You are making no sense. According to you, Acrisure has NO deal with Live Nation but an exclusive deal with TM for concerts only since Pitt doesnt use TM. And even if that's true, why did Acrisure sign on with TM? How is it anti-trust? They don't have a deal with LN but made a deal with their subsidiary instead of going with another primary ticketing source, selling them on their own website, or having no ticketing deal whatsoever.
The blame seems to now shift to Acrisure Stadium. If LN allowed Swift to play at the non-LN venue, maybe Congress should be calling the Acrisure folks in for signing a business deal with big, bad Ticketmaster. Because you know, we should be restricting all these business deals. Acrisure had many other options besides TM.
How can you now have the basic facts correct, but still don't understand the antitrust case?
There are multiple troubling parts about this that wouldn't be antitrust if TM/LN wasn't responsible for 70-80% of the market.
1. LN/TM has created an environment where it is commonly known in the industry that if you don't sign an exclusivity deal to use TM for all your events, then you don't get access to LN promoted events.
-This was a very specific part of the consent agreement they have been proven to be breaking on multiple occasions that was signed when they merged because of the overwhelming positions both companies controlled in the US.
2. LN/TM has tons of opaque consumer fees and kickbacks with the venues in their exclusivity deals. These types of things can be used to create artificial price floors and secret barriers to entry for competition. These types of things were some of the major points in US vs Paramount that broke up the vertical integration of the film industry. That's why every press release you see from LN/TN now talks about being more clear about their fees and where the money is spent.
3. The use of TM exclusive contracts forces LN's direct competitors to do business with the company. This type of thing was a big deal in the Standard Oil breakup where their exclusive contracts forced railroad companies to provide kickbacks for every barrel of oil transported, regardless of the manufacturer, which increased costs to competitors or made their contracts less valuable to the railway.
4. Their exclusive deals dominate large venues. I believe 27 out of 31 NFL stadiums have TM exclusive deals and it is said that the vast majority of US venues over 10,000 have TM exclusive deals (can't find exact numbers). Again, similar to the US v Paramount, where they only controlled like 15% of all venues (premiering theaters) but nearly 80% in cities over 100k.
SCOTUS said:
Moreover, the problem under the Sherman Act is not solved merely by measuring monopoly in terms of size or extent of holdings or by concluding that single ownerships were not obtained 'for the purpose of achieving a national monopoly.' It is the relationship of the unreasonable restraints of trade to the position of the defendants...that is of first importance on the divestiture phase of these cases.
Not everything will line up perfectly with previous cases, because that would be ridiculous to straight copy practices that have already led to breakups, but their aims and results are unchanged. TM's practices on their own have drawn and will continue to draw scrutiny, but it becomes an even greater target through vertical integration within an industry.
