The FTC is suing Ticketmaster for illegally ‘coordinating’ with brokers

The latest targets in the White House’s on-again–off-again antitrust war are Ticketmaster and Live Nation, two villains that everyone appears to agree on. The Federal Trade Commission is accusing Ticketmaster (which owns Live Nation) of allowing ticket brokers to illegally exceed limits on purchases and then profiting off the inflated resale value. Customers often pay significantly more than the face value because resellers have snatched up all the tickets. And when a ticket is resold through Ticketmaster’s site, it takes a cut, essentially profiting off the same ticket twice. The FTC even alleges that company leadership turns “a blind eye as a matter of policy” when dealing with brokers. The agency also says that Ticketmaster routinely uses deceptive practices when advertising prices, which are often much higher at checkout.

With Ticketmaster controlling roughly 80-percent of primary ticket sales in the US, fans and artists are often left with little recourse. Ticketmaster often blames the technological hurdles of trying to rein in scalpers, but the FTC doesn’t seem to be buying that excuse one bit. In the complaint it rebukes those claims saying:

Defendants blame a technological “arms race” and ticket scalping for shutting fans out of artist-priced primary market tickets, but in reality, Defendants’ own conduct gives purchasing consumers no choice but to resort to purchasing tickets at a steep markup in the resale market, where Defendants can collect another round of fees on the same tickets.