FTC Promises Robust Anticompetitive Enforcement of Corrupted Live Events Marketplace

Pascrell, Pallone, and Schakowsky have long demanded intervention against Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly

WASHINGTON, DC – Responding to a recent letter from U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ-06), and Chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09) on regulating the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agreed that “vigorous enforcement is critical to ensuring competitive markets and protecting consumers.” The acting FTC head “committed to using all the Commission’s law enforcement tools to protect consumers in the live ticketing market.”

“We are gratified that the FTC shares our urgent concern to protect American consumers and apply real oversight to the live events ticket marketplace,” said Reps. Pascrell, Pallone, and Schakowsky in reaction to the FTC’s letter. “As the country emerges from the pandemic, Americans are eager to go to live events including games and concerts.  This demand should not be used to shake down consumers. Given past practices, the FTC and the Justice Department should also investigate the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly for its unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices. Millions of consumers have waited long enough for relief.”

Pascrell, Pallone, and Schakowsky’s April 19 letter was also signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nalder (D-NY-10) and David Cicilline (D-RI-01), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administration Law. A copy of the FTC’s response is available here.

A scathing 2018 report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) commissioned by Chairman Pallone and Rep. Pascrell found that Live Nation enjoys more than an 80 control of the venue ticket sales market, a share that has only grown since the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger in 2009 despite promises to the contrary. GAO further uncovered that the ticket market as a whole is rife with practices that are “not fully transparent,” and that Live Nation, which claims more than half of ticket sales in the United States, engages in questionable gimmicks to conceal its extra costs.

Congressman Pascrell has been a leader in Congress calling for regulation of the opaque live events ticket market. Pascrell was an early critic of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, and repeatedly urged the Obama administration to reject it, warning that the union would crush competition and harm consumers. In May 2018, Pascrell wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on his attempts to impose greater positive regulation on the broken live events ticket market.

Two months later, Pascrell and Pallone wrote a letter to then-FTC chairman Joseph Simons highlighting the GAO study which found a myriad of consumer protection and competition issues in the primary and secondary live event ticket markets. In response, the FTC organized a workshop on event tickets held in June 2019 to review many of the challenges faced by ticket-buying fans.

Pascrell is the principal sponsor of the BOSS Act, overarching legislation that will impose a basic level of transparency upon the ticket industry so fans have a fair chance to purchase tickets on the primary market and also seeks to protect consumers who choose to use the secondary market to purchase tickets. A full section-by-section breakdown of the legislation is available here.

In April 2019, Pascrell and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA-45) blasted Ticketmaster’s refusal to issue refunds to Americans for events that were postponed indefinitely by the COVID-19 pandemic. Chastened by Pascrell and Porter’s criticism, Live Nation reversed course.

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