Whatever Judge Arun Subramanian does with Live Nation, the ticket resale business loses.
The case is in its endgame. The DOJ settled in March without forcing a sale of Ticketmaster, and that deal still awaits Tunney Act approval. The holdout states then won a clean-sweep jury verdict on April 15 and asked for a breakup. Live Nation is fighting to toss the verdict, and a settlement with the states could come before any remedy order does.
Here is the problem for brokers: none of those paths was built for them. The case was about primary ticketing and venue leverage. Nobody in it, not the DOJ, not the states, has asked a court to wall off Ticketmaster's resale business from its primary business. Keep Ticketmaster attached to Live Nation or spin it out, and the secondary market still faces one dominant company that controls the on-sale, the purchase limits and the transfer rails.
And that is the good news. Behind it come four threats, all starting with D.
1. Democrats
Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on House Oversight, has made StubHub a target. On July 24 he demanded answers from CEO Eric Baker about Andro Capital, a ticket-resale fund Baker co-owns that sells on StubHub's own marketplace.
The probe followed a CBC News investigation that mined StubHub's SEC filings. Garcia is also asking about Colloquy Capital, an Andro affiliate that finances professional sellers, and whether Baker-linked businesses got preferential treatment. StubHub says the relationships were fully disclosed in its filings, and the allegations are unproven.
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