Nov 18, 2022

- Advertisement - Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, has been the subject of longstanding criticism over its size and influence in the entertainment industry. People intensified their complaints this week when tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming “Eras” tour went on presale on Ticketmaster. Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, which owns a majority stake in Live Nation, raised concerns about the company during an appearance Thursday on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. - Advertisement - - Advertisement - CEO of Liberty Media, Living nation the largest shareholder, defended the event’s promoter against calls to disband it after a storm of crashes and site crashes during Ticketmaster’s pre-sale this week for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour. Live Nation sympathizes with fans who couldn’t get tickets, Greg Maffei said Thursday on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. “This is a function of Taylor Swift. The site was supposed to open to Taylor Swift’s 1.5 million verified fans. We had 14 million visitors to the site, including bots that shouldn’t be there.” - Advertisement - Maffei said Ticketmaster sold more than 2 million tickets on Tuesday and demand for the Swift “could fill 900 stadiums.” “It exceeded all expectations,” he said, explaining that much of the demand was due to the fact that Swift had not toured since the 2018 Reputation Stadium tour. Liberty Media owns stakes in a wide range of media and entertainment media. On Thursday it was announced that split from Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves in asset-backed shares. Liberty also said it would create a new promotion called Liberty Live that would include its stake in Live Nation. Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, has been the subject of longstanding criticism over its size and influence in the entertainment industry. People intensified their complaints this week when tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras tour went on presale on Ticketmaster. The company was forced to extend pre-sales after fans flocked to the site, resulting in site outages and slow queues. Maffei also defended Live Nation against concerns from lawmakers and activists that Ticketmaster and Live Nation were abusing their bargaining power. One vocal opponent of the decade-old merger was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y, who tweeted on Tuesday that Live Nation and Ticketmaster should be disbanded. “While AOC may not like every element of our business, it’s interesting that AEG, our competitor who is Taylor Swift’s promoter, chose to use us because we are, in fact, the largest and most efficient ticket seller in the world,” Maffei said. “Even our competitors want to enter our platform.” Activists argue that because Live Nation controls 70% of the ticketing and live event venue market, competitors don’t have much choice on where to sell their tickets, and called on the Justice Department to reverse the 2010 merger. Credit: www.cnbc.com /