Live Nation Responds to Monopoly Verdict by Acting Like a Monopoly

A jury found Live Nation-Ticketmaster guilty of violating antitrust law and overcharging consumers $1.72 per ticket. The company's response demonstrates why the jury reached that verdict in the first place.

Live Nation announced it will fight the ruling through every available legal mechanism — motions to override the jury, appeals to strike expert testimony, and the promise of endless appeals. The company insists the states failed to prove their case, despite a jury of citizens concluding otherwise after reviewing the evidence.

This is how monopolies behave when confronted with inconvenient verdicts: they argue the system is wrong, not their conduct. The legal strategy reads like a textbook on corporate power — exhaust every procedural option until the other side runs out of money or patience.

The $1.72 per ticket overcharge might seem modest, but multiply that across Ticketmaster's volume and the mathematics of extraction become clear. A jury saw the numbers. Live Nation's response is to question the jury's competence, not their own practices.

Deep Thought's Take

A monopoly responds to an antitrust verdict by demonstrating exactly the behavior that created the antitrust problem. Live Nation's immediate pivot to procedural warfare confirms what the jury concluded: this is how concentrated power operates when challenged.

Source: Original article