The Department of Justice (DOJ) settled its suit against Live Nation this week and wisely refrained from ripping the company to shreds as some on the political left demanded.
Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, isn’t universally loved due to a high-profile ticket snafu and persistent frustrations with ticket prices. But antitrust enforcement shouldn’t be a popularity contest—it ought to narrowly focus on protecting consumers from harm caused by excessive market consolidation. In this case, smashing an unpopular company to smithereens would do absolutely nothing to address the root cause of high ticket prices, which is not monopolistic practices, but rather strong consumer demand.
Until throngs of people are no longer willing to shell out hundreds or even thousands to see Taylor Swift or the Rolling Stones, ticket prices are going to remain high. The government can’t stop that, though it could make things worse by breaking up companies, imposing costly red tape or otherwise creating inefficiencies in the marketplace.
Cold hard facts won’t stop people from hating on Live Nation, but there’s a big difference between consumers voicing their frustration or voluntarily refusing to do business with a company and the government using its immense power to impose harsh penalties that do nothing to improve the underlying problem.
The Trump Administration showed appropriate restraint by not pursuing the latter. But what’s even more encouraging than its actions in this particular case is the broader impact of a more market-friendly approach to antitrust that the DOJ might be foretelling.
The Biden Administration took an overzealous enforcement posture fueled by ideologues like Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who is now working for Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City. As a result, merger and acquisition activity fell dramatically from 2021 to 2023 before flattening in 2024. The vocal band of “Big Is Bad” populists celebrated this, but the impact on jobs, consumers, and the business community was anything but positive.
For example, Khan and her colleagues in the Biden Administration worked with European regulators to scuttle Amazon’s proposed acquisition of iRobot, a company best known for making robotic vacuum cleaners. While populists applauded, the company was forced to lay off hundreds of workers from its Massachusetts headquarters in 2024 when the deal fell apart. The company recently filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and is now owned by a Chinese company.
Whether a company is big or small, popular or not, regulators should butt out and allow consumers and free markets to determine which companies are successful and which aren’t. Hopefully, DOJ’s actions indicate a shift toward pro-market, pro-consumer antitrust policy.