FTC sues Ticketmaster and Live Nation over ticket brokers and fees
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An Indianapolis Colts logo is seen on a Ticketmaster banner before an NFL preseason game in 2024. Photo: Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation on Thursday, accusing them of allowing brokers to snap up large quantities of tickets and profiting from it.
Why it matters: Ticket sellers have been under scrutiny for years for "junk fees" and for failing to crack down on automated bots that buy tickets before the public can purchase them and then jack up the price for resale.
Driving the news: The FTC and seven state attorneys general alleged that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are "tacitly coordinating with brokers and allowing them to harvest millions of dollars worth of tickets in the primary market."
- "Live Nation and Ticketmaster then sell the illegally harvested tickets at a substantial markup in the secondary market, causing consumers to pay significantly more than the face value of the ticket," according to the FTC.
- The commission also alleged that Live Nation and Ticketmaster "deceived artists and consumers by engaging in bait-and-switch pricing through advertising lower prices for tickets than what consumers must pay to purchase tickets."
- Live Nation had committed in 2023 to show the entire purchase price up front.
The other side: Representatives for Live Nation and Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zoom in: The lawsuit says Ticketmaster can "triple dip" on fees by collecting them from "brokers when they purchase the tickets on the primary market," ""brokers, again, when Ticketmaster sells their tickets on Ticketmaster's secondary market," and finally from "consumers who purchase tickets from Ticketmaster on its secondary market."
- Ticketmaster reaped $3.7 billion in fees on resale tickets from 2019 through 2024, according to the suit.
The FTC said Live Nation and Ticketmaster do post "strict limits" on how many tickets you can buy, but ultimately allow sophisticated brokers to use tactics that allow them to skirt the limits.
- One senior Ticketmaster executive acknowledged in an internal email that the companies "turn a blind eye as a matter of policy" to brokers violating ticket limits, according to the FTC.
- The commission said one internal review found that five brokers alone controlled 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts, accumulating 246,407 concert tickets to 2,594 events.
- Joining the suit were the AGs from Virginia, Utah, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, Illinois and Colorado.
