Super Bowl fans and Swifties agree: Time to ‘shake off’ Ticketmaster
Taylor Swift may be able to swoop in from a concert stage in Tokyo to a box seat in Las Vegas and cheer for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs. But if you want to see Super Bowl LVIII in person, you’re almost certainly going to have to use Ticketmaster to buy your seats.
And you’ll want to hold on to your seat when you see the cost.
You can look for other options, but Ticketmaster is the official ticket marketplace of the NFL and owns 93% of NFL stadium ticketing contracts.
“To the average fan, the cost of going to the Super Bowl looks eye-watering,” said John Breyault, vice president of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud for the National Consumers League. “It’s frustrating that they can’t get in to see their team for less than the cost of some college tuitions.”
And if you’d rather skip the game and just see Taylor Swift in concert, the situation is similar. The company controls ticketing at 70-80% of major U.S. concert venues, according to estimates cited by senators in a Judiciary Committee hearing last year.
Because of the far-reaching effect of Ticketmaster’s policies — from pro sports to pop concerts — scrutiny is coming from both sides of the political aisle.
“This is all the definition of monopoly,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., in that Judiciary Committee hearing.
“The whole concert ticket system is a mess — it’s a monopolist mess” due to Live Nation’s “monopolistic control,” added Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-conn.
And Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO., accused Ticketmaster of “forcing everyone in the resale market to come into your ecosystem.”
“This is how monopolies work,” Hawley said. “You leverage market power in one market to get market power in another market — and it looks like you’re doing that in, frankly, multiple markets.”
In December, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the TICKET Act in a 45-0 vote. The “Transparency In Charges for Key Events Ticketing Act” requires the total price of a ticket — service, processing and other fees — to be displayed upfront. This is called “all-in pricing” and keeps consumers from guessing at those fees as they’re digging out their credit card to enter the numbers, said Breyault, of the National Consumers League.
The legislation also bans speculative ticketing, which is when a seller offers up a ticket they possess and guarantees refunds for canceled and postponed events.
“The price you see advertised is the same price you pay at the end of the transaction,” Breyault said of all-in pricing. “Most consumers respond well to that. That could bring ticket prices down.”
Super Bowl tickets aside, the business model of Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, depends on being the biggest game in town. Many say it’s really the only game, although company officials deny they are a monopoly.
“We absolutely believe the ticketing business has never been more competitive,” Live Nation president Joe Berchtold told the U.S. Senate.
He defended the company against a maelstrom of bipartisan questioning during a three-hour hearing in which it was accused of bullying competitors and holding an unfair advantage due to its sheer size over smaller ticketing platforms and independent concert and sports venues, artists and teams. Berchtold blamed bots for many of the issues and said that was an issue for Congress to deal with.
Ticketmaster and other companies agreed last summer to offer all-in pricing following a meeting with the White House. Breyault, though, said doubts remain as to whether the platform is following through on that promise for every event. For the Super Bowl, consumers must click through three separate screens before learning the complete ticket price, which includes the service fees and order processing fee.
“Let’s make it easier for consumers to get access to cheaper tickets,” Breyault said, sounding the clarion call that has been echoed by tens of thousands of Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers fans as the Super Bowl approaches.
Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition policy for the Progressive Policy Institute, acknowledged prices for this year’s Super Bowl will be higher than other games, regardless of public policy, due to the high interest in the contest and the NFL’S hot, new celebrity couple.
“This is a very high-demand event,” Moss said. Still, the underlying problem of the secondary market remains.
“There is little incentive to improve the ticketing markets or distribution platforms,” Moss said. “It’s the hallmark of a broken market. (Officials) need to look at the monopoly for all the harm that is being inflicted on consumers.”
Media reports from July 2023 indicated that the Justice Department was planning to file an antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster by the end of last year. While no case has surfaced, observers say that if there is a lawsuit and the government prevails, that could lead to a breakup of the behemoth.
But that is little solace to football fans who have to wonder whether it’s worth forsaking rent to afford ticketing service fees.