Live Nation Trial Nears Endgame as States Defend Core Monopoly Claims—and Their Expert Damages Model

The Justice Department’s antitrust trial against Live Nation and Ticketmaster is entering its final days, continuing to pivot on a key battle that began last week. The late‑stage fight is centering on two intertwined questions: whether the state plaintiffs have presented enough evidence for their core monopolization claims to reach the jury, and whether their damages case can survive Live Nation’s intensifying effort to knock out economist Dr. Rosa Abrantes‑Metz.

In a sweeping April 6 filing responding to Live Nation’s Rule 50(a) motion to end the trial before the jury weighs in, the states argued that the record readily supports sending the case to the jury on major‑ticketing markets, monopoly power, exclusionary conduct, tying, amphitheater monopolization, state‑law claims, and damages. The filing details clearly how the states want the case framed at the finish: as a fact‑heavy monopolization trial in which Live Nation’s arguments are attempts to avoid jury scrutiny over its central theory by framing them as legally insufficient.

The states argue Ticketmaster’s grip on what plaintiffs call “major concert venues” remains a jury issue, supported by evidence of an 80‑plus‑percent market share, substantial barriers to entry, long‑term exclusives, brand dominance, and repeated testimony that rival ticketers struggled to expand because venues feared losing concert content if they moved away from Ticketmaster.

The Rule 50 response also underscores how heavily the states intend to lean on trial evidence involving Oak View Group, early renewals, and concert withholding. Plaintiffs contend the jury could reasonably conclude Ticketmaster’s 2022 deal with OVG was exclusionary conduct, pointing to testimony that Ticketmaster agreed to pay OVG $70 million over ten years, plus a $20 million signing bonus, to advocate for Ticketmaster at the more than 200 venues OVG manages. They also highlight evidence that OVG‑steered venues were pushed toward Ticketmaster without competitive bidding—including the XL Center in Hartford, where AXS ultimately won after the city reopened the process. (1387 – screenshot below and full filing embedded at end of article)

Plaintiffs also used the Rule 50 filing to defend one of the most consequential parts of their case: the claim that Live Nation’s conduct around large amphitheaters has foreclosed meaningful competition. The states contend the jury can still find a distinct large‑amphitheater market, that Live Nation has monopoly power in it, and that artists effectively must use Live Nation promoters to gain access to Live Nation‑controlled sheds for national amphitheater tours.

But if the Rule 50 papers show how plaintiffs want the jury to view market structure, the parallel fight over Abrantes‑Metz shows how exposed their damages theory remains.

Opposing Live Nation’s motion to strike her testimony, the states argue Abrantes‑Metz did not commit perjury, that any confusion over her use of the term “retained amount” was addressed in court, and that the real dispute is a classic battle of experts—price versus profitability. They maintain her core methodology remains admissible because, in their view, upfront payments are fixed costs that do not belong in a marginal‑pricing analysis; AXS made comparable upfront payments; and a separate fan‑fee regression serves as a cross‑check on the broader overcharge conclusion. (1382)

Abrantes‑Metz’s own declaration, filed alongside that opposition, may be the clearest plain‑English defense yet of her position. She says she used “retained amount” as her own label for the portion of the ticket price paid by fans that Ticketmaster keeps, acknowledges that her trial answers may have caused confusion, and insists that upfront payments affect profitability rather than the ticket‑price component she analyzed. The declaration also includes a visual breakdown of the average ticket price, isolating the Ticketmaster‑retained slice as the price concept she says matters for her overcharge analysis. (1382-1)

Live Nation, for its part, is not backing down. In its April 4 reply (1385), the company argues plaintiffs’ new explanations still do not cure what it calls the fundamental defect in Abrantes‑Metz’s model: excluding upfront payments from the retained‑amount analysis. The defense says her later attempt to rely on Figure 29 as a “robustness check” fails because that figure addresses a downstream fee comparison rather than the venue‑facing overcharge question at the center of her model. Live Nation also argues AXS was not comparable in quality to Ticketmaster for much of the 2017–2024 period she studied, and that her own testimony conceded she offered no method to carve out damages if a factfinder reaches that conclusion for part of the period.

That helps explain why Monday’s courtroom developments mattered. According to live updates from Inner City Press, Judge Arun Subramanian pressed Abrantes‑Metz on her report language, the meaning of “retained amounts,” whether her model adequately accounted for upfront payments, and the extent to which the record supported her assumptions about AXS. Live Nation lawyer Alfred Pfeiffer also signaled in court that the defense still had motions to strike ready to pursue.

Live Threads from Court: Monday | Tuesday

The significance of that exchange is hard to miss. Live Nation’s Rule 50 arguments and its bid to strike Abrantes‑Metz are not separate procedural skirmishes so much as parallel attacks on the same vulnerable points in the states’ case: whether plaintiffs proved durable monopoly power in the markets they defined; whether they showed exclusionary conduct that meaningfully harmed competition; and whether their damages model is reliable enough to support a verdict.

Other disputes remain active on the docket, including the increasingly bitter sanctions fight stemming from the Rick Mueller episode. But the newest filings suggest the trial’s final shape is coming into focus. The states are telling the court the evidentiary record is more than sufficient for jurors to decide the fate of Live Nation’s ticketing and amphitheater practices. Live Nation is answering that the states’ case still depends on market definitions, conduct theories, and expert assumptions that should not survive legal scrutiny.

At this point, the endgame looks less like a debate over whether the trial has produced enough drama and more like a fight over what legal and economic theories will still be standing when the jury is finally asked to deliberate.

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Case File Documents Referenced Above:

• 1387 — States’ inline Rule 50(a) response

• 1382 — Plaintiffs’ opposition to the motion to strike Abrantes‑Metz

• 1382‑1 — Abrantes‑Metz declaration

• 1385 — Live Nation’s reply on the motion to strike

Previous USA vs. Live Nation Entertainment Trial Coverage from TicketNews

– 4/3: Sanctions Sought After Unsealed AEG Email Raises New Questions in Antitrust Trial – 4/2: Live Nation Seeks Pre‑Verdict 50(a) Win as Judge Orders More Trial Records Unsealed – 3/31: Defense Continues Blame Shift, Seeks to Eliminate Prosecution Expert Testimony – 3/30: Live Nation Leans on ‘Better Product’ Defense as States Press Vertical‑Integration Case – Earlier: States Say Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan more Sales Pitch than Solution; OVG Testifies to Undisclosed “Advocate” Payments – DOJ Defends its Settlement of Live Nation Case as “Blueprint” – Judge Demands DOJ/LN Settlement Details be Made Public, Promptly – Trump Personally Pressed for Settlement, Met With Rapino March 5 – After Rapino Fireworks, States Re-center Live Nation Trial on its Use of Leverage – States Put Live Nation’s Rapino at Center of Ticketmaster Strategy – Tech, Venue Leverage, and What Jurors May Not Hear Ahead of Rapino Testimony – Live Nation Trial Presses Fees, Conditioning, and Consent-Decree Questions – Trial Resumes; States Press Amphitheater Case, Judge Presses Tunney Compliance – Most States to Press On with Antitrust Trial, Resuming Monday in New York – Internal Chats Illustrate Holdback, Platinum Pricing Squeeze – Unsealed Exhibits Show Ticketing Executives Mocking Fans, Boasting of Upsell Charges – Judge presses states to negotiate after DOJ’s shock settlement— holdout AGs push for mistrial – Judge Says DOJ, Live Nation Showed “Absolute Disrespect” for Court in Settlement Chaos – DOJ-Live Nation Term Sheet Details Settlement Framework – Live Nation, DOJ Reach Settlement Avoiding Ticketmaster Breakup – Consumers, Policy Groups, and Lawmakers Slam Proposed Settlement – States Plan to Continue Pursuing Live Nation Antitrust Case Without DOJ – Live Nation Says DOJ Settlement Will “Improve the Concert Experience,” Denies Antitrust Allegations – ’I Will Not Be Gaslit’: Consumers React to DOJ-Live Nation Settlement