State AGs Took Live Nation Case to Finish Line for Music Lovers

Anyone who tried to buy Taylor Swift tickets in November 2022 remembers the chaos. “It’s…excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” Swift said at the time. “I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved going forward.”

The pop queen and her Swifties were furious, and something had to be done. But, of course, there was nothing that could be done. When a monopolist is in control, even the most powerful artists in the world are at their mercy.

In a 2023 survey, only 19% of respondents said they would oppose the breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster. The landmark case against the company is truly an issue that unites a majority of Americans. We all suffer from high prices and aging infrastructure. Despised by the public, the company has still avoided antitrust scrutiny for more than 15 years and through multiple presidential administrations.

During the Obama administration, antitrust chief Christine Varney decided to settle and allow the merger rather than sue. In 2010, Varney expressed confidence the settlement would promote “robust competition for primary ticketing services.” It didn’t.

When that settlement was up for renewal in 2019, President Donald Trump’s lead antitrust enforcer, Makan Delrahim, settled again, stating that the Department of Justice “will not tolerate transgressions that hurt the American consumer.” It did. For the fans and artists, the only guarantee with Live Nation-Ticketmaster was promises made and promises broken.

Finally, in 2024, the DOJ and 40 state attorneys general had had enough. “The live music industry in America is broken because Live Nation-Ticketmaster has an illegal monopoly,” Biden antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter said. “Our antitrust lawsuit seeks to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly.” Perhaps this time it would be different?

When I joined the DOJ in 2025 as the second highest-ranking antitrust enforcer, I was committed to bringing Live Nation-Ticketmaster to trial. Trump had just issued an executive order lamenting the fact that “unscrupulous middlemen...sit at the intersection between artists and fans and impose egregious fees while providing minimal value.” The DOJ should “ensure that competition laws are appropriately enforced in the concert and entertainment industry.”

Yes, this time it would be different. So I thought.

The president ran on a populist agenda of improving the lives of the average American. Former Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater and I took those words to heart. We thought that fighting pocketbook issues like lowering the cost of food, housing, healthcare, and live entertainment would be uncontroversial. But our tenures were cut short because the rhetoric didn’t match the reality.

In July 2025, I was fired by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputies. I believe I was fired for having the temerity to say that cases like Live Nation-Ticketmaster should be resolved on the merits rather than settled on the cheap at the request of lobbyists.

Slater was fired in February, weeks before the Live Nation-Ticketmaster trial was set to begin. I wasn’t surprised when, one week into the trial, the DOJ announced that they had settled for a song: damages reflecting four days of revenue and promises to make about a dozen venues nonexclusive.

The company had hired high-profile figures in Trump circles, including Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor in his first term, and MAGA firebrand Mike Davis. “If you want to pay the lobbyists who are in charge of merger control, yeah, you can get your merger done,” Douglas Farrar, adviser to former FTC Chair Lina Khan, said. “The concern is the breakdown in the rule of law we have here.”

What was shocking after the settlement was the response from the states. A bipartisan coalition of more than 30 state AGs announced that they would fight on. The stakes were too high, and the settlement too weak. With the stellar DOJ trial team sidelined, the state AGS were understaffed and outgunned. Yet they planned and pivoted and recruited some of the best antitrust lawyers in the world. On a moment’s notice, they rose to the occasion and delivered a stunning blow to one of the most powerful corporations in the country.

The unanimous jury verdict was a watershed moment in the history of antitrust law. The chances of a breakup have never been better. That’s all due to the states and in spite of the DOJ, which is facing questions from Democratic Congress members about companies receiving favorable settlements after hiring advisers with close ties to Trump.

A DOJ deputy in a speech last week stated that with limited resources, “the question is what are we uniquely positioned to do.” Under their leadership, they are uniquely positioned to address small antitrust matters with little risk of corruption. The states and the private bar are the principal enforcers on the weighty matters the public cares about.

After their stunning success, state AGs on the left and the right alike are emboldened. Their victory was truly extraordinary. Even if they aren’t Swifties, I imagine them celebrating wildly, belting out Taylor Swift’s Long Live, “Long live all the mountains we moved/I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”

Long live the state attorneys general. You will be remembered.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Roger Alford is a law professor at Notre Dame Law School and former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Write for Us: Author Guidelines