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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
Arjun Singh
From the levers reader supported newsroom This is lever time I'm Arjun saying the biggest box office success of the last 30 years isn't an Oscar winner. It's ticket Master Long and the scourge of the music industry. ticketmasters imposed fees have become a regular part of the concert going experience. But what if it wasn't? That's at the heart of a new Department of Justice lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, one of the largest venue owners in the country. The DOJ says that together Ticketmaster and Live Nation have forced fans into paying way too much to see their favorite man. That's what led Pearl Jam on a mission to Congress in 1994. And more recently, mega stars like Taylor Swift have been speaking out against the company and its perceived monopoly. Today I'm lever time I sit down with a musician and an anti trust expert to discuss the ways Ticketmaster has hurt artists and fans unpack the lawsuit and ask whether this will be enough to fix a broken industry.
Arjun Singh
So I am joined today in our virtual studio with two fantastic guests. We're gonna be here to be talking about everything ticket Master. I'm joined by Greg and Morgan. Morgan, can I start with you? And just you want to say hey to the audience and tell them a little bit about yourself?
Morgan Harper
Hey, audience, I'm Morgan Harper. I'm Director of Policy and Advocacy at the American Economic liberties project. We're a nonprofit that's trying to break up corporate monopolies all across the economy, and Ticketmaster has been in our crosshairs for quite some time. So happy to be here.
Arjun Singh
And Greg, what do you want to say to our audience?
Greg Saunier
Greetings, lever audience. I'm the drummer of deer hoof. And I'm very excited to be talking with you. I'm, like everybody, very interested in the topic of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and it affects bands, you know, our artists directly all the time, anytime we trying to do a tour at all. And so for me, it's I'm really grateful for a chance to talk to people who have a better understanding of the legal and financial side of it. Yeah,
Arjun Singh
I feel the same way. And so let's start with what exactly happened, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster Morgan. But what does that like mean, I know American garlin pretty much said, Hey, we want to break up Ticketmaster Live Nation. Is that actually what's on the table? And what are the like the rationale and the reasons they're giving legally that this should happen?
Morgan Harper
Yeah. So I think it's important to give a little bit of background here, like last week was huge. And so we're gonna we're gonna dive into that. But complaints about Ticketmaster Live Nation have been going on for some time, like Greg was alluding to in his introduction, is this company has been engaging in what a lot of folks consider to be monopolistic behavior, bullying everybody in the industry, from artists, fans, venue owners. And you know, we the when we first got involved, it was to make the point that this merger, combining Live Nation, and Ticketmaster, never should have happened in the first place. And it was approved in 2010. And so it was so amazing to see Attorney General General Merrick Garland, who I don't think is a guy who's known for his emotive rhetoric necessarily getting up there at a podium, right. I think that's fair to say, with all love, I say that. But you know, get up there and be like, we've got to break them up. And here's why. And if you you know, if you do spend the time to go through the pretty long complaint, I bet Greg, you could probably write this complaint yourself, because it's really just laying out the lived experience lived experiences of so many people in the industry. What are they saying what have we heard from people and our breakup Ticketmaster coalition, that Live Nation Ticketmaster controls about 80% of the primary ticketing market, that is a large percentage of the primary ticketing market. And just to distinguish that from, you know, the secondary market that they are now controlling concert promotion, if you want to go on tour, and you want to make some money and doing that, then you likely are trying to play by Live Nation and ticketmasters rules because they dominate a lot of that space that they've gobbled up the venue market. So now, you know, by some of our estimates, I think the number in the complaint is they're controlling like 60% of the largest venues nationwide amphitheater is where a lot of tours want to stop to be able to access their audiences, in addition to the artist management business line that they control, and then this whole other category of sponsorship and advertising. And what the Department of Justice is alleging is that though Ticketmaster, the ticketing platform gets a lot of attention. That is really the combination of these different business lines and how Live Nation Ticketmaster can leverage their power in those business lines. That makes them an impenetrable force and a real monopoly that is engaged in anti competitive illegal conduct and needs to be broken up. You
Arjun Singh
have a number in there 80% of market share. I might be wrong, but isn't 40% of market share considered like a monopoly? So this would be double what is legally supposed to even be a monopoly by that standard? Right? Yeah, I
Morgan Harper
mean, market share, you know, that, like, what exactly how much market share is too much market share? There's a lot of factors that go into play to determine when you're veering into the monopolistic conduct. But you are absolutely right, that 80% is a very, very, very high number of market share. And so, you know, and I think sometimes the argument, I just saw something earlier today, it's like, well, you know, but couldn't this just be that you're better than everybody else? You know, people just really love Ticketmaster and their choosing ticket master. And, you know, we wouldn't want to punish companies for just being better. But no, I mean, once you're getting to 80% market share for something like ticketing, that is a pretty broad type of product. And again, you know, in combination with all these other business lines in the same industry, that's where you start to it does raise a certain level of suspicion. And like the DOJ laid out here, I mean, it is this this combination of relationships, but you leading with that, that primary ticketing market share of 80% that allows Live Nation to have so much power and exercise that over the rest of the market.
Arjun Singh
journalistically. I would like to say, I've never met anyone who loves Ticketmaster yet. But if you're in the audience, and you love Ticketmaster, right, write us an email, write me an email. And let me know I love this episode. Yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to meet that person, because I just haven't encountered them. Yeah. But Greg, you know, what is it like for you, as a musician, you've been playing music for more than 20 years, you've done it in a couple different bands. So for you like, how do you just feel about Ticketmaster? Is it like, do they exert that much control over your day to day life? As a musician?
Greg Saunier
Yeah, I mean, my band dear, who is actually older? i It's 30 years old. In any case, it's the level of consolidation that has ramped up and and made ticket master. You know, the target of of so much, mostly sand, iron, but also, you know, famously, musicians iron as well, I guess it would fit the whole conflict with Pearl Jam was happening around the same time that my band started. So it's sort of like my band is is goes from the beginning of this whole narrative
Arjun Singh
year, what was the deal with Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster, because I have been seeing like the old school pictures of Eddie Vetter back in the day in Congress, like, so what were they dealing with back then?
Greg Saunier
I think they just, there were many things. This was before any merger had occurred. And I think they found even then, that it seemed suspicious that Ticketmaster appeared to be the only option. When you're getting up to that, like really mainstream famous kind of level. As an artist, you didn't have any choice, you almost definitely had to sell your tickets through Ticketmaster and just shut up, you know, in reference to whatever surcharges they decided to add. And Pearl Jam made the attempt to set up an entire US tour without visiting any venue that sold their ticket through Ticketmaster. So they ended up in in a whole bunch of like super random small towns that Detroit usually see Pearl Jam arriving. Morgan,
Arjun Singh
I, you know, hearing that anecdote about the basically the impossibility of being able to go on a national tour without having to use Ticketmaster that in and of itself, this is pre Live Nation merger. But does that fall under like an anti competitive tactic? Is that an example of Ticketmaster being a monopoly and what are some of the other ways that in your research into them, you've seen them really exert what we would consider like illegal apple?
Morgan Harper
It is a great point because, you know, like, we were talking about what was ticketmasters path to 80% market share and Greg's absolutely right I mean, they were they were dominating ticketing long before the Live Nation merger. They acquired this company called Ticket Tron that allow them to I don't know if Greg you ever dealt with them?
Greg Saunier
Oh, yeah, of course ticket Tron. That was the 80s was like absolutely that
Morgan Harper
that dominance, ticketing, but they're able to still exert a lot of influence over venues for example, even before the merger, you know, if you want to get access to the best our ticketing platform, then you need to make sure that you're working with us all the time and creating some of these exclusive contracts. I mean, exclusive contract AKs are another. They're not always anti competitive, but they are something that can be seen as anti competitive, depending on how they're deployed. And so, you know, they were so dominant that that was really what spurred the merger is Live Nation was thinking of developing their own ticketing includes because they also were getting sick of the fees. It's like, what is this really that we don't even know how much things cost? Because when you're a middleman, you can just make up how much things are costing, and give, let somebody know what the price is that they're just gonna have to take. And so is that fear of actually having a real competitor on the ticket and a different ticketing platform that Live Nation would be able to control with their venues that said that lead Ticketmaster's? No, no, no, let's just let's just pause this, we don't need to be enemies, we can be friends together and make as much money as possible. And so you know, that's what led to the merger. And then the combination of these different business lines, like we've already discussed, I do have to say, I mean, real props to Pearl Jam, because I think their their journey does indicate a couple of things. I mean, one, you know, the power of strong advocacy, to an extent that they really put themselves out there to educate a lot of folks, including Congress about what was going on in the market. But then the limitations of a monopolist and their and their resources. And so, you know, what we're seeing now is that there's just been, I think, such a level of consolidation across all these different business lines, that I wish Pearl Jam could be out there talking, you know, based on everything that's going on right now, because they would have a lot more people who understood what they were saying, maybe not as many people that have the bravery to speak out about it. But certainly the political conditions around them have changed quite a bit. And that's what makes us optimistic about where we might head from here after this DOJ lawsuit got filed,
Arjun Singh
say you're like F Ticketmaster, I don't want to use them at all. Are you able to just buy a ticket like back in the day used to be able to just drive to the venue, wait at the will call box or the box office and get a ticket? But is that possible? Right now, I feel like there have been instances where I've been to venues where they say you have to buy through Ticketmaster or you get to the box office, and they still charge you a ticket master fee. Greg, is that something you've noticed? And then Morgan, I'd love to hear from you. If there's like that's a more widespread thing. Or maybe that's just been a bad experience. Mine is
Greg Saunier
there is obviously an irony here, because this company is making so much profit. While venue staff wages have stagnated, you know, during that same time period of the past couple of decades. And while the artists income has very obviously decreased during that time dramatically decreased. What is actually the service the quote unquote, service that something like Ticketmaster even provides, and I agree with you, Morgan, it starts to make a lot more sense and 2024 than it did in the peak of Pearl Jam's of fame, when they were speaking about it. Now, it's it's considered common knowledge, that megacorporation corporations are in the business of consolidation, which is a very painless sounding, technical term. That really means their business model is the crushing of small business, either by putting it out of business or by buying now, you know, to your question, or June, the venues we play, we avoid Live Nation venues once in a while. We can't avoid it for the simple reason that they have purchased or put out of business, so many venues across this country, that if we want to play in a certain town, there's no choice the only venue that's the appropriate size for our audience is a Live Nation venue. And it's like we do you know, okay, we do sound check doors open in an hour. Where should we go eat? Would you rather go to you know, a mom and pop restaurant that has a great reputation that's near the venue, or would you rather drive through Burger King, you know, going to a Live Nation venue that uses Ticketmaster? Really, either one is the equivalent of of going to Burger King. It's a necessarily depersonalized experience where the story you just told is the case you can't even go up to a box office window in the interact with the human being to buy a physical ticket. Everything is done online. Well, I
Arjun Singh
guess what I'm wondering though, is like if you don't want to eat at Burger King, you don't have Do you know there are I, of course, when I acknowledge there are food deserts, there are places where fast food is the only form of food. I think that's kind of getting to what I'm about to ask right now. But, you know, take place I live in Washington, DC, I don't necessarily have to eat at Burger King. But if I want to go see music, I feel like I have to use Ticketmaster and even more, because they do like promotional deals with different artists, right, Morgan, like how has Ticketmaster and Live Nation kind of made it impossible for people to not use them? And is that even a fair assessment of you know, what we're seeing?
Morgan Harper
I think it's a very fair assessment. I, you know, I did an interview last week after the the case drops, the lawsuit dropped. And for local TV, I live in Columbus, Ohio, and the reporter did a great job. And first of all, shout out all local media love you forever. But this reporter who did not know anything about the topic area, just kind of put together a really good mix of voices. And so in addition to interviewing me also talk to a local venue owner called ace of cups in Columbus, Ohio. We played there the venue you played there before? Yeah, yeah. Totally amazing. Okay. Yeah. So the owner of that, who's also a musician himself, I believe, Greg, yeah, he did he participate in this piece. And he's like, this is one of the venues, they don't use Ticketmaster, they still allow you to just show up and buy a ticket. But he said, You know, it's, it's really hard. Because if you're trying to get, you know, a wide variety of artists, so many are just constrained in the type of deal that they can make with you, as a as an independent venue. And that gets at something, you know, Greg had said, where you're having players in the market that are losing their agency to strike their own deals, they're these conflicts of interest and the walled garden of Live Nation Ticketmaster, that's when it starts to sound a lot more like a monopoly, because the reality now is, yeah, it's an ace, this ace of cups is a great venue, it's a small venue, if you're trying to get to that next level, then that's where Live Nation does have a lot more control and ownership over at venues. The complaint that was filed also is talking about how they're gobbling up regional promoters, and acquiring regional promoters that might be presenting a real challenge, which, you know, makes a lot of sense. It's like, okay, maybe you're starting a company, you're not looking to dominate the global live events industry, you're just wanting to make a great promotion company, for folks who want to get all throughout the Deep South, and the best venues throughout the Deep South. great business idea. But Live Nation who does appear to want to dominate the entire global live events market, and especially the United States, can't can't trust any source of competition. So they're going to try to acquire you and use that ticket master ticketing platform to be able to intimidate other companies, other venues from ever accepting anything, but Ticketmaster, because they're terrified of not being shut out of the entire ecosystem, and potentially losing other tours, that will make them a lot of money. So it's all I mean, I hate to, to kind of, you know, beat a dead horse, so to speak. But it is just again, these conflicts of interest, the different control in the business lines, that really allows them to make it a take it or leave it situation for consumers, for artists, and for venue owners. And that's why a Pearl Jam, you know, they tried to essentially recreate the ecosystem, but you can't recreate that many different components that it takes to pull off a successful national tour.
Arjun Singh
Greg, do you feel optimistic about what the potential breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster could do for you as a smaller musician traveling around?
Greg Saunier
Well, I may seem small, you know, on the bottom line of someone's ledger sheet, but, you know, I'm actually you know, six two, it's hard to tell you know, I that that is a big question. That before I want to answer it, I just want to speak to a couple kind of ironies that come up for me and some of what you just said, Morgan, one is that lied nation's own defense, which they have eloquently written and posted upon their website seems to me to talk out of both sides of of one's mouth in which they both deny that they are a monopoly. And they're telling us the numbers and percentages, obviously yield some different results than the ones that were throwing around. And then at the same time, they kind of defend the concept of the monopoly on the grounds that you guys just described, which is that it's so convenient for everyone because it's one stop shopping. And everybody knows that if you want to get a ticket to your favorite artists show you just go to Ticketmaster. It's basically like going to Google or something. It's it's considered their monopoly. But yeah, exactly. Thank you. Thank You. And which brings me to what I think an even bigger irony, when we're talking about the merger happening in 2010. We're literally talking about the Obama first term, just after financiers crashed the world economy, and were bailed out by the same administration, whose anti trust person decided it wasn't a big deal for this merger to occur. And those bailouts occurred, utilizing the following philosophy, they are too big to fail. And you're thinking to yourself, if this government or this society had any sense at all, in the way it was designed, you would not be deliberately creating more too big to fail mega corporations, particularly when we keep talking about consolidation and profit and stuff. But let's be honest, neither Live Nation nor ticket master our music companies in the ennemi sense of the word. They are a finance company. And the reason that that 2008 crash even happened was the over leveraging of our economy in the world of Wall Street. And so your actual question. My sense is that this did happen, because of Taylor Swift spends disgruntled Taylor Swift trends. And the C coverage that's been happening in the past week, particularly in the most mainstream news outlets, has tended to focus on Swifties, as you're somewhere in the headline, or in the first paragraph, which both makes light of the topic, in my opinion, and ignores all of the harm that that not only Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been doing to the music industry, but also leaves out the the harm, you know, that happens to venues, that happens to staff that happens to the artists themselves, the proposed solution would seem to be the website wasn't convenient enough. I want greater convenience. What we need is a larger corporation with a better IT department or something that doesn't let their their website crash. Or put another way, it seems to give the message that were Live Nation Ticketmaster, screwed up this time, was that they allowed the commerce of too large of a mega store to be interrupted. Nothing to do with any Deerhoof or any band on my level. B only reason that it's getting into the news, or I suspect, is because the commerce of a megastar was momentarily inconvenienced. And that was enough for 100,000. Right in, you know, letters of complaint. I am not actually. And I have so much respect for you, Morgan, and everything that you've said, and the long term fight against monopolies that are doing things like crashed the world economy and making us all poor. But you know, I would have to ask, when's the last time the DOJ actually broke up a monopoly? I have some vague, nebulous, cloudy memory of something with Microsoft about 30 Some years ago or something like that. Are they I suspect I have a perhaps cynical, this isn't your average
Morgan Harper
number here. He's got a pretty strong understanding of the history of
Greg Saunier
Microsoft I have I have a suspicion, even just as a drummer, that what might end up happening is that when I think of a corporation is largest Live Nation and Ticketmaster, I'm suspecting that maybe they have a legal team, if added to this legal team may be experts at the following tying this up for years in the courts. So everybody gets fired up right now, in an election season. It may seem like a virtue signaling attempt, not necessarily on Merrick Garland part, but Paul possibly on the part of the Biden administration, as his numbers are tanking, particularly with young people, my prediction is and we can we can have another podcast in nine years when the suit is done. My prediction is that they will not be broken up, they will be slapped with a insignificant fine, that will barely even be noticeable in their bottom line, and that they may be mandated to offer some kind of weird vouchers to a few aggrieved Swift Fans that like you get $5 off the next time Taylor Swift goes on tour or something like that.
Arjun Singh
Well, I understand. I see the optics of there, but I will say at the same time, you know, a lot of what I've heard about NMT trust in the past couple of years, people have said it feels like a sea change. We were both at the anti monopoly Summit. We had Rohit Chopra from the CFPB. He was talking about caps on junk fees, you know, possibly reforming credit card points. Lena Khan saying not to walk in fear she's going suing Amazon. I wonder if there is some room for optimism. Morgan, you yourself used to work at the CFPB at one point. So you hearing from what Greg said, how do you see this? Well,
Morgan Harper
I completely understand the cynicism and Greg, I respect that. I do want to make a little wager now. Yeah, okay. Okay. So $2 If I know like, what's $5 Getting you at a ticket? Like access to the bathroom? But anyway, coach, but no. No, I am optimistic. And a couple of responses, actually, because Greg laid out a lot of things and much of it I agree with except for the Senate. Okay. Thank you. There, it is important to pay attention to the finance and the finance theory of Live Nation Ticketmaster, one of the terms that was put in a complaint that we all need to continue to pay attention to is this adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin, this is the bucket of money that Live Nation Ticketmaster is making that you don't really know what that means. But it appears that that's connected to this pool, where they get to, they kind of get to skim everything off the top because they're the only ones with full information about all these market areas. And then they let the friendly artists know. Oh, you thought that was a really great tour where you made a lot of money? Well, actually, it turns out that was only like, you know, big pot of money minus like 1x. And then we get to why and why is this so so you know, like, so sorry, I deal with it. This is what we've got left. So that's really important. It is a lot of this like money moving around, because we're going to hear a lot I think in the coming months about Ticketmaster, they're already starting to say this is just a low margin business ticketing, we barely make any money off of the ticketing business. So do pay attention, pay attention, because when you look at like the sponsorship advertising, that they have absolute control over who gets to advertise at their venues at their tours, the DOJ is alleging that those margins are like upwards of 60% and competitive industries, you don't see margins of 60%. That is a very, very high margin. So anyway, getting to the historic nature of the case. It's true. The DOJ has not broken up a company in quite some time, Microsoft actually settled that was another historic antitrust case, but but settled in such a way that forced Microsoft to open up their platforms. And many would argue and we as an organization do ushered in the age of the internet. Now, the use of the Internet has not landed us in the best of places.
Arjun Singh
But I mean, we'll get to speak on the podcast.
Morgan Harper
It was worth it was worth it. We got great, but it but it did allow that innovation to occur. Now, the last real breakup was with at&t with telecom forcing all these bells to break up. That was several, several years ago, several decades ago. And so it has been a while. So this is a huge deal that the DOJ brought this case. The reason that I'm optimistic though, is because there is different leadership, like Arjun was referencing some of whom, you know, spoke at the recent anti monopoly summit that we hosted Jonathan Cantor is in charge of the Department of Justice, antitrust division, I would be highly, highly surprised and disappointed if we see any kind of settlement coming out of this. I just don't see it happening based on the facts that the DOJ has laid out in this 100 Plus page complaint in the track record that Live Nation Ticketmaster has, and here's the other thing that's relevant, you know, they The merger was approved using a whole different body of law. That was a Clayton Act case that's really about assessing whether or not a merger should go through. This is they brought this under Sherman Act section to another very old law in US history that gets that monopolization conduct. So it's a it's a totally different ballgame here. And I don't think that they would have brought this type of case. If they didn't feel like they were really in it to win it. And they've been taking a lot of other big high profile cases to trial like against Google search, for example that we're waiting to see How the judge will rule there. And so what the impacts of this will be, I mean, of course DOJ would need to win for there to be a real impact. So hopefully that happens. But if they are able to convince a court and this will be tried in the Southern District of New York with a new Biden appointee, Judge, so a friendly judge, because it reflects, you know, kind of the priorities of this administration, I think we're gonna see changes for consumers, for consumers, as fans for artists, for venue owners, and and hopefully, you know, for concert promoters as well, in the sense of this. Take, for example, what we saw with this with Taylor Swift tour, just getting back because that's one of the most famous tours going on right now. You have you have Americans that are flying to Europe to go to see her shows there, because they're cheaper. It's cheaper to pay for an airfare to get to Europe and pay for a hotel, because the tickets are so much safer. Why is that Live Nation still operating there? There's ticket master, but they don't have as much venue ownership. And they also don't have the ability to do these exclusive contracts with the venues that don't allow the venue's to shop around for which ticketing platform they want to use. What does competition do? It often can lower prices, it gives the venue owner more agency to decide not only what's the lowest priced product, what's the best quality product to you know, that they want their customers to be dealing with? Well,
Arjun Singh
Greg, I mean, yeah. Does that put some of your cynicism at bay? Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Greg's concept.
Greg Saunier
Morgan, I really, really appreciate you going into so much detail and addressing what I'm saying. And, and I agree with you, I certainly hope that the DOJ wins. My my concern, however, is that, that even a victory, we will not completely change the nature of the music industry or the nature of the music economy, it will not restructure it, it will simply make it more competitive, which is fine. But what I was speaking to these these questions of national chains, okay, Burger King isn't a monopoly, I still don't, even if they broke up McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's, I still don't want to go to any outcome. And I'm not going to want to use Ticketmaster. Even if they become a smaller market share, and they're now competing with next ticket or whatever, you know, whatever their competitors are. They're all corny. And they're all crooks, a person that behaves properly under a system that rewards financiers for being rich and pays rich people for being rich, and punishes poor people for being poor, doesn't change just because they're one iota more regulated. And I'm sort of curious how Biden's you know, like focus a few months ago on junk fees and stuff like that. It is obviously very similar topic. And it was like airlines and stuff. To me, it struck me at the time as a very minor slap on the wrist. I would like something to fundamentally change. For me. It's obvious what to do you nationalize it. And I agree with you about Europe. I mean, a reason it's cheaper to get that same ticket in Europe is because those governments are stronger against monopolies. And they their economies don't rely as much on the success of money or they aren't propped up to the degree. The US is economy is propped up on act on monopolies on purpose deliberate?
Morgan Harper
Well, I would say I mean, the how I would see the junk fees connecting to this and kind of think about that is, yeah, first of all, the Federal Trade Commission has proposed a rule to ban junk fees across the economy. So it's not just mentioned in speeches, potentially become law, which would be great. Okay, good. It also serves to educate the public about what is going on in our economy. I think for a lot of us, we were just showing up and paying these fees that were popping up. But you know, after a couple of years of learning about Wait a second, they're in hotels, they're in rental there and, you know, food, like what it what are all these fees. Now fast forward to a DOJ case that is laying out seven different types of fees that are put on top of tickets. Well, now most people that pay attention to any sort of media understand, that's junk. That's, that's big corporations just ripping me off. I don't like that. And I kind of like what DOJ is doing. So you know, it is connected there. The other thing I would say is I completely agree with you, to the extent that if even if if Live Nation Ticketmaster is found liable if the remedy here somehow just calls for those behavioral remedies that are sort of like please just do a little bit this where it will monitor. It's very difficult. It's very difficult to monitor a giant. I mean, DOJ tried to do that in 2010. They they negotiate a consent decree with some of those terms that LiveNation just blew through because they have immense financial resources instantly, but that's the beauty of antitrust remedies is they're struck Even when post structural one's true, it takes away a lot of that work on the other side of it. It's Live Nation Ticketmaster sports to divest, which is what our organization is recommending, divest all the business lines. Live Nation Ticketmaster, is banned from entering into exclusive agreements with venues and also has to open up its host software platform. That's what we think will be the beginning of injecting some competition. And then you have to continue to see how the market develops. But that would be I think, you would agree Greg, like a whole new world, based on where we've been for the last 30 years, if they are truly barred from owning all of these business lines and can't introduce any exclusive or impose any exclusive agreements on other market players,
Greg Saunier
it legitimizes the existence of a completely pointless middleman that didn't use to exist, that's what I think. And it eliminates
Event Host
the existence actually, they won't be able to be a middleman anymore, because they're only going to be doing one of those things. They'd have to choose their own live live events adventure.
Greg Saunier
But remember, that merger took place after Eddie Vetters issue with it. And that was that had nothing to do with with breaking up that conflict of interest. It was just he didn't like that. That ticket master existed in the first place. He didn't like the entity itself, the the principle, and I hear you and I'm also you know, I'm also suspense fully waiting, you know, in optimism, that this will produce a really beneficial and healthy change for the people. The non financiers, the people who actually make or host or love music, I feel that I still have a sneaking suspicion about is it legitimizes the existence of the financialization of okay, yes, maybe there'll be more competitors. But we see things like artists who have their entire back catalogue, the publishing rights bought up by some incredibly rich investor, we see band camp, being bought up by a billionaire company and immediately dumping it to some other multimillion dollar company. Even in the lifespan of my own band. I've seen the music industry, become a world of finance, in which music is only the bait. You know, it's the loss leader, it's just the sparkly thing that gets people interested in your hedge fund, basically,
Morgan Harper
I completely agree. And, Greg, I just want to say, I mean, I think you tapped into the larger fight, that those of us who do believe in freedom, really to have some control of your life to believe in creating and in looking after your community. I mean, the fight that we're up against is this financialization of the economy, and bringing more autonomy to more actors in the economy. And so I do not all want to oversell what the Live Nation Ticketmaster lawsuit will do to get us to the end of that fight. But I do think it is one step along the way, streaming, for example, huge, I mean, the fact that so many artists need to tour in order to earn any sort of money. Very problematic, and what are you know, but But what we're working towards, I think, and this came up a little bit at the summit of I don't know Argent, if you were there, the whole time. But the closing remarks we had from Senator Chris Murphy was talking a little bit about how, you know, the economy has become this race to the bottom, that you does lead to this place of desperation. You do think you know, even in it taking a whole nother industry context tech, your your mindset is sell, sell, sell, get acquired, get acquired, because you want the quick buck and get out. We're not based on how the economy is structured. We're not always attracting creatives, builders, people who want to really lead institutions, everybody's looking for the quick buck because of the conditions that have been created. And if we do this right, then perhaps we can start to reorient the economy to reward folks who do want to take on that leadership role and really try to innovate and create value that is not going to be done in a year in two years. It took us actually 40 years of a philosophy that got us into this mess. And let's see how long it'll take us to get it out of it. But I do think we're on our way and, and working together. You know, we'll get close to her so
Arjun Singh
well, guys, thank you both so much for joining me morning, Greg. It was great to chat with you. It was yeah, we'll
Morgan Harper
have to keep checking in about it.
Greg Saunier
Thank you very much. Exactly. Yes.
Arjun Singh
It's a want to hear how that wager is gonna go and we'll make that a special right? Yeah, cool.
Arjun Singh
Thanks for listening to another episode of lever time. This episode was produced by me with help from Nick Campbell and editing support from Lucy Dean Stockton and Joel Warner. Our theme music was composed by Nick Campbell. We'll be back next week with another episode of leverage time. We'll be back later this week with another episode of leisure time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai