Friday, March 13, 2026

DOJ Nopes Out of Ticketmaster Antitrust Suit

In 2024, it was just possible to pretend that Trump's populist bombast might translate into a real antitrust policy.

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The Department of Justice had been preparing an antitrust case against Ticketmaster for years. However, Trump just fired the head of the antitrust division and let Ticketmaster off the hook entirely.

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-- David Roberts (@volts.wtf) Mar 9, 2026 at 12:49 PM

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Live Nation employees mock fans in messages. 'Robbing them blind.'
www.usatoday.com

... Live Nation ticketing employees called its customers "so stupid" and discussed "robbing them blind" on parking in internal messages, according to newly released court filings.

The Slack message exchanges, from 2022, were released on March 11 as part of the Department of Justice's lawsuit against the live entertainment giant.

Arun Subramanian, the federal judge overseeing the case in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered Live Nation to unseal the messages in response to a request from media outlets The New York Times, Bloomberg and MLex. ...

The newly released Slack messages show exchanges between Live Nation employees Ben Baker and Jeff Weinhold, who were at the time regional directors of ticketing for venues in Florida and Virginia, respectively, according to court filings.

In the messages, Baker and Weinhold discuss, in part, prices for non-ticket items like VIP club access and premier parking.

In an exchange from 2022 about a Kid Rock concert, Weinhold wrote that he listed VIP parking for $250 and club access for $125.

Baker wrote, "These people are so stupid," then added, "I almost feel bad taking advantage of them."

They discussed parking rates in another later exchange, during which Baker wrote, "robbing them blind baby." ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-03-13 04:18 PM

Wonder which C suite a&&hat donated a few million to Trump's Board of Peace or bought a bunch of his crypto...

#2 | Posted by jpw at 2026-03-14 09:37 PM

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