SeatGeek Offered Venue Insurance to Win Ticketmaster Clients (1)

Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s Ticketmaster was so dominant in the US live concert business that rival SeatGeek Inc. was offering arenas “retaliation insurance” for any events they lost by switching ticket sellers, according to testimony at a landmark antitrust trial.

Almost every hockey and basketball arena using Ticketmaster “expressed extreme levels of concern” that Live Nation would shut them out of lucrative concerts if they used another ticketing service, SeatGeek Chief Executive Jack Groetzinger testified Friday in New York.

Jack Groetzinger arrives at federal court in New York on March 6.

Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

To remedy that concern, SeatGeek offered the insurance to more than a dozen venues, and formally included it in ...