When the U.S. Department of Justice announced a tentative settlement with Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation this week, it framed the agreement as a meaningful step toward breaking up an illegal monopoly over the live entertainment industry. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes wasn’t buying it.
Within hours of the announcement, Mayes made clear that Arizona would not be joining the federal settlement — and that the state’s legal fight against Ticketmaster is far from finished.
The federal agreement, as outlined in a preliminary term sheet signed last Thursday, would require Live Nation to allow a portion of tickets at its venues to be sold through competing platforms, permit up to half of all tickets at company-controlled amphitheaters to flow through outside marketplaces, and cap Ticketmaster’s service fees at those venues at 15 percent. Live Nation would also be required to divest control of 13 amphitheaters nationally — none of them in Arizona — and contribute $280 million to a settlement fund covering state claims and civil penalties. An eight-year extension of the company’s existing federal consent decree would keep it under continued oversight.
For Mayes, the terms fell well short of meaningful relief. She argued that the agreement leaves the underlying market structure largely intact, does nothing to directly address the harm done to Arizona fans and fails to restore genuine competition to an industry that Ticketmaster has dominated for years.
Her skepticism was shared in at least one notable corner. The Manhattan federal judge overseeing the case openly criticized the arrangement after learning about the negotiations only at the last minute, calling the timing entirely unacceptable.
Mayes is not going it alone. A bipartisan coalition of 26 state attorneys general is joining Arizona in continuing the antitrust litigation — a significant show of force that suggests the federal settlement may not be the end of the story for Live Nation and Ticketmaster regardless of what the Justice Department agreed to.
For Arizona concertgoers who have long bristled at service fees that can add 30 to 40 percent on top of a ticket’s face value, the attorney general’s decision to press on may be the most consequential development of the week — even if the courtroom battle ahead is a long one.
