Department of Justice Antitrust Suit Against Ticketmaster and Live Nation Strikes the Wrong Note
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
May 23, 2024
For Immediate Release Contact: Courtney Mattison, (202) 525-7492
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and 30 states announced a long-awaited antitrust suit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation. The government alleges that the combination of the two entities amounts to an illegal concentration of market power and has resulted in higher prices and other harms for consumers, artists, and promoters.
In response, David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, offered the following statement:
“Joe Biden’s antitrust officials have initiated another frivolous antitrust suit that will waste taxpayer dollars and Americans’ time. The DOJ would do well to review its basic economics. The complaints leveled against Ticketmaster and Live Nation are almost fully the result of high prices stemming from high demand. Blaming high prices and other demand-driven inconveniences on an alleged monopoly fundamentally misunderstands the problem. Calling in the antitrust calvary is, therefore, an entirely inapt solution.
“Under the Biden administration, antitrust enforcement has been transformed from a limited and important law enforcement tool into a sweeping means of centralized planning. This hurts Americans because taxpayers must fund this mission creep and businesses and consumers are forced to operate within an inefficient state-planned economy. Dynamism and innovation cannot flourish when entrepreneurs are barred from exploring beyond the narrow imaginations of Washington bureaucrats.”
###
Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.