Name: Behind Live Nation’s $23 Billion Dominance of the Live Music Industry
Uploaded: 2025-04-24T09:00:00Z
Duration: 9 min 56 s
Description: Live Nation's “flywheel” business model fueled its rise to become the most powerful company in live music. But that strategy could become its downfall after the Department of Justice sued the company over its dominance.

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Live Nation's “flywheel” business model fueled its rise to become the most powerful company in live music. But that strategy could become its downfall after the Department of Justice sued the company over its dominance. Photo: Mauricio Santana/Getty Images

https://m.wsj.net/video/20250424/95d6d50d-e6be-4ea1-83ec-7513515166b2/2/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Live Nation's “flywheel” business model fueled its rise to become the most powerful company in live music. But that strategy could become its downfall after the Department of Justice sued the company over its dominance.

Behind Live Nation’s $23 Billion Dominance of the Live Music Industry

Narrator: The average cost of going to a concert has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, and yet, for some venues, live music has been a notoriously hard business to make money from.

The majority of people are not making anything else apart from a living, and it's just being squeezed.

Narrator: But Live Nation seems to have it figured out. It made $23 billion in 2024, not just by owning Ticketmaster, but by having a hand in nearly every corner of the industry.

This is the machine behind live events.

Narrator: Live Nation's so-called flywheel business model has fueled the company's rise by treating each of its businesses like a cog in the machine that helps propel the whole business forward. But some, including the US government, are questioning whether it's monopolizing the industry.

There is more competition in the industry today than there ever has been.

If you don't work with them, there is great fear that they will destroy you.

Narrator: This is the economics of Live Nation.

It used to be that you would go on tour to promote album sales. That entirely flipped. Now you put out music so that you can go on tour and sell tickets and merchandise.

Narrator: Behind the scenes of any tour are four main businesses: the artist, the promoter, the venue, and the ticketing platform. Back in 2010, Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster, creating Live Nation Entertainment.

There was immediate backlash. This was the world's largest concert promoter teaming up with the largest purveyor of tickets.

Narrator: Over the last 15 years, Live Nation has employed a flywheel business model to gain a stake in every major business in the live events industry.

The flywheel is something that executives at Live Nation have talked about publicly on investor calls for years. This has been something that investors have very much cheered on, and, you know, we've seen their stock go up and up over the years, but now it's something that the DOJ has identified specifically as problematic.

Narrator: As part of its antitrust lawsuit, the US Department of Justice included this graphic to illustrate how Live Nation can reinvest profits from its high margin businesses into its lower margin businesses.

They are vertically integrated, and that allows them to take losses on their promotions and their shows, because they have ticketing revenue that comes in. They have advertising deals that not a single independent venue or festival could ever even come close to touching.

Narrator: Live Nation can get a lot of bang for its buck on sponsorships and advertising because it doesn't cost much to attach a brand's name to an event.

That could be something like, you know, Verizon sets up special little mini stages around a festival, and anyone that has that Verizon ticker on their phone can pop up there and get an epic view for a few minutes.

Narrator: Ticketmaster takes more resources to operate, but also has impressive margins. Putting on concerts is even more expensive, especially for independent venues like this one.

The margins are so small, we just hope and pray that 90 people come in that like a drink and they spend 10 pounds each, and then we're in profit, because the breakeven point currently for our shows is around 550, 600 pounds.

Narrator: Bermondsey Social Club does work with Live Nation to book some up and coming artists, but Live Nation makes a lot of its money from stadium tours. It owns, operates, has a stake in or exclusively books shows for around 390 venues across more than 50 countries, from amphitheaters to the House of Blues. It also has a controlling stake in festivals like Lalapalooza and Bonnaroo.

When we are advocating as the independent live sector, it's to make sure that we can keep our doors open. Live Nation is lobbying so that they can make sure that their profit margin is large.

Narrator: Live Nation said it's not lobbying to protect margins, and it supports many reforms that could actually reduce profits. In 2019, fans spent an average of $29 on extras at Live Nation amphitheaters. By 2024, it was more than $40.

Because we are only making money on the bar, youth culture not drinking as much, that has a knock-on effect to the amount that we are taking.

Narrator: Part of Live Nation's strategy has been to invest in ancillary businesses like Liquid Death, CVT Soft Serve, and Everything Legendary.

If you go to the Securities and Exchange Commission website and you look up Live Nation, there's an 11-page document that lists more than 425 subsidiary companies or organizations of Live Nation.

These are just more spokes of the flywheel. It's getting its tentacles into every piece of the live events business. In the case of Liquid Death, this is a company that they not only invested in, but then were able to make the exclusive water provider at many of its venues.

Narrator: Live Nation is able to increase its profit margins on concerts by also selling things like VIP ticket packages, parking, phone chargers, and more.

You think about when you would go to shows and you get a kind of warm beer and be standing on a sticky floor, there's a long way to go to kind of give an elevated experience for the fans that want it.

Narrator: Now, the venues are nothing without artists on the stage and promoters to bring in the fans.

Managers are often the most important part of an artist's day-to-day business.

Narrator: Live Nation has its own management agency called Artist Nation. It's also invested in other agencies like Jay-Z's Roc Nation and even an influencer talent agency. Live Nation's promotion business has grown by acquiring or investing in independent promoters around the world.

The amount of hours it takes to promote it, get the artwork done, change it, speak to the artist, and then all that for a return isn't really there, so you need your Live Nation to be able to do it.

What we have done is really built the best touring team in the industry. You know, none of this would happen without all the folks that grind it out behind the scenes and on tour. That's not an easy lifestyle by any means.

Narrator: According to Pollstar, Live Nation is by far the largest global concert promoter today, selling $7.5 billion worth of tickets in 2024, which includes its acquisition of OCESA, a Mexican concert promoter. Live Nation estimates its global ticket revenue is higher, at more than $10 billion.

Because Live Nation has this Ticketmaster unit, which is essentially a cash cow, they are able to offer a lot of money to artists to buy out their entire tour. What they can do is route a tour through buildings that Ticketmaster has exclusive ticketing contracts with.

Narrator: And that's where Live Nation's ticketing business comes in.

Ticketmaster was the pioneer and is still the dominant player in this thing called exclusive ticketing contracts. This is when they go to venues of all sizes, clubs, theaters, arenas, amphitheaters, and they become the exclusive ticketing provider for that venue. The wink, wink, nod, nod is that if you choose Ticketmaster as your ticketing provider, you are more likely to have Live Nation shows coming through the door.

Narrator: Live Nation said artists and their team decide where to play based on what's best for their fans and their shows. Ticketing revenue for Live Nation has more than doubled since the merger in 2010. At the same time, the average ticket prices for a North American tour have also nearly doubled.

Resale is the number one thing that impacts ticket prices, and scalpers are not gonna stop coming after that unless there are some real rules and regulations getting in their way.

Narrator: Ticketmaster has its own resale platform as well, which competes with companies like StubHub and SeatGeek. Live Nation says it's proud to do resale differently because it gives artists the option to use Ticketmaster's face value exchange to cap resale prices.

We also, as a society, kind of crucify artists for their front-row prices when, you know, you could compare that to courtside at a basketball game in the same building, and that sports ticket is five, if not 10x, what the concert ticket is.

Narrator: StubHub told the Journal, "It's always been clear that Ticketmaster's priority isn't fans, it's profits. While they tout their face value exchanges, their control of 80% of all ticketing, nearly one third of the resale market and billions in resale profits, tell a difference story." And SeatGeek said, "Resale operates best when fans aren't locked into a single platform."

It is not a simple task to track a dollar of spending on a concert ticket.

Narrator: But Anne did just that.

It really shows Live Nation's versatility in creating deals that not only work for the artist, but really benefit Live Nation and squeeze the maximum benefit from any corner of the industry.

Narrator: This is how Live Nation breaks down the cost of a hypothetical concert ticket. Of course, they own the ticket company, but they might also own the promoter, the venue, and could even manage the artist.

I think it's important to say that every dollar that an artist gets from us or from Live Nation, they absolutely deserve. But there is a really, really important thing to remember, which is, if those artists ultimately choose Live Nation all the time and don't choose us, there's not gonna be a place for artists to go other than an arena or a Live Nation venue or a corporate venue that's owned by a multinational conglomerate, because we won't be here.

I mean, if someone comes along to me in five years time when I've had enough of it after 15 years and goes, "Here's a big bag of carrots, do you want it?" Then it might be a different scenario, but for now, I'm always gonna be independent.

Narrator: The flywheel business model helped fuel Live Nation's rise to become the most powerful company in live entertainment. Now, with the DOJ lawsuit underway, could it become its downfall?

Everything that they claim to have an issue with, like, there's not really anything in that that we're precious about protecting. There's a lot of stuff they claim we do that we don't, but ultimately, you know, we are out there competing every day for venue deals, for artist deals, and so no, I would say we kinda keep doing what we're doing.