Amy Klobuchar called out the Department of Justice’s settlement with Live Nation, saying it will do “little to lower costs, preserve venues, or protect fans” in a new interview with Rolling Stone.
Speaking hours after the surprise deal was announced, the Minnesota senator expressed her frustration with both the terms of the deal and how it was reached. Specifically, she cited the unexpected ouster of the DOJ’s antitrust head, Gail Slater — who appeared eager to pursue the Live Nation case — one month before the trial began.
“Every single sign points to a backroom deal,” Klobuchar says, “made without the knowledge of antitrust lawyers, and made against the wishes of people that were trying to do the right thing and then were forced to leave. And certainly made against the wishes of fans.”
Live Nation has spent much of the last year heavily lobbying the Trump administration over the suit. Most prominently, the company appointed Ric Grenell — the longtime Trump crony and current Kennedy Center president — to its board of directors last May. A recent report in The American Prospect also indicated that Live Nation’s lobbying team included former Trump aide and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and MAGA influencer/laywer Mike Davis (who also reportedly helped lobby the DOJ to drop its challenge to the $14 billion merger involving Hewlett Packard and Juniper Networks).
“This case was one of the biggest monopolies the world has ever known,” Klobuchar says, “that has 80 percent of the primary ticketing market for major concert venues, 40 to 50 top amphitheaters, 60 percent of promotion revenue at major concert venues, and a hugely high percentage of major sporting events — when you think about that monopoly, and you think about what this administration has been doing, [the settlement] wasn’t a surprise.”
Still, the deal still did catch some off guard, including the trial’s own judge Judge Arun Subramanian, who was shocked to learn that while an agreement was reached last week, the court wasn’t alerted until Monday. “I agree with the judge who said it showed absolute disrespect for the court and the jury,” Klobuchar says. “I would add one more thing: it shows absolute disrespect for the fans and for people that go to concerts.” (A representative for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment.)
Klobuchar says the settlement does contain “some good things,” like the four-year cap on Ticketmaster’s exclusivity contracts with venues (something she’s tried to address in federal legislation). But she remained firm that anything short of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster wasn’t enough.
“Every time a Justice Department or an administration has done something like this, they have gotten around it and grown even bigger,” Klobuchar says. “The only way to see a future for competition in ticketing, venues, and promotion would be breaking them up.”
The senator also dismissed concerns that, had the DOJ forced Live Nation to divest from Ticketmaster, the company would’ve been scooped up by some private equity firm that would’ve made the company worse. “Those arguments were made in a lot of company breakups, and it just wasn’t the case,” she says. She referenced the breakup of Bell System and AT&T in the early Eighties, calling it “very successful for everyone in terms of bringing costs down and creating innovations in phone service.”
As for what’s next, Klobuchar highlighted that Congress can continue to provide oversight, quipping, “And if you think oversight doesn’t matter, it certainly did in the Kristi Noem hearing last week.” (Noem was fired from the Department of Homeland Security a few days later.) Klobuchar plans to introduce new legislation that could help bolster disclosure requirements about the circumstances surrounding settlements, and give states more power to intervene, review, and continue cases the DOJ voluntarily dismisses.
Klobuchar is also supportive of the many individual state attorneys general who plan to keep up the fight. So far, just seven of the nearly 40 states (plus Washington D.C.) who signed onto the DOJ’s suit, have agreed to settle, while some AGs — such as New York’s Letitia James — have indicated their intention to keep pursuing cases against Live Nation. Several states also filed a motion to declare a mistrial, noting they were “unaware of any substantive settlement discussions” until after the jury was picked and the case began.
“I hope to see aggressive litigation from the states,” Klobuchar says. “They’ve had to lead the way in so many ways.”
