[Senate Hearing 118-31]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



 


                                                         S. Hrg. 118-31
 
                      THAT'S THE TICKET: PROMOTING
                       COMPETITION AND PROTECTING
                    CONSUMERS IN LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            JANUARY 24, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. J-118-1

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
         

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
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             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 52-250 PDF           WASHINGTON : 2023 
 
 
                      
                       

                   RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina, 
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island             Ranking Member
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       JOHN CORNYN, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut      MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              TED CRUZ, Texas
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California             TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
                                     MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
             Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      Katherine Nikas, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
      
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                      JANUARY 24, 2023, 10:04 A.M.

                    STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                   Page

Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of 
  Illinois.......................................................     1
Graham, Hon. Lindsey O., a U.S. Senator from the State of South 
  Carolina.......................................................     2
Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota..     3
Lee, Hon. Michael S., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah......     5

                               WITNESSES

Witness List.....................................................    55
Berchtold, Joe, president and chief financial officer, Live 
  Nation Entertainment, Beverly Hills, California................     8
    prepared statement...........................................    56
Bradish, Kathleen, vice president for legal advocacy, American 
  Antitrust Institute,Washington, DC.............................    14
    prepared statement...........................................    72
Groetzinger, Jack, chief executive officer, SeatGeek, New York, 
  New York.......................................................     9
    prepared statement...........................................    80
Lawrence, Clyde, singer-songwriter, Lawrence, New York, New York.    16
    prepared statement...........................................    91
Mickelson, Jerry, chief executive officer and president, Jam 
  Productions, LLC, Chicago, Illinois............................    11
    prepared statement...........................................    95
Nuzzo, Sal, senior vice president, The James Madison Institute, 
  Tallahassee, Florida...........................................    13
    prepared statement...........................................   114

                               QUESTIONS

Questions submitted to Joe Berchtold by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   116
    Senator Padilla..............................................   117
    Senator Grassley.............................................   121
    Senator Lee..................................................   122
    Senator Cruz.................................................   124
    Senator Tillis...............................................   127
    Senator Blackburn............................................   130
Questions submitted to Kathleen Bradish by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   132
    Senator Padilla..............................................   133
    Senator Grassley.............................................   134
    Senator Cruz.................................................   135
    Senator Tillis...............................................   137
Questions submitted to Jack Groetzinger by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   138
    Senator Padilla..............................................   139
    Senator Cruz.................................................   140
    Senator Tillis...............................................   142
Questions submitted to Clyde Lawrence by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   143
    Senator Padilla..............................................   144
    Senator Grassley.............................................   145
    Senator Tillis...............................................   146
Questions submitted to Jerry Mickelson by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   147
    Senator Grassley.............................................   148
    Senator Cruz.................................................   149
    Senator Tillis...............................................   151
Questions submitted to Sal Nuzzo by:
    Senator Grassley.............................................   152
    Senator Cruz.................................................   153
    Senator Tillis...............................................   155

                                ANSWERS

Responses of Joe Berchtold to questions submitted by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   164
    Senator Padilla..............................................   177
    Senator Grassley.............................................   170
    Senator Lee..................................................   171
    Senator Cruz.................................................   166
    Senator Tillis...............................................   186
    Senator Blackburn............................................   158
Responses of Kathleen Bradish to questions submitted by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   191
    Senator Padilla..............................................   193
    Senator Grassley.............................................   195
    Senator Cruz.................................................   197
    Senator Tillis...............................................   200
Responses of Jack Groetzinger to questions submitted by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   209
    Senator Padilla..............................................   205
    Senator Cruz.................................................   202
    Senator Tillis...............................................   208
Responses of Clyde Lawrence to questions submitted by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   211
    Senator Padilla..............................................   213
    Senator Grassley.............................................   215
    Senator Tillis...............................................   216
Responses of Jerry Mickelson to questions submitted by:
    Senator Booker...............................................   219
    Senator Grassley.............................................   223
    Senator Cruz.................................................   226
    Senator Tillis...............................................   233
Responses of Sal Nuzzo to questions submitted by:
    Senator Grassley.............................................   239
    Senator Cruz.................................................   240
    Senator Tillis...............................................   244

                MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Submitted by Chair Durbin:

    Future of Music Coalition, et al., statement.................   246
    Live Nation Entertainment, letter, January 31, 2023..........   251
    Nagle, Patrick, letter, January 18, 2023.....................   258
    ``Taylor Swift's Eras Tour on Track to Sell $590M in 
      Tickets,'' Billboard, December 16, 2022....................   259
    Vivid Seats, statement, January 22, 2023.....................   262
    ``You're either Beyonce or you're working class,'' 
      MarketWatch, January 3, 2023...............................   268

Submitted by Senator Klobuchar:

    Break Up Ticketmaster Coalition, statement...................   277
    Coalition for Ticket Fairness, statement, January 24, 2023...   281
    National Association of Ticket Brokers, statement............   285
    Sports Fans Coalition, statement, January 24, 2023...........   289
    WorkMoney, letter, January 30, 2023..........................   292


Questions for Joe Berchtold, Live Nation Entertainment, Beverly 
  Hills, California, letter via email correspondence from Senator 
  Klobuchar and Senator Lee, February 2, 2023....................   295
Responses of Joe Berchtold, Live Nation Entertainment, to 
  combined questions submitted by Senator Klobuchar and Senator 
  Lee, excerpted pages 16 to 18 from Mr. Berchtold's original 
  responses in the Answers section...............................   297



                      THAT'S THE TICKET: PROMOTING



                       COMPETITION AND PROTECTING



                    CONSUMERS IN LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2023

                              United States Senate,
                                Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in 
Room 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, 
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Durbin [presiding], Whitehouse, 
Klobuchar, Blumenthal, Hirono, Booker, Ossoff, Graham, Cornyn, 
Lee, Cruz, Hawley, Cotton, Kennedy, Tillis, and Blackburn.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Chair Durbin. This hearing of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee will come to order.
    I would like to welcome everyone to today's hearing. It is 
the first Committee hearing of the 118th Congress. Allow me the 
opportunity to share some good news about the Committee.
    Last Congress was productive. We reported nearly 40 
bipartisan bills, including bills that were ultimately signed 
into law to protect survivors of sexual assault and harassment, 
protect the safety of Federal judges and their families, invest 
and support law enforcement, and more. We restored the 
Committee's oversight role over the Justice Department, 
Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, and held numerous 
bipartisan hearings on topics ranging from the fate of the 
Federal Bureau of Prisons to the FBI's mishandling of the Larry 
Nassar investigation, to holding war criminals accountable in 
our country. We worked in a successful fashion to fill 
vacancies on the Federal court, the Justice Department, the 
Sentencing Commission, and more.
    We did all this despite the challenges of an evenly divided 
Committee and Senate. Although he is not here at the moment, I 
want to thank Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa for his service as 
Ranking Committee Member in the last Congress. He was a real 
partner in ensuring the business of this Committee was done.
    And I would like to welcome the new Ranking Member, my 
friend, Senator Lindsey Graham. He and I have worked together 
on many issues over many years, and I look forward to working 
with him again and all the Members of the Committee during the 
next 2 years.
    I would now like to turn to the subject of today's hearing, 
which focuses on competition in the ticketing and live 
entertainment industry. Live event ticketing garnered a lot of 
attention toward the end of 2022. Most notably in November, 
when Ticketmaster's systems failed during the presale for 
Taylor Swift's new tour, leaving millions of fans stuck in 
virtual queues for hours waiting to buy tickets.
    While Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation 
Entertainment, have offered explanations for these issues, 
these issues are symptomatic, I think, of a larger problem. The 
ticketing and live entertainment markets lack competition, and 
they are dominated by a single entity, Live Nation.
    Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 in a deal that 
joined the country's largest ticketing company with its largest 
event promoter. The Justice Department and attorneys general 
from many States, including Illinois, sued to block the merger. 
The plaintiffs ultimately allowed the merger to go through but 
put in place a consent decree with a set of conditions and 
divestitures designed to ensure competition in ticketing and 
live entertainment markets.
    Unfortunately, that consent decree does not appear to have 
been effective. In the decade plus since the merger, Live 
Nation has consolidated its dominant position in the ticketing 
and live entertainment markets, and the result is a 
competition-killing strategy that has left artists and fans 
paying the price.
    Before turning to Senator Graham, I would like to thank 
Senator Klobuchar, who has brought competition policy to the 
forefront of our national conversation as Chair of the 
Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer 
Rights. And also thank her Ranking Member, Senator Mike Lee of 
Utah.
    Senator Klobuchar and Senator Lee asked for this hearing 
and have led the effort in putting it together. They have 
assembled an expert panel of witnesses who will discuss how 
ticketing and live entertainment markets became so concentrated 
to the detriment of consumers, the impacts of that 
concentration, and the steps we need to take to bring 
competition back.
    I am going to turn to Senator Graham for opening remarks. 
Then Senators Klobuchar and Lee will speak. Then I will welcome 
and swear in the six witnesses and at that point hand the gavel 
to Senator Klobuchar to continue.
    Senator Graham.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LINDSEY O. GRAHAM,
        A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are in a new 
Congress, a chance to start over and move forward hopefully in 
a productive fashion.
    I think this hearing today represents the best of the 
Committee. I want to thank Senator Lee and Senator Klobuchar 
for coming together, bringing us together over a matter that 
matters to a lot of Americans. I think sort of the big theme 
here today is consolidation of power in the hands of few can 
create problems for the many.
    Competition is a good thing, and we will determine today 
what happened. How did the system fail so spectacularly? What 
can we do in the future? But I think this hearing, and maybe 
the fruits of this hearing, represents sort of the better 
nature of the Judiciary Committee. We have a reputation of 
fighting among ourselves, which is okay because we have 
differences of what should happen in the country. But we also 
have a reputation of being able to solve problems for the 
Nation, and I intend to do both.
    Senator Grassley was a great Ranking Member. I know our 
Chairman well. I admire Senator Durbin. He is a man can fight, 
but he can also find consensus.
    And social media seems to be one of the areas that the 
Congress and the public is desirous of us doing something. 
These companies are the most powerful on the planet. They have 
almost unlimited money. They cannot be sued, and there is no 
real regulatory environment. So, Mr. Chairman, if you are 
looking for something to do together, I think dealing with the 
problem of social media would be something the Committee should 
focus on.
    I look forward to working with you in this hearing today as 
a sign that the Judiciary Committee is in business early on in 
the new Congress. And out of this hearing, I hope we can make a 
better experience for the consumer being able to buy tickets to 
things that you want to see without such a debacle.
    So thank you very much.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Graham.
    Senator Klobuchar.

                STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR,
           A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Chair Durbin, 
Ranking Member Graham, for holding this hearing and working 
with Senator Lee and myself.
    This is clearly a bipartisan endeavor. We have interest 
from both sides of the aisle. And I think you all know, as 
Senator Durbin mentioned, that competition policy is very 
important to me. I believe in capitalism, and to have a strong 
capitalist system, you have to have competition. You cannot 
have too much consolidation, something that, unfortunately for 
this country--as an ode to Taylor Swift--I will say we know 
``all too well.''
    In over 75 percent of our industries ranging from 
agriculture to pharmaceuticals, to tech, to live events, a 
smaller number of large companies now control more of the 
business than they did 20 years ago. At the end of last year, I 
worked with Members of this Committee and our bipartisan 
partners--particularly, I want to mention Senator Grassley, and 
over in the House--Neguse, Cicilline, and Buck--to finally 
update our merger fee statute that had not been updated for 
decades. That is going to bring in $100 million a year for our 
enforcement agencies from the Justice Department to the FTC. It 
is really important.
    We also passed a key bill that Senator Lee has been 
advocating for on venue with the tech companies and allowing 
the State AGs to keep the cases in the States where they bring 
them. I think you are going to see more cases and more 
investigations coming out of the Justice Department. Watch for 
it. And I think that is going to be very important.
    But why am I here today and have taken this on? I love 
music. So I grew up in the suburbs. In high school, I remember 
loading into Johnny Royer's van with my friends and going off 
to see Led Zeppelin and the Cars and Aerosmith. And now I do 
not think it is very easy for high school kids to make their 
money at Baker Square Pie Shop on the weekend and buy tickets 
to these major concerts.
    My State also has made more than its share of contributions 
to music, from Prince to Bob Dylan to Lizzo. And in fact, First 
Avenue, the iconic event space where Prince got his start and 
was made famous in the movie ``Purple Rain,'' is a point of 
pride for the people in our State, and it is one of the reasons 
Senator Cornyn and I worked so hard to pass the Save Our Stages 
bill, which was the biggest investment in the arts in the 
history of America.
    So whether it is for fans, performers, promoters, or venue 
operators, we need to make sure we have competition to bring 
prices down and bring innovation in and stop the fiascos. 
Today, Live Nation does not just dominate the ticketing--it is 
about 70 percent of the big concert market--but also they own 
many of the major venues. And for the venues that they do not 
own, they tend to lock in on 3-, 5-, 7-year agreements, which 
means that the competitors that are out there are not able to 
even compete when it comes to the ticketing. Finally, they 
dominate the promoting.
    So we have talked to many venues--some of which are not 
willing to come forward, unlike one of them that is here 
today--but that say even if they are not out there threatening 
them, they are afraid to go to someone else because then they 
are not going to get the acts that they want. This is all a 
definition of monopoly. Because Live Nation is so powerful that 
it does not even need to exert pressure, it does not need to 
threaten, because people just fall in line.
    They continue to expand. Ticketmaster has gotten into the 
ticket resale game so they can charge fees when the ticket is 
first sold and then additional fees on the resale of the same 
ticket.
    The live event experience has become increasingly out of 
reach for so many fans. One GAO study found that 27 percent of 
the ticket price was the fees. A recent study found that for 
some tickets, it is as high as 75 percent of face value.
    And we also know it affects service. As millions of Taylor 
Swift fans found out last fall, there are few consequences for 
failing to deliver the service. But Taylor Swift--I think it is 
important for our colleagues and all to note--is just one 
example. Whether it is Bruce Springsteen or BTS or Bad Bunny 
or, in the past, Pearl Jam or the Pixies, fans, artists, and 
venues are facing real issues with Live Nation.
    I am hopeful this can be a constructive hearing. The 
purposes of the hearing, one, so the public can find out what 
is happening. Sometimes that on its own gets change. Second, 
investigations are reportedly going on--we have not had that 
confirmed--out of the Justice Department. This is helpful for 
them. And the third reason is that our colleagues on a 
bipartisan basis can work together on legislation.
    Senator Blumenthal has been involved in this issue for many 
years, and we can do something not just to strengthen our 
antitrust laws, which we must do generally, but also 
specifically in the ticketing industry when it comes to 
transparency and resale and the like.
    Restoring competition to our markets is about making sure 
that fans get fair prices and better service. Concert-goers 
today should be able to have the same experiences I had when I 
was in high school, when it did not cost very much to just be 
able to go see a band and remember it forever.
    Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
    Senator Lee of Utah.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL S. LEE,
             A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF UTAH

    Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 
Chairwoman Klobuchar.
    I am really looking forward to my ongoing service on the 
Antitrust Subcommittee, along with Senator Klobuchar as Chair. 
To be honest, I had hoped, as of a few months ago, to get the 
gavel back. But once again, ``She's cheer captain, and I'm on 
the bleachers.'' So it was nice of----
    Senator Klobuchar. You are a little more than that.
    Senator Lee. Nice of Taylor Swift to have written a song 
about this very situation.
    But all joking aside, this hearing for me is not only about 
the latest ticketing disaster that has made headlines. My 
daughter Eliza might disagree, but there are much bigger issues 
involved than this one event, although that one event is not to 
be discounted and is itself significant.
    The ticketing market in the United States is a complex 
industry involving artists, agents, promoters, venues, primary 
and secondary ticketing companies, and of course, fans, many of 
whom we see outside of our buildings today. As I was driving up 
this morning, I could not help but notice I had never seen more 
smiling and happy demonstrators than I saw today. I think 
Swifties have figured something out. They are very good at 
getting their message across.
    Their messages have come across in many forms over the last 
couple of months, including a letter I received from a young 
woman named Erin Harding in Utah, a young woman who is only 16 
years old. She sent me a letter and an accompanying PowerPoint 
presentation. I think Erin Harding has a bright future ahead of 
her, perhaps as an antitrust lawyer or perhaps in a number of 
other fields as well, but it has been an impressive response.
    We have got to remember that for those who follow antitrust 
policy, the ticketing space in the last few years has also 
offered a natural experiment for evaluating both the efficiency 
claims of merging parties and the Federal Government's efforts 
to protect competition using antitrust laws. Back in 2010, the 
Obama Justice Department Antitrust Division concluded an 
investigation into the then-proposed merger of Ticketmaster, 
the Nation's largest and dominant ticketing provider, and Live 
Nation, the country's largest concert promoter. In a complaint 
alleging that the merger violated the Clayton Act, the 
Department argued that it would eliminate recent, but quickly 
growing head-to-head competition in the marketplace for 
ticketing services.
    However, instead of just stopping the merger, the Obama 
Justice Department in 2010 said that the Department would 
approve it if, and only if, the parties agreed to a proposed 
consent decree. The consent decree that was entered into by 
Ticketmaster and Live Nation addressed two additional concerns.
    First, that the combination of the two companies would 
allow the merged firm to tie the provision of ticketing 
services and concert promotion. In other words, that Live 
Nation could force venues to use Ticketmaster in order to get 
concerts and vice versa. And second, that it might retaliate 
against venues that did not comply with this arrangement.
    Now Ticketmaster will tell you that the settlement 
agreement was something that they were willing readily to enter 
into. They were not bothered by the consent decree at all 
because this would, according to them, essentially be the 
functional equivalent of their offering the sleeves off of 
their vest, and Ticketmaster and Live Nation readily agreed not 
to engage in behavior that the merged firm had no incentive and 
no intention of undertaking. And yet here we are almost 13 
years later faced with a flotilla of allegations and complaints 
that the merged entity has done exactly what it said would 
never happen.
    There are news reports that the Justice Department has 
opened a new investigation into Ticketmaster's conduct, but 
Congress has an important role to play here as well. While DOJ 
undoubtedly wants to know whether Ticketmaster is violating the 
consent decree, Congress should be asking whether the consent 
decree was the right decision in the first place.
    Was the divestiture sufficient to ensure competitive 
pressure on the combined entity of Ticketmaster and Live 
Nation? Were the behavioral remedies capable of preventing that 
very kind of abuse? If the allegations that we are likely to 
hear today are true, if they can be proven, they raise very 
serious doubts about the sufficiency of the DOJ's efforts and 
arguably counsel in favor of a new approach going forward.
    With all that in mind, today is the perfect opportunity to 
do what this Committee is supposed to do--exercise oversight 
over the executive branch's law enforcement efforts and 
consider whether, to what extent, in what ways new legislation 
or perhaps just better enforcement of existing laws might be 
needed to protect the American people.
    I am glad that we are here today, and I look forward to 
hearing from each of our witnesses.
    Thank you.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Lee.
    Let me welcome the six witnesses whom I will introduce. Joe 
Berchtold serves as Live Nation Entertainment's president and 
CFO. In this role, Mr. Berchtold oversees finances of the 
world's largest live entertainment and ticketing company. Prior 
to joining Live Nation, Mr. Berchtold was president of 
Technicolor Creative Services at Technicolor and a partner with 
McKinsey and Company, leading their West Coast media practice.
    Jack Groetzinger, co-founder and CEO of SeatGeek, a mobile-
focused ticketing platform. The company originally launched as 
an aggregator of resale ticket listings but now operates as 
both a primary ticket outlet and secondary marketplace for 
sports teams and live event venues. Prior to co-founding 
SeatGeek, Mr. Groetzinger was an associate counsel with Bain & 
Company.
    Jerry Mickelson is the co-founder of Jam Productions of 
Chicago, a Chicago-based concert promotion agency and one of 
the largest independent producers of live concert entertainment 
in the country. This is a return trip for Mr. Mickelson. He 
testified before the Antitrust Subcommittee in February 2009 at 
a hearing on the then- pending merger of Ticketmaster and Live 
Nation. At the time, he warned us of anticompetitive effects 
the merger could have, stating, quote, ``It is my belief this 
merger is vertical integration on steroids,'' end quote. I look 
forward to hearing an update on his views.
    Sal Nuzzo, senior vice president of the James Madison 
Institute, or JMI, a Tallahassee-based think tank focusing on 
free market economics in Florida. In that role, Mr. Nuzzo 
oversees JMI's policy operation, coalition building, and 
strategy development. His writings have been published in the 
Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Hill, and Newsweek.
    Kathleen Bradish serves as the American Antitrust 
Institute's vice president for legal advocacy. Ms. Bradish, 
prior to joining AAI, worked as counsel for Cleary Gottlieb and 
was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Antitrust 
Division. While at the Department of Justice, she represented 
the Antitrust Division in trade issues, including leading the 
negotiations of competition chapters in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada 
Agreement and in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment 
Partnership.
    Clyde Lawrence is a leader of the band Lawrence and a 
musician, composer, and producer. In December, Mr. Lawrence 
wrote an op-ed in The New York Times titled, ``Taylor Swift's 
Live Nation Debacle Is Just the Beginning.'' In it, Mr. 
Lawrence explained how Live Nation's market dominance 
negatively impacted artists like himself. I look forward to 
hearing his perspective today.
    After I swear in the witnesses, each will have 5 minutes to 
make an opening statement and then turn to Senators' questions. 
As I mentioned, after I have administered the oath, I will pass 
the gavel to Senator Klobuchar to preside over the remainder of 
the hearing.
    First, could all of the witnesses please stand to be sworn 
in?
    Do you affirm the testimony you are about to give before 
the Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [Witnesses are sworn in.]
    Chair Durbin. Let the record reflect that all of the 
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
    And before I ask Mr. Berchtold to give his opening 
statement, the ceremonial handing of the gavel.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, sir.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Berchtold?

   STATEMENT OF JOE BERCHTOLD, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL 
 OFFICER, LIVE NATION ENTERTAINMENT, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

    Mr. Berchtold. Chair Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, 
Senators Klobuchar and Lee, and other Members of the Committee, 
I am Joe Berchtold, president and chief financial officer of 
Live Nation Entertainment. I thank you for the invitation to 
appear today to address these important issues in the live 
entertainment industry so we can together work to make things 
better.
    For almost 20 years, Live Nation has operated in the United 
States and around the world with an ``artist first'' business 
model that is focused on helping put artists on stage and 
connecting them with their fans. We believe that the artist-fan 
connection is the foundation of the live entertainment 
industry, the source of nearly all commercial value, and the 
number one thing that public policy should protect.
    Over this period, we have helped the industry grow rapidly. 
In 2022, live music was a $12 billion industry in the United 
States, 4 times what it was in 2005. To fuel this growth, Live 
Nation has invested billions of dollars funding artists 
globally, $9 billion in 2022 alone.
    Given our level of investment in artists, it is also 
critical for Live Nation to have the most effective platform 
possible for selling tickets. Since our 2010 merger with 
Ticketmaster, we have invested over $1 billion in capital to 
improve the Ticketmaster system. Much of this was on 
technologies to eliminate fraud and to get tickets to fans 
instead of ticket scalpers using bots, a prime example of which 
is our Verified Fan service.
    Today's Ticketmaster is best in class in conducting large 
on-sales, marketing concerts, preventing frauds, and getting 
tickets into the hands of real fans.
    I do want to take a moment to address some confusion about 
what Ticketmaster and other primary ticketing platforms do and 
do not do. Primary ticketing companies, including Ticketmaster, 
do not set ticket prices. We do not decide how many tickets go 
on sale and when, and we do not set service fees. Pricing and 
distribution strategies are determined by the artists and their 
teams.
    Service fees, even if they are called ticketing fees, are 
retained mainly by the venues. And their portion of the service 
fee that Ticketmaster retains has been falling steadily over 
time. This leads to the topic of today's hearing, competition 
in ticketing markets.
    We hear people say that ticketing markets are less 
competitive today than they were at the time of the Live 
Nation-Ticketmaster merger. That is simply not true. In 2009, 
the Department of Justice alleged that Ticketmaster's market 
share was over 80 percent. It is a different story today. The 
most obvious change is the emergence of the enormous secondary 
ticketing market in which Ticketmaster has a modest market 
share and many strong competitors.
    But also in primary ticketing, the Ticketmaster of 2010 did 
not face the level of competition that we face today with new 
competitors highly capitalized, including SeatGeek, AEG's AXS, 
and Eventbrite, along with established competitors, including 
Tickets.com and Paciolan. Ticketmaster has lost, not gained, 
market share since the merger. And as I mentioned, today's 
competitive bidding process with numerous credible alternative 
ticketing companies results in getting less of the economic 
value in a ticketing contract every year.
    There are problems in the ticketing industry, problems we 
believe can and should be addressed through legislation. Many 
are the direct result of industrial-scale ticket scalping that 
goes on today, a $5 billion industry in concerts alone in the 
United States fueled by practices that run counter to the 
interests of artists and their fans.
    The recent on-sale experience with Taylor Swift, one of the 
world's most popular artists, has highlighted the need to 
address these issues urgently. We knew bots would attack that 
on-sale and planned accordingly. We were then hit with three 
times the amount of bot traffic that we had ever experienced, 
and for the first time in 400 Verified Fan on-sales, they came 
after our Verified Fan password servers as well.
    While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire 
any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause 
our sales. This is what led to a terrible consumer experience, 
which we deeply regret. We apologize to the fans. We apologize 
to Ms. Swift. We need to do better, and we will do better.
    Ticketmaster learned valuable lessons from this on-sale. In 
hindsight, there are several things we could have done better, 
and let me be clear that Ticketmaster accepts its 
responsibility as being the first line of defense against bots 
in our industry. It is an ever-escalating arms race. But in 
this forum, where we are here to discuss public policy, we also 
need to recognize how industrial scalpers using bots and cyber 
attacks to unfairly gain tickets has contributed to this awful 
experience.
    There are many things we can and should accomplish 
together. We should enlarge the scope of the BOTS Act and 
increase enforcement. We should enact categorical prohibitions 
on fraudulent ticket practices, including deceptive URLs and 
offering for-sale tickets before they are on sale on the 
primary. We should mandate all-in pricing so that fans see the 
full cost of their tickets from the start.
    We share your goal of making the live entertainment 
industry better for artists, teams, and fans alike, and it is 
in that spirit that I sit before you today to work with you to 
make the fan experience better.
    I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Berchtold appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Groetzinger?

    STATEMENT OF JACK GROETZINGER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 
                  SEATGEEK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

    Mr. Groetzinger. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Ranking 
Member Graham, Senators Klobuchar and Lee, and Members of the 
Committee.
    My name is Jack Groetzinger. I am the co-founder and CEO of 
SeatGeek. And like so many millions, I am a fan. I grew up in 
Cleveland, Ohio, and my happiest childhood memories are going 
to see Cleveland Crunch games with my dad. That is an indoor 
soccer team. Seeing Cavs games with friends.
    My co-founders and I started SeatGeek because we believe 
profoundly in the power of live events as these magical things 
that create incredible moments and yet believe that the 
experience of actually buying tickets is very much the 
opposite--antiquated, ripe for innovation. I have spent the 
last 13-plus years working in this industry, and there are 3 
things that are clear to me and are clear to many others who 
work in live entertainment.
    Number one, a lack of robust competition in our industry 
meaningfully stunts innovation, and consumers are who suffer. 
Number two, venues fear losing Live Nation concerts if they do 
not use Ticketmaster. And number three, the only way to restore 
competition in this industry is to break up Ticketmaster and 
Live Nation.
    Some quick background on SeatGeek. We started the company 
in 2009, and initially, as was mentioned, we were a search 
engine that allowed users to search across a lot of sites. The 
company evolved. It grew over time, and importantly to this 
discussion, in 2016, we entered the primary ticketing market.
    Throughout our evolution, we have maintained intense focus 
on consumers. We have launched many industry-first features 
that make it easier and more affordable for fans to go to 
events. I am super proud of all of the work that we have done 
at SeatGeek, but I also recognize the ongoing challenges that 
face our industry, some of which have recently been front page 
news.
    The best way to address those challenges is to ensure there 
is robust competition where businesses and consumers can select 
the best products and services based on their merits. That does 
not happen today. It does not happen because Live Nation 
controls the most popular entertainers in the world, routes 
most of the large tours, operates the ticketing systems, and 
even owns many of the venues.
    This power over the entire live entertainment industry 
allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over 
the primary ticketing market. As long as Live Nation remains 
both the dominant concert promoter and ticketer of major venues 
in the U.S., the industry will continue to lack competition and 
struggle.
    As discussed, Live Nation Entertainment is the product of 
the 2010 merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, and as also 
mentioned, they entered into a consent decree, which banned 
Ticketmaster from threatening or retaliating against venues by 
withholding Live Nation concerts. That did not work. It has not 
worked at all.
    The DOJ's 2009 investigation confirmed that Live Nation had 
violated the consent decree repeatedly almost since its 
inception. The DOJ identified numerous examples of Live Nation 
threatening and retaliating against venues that did not 
contract with Ticketmaster.
    Today, Ticketmaster's estimated market share is over 70 
percent of the U.S. primary ticketing market. Ticketmaster is 
the primary ticketing provider for more than 80 percent of the 
NBA, NHL, and NFL teams. Live Nation is also the largest 
promoter of major concerts in the world, promoting more than 73 
percent of the top 25 tours in the U.S. in 2021.
    It is no mystery why no other company has significantly 
penetrated the primary ticketing market. Major venues in the 
U.S. know that if they move their primary ticketing business 
from Ticketmaster, they risk losing revenue they earn from Live 
Nation concerts. They know this because Live Nation has told 
them so, directly and indirectly, through its public 
pronouncements, private communications, and subsequent 
retaliation against venues that have signed deals with a 
competitor.
    The DOJ found that as a consequence of Live Nation's 
conduct, quote, ``Venues throughout the United States have come 
to expect that refusing to contract with Ticketmaster will 
result in the venue receiving fewer Live Nation concerts or 
none at all,'' unquote.
    Our industry provides a cautionary tale about how 
behavioral remedies cannot solve the problems inherent in an 
anticompetitive merger. The only effective remedy now is a 
structural one, the dissolution of the common ownership of 
Ticketmaster and Live Nation. To improve our industry, we must 
restore competition. At SeatGeek, we deeply care about the live 
event industry and believe it is time to give fans, teams, 
artists, and venues alike the choices they deserve.
    It is a privilege to be included in this discussion. Thank 
you so much for your time and attention.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Groetzinger appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. 
Groetzinger.
    And next up, we have with us Mr. Mickelson. Thank you, and 
thank you for your work you do with the Palace in St. Paul, 
Minnesota.

   STATEMENT OF JERRY MICKELSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND 
       PRESIDENT, JAM PRODUCTIONS, LLC, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

    Mr. Mickelson. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Chairman 
Durbin, Ranking Member Graham, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator 
Lee, along with all the other Members of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, for allowing me to appear before you today.
    I am here to speak on behalf of my colleagues, fellow 
promoters, and most importantly, the concert fans. My 
appearance before you is based on my 50 years of experience in 
the live entertainment industry. For the record, my name is 
Jerry Mickelson, CEO and president of Jam Productions, a 
company that has produced and promoted events since 1972.
    As a primer for those who may not know, let me briefly talk 
about the job of promoters. We work with agents and managers to 
route tours into markets across the country. We make guaranteed 
payment to artists, contract with the venue to hold the event, 
market the show, put tickets on sale, and produce the show. We 
pay all the costs and assume all the risks.
    When Live Nation loses money on a concert, they can make up 
for that with operating income from ticketing and sponsorships. 
We cannot do that. We do not have those. Pepsi does not earn 
money from Coke, but our competitor Live Nation earns money 
from selling tickets to our concerts.
    In 2009, I appeared in front of the Committee to testify 
about the proposed merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. At 
that hearing, I stated the unification of these two goliaths 
would create a business with extraordinary market power and 
clout unlike any that I have ever seen in my lifetime.
    I testified that if this merger was allowed to produce--
proceed, the combined entity would have the ability to suppress 
or eliminate competition in many segments of the industry. 
Today, we know with certainty that this merger is vertical 
integration on steroids, using dominance in one market to 
expand its power and dominance in another, cutting out the 
competition and harming the consumers.
    From my vantage point, the arena-level concerts used to be 
Jam's most profitable segment of the business because that is 
where we earn our money. In 1996, Jam produced 100 concerts in 
arenas, but in 2011, 1 year after the merger, that decreased to 
46 concerts. And in 2022, we only produced 14 arena concerts. 
Live Nation went after the arena business, and they succeeded 
in driving us and other independent promoters out of that 
sector.
    Live Nation effectively eliminated competition for indoor 
arena shows by utilizing the following methods: purchasing 
national indoor tours in arenas and for their outdoor 
amphitheaters; threatening financial penalties on a tour deal 
if the artist wanted to work for Jam; paying a band 100 percent 
or more of the gross ticket sales; and Live Nation-managed 
artists typically only perform for Live Nation-promoted shows 
at the arena level.
    Now Live Nation is going after music theaters and clubs of 
all sizes in an effort to control the entire live music 
industry from the top to the bottom. From 2010 to 2021, Live 
Nation added 61 theaters and 41 clubs to their already large 
arsenal of venues. The near complete domination of arenas 
because of the merger could soon happen in theaters and clubs 
in every community in the country.
    On a 2016 Live Nation earnings call, Michael Rapino, their 
president and CEO, said one of the company's biggest goals was 
to convince artists to agree to integrate the primary and 
secondary ticket markets to grow Live Nation's share. Rapino 
stated, and I quote, ``Artists, the more they get comfortable 
with seeing primary and secondary together, our market share 
grows.'' With that statement, Rapino acknowledged that they are 
not serving artists. They are serving themselves.
    There are two antitrust decisions I would like to bring to 
your attention where vertical integration played a prominent 
role in restricting competition. The 1948 Supreme Court 
decision in the U.S. v. Paramount led to the abolishment of 
block booking and forced the movie studios to sell off their 
theater chains. An excerpt from the Eastman Kodak case states, 
``the Court has held many times that power gained through some 
advantage can give rise to liability if a seller exploits his 
dominant position in the market to expand his empire into the 
next.''
    Every time that Live Nation or Ticketmaster blames anybody 
else for the significant issues and increasingly high fees, 
remember that many times they are the venue, the promoter, and 
the manager of that artist. By controlling ticketing and 
promotion, the artist's management company, they are choking 
off competition that would offer an alternative to the broken 
system we see today. This was most acutely seen in Taylor 
Swift, and it is playing out across the live music industry 
every day and generating fan outrage and despair.
    Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mickelson appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Mickelson.
    Next up, Mr. Nuzzo.

   STATEMENT OF SAL NUZZO, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, THE JAMES 
            MADISON INSTITUTE, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

    Mr. Nuzzo. Madam Chairwoman, Members of the Committee, I 
would like to thank you for the honor and the opportunity to 
appear before you this morning.
    My name is Sal Nuzzo, and I serve on the policy team at the 
James Madison Institute in Tallahassee, Florida. We are a 
nonprofit economic policy think tank that focuses on the policy 
issues impacting Florida's 22 million residents.
    Fresh out of college and starting a career in policy, I 
dreamt of one day testifying before the United States Senate on 
an issue of profound importance, maybe international monetary 
policy or perhaps a Supreme Court nomination. But as my 14- and 
13-year-old daughters informed me last night, ``Dad, nothing 
you speak on in your career will be as important as what you 
say today. Don't mess this up.''
    So here we go. Florida is home to 13 major sports teams, 15 
Major League Baseball spring training facilities, NASCAR, F1, 
the PGA, LPGA, college, and numerous other sports venues. I say 
that because most of those venues serve as concert sites when 
they are not in use during their respective seasons. In 
Florida, sports and live entertainment is a $6.5 billion 
market, a sizable share of the Nation's $133 billion economic 
impact in this area.
    So this issue is important to Floridians not just with 
respect to primary ticketing, but also the secondary ticket 
market, which I would like to open with. I would like to offer 
our perspective by way of a brief analogy.
    Because I am an employee of a nonprofit organization, I 
drive a 15-year-old Volvo with 200,000 miles on it. God bless 
the Swedes. I purchased it from a private seller in 2015, and 
much to my kids' dismay, it is still going strong.
    Volvo did not place a single restriction on the automobile 
when I purchased it, and with and when I decide to sell it, 
they will likely have no role in the transaction. In fact, I do 
not think they have a clue what has happened to the car since 
it left their dealership. This is true for just about every 
auto manufacturer. Consequently, our auto market is a robust, 
thriving, and diverse industry largely adhering to the forces 
of supply and demand.
    The same could be the case for the market governing the 
selling, marketing, and resale of tickets to sports 
competitions and concerts. It could be, but it has not 
occurred. There is, as we have spoken about, one dominant 
market player approaching 80 percent of the primary market. 
This does allow them the ability to leverage that dominance 
through service fees, exclusivity requirements, and other 
practices that are ultimately borne by consumers.
    At its core, a debate is occurring over what a person 
actually obtains when they purchase a ticket. Some would argue 
that the purchaser is simply leasing or renting a space in a 
venue and that the lease is subject to terms and conditions. In 
our opinion, that logic rests on a misguided assumption that 
the commodity is the venue.
    Ask anyone attending a Jaguars game, or a Harry Styles 
concert for that matter, where they are going, and they will 
reply, ``I am going to the Jags game,'' or ``I am going to take 
my daughters to see Harry Styles.'' They would not reply with, 
``Oh, I am going to TIAA Bank Field this afternoon,'' or ``Just 
taking my kids to Amway Arena tonight.''
    The stadium may have a life span of 50 years, but an 
individual purchases a commodity with a much more limited life 
span, a couple of hours. This distinction, in our opinion, is 
vital to the debate over the issues within the event ticketing 
space.
    Over the last several years, we have heard the term 
``consumer welfare standard'' uttered much more frequently. 
Questions over whether the standard is still applicable in 
today's innovation economy, whether it should be replaced with 
some other form of subjective measure, and in the age of tech 
platforms what consumer welfare even means. I would ask you all 
today as we conduct this hearing to set that principle aside. 
In this area, we would contend that consumer welfare is very 
clearly defined and reflective of the issues and challenges 
within this industry.
    Those representing the dominant player in the market would 
contend that their growth has allowed them to innovate and make 
advances that greatly benefit consumers. A few million Taylor 
Swift fans would respond, ``This is why we can't have nice 
things.''
    To be clear, from our perspective the issue is not the 
Taylor Swift crash, per se. That merely revealed how a lack of 
competition over time has corroded innovation and distorted the 
market. I would ask, suppose a robust, vibrant, and competitive 
market for ticketing had been allowed to evolve and innovate 
over the last 20 years, would the Taylor Swift crash have 
occurred? It is a hypothetical, of course, but absolutely one 
worth considering.
    I will conclude my remarks with a call to you as 
policymakers. On this topic, in this arena, consumer welfare is 
very clear to define, and there are actual harms to consumers 
from anticompetitive practices.
    Thank you to all, and I appreciate the opportunity to be 
before you today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Nuzzo appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Nuzzo.
    And next up, Ms. Bradish.

    STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN BRADISH, VICE PRESIDENT FOR LEGAL 
     ADVOCACY, AMERICAN ANTITRUST INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Bradish. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, Ranking Member 
Graham, Senators Klobuchar and Lee, and Members of the 
Committee.
    It is an honor to be here today to lend the American 
Antitrust Institute's perspective to the issue of competition 
in live entertainment. AAI applauds Senate lawmakers for 
turning their attention to a serious competition issue that 
hurts concert-goers, artists, and smaller competitors across 
the live entertainment industry. There are a few major points 
and policy recommendations that I would like to highlight 
today.
    First, Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an example of, on one 
hand, a very traditional monopoly in the mode of Standard Oil 
and, on the other, a 21st century digital player like other 
online platforms dominating an ever-widening swath of its 
industry. Its dominance in markets up and down the live 
entertainment supply chain creates the incentive and the 
ability to limit competition to protect its market position.
    On the concert side, this includes excluding smaller or 
independent concert promoters and venues. In digital ticketing, 
this includes excluding ticket resellers and brokers who 
provide important competition via the secondary ticketing 
market.
    Customers pay the price for these monopolistic acts with 
higher ticket prices and fees, lower quality, less choice, and 
less innovation. Artists who lack the blockbuster power of a 
Swift or a Springsteen lose out. Smaller rivals in the supply 
chain also lose out.
    Second, we should learn from the failure of the conduct 
remedies that were a condition of the DOJ's clearance of the 
2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. A lengthy DOJ 
investigation concluded in 2020 that Live Nation-Ticketmaster 
repeatedly violated the requirements of the consent decree. 
Unfortunately, rather than seeking an effective structural 
remedy, DOJ simply amended some of the language in the consent 
decree and extended the decree for another 5\1/2\ years. The 
amended decree did nothing to change Live Nation-Ticketmaster's 
anticompetitive incentives.
    This current DOJ has recognized the ineffectiveness of 
behavioral remedies that run counter to a company's incentives. 
DOJ should pursue new enforcement action to obtain effective 
structural relief. This could be through a consummated merger 
challenge under Section 7 of the Clayton Act or a 
monopolization case under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. 
Separating ticketing from promotion and venues would eliminate 
the incentives to stifle competition, and reducing the market 
share of Ticketmaster through spinoffs would address 
Ticketmaster's incentives to limit competition in secondary 
ticketing.
    Protecting consumers, artists, and smaller rivals from Live 
Nation-Ticketmaster's harmful conduct will require multiple 
policy tools, including strong antitrust enforcement against 
Live Nation-Ticketmaster and legislative action. AAI urges 
enforcers and lawmakers to consider three major features of a 
multipronged approach to the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly 
problem.
    First, consider standards that enable the agencies to 
challenge vertical mergers as effectively as horizontal 
mergers. The incipiency standard in Section 7 of the Clayton 
Act is designed to prevent all mergers that may enhance market 
power and lead to anticompetitive effects.
    We currently have a structural presumption for horizontal 
mergers. We badly need a presumption for vertical mergers 
either through legislative action or new antitrust guidelines 
that get adopted by the courts.
    Second, support more vigorous antitrust enforcement with 
legislation designed to strengthen and clarify the U.S. 
antitrust laws. Senator Klobuchar's proposed Competition and 
Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act is a leading example. The 
bill would, among other things, update legal standards for 
mergers and strengthen the standard for prohibiting 
exclusionary conduct by dominant firms. Such reforms would 
reduce the formidable burdens on the Government for bringing 
monopolization and merger cases.
    Finally, consider the merits of an oversight regime to 
facilitate access to and transparency in ticketing. Dominant 
digital platforms can engage in practices designed to sell 
preference, such as steering music fans to Ticketmaster's 
proprietary ticketing services. Solutions to these problems may 
well require establishing rules of the road or codes of conduct 
for digital ticketing platforms. Such legislation has been 
proposed at both the State and Federal level.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bradish appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
    And last, but not least, is Clyde Lawrence of the band 
Lawrence. And I will say looking at your testimony ahead of 
time, Mr. Lawrence, I particularly enjoyed the line that 
perhaps you will repeat that while you are so proud of your 
band, ``We are not artists yet on the level of acts like Taylor 
Swift or Bruce Springsteen, though we do hope one day to be big 
enough to crash a ticketing website.''
    With that, I turn it over to you, Mr. Lawrence.

 STATEMENT OF CLYDE LAWRENCE, SINGER-SONGWRITER, LAWRENCE, NEW 
                         YORK, NEW YORK

    Mr. Lawrence. Thank you. I hope it will get as big a laugh 
when I say it as when you just did.
    Good morning, Senators, and thank you for inviting us today 
to the most unique gig we have had in years.
    My name is Clyde Lawrence, and this is Jordan Cohen. We are 
two of the eight members of Lawrence, a soul-pop band from New 
York City.
    Before telling you more about who we are, it is important 
to clarify who we are not. We are not lawyers or economists 
with expertise in antitrust policy. And as Senator Klobuchar 
said, we are also not artists on the level of acts like Taylor 
Swift or Bruce Springsteen, though we do hope to one day be big 
enough to crash a ticketing website.
    What we are, however, are seasoned artists who have toured 
extensively over the last 7 years, starting with empty bars, 
then working our way up to headlining sold-out shows for 
thousands of people, and seeing our music chart on Top 40 
radio. While we became musicians because of our passion for 
making music, we realized early on that we needed to embrace 
the entrepreneurial aspects of pursuing careers as artists.
    Ever since we started touring, we have tried to be vocal 
about the lopsided deal mechanics we were facing, even 
including the lyric ``Live Nation is a monopoly'' in our latest 
album. Whether or not it meets the legal definition of a 
monopoly is someone else's call to make. We are here just to 
tell you what we have observed.
    While Jordan and I discuss those dynamics in depth in our 
written testimony, most of the issues we face stem from the 
fact that Live Nation-Ticketmaster often acts as three things 
at the same time--the promoter, the venue, and the ticketing 
company. Let us imagine we just played a sold-out show at a 
venue Live Nation owns and operates. When an artist plays these 
venues, they are required to use Live Nation as the promoter.
    Far from simply advertising, the promoter coordinates and 
pays the upfront cost to put together a concert, such as 
renting and staffing a venue and striking a deal with the 
performer. Since both our pay and theirs is a share of the 
show's profits, we should be true partners aligned in our 
incentives: Keep costs low while ensuring the best fan 
experience. But with Live Nation not only acting as the 
promoter, but also as the owner and/or operator of the venue, 
it seriously complicates these incentives.
    At the end of the show, costs will have eaten into most of 
the money made that evening, and due to Live Nation's control 
across the industry, we have practically no leverage in 
negotiating them. If they want to take 10 percent of the 
revenues and call it a facility fee, they can and have. If they 
want to charge $30,000 for the house nut, they can and have. 
And if they want to charge us $250 for a stack of 10 clean 
towels, they can and have.
    Once these costs, some of which went to Live Nation 
subsidiaries, are taken into account, the remainder is split 
between Live Nation and the band. In a world where the promoter 
and the venue are not affiliated with each other, we can trust 
that the promoter will look to get the best deal from the 
venue. However, in this case, the promoter and the venue are 
part of the same corporate entity, so these line-items are 
essentially Live Nation negotiating to pay itself. Does that 
seem fair?
    The tickets were listed at $30, and our pay ended up 
shaking out to about $12 of each ticket. But in this 
hypothetical show, the fan did not pay $30 for that ticket. The 
fan paid $42 because Ticketmaster tacked on a 40 percent fee. 
And for the record, we have had them go as high as 82 percent.
    As with promotion, if an artist plays at a Live Nation 
venue, the artist has no choice but to have the show ticketed 
by Ticketmaster. And to be clear, we have absolutely zero say 
or visibility in how much these fees will be. We find out the 
same way as everyone else, by logging on to Ticketmaster once 
the show already goes on sale. And in case you are wondering, 
no, we the artists do not get a cent of that fee.
    So of the $42 a fan spent on a ticket, we receive $12. But 
whereas Live Nation's costs were already covered at this point 
in the calculation, we still need to pay for our touring costs. 
In our case, roughly 50 percent of our earnings is used to 
cover expenses. So that leaves us with $6 for an 8-piece band 
pretax, and we also have to pay our own health insurance.
    To be fair, many of the issues we have addressed here are 
not exclusive to Live Nation-Ticketmaster, and we have had a 
number of positive experiences with parts of Live Nation. Their 
venues are often filled with hard-working and passionate 
people, and most importantly, we love that all of their venues 
have one consistent Wi-Fi network and password. That one is a 
real game-changer.
    Jokes aside, we truly do not see Live Nation as the enemy. 
They are just the largest player in a game that feels stacked 
against us as artists and often our fans as well.
    Ultimately, when looking at the current state of the 
industry, we are left with lots of questions. Why is it that 
all of Live Nation's costs get recouped before the show hits 
its profit point, yet ours, the artists', don't? Why is there 
so little transparency as to what line-items, such as facility 
fees, actually go towards?
    Why is it standard for Live Nation to take a 20 percent 
commission on our merchandise sales while we never receive a 
cent of their ancillary revenues like concessions, alcohol, and 
parking? Finally, why is Live Nation allowed to freely set 
exorbitantly high ticket fees without any transparency or input 
while in other industries the Government has mandated caps on 
various types of junk fees?
    We look forward to seeing these questions get some answers. 
Thank you for your time, and we hope to see some of you at one 
of our band's concerts. If you would like to come, let me know, 
and I will throw you on the guest list to help you avoid the 
ticket fees.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lawrence appears as a 
submission for the record.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence. I 
think we are willing to pay, but we really appreciate your 
testimony.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Lawrence. It is on us.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. With that, I am going to turn it 
over for the first round of questioning to our Chair, Senator 
Durbin.
    Chair Durbin. Thanks, Senator Klobuchar.
    Mr. Lawrence, I am going to stick with you for a minute 
because you made it clear that you do not set the ticket price, 
and Mr. Berchtold said he does not have anything to do with the 
ticket price. Who does set the ticket price?
    Mr. Lawrence. That is an excellent question. That was 
actually the thing I was most surprised to hear in Mr. 
Berchtold's speech because we definitely have absolutely no 
say. And if we actually ask the venues in advance, which we 
often do, they say that is a Ticketmaster thing. So the fees, I 
mean.
    We actually do set, sorry, the ticket prices. The base 
price the artist does have a say in setting for sure. But those 
added Ticketmaster service fees we have absolutely no say, and 
the venues claim that it is a Ticketmaster thing.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Berchtold, do you want to add anything to 
that?
    Mr. Berchtold. Thank you. Yes.
    As Mr. Lawrence said, the band sets the ticket price. The 
service fee level is set by the venue. I----
    Chair Durbin. You control the venue.
    Mr. Berchtold. In----
    Chair Durbin. Do you not?
    Mr. Berchtold. Of approximately----
    Chair Durbin. Live Nation?
    Mr. Berchtold. Of approximately 4,000 venues in the United 
States, per Pollstar, Live Nation operates approximately 200. 
So roughly 5 percent of the venues in the country.
    Chair Durbin. Are they the biggest?
    Mr. Berchtold. No, sir. They are generally not, not the 
biggest. The biggest tend to be the sports venues, the arenas, 
the stadiums controlled by the sports teams or the owners of 
the sports teams.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Groetzinger, you had an experience at 
Barclays, did you not, in terms of an opportunity for your 
company to take over a venue that had been controlled by 
Ticketmaster. How did that work?
    Mr. Groetzinger. The New York Times reported a few weeks 
ago how once we took over ticketing for the Barclays Center in 
Brooklyn, the Barclays Center saw a marked decrease in the 
number of concerts from Live Nation that were sent to that 
venue versus historical averages. So earlier, last year, the 
Barclays Center management came to us and said we would like to 
keep using you for ticketing our basketball, but we want to be 
able to use Ticketmaster to ticket concerts. And we looked into 
it and could not get the economics to work. So we said to them, 
listen, let us just part ways amicably, and we did.
    Chair Durbin. So they used their power of the marketplace 
to diminish the number of acts at that venue, and the venue 
decided they had to go back to Ticketmaster?
    Mr. Groetzinger. There was certainly, as Pollstar public 
data shows, a marked increase in the number of shows Live 
Nation played at that venue after the venue decided to move 
away from Ticketmaster.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Berchtold, is that true?
    Mr. Berchtold. I believe, Senator, that what The New York 
Times indicated was that another venue opened in the 
marketplace. So you now had two venues vying for the shows that 
were not going to Madison Square Garden and that the number of 
shows going to Barclays from all the major promoters went down 
as a result of that increased competition. I have not heard of 
any allegations that we changed in any way our booking of 
concerts for that venue.
    It is a matter that I watch very closely, given the profile 
of the New York market. I understand every decision about every 
show, where it was placed and why. We have records determining 
that in no cases was there any retaliation against Barclays in 
the placement of shows.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Groetzinger, last word on Barclays?
    Mr. Groetzinger. I do not have more to add specifically on 
retaliation there. I would note that the DOJ report in 2019 
found numerous instances of Live Nation threatening and 
retaliating against venues once they had moved away from 
Ticketmaster. In one case, the Live Nation president told the 
venue that they would, quote, unquote, ``go nuclear'' if they 
left.
    So the threat is real. It has been documented. It happens 
across many venues.
    Chair Durbin. Mr. Mickelson, Mr. Berchtold defended his 
market position in one element, saying it was the battle of the 
bots. Have you run into that phenomena?
    Mr. Mickelson. A ticketing company's--one of the things 
they are supposed to do is have solutions to bots. And for the 
leading ticket company not to be able to handle bots is, for 
me, pretty--an unbelievable statement. But you cannot blame 
bots for what happened to Taylor Swift. There is more to that 
story that you are not hearing.
    Chair Durbin. Ms. Bradish, you probably heard Mr. 
Berchtold's suggestions and read in his testimony three things 
he thinks need to be done, which included all-in pricing on the 
tickets, fighting deceptive URLs as an example, and creating a 
civil action under the BOTS Act. Any reaction from you to those 
suggestions?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, none of those suggestions goes to the 
core of what we have been talking about today, which is the 
antitrust problem, the fact that Live Nation-Ticketmaster, 
because of its market power, has the incentive to do things to 
exclude competition in all of its markets up and down the 
supply chain for live entertainment.
    So I appreciate those suggestions. Many of them may be good 
ideas, but it does not change the fact that Live Nation-
Ticketmaster is a monopoly and will act because that is its 
incentive to exclude competition.
    Chair Durbin. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Durbin.
    Next up, Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    Ms. Bradish, I would like to start with you. Back in 2010, 
the antitrust complaint filed by the Department of Justice 
against the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live 
Nation alleged, among other things, that Ticketmaster had at 
the time an 83 percent market share with no competitor, no 
single competitor having more than 4 percent of the market. It 
also alleged that Live Nation, for its part, was Ticketmaster's 
biggest customer and was the leading concert promoter at the 
time, of course.
    It also alleged that Live Nation had begun competing 
directly with Ticketmaster for ticketing services, rising over 
a very short period of time to 16 percent of the market share, 
in just 2 months, a kind of a meteoric rise. So with that in 
mind, why, in your view, did the Department of Justice settle 
what seems to be a strong case that appears to involve the 
elimination of head-to-head competition with a monopolist? And 
would you agree that what we have here is not a shortcoming 
necessarily of our antitrust laws, but error, perhaps gross 
negligence in enforcing them?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think that there are two elements to 
why the DOJ would take a consent decree rather than pursue a 
case in court. Obviously, a case in court involves risk, and 
the fact is that to pursue a vertical merger in court--and 
recent experience backs that up--is difficult. It is very 
difficult for DOJ to win a vertical merger case.
    Senator Lee. You mean post-Dr. Miles?
    Ms. Bradish. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Lee. Yes.
    Ms. Bradish. Yes, so that it is hard, given the current 
state of the law, for DOJ to pursue a vertical merger case. So 
that will make them in many cases hesitant to do that.
    Senator Lee. Right.
    Ms. Bradish. The second issue I think that comes up here is 
the need for witnesses in a court case. And in a situation 
where there is a pervasive fear of the dominant firm, where 
venues and promoters and other independent rivals have--will 
potentially suffer consequences--and history since then 
suggests that that is the case--they would have to testify in 
court. And to get someone to take that risk is not an easy ask.
    Senator Lee. The point about Dr. Miles and Leegin is 
interesting, although if I am not mistaken, they pitched this 
as a horizontal merger, did they not? Did not the complaint 
identify it as a horizontal, not a vertical?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, there is a horizontal component as well 
as a vertical component. The remedy--the conduct remedy part of 
it clearly goes to the vertical part of the issue.
    Senator Lee. Now the consent decree includes a divestiture 
and also prohibitions on tying--on tying the ticketing services 
and the concert promotion. You want to say anything about how 
those have worked in practice and why?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, obviously, the investigation that 
culminated in the 2020 modification to the consent decree 
showed that, in fact, this was repeatedly violated. The DOJ 
described six instances but also pointed to a pervasive 
environment of fear of retaliation. And as a result, it shows 
that when a company has incentives to act in a particular way, 
a consent decree is not necessarily going to stop them from 
doing that.
    Senator Lee. Right. Mr. Berchtold, do you want to respond?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes. I absolutely acknowledge, Senator, that 
the Department of Justice alleged six issues in 2019, which led 
to our decision with them to extend the consent decree. We did 
not feel it made sense to be seen as defending the theories of 
retaliation or threats. It is not our business practice. It 
goes against our fundamental focus on alignment with the 
artist, the idea that we would ever put our interests ahead of 
theirs. So we were comfortable extending the consent decree.
    As she mentioned, there were several things that changed 
because we had different interpretations, and one of the things 
that we have done is, is in instances where venues are seeking 
to tying a ticketing and a content--and a concert agreement 
into an overall deal, we have eliminated those so that there 
cannot be any instance where there is the perception of threats 
or retaliation associated with that bundling done at the 
venue's request. So we have simply eliminated that from our 
service set, along with the establishment of monitors to make 
sure that any venue employee or others could confidentially 
report any issues.
    Senator Lee. Is it accurate to say that at a minimum, that 
Live Nation at a minimum was a motivated and capable 
potentially, if not likely, competitor?
    Mr. Berchtold. I am sorry? I----
    Senator Lee. At the time of the merger.
    Mr. Berchtold. Oh, oh.
    Senator Lee. Is it accurate to say that at the time of the 
merger, Live Nation was an emerging nascent competitor and 
likely a very capable potential competitor?
    Mr. Berchtold. I would say, Senator, that Live Nation at 
the time was finding that it was very difficult to build its 
own ticketing system, that one of the driving motivations to 
the Ticketmaster merger was the feeling that it was not going 
to successfully build its own system, and it sought to find one 
that could more effectively serve its needs of selling tickets 
for fans.
    Senator Lee. Yes. I am out of time, but you know, they had 
sold 6 million tickets, and they did rise to a pretty prominent 
position in the marketplace in 2 months. So that is not 
nothing. We will get to that later.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
    I will start with you, Ms. Bradish. As a former antitrust 
attorney who studied these markets, do you agree that the 
ticketing market was more competitive when Ticketmaster was 
competing with Live Nation as separate companies?
    Ms. Bradish. Certainly. And especially where you have a 
potential--a new entrant that is showing the ability to 
increase its market share rapidly and with great success, that 
is precisely the kind of pressure that you would want to have 
on a dominant player to make sure that they act in a 
competitive fashion. The loss of that is the loss of 
competition.
    Senator Klobuchar. Exactly. Mr. Berchtold, we have heard 
serious concerns from artists, promoters, venues that Live 
Nation's dominance in the concert tour promotion can pressure 
venues to use Ticketmaster's primary ticketing service 
exclusively. How else would you explain the fact that 
Ticketmaster has 80 percent of major venues contracts in the 
U.S.?
    Mr. Berchtold. It is absolutely our policy to not pressure, 
threaten, or retaliate against venues by using content as part 
of the ticketing discussion.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Mickelson, have you seen Live Nation 
leveraging its power as the leading concert promoter to 
pressure venues to use Ticketmaster for primary ticketing? How 
are they able to do that?
    Mr. Mickelson. When speaking with people that either own or 
manage venues, their biggest fear is if they leave 
Ticketmaster, they will lose content. So whether it is said or 
not, it is implied that if I do not use Ticketmaster, I am not 
going to get all the shows that I would like to have.
    Senator Klobuchar. I get it.
    Mr. Mickelson. And by the way, if you look at the 
difference between the Target Center in Minneapolis and the 
Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, the Target Center is ticketed 
by AXS. The Xcel Energy Center is ticketed by Ticketmaster. 
Look at the number of shows that play Xcel, and you will see 
they far exceed the number of shows that play Target. And when 
you look at and break it down a little farther, you will see 
that most of the shows that play Xcel are Live Nation shows, 
and they bring very few to the AXS-controlled venue, the Target 
Center.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Thanks for that local reference.
    Mr. Berchtold, one way that Live Nation eliminates 
competitive pressure is by locking venues into multiyear 
contracts, whether they are 3 years, 5 years, 7 years. If you 
have tied up 80 percent of major concert venues with multiyear 
contracts, where is there room for one of your competitors to 
get in the door?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. First, I would note that the 
80 percent reference, I believe, is from a 2008 Department of 
Justice study, and we believe that our market share is 
substantially lower than that. I will----
    Senator Klobuchar. How much lower?
    Mr. Berchtold. We would--a variety of ways of estimating 
the market share in the industry. Depending on what you 
include, we believe our market share would be somewhere between 
the 50 and 60 percent range.
    Senator Klobuchar. Keep going.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, I will absolutely acknowledge that it 
is the standard practice of venues in the United States who own 
ticketing rights to maximize the value of the ticketing rights 
they own by having long-term exclusive agreements with primary 
ticketing companies. Those ticketing contracts tend to last 3 
to 5 years on average.
    I would note a very specific indication of the high level 
of competitiveness is, first, that with almost every contract 
renewal we have over the past decade, more of the money gets 
accrued to the venues as opposed to the primary ticketing 
provider, which would be one indicator of a very competitive 
marketplace.
    Second, I would note the success that SeatGeek had between 
2018 and 2022. Adding roughly 15 percent of the NFL and the NBA 
teams as primary ticketing clients showed the level of movement 
of these clients.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Ms. Bradish, do these type of 
exclusive contracts, do they shut out competitors? To me, like 
if you cannot go to anyone else, what are you going to do?
    Ms. Bradish. Exactly. And I think it is a standard given in 
antitrust law that the longer the exclusivity in a contract, 
the greater the risk of a competitive effect. And the fact that 
they are able to get this length of contract indicates 
something about their market power.
    So, of course, it makes it much harder for a--particularly 
a newer entrant to get into the market if everybody is already 
tied up.
    Senator Klobuchar. And Mr. Groetzinger, do you think that, 
to go to another topic, that Live Nation's concert promotion 
business, the fact that they are combined, has made it harder 
for you to compete for primary ticketing with Ticketmaster?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes, absolutely it has. Typically, we will 
go to a prospective client. We will show them our technology. 
They will get excited. They will get excited about how it is 
going to make the experience better for their fans and allow 
them to run their business better. And then they will start to 
think about the concert threat, and they will talk, and 
discussions will often close at that point because they have 
heard or have been explicitly threatened in a way that they 
know they will lose concerts if they move away from 
Ticketmaster.
    And one other thing I would note that I think particularly 
is scary on that last topic is in response to some of the 
oversight and poking that has happened recently, we have seen 
Ticketmaster moving from 5 years, which used to be the standard 
length for a contract in our industry, to 10 in many cases. 
They are trying to lock things down so that if there is more 
pressure, they have at least signed a lot of these decade-long 
deals.
    So there is not a lot of time. If we want competition in 
this industry, it is already going to be very hard to change. 
Longer contracts make that even harder, and that is what they 
have been pushing for recently.
    Senator Klobuchar. Exactly. Last, Mr. Lawrence, what was 
the amount you said the percentage of your tickets, some of the 
highest ones you have had recently that were fees?
    Mr. Lawrence. Typically with Ticketmaster, we will see a 40 
percent-ish or closer to 50 percent fee added on top. We have 
seen really outlandish numbers like we had a show last spring 
where there was an 82 percent fee on top of the base price. And 
again, we have no say--or we do not even know what it is going 
to be until it goes on sale.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Berchtold, you heard Mr. Lawrence. 
With Ticketmaster's market power, which we all know exists--we 
would be kidding ourselves if we said it did not exist--why 
have you not done more to reduce fees?
    Mr. Berchtold. As I noted in my comments, Senator, the fees 
are set by the venues. The Live Nation venues have fees that 
are consistent with the other venues in the marketplace and 
cover the costs of the operation of those venues.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Lawrence wants to reply.
    Mr. Lawrence. We definitely ask venues before almost every 
show what is the ticket fee going to be, both venues that Live 
Nation owns and ones that they just operate, and they always 
certainly do not take responsibility for the fees. So I am 
not--I do not know who is doing the fees, but we ask that 
question to the venues, and they say not only do we not choose 
what it is, we do not even know what it is. We cannot even tell 
you what it is going to be. So I do not know where the answer 
lies, but no one is taking responsibility.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Last word, Ms. Bradish. 
Transparency would be helpful to know what the fees are. Is 
that right?
    Ms. Bradish. Yes, absolutely. The market cannot work well 
without transparency.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Clearly, there is not transparency 
when no one knows who sets the fees.
    Okay. With that, Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Cornyn. Thank you very much.
    Appreciate all the witnesses being here, and this obviously 
is a concerning status quo. I just want to reflect a couple 
years back during the height of the pandemic, we wondered 
whether any of these venues would--many of these venues would 
survive, including in my State in Texas. And it is great to see 
that the work that Congress did with Save Our Stages and other 
support that Senator Klobuchar and I led had a positive impact 
on preserving many of these especially smaller venues and 
making it possible for many of the small businesses, which, Mr. 
Lawrence, I guess you would qualify as a small business, can 
continue to provide entertainment in these venues.
    I think what we have heard today does cry out for some 
response by Congress, but candidly, I am not sure that the 
antitrust laws are the best tool in our toolbox. But that is 
something that we will be talking more about in the near 
future.
    Mr. Berchtold, I am intrigued by a couple of your 
statements. You said that you have an ``artist first'' business 
model, and then you later said you would never put your 
interests ahead of theirs. Is that your testimony?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator, that is the approach of our 
business. Culturally, we believe that it is all about getting 
that artist on stage, letting them connect with their fans. And 
we believe if we support that and consistently act that way, 
then we will have a long and successful business working with 
artists and providing them services.
    Senator Cornyn. I guess without the artists, you would not 
have a business?
    Mr. Berchtold. That is correct, sir.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Lawrence, has that been your 
experience, that Live Nation never puts their interests ahead 
of the artist and that they have an ``artist first'' business 
model?
    Mr. Lawrence. I think, generally, when we show up to play a 
show, the people that work for Live Nation at the venue 
absolutely, you know, try to be partners to us in putting on 
the best concert. I think that the places where sometimes maybe 
you could feel like it is not ``artist first'' is just in the 
structure of the way--some of the deals with the artists.
    When you look at the settlement sheet at the end of the 
night, where--which breaks down who gets paid what, some of 
those line-items where we have no say in setting any of the 
prices of those things, yet some of them are Live Nation 
directly setting the price for things that they are paying to 
other entities that they might own, which directly impacts the 
profit pool from which the artist pay is being derived. Those 
are the moments where I would not say it is not ``artist 
first''--I mean, who is to say--but like those are the moments 
where it feels like we are not truly aligned in our incentives.
    Senator Cornyn. Well, for your band to make 6 bucks out of 
a $42 ticket price----
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes, that does not feel great.
    Senator Cornyn [continuing]. Does not strike me as ``artist 
first.''
    Mr. Lawrence. I would agree with that.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Berchtold, you talked about how many--
how few venues that Live Nation actually owns, but the truth is 
that you have these--I think you alluded to this, sir--you have 
these long-term exclusive rights contracts with many venues 
that you do not actually own or that you have some sort of 
partial ownership where you have effective at least contractual 
control over those venues. Is that correct?
    Mr. Berchtold. Senator, if I could differentiate on the 
ticketing side and the ticketing contracts, as opposed to on 
the promotion side. So on the promotion side of the business, 
which Senator Klobuchar was asking about, there are roughly 
4,000 venues in the United States. Roughly 200 of them we 
operate, often do not own the underlying business, but operate 
the buildings. And then we have roughly 40 more buildings with 
which we have an exclusive promoter relationship.
    So it is a very--that is a very small portion of the market 
for venues.
    Senator Cornyn. Whether or not you actually own the venue, 
you do have effective influence and maybe in some cases 
outright control over what the venue charges in terms of the 
ticket price. Correct?
    Mr. Berchtold. In roughly 240 buildings, or 5 or 6 percent 
of the market, sir, yes.
    Senator Cornyn. Mr. Mickelson, why is it so hard for the 
average consumer to get access to tickets, and who benefits 
from less consumer access? It's not the artist, I assume?
    Mr. Mickelson. That is a good question, Senator. Let us 
take the Taylor Swift fiasco as an example.
    The fans had to sign up through Verified Fan to be able to 
even buy a ticket. Ticketmaster knew that the demand was 
enormous, bigger, larger than most any other show. And when 
they set the tickets up for sale, there are two ways you can do 
that. You can set the tickets so that they are best available, 
which means that you will sell more tickets because the fans do 
not have a choice, or you can do pick-a-seat, where it slows 
the process down.
    The process, when it is slowed down, increases the money 
that Ticketmaster makes because they make money on fees. And as 
ticket prices go up due to dynamically priced tickets, 
Ticketmaster makes more to that. So it is to their advantage to 
slow the process down and to do pick-a-seat so that it created 
the frenzy that drove the prices up, which again they are 
getting--Ticketmaster is getting a percentage of that fee. And 
the higher the ticket price, the higher the fee. So I think 
that it was driven by the corporate bottom line in the Taylor 
Swift fiasco, Ticketmaster's bottom line.
    Senator Cornyn. I see my time is up. Thank you.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Cornyn.
    Senator Whitehouse.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thanks, Senator Klobuchar.
    Let me start off by offering a Rhode Island welcome to Mr. 
Lawrence.
    Mr. Lawrence. You have seven out of the eight members of 
our band went to Brown University. So we have a lot of Rhode 
Island pride.
    Senator Whitehouse. That is pretty impressive. What were 
your favorite venues?
    Mr. Lawrence. We played at a local venue called AS220 a 
bunch.
    Senator Whitehouse. Oh, yes.
    Mr. Lawrence. But honestly, we mostly played at like house 
parties on campus. That was kind of where we got our start. We 
also played recently a bunch at Fete Music Hall.
    Senator Whitehouse. Well, AS220 is a great organization, 
and I am proud to have you in the middle of this. This is a 
group that emerged from our terrific Brown University.
    Mr. Lawrence. Thank you.
    Senator Whitehouse. You mentioned in your testimony today 
that when artists like you play a Live Nation venue, you 
typically are also required to use Ticketmaster and a Live 
Nation-owned promoter. If that were not the expectation, what 
would the difference, do you think, be for your band and your 
fans?
    Mr. Lawrence. Well, if we had the ability to weigh 
different offers, then we would just be able to see a more 
apples-to-apples comparison of what kind of deals we could get 
in a given venue. But you are correct in saying that, yes, when 
we pick a given venue, if it is a venue that Live Nation is 
either the exclusive promoter or the operator or the owner of, 
there is no opportunity but to just receive a deal that we have 
no ability to negotiate from Live Nation.
    And yes, the tickets have to be ticketed by Ticketmaster. 
There is a--you know, it would be great to be able to find out, 
oh, if it was this ticketing company, it might be a different 
fee, or I know Mr. Berchtold is saying that the venue sets the 
fee, which has not been our experience. But you know, ideally, 
we would be able to see, oh, if it was this company, it would 
be this, or whatever.
    Senator Whitehouse. Could you say a little bit more about 
how that has not been your experience?
    Mr. Lawrence. It has 100 percent not been our experience. 
Yes. There has literally not been a single time in our career 
when we have played at a Live Nation venue where we had any 
opportunity to not have Live Nation be the promoter or not have 
Ticketmaster be the ticketing company.
    Senator Whitehouse. Have you heard of any other artists who 
have been able to figure out a way around that, or do you think 
that all artists are up against the same wall that you have 
described of inevitability?
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes. As far as I am aware, no one has had a 
different experience than me. I know at the highest levels of 
playing like stadiums or arenas, there might be an opportunity 
to have a certain promoter come in and do that arena, but I do 
not--that is not my area. In terms of----
    Senator Whitehouse. In time, Mr. Lawrence. In time.
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes, hopefully. Hopefully.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Whitehouse. Well, thanks very much. I appreciate 
you being here.
    And thank you, I guess it is Acting Chair Klobuchar, for 
the hearing.
    Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you very much, Senator 
Whitehouse.
    And I noticed, Mr. Nuzzo, that Mr. Lawrence has been 
getting a lot of the questions, and I know your daughters are 
watching. So Senator Lee and I promise we will ask you a 
question on a second round if no one else does. That is a 
little cue for you guys.
    Next up, we have Senator Blackburn.
    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And thank you 
to you all for being here.
    In Tennessee, this has been an issue where there has been a 
lot of conversation about it. And Mr. Berchtold, thank you for 
your time yesterday to talk about this. As I told you, we have 
got a lot of people that are very unhappy with the way some of 
this has been approached. And there is frustration. We talked 
yesterday about the bots and how they impact Ticketmaster's 
operations and that you have blamed bot attacks on causing the 
crash during the Taylor Swift ticket sales, and ticket vendors 
seem to view bot attacks as normal to their operations.
    And Chair Durbin had mentioned and, of course, we all know 
the BOTS Act is something when I was in the House that got 
passed, signed into law. Senator Schumer had carried that over 
in the Senate. The FTC has only enforced this once, and they 
have had the authority to do this since 2016.
    So this is an unacceptable situation. Senator Blumenthal 
and I are going to do some more work on this at Commerce, at 
the Commerce Committee, at the Consumer Protection 
Subcommittee.
    But I do have a couple of questions. I have got about four 
questions, Mr. Berchtold, and I want to move quickly through 
this. So do not try to just run the clock out on me, which I do 
not appreciate that.
    So the data that you collect. Now there is a 2019 report 
that showed that Ticketmaster's app has more downloads and more 
active users than any of its competitors. And I bet if I went 
down, everybody would shake their head yes that that is 
correct. And you have the most monthly active user growth that 
anyone is seeing. So--and I want you to submit the answers to 
this to me in writing.
    But let us take the Orange Bowl app, which I downloaded 
last month taking my grandsons to the Orange Bowl. Go Vols! A 
big win there. That app is powered by Ticketmaster.
    Now when you use that app, you can purchase parking, 
official merchandise, access travel sites. So you are getting a 
lot of consumer data and consumer information. So I want to 
know what are you doing with that data?
    Now you told me yesterday you block about 90 percent of the 
bot attacks that you get, but that is a failing grade, and we 
know that because--and there ought to be people you can get 
some good advice from. Because our critical infrastructure in 
this country, whether it is utilities--electric, water, power--
banking services, credit card processors, payment processors, 
healthcare companies, you know what, they get bot attacks every 
single day by the thousands. By the thousands. And they have 
figured it out, but you guys have not? This is unbelievable.
    You ought to be able to get some good advice from some 
people and figure this out. So what are you doing with the 
information as you get this bot attack? Are they coming in here 
and scooping up consumer information?
    When consumers buy tickets from StubHub and they are 
required to return to Ticketmaster to have their order 
fulfilled, are you getting their data? And what are you doing 
with it? Are you then sharing it with these other vendors? What 
kind of protections are around it? How are you safeguarding 
this?
    So I would like a response to that in writing from you 
because that is going to determine how we move forward. The FTC 
has the responsibility. They have the authority, but you, sir, 
are responsible to the consumers. You are controlling 70 
percent, 80 percent of the ability of consumers to access 
tickets to sporting events, to concerts.
    And when I run into an entertainer--and Mr. Lawrence, you 
need to come to Nashville. We are going to have to----
    Mr. Lawrence. We have been there. We just played a couple 
months ago.
    Senator Blackburn. Come on back. Make it your home.
    Mr. Lawrence. Sure thing.
    Senator Blackburn. People love Tennessee. But you know, we 
need to have an answer to this. Yes, the FTC has the authority. 
Yes, the legislation was signed into law. I agree that they are 
not exercising it, but how many times have you called the FTC 
and said we need your help?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. We will submit in writing the 
answers to your questions that you requested.
    Senator Blackburn. How many times have you called the FTC 
and say, help me with this?
    Mr. Berchtold. We worked with the FTC on an investigation I 
believe it was late 2019 or 2020. We obviously post--during 
COVID shut down.
    Senator Blackburn. So you called them once? You called them 
once and said help me out?
    Mr. Berchtold. That was the time that we were able to have 
the information, work with them to get prosecution.
    Senator Blackburn. Why is it that you cannot identify a bot 
attack? You told me yesterday you have a hard time 
distinguishing between a bot attack and a consumer. But the 
local power company down here that is not the billion-dollar 
company you are, they can tell when they have got a bad actor 
in their system. They have figured out how to define a bot in 
their system, but you cannot?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator----
    Senator Blackburn. Do we need to make certain you have 
better people around your IT team?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. It is absolutely an ever-going 
arms race in terms of fighting the bots. These are bots that 
are not trying to generally break into our system. They are 
bots that are trying to impersonate people to get tickets on an 
automated basis faster and putting true fans at a disadvantage.
    Senator Blackburn. It is American consumers, true fans. 
Yes, American consumers.
    Madam Chairman, I have one other question if we do a second 
round.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. That will be good. We will do a 
second round because we also want to get to solutions here, and 
I appreciate your questions, Senator Blackburn.
    Next up, Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks so much, Chairman Klobuchar, and 
thank you for your great work on this issue and so many others 
involving antitrust. And my thanks as well to Senator Lee.
    Thank you to everyone for being here today.
    Mr. Berchtold, I want to congratulate and thank you for an 
absolutely stunning achievement. You have brought together 
Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause, and 
may I suggest respectfully that, unfortunately, your approach 
today in this hearing is going to solidify that cooperation 
because as I hear and read what you have to say, it is 
basically ``It is not us. It is everyone, but us.''
    And the fact of the matter is that Live Nation-Ticketmaster 
is the 800-pound gorilla here. You have clear dominance, 
monopolistic control. This whole concert ticket system is a 
mess. It is a monopolistic mess, and the numbers refute many of 
your arguments. That is the reason we have had two--count them, 
two--consent decrees and why the Justice Department is now 
investigating violations of that second consent decree.
    Ticketmaster had the temerity to imply that the debacle 
involved in pre-ticket sales was Taylor Swift's fault because 
she was failing to do too many concerts. And may I suggest 
respectfully that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and 
say, ``I'm the problem. It's me.''
    And the reason is quite simply that you are the ones 
ultimately responsible for the astronomically rising prices, 
the exorbitant hidden fees, the sold-out shows, the bots, and 
scalpers. We just had an exchange with Senator Blackburn. You 
have reported once, over this entire history once, an incident 
involving bots.
    I agree with Senator Blackburn that there needs to be 
stronger enforcement by the FTC. It has taken almost no action 
against the bots, despite our support for the BOTS Act, and 
that is the reason why I am supporting legislation talking 
about remedies, legislation called the BOSS Act, which would 
require transparency, accountability for hidden fees, for bots. 
Will you support the BOSS Act?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. We absolutely agree that----
    I am sorry. Senator, we absolutely agree there are a lot of 
problems in this industry, and as the leading player, we have 
an obligation to do better. If I----
    Senator Blumenthal. Will you support the BOSS Act?
    Mr. Berchtold. I do not know all of the specific elements. 
I know there are many elements that we agree upon. I believe 
there are some issues that we have some differing views, and we 
have offered to discuss those. We would like to continue to 
discuss those going forward.
    Senator Blumenthal. Will you support legislation to require 
complete transparency all-in to provide stronger enforcement 
powers against bots and scalpers?
    Mr. Berchtold. We absolutely support all-in pricing. We 
absolutely support greater enforcement, greater penalties, and 
expansion of the prohibition on bots.
    Senator Blumenthal. You know, the FTC has failed in some of 
its enforcement duties, but that is because Live Nation-
Ticketmaster has failed to do the reporting that is required to 
enable enforcement, and I think that really betrays the 
contention that you have been active against it. And I think 
that consumers and artists and venues are all fed up with the 
system that exists right now.
    And I think to the people who are fed up, I would say 
continue your criticism if you are angry and frustrated. You 
have the power to demand action, and we should act with new 
legislation.
    If the Department of Justice establishes violation of the 
consent decree, unwinding the merger ought to be on the table. 
If the Department of Justice establishes facts that involve 
monopolistic and predatory abuses, there ought to be structural 
remedies, such as breaking up the company. We will see what the 
Department of Justice finds.
    And to the FTC, we owe the duty of providing resources that 
are needed for more effective enforcement and the incentive and 
the kind of encouragement and support for action in this area.
    Let me ask you, will you support other kinds of legislation 
that would enable more transparency in this area?
    Mr. Berchtold. As a general concept, absolutely. We support 
more transparency. And I also commit that if you pass harder 
laws on bots with greater enforcement that I will commit that 
we will do our part to support them.
    Senator Blumenthal. And will you take action against the 
bots?
    Mr. Berchtold. If we get the laws that are going to be 
enforced and supported and have real teeth and penalties 
against people, we will do our best----
    Senator Blumenthal. Well, you have the power right now to 
take action. Why have you not done it?
    Mr. Berchtold. We have a limited level of power on 
something that has not been consistently enforced.
    Senator Blumenthal. You have unlimited power to go to 
court. Under the current BOTS Act, which we have supported, we 
have given you the right of action. You are the only ones who 
have the resources and the knowledge to take effective action 
right now. Why have you not done it?
    Mr. Berchtold. Well, we would love the support of further 
laws, of working with the FTC, getting other information on the 
actual sale of the bot-generated tickets on the various 
secondary platforms.
    Senator Blumenthal. Now if you are concerned about artists, 
consumers, venues, and about the public interest, you would 
take action under current law. You have the right of action. 
You have the resources, and you have the kinds of legal 
authority to do it. And so that is why I come back to where I 
began. Your approach seems to be it is everyone else who is 
responsible here, not us, and I hope that that approach will 
change in the future.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you, Senator 
Blumenthal.
    Next up, we have Senator Kennedy and then Senator Hirono.
    Senator Kennedy. Mr. Berchtold, am I saying that right?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator, thank you.
    Senator Kennedy. Mr. Berchtold, I am not against big, per 
se. I am against dumb. And the way your company handled the 
ticket sales for Ms. Swift was a debacle, and whoever in your 
company was in charge of that ought to be fired.
    Number two, I hear two things today. I hear some of you 
saying that we have an antitrust situation here, and that is 
wrong from an academic perspective and a consumer protection 
perspective. I hear others of you saying Live Nation is making 
too much money, and we want some of it. Okay? But I hear all of 
you saying you care about the consumer, and I take you at your 
word.
    So how would you feel about adopting a rule which it seems 
to me would satisfy the bot situation. Let us just adopt a 
rule--well, strike that. I do not want to make it a suggestion 
because I want to think it through more. But let me ask you 
your opinion. You are the experts.
    What if we adopt a rule that said tickets to a Taylor Swift 
concert or Mr. Lawrence's band's concert are nontransferable? 
Now you are not going to have a problem with bots, okay? If you 
have got a scalper trying to buy 2,000 tickets, they do not 
want 2,000 tickets. They want a profit. And it will hold down 
ticket prices. Why do we not do that?
    Don't everybody jump in at once.
    Mr. Lawrence. I mean, I think whether it was that or only 
transferable at face value. I am not an expert on the secondary 
ticketing market, so all I can tell you is that from the 
artist's perspective, we would not make a dollar less if that 
were implemented.
    Senator Kennedy. Yes, but Mr. Lawrence, if you care about 
the consumer--and I hear you say that you do--I will tell you 
what the consumer is concerned about. The consumer is not 
concerned about how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin 
and whether this is an antitrust violation or not of the FTC. 
The consumer is concerned about the price.
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes. So I am saying I think----
    Senator Kennedy. So would you support nontransferability or 
you can only transfer it at face value?
    Mr. Lawrence. I mean, I think it is a really interesting 
question. I am not an expert on it.
    Senator Kennedy. How about you, Ms. Bradish?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think nontransferability is making a 
judgment in lieu of what a customer would make.
    Senator Kennedy. I understand what it means. Would you 
support that?
    Ms. Bradish. No.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. How about you, Mr. Nuzzo?
    Mr. Nuzzo. I would respectfully not support such a rule.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay. How about you, Mr. Mickelson?
    Mr. Mickelson. Mickelson, but that is good.
    Yes, Senator, a good question. Totally support 
nontransferability, totally.
    Senator Kennedy. Okay, thank you. Next, sir?
    Mr. Groetzinger. I respectfully think transferability is 
important for consumers.
    Senator Kennedy. You think it is important? Is it important 
for consumers or for the middleman?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Like let us say I am going to a show with 
Jerry, and I buy the tickets. I want to be able to send that 
ticket to Jerry so that we can go together.
    Senator Kennedy. That is the exception rather than the 
rule.
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes, I mean, certainly I think there is 
interesting ways we could use----
    Senator Kennedy. A few people may have to eat the ticket. 
They get sick. They cannot go. But most people will think about 
that before they buy the ticket.
    Now if you want to hold down prices, cut out the middlemen 
and the middlewomen, you want to cut out bots, make it 
nontransferable or transferable only at price, at face value. 
Couldn't a major artist, couldn't a Bruce Springsteen say--
whose music I love--couldn't he say, Look, I have got market 
power. I am going to set this price for the ticket, I am going 
to set this price for the service fee, and it is going to be 
nontransferable.
    Couldn't an artist do that with market power?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes, for sure. Yes, I think it is an 
interesting idea, and some artists----
    Senator Kennedy. Problem solved.
    Mr. Groetzinger. Some artists have done that----
    Senator Kennedy. Problem solved.
    Mr. Groetzinger. For sure.
    Senator Kennedy. How about that, Mr. Berchtold?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. We would fully support an 
artist's right to make their shows nontransferable.
    Senator Kennedy. I did not ask that. Do you support--do you 
support nontransferability or not?
    Mr. Berchtold. We would support nontransferability, yes.
    Senator Kennedy. Well, then why--a big part of the problem 
is just solved. Okay? If you care about the consumer, you are 
going to hold the price down. You are going to cut out the 
middleman.
    Now we still have the problem of some of your colleagues 
say you are making too much money. Some of them say, I hear 
them say you are making too much money, and we want some of it. 
I hear others saying you are making too much money, and that is 
hurting the consumer because those fees get passed on.
    If you care about the consumer, cap the price. Cut out the 
bots. Cut out the middle people. And give--if you really care 
about the consumer, give the consumer a break. Not every kid 
can afford whatever it is, $500, to go see Taylor Swift.
    And I would like to see Ms. Swift or Mr. Springsteen or 
some of the other major artists step up and say you know what, 
we are going to support nontransferability, and we are going to 
cap the fees that are added on here, and we are going to make 
sure that the artist is paid a fair price. Everybody else can 
make a profit, but you cannot make an obscene profit, 
especially the scalpers.
    If we do that, now we've done something. Now we've gone 
beyond how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin and 
whether the FTC ought to be involved. And we know fully well 
that'll happen sometime in the next century. And whether 
something is a technical violation of the antitrust law, which 
we have to go litigate.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay.
    Senator Kennedy. My work here is done.
    Senator Klobuchar. Senator Hirono. Thank you, Senator 
Kennedy.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I think that, Mr. Nuzzo and Ms. Bradish, you just responded 
that you would not support nontransferability. Very briefly, 
could you explain why not?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think it goes to a regulatory solution 
to something that should be a competition issue. If there were 
competition, if we solve the competition issue here, then 
customers will get what they want. So I think this is--it does 
not get to the heart of the matter, essentially.
    Senator Hirono. Mr. Nuzzo?
    Mr. Nuzzo. Yes, thank you very much, Senator.
    It is a good question, and ultimately, we would look at it 
in a couple of ways. One is a property rights issue. As an 
individual purchasing a ticket, I should have the ability to 
transfer that ticket at a market rate.
    Second, I would point to a statistic--I believe it was from 
a GAO report--that close to, if not a majority of the tickets 
on the resale market are going for under the market value. So 
while I would contend that I am not going to pay $500, let 
alone $5,000, to go see Taylor Swift, the secondary market 
allows artists like the band Lawrence, who are selling to 
smaller venues and are growing, the ability to fill those 
venues, especially when those cases come where an individual is 
unable to use their ticket.
    Senator Hirono. So isn't Ticketmaster also in the secondary 
market?
    Mr. Nuzzo. I believe the largest secondary market is 
StubHub, but I do believe Ticketmaster is either building or 
growing a secondary resale market.
    Senator Hirono. Yes. So I am surprised that Mr. Berchtold 
says that he would definitely support nontransferability. 
Nothing is simple.
    Mr. Lawrence, as you sit here, can you tell me what you 
hope will happen after this hearing?
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes, it is a great question. I think that we 
have a few specific things that we would just love to see 
change in the industry how ever--how ever we are able to get 
there. To list a few, I think that dealing with this whole 
inconsistency around ancillary revenues, which is something 
that we are not talking about as much today, the idea that Live 
Nation or, frankly, most promoters typically take 20 percent or 
more of our gross merchandise sales from the night under the 
idea that they are providing the real estate, but we are 
providing all the customers.
    As Mr. Nuzzo was talking about, you say you are going to 
see a Harry Styles show. You are not going to XYZ arena. So how 
come we do not get any of their bar sales? That is one example. 
I could keep listing more.
    Expansion of off-platform ticketing or ticketing choice. 
Caps on fees like we are talking about. Greater transparency on 
the settlement sheets that we receive at the end of the night. 
That is a whole other conversation that I could list 10 things 
about the way those are formatted and broken out in a way that 
feels not totally ideal or fair to artists.
    I could go on and on.
    Senator Hirono. So there are a number of things that we can 
do, do these kinds of things for you to be able to probably 
negotiate better.
    Now, Ms. Bradish, do we have to change any laws in order to 
enable an artist like Mr. Lawrence to do what he wants to be 
able to do?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think we need to support strong 
antitrust enforcement. We have to give the agencies the 
resources and the legislation, the clarity of legislation that 
will enable them to attack practices like this. So, yes, we 
need to support and give resources to the existing antitrust 
agencies and the existing laws, and we should consider other 
laws, like Senator Klobuchar's law, that would clarify and 
strengthen those antitrust laws.
    Senator Hirono. Also the BOSS Act, which I--Senator 
Blumenthal's bill, which I signed on to, which creates greater 
transparency.
    You testified, Ms. Bradish, that there should be a 
presumption for vertical mergers as we do for horizontal 
mergers. What would that presumption be for vertical mergers?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, for vertical mergers, we can look at--we 
can obviously look at the share in a particular market. We can 
look at their ability, the ability of the monopolist to 
exercise power in another market downstream or upstream. There 
are a number of ways to get at the same problem, but the idea 
is that you give the DOJ or FTC a foothold in order to be able 
to bring the case before a court, a foothold to be able to say 
this is illegal, presumptively illegal.
    Senator Hirono. Do we need to amend the Sherman Act to 
create such a presumption for vertical mergers, or do we need 
to strengthen the Clayton Act, Section 7?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think that the current Clayton Act and 
Sherman Act do not have the presumptions for horizontal 
mergers. Those come from the case law. So we do not necessarily 
need to change the fundamental contours of the Clayton Act and 
the Sherman Act. In fact, I would suggest that the Clayton Act 
already has built this in.
    Senator Hirono. The Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger has 
already occurred. I am interested in what we can do to prevent 
this kind of market share capture in other vertical mergers.
    And I just want to mention that we have been talking a lot 
about the debacle, I would say, of the Taylor Swift situation, 
and back in 2018, thousands of people in Hawaii tried and 
failed to get Bruno Mars tickets, and similar kinds of 
occurrences happened in Hawaii. And I heard Mr. Berchtold say 
that after the merger they spent $1 billion to improve the 
Ticketmaster system so that what you had in 2018, quite a few 
years after the merger, you had the similar kind of situation 
with Bruno Mars, and then you have Taylor Swift. So I am just 
wondering what kind of improvements to the Ticketmaster system 
that is actually being followed.
    Thank you very much.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Hirono, for 
using that example.
    Next up, we have Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the 
witnesses for being here.
    Mr. Berchtold, if I could just start with you? Your company 
is currently under a consent decree with the Justice 
Department. Is that correct?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator, we are.
    Senator Hawley. Running through 2025. Is that right?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Hawley. This is because the Justice Department says 
that your company repeatedly conditioned and threatened to 
condition Live Nation's provision of live concerts on a venue's 
purchase of Ticketmaster's ticketing services. Is that correct?
    Mr. Berchtold. The Department of Justice alleged there were 
six instances in 2019 that they thought were violations. We 
agreed to extend the decree rather than to debate it in court 
because we had no interest in being perceived as defending the 
notion of threatening or retaliating.
    Senator Hawley. Yes. Well, kind of extraordinary to have a 
consent decree running for such a long period of time and have 
you not even fight it in court.
    Let us talk about what your company is doing to try to 
control the resale market. You have been pushing something 
called SafeTix, which, as I understand, it is a digital 
ticketing system. You need your phone for it, right? There is 
an app. It generates a bar code that then regenerates every few 
seconds. You cannot print it off. You have got to use the app 
for it.
    Is that basically correct? Do I have the basics right 
there?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. One of the major investments 
we have made over the past decade has been shifting ticketing 
from a paper ticket or PDF to a on-the-phone digital ticket as 
a major issue toward security and to eliminate fraud. These----
    Senator Hawley. Yes, I want to come back to that, but just 
so I understand the way the system works. So once you have got 
the app, somebody has got a ticket on the app can digitally 
transfer that ticket to another app user, but they cannot print 
it off and resell the ticket on StubHub, for instance. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. They cannot print it off 
because the notion of printing it would open susceptibility to 
fraud and duplication of that ticket.
    Senator Hawley. So you could only--let me just be clear 
about the way this works. You could only resell it through the 
Ticketmaster ecosystem. Is that right?
    Mr. Berchtold. No, Senator. Those tickets are often resold 
on StubHub, SeatGeek, and other secondary ticketing platforms.
    Senator Hawley. Okay. So let me just ask you about the 
counterfeiting question here. I mean, what kind of scale are we 
talking about here? I mean, how many percentage--what 
percentage of tickets sold on the secondary market do you think 
are counterfeit?
    Mr. Berchtold. Well, I think given today's digital ticket, 
the counterfeit ticket has been all but eliminated. We still 
have a large issue with speculative tickets being sold, where 
the seller does not actually own the right to the ticket but is 
selling it to the fan, who is unaware of that. But the old 
issue of having a PDF photocopied multiple times and resold has 
been eliminated.
    Senator Hawley. How does the resale of the SafeTix, how 
does the resale with another entity, let us say StubHub just 
for illustrative purposes, how does that work? How can I--if I 
had a SafeTix ticket, how could I resell it on StubHub?
    Mr. Berchtold. You could list your ticket on StubHub. There 
would be a buyer. The buyer would buy the ticket. You would 
transfer that ticket to the recipient's Ticketmaster account if 
it were a concert. If it were an NFL ticket, to their StubHub 
account.
    Senator Hawley. Do you have any plans to restrict the 
resalability of digital tickets through third-party entities 
like StubHub or others?
    Mr. Berchtold. We have no plans to restrict that 
transferability. We do believe that the artist should have the 
right to set the rules, as we were discussing earlier, in terms 
of the nature of the transferability. We believe there should 
be no difference between the rules that we, Ticketmaster, 
follow and what any of the other platforms can do.
    Senator Hawley. So let me just ask you about the 
transferability question. Why is it good for consumers to limit 
transferability? I heard your exchange with Senator Kennedy. I 
do not understand why it is a good thing for the ticket buyer 
to not be able to resell her tickets or his tickets.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. I think tickets, and concerts 
in particular, are a unique animal in that those tickets are 
often underpriced by the artist because they want to deliver 
value to the fans. And that creates the opportunity, a $5 
billion a year opportunity in the United States, for the 
industrial scalping of tickets using bots to unfairly gain 
possession of those tickets, illegally gain possession of those 
tickets and resell them on the secondary.
    So the transferability comes into play as part of the 
discussion or this comes into the discussion on transferability 
given that illegal activity that is enabled by ease of 
transfer.
    Senator Hawley. But are there other examples of markets, 
ticket markets where we limit transferability in that way?
    Mr. Berchtold. Senator, I am not aware of other markets 
where you have such a substantial arbitrage in the value.
    Senator Hawley. Yes, it just--I mean, you cannot do it, 
obviously, with movie tickets, let us say. I mean, those are 
freely transferable. I just worry about the effect on consumers 
and prices. If you tell a consumer who buys her ticket that she 
cannot then turn around and sell it, I mean you talk about a 
market intervention, that is a pretty significant one.
    I understand why the artists would like it, and I certainly 
understand why you would like it. It is not clear to me why it 
is good for consumers.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. I think we believe it is good 
for consumers because it would mean that the consumers could 
buy all of those tickets rather than having what is often 20 to 
30 percent of concert tickets purchased by scalpers using bots 
and put on the secondary market directly.
    Senator Hawley. Let me just--Madam Chair, I know I am over 
time, and Senator Cruz wants to ask questions. Let me just 
really quickly here ask Ms. Bradish if I could. I want to come 
back to this consent decree extension that is now running out 
through 2025.
    What DOJ alleged in 2020 was pretty significant. They said 
that there had been violation of the earlier consent decree, 
that Live Nation had retaliated, that they violated the plain 
language of the decree. It is not normal, is it, for antitrust 
consent decrees to get extended like this after violations are 
identified. Am I correct?
    Ms. Bradish. That is correct.
    Senator Hawley. So what do you think is going on here?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think it certainly shows that the 
problem that they anticipated in 2010 is--actually has come to 
pass in 2020. It means that Ticketmaster-Live Nation is a 
monopolist whose conduct needs to be supervised.
    I do not think that this changes their incentive. So it 
makes it very difficult in the long run for DOJ to actually 
supervise it.
    Senator Hawley. You do not think it changes Live Nation's 
incentives you are saying?
    Ms. Bradish. Right. I mean, their incentives are still to 
bully others.
    Senator Hawley. Right. What should happen then, in your 
view?
    Ms. Bradish. A structural remedy. There should be a 
spinoff. There should be disintegration of the vertical 
integration.
    Senator Hawley. Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you, Senator Hawley.
    Before Senator Cruz, Senator Tillis was here first. Thank 
you, Senator Tillis.
    Senator Tillis. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
    Mr. Lawrence, ``Don't Lose Sight,'' ``Do You Wanna Do 
Nothing With Me?'' and let's see, what is the other one? Oh, 
``It's Not All About You.'' Sounds like you have been 
eavesdropping on conversations among Senators as an inspiration 
for those songs.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Lawrence. Thank you.
    Senator Tillis. I also just want to point to the fact we 
are looking at, I think--at the time, anyway--the youngest 
member of the Songwriters Guild after you helped your dad 
figure out how to do the Miss America pageant or revise it for 
the purposes of that movie?
    Mr. Lawrence. Something like that, yes.
    Senator Tillis. Let me ask you, first off on the issue of 
transferability, I am a Ticketmaster user. I am a season ticket 
holder for the Carolina Panthers. It seems to me that I like 
the idea of an artist being able to do that. Maybe that is what 
Taylor Swift should have done because it would have probably 
avoided the situation we had there. But I think a broad brush 
policy on nontransferability has all kinds of problems, to the 
point that Senator Hawley made, and I could think of other 
ones.
    I also think when we talk about scalpers, there are 
scalpers out there. But there are also people that are 
speculating on the market being able to demand a higher price. 
That sounds like a free market principle I do not want to get 
too far ahead of. So I think we have to be very careful when we 
talk about things like that.
    Mr. Berchtold, I am trying to--clearly, Ticketmaster and 
Live Nation are in the crosshairs. So can you give me two 
things? I was also prompted by the discussion you had with 
Senator Blumenthal. One, tell me what you are doing to address 
what you think--whether or not you believe they are valid, you 
can see forces working against you. What specifically is 
Ticketmaster and Live Nation doing to prevent Congress from 
doing something to you?
    Mr. Berchtold. Well, thank you, Senator.
    I think that, first, we are here today. We would like to 
engage in a discussion about what are the policy changes that 
can be made that can make this a better consumer experience. We 
believe all-in pricing makes a lot of sense. It simply is clear 
up front what price you are paying.
    We believe that there are absolutely deceptive practices 
that take place today in ticketing. I could give an----
    Senator Tillis. If I may?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes.
    Senator Tillis. Because I am going to stick to time.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, sorry.
    Senator Tillis. I think that it would--and I am sure you 
are already thinking about it. But it is getting ahead of 
something that is probably but for good-faith efforts on you 
all's part, you may get a congressional prescription that is 
not--that is going to have some bad side effects.
    Mr. Lawrence--and this back to you also, Mr. Berchtold--is 
there a mechanism now where Mr. Lawrence knows exactly what the 
underlying transaction for a given performance or given 
production resulted in? In other words, can he get--at the end 
of the day, he charged, I think they set a price at $30 for one 
venue. Is there any sort of backend reporting to a performer 
saying this is how it all stacked up, and this is how everybody 
in the mix actually benefited from it?
    I mean, do you have that sort of transparency today?
    Mr. Lawrence. At the end of the day, we are given a 
settlement sheet, but that settlement sheet gives us the base 
price. So it would be that $30. But I would also add that I 
mentioned earlier about a thing called facility fees, where not 
only does the settlement sheet not show the extra $12 that 
might bring it to $42, it will sometimes even say like $27, 
even though the base price was $30 because the venue is also 
just sort of arbitrarily taking an additional $3.
    So the sheet we get says the tickets were sold for $27 
rather than $30 or even $42, which feels a little bizarre to 
me.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, I believe that the general notion of a 
settlement is correct. If Mr. Lawrence and others are not 
getting the rate cards on the service fees up front and having 
that made available to them, that is a problem on our end that 
I will look into coming out of this.
    Senator Tillis. It seems like that needs to be there on the 
front end.
    Mr. Berchtold. I agree with that, and I think that there 
should be total transparency that Mr. Lawrence has. If there is 
a facility fee, he should know what that is. I think that is 
fairly standard practice. Again, we represent a minority of 
venues, but I think that the full transparency should be 
available to Mr. Lawrence and others in his position.
    Senator Tillis. Mr. Nuzzo, in the remaining 20 seconds, 
what do you want to say?
    Mr. Nuzzo. I think transferability is extraordinarily 
important. I think to your point about there are far more 
externalities and side effects to completely excluding 
transferability, and that is something that kind of underscored 
the first part of my remarks this morning.
    Senator Tillis. I think as we go through that, I, for one, 
love hypercompetitive market forces. Where we get into the rub 
is to what extent has it gone from hypercompetitive to 
anticompetitive? And I think that this hearing and subsequent 
discussions are going to be helpful to strike the right 
balance.
    I am probably somewhere in the middle, not necessarily 
pulling for either team. But I do think that there is work that 
we need to do here. Some of it has to be self-regulation from 
the entities playing in this space.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Tillis.
    Senator Cruz.
    Senator Cruz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to each of 
the witnesses for being here.
    I think this is an issue that impacts a great many 
families. Whether you go to sporting games--I go to a lot of--a 
lot of sporting activities--or whether you go to concerts or 
whether you go to plays, families enjoy going out. They enjoy 
entertainment. And going through the process of getting a 
ticket can sometimes be gratifying and a lot of times really 
frustrating.
    I start from the principle that free markets are good, that 
if you want to have goods and services delivered to consumers 
that free and competitive markets are the most effective way to 
do so at the most price-competitive levels. I also start from a 
principle that monopolies are bad. That monopolies historically 
have hurt consumers, driven up costs, reduced options, and made 
the consumer experience markedly worse.
    I also would make an observation that in the Big Tech 
sphere in particular, we have seen monopolies being willing to 
be particularly abusive. I want to start with a question for 
the witnesses, and Mr. Groetzinger, I am going to start with 
you and just ask, in your judgment, is Ticketmaster a monopoly?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Unequivocally.
    Senator Cruz. Mr. Mickelson?
    Mr. Mickelson. Yes, sir. Without a doubt.
    Senator Cruz. Mr. Nuzzo?
    Mr. Nuzzo. Yes, absolutely.
    Senator Cruz. Ms. Bradish?
    Ms. Bradish. It is certainly acting like a monopoly.
    Senator Cruz. Mr. Lawrence?
    Mr. Lawrence. I am not sure.
    Senator Cruz. Okay. So, Mr. Berchtold, do you agree with 
the other witnesses on this panel?
    Mr. Berchtold. We absolutely believe the ticketing business 
has never been more competitive. We believe that fact is 
demonstrated by every venue renewal that has multiple credible 
offers in a bidding process.
    Senator Cruz. So are they just making it up? Why does 
everyone else perceive you as a monopoly? Where is that coming 
from?
    Mr. Berchtold. I cannot speak to all of their motivations 
on their points of view, but I think that if you simply look at 
what is the market power exercised by venues, which is perhaps 
not fully understood in our business.
    Senator Cruz. How about on the ticketing side, what percent 
of the market do you all have?
    Mr. Berchtold. I would estimate, depending on how you want 
to count what is in the market, between 50 and 60 percent.
    Senator Cruz. Fifty and 60? And depending on how you count 
it, does anyone have a markedly different measure of that?
    Mr. Mickelson. Yes, sir. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Cruz. Okay.
    Mr. Mickelson. They have 87 percent of the ticketing 
contracts at the NBA and the NHL arenas. They have 93 percent 
of the ticketing contracts at the NFL stadiums. Those are the 
most important venues. You cannot include--if he is including--
he is including--it is yes. I will stop there.
    Senator Cruz. And can I fairly blame Mr. Berchtold for the 
Texans having such a lousy season, and the Rockets having such 
a lousy season, and the Cowboys just losing? I mean, it has 
been--but the Astros did win the World Series. So I have 
something to cheer about. But I guess I cannot blame you for 
that, but I recognize the frustration.
    Let me ask you, Ticketmaster's dominant position in the 
marketplace, how does it hurt consumers? Mr. Groetzinger?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Most fundamentally by eliminating 
competition. There is not a vibrant group of dozens of 
companies out there competing to build the best consumer 
experience.
    Senator Cruz. And what does that mean if you want to go, go 
see a game? What does that mean for a consumer? How is life 
worse because there is not a more effective competition in the 
marketplace?
    Mr. Groetzinger. It means you are beholden to whatever 
Ticketmaster-Live Nation gives you, and they have an incentive 
to not innovate and to maintain the status quo because the 
status quo benefits them versus having a vibrant group of 
competition that is working to do what is best for consumers, 
artists, venues, all of the stakeholders in this industry.
    Senator Cruz. Mr. Mickelson?
    Mr. Mickelson. It is a bigger question than just 
Ticketmaster because when you combine Live Nation with 
Ticketmaster, it is the different question.
    Senator Cruz. Well, answer it that way then, the two 
together.
    Mr. Mickelson. Yes. Look, the combination of the two 
provides them with a different business model than the rest of 
us independent promoters. We have to make money at putting on 
concerts. They do not because they make more money from 
ticketing and from sponsorship than they do from concerts. And 
concerts is basically a loss leader for them to bring more 
talent and bring more content to the arenas that they are 
servicing to get the ticketing contracts.
    Senator Cruz. So your testimony is they are essentially 
undercutting the competition in the live performance market and 
subsidizing it using the ticket revenue. Is that right?
    Mr. Mickelson. Ticket revenue and sponsorship revenue, yes.
    Senator Cruz. Okay. Mr. Nuzzo?
    Mr. Nuzzo. And here is how it looks to the consumer. A 
friend of mine sent me a screen shot of a ticket purchase she 
made for I believe it was a Shania Twain concert in Orlando, 
and the tickets were $227 each. But when she got to the final 
screen where she had to actually hit the button to make the 
order, they turned into $291 a piece. That works out to a 30 
percent bump on the very last screen of the transaction.
    She had no choice at that point but to accept that bump in 
price. That is how it looks to a consumer.
    Senator Cruz. Ms. Bradish?
    Ms. Bradish. Well, I think Sal brings up a great point with 
choice. It reduces the choice. Not just of consumers who have 
to pay higher ticket fees, but also of artists like Mr. 
Lawrence. They do not have a choice of what venues to go to, 
what ticketing businesses that they will be dealing with. And 
for others all up and down the supply chain in live 
entertainment, these kind of behaviors reduce choice.
    Senator Cruz. And Mr. Lawrence, finally, for artists what 
is the impact?
    Mr. Lawrence. The impact is that we have very little say or 
transparency or choice in a lot of aspects of how the 
financials of our deals are put together and no say or choice 
or visibility in what our fans experience when buying our 
tickets.
    Senator Cruz. And if the Chair will give me the indulgence 
of one very quick final question?
    Senator Klobuchar. Sure.
    Senator Cruz. Which is one of the things that has come up 
has been all-in ticketing, both for consumers and/or 
transparency for artists. Do any of the witnesses disagree with 
the proposition that that would be a good idea and a material 
improvement from where we are today?
    Mr. Mickelson. No disagreement from Jam as an independent 
promoter, none.
    Senator Cruz. Okay. Well, some area of agreement. That is 
always a good thing. Now if you could help the Texans, that 
would be appreciated.
    Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you, Senator Cruz.
    And I just want to clarify, Senator Cruz had some good 
questions about the market percentage of you, Mr. Mickelson, 
and you brought them up. And because I think people need to 
hear these numbers. So according to your testimony, 87 percent 
of Billboard's Top 40 tours in 2022 were performed at venues 
ticketed by Ticketmaster. Is that right?
    Mr. Mickelson. That is correct, 80--yes, 87 percent.
    Senator Klobuchar. Eighty-seven percent.
    Mr. Mickelson. Yes, correct.
    Senator Klobuchar. And do you disagree with that, Mr. 
Berchtold?
    Mr. Berchtold. I do not know the numbers that he is talking 
about. I have not done the analysis. So I could not comment on 
it.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Well, we will do that in writing, 
but it seems to me like that is a lot.
    Okay. And then, second, another thing that he brought up, 
you brought up, Mr. Mickelson, in answer to Senator Cruz. 
Today, 87 percent of NBA teams, 87.5 percent of NHL teams, and 
93 percent of NFL teams--I assume including the Vikings--have 
exclusive ticketing agreements with Ticketmaster. Is that 
right?
    Mr. Mickelson. That is correct. And the teams are broken 
down in my testimony that I provided.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Dispute?
    Mr. Berchtold. That seems inconsistent, Senator, with the 
information that I indicated about SeatGeek taking between 2018 
and 2022, 15 percent of the NFL and the NBA market.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Well----
    Mr. Berchtold. I would say that I do acknowledge we 
absolutely have the leading share in those because--there is no 
mystery--we have the best product, and we have a product that 
is particularly suited to the very----
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. We were just doing----
    Mr. Berchtold [continuing]. Complex requirements----
    Senator Klobuchar. We were just doing facts here. So, but I 
understand your answer.
    Mr. Groetzinger, do you want to reply to that?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes. I wholeheartedly disagree with the 
assertion around product. I think we do not know who has the 
best product because there is not competition. There is only 
one real choice that a venue can make.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. And then, in 2020, the DOJ 
confirmed that Ticketmaster has been the, quote, ``largest 
primary ticketing service provider for major concert venues in 
the United States for at least three decades.'' I do not think 
we doubt that. Anyone?
    Okay. Next, Live Nation revenue grew from $5 billion to 
over $11.5 billion from 2010 to 2019. Is that correct, Mr. 
Berchtold?
    Mr. Berchtold. I do not have the exact numbers, but that 
sounds right.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Then we have--I am just going to 
quote from a New York Times article, 2018, that said this. And 
if it is wrong, you tell me. And maybe it has changed a bit 
because it is 2018: ``Ticket prices are at record highs, 
service fees are far from reduced, and Ticketmaster, part of 
the Live Nation empire, still tickets 80 of the top 100 arenas 
in the country. No other company has more than a handful. No 
competitor has risen to challenge its preeminence.''
    Mr. Berchtold. As I indicated in my comments--I believe you 
said that was 2018. Between 2018 and 2022, SeatGeek in 
particular has been very effective in winning major NFL and NBA 
clients.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay, but do you know, Mr. Groetzinger, 
if we are like 5 off for the number of arenas or what we are 
here?
    Mr. Groetzinger. I think we are debating small percentages. 
The--my data that our team polled was that Ticketmaster is the 
primary ticketing provider for more than 80 percent of the NBA, 
NHL, and NFL teams. I would also note----
    Senator Klobuchar. More than? Say it again.
    Mr. Groetzinger. More than 80 percent.
    Senator Klobuchar. Eighty percent.
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes. And that was around the same 
percentage back in 2009, when we were first looking at this.
    Senator Klobuchar. Yes. I just want to dispel this notion, 
Ms. Bradish, that this is not a monopoly, and then we can go 
from there about solutions. So, so let us talk about that.
    Ms. Bradish, you talked about the need to update our 
antitrust laws. Senator Lee and I have had numerous hearings. 
We have made headway, as I noted, at the end of the year to 
focus to help our antitrust enforcers so they are not taking on 
the biggest companies the world has ever known with duct tape 
and band-aids, when we know the number of people that work at 
these agencies are in some cases less than it was during the 
Nixon administration, and yet these companies have grown bigger 
and bigger. So I appreciate the support of the United States 
Senate on this front, Democrats and Republicans.
    Now we have to go to the next step, which is albeit harder. 
We have some specific things we are all working on--on tech 
when it comes to issues like ticket prices. But the issue here 
is that we have seen a narrowing of our antitrust laws, and 
that is why I think for both discriminatory conduct and 
mergers, we need to step back a bit, as a number of us have on 
this Committee, and look at some changes. They do not have to 
be exactly the changes each person wants, but could you talk 
about the importance of making it easier to enforce these 
antitrust laws when we have seen 75 percent of the industries 
in our Nation, from cat food to caskets, see more 
consolidation?
    Ms. Bradish. Yes. I mean, in particular with respect to 
vertical mergers and monopolization Section 2 cases, case law 
has narrowed and narrowed and narrowed the window for the 
enforcers to go after this kind of conduct. So anything that 
will open that window, that will give an opportunity for the 
enforcers to actually get at this conduct and this kind of 
merger activity is going to be what we need to restore 
competition.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Anyone want to add to that?
    Okay. Some of today's witnesses we know have raised--and we 
really appreciate all of you--concerns about ticketing, 
especially you, Mr. Lawrence, with some very practical things. 
It would be great if some of these kind of smaller things that 
are difficult for you to deal with just got resolved after this 
hearing. We love that. Shows we did something for the day for a 
change.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Klobuchar. So that is great. But I think we all 
know, as Ms. Bradish has been pointing out and as Mr. Mickelson 
and Mr. Groetzinger and Mr. Nuzzo have been pointing out, these 
things are sometimes bigger than that. And let us get what we 
can right now, but there are bigger things.
    So one of the things we have heard complaints about is so-
called drip pricing, when the consumer does not see the full 
price of the ticket, including fees, up front and has to wait 
until near the end of the transaction process to get the final 
price. This is what was just pointed out, right, Mr. Nuzzo?
    Mr. Nuzzo. Yes, correct.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay, very good. Should Congress mandate 
all-in pricing on ticketing platforms so that the full ticket 
price is disclosed up front?
    Mr. Nuzzo. I would stipulate that there is likely an 
interstate commerce reason for Congress to act in this 
capacity. I live in north Florida. There are a lot of people 
from south Georgia that come to Tallahassee occasionally when 
the Florida State Seminoles are having a winning season. And so 
from the extent and the nexus of interstate commerce, I would 
stipulate there is probably a window for Congress to act, even 
though I would also like to state on most issues I am a States 
person.
    Senator Klobuchar. I just guessed it.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Anything anyone wants to add to 
that? I noticed you were consulting with--I would like to say 
your lawyer, but it is your bandmate, Mr. Lawrence----
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Klobuchar [continuing]. In answer to this question. 
It was very----
    Mr. Lawrence. He doubles as the saxophonist----
    Senator Klobuchar [continuing]. Very impressive. All right. 
Go ahead.
    Mr. Lawrence. I just wanted to say I think while the spirit 
of the all-in pricing thing is a great idea, a concern that I 
have is if artists continue to have no say in the----
    Senator Klobuchar. Got it.
    Mr. Lawrence [continuing]. On-top portion of the fees.
    Senator Klobuchar. Yes.
    Mr. Lawrence. Then like while, as we talked about, I do 
have a say in setting the base ticket price, all of a sudden if 
I set a ticket price of $30, but then they are just seeing an 
all-in fee of $50, at least in the current system, fans know 
which is the base ticket price and which is the fee.
    So even if the drip pricing were eliminated, it would still 
be great to know----
    Senator Klobuchar. You want to do something up front to--go 
ahead.
    Mr. Lawrence. If there was something on that first screen 
that still said these are the added Ticketmaster fees.
    Senator Klobuchar. Agree.
    Mr. Lawrence. So that the fans know.
    Senator Klobuchar. That was my second question.
    Mr. Lawrence. Yes.
    Senator Klobuchar. Like you should be a Senator, I think.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Klobuchar. So what you are saying is you want to 
have the--you want to know, differentiate on the fees, and then 
you also want to deal with this pricing thing at the end.
    Mr. Lawrence. What I really want is for artists to have a 
say in those fees and for them to be lower. But in the 
current--under the current system where we have absolutely no 
say or transparency in the fees, yes, I would not want to have 
to take any responsibility of those to our fans.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. We have--anyone on this?
    Okay. We also have heard about sellers offering to sell 
tickets they do not even have. That is speculative ticket sales 
when they do not have it. Is that something that Congress 
should prohibit?
    Mr. Mickelson?
    Mr. Mickelson. Definitely. I mean, you go on--you go online 
on any high-demand show, and they are selling tickets that they 
do not have. Absolutely. And Mr. Berchtold could certainly 
opine about that, but that needs to be banned somehow.
    I do not know whether it is Congress or by State by State, 
but something needs to be done. It is deceptive and just not 
right.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Then we--I know you, Ms. Bradish, 
talked about this idea of spinning off companies. We have all 
seen that as a remedy that would most likely be coming from the 
Justice Department. So all we can do here is put forward the 
evidence, and these are sworn testimonies back and forth under 
law so that the Justice Department can look at this discussion. 
But clearly, this is something that could be looked at.
    Because I think we can legislate on some of these things 
about pricing, but if you truly have a situation where you have 
a monopoly on these--this three corners of this triangle, 
right, which is--which is this combo of the ticketing and the 
promotions and then the arenas, or not all arenas are on the 
long contracts--long-term contracts on the arenas. That is also 
an issue that we--that creates this problem for us where the 
customers are basically trapped in the middle.
    So anything anyone wants to comment about that, and how 
that would aid you in competing, Mr. Groetzinger or Mr. 
Mickelson?
    Mr. Mickelson. Thank you.
    Again, when I look back at history, which always guides us, 
I look back at the Paramount case, U.S. v. Paramount in the 
late 1940s, where the movie studios contracted and controlled 
the actors. They made the films. They had the distributor, and 
they had the movie theaters that those played in. The 
Government broke that up, and then it became fairer for 
everybody else to compete. So I think that is a solution you 
need to look at.
    I think another solution might be maybe no exclusive 
ticketing contracts at buildings. In Europe, in the UK, they do 
not have exclusive ticketing contracts.
    Senator Klobuchar. That is what my last question was going 
to be.
    Mr. Mickelson. Sorry.
    Senator Klobuchar. And we will count that answer--no, it is 
interesting. So they do not have that----
    Mr. Mickelson. Right.
    Senator Klobuchar [continuing]. in Europe? Okay. All right. 
Anything more?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Oh, sorry. I was just going to mention 
another difference between the Europe and U.S. market is that 
for Europe soccer teams, for EPL teams, they typically do not 
have concerts. So they are not worried about this whole concert 
threat that we have been talking about.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Groetzinger. And as a result, you see a markedly 
different market outcome where those venues actually make the 
ticketing decision based on the merits of the product, what is 
actually best for their fans and best for their business.
    Senator Klobuchar. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Groetzinger. And we have been talking about the 80 
percent or so market share that Ticketmaster has here in the 
U.S. among major sports teams. That is only 20, 20 percent of 
EPL teams. Where SeatGeek is fortunate, due to a stronger 
product, they have about 10 of the 20 EPL teams there.
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Senator Lee is deferring to 
Senator Blackburn. Thank you.
    Senator Blackburn. And thank you, Madam Chairman.
    Let me just say we do appreciate you all being here, and we 
need--Music City USA needs you all to be successful. And this 
is an issue of fairness. Whether it is the consumer, whether it 
is the artist, whether it is the production manager, this is an 
issue of fairness. And right now, we have a system that is not 
fair.
    Now I want to pick up on the issue of spec tickets. And Mr. 
Berchtold, you and I discussed this a little bit yesterday, and 
you mentioned the Madonna tour that already there are tickets 
available on the secondary market. This is presale, pre the 
window opening. You have Zach Bryan, who is not working with 
you, but on his tour. But you said the secondary market has 
those tickets.
    Well, as I thought about this last night and thought about 
our discussion and worked on my questions, I thought why is it 
that these secondary markets are so brazen that they would go 
ahead and put these tickets up for sale? It does not make 
sense, does it?
    But you know what does, what it does is raise the question 
is it that the bots have become so aggressive and so certain 
that you are not going to do anything to them, that you are not 
going to shut them down, that they just move forward and 
advertise things they have not yet purchased because they have 
figured out you will not call the FTC. You will not report 
them. You have not built the kind of cyber safeguards that are 
necessary to protect the consumer, and you are building a 
treasure trove of information on these consumers.
    I bet you even have a marketing arm that takes all that 
data. You know somebody is partial to some certain type tours, 
and then you are marketing back to them, sending them 
notifications. But let us talk about this. Why is it that you 
believe these sites have moved forward with advertising tickets 
that they have not yet purchased? Why are they so confident?
    Mr. Berchtold. Senator, I agree with your assessment that 
those markets that put up----
    Senator Blackburn. Okay, you agree with my assessment, sir.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes. Yes.
    Senator Blackburn. So what are you going to do about this? 
Are you going to strengthen your protections so that these bots 
cannot get in there?
    You know, you told me yesterday--let us talk about this a 
little bit. You told me yesterday that you have a difficult 
time deciding what is a bot and what is a consumer. So why is 
it that you have not developed an algorithm to sort out what is 
a bot and what is a consumer? Why is it that the bank can do 
it? As I said earlier, why is it the local power company can do 
it, but you cannot?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. We are continually investing 
in advance bot detection. It is an arms race. There is so much 
money at stake.
    Senator Blackburn. Well, how much have you invested, and 
what is your timeline for securing your site so that consumers 
know their data is secure with you? When are you planning to 
have this done?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes. We have invested over $1 billion over 
the past decade. In addition to specific technology to stop 
bots, we have developed products such as Verified Fan, which is 
intended----
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. As we talk about Verified Fan, why 
is it that that data is not protected to the point to prohibit 
these incursions and these hacks coming in to that information? 
And as you have precleared these individuals and pass them as 
Verified Fans, then what are you doing to protect their 
information? How do they know that their information is secure 
on your site?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator. Using Verified Fan, the bots 
have not gotten in. But that does not stop them from attacking 
the system.
    Senator Blackburn. Well, you told us that with the Taylor 
Swift instance, that it was the Verified Fan that was a 
problem. So is Verified Fan safe, or is Verified Fan not safe? 
I mean, which--what are we looking at here?
    Mr. Berchtold. Verified Fan was effective in making sure 
that the tickets that were sold were sold to fans. It was 
successful in that we are compliant with CCPA, with GDPR in 
terms of data security. It was an issue of the load on the 
system from the combination of bots pretending to be humans to 
try to get in.
    Senator Blackburn. Oh, so you were underestimating the 
popularity of a Taylor Swift concert and ticket.
    Now let me ask you about this. This is another thing I 
thought about from our conversation yesterday. You said that 
the only course of action for Ticketmaster in identifying a 
buyer is a bot is after the transaction is completed. You said 
you could not tell until after.
    Because I discussed with you how some fans will have 
tickets in their cart, and then during the checkout process, 
the tickets leave the cart. And I asked why you would not empty 
the cart of the bot. And you said, well, it is hard to figure 
this out until the transaction is completed.
    So why is it that you can only do that? Why can't you 
algorithmically flag these suspicious transactions during the 
sale process? Because once they have got that, then the 
consumer cannot get that ticket. Once they are into somebody's 
cart and you are processing that card, then that is not 
available to the consumer.
    So, sir, with all due respect, you have not solved your 
problem by saying, well, we flag it at the end. The issue is 
you have got to beef up your systems, your verification 
systems. You have to strengthen your cyber protections. Sounds 
like you need to some good advice on how to follow some of the 
protections that are there for financial institutions and 
credit card processors and healthcare institutions and 
utilities.
    And we are hopeful that you are going to be able to do 
that. As I said, we need all of you to be successful and to be 
fair.
    And by the way, Mr. Lawrence, come to Nashville. Be happy 
to have you there.
    Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    Mr. Lawrence. Absolutely.
    Senator Klobuchar. There you go. A good invitation.
    Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thanks so much.
    We have had a lot of talk in the last few rounds about 
restrictions on the ability of a consumer, a purchaser of a 
ticket, being able to sell it to someone else. A lot of people 
seem to think that is somehow a solution. I think it is a 
``nightmare dressed like a daydream.'' I do not think we ought 
to go there. There are a lot of complaints about doing this.
    Look, no one is particularly fond of scalpers, generally 
speaking. But this is not about scalpers. This is about the 
purchasers of the tickets themselves. They may have perfectly 
legitimate reasons, whether it is a change of plans or 
otherwise, to resell tickets that they have already purchased.
    In a number of States, including New York, Illinois, and my 
home State of Utah, we have laws that restrict these sorts of 
things. In Utah specifically, the Ticket Transferability Act in 
place in my State requires that at least 90 percent of tickets 
for an event be transferrable.
    And so, Mr. Nuzzo, we will start with you on this one. Do 
you think Federal policymakers ought to take a similar approach 
with this, or is this particular issue best left to the States?
    Mr. Nuzzo. Thank you, Senator.
    And I would reiterate the comment I made earlier about 
there being a nexus with interstate commerce. In any State, you 
are going to have folks from out of State purchasing tickets to 
an in-State concert event, sports stadium. So there is a role 
for the Congress to play in this.
    Senator Lee. Is it one that needs to be played? I mean, you 
are not suggesting that there would be a dormant commerce--I 
could not resist----
    Senator Klobuchar. Oh, no.
    Senator Lee [continuing]. Would not be a dormant commerce 
problem with the States doing it?
    Mr. Nuzzo. No. No, I do not. But I do recognize the 
efficiencies by a Federal solution, as opposed to a 50-State 
patchwork, in this realm.
    Senator Lee. That makes sense.
    Ms. Bradish, the most common justification that we hear 
when this sort of thing comes up about ticket transferability 
is that artists want it. And now the artists, as the argument 
goes, want to stop scalpers and help their friends, help their 
followers, their biggest fans. But why should artists be able 
to tell their fans what to do with a ticket purchased from the 
venue?
    Does that really sound like something that you would do in 
defense of the very same people you want to buy your ticket is 
tell them if you have got a change in plans you are out of 
luck, or does it sound more like Ticketmaster and certain other 
actors, including in some cases artists, are simply sharing 
monopoly rent?
    Ms. Bradish. Exactly. And I think what this points out is 
that when an industry suggests its own cures, we also have to 
look at the possibility that it has another effect, which is in 
this case perhaps to keep customers within the Ticketmaster 
ecosystem.
    Senator Lee. Right. Right.
    Mr. Groetzinger, sticking to the issue of ticket 
transferability, it seems to be that impairing transferability 
might also harm competition and, therefore, consumers, by 
preventing legitimate secondary ticketing companies from 
gaining any traction. And the logic there is that if you are 
stopping legitimate secondary ticketing companies from gaining 
any traction, you are also forestalling would-be future nascent 
competitors who could rise up through the marketplace and 
potentially challenge Ticketmaster. Do you share this concern?
    Mr. Groetzinger. I think that is exactly right, and I think 
this industry already lacks competition. Reducing 
transferability just exacerbates that problem. A related issue 
is if the incumbent were to allow transferability, but only on 
its own platform or only allow fulfillment on its own platform, 
it is a way to force all consumer data and all transaction fees 
onto that platform.
    Senator Lee. Right. Now, Mr. Berchtold, if I purchase a 
ticket on Ticketmaster, is that my ticket? And if it is my 
ticket, is that not my property to use or dispose of or 
transfer as I deem fit?
    Mr. Berchtold. Senator, I think this discussion on 
transferability exists simply because of the volume of 
industrial scalping that takes place, the harvesting of those 
tickets that disrupts the relationship between the artist and 
the fan. And as we submitted, one of the notes was a letter 
from Garth Brooks, who is well known for being one of the 
leading advocates of providing a great show and a great value 
for his fans, who called out very specifically that it is the 
scalping that takes place that is the origin of the problems 
that we have, and everything else is a derivative issue.
    Senator Lee. Well, there are other issues, of course. And 
that may be his view, but he is not--I do not think he is 
necessarily considering the consumer welfare standard or the 
Sherman Act or the Clayton Act when making that statement.
    So I am going to ask you this. Will you, on behalf of 
Ticketmaster, commit right now to offering fair, reasonable, 
nondiscriminatory API access to legitimate secondary ticketing 
services to facilitate the safe and easy transfer of tickets 
without limiting customers to the Ticketmaster app? And if not, 
why not?
    Mr. Berchtold. Senator, first, we believe that the artist 
does have the right to set the rules by which ticket transfer 
takes place in today's environment with the high volume of 
scalping. Second, with digital tickets, there needs to be the 
maintenance of a digital right master that is held centrally. 
And as part of fraud prevention, we are not going to put that 
out in the wild to enable fraud.
    Senator Lee. I would like to get Mr. Groetzinger's response 
to that and also ask Mr. Groetzinger to just talk about how 
competition with Ticketmaster has impacted innovation in the 
ticketing space.
    Mr. Groetzinger. The NFL provides a great counter example 
to that, where the NFL has created an ecosystem where 
ourselves, Ticketmaster, and StubHub all compete. Those APIs 
exist, and it works really well for NFL fans. There is no 
technical reason, there is no master manifest reason that could 
not exist in other venues. It is just a business reason that it 
does not. And I am sorry, I forgot your other question.
    Senator Lee. Just tell me how competition with 
Ticketmaster, how has competition with Ticketmaster impacted 
innovation in the ticketing space?
    Mr. Groetzinger. I think it has severely stunted it. Like I 
mentioned earlier, I would love to have a ton of brilliant, 
vibrant developers and companies trying to make better 
solutions, trying to--I would love that this bot issue we have 
not been talking about for a decade because so many people have 
been competing to build a better mousetrap that it did not 
exist anymore.
    Senator Lee. Right.
    Mr. Groetzinger. And unfortunately, that is not----
    Senator Lee. So the absence of competition has stunted it. 
To the extent you were able to see some developing semblance of 
competition, how does or how will or how would that impact 
innovation in the ticketing space?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes, what makes it really hard for us is 
we are trying our darnedest to build the absolute best 
ticketing software on Earth and make tickets more accessible to 
fans, get more people to go to events. We believe we have that. 
We will then go to a venue and try to bid competitively, and 
they make a choice against what is the best technology because 
they are afraid of losing concerts if they do not choose 
SeatGeek. And I think while that underlying reality exists, it 
is going to be very, very hard, if not impossible, to have a 
fair, vibrant, competitive market.
    Senator Lee. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Berchtold, if I could just come back to you. You told 
me in our last exchange that a safe ticket, a digital ticket 
with Ticketmaster, could be sold elsewhere. On StubHub, for 
example, right? Am I remembering correctly?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Hawley. But what you did not say, but which is I 
think deeply relevant here, is that in order to get that 
digital ticket, the person who buys it has to come inside the 
Ticketmaster ecosystem. Correct? They have got to get the 
Ticketmaster app because it is a digital Ticketmaster ticket. 
Yes?
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes. That is the same standard if I buy a 
ticket on a--from a venue that SeatGeek is the primary 
ticketing provider for. If I want to buy a ticket on Vivid, I 
then have to have a SeatGeek app in the same way.
    Senator Hawley. Well, this is a huge advantage to you, 
though, is it not? Because if you are forcing any buyer--and we 
are talking about the resale market here, just to be clear. In 
the resale market, you are forcing any purchaser to come into 
your ecosystem to sign up. And I notice, by the way, that you 
advertise--this is from your own website. You advertise that 
one of the advantages of the safe ticket digital ticket is that 
it will allow event owners to communicate directly with event 
attendees, including those who buy their ticket through resale, 
and allow them to engage with the attendees after an event is 
over.
    In other words, you are talking about data. You are 
selling, effectively, the data of all of these people who have 
not bought direct from you. They want to buy on the resale 
market, but they have got to come into your ecosystem and give 
you their data in order to get this ticket. That is tremendous 
advantage to you, no?
    Mr. Berchtold. It is--Senator, it does not quite work that 
way. It is our policy that if an account is established solely 
for the purposes of receiving a ticket, we do not use that data 
for purposes of marketing.
    Senator Hawley. So, wait a minute. They cannot 
communicate--when you say on your website that anybody who has 
a safe ticket, that the event owner will be able to engage with 
them once the event is over, will be able to offer personalized 
food and beverage and merchandise offers, that is not true?
    Mr. Berchtold. In the context of the event itself, I 
believe there is some ability to reach out to connect with 
those fans----
    Senator Hawley. Once the event is over, you say.
    Mr. Berchtold. Ticketmaster does not use that data for 
marketing to individuals.
    Senator Hawley. Well, how do they contact them once the 
event is over?
    Mr. Berchtold. That copy may not be accurate, sir.
    Senator Hawley. This is on your website.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes, I will have to look at it and----
    Senator Hawley. This is how you are advertising your 
digital ticketing to folks who--to event owners.
    Mr. Berchtold. Yes. I will have to take a look at that. It 
does not sound accurate.
    Senator Hawley. Well, what it sounds like is a data 
industrial complex. I mean that you, a monopoly, are now 
forcing--in the resale market, you are using your monopoly on 
the front end to create a monopoly in the resale market, where 
you are forcing everybody in the resale market to come into 
your ecosystem, effectively. Of course, you also have your own 
resale platform.
    So, I mean, basically they are going to have to come into 
your ecosystem anyway to get a ticket that they bought on 
StubHub. Why even go to StubHub or anywhere else? Why not just 
come to you directly, right?
    I mean, this is how monopolies work. You leverage market 
power in one market to get market power in another market, and 
it looks like you are doing that in, frankly, multiple markets. 
You are doing it in the resale market. You are doing it with 
data.
    Mr. Groetzinger, you are nodding your head. Am I right 
about this?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Yes. Very much agree.
    Senator Hawley. Just explain to everybody why that is 
significant. Because you commented on this just a second ago. 
You said that if you had a player who could force everybody 
onto one platform and all consumers to put their data into one 
person's platform, we would have a big problem. Is that not 
what Ticketmaster is doing, effectively?
    Mr. Groetzinger. Exactly. And it stifles competition 
completely. We were giving the StubHub example earlier. Mr. 
Berchtold gave the example of the StubHub seller having to then 
transfer on Ticketmaster. The reality is that recipient needs 
to create a Ticketmaster account, download the app, sign in. 
Basically, they are forced to sign up to Ticketmaster just to 
receive the ticket that they bought on StubHub.
    Senator Hawley. Yes, when you think about it, it is really 
something. You are forcing everybody who just wants to get this 
ticket on the resale market who has not bought from you, Mr. 
Berchtold, to begin with. You are forcing them to become your 
customer in order to take possession of this ticket.
    I mean, that is--that is really something. I mean, hats off 
to you, I guess, for being innovative and using your monopoly. 
But I have to tell you, from a competition standpoint, this 
really, really worries me because this looks like a way to, 
again, further leverage your market power in one market to 
expand it into other markets. And I just do not see how 
consumers win out of this exchange.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you. Well said, Senator 
Hawley.
    Do you want to have a closing statement here, Senator Lee? 
I think we end, as we always do, with the two of us. Please go 
ahead.
    Senator Lee. This has been a really helpful hearing. I 
appreciated each of your comments and insights. It is the first 
time we have ever held an antitrust hearing with a band member 
rather than a lawyer accompanying a witness, and so thank you 
for coming as well.
    This is an important issue, and it relates to a lot of 
things that we confront on this Subcommittee from time to time. 
It deals with the intersection of consumer rights, consumer 
welfare, and our antitrust laws. And so it is very important 
that we maintain fair, free, open, and even fierce competition 
in this as in every other space.
    And the reason we focus on that is because when there is 
competition, it does two things, both of which are very 
valuable to the average American. It increases quality, and it 
reduces price. We want those things to happen, and so that is 
why we focus as we do on this.
    I have to throw out, in deference to my daughter Eliza, one 
more Taylor Swift quote: ``Karma is a relaxing thought. Aren't 
you envious that for you it's not?''
    That is all I have got to say. Thank you.
    Senator Klobuchar. Well, thank you, Senator Lee.
    I throw out one other one, and that is when I believe she 
said to you if you do not do a hearing on this, I am going to 
call Amy Klobuchar directly. Is that possible?
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Klobuchar. Okay, very good.
    All right. So I want to thank all of our witnesses. I think 
this was a good hearing because we had Senators on both sides 
of the aisle making very valid points about competition. It may 
have been a coincidence it was the first hearing of the entire 
Congress, but maybe not.
    Because, one, it was bipartisan. Good sign for the Senate. 
Two, it was about competition and our economy that goes way 
beyond the ticketing industry. As I have pointed out, 75 
percent of the industries in this country we have seen more and 
more consolidation.
    We have an active Justice Department now and FTC. We have 
provided them funding because we actually know they bring money 
in when they do their job. But mostly, this has also been 
reflected in so many of my colleagues' comments about fans. It 
is about those events that bring us together, and especially as 
we come out of this pandemic and come out of our 300 million-
plus silos, people have loved going to see live music again, to 
see live concerts, to be part of that experience.
    And one of our goals here, regardless of what State people 
are from or what party that they belong to, is to give them 
that experience. Mr. Lawrence, to make them feel part of a fan 
base and part of something that makes them feel good or makes 
them think about the lyrics to a song or makes them just 
rejoice in being part of our arts and part of our culture. So 
that is why you have seen this tremendous turnout here.
    We are very interested in actually doing something and not 
just throwing popcorn. I think you know we have been respectful 
throughout this hearing, and I think part of that is our desire 
to actually move on this issue.
    As I have noted, even getting the public's attention on 
this--and we know, we thank the fans that may be still outside, 
we hope still watching on C-SPAN. I thank them for keeping this 
alive, and I thank all of you for your work in this important 
industry.
    But the solutions are there for the taking. Some of them 
are smaller things that can be done right away. Some of them 
are things that the Justice Department may order as either part 
of their oversight with the consent decree or new 
investigations or new outcomes, some of which have been 
discussed here. Some of them are things that we can do right 
here. And of course, we are always going to have some 
disagreements in this body, I do not think you are surprised, 
over what the best course is, but there is some general 
agreement on some of these ideas when it comes to pricing and 
transparency and the like.
    And finally, our job is oversight and making sure that our 
agencies that actually do the work are funded so they can do 
it. And I am proud of the work we did at the close of last year 
to do that.
    So, with that, we are going to keep the record open for a 
week. I want to thank our staff for their work on it, and in 
particular, Marc and Avery and Keagan, who are behind me, and 
also Senator Lee's staff for their work on this, as well as 
Senator Grassley's staff over the many years on this issue, and 
Senator Durbin for allowing us to have this hearing when we do 
not even have the Subcommittees formed yet so we can get 
working on this right away.
    So, with that, the hearing record is going to remain open 
for 1 week until January 31, 2023.
    Thank you very much. The hearing is now over and adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
    [Additional material submitted for the record follows.]

                            A P P E N D I X

              Additional Material Submitted for the Record

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                  Prepared Statement of Clyde Lawrence

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Responses of Jack Groetzinger to Questions Submitted by Senator Booker, 
           Senator Padilla, Senator Cruz, and Senator Tillis

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