The Evolution of Antitrust Law in A Digital Market: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Ticketmaster Lawsuit

by Leah Luckett, Associate Member, University of Cincinnati Law Review Vol. 94

I. Introduction

Many Americans have attended a concert. If they have not, they are still likely familiar with what has become the most common way to purchase concert tickets. Using a mobile device, you search the artist, find the date, time, and location where you are hoping to attend, and purchase the tickets. It seems simple enough. But as the market has changed, effortlessly buying tickets has gotten more complicated as time has gone on.¹

Beginning in 2019, when huge artists announced their tours the demand for tickets to their concerts became exceptionally expensive, resulting in a shortage of the tickets that consumers so desperately wanted.² As demand increased, large management companies like Ticketmaster were hard pressed to find ways to control this demand in a fair manner.³ People were often placed in a queue or sent a link when it was their time to purchase a ticket, which quickly became a high stakes environment.⁴ If consumers were lucky, they got tickets priced at the original sale price.⁵ However, most consumers were not so fortunate.⁶ What consumers did not know at the time was that they were competing with ticket brokers to buy tickets.⁷ While limitations are supposed to be in place to avoid this problem, Ticketmaster allegedly bypassed these limitations to make a larger profit.⁸ This forced consumers to buy resale tickets at twice the original cost or more.⁹ Alternatively, sellers enticed people to buy what appeared to be a cheaper ticket but then severely upcharged them at checkout.¹⁰ Because Live Nation (Ticketmaster)¹¹ owns around 80% of the market, their ability to engage in these kinds of tactics was bolstered without any repercussions. The current lawsuit they are tied to demonstrates the issues that arise when antitrust law is not enforced in the ways that it should be in what has become a largely digital market.¹² When large companies own the market, they are able to behave in ways that hurt consumers with less oversight by their competitors. When behaving in ways that hurt consumers, as described in this Section, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has and will likely act on the antitrust and consumer protection violations.¹³

This Article explores the impact that the FTC’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster could have on regulating antitrust and consumers in online markets. Part II provides a background of how the FTC regulates and protects consumers and describes the FTC’s current lawsuit against Ticketmaster. Part III discusses how antitrust and FTC laws may need to change to protect consumers in the digital age as demonstrated by the Ticketmaster lawsuit. Finally, Part IV offers a brief conclusion on the lawsuit and the next steps.

II. Background

A. What the FTC is and How it Regulates Antitrust

The FTC aims to protect the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and methods of competition through law enforcement, advocacy, research, and education.¹⁴ The goal of the FTC is to foster an economy with fair competition and an empowered and informed public.¹⁵ Congress created the FTC in 1914, and over the years, has passed additional laws giving the agency greater authority to police anticompetitive practices.¹⁶ Anticompetitive practices include price fixing, group boycotts, and exclusionary exclusive dealing contracts or trade association rules.¹⁷ This can happen in agreements between competitors or in monopolization, which occurs when a single firm or organization controls the market.¹⁸ Today, these anticompetitive practices are addressed under antitrust law, which relates to the legislation designed to prevent monopolies and promote fair competition in business.¹⁹ Specific laws are in place to prohibit companies from owning or buying more than a set percentage of their market.²⁰ These laws also prohibit certain anticompetitive behaviors that the FTC enforces through regulation.²¹

One specific example of antitrust law enforcement, particularly in the digital era, comes from the case of United States v. Google.²² The Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2023 for allegedly monopolizing key digital advertising technologies through acquisitions of other companies, in turn making Google the only actual player in the market.²³ In their complaint, the Department of Justice alleged that Google engaged in behavior that neutralized or eliminated its competitors by forcing publishers and advertisers to use its products instead of others.²⁴ After two years of litigation, the Court found for the Department of Justice, ruling that Google “harmed their publishing customers, the competitive process, and ultimately, consumers of information on the open web”.²⁵

Although United States v. Google was a step in the right direction, antitrust law as a whole has waxed and waned over the last decade.²⁶ Changes in the economy, politics, and other factors shape how Congress views and decides to enforce anti-competitive practices.²⁷ Today the metrics for antitrust are quickly changing. The last decade has brought a large and continued push to more of a digital economy.²⁸

B. Ticketmaster and Alleged Violations

The FTC’s current lawsuit against Ticketmaster is a prime example of the challenges antitrust law faces in the digital age. Ticketmaster, through their online sales, controls roughly 80% or more of major concert venues’ primary ticketing and a growing share of ticket resales in the secondary market.²⁹

On September 18, 2025, the FTC brought a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, alleging that it had violated multiple FTC laws.³⁰ First, the FTC alleges that Ticketmaster engages in bait-and-switch tactics that mislead consumers into paying higher ticket prices by advertising deceptively low ticket prices to consumers while charging additional hidden fees at checkout, resulting in much higher prices.³¹ Secondly, the FTC alleges that Ticketmaster allows ticket brokers to exceed ticket limits by buying as many as a thousand tickets per event, with Ticketmaster’s knowledge, in disregard of the limits on tickets that Ticketmaster itself sets for individual events.³² This denies the ordinary consumer the opportunity to purchase tickets “at the prices artists set,” which Ticketmaster proudly claims it does.³³ Lastly, the FTC alleges that Ticketmaster has systematically violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (“BOTS Act”), which prohibits selling or offering to sell tickets previously purchased in circumvention of measures used to enforce posted ticket-purchase limits or purchasing rules.³⁴ Rather than enforce their ticket limits against brokers, the lawsuit alleges that Ticketmaster knowingly allows and encourages brokers to use multiple accounts to circumvent Ticketmaster’s own security measures and access control systems.³⁵ The ticket brokers list the unlawfully purchased tickets on Ticketmaster’s resale marketplace, driving up the price of the tickets.³⁶ This often leaves fans unable to access the finite pool of tickets available at the original, artist-set price.³⁷

Because of the digital nature of ticket sales, it is much harder to detect and recognize when these organizations are engaging in deceptive consumer practices.³⁸ Ticketmaster blames ticket scalping and the technological arms race for shutting fans out of artist-priced, primary market tickets.³⁹ However, the FTC alleges that it is Ticketmaster’s own conduct that results in injured fans who pay more for tickets than the advertised box office or resale prices.⁴⁰ The prayer for relief details a few ways the FTC hopes to go about resolving these issues. The FTC has asked for a permanent injunction to prevent further violations of the FTC Act, the BOTS Act, and many state laws.⁴¹ Further, the FTC also requested monetary and other relief within the Court’s power to grant, in addition to other remedies.⁴² In turn, the FTC’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster is likely to have a significant impact on the concert and ticket industry.⁴³ Additionally, it may influence how the FTC approaches regulation of digital platforms in other industries.

III. Discussion

The Ticketmaster lawsuit demonstrates the issue that the digital age presents; however, tackling the issue through antitrust law is not as easy as it sounds. Antitrust as a remedy in the digital era of monopolies is challenged for a multitude of reasons.⁴⁴ The rules surrounding antitrust, as enforced by the FTC, are not easily applied.⁴⁵ For one, whenever a judicial decree is made in regards to a digital platform that illegally monopolized its market, it must address the alleged illegal practices that created the monopoly.⁴⁶ This is difficult as the Court cannot always impose structural changes that ensue more competitive markets unless this relief addresses the practices that generated the monopoly power.⁴⁷ Secondly, antitrust authorities are creating a difficult task trying to constrain digital platforms even via structural decrees.⁴⁸ Relentless network effects drive platforms, meaning competition derives from multiple sources of the digital platform not just a fragmented version of it.⁴⁹ For example, social media platforms thrive on a “winner takes all” mentality.⁵⁰ When more users join, the platform is more successful, which makes it difficult to track the antitrust violations and inadvertently creates higher barriers to enter the market.⁵¹

Many expert studies have pushed for more candid access to data from these platforms to understand where exactly the antitrust issues are.⁵² There is a growing demand for antitrust policy to target a small number of digital platforms that are accounting for more than a substantial share of their markets and taking advantage of consumers in ways that violate FTC guidelines.

Because the Ticketmaster lawsuit was filed on September 18, 2025, it is unlikely that there will be any large advancements for some time. It is also unlikely that class-action lawsuits will emerge because, in addition to the harmful consumer practices Ticketmaster has allegedly engaged in, the company has carefully crafted its terms-of-use agreement to force ticket buyers to resolve disputes through arbitration rather than through litigation.⁵³

Regardless, the company still has a lot of ground to cover in terms of defending itself in the lawsuit. The first two issues described in the background section of this piece include allegations of Ticketmaster using bait and switch tactics and allowing brokers to exceed the maximum ticket limit, which essentially deceived customers about pricing through different methods.⁵⁴ The third accusation is the most significant as it accuses Ticketmaster of violating the BOTS Act, thus making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.⁵⁵ If the Court finds in favor of the FTC, this could lead to massive penalties for Ticketmaster.⁵⁶ In addition to the FTC, many states have joined the lawsuit, thereby making the potential for total penalties to reach billions of dollars.⁵⁷

Although the lawsuit has a long way to go, it will be influential in reshaping the ticket industry. Other ticket platforms will be less enticed to engage in certain practices, knowing that the FTC could scrutinize their actions as well.⁵⁸ The FTC likely will develop an injunctive measure that prevents this type of deceptive online practice from recurring.⁵⁹

Looking at other digital industries, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have already had run-ins with the FTC.⁶⁰ As mentioned above, Google was sued in 2023 for owning too much of the market leading to penalization for their deceptive tactics.⁶¹ Although not completely the same, Ticketmaster has accumulated a large amount of the market and has engaged in deceptive tactics that have hurt consumers which could lead to a similar result of even larger penalties. The FTC has struggled to find a way to regulate these massive digital platforms because the data accumulation is so protected.⁶² However, the Ticketmaster lawsuit further illustrates how deceptive consumer tactics can remain hidden when conducted online, especially when intertwined with potential antitrust violations.⁶³

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, the FTC’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster may establish stricter guidelines for the ticketing industry and signal a broader regulatory approach toward other digital industries.⁶⁴ It may soon be true that the antitrust laws and FTC guidelines that have long guided consumer protection require revitalization to meet the challenges of the digital era.⁶⁵ Consumers have always and continue to require protection, but in a digital age, that protection must be delivered in new and more efficient ways.⁶⁶

Cover Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Leah Luckett

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