Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee have asked the Department of Justice to look into whether a new partnership between Ticketmaster and Fanatics may have violated antitrust laws.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, who leads the DOJ’s antitrust division, Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Lee (R-Utah) wrote that the deal consolidates Ticketmaster’s dominant market position and deprives consumers of a potential Fanatics-backed competitor. The letter, a copy of which was viewed by Sportico, also mentions Ticketmaster’s “long history of anticompetitive behavior,” accusations which were outlined in a DOJ lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) filed in May 2024.
“Fanatics entered an agreement with an online ticketing monopolist, rather than innovate, disrupt and compete themselves as they have in numerous other sports-related markets, raises significant questions about whether Live Nation-Ticketmaster used its monopoly power to prevent Fanatics from entering the online ticketing market, depriving consumers of the benefits of competition,” the letter wrote. “We urge you to look into this deal to determine if any antitrust laws were broken and whether consumers were illegally denied the benefits of new competition in this market.”
A representative for Ticketmaster told Sportico that there were no antitrust issues with the partnership.
“The agreement simply provides that Ticketmaster can sell secondary tickets to sporting events on Fanatics websites and mobile apps, giving fans additional ticket-buying opportunities,” the spokesperson said. “The secondary ticketing market is extremely competitive. Ticketmaster competes with StubHub, SeatGeek, Vivid Seats and numerous others and is in no way the leading secondary ticket seller, as the Senators’ letter suggests.”
A representative for Fanatics declined to comment.
Sportico was first to write about the partnership earlier this year, after it was quietly unrolled to users on the Fanatics app. The partnership is a two-way cross-selling agreement; Fanatics agreed to have Ticketmaster resale tickets appear in its app, while Ticketmaster agreed to have some Fanatics products appear on its platforms. As part of the structure, ticket buyers on the Fanatics platform receive a 50% reduction in Ticketmaster service fees, which are frequently cited by Live Nation critics as evidence that the company’s market position is harmful for consumers.
“When you look at the market position that Ticketmaster has built—we wanted to make sure we had as broad and comprehensive an offering as we could,” Fanatics chief strategy and growth officer Tucker Kain said at the time. “Plus, having Ticketmaster/Live Nation as a potential partner across a number of things, like distributing our merchandise [through them], there’s an opportunity to start here and build a bigger partnership over time.”
In their letter, Klobucher and Lee contends that if Live Nation acted unlawfully, it would deprive “consumers of the benefits of competition.” The letter does not ask for the DOJ to sue Live Nation but tellingly notes the agency ought to act on behalf of consumers who may have been harmed if laws were broken.
The letter tries to paint the Live Nation-Fanatics agreement as consistent with the DOJ’s (and others’) depiction of Live Nation as using questionable means to eliminate rivals and prevent competition that might lead to lower prices for consumers, greater innovation and more choices for products and services. Klobuchar and Lee, who are both attorneys and have long argued that antitrust law should be used to ensure economic competition in sports, worry that the agreement is “yet another concerning transaction that may undermine competition, deter innovation and ultimately harm consumers seeking to buy tickets online.”
Expect Live Nation and Fanatics to argue their arrangement will enhance the consumer’s experience. For example, the app might offer more choices to sports fans in buying tickets and direct access to more venues by linking the Live Nation and Fanatics resources. To the extent Live Nation and Fanatics can show that prices won’t rise—or, even better, will drop—the more favorably the DOJ would weigh their rebuttal.
Live Nation’s business practices are, of course, no stranger to DOJ review. Last year, under the administration of then-President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, the DOJ, along with 40 states, sued Live Nation (and subsidiary Ticketmaster) in the Southern District of New York for alleged violations of antitrust law. The case, which has continued in the administration of President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi, contends that the use of venue exclusivity contracts, which entail venues using Ticketmaster as the sole method of selling tickets, harms consumers through diminished competition, higher prices and restrictions on the resale of tickets.
Live Nation has refuted the allegations, saying that its business practices not only comply with antitrust law but also benefit consumers via superior methods of ticketing. The company’s motion to dismiss maintained that “scores of venues” choose Ticketmaster “because it offers a superior technology that empirically sells more tickets.” The company also insisted that venues “frame their ticketing rights as an exclusive asset” not because they are “threatened” by Ticketmaster but instead because it “maximizes the venues’ own revenue.”
Last month, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian denied Live Nation’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, finding that the DOJ has plausibly alleged the antitrust harm of tying—an agreement to sell one product on the condition the buyer also purchases another product. The judge arrived at that conclusion because there is an allegation that artists must accept “Live Nation’s concert-promotion services if they want to play in Live Nation’s large amphitheaters.” Subramanian also authorized the states to move forward with their antitrust claims, including those that allege Live Nation “engaged in anticompetitive conduct in the primary-ticketing market to box out rivals so that Ticketmaster would be the only game in town.”
Subramanian’s denial of Live Nation’s motion doesn’t mean the DOJ will win the case, but it did advance the case into pretrial discovery and ensure the litigation—which could last years in court—remains on the docket.
Fanatics, a privately held company owned by Michael Rubin with $8.1 billion in revenue in 2024, is the largest online seller of licensed sports apparel. The company has expanded rapidly into new areas over the past five years, including trading cards (primarily via acquisition of Topps) and sports betting (built internally and accelerated via acquisition of PointsBet). As the company tries to become a place for anything sports fans want to buy, tickets were a logical next step. Fanatics looked internally at a number of different possibilities, before ultimately deciding that it didn’t want to own its own ticketing business. Rubin said in April 2024, that he wanted to offer tickets to its fans, but didn’t want to be “a ticket operator.”
Resale ticket practices are already a hot topic in the U.S. government. Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that took aim at ticket scalpers. With artist Kid Rock in the Oval Office, Trump signed an order telling the Federal Trade Commission to work with the DOJ to ensure that resellers follow competition laws. Live Nation thanked Trump in a statement, adding that it “support[s] any meaningful resale reforms.”
