The Justice Department of the United States sued Ticketmaster in late May, ceasing allegations over the fact that the company had created an illegal monopoly.
Ticketmaster has been the leading platform for selling tickets to consumers for activities such as concerts, sports games, and entertainment shows. Their prominence in the ticket-selling industry leads to the repetition of the question: Is Ticketmaster a monopoly? As consumers are often a victim of high prices and no transparency when buying tickets, it can be easily assumed that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, especially over the United States. As consumers look for tickets to concerts by their favorite artists or sports games, they tend to search on Ticketmaster initially, before moving on to any other platform to purchase tickets. This leads the public to question the dominance of the platform in the ticket industry.
Ticketmaster, a company part of Live Nation Entertainment, works to earn money through administering an extensive amount of services taxes on a single ticket. These issues came to surface through the Taylor Swift fiasco in 2022 surrounding the Era’s Tour. As Taylor Swift’s fans worked to attain tickets to Swift’s concert, the primary platform utilized for purchases was Ticketmaster. During the presale for the concert, allegations were imposed that bots had been able to purchase tickets before humans. Fans were struggling to get onto the presale site and purchase tickets due to the excess amount of bots onto the website. As this conundrum occurred, the question continued to arise as to why Ticketmaster was the platform the public rushed to in order to purchase tickets. As the fiasco is looked into on a deeper scale, it can be assumed that Ticketmaster is a monopoly.
Through different sources, Ticketmaster allegedly controls over 70% of the ticket-selling industry. As this statistic continues to grow, it can be deemed unfair for other platforms in the industry as Ticketmaster continues to monopolize over the industry. Although Ticketmaster encounters competition, it tends to be minimal as compared to the influence Ticketmaster has over the industry as a whole. The Justice Department continuously works to recognize the impact Ticketmaster has over America and focuses on breaking up the illegal monopoly in the industry.
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