{"id":1770772,"date":"2022-12-09T14:33:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T19:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1770772"},"modified":"2022-12-09T14:33:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T19:33:39","slug":"ticketmasters-botched-sale-of-taylor-swift-tickets-converted-gen-zers-into-anti-monopolists-ftc-chairman-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ticketmasters-botched-sale-of-taylor-swift-tickets-converted-gen-zers-into-anti-monopolists-ftc-chairman-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticketmaster\u2019s Botched Sale Of Taylor Swift Tickets \u2018Converted Gen Zers Into Anti-Monopolists,\u2019 FTC Chairman Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fticketmasters-botched-sale-of-taylor-swift-tickets-converted-gen-zers-into-anti-monopolists-ftc-chairman-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1770772&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Zoomers \u2014 members of Generation Z, meaning Americans born from the late 1990s to the early 2010s \u2014 aren\u2019t big readers.<\/p>\n<p>A 2019 survey by the National Literacy Trust <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2020\/feb\/29\/children-reading-less-says-new-research\">found<\/a> that just 26% of people below the age of 18 spent at least some time each day reading, the lowest level since records began in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>But the Gen Z kids got a real lesson last month when they logged onto their laptops and tried to buy tickets to Taylor Swift concerts.<\/p>\n<p>The presale for the singer\u2019s upcoming Eras Tour concerts was a debacle. Ticketmaster crashed, buyers hoping to snag tickets at face value (instead of sky-high prices jacked up by after-market scalpers) were on hold for hours, and eventually, the whole mess was called off.<\/p>\n<p>Lina Khan, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said Ticketmaster\u2019s disastrous sale reverberated in the Gen Z world. \u201cI think this one incident ended up converting more Gen Zers into anti-monopolists overnight than anything I could have done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at The Wall Street Journal\u2019s CEO Council Summit, Khan noted that the Justice Department approved the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2010, creating a monolith that controls much of the live concert ticketing and venues across America.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere can be concerns that when firms become large they can become too big to care,\u201d she added, saying giant firms may feel no need to invest in innovation because they do not face tough competition.<\/p>\n<p>The Swift mess prompted the Department of Justice to announce it is opening a probe into the monopoly.<\/p>\n<p>But Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts wrote a letter to the attorney general saying that\u2019s not enough, noting \u201can investigation alone does nothing for the stakeholders already harmed by Live Nation\u2019s market dominance and seemingly ongoing anticompetitive behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They argued the company, which controls about 60% of the market \u2014 including many of the biggest venues \u2014 \u201chas continued to abuse its dominant market position,\u201d and the senators said, \u201cwe urge the Department to consider unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the younger members of Congress, jumped in with some insightful observations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was watching what was going on with the pre-release of Taylor Swift\u2019s tickets,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/aoc-ticketmaster-live-nation-monopoly-interview-1234634599\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> Rolling Stone. \u201cIt came up on a more personal level; I actually have quite a few staff who were trying to get tickets that day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetween seeing their experience and seeing all the people online talking about it, I think it really showed how widespread the problem is and reflects the degree of market consolidation in this industry,\u201d Ocasio-Cortez continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s getting to a point where if you want to see one of these large acts, there\u2019s so little protection for everyday people that if you go into a secondary market, we are no longer in this realm of someone even charging double of what a ticket was,\u201d she said. \u201cTickets are going as high [as tens of thousands of dollars] after what was supposed to be a presale operation designed for people who are actually going to be using the tickets that they purchase.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Taylor Swift can tape a few lectures about communism for the Zoomers.<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection\" class=\"__cf_email__\" data-cfemail=\"b2d8ddc1d7c2dad1c7c0def2d6d3dbdecbc5dbc0d79cd1dddf\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zoomers \u2014 members of Generation Z, meaning Americans born from the late 1990s to the early 2010s \u2014 aren\u2019t big readers. A 2019 survey by the National Literacy Trust found that just 26% of people below the age of 18 spent at least some time each day reading, the lowest level since records began in &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":1890668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[7368,7365,7371,3879,6202,6945,7084,4340,7366,4656,7369,7367,6195,7370],"class_list":["post-1770772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire","tag-converted","tag-anti-monopolists","tag-botched","tag-chairman","tag-daily","tag-ftc","tag-gen","tag-sale","tag-swift","tag-taylor","tag-ticketmasters","tag-tickets","tag-wire","tag-zers"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1770772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}