Live Nation Threats to Concert Venues Scrutinized at DOJ Trial

Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the owner of Ticketmaster, threatened to withhold concerts from the Barclays Center in New York after the arena switched ticketing services to SeatGeek Inc., according to testimony Wednesday in a US Justice Department antitrust trial.

In a recording of a phone call played in court, Live Nation Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino told John Abbamondi, the former CEO of the BSE Global, which owns the Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, that it would be “tough to deliver concerts” if the arena switched from Live Nation’s Ticketmaster to SeatGeek. Live Nation might instead send concerts to the new UBS Arena, Rapino said on the call, which Abbamondi said he took as a “threat.”

Michael Rapino

Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg

After Barclays switched to SeatGeek in 2021, Abbamondi said concerts once scheduled there moved elsewhere, including one by pop star Billie Eilish, which was rebooked to nearby UBS Arena. Live Nation said Eilish and her team requested the change, according to Abbamondi, but when a Barclays staffer called for more information, they were told that Live Nation requested the switch.

US Justice Department lawyers suing to break up Live Nation say the Barclays Center is a prime example of how the company’s concert promotion business works in tandem with Ticketmaster to ensure venue operators do business with the entire company. After switching to SeatGeek, Live Nation reduced the number of concerts its promoters put on at Barclays, Abbamondi said.

But Live Nation lawyers undermined the retaliation threat to an extent, when venue executives, including Abbamondi, acknowledged there were other concerns about switching ticket services, beyond worries of Live Nation retaliation. That included concerns about the quality of SeatGeek and the possibility of other promoters also withholding concerts.

Read More: Why US Sued Live Nation, Big Tech Firms for Antitrust

Jurors at the trial, expected to last six weeks, are being asked to decide whether Live Nation forced venues into signing long-term, exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster. The company denies it violates any antitrust laws. If the government wins, US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, will decide what consequences to impose, including possibly breaking up the company.

Barclays eventually reverted back to Ticketmaster as its ticketing provider, and Abbamondi’s contract wasn’t renewed when it expired in 2022.

On cross-examination by Live Nation attorney David Marriott, Abbamondi said he didn’t know why Eilish switched venues and that some Barclays executives had major concerns about switching to SeatGeek.

“There was a diversity of opinions about how the transition was going,” Abbamondi said later about the switch to SeatGeek. “Some were concerned.”

Abbamondi, one of the first government witnesses in the case, said BSE was evaluating the Live Nation relationship in 2021. Under its agreements with Barclays, Live Nation had to make its best effort to promote a minimum of 25 concerts a year in the arena and exclusively sell tickets to programming at the arena, including basketball games and concerts.

‘Unfavorable’ Terms

Abbamondi called terms of the ticketing agreement “unfavorable” to Barclays in part because they were required to pay $2.50 per ticket to Live Nation, even on events run by competing promoters, he said. Abbamondi also said Live Nation sometimes struggled to meet the 25-concert mandate even when Barclays used Ticketmaster.

In late 2020, Abbamondi said he began seeking competitive proposals to replace the Ticketmaster contract, which expired in 2021. Both AEG Presents LLC’s AXS and SeatGeek Inc. submitted bids, though Abbamondi said he expected to renew with Ticketmaster because they are “the 800-pound gorilla” in the market.

John Abbamondi

Source: STRMX/AP Photo

Switching ticket services wouldn’t be easy, Abbamondi said, and he worried that Live Nation might retaliate against the venue for changing providers.

But after evaluating the proposals, the company moved to select SeatGeek. A personal friend of Abbamondi’s, who worked at Live Nation, texted him and suggested he should think of the “bigger relationship” with Live Nation before solidifying his choice.

“I viewed this as a friend warning me that I was about to make a big mistake,” he said. However, under cross-examination, Abbamondi said he didn’t know what his friend was trying to convey and that he never followed up with her for an explanation.

Still, with the approval of BSE Group owner and billionaire Joe Tsai, the company ultimately chose SeatGeek, partially for better economics, like more favorable splits of ticket fees, and also for better technology. BSE Group also negotiated an equity stake in SeatGeek, Abbamondi said.

Rocky Transition

The transition to SeatGeek didn’t go smoothly, Abbamondi said, which he blamed both on his staff having to learn a new system but also Ticketmaster purposely making things difficult. For example, he said that some event-goers had bought tickets months ahead of time through Ticketmaster, which then refused to honor tickets purchased through the new SeatGeek deal, despite Abbamondi offering payment for the work. This meant Barclays had to tell ticket holders to switch their tickets over to SeatGeek, resulting in angry customers and a poorer experience. Abbamondi again saw this as retaliation for switching providers.

“Ticketmaster pulled up the drawbridge behind them,” Abbamondi said.

Under cross-examination Abbamondi acknowledged that Barclays executives had major concerns about switching to SeatGeek.

Among those concerns were that the company “couldn’t handle a robust schedule with quick turnarounds,” according to a slide deck produced internally by Barclays that Marriott showed the jury.

More critically, Live Nation reduced the number of concerts its promoters put on at Barclays, Abbamondi said.

SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger is expected to testify later this week. Rapino also is expected to testify later in the trial.

‘Almost Catastrophic’

Mitch Helgerson, the chief revenue officer of the Minnesota Wild hockey team, also testified Wednesday that he felt pressure to reject a ticketing contract with SeatGeek even though it could have brought in an estimated $1 million more than Ticketmaster. He said he believed a Live Nation executive threatened to divert shows to a rival arena if the team and its arena changed providers.

“Losing those shows would be almost catastrophic to our organization,” Helgerson said.

Helgerson acknowledged under cross examination that his team expressed concerns that if they switched to SeatGeek they may lose shows from all promoters, including Live Nation rival AEG Presents, due to technology gaps.

Live Nation maintains that the vast majority of the thousands of venues around the US prefer Ticketmaster, and that the handful of examples of allegedly coercive behavior won’t persuade the 12 New Yorkers on the jury.

More than three dozen state attorneys general have also joined the DOJ’s case, and 24 states and Washington, DC, are seeking damages on behalf of concert goers who they say overpaid for tickets between 2020 and 2024 because of Live Nation’s alleged monopoly. If Live Nation loses the case, the jury will determine whether and how much consumers were overcharged per ticket, while the judge will determine the final amount Live Nation must pay, along with other remedies.

The case is US v. Live Nation Entertainment, 24-cv-03973, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

--With assistance from Leah Nylen.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Josh Sisco in San Francisco at jsisco6@bloomberg.net;
Ashley Carman in New York at acarman5@bloomberg.net;
Mikella Schuettler in New York at mschuettler4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

© 2026 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.