AEG and SeatGeek have both asked a federal judge to reject the antitrust settlement that would let Live Nation keep Ticketmaster.
AEG competes with Live Nation in concert promotion and ticketing, and owns venues including Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. SeatGeek competes with Ticketmaster in primary and secondary ticketing.
AEG wants a court-ordered sale of Ticketmaster, and a ban on the long-term exclusive contracts Ticketmaster signs with major concert venues.
SeatGeek asks the court to find the settlement is not in the public interest.
AEG filed alongside Messina Touring Group founder Louis Messina, who wrote that Live Nation stopped returning his calls in 2024 and blocked his artists from using him at its amphitheaters. Messina operates in partnership with AEG but says he runs his company independently.
AEG’s and Messina’s comments were submitted to the US Department of Justice and docketed on Thursday (September 3), and can be read in full here and here. SeatGeek’s landed on August 31.
The Tunney Act comment period closed on September 4. Judge Arun Subramanian must decide whether the settlement serves the public interest.
The Progressive Policy Institute also urged rejection on September 3. Eighteen attorneys general representing 17 states and the District of Columbia – plaintiffs, not outside commenters – filed on September 4.
The DOJ must respond to all the comments and file them with the court before Subramanian rules on the proposed judgment.
Live Nation settled with the DOJ in March, a week into trial, agreeing to divest 13 amphitheater booking agreements, cap Ticketmaster’s service fees at 15% of face value at Live Nation amphitheaters, set aside USD $280 million for state damages claims, and extend its consent decree by eight years.
Most states refused it and pressed on. In April, a jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster had illegally monopolized the US ticketing and amphitheater markets.
AEG points to the 2010 and 2020 consent decrees, which imposed rules on Live Nation’s conduct rather than breaking the company up, and asks why an eight-year version should succeed “where fifteen years of similar restrictions failed.”
“The Proposed Decree differs from the prior failed decrees in form, not in substance,” its filing states. “It leaves intact – indeed, it protects – Live Nation’s anticompetitive flywheel: venues will continue to sign up for Ticketmaster exclusive contracts so they do not lose valuable Live Nation shows. The threat need not be spoken to be effective.
“As long as Live Nation controls the concerts venues need, venues will still pick Ticketmaster – not because Ticketmaster wins on price, service, or innovation, but because venues cannot afford the cost of choosing an alternative like AXS or SeatGeek.”
“As long as Live Nation controls the concerts venues need, venues will still pick Ticketmaster – not because Ticketmaster wins on price, service, or innovation, but because venues cannot afford the cost of choosing an alternative like AXS or SeatGeek.”
AEG
Under the proposed judgment, Ticketmaster must let any major concert venue under an exclusive contract use a rival marketplace for one event in each year remaining on the contract.
Venues with at least four years remaining must also be offered the option of moving up to 20% of their fee-bearing inventory to a competitor, though Ticketmaster may cut its payments to them pro rata.
AEG describes the first as applying only to contracts with up to four years left, and the second as an alternative for longer ones.
On that reading, it claims Ticketmaster keeps roughly 85% of the market – about 6,500 of 7,500 events a year at major concert venues – with only around 170 events opened to rivals.
Both companies attack the settlement’s “open distribution” system, under which rivals would plug into Ticketmaster’s back-end software while, AEG says, Ticketmaster would keep charging its fees on those sales.
“In other words, the only ‘competition’ the Proposed Decree appears to create is competition to sell Ticketmaster tickets on Ticketmaster’s own system,” AEG’s comment states. “But of course that is not competition at all.
“… Put simply, the Proposed Decree does not break Ticketmaster’s grip; it tightens it.”
AEG also argues the settlement is too cheap to deter: “An $18 million payment and a $5 million penalty per violation will not change Live Nation’s incentives.”
That USD $18 million is separate from the USD $280 million fund: it covers payments to the six states that joined the settlement.
AEG puts that payment at under 0.1% of Live Nation’s annual revenue, which its filing gives as more than USD $25 billion in 2025.
“… Put simply, the Proposed Decree does not break Ticketmaster’s grip; it tightens it.”
AEG
AEG also says the DOJ settled without notifying its own trial team – as the plaintiff states argued when they asked the court in July to authorize discovery.
Messina, whose company has promoted tours for Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, submitted a separate comment on promoter economics and amphitheaters.
“Live Nation does not make its money by promoting tours and helping artists. Instead, Live Nation makes its money from ticketing fees and sponsorships,” he wrote. “You can look at their public financial statements.
“Live Nation does not make its money by promoting tours and helping artists. Instead, Live Nation makes its money from ticketing fees and sponsorships.”
Louis Messina, Messina Touring Group
“Live Nation makes almost a billion dollars from ticketing fees every year while in many years they make little, if any money in their touring business.”
On his own business, Messina wrote: “But my arrangement with Live Nation ended in 2024. I was trying to route several tours through Live Nation amphitheaters, but Live Nation stopped returning my calls.”
He says Live Nation agreed to let The Lumineers play its amphitheaters “but only if I was not involved.” It began returning his calls again in 2026, after the settlement was filed.
“Most artists, agents, and managers are afraid of speaking out against Live Nation because they could lose everything if Live Nation turns against them. Live Nation already has turned against me. I have nothing to lose so I can tell it like it is.”
SeatGeek’s comment turns on one obstacle: venues believe leaving Ticketmaster costs them Live Nation shows.
“There is no reason to believe that trying the same failed approach a third time will work, and every reason to believe that it will not,” SeatGeek’s filing states.
It says it has offered “retaliation insurance” to at least eight major concert venues, absorbing some of the risk of lost Live Nation shows, and paid the Florida Panthers nearly USD $1 million under one such provision this year.
SeatGeek says “virtually all” of them stayed with Ticketmaster anyway, and that it is the primary ticketer at five venues it believes qualify as major concert venues.
SeatGeek’s second argument is structural.
“By separating the concept of a back-end ticketing platform from the other aspects of a consumer-facing marketplace, the PFJ [the proposed judgment] purports to open up primary ticketing,” the comment states. “But in reality, the PFJ cements Ticketmaster’s place as the back-end foundational ticketing system for venues.”
SeatGeek’s verdict on the deal: “This is a feeble gesture masquerading as a serious solution.”
In a statement to Billboard, Live Nation EVP of corporate and regulatory affairs Dan Wall said the AEG and SeatGeek filings “advance their own commercial interests, not those of artists, venues or fans,” and that “much of what they say misrepresents the settlement’s terms.”
Wall added that “nothing in these filings changes our confidence that the court will approve it.”
MBW has approached the DOJ for comment, and Live Nation for further comment.Music Business Worldwide
