computer software, he ordered the tech giant split in two \u2014\u00a0with one firm to own Windows, the other owning apps like Word and Internet Explorer. But that ruling was overturned on appeal a year later, and Microsoft later signed a settlement that restricted its conduct instead of carving it up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCourts are wary of breakup orders for a few reasons. Federal district judges are single individuals, with the power to decide only specific disputes based on facts that are presented to them. They lack the broad investigative powers and administrative resources available to legislators and executive agencies to tackle complex policy problems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd breaking up a modern company is certainly complex. It\u2019s hard for a judge to figure out how to cleanly split up units that have long been intertwined, or divide intangible assets like shared data and intellectual property. It\u2019s harder yet for them to know with any kind of certainty that doing so will yield the pro-competitive economic effects that are the goal of antitrust law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThough a judge ruled in 2024 that Google had illegally monopolized the market for online search, he later flatly refused<\/a> demands to break the company up. In doing so, he offered a candid glimpse into how judges view such scenarios: \u201cThe court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future. Not exactly a judge\u2019s forte.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMore common than breakups are \u201cbehavioral remedies,\u201d which allow a monopolist to remain whole but require it to abide by rules aimed at restoring fair competition. In Live Nation\u2019s case, they would likely include restrictions on forcing venues to exclusively use Ticketmaster, and a ban on retaliating against those that use rival ticketing services, as well as compliance and monitoring provisions.<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch restrictions are seen as a far less severe option than permanently splitting a company in half, and legal precedents say judges should only consider breakups if those more measured injunctions won\u2019t restore competition. Behavioral remedies are what came from the Microsoft and Google cases, and they\u2019re what Live Nation agreed to when it signed a surprise settlement with the DOJ in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA coalition of state attorneys general said those terms were too weak and pushed ahead with the case with the explicit goal of seeking a breakup, resulting in last month\u2019s verdict. But Live Nation says that option is not even legally on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe jury verdict in this case cannot support a request for divesting Ticketmaster from Live Nation,\u201d the company\u2019s executive vp of corporate & regulatory affairs, Dan Wall<\/strong>, said last week. \u201cThe states\u2019 request for a breakup is performative and political.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tThat claim is supported by the weight of history. But experts say Live Nation\u2019s own<\/em> history could still change the calculus.\u00a0Unlike earlier cases involving companies that grew naturally into behemoths, Live Nation and Ticketmaster were separate firms for many years, and were only combined in 2010 via merger. The states will likely argue that this makes it far easier for the judge to split them back up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think that will be a decided plus factor for the states,\u201d says Kovacic. \u201cThese were discrete business operations that were self-contained. That\u2019s different from an enterprise that grew organically where the assets in question are deeply intertwined.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat argument goes both ways, of course. Just 16 years ago, Live Nation got the explicit blessing of federal regulators to buy Ticketmaster after an extensive investigation into the deal and the economic impact it would have. Shouldn\u2019t that count for something? But critics say that\u2019s actually just more evidence that a breakup is the only option left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe feds only approved the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger after the company signed a consent decree \u2014\u00a0binding restrictions designed to allay fears that the newly-created company would hurt competition. In the years after, Live Nation was found to have repeatedly violated those terms<\/a>, so much so that the DOJ extended the decree for another five years in 2019. And now, of course, a jury has found that the company operated as an illegal monopoly anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the judge must consider whether more limited behavioral remedies will fix the problem before he even considers structural remedies, the states could very well argue that such regulatory restrictions have already been tried \u2014\u00a0and that they clearly didn\u2019t work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey had these conditions in the consent decree, and Live Nation violated them anyway,\u201d says Matthew L. Cantor<\/strong>, a veteran antitrust litigator who represented StubHub in a 2015 lawsuit against Ticketmaster. \u201cThey tried that. Been there, done that. So what\u2019s on the table now? Divestiture is on the table.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing April\u2019s verdict, Live Nation and the states will now spend months arguing over the appropriate remedies the company should face. The judge has said a ruling on these issues likely won\u2019t happen until at least early next year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIf he follows the historical trends and opts against a breakup, that ruling will be met with widespread disappointment from Live Nation\u2019s critics, many of whom blame the company\u2019s dominance for the broader issue of skyrocketing concert ticket prices. Live Nation & Ticketmaster Face New Restrictions<\/em> isn\u2019t exactly the headline they\u2019re looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Kovacic says that a more limited outcome could still prove effective at restoring competition to the live music industry if implemented correctly and, crucially, enforced rigorously. He says that many people were upset when Microsoft was left intact in 2002, but that the restrictions imposed on the company look much better two decades later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt had an important inhibiting effect on Microsoft, and it gave breathing room to upstart companies like Google and Facebook to come into the market to get a foothold and to prosper,\u201d Kovacic says. \u201cCases like Microsoft might give the court confidence here that behavioral solutions can work, and with good reason.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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