Kid Rock thinks its bawita-bad that the US Department of Justice reached a shocking settlement with Live Nation one week into its antitrust trial.
A close ally of Donald Trump, the rightwing rocker expressed bewilderment over the settlement, telling former Rolling Stones editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman that he was shocked by the news.
“I don’t understand why they would negotiate a settlement,” Kid Rock told Shachtman for a New York Times essay about how the settlement is a win for the company. “Why not just let it see its course? Let’s see what 12 people decide.”
After re-entering office, Trump allowed the justice department to continue a lawsuit against Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, that was started by Joe Biden’s justice department in 2024. The justice department, along with attorneys general from 39 states and Washington DC who joined the suit, said the company abused its market dominance to bolster illegal monopolies in the entertainment industry.
Kid Rock, along with Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett and executives from other ticketing concerns and aggrieved venues, were poised to testify at a trial that began earlier in March.
But the prospect of a star-studded antitrust trial was jeopardized when Live Nation and the justice department announced a settlement on 9 March.
The agreement was a sudden about-face from the justice department, which on 3 March said that the concert industry is “broken”.
“It is controlled by a monopolist. It is controlled by Live Nation,” justice department attorney David Dahlquist said in his opening statement.
According to the deal, Live Nation will launch a $280m settlement fund for states that sued. The settlement also stipulates that Ticketmaster must open parts of its platform to other ticketing companies and cap service fees at 15% of the price. It also requires Live Nation to withdraw from exclusive booking deals it has with 13 US venues.
On Monday, Judge Arun Subramanian announced that three states, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, joined the justice department in its settlement and withdrawing from the case, according to the Associated Press.
That leaves three dozen states still in the lawsuit who said they were not content with the settlement. Subramanian last week directed these states to engage in settlement talks with Live Nation, according to NBC News, before allowing the trial to resume on Monday.
Live Nation insists that Ticketmaster keeps about 5% of what concertgoers pay for tickets and that they were not a monopoly. The company’s attorney, David Marriott, reportedly insisted in court that “every customer we get is a hard-fought battle in a competitive marketplace”.
When the settlement was announced, Michael Rapino, president and CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, said in a statement that it marked “a major step in improving the concert experience for artists and fans”.
“By giving artists greater flexibility in choosing their promotional partners and ticketing strategy while also keeping the cost of a concert more affordable for fans, we are putting more power where it should be – with artists and fans,” he said.
But New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, one of the attorneys general suing Live Nation, said in a statement last week that the settlement “fails to address the monopoly at the center of this case”.
“My attorney general colleagues and I have a strong case against Live Nation, and we will continue our lawsuit to protect consumers and restore fair competition to the live entertainment industry,” she said.
