State AGs Say DOJ’s Live Nation Settlement Could Make Ticketmaster More Powerful

Attorneys general from 17 states and the District of Columbia are warning that the Justice Department’s proposed antitrust settlement with Live Nation and Ticketmaster could do more than fail to restore competition — portions of the deal could actually strengthen Ticketmaster’s dominant position.

In a Sept. 4 Tunney Act public comment obtained by TicketNews, the state enforcers argue that the proposed final judgment is “vague, ambiguous, and not reasonably calculated to meaningfully restore competition,” while some provisions could “further entrench Ticketmaster’s market power by positioning it as a gatekeeper.”

The criticism carries particular weight because the signatories are not outside advocates asking the government to bring a stronger case. They include many of the attorneys general who brought that case alongside DOJ, participated in the trial and continued litigating after the federal government abruptly settled with Live Nation in March.

Calling themselves “co-equal enforcers and co-plaintiffs,” the attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, along with D.C., are asking U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian not to approve the settlement without additional discovery and an evidentiary hearing.

The filing is the states’ most detailed argument yet that DOJ’s settlement is not merely weaker than the structural remedies they continue to seek, but could preserve or enhance some of the competitive advantages at the center of the government’s own case.

That disagreement is especially striking after 34 state attorneys general continued to trial without DOJ and won an April jury verdict finding Ticketmaster unlawfully maintained monopoly power in primary ticketing at major concert venues and Live Nation monopolized the market for large amphitheaters used by artists. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are seeking to overturn that verdict or obtain a new trial.

States Say Ticketmaster Remains the Gatekeeper

At the center of the dispute is what DOJ has characterized as one of the settlement’s most important competitive reforms: separating Ticketmaster’s consumer-facing marketplace from its back-end ticketing infrastructure.

Under the proposed judgment, Ticketmaster must develop an open distribution system allowing major venues that continue using Ticketmaster’s back end to distribute primary tickets through eligible competing marketplaces. DOJ says the arrangement will lower barriers to entry because rival marketplaces could compete to sell primary tickets without first replacing the venue’s underlying inventory, barcode, authentication and access-control systems.

The states see essentially the opposite outcome.

They argue that the settlement would establish Ticketmaster’s technology as privileged industry infrastructure and leave competitors dependent on the company they are supposed to challenge. Ticketmaster would continue operating the back end, could recover certain costs from rival marketplaces using it and would make the initial determination of whether competing ticketers meet the settlement’s eligibility requirements.

The system could also expose Ticketmaster to commercially sensitive information generated by competitors, the states argue. While the decree prohibits Ticketmaster from using rival ticketing data except in connection with performing its back-end services, the attorneys general contend that exception remains broad enough to create competitive risks and lacks sufficient mechanisms for rivals to police how their information is being used.

“A company that has been found to have maintained an illegal monopoly should not be given this type of privileged position in the market,” the states write.

The filing similarly challenges the proposed restrictions on Ticketmaster’s exclusive venue contracts.

Existing major venue contracts must allow another eligible marketplace to handle at least one event per year, while qualifying longer-term arrangements provide opportunities for competing marketplaces to distribute up to 20% of primary ticket inventory. Future fully exclusive deals are capped at four years. DOJ says those requirements will allow venues to shift business among marketplaces more frequently and stimulate new competition.

But the states say there is little evidence that one show per year or 20% of a venue’s inventory provides enough business to support meaningful entry.

Ticketmaster can also continue entering fully exclusive agreements lasting four years or less. The states contrast that with trial evidence showing Ticketmaster’s exclusive contracts averaged 5.6 years in 2024, arguing that shortening exclusivity without ending it does little to break the network of contracts that has kept competitors from reaching sufficient scale.

The practical question, they argue, is whether a venue has much incentive to add a second ticketing marketplace for a relatively small portion of its business while Ticketmaster remains the primary infrastructure provider.

‘Divestiture’ Doesn’t Include Live Nation-Owned Venues

The states also take aim at another remedy that sounds considerably more structural on paper: 13 properties designated as “Divestiture Venues.”

Under the settlement, Live Nation must relinquish or modify exclusive booking and other control rights at those amphitheaters. DOJ says that will remove Live Nation’s control over the venues and permit them to conduct new ticketing requests for proposals.

But the attorneys general point out that none of the 13 venues is actually owned or leased by Live Nation.

As a result, Live Nation is not being required to divest an amphitheater asset. Instead, it is surrendering contractual rights at independently owned properties.

The states say that distinction matters because their trial case concerned Live Nation’s nationwide network of amphitheaters and the difficulty artists and rival promoters face trying to construct a national tour without dealing with the company.

They argue there is no geographic or economic analysis in DOJ’s Competitive Impact Statement explaining why ending Live Nation’s exclusivity at these particular 13 venues would meaningfully change that nationwide market.

“The only reasonable inference one can draw from the selection of these venues,” the filing says, is that the provision was structured to reduce the concessions demanded of Live Nation rather than require traditional asset divestitures.

Behavioral Rules Return — Along With the Same Monitor

The attorneys general also question DOJ’s renewed reliance on behavioral restrictions after more than a decade in which Live Nation was already prohibited from retaliating against venues for selecting Ticketmaster competitors.

DOJ itself alleged in 2019 that Live Nation repeatedly violated the original 2010 consent decree by conditioning concerts on venues’ use of Ticketmaster, leading to a modified decree in 2020. Its current Competitive Impact Statement acknowledges that history but says the new judgment expands and strengthens the prohibitions and adds more substantial enforcement mechanisms, including potential $5 million penalties for violations involving major concert venues.

The states remain skeptical, particularly because many of the new rules require regulators to determine after the fact whether a booking decision, contract term or business interaction crossed the line into prohibited retaliation, conditioning or steering.

They also highlight an unusual continuity: the settlement proposes using the same compliance monitor associated with the prior decrees.

“Rather than grappling with these challenges,” the states write, the proposed judgment “reappoints the very same monitor used to oversee the past two failed settlements.”

The March settlement term sheet also called for a divestiture trustee, according to the filing. That position does not appear in the proposed final judgment, leaving the states to question whether responsibilities once envisioned for a separate trustee will instead fall to the monitor.

States Want Settlement Negotiations Examined in Court

The competitive objections make up most of the filing, but the attorneys general also escalate their challenge to the highly unusual process that produced the settlement.

Live Nation and DOJ executed a binding term sheet March 5 while the jury trial was underway. According to the states, they were not informed that an agreement covering their claims had been reached, and DOJ’s own lead trial attorney had apparently not seen the executed deal.

When Subramanian questioned him after obtaining the term sheet, lead government counsel said he had received it “the same time you did this morning,” according to the trial transcript quoted in the states’ comment.

The judge separately described the parties’ handling of the settlement discussions as showing “absolute disrespect for the Court, for the jury, for this entire process.”

The comment also points to Live Nation’s disclosure that settlement communications involved officials from the Office of White House Counsel and that CEO Michael Rapino discussed the lawsuit with President Donald Trump. The material terms were finalized at a March 5 meeting that included White House officials, while the states say the available record indicates members of DOJ’s trial team were not involved.

The attorneys general stop short of claiming the existing record proves that political influence dictated the settlement. Instead, they argue those circumstances make discovery necessary to determine who shaped the agreement, what alternatives were rejected and whether considerations unrelated to competition affected the final remedy.

That argument has taken on additional significance following an August Tunney Act ruling involving Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s acquisition of Juniper Networks. The states point to that case because discovery exposed an unusual DOJ settlement process involving senior political officials and some of the same politically connected outside advisers later retained by Live Nation.

The state filing also targets something DOJ has not publicly detailed: the alternative settlement remedies actually considered.

DOJ’s Competitive Impact Statement identifies completing the trial and pursuing remedies through litigation as the principal alternative to settlement, citing the cost, delay and uncertainty of continued litigation.

But Live Nation’s disclosures establish that the company made a settlement proposal in September 2025, DOJ countered in January 2026 and numerous meetings and communications followed. The states argue that the Tunney Act requires greater disclosure of those alternative terms so the court can assess not just settlement versus trial, but what stronger remedies DOJ considered and abandoned.

That question has become harder to separate from the subsequent trial result. DOJ cited litigation risk when explaining its decision to settle, but the 34 states that continued the same case ultimately secured a sweeping jury verdict on the remaining monopoly claims.

The public comment process does not itself decide whether the settlement takes effect. DOJ must consider the comments it received and submit them, along with its response, to the court. Subramanian must then independently determine under the Tunney Act whether the proposed judgment is in the public interest.

The 17 states and D.C. are asking him not to make that determination on the present record.

They want additional discovery followed by an evidentiary hearing examining both the competitive consequences of the settlement and the process that produced it.

Tunney Filing (PDF)