FTC-Ticketmaster Lawsuit Could Reshape Sports Ticket Landscape

The behemoth of the live-event ticketing business is once again facing the wrath of federal regulators. 

Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation are the targets of a new lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and seven states, alleging the companies engaged in a series of “illegal” activities, including allowing brokers to exceed resale ticket limits and amassing large swaths of inventory, and by engaging in “bait and switch” pricing tactics. 

The legal action, if successful, could prompt large-scale changes across sports and other forms of live entertainment. Even in ticketing for non-sports events, many of those functions happen in stadiums and arenas controlled by sports-team owners. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are estimated to control “80% or more” of the primary ticket market for concerts, a growing share in resale activity, and also have a major presence across sports.

“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us,” said FTC chair Andrew Ferguson. “It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show.”

In addition to the FTC, the complaint involves attorneys general and state officials from Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.

The claim around the improper broker activity specifically alleges a violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, signed into law in 2016, and is designed to help democratize consumer access to face-value tickets. By violating that, the FTC says, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have garnered billions of dollars in additional fees while driving up prices for consumers.

“Defendants’ tacit agreement to allow brokers to circumvent their ticket limits so that those same brokers can list the unlawfully purchased tickets on defendants’ resale marketplace drives up the price of tickets and leaves ordinary fans unable to access the finite pool of tickets available at their face value,”  the FTC said in the 84-page complaint.

The lawsuit seeks permanent injunctions to block such behavior as well as unspecified civil penalties and monetary relief. 

This is hardly the first time that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have faced federal pressure, and issues around ticket pricing and access have been a fairly regular topic among federal legislators for more than 30 years. More recently, the U.S. Department of Justice sued last year on antitrust grounds, soon after the issue hit another flashpoint during Taylor Swift’s record-setting Eras Tour, and is seeking a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. 

The companies, which denied the prior allegations, have not responded to the latest effort from the FTC.