#37 - The Live Nation Trial Isn’t Over: Inside the States’ Revolt

[MUSIC] Randy, pleasure to have you on. I'm going to get ready to it. I think you and I were just talking before this. The DOJ case is not over. Contrary to some of the headlines, is that right? >> Well, actually, yes and no. So the court case investigating live nation's monopoly is not over. The Department of Justice settled, but the case was in conjunction with around 30 states. And the majority of the 30 states are now carrying on with the case themselves without the Department of Justice. >> Can you sense make that? >> When I saw the DOJ settled, my initial reaction was, well, this is done. And then I talked to a number of people and were like, no, no, it's definitely not done. Was this an effort for the DOJ to set the stage for the states to settle? Is this one pin or kind of DOJ and state dramatically disagree? What the hell is going on here? This is- >> Yeah. >> So basically, the 35,000-foot view, the states got together with the federal government and said, we all have the same belief, this is a problem and we're going to go after this. Then live nation does their job to try to fight this. They hire the best lobbyists. They put people on their board of directors who are close with Trump. And honestly, no judgment on them even. It's like that's what you do, whether they're monopoly or not, that's how you approach these things. >> Yeah, they do. >> And they're always to make their case. And to keep the stock as high as possible. Yeah, you can't fault that one. >> Yeah, and to win a court case, you need public perception. You need the media and then you need the court. So you need all these pieces to drive the court. So they've played their game. They hired amazing lobbyists and those lobbyists worked really well with the Trump administration to the point where the Trump administration fired the head of antitrust who felt that the Trump administration was being too friendly to companies who were doing things she felt were illegal, but the lobbyists' friends in the administration felt that it was okay. So they removed the people from the administration who were running this case. And now we're at a point where there's a new person, just before this trial was supposed to start, a new person who was the head of antitrust at the DOJ. And they very quickly came to a settlement on the case. But again, live nation doing their job. They killed it on that front. But now to the, how can the case still be continuing is every state, as we know, where we're a republic in this country and every state has powers. And the federal government works together with them. And the states are allowed to sue individually and their attorney generals from the majority of the states still want to continue the court case. And the federal government becomes just like one of the co-plaintiffs. So somebody could drop out of a court case at any time. Federal government chose to drop out and settle as well as a small handful of republican states. But everybody else can continue. Interesting side note though is their lobbyists have done a fabulous job. I'm sure they may have paid really well for it. And have the Trump administration currently trying to pressure the remaining republic in states to also settle and pull out of the case. Because I don't know the name of the federal statute. But the states get funding to support the case if it's a bipartisan issue. If it becomes a partisan issue, then it pulls the funding. So not only is the federal government settled, they're now kind of fighting on behalf of live nation to try to drive a settlement. Wow. There's a lot there. Okay. Let's very, very juicy, very curious. I'm like, where do I start with you? Well, first off, you said something really interesting. And I think this I was talking to Chris Cobb over the weekend. And I believe Tennessee is an example of a republican state that has not settled yet. And it is fascinating that this is a bipartisan issue. I guess when I heard this news, I had assumed that the republican states would settle, but they haven't. And that's almost so. Oh, yeah, go ahead, please. Yeah. So you nailed the perfect state to discuss this. So Tennessee thumbs up so well. This really is a bipartisan issue, even though the administration is currently trying to make it one across the board in all states. We have support from both sides. Marsha Blackburn, who's the senator from Tennessee, she can be a polarizing figure to a lot of our friends who are on the left and work in music and media. But when she comes to music, she is a killer and she is fighting harder than anyone for us on that issue. And I'm not saying that I support everything she does. But in this issue, she is almost always right. And there's a reason, and it's the same reason that the governor and attorney general of the state are probably not supporting this because it's bad for artists. And their entire state economy, driven by music, I mean, the capital, or at least I think National is the capital, but whatever, they're called music city. It's the capital of music of country music and Christian music and all kinds of other genres. Like they, they music, music capital, but that's okay. What's that? I said, like Austin is unofficially the live music capital, whatever that means. Nashville is like an obviously an incredible music. No, but Austin, you know, we could debate this, but what I'll say is Austin's the live music capital. Nashville is where the music is made. No, no, dad, I would even say it. I'm not going to get myself in trouble on a podcast, but I'll be debate. That's to say between Austin and Nashville. Absolutely. Two of my favorite music cities to truly not take sides and actually be, you know, truthful. I love both cities for their music. Yeah. And, but, but you know, getting to the point though is it makes sense. The Tennessee is not a state that's looking to settle because they understand the issue. And they want to drive change. It would be politically damaging for the Republicans in that state. To side with the federal Republicans. No, and again, I'm going to ask really simple questions without risking sounding, you know, unintelligent or something. But yeah, is this case about specifically breaking up live nation and ticket master? Or is it about live nation being a monopoly? And yeah, what exactly are the states pursuing? So it depends on who you ask. I mean, it is the, it is a great question while a stupid question and nothing question because everyone is framing it differently. Live nation told you after they settled and even before they settled even when the federal government threw out a couple of clauses that they argue, they said, well, you can no longer argue that this is a breakup. And then everyone in the media wrote that there won't be a breakup because they're great at working the press. But nothing actually changed. So could there be under the earlier portion with the DOJ? Yeah. Could there be now even less likely? But what I care about more so is if there was a breakup, would it fix any of these problems? And these are not problems. One that I think can be legislated or adjudicated in court, although a lot of people that I'm working with might disagree with me. But I just think it's how this industry works. And if you broke the company up into 50 different pieces and you know, live nation New York became one company, live nation California and another kind of like what they did with the phone company when it broke up. You're going to have 50 different monopolies in their market. Like Bill Graham was a monopoly in San Francisco when he was the major promoter there. And I mean, you can read the book Bill Graham presents top to the people who worked with him. You know, he ruled with an iron fist and tough care of his own and his business. And the problem is SFX years ago, the guy named Bob Sellerman, rolled up all these independent monopolies into one giant company. So for the existence of how this industry has worked, it's worked with tough guys and 99% guys controlling their market and doing everything they can to keep anyone out of their market. So a breakup of of all these people doing these same things into smaller companies, it doesn't solve the behavior. So I don't even know what a potential solution would be to this if it's a monopoly. And you know, and I go back to if it's a monopoly. - So you're, so yes, okay, so let's get back to if it's a monopoly. So I wanna unpack a couple of things, something that you just said there. So I initially talked about like a live nation, ticket master breakup. You're talking about something else, which is a remedy that's being pursued is like breaking up the whole thing company. I didn't even realize that was on the table. But I think I would push back on you on like a lesser of evils. Like I think you could probably say, like yeah, like it's not great to have a local monopolies in each of these markets and you know, maybe C3 in Austin and Bill Graham in San Francisco and Frank Productions in Madison, you know, whatever it is, but at the same time, it's probably a lesser of evil than having one monopoly or all added together and having that bolted on to ticket master. Like I think that would be what the counter, not necessarily my opinion, but like the counter to your point would probably be that, right? Yeah. - Yeah, but where I push back is let's say that, you know, the Frank Brothers control Minnesota and you're Dana Frank with First Avenue. And they open up a competing venue down the road with the exact same size and they say, we're not gonna put you in our other buildings if you play for Dana at First Avenue. So and I'm not even saying that they're doing these things, but that there are structural problems at all levels but to go to what you were actually talking about since I misunderstood, the other thing I'll point out is a lot of the problems in ticketing come from the secondary market as I've talked about a lot with you and others and breaking up ticket master won't fix the pricing problems. Like Senator Clovishar put out something the other day on Twitter where I replied back to her where she was saying, you know, it's a shame the DOJ settled and you know, it's only gonna keep prices high in ticketing and I wrote back something about how like, this has nothing to do with pricing. If anything, the vertical monopoly of live nation may make prices lower because they make money in so many different areas that they could pay the artist more and have a lower ticket price, which harms competing promoters. So there's just such a lack of understanding of all of it and to go to breaking up ticket master from live nation, that doesn't fix the problem either. What could fix the problem maybe is if you broke live nation up into, I mean, if you broke ticket master up into five different companies because I came up in an industry where ticket master had just reached its peak in the 90s when I started, you know, Pearl Jam was trying to fight them in Congress because they were monopoly and controlling everything and this is long before their partners with live nation. So the problems were identical to what we're complaining about when live nation was signing venue deals. And so separating from ticket master does nothing and that's not a defense of ticket master in live nation. It's just saying if we want to true change, you need five companies of ticket master and do they deserve that? With the number of ticketing companies that are early out there, it's not to be said that they are truly a monopoly in that sense but it's the only way that you could break their dominance. I mean, no one's gonna disagree that they're the most dominant but you can't necessarily say it's a monopoly. When I look at just tickets.com and Pacquiao and for instance, still, I don't know whether it's a hundred or a hundred and 15 million tickets a year just between those two ticket companies. - Yeah, he takes sales 100 million a year as well. - Yeah, so it's tough. - Inevitably, we're jumping around, which is totally fine. But let me go back to the case itself. So one thing that I want to double click on is the point that you made about the PR around this. And when the DOJ threw out a couple of things, I can't remember who it was at live nation but-- - Dan Wall, who was it? - It was Dan Wall who wrote the block. - Dan came out and said, "Oh, this makes it a non-starter or whatever that "ticket-master in live nation won't get broken up." There's a couple of things that I got from that. Number one, it was really curious to see like this kind of war time strategy being played in the public markets where it's like you, like someone goes and claims victory. And you see that in war where someone's like, "Oh, we did this thing and we claimed victory." And I get it. And the PR rolls and the news publication goes. And then a lot of people who are are kind of peripherally paying attention, just believe it. And that's one, it's essentially a propaganda strategy. The second thing that I noticed was actually kind of a more subtle point, which was, huh, they're actually more concerned about this getting broken up than I realized they did if they needed to preemptively call that shot. I don't know, did you get the sense that there's actually a chance that take a master? Like, look, I hear your point about does this actually so-- - Yeah. - Not, but is that so-- - Is there a concern? - Yeah. - Exactly. - And I think when you're having a jury trial and a judge who is making whatever decisions they are gonna make that they feel is right, you just don't know. - Yeah. - You know, both good decisions and bad decisions have come out of court. I was on a jury once and I decided the fate of a criminal or alleged criminal. And I disagreed with 10 of the 12 people in the room. And I turned the entire room with one other person to go from innocent to guilty. And there's part of me that goes, "Did I fuck up?" And he's like, "I know I can be convincing. I know I tell a good story, but I truly believe that those 10 other people did not understand." And the other person in the room, who I was with, he was somebody who worked in the courts on a regular basis like doing negotiations. And he and I, like, but the only people like negotiations and reading people's skills. But, you know, back to your core point is, you just don't know. - Yeah. - You know, one person in the room can destroy everything, both good and bad. I may have put someone in prison who's innocent because I'm good at selling a room. So it's so up in the air what happens. - Yes, the point that you're saying is absolutely, it's on the table. It could happen. They could get broken up. - Well, you know, the jury could convict or, you know, whatever, I don't know what the term is in this kind of trial. But then the judge make a decision that doesn't say it's broken up. It's not like the punishment is guaranteed breakup. The judge then can bring remedies. So, but to your point, they want to do everything in their power to prevent that from happening and driving the public conversation is important. And by the way, one really interesting tidbit on that Dan Wall thing is, I don't know if you saw, but the day after he wrote it, the blog disappeared. - I did not see this. - No. - Yeah. And I don't know why or what the strategy was, but or somebody on their legal team said, you know, you shouldn't even be mentioning breakup or. - Right, that's my point. Is that the fact that he had to claim a victory on it was revealed that it was more of a concern than I thought that they thought it was. Yeah. - Yeah, or not. So because somebody deleted it after the fact and he is, he was their outside counsel for many years. He is a brilliant attorney. He knows what he's doing, but there was clearly a conflict on how to present that. - Yeah, okay, so let's go back and just paint a picture of what is progress here. So the case started under the Biden administration, right? And the DOJ under the Biden administration and carrying on through the Trump administration. And there's a couple of weird kind of signals here. So there was lobbyist added and it's a ticket master that were extremely Trump friendly. There was a board member that was added to live nation as well. But, you know, maybe, I don't know, I think it was sometime around the summer if I'm not mistaken. You know, Tim Leigh Wickey was dealt this crazy, crazy blow where there was a criminal charge law against them. And there was even conversations around, well, there's a settlement pending with him that he participates in this. And then at some point, and it gets announced that he gets, he gets pardoned. - Pardoned. - Maybe three months ago. So what the hell is going on there? Is that just, yeah, the leftover momentum from the DOJ case went after a live Wickey to set it up. But then what you're seeing here is the other kind of, you know, administration colliding with that policy and saying, no, no, no, let's pardon live Wickey and let's take away the momentum from this case. Am I reading that right? like what was happening there. - Yeah, so a couple of things. One thing on the live wiki charge, I don't know that this is fact, but I've heard it from enough places that probably is. I'd heard that the initial charges against him were found in discovery on another case. So it's like they weren't even looking to go after them, which I think is relevant in some sense. But then too that he was had agreed that he and OVG had to be cooperating with witnesses in any ticketing cases that the Department of Justice was involved in as part of the settlement, like all fascinating. And then you fast forward to, you know, he's hired lobbyists to play the current administration game which is befriend people, spend a lot of money on lobbyists and who knows where and how and get the pardoned. I am sure that Irving Azoff was very happy about that as well as other folks. I would think live nation, but I don't know for sure. But you know, I don't know how related it is, but any person who no longer is involved in all this is a win for them. - Yeah, yeah, interesting. So you're not sure that it's related to the overall kind of change of posture from the top down on. - I would say that there has been a change of posture from the past administration to the current administration and how you solve problems. I see. - I see. - That talk is finished. - Yeah. - That's just how it's done now. You know, there was talk of Diddy getting a pardon at one point in Trump even chimed in about it. It's just you're convicted of a crime now. And if you're powerful and have connections, you have a much stronger chance than previously to get a pardon. So it's just there's so many of them. Like I don't think Rapinoe was up there like lobbying to protect like Wickey because he had such great dirt on them. - Yeah, yeah. Okay, interesting. Yeah, there's always a story, you know, beneath the story. So, okay, so this head of the DOJ Abigail something, right? - Yeah, Gale Slater or Abigail Slater. We're on a first name basis. - What's that? - I said, we're on a nickname basis me and her. - Oh, it is, that's right. Yeah, I love that. - Yeah. - Okay, so Gale Slater, she was not just overseeing the live nation case, but other antitrust in general. Was she appointed by the Trump administration? - Yes, she was appointed by Trump. She was an advisor in Trump's previous administration. The problem started during the HP/Juniper merger earlier this year. And her number two, a guy named Roger Alford, was pushing back on the merger publicly and internally, and the administration forced her to fire Roger Alford. And Roger Alford over the summer gave a speech at some conservative thing tank. It was his first speech that he gave after being fired and publicly called out the administration for firing him, for doing what antitrust is supposed to do, and then followed up with what's gonna happen next? Live nation's gonna hire all the right lobbyists, and then they're gonna settle too. He said this over the summer. So like, could not have been more clear. And Roger Alford also, lifelong conservative, so the head of the law school at Notre Dame, he worked in the Pash Trump administration. These aren't, you know, left-wing people. These are his people who are hired to do the job that the role entails. So, gals later, then, you know, doing the same job. Basically, she agreed I'm sure with him and was forced to settle on the last case. And that's assumption, but it just makes sense that somebody had to go so her number two went rather than her. And on the live nation case, she was fighting. And she was doing what she believed was right. And she was pushed out right as, you know, we're getting close to the trial day. Interesting. I mean, is this the biggest antitrust case that's even on the table right now in the invention? I don't know, but what I will say is there's still something left of the Google case that I don't think that's been fully settled. You know, in my opinion, I would have to say Google is probably a bigger case than live nation. It's probably bigger financially, but live nation, you know, you had the Taylor Swift kind of PR dish. But what I would say is we all touch Google more often than we all touch live music. Yeah, even those, I would say, even those who work of us who work in live music. Yeah, yeah. No, look, I hear your point. I probably touch it, but it's a big case. I probably touch, well, I was like, okay, I use Gmail. I was about to say I'm probably using AI now more than I'm using Google, but yeah, yeah, still, still, and you're probably using the Chrome browser as well as you're looking at your notes on the side while talking to me. That's it. It's cloud, it's cloud code on the side, not cloud code, cloud chat, but so not and but we're getting off topic, but the one fascinating thing that I will say is that is the reason why Google won that first round in that trial because of, if this was a year or two, we would not be using cloud and all these other things up on our screen. We were 100% using Google. Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's been very disruptive to their to their business. Well, you actually, you brought something about Google that I wanted to bring up with you just in terms of like the philosophical difference between like breaking up a Google or a Microsoft back in the day and breaking up or Amazon breaking up, you know, live nation, ticket master, like I think, you know, they're, I listened to these tech, tech podcasts, being in technology to stay in, stay in touch with trends and a thousand different reasons. And you know, they tend to have a very favorable kind of like, you know, big, big tech perspective. So I've learned a lot from them and, you know, their perspective on antitrust is, well, these, you know, there's been administrations that have gone after these giants, it's American success stories. And like, you know, companies like Google and Microsoft and Amazon and Apple essentially put the US on a world stage. So there's a case to kind of keep those companies in place so that, you know, American business is just this worldwide powerhouse and it's a curious, that's just their perspective. Now, the point that I want to make, I think breaking up Google is fundamentally different than breaking up live nation and ticket master because of the, of the second order effects. So if you break up Google, it doesn't necessarily immediately like sprinkle, you know, business and revenue, two thousands of small businesses the way that live live nation and ticket master would, like if there were to be a live nation breakup, conceitably it would be an amazing, it would be amazing, a tailwind for the independent live music industry and customers and venues and artists to your point about like the Nashville, you know, the root, the reason why the Nashville G is still going after this is because yeah, there's that there's this is fundamentally different than Google and that like local communities are deeply impacted by this. So I think, I know that's probably why you're seeing, you think that's right, that's why you're seeing a lot of the Republican states kind of staying the course with this. Yeah. Yeah, honestly, I don't know, but I want to kind of double click on one piece that you said though. It's like, you know, if you break these up, it would be great for independent venues and I'm very aligned with the independent venues and I don't want to see them harmed in any way. Yeah, but you know, it's just thinking as you were talking and let's say you break live nation up into five parts, 10 parts, whatever it is, you're now going to have these well-funded regional promoters who have a lot of resources that could then harm the local promoters still that are independent because there's still going to be a significantly more funded partner in the market. So and I know that the independence feel they'll be better off if they're broken up, but I still worry for them of, you know, kind of the unintended consequences. Right. Currently live nation, they're censored, they're centered in Los Angeles. That's where the power of the company is. Now let's say it splits up over a couple of different areas and, you know, Texas has, you know, like whoever's company there and they're so powerful, ruling Texas that they squeeze out all you indie guys. So like, there's just, it's always a concern. But what you're saying is be careful what you wish for and it's a perspective that I have not considered. I mean, the independent industry seems to be completely aligned that they want to see heads roll, you know. And then that any heads rolling figuratively speaking, being will, it's a terrible analogy, but like, yeah, the results of that will benefit independence. And to me, I haven't heard anything on the Neva level that is contrary to that, but it's a cure. And you're right. Yeah. I'm not saying you're wrong. It's just new, it's a new philosophy that, yeah, I've been considered. Yeah. And it's just in any situation, anything can happen. You just don't know. And my hope is for those things not to happen. Yeah, but you just don't know where what happens next in those scenarios, but we can hope for the best. Well, stay on Tennessee. I will kind of ambiguous some stuff that's not public information when I share this story, but it's, you know, a lot of people are confusing a lot of things. But there's an overall movement of live music being corporatized that, you know, independence don't like or are battling against the corporatization of live music is not just happening from live nation. Like, for instance, there was like a hundred million dollar music venue that was built in Nashville that is an A.G. project, 4,000 capacity venue. It's all public information. And, you know, and that just landed in that market. Now, there was an incredible venue in town, three miles down the road, 10 years ago, that was built for $100,000, 10 years ago. Like, that's the thousandfold difference in price and like what, what happens with ticket fees as, you know, ticketing prices as a result. Like, you can't, the economics of a hundred million dollar venue versus a hundred thousand dollar venue is just going to drive up the price of tickets, obviously, because you got to cover that cost. And again, that's not coming from live nation. So it's like, you know, that's a huge, and I believe A.G. is, you know, they're looking at Austin, the plant, one of that, and it's all coming from the mission ballroom, you know, which, and they're highly monopolistic in Denver, the Denver kind of front range area. So it iterates to your point. Like, you know, A.G. is a problem in these markets for independence. And this is not me saying there's anything, you know, inherently nefarious or illegal about A.G. operates. But yeah. Exactly. And because the thing is, if you break them up into multiple parts, they are going to be very well-funded companies. Yeah. They are not going to be like Matt and Randy's bar on the corner that we decided to open. You know, that we were going to spend 20 grand, you know, we were going to do something like that. They're going to come in with a multi-floor corporate sponsor that they spent $5 million on. And it's just, so it's always going to be a challenge. And by the way, on that point, I've got to double-click because some interesting stuff happened in the trial yesterday. And Jay Marciano was on the stand and live nation's attorney was asking, you know, do you own this building? Do you own that building? In this city, how many venues do you own? Hey, golden voice of LA. That's your company. They produce Coachella, right? And it was basically a line of questions trying to like frame that they're the monopoly and like flip the script because AEG, I don't know the numbers, but AEG could own as many venues as live nation. They're not as big, but they own a significant amount of building. So they were trying to paint that picture for the anti-manopoli conversation. And maybe there should be charges for it being a do-opoli because there's a smaller player and the big player and everyone else so much smaller. I think they said like live nation does like 10 billion in sales to AEG's 2 billion. It's smaller, but they're still a billion dollar company. And what was, I mean, Jay was just on the stand just speaking very matter of fact of these things. Where did it go? That was it. There wasn't, not being in the room, I've only seen some tweets of people, court reporters in the room. So I don't know exactly where it went. And by the way, there's a guy named inner city press. If anyone wants to follow him on Twitter, he has the best information for real time in the trial of what's going on. As we're speaking today, Bob Ru is on the stand and being deposed in a similar fashion. So the answers are very a matter of fact though. Like it's not what you're going to call it. There's not a lot of room to all pine on anything. Okay, again, I'm going to ask a very simple question here. So on one side, you have live nation and there, this is so funny, by the way, there's a trial happening right now that the media, mine, fuck up, like what happened last week. Like it was like it was done, right? Like the media, a live nation kind of published this thing and said, oh, the case is done. You know, everyone, it's settled. And it's like, it's going on right now, y'all. It is absolutely not, not by the way, one quick thing on that before we move to the next topic is you set this up perfectly. They gave the exclusive story to Politico that they settled. I'm guessing a day or two before the settlement was announced because they settled on a Thursday. And then on that Monday, they told the judge that they settled. So Politico wrote this whole story detailing the settlement and they gave it to a political publication rather than a music publication. So that Politico would send out misinformation on their behalf. Like one of the things in the settlement that they showed them is that they were divesting in 13 amphitheaters. And Politico reads they're divesting in 13 amphitheaters. Politico's a political publication. They don't know that they don't own them. When the music press got that finally hours later, they told a different story, but all the national and global press already told the story of what Politico told based on their understanding. And I'm not saying why Ignatian lied, they did their job as spinning the media. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's this war time strategy and declaring victory, you know, exactly. Like, okay, it's psychology on such a crazy level. Okay. So again, just a super simple question. So all right, so you have live nation, they're making their case right now. They're calling people to stand cross examining folks. Who, who is on the other side of the DOJ dropped out? Like, yeah, so, so this is fascinating. And I'm gonna take a short step back. I know it's a short question, but the answer is fascinating. Yeah. So the lead judges in the case were the DOJ judges. And the DOJ like then had the states working under them. The DOJ I think had 20 lawyers working on the case. DOJ knew they settled on a Thursday. No, then Friday they held the trial still. They didn't tell their own trial lawyer that the trial was settled. They kept its secret all weekend. Monday morning they go into court to say we've settled. But this was a strategy again to get to your point of your question, because they had to find a new lawyer to lead the case. So they hired one of the world's best antitrust attorneys. I'm forgetting his name, but he had a recent antitrust case in front of the Supreme Court where he won nine to nothing in the Supreme Court. All the justices went with him. So just like a brilliant attorney, but they had to hire him last week knowing that the trial was about to start in a couple of days. They could have started the next day. The judge gave them a week to try to settle. And if they didn't, that it would start on Monday yesterday. So there was a strategy to not tell anyone on Thursday because it bought them significantly more time to not have an opposing attorney doing research on that. Un-un-un-believeable. So this guy just dropped everything, or guy or guy, whoever it is. Yeah. And pick up the case. So who hired him? The committee. The States. Yeah. So there's a group with the States. Yeah. Okay, got it. Yeah. So each individual state has an attorney general that's on the payroll. They have a staff on their payroll. But then there's additional attorneys that are hired. And this is where I was getting at before. As long as it's a bipartisan case, there's federal money available to support that. But if they're successful, then they lose a chunk of their funding getting all the Republicans to drop out. Does 100% of the Republicans have to drop out for it to not be bipartisan? That's my understanding is that it has to be bipartisan. So as long as it's won, it's still bipartisan. The tendency could be the last one standing and it would still. And it's not like the case is over at that point. It's just that they're, again, they're just trying to take resources from the case at that moment. Where would the money come from to fight the case if that federal funding disappears? It's just each individual states, tax rolls, and funding anything else. So then they're all having to take budget from other staff. Okay, wow, this is absolutely mind blowing. Okay, so that. - Basecrumble hired this new learning. He's a private industry lawyer, by the way. - Yeah, it's not a state employee or federal employee. - And he picks up the case with a two day notice. - I think I heard they hired him either on Tuesday or Wednesday, so less than a week we'll say. - Unbelievable. Okay, so and now it's proceeding. Okay, so let's just, let's say there's so many things to talk about, but let's just stay on that. So there's proceedings, give me just a very simple overview. So there's a trial happening right now. We've all seen the TV shows. Eventually there was going to be a ruling. Like what, what, what, walk through a timeline of like what, what's going to happen here as much as you've been. - Yeah, they're estimating that it's going to be a four week trial, four to five weeks. So that shifts to five to six weeks because we just lost an entire week where they didn't have any witnesses called. So there's a list of witnesses that the states plan to call and that live nation plans to call. And you know, there's a schedule for how much time each of them are going to be questioned on the stand. And when they get to the end of that, you know, it's kind of just like on TV, closing statements, jury goes in the room and deliberates and then they'll be a verdict. And then from a verdict, the judge decides remedies if they are found to be guilty. - Okay, so and they're found to be guilty of being obnoxious. - Yeah, and I don't know. And it's not really being a mon. Two things, one, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the terms found guilty or like found liable or whatever. - Sure, sure. - Yeah, but we're going to use the term guilt just because we're not lawyers and we don't know any better. - Yeah. - But, yeah. - Okay, it's okay. - Yeah. But if it goes badly for live nation, then they decide, but the trial really isn't about is live nation a monopoly. The trial really becomes, and I wish I had the notes in front of me of what it is, there's two different things they're accused of and it's interfering with threatening to not provide talent to venues if they don't sign ticket contracts and one other piece, which again, I should know this stuff, but it's not a trial of is live nation a monopoly or not. It's way more nuanced than that. - Got it, got it. Wow, super, super interesting. And then, so if the jury says guilty or innocent, let's say if they say guilty, and again, we're simplifying here, guilty of monopolistic practices, whatever they're being accused of. This judge single handedly decides the remedy gets carried out over a two year period or something like that. - Well, in reality, because this is America, and you know how things go, the judge decides a remedy and - Counter suit. - Unless live nation's happy with it, which is possible, you know, if the judge could say, okay, the remedy is exactly what we already did with the federal government. Like, that was a fair solution. And in that scenario, yeah, they take it and they move on. More likely what's to happen. If it's anything worse, and I'm using air quotes to those who were just listening worse because that all certainly think it's bad at all for them. - We should say that. It was a slap, I was an utter slap on the wrist. There was nothing. - Well, it might be good for them. You know, like they can make more money in their amphitheaters if outsiders are in there. They estimate they make about $50 per head of each promoter that comes into the amphitheater. So, or each other comes into the amphitheater. So if another promoter could bring in more business, it could help them. But going back to your question, immediately there will be an appeal filed if they're not happy with it. And we start all over again. - Yeah, yeah. So nothing's happening. For those that want to see heads rolled, heads ain't gonna roll for a long time. - There's this guy in New Jersey named Tommy Dorfman who sued live nation. I don't fully understand his case even, but he sued live nation for some kind of unfair practices. His case is on year 15 right now. - Oh my God. Wow. Wow. And especially with, okay, let me address the elephant in the room. Do you believe that the Trump administration directly just sent a message down to settle the case? And yeah, and to not break up live nation and to have an influence the outcome that just happened. - I just can't fathom they didn't. But what I will say is, I don't necessarily think it's for the reasons that most people would think. My belief, and this is just more of like a political view and I should say understanding Trump, but feeling like, I can decode why this guy does some of the things he does. And Trump loves to win. I mean, we all know that. You know, the only one who like winning more than that was Chip. I forgot his name, the dude from the actor, Robert Downey. Oh no. Who is the actor who used to say winning and Tiger blood? - Oh man, I forget. Yeah, the co-cat lunatic actor who got fired from a TV show. But whatever. Charlie, Charlie. - Charlie Sheen. - Yeah. - Yeah. The only person that likes winning more than Charlie Sheen is Donald Trump. And Trump just wanted to frame this as a win. I don't know that he gives a shit one way or the other. What happened with the trial? It's Trump fixed this problem. Trump is getting the peace prize because he ended nine wars that nobody's ever heard of. And Trump is fixing the live nation problem now that nobody's been able to fix for 30 years. You know, that's Trump's goals. So do I believe that Trump was looking to claim a win that he just fixed this? Absolutely. No question about it. But do I think he has a concern or an influence on whether a live nation is a monopoly or not? I don't think he could care less. Where does Kim Rock play into this? Because he's in Trump's ear and obviously it was an unbelievable part of getting a quick remedy for all in ticketing that was impactful. And I mean. - No all in ticketing was Biden. That was the Biden administration 'cause it was airlines, hotels and concert tickets. That just came into effect. And I think it came into effect either just before Trump was in office or when he was in office. So that wasn't in office for sure. Yeah. - Yeah. So Kim Rock was last April. Yeah, Kim Rock was last April the executive order to investigate the ticketing and live event industry and demanding that's Department of Treasury, Justice and the FPC do an investigation and have a report on his desk within six months for solutions on the business. Interesting side note, they will not release the reports that each of those organizations made and gave to him that somebody I know of filed a FOIA request, which is Freedom of Information at. And they still wouldn't release them. My guess is that the findings of Trump's own administration do not align with the settlement that the DOJ agreed to. So he doesn't want that out there because that would go against Trump winning. He's setting the narrative right now that he won, but if he says they should have done something else and they didn't do it, then he lost. - I hear you. So how do you square Trump working on the executive order for the all-inticketing, that's something at that moment people are like, "Huh, maybe this administration is gonna do something positive for this industry." And I know for sure it was Trump because Niva got absolutely racked for giving credit. - No, it wasn't all in ticketing. What Trump said, it was going after ticket scalping. It was going on after unfair fees. It was all these other things. It wasn't, it was the exorbitant pricing on ticketing. That was where Trump, the Trump, where when Kid Rock was wearing the evil, the evil outfit in the White House, that's what that was all about. - Okay, okay, interesting. I got you. - Yeah, I just, I did a Google search real quick on Kid Rock and I just saw Kid Rock is pissed about the DOJ settlement with Live Nation. So there's just a title from Stereo Gum, but like, - Oh. - You have to, everybody needs to go and look on Kid Rock's Twitter profile from over the weekend. - Yeah. - He went off so badly on this, it's crazy. - Like, some rides, where's Kid Rock? - Because why doesn't it matter, right? Well, this is a person that has Trump's ear that, you know, I don't know where Kid Rock is at. I know he didn't like ticket pricing and all that. Like, yeah, again, I don't, so let's talk about Kid Rock 'cause it's just, it's relevant from the year I was a doctor. - My favorite artist, I've been listening to him since I'm a child, not kidding. - So yeah, sorry. - You know, just respect Kid Rock too. I did listen to him before when I was younger though. But I'll just start with the next one. beginning of this tweet because it's kind of long. But does anyone care about this but me? These motherfuckers have been raping hard working American for hard working Americans for decades and laughing about it while they do nothing. And he goes on from there you go. Like he could not have had stronger words and what he was talking about specifically to dive in deeper was the slack messages that were released last week. >> I had that on my list. Let's talk about that. >> Okay. >> Yeah, because we're playing for the opposition, right? Like in the way that everyone just blindly covered, oh, live nation's divesting from these amplifiers that they don't actually own and with Case Scott settled and they got the PR wins. The PR karma came back really hard with these slack messages. So let's talk about the slack messages. >> Oh yeah, so the slack messages, that's gonna stay. And I wish I was in the courtroom because you know who was on the stand this afternoon, none other than Ben Baker, one of the two guys in the slack conversation. >> Oh no, just like Winston. >> And get complete coincidence. He's been one of them for a long time, but, coincidence but not because this information, you know, the people in the case had discovery and they've seen this information. So they know what to follow up on. And so like just the information getting out there, I guess is really the coincidence. But he will be on the stand today to talk about those messages. But what I will say about the slack messages is those things they said are terrible. There's no question about it. But what their role is is to help carve back money that's being lost to the secondary market. They are, you know, that's what dynamic pricing is basically a response to the secondary market. And all these things are looking at the secondary, seeing how much people are paying there because fans are fooled into going there, even before shows are sold out. So they want to attempt to damage the secondary by keeping fans in their own ecosystem with those high price tickets before they leave the ecosystem. I have mixed feelings on the concept. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not saying it's right. But and there is one solution to the problem. And there's more and more coming out that supporting this, which is if we have price caps, then you don't have people on the secondary market reselling tickets. Then you don't need the primary dynamically pricing tickets to try to remove the arbitrage opportunity for the scalpers. So these guys job was really to be bad asses in a room to fuck the scalpers who are trying to take that money that the fans stupidly, again, air quotes stupidly are paying to them. So their job was a shitty job, but with a purpose to bring more money back to artists that was either going to be made by the scalper or made by the artist. And it's a function of a horribly flawed system. And what we need to do federally is have a price cap on tickets. Because if there was a price cap on tickets, we could then stop with this dynamic ticketing and we would solve both problems. - Interesting. Okay, so. So the whole, just to double quick on this, I mean, I'm reading some black messages over here. So there's something along the lines of like calling concert buyers like so stupid. So what you're saying is that there, that this was in the context of them fighting scalpers, but it seems like a smoking gun. I'm not trying to follow you. - No, no, no, and I'll say I'm not defending these guys. - Okay, okay. - At all. - Yeah, no, no, and you can call me out. I'm happy to be called out. Like basically the system that live nation created to fight back against scalpers is dynamic ticketing. Raising the prices as the show's about to sell out to try to get those people who would have spent the high money on the secondary to buy from them. That is a system. That provides good but is essentially bad because it's fighting bad actors. - I understand that, yeah. So just wanted to make sure we cover that. So now going through these knuckleheads who were doing these things, they are now in a system where they're incentivized to create additional, additional ancillary revenue. - I see. - And they're celebrating their wins. What they're bad guys. I mean, I'm not gonna say that they're not bad guys in what they're doing at all. What I will say also is, you know, you can see from some of their slap messages, they were talking about how they used to give out an award every year for the person who brought in the most to ancillary revenue. And you know, the guy was saying, it's like this cool guitar that, you know, there's a plaque on it. And the first thing that came to mind is I was reading that is, as this person displays their award at home or something, people come in and say, hey, what's that award that you got? Oh, that's for ripping off stupid fans. Like, how can you, like, how can you one have a system that is doing that? It becomes the system's fault. But then the actors become even worse than the system. - Right. Right. - Yeah, it's a remarkable failure on there and have arrived at, you know, posting those message and the mind state that goes into that. It's just absolutely mind blowing. And it looks like it was from, I don't know, 2022, 2022. - Yeah. - And yeah, and, you know, it's an interesting reminder. It's like at some point, if you're in a court of law, everything is discoverable. Your emails, your slacks. - Yeah. - And I mean, the thing is the corporate policy was definitely set up to incentivize people to do something that brought more money to artists. So it's what they were doing is not necessarily bad. But people then at work talk shit all day. So it's like, it's two friends talking shit that, you know, they don't even necessarily mean it. And like they could literally like, this whole thing is so fucking stupid that it exists. But it's their job. - That's you. - Look, you wanna see those, the lizard brain wants to see those slack messages and just immediately be like, we got you, motherfucker, like smoking gun, tar and feather them. But what you're gonna do for Randy is you're, you're always gonna go a step deeper. And if it's, you're gonna call live nation when they incorrectly publicize a win, you're gonna go into the details of it like, hey, they didn't own the venues that they said they divested. The court case is not over. And here, you're just, you're being consistent that, you know, hey, look, it is a smoking gun. They suck, they shouldn't have wrote that. But here's the context to consider underneath that. So I do appreciate that about. - Yeah, yeah. And thank you. And if anything, the guys are bad, but I blame a system that is so flawed beyond just this company that that's really where we have to point the blame. And it's honestly, in the courtroom, I'm sure they're gonna try to like, introduce this into the case, but it's not actually relevant to what the trial is about. - Right. - Because AEG, you're right. Like, yeah, yeah. Access their competitor to the monopoly, you know, again, air quotes whether they are or not are doing the exact same thing. And it's possible that you have people at AEG going, you know, these tickets distributed by Victory Live, we sold them for, you know, $1,000 for a $50 ticket. What fucking idiots? Like, that could be getting said there too. So. - Yeah, this is, if you exist in all chain of the, all parts of the chain, I think you're like, actually really right about that. And, you know, I thought of a situation in Nashville on a situation in Santa Cruz where a local promoter is getting absolutely sharp elbowed by a non-Live Nation, non-A.G. promoter. And, you know, and yeah, you're, you know, they confer this local venue confirms an event, a talent buyer at the other promoter reaches out to the agent and says, you know, another band isn't going to play in other five venues that I own or whatever. And again, like this is behavior. And that's a side subject to like jacking the ticket prices. But it's a fascinating point that you're making that. Like what's being revealed here is there, this is a, this is a, it's a tough industry. It's a tough industry. Yeah, yeah. - And there's a lot of dirty actions that happen in this industry from everyone from, and you know, not attacking the Indies, I never want to attack those guys. But I mean, there's Indies who are doing things because they have to like, - One of the best. - Yeah. - But finding the best. - Yeah. - There you go. It's like it's just, it's, and the nature of the people have gone into this business and you know, very short side story, but somebody talked to me when I was a kid, you know, starting the business like if I ever want to be a promoter, what I need to do before that. And the very short version is take all the money that you have, put it in a pile, go to your friends, borrow money from everyone, you know, go to the bank, borrow money from the bank, put it all in a pile and set it on fire. Yeah. And if you're comfortable with that, then you could be a promoter. And there's a lot of truth to that statement. So what kind of people are going to then be in that business? They are people who are incredibly risk-adverse, a little crazy, and that's going to develop the industry that we have the way it works. That's fascinating. It's a very, very curious perspective. Well, I think, you know, what I'm, what I'm, you know, just to go back to this Slack message, I think, you know, not everyone is thinking through the next 10 remedies. And could there be an atrogenic effect here where, you know, the intended remedy actually creates a harsher environment for independence? I think that's your, you're advocating, hey, like let's, the devil you know might be better than you devil, the devil you don't know right now. I think it's absolutely fascinating. But I, you know, I think things add up. These Slack messages leak in the industry says, you know what? Like I don't care about the lesser evil or the, or the, you know, the, the devil that I don't know. I just, I see something that affects my everyday life, these unfair practices. It's the biggest one. And even if, and, and, and, you know what? Live nations just have a superficial land. Like something it's not going to actually make things better. But like, you know, we, the crowd, the masses just need, they just need that sacrificial land. Like I think that's probably, I mean, that's what's going on. Let's go in on here. Yeah, it totally isn't. Everybody's having a field day reading it, laughing, and yet honestly, the Slack message of everybody talking about the Slack messages, if those were to be leaked, those are probably pretty fucked up too. From all of us across the industry. So you know, it's just like, and again, it's just, it's nonsense in the realm of things. But the behavior is a problem. And we need to fix the problem. And you know, like, I know I keep flipping all this back to the scalpers again. But this is fascinating. Every major scalping lobbying group over the last weeks since those messages came out, put out tweets and public statements attacking live nation for having these terrible employees. And every one of, yeah, every one of the posts that I saw on a platform that you could reply to. I replied that, you know, live nation has a couple of bad actors and, you know, a bad system with this piece. But your entire business is focused on cutting the fan in line and jacking up the price. So while you attack these people, don't forget that this is all you do every day. We actually do other things too. Right. Right. Yeah, it's funny. Like everyone wants to point the eye of Soron somewhere else and we'll take every opportunity that they have that they have to do so. So it makes sense that the scalpers are throwing, you know, fuel fuel on this fire. Yeah, it's in you bring up another point too about like, you know, the whole, the whole scalping situation isn't being dealt with here. Okay. So here's a question. If the case gets ruled, you know, guilty and again, using that as lose, there's appeals, there's, it's going to be years before heads rolled based off of what you're saying. Unless there was some sort of executive order or like alignment from the top, which does not seem like it's going to happen in the next three years with the Trump administration. They're showing the opposite posture. Anything's possible because they are very supportive in a lot of these issues too. They just want wins. They do want to fix some systemic problems as well. I think why I love having these conversations with you and I had Dave Weingarne around a couple weeks ago. Like it's, it's funny because David's name is David and I look, I compared, you know, independence to being like David and Goliath and there's all they want to do is just get that, you know, that rock that like cuts through the keyhole and like, you know, lands the shot or whatever now you want to use, you know, fire or the rocket down into the one little escape that star or whatever. Try land that shot and that really like feels like what has happened here, like the odds are stacked against the promoters for sure from something happened. And then there's, you know, second order effects that, you know, everyone needs to consider like is this a better, is this a lesser evil than what might, what might come, but anyway, I digress. The question that I want to ask you is if the case slants to not guilty or guilty, but the remedy is a slap on the wrist and it goes away. Is this done in debt? Like is there any clauses against this live nation free for X amount of time? Like obviously they don't have a blanket pardon for the next 30 years or whatever, but yeah, is it just, yeah, if it goes away independence, can the impence just do the appeal and they just keep this thing going and yeah, what? Well, the independence can talk to the politicians to try to keep it driving, but the end of the day, the politicians, you know, and the, you know, the judicial side of that works with those politicians to decide what happens. So they're ultimately making those decisions, but there's always the ability to have another case. I mean, companies like live nation, they're being sued constantly. There are so many other suits against them, you know, and like I said, this guy Tommy Dorfman, who I'm friends with, he's been suing him for 15 years and not sure whether he's right or wrong. I hope he's right and like he's doing the right thing there. But like these things, they, they're going to happen. It's not, it's not going the way. If, if they change their actions to become the kindless, gentless company in the world and literally set up a fund to fund the Indies, they would still be getting sued by someone. Yeah, yeah. Man, the world as much as you want the world in this case to be simple, it's the universe is no under no obligation to make sense to us. It's just a dynamic world. It's not clear cut as much as we're going to, I mean, we're trying to make a clear cut today. Like honestly, that's the most clear thing that I got from this. It's like, you know, the case could go left and then it could go right and it could go left and further right. And again, it really is just this like act of, you got, you know, David trying to throw a rock, throw a rock and then land the blow. And even if Goliath falls, it's like, you know, does the Assyrian army pop up down the road and it's like even even even more kind of, you know, nightmare situation. So the story will just keep going on at the end of the day. And yeah, there is no kind of, you know, there is no moment where everything just gets magically better is what I'm. Yeah. And by the way, there's a lot of go ahead. Yeah, and it means that that doesn't mean to say that the fight is not futile. There's no, there's no silver bullet that just changes everything, but the fight is worth it. I want to be clear about that. Yeah, it's in saying that, but it's just, it's an ongoing thing and it will be an ongoing thing. And this is a moment where there's more attention on it than there has been, you know, just here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the benefits of there being a case and a lot of this stuff coming to light is just people understanding the industry, understanding the problems and smart people who aren't in this industry who can maybe support it and create better solutions. You know, quite often just having information out there can drive progress. So winning or losing this court case, I don't think is what's really going to drive the biggest progress. But I think technology and public awareness and those kinds of things can have more impact and yeah, somebody want to say that? No, really. Okay. Yeah. So one other thing I want to throw out there also is this isn't the only other major lawsuit against ticket master. There's the FTC case currently against them, which I actually, I'll openly say everything I've seen about it feels like bullshit to me. You know, like the live days of anopoly case, I'm like, eh, could be this could be that I'm unsure. I'm not, I'm not being coy because I don't want to take sides and I really believe something. But the FTC case is basically saying that ticket master is empowering the ticket scalpers. And you know, I'm open to being proven wrong and you know, maybe there'll be some stuff in discovery that gets, you know, released in time or holy shit, they were doing stuff I never imagined. But they're kind of the way I view it. They're going after the criminal for being robbed and saying you didn't lock your door well enough and now you were robbed. So there's this case that I think is actually to me a lot more fascinating because the scalping side is just, it's almost as big as the primary market and they've created so many bad actions that drive a lot of the problems in the primary. So that case is part of a handful of FTC cases that are going to drive decisions as to what's a bot, what's a scalper like questioning and looking at all these platforms to what's right and wrong. And that one, personally, I'm incredibly fascinated by. - Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And when is that coming to Ruse, yeah? - I don't know. We've been talking about this case forever. I can't believe that it's actually March and that this case is happening now. So who knows? 'Cause we were talking about this forever. And I think pretty sure that one came after the other one. But yeah, I mean, we've still got some good case to follow on this. I don't know when you're releasing this, but this Thursday, the 19th, Repino's testifying. So that should be a fun day in the courtroom. - Interesting. What do you think? What's your crystal ball prediction on what Repino's gonna be talking about? - I mean, what he's talking about is just, they're defense, but the thing about Repino is he could be really charming. So it'll be interesting. He's the head of the company. I would assume he's gonna come in there with a great narrative that's gonna make the jury feel like he really cares. Because I think he does. I've talked to Repino before about take it master and a problem I was having with them. And he actually fixed the problem I was having with them, which is fascinating in itself, which is a story for another day around fan club ticketing for smaller artists, where he agreed that their policy didn't make sense and he changed it. But he's a concert promoter more than he's a ticket guy. So I think you'll get some of that when he's talking and I think it'll be really interesting to say. - Yeah, well, when this all quote-unquote resolves, we'll have to do this again. And yeah, that's something to watch out for is the Repino conversation. There's a way to watch it, or is there a recording of it? - So there isn't a way to watch it, but as I said, there's a guy on Twitter who I could give you his exact Twitter handle. Like, if you could put it in the notes, honestly. - I will. - Like, because he has a thing where he asks people to donate some money to his cause. And he is telling the story incredibly well. And a bunch of us are following it. Yeah, it's just inner. I-N-N-E-R city press. You should put him in the show notes and follow him. And if you like the info when you're learning more about the case, pay the six bucks to join this Patreon or as, you know, Twitter, or, you know, he's got a few different things where you can do something. I paid six bucks for this month just to give my little bit of support and I encourage. And the cool thing is, I know a bunch of people in the industry who are all, you know, spending some money with him because he's in the room telling us how long all of us who can't be there, the information. - Yeah, that's something very curious to watch out for. My plan is to just get this out right away, by the way. So we're gonna probably release it before that and just say, like, hey, I'll mention or pinos is happening on Thursday and follow inner city press. Okay, let's end with two questions. The first one is, what do you think is going to happen with this thing and granted, you're making the overall point that's like, hey, even as this thing resolves, it's a dynamic situation. It's not, it's much like a war. Like there's thousands of battles. It's kind of ambiguous. What a war exactly is even. But anyway, as much as you can drill it down, what is your prediction on how this resolves? And then the second question is, is it if you could remedy a solution to make this whole industry better, what would it be? But let's start with the first one. Where do you see this case going? Yeah, so on the first one, I think it is highly likely that winner lose sort of irrelevant what we talked about, whatever happens, the solution is gonna more or less be what we've already seen in the settlement. That the settlement is gonna dictate the guidelines. And one thing to point out with the settlement, the settlement, people think that ticket master live nation was fine, $280 million, that $280 million, is just a fund for paying the states in a settlement. So the number of how much is paid out if they're lose, that can change, but I don't see anything more material than a number changing on a piece of paper of a fine for their actions. Even if the states all rage on and the jury rules against live nation, you think that that's the outcome. So I'm not a legal scholar. So this gets into how much can pass the states dictate what happens nationally with a company versus the federal government having a different opinion. And I just, I truly don't know. I'm sure there's some legal scholars who can tell us what happens then, but I would have to assume the federal government to some degree takes precedence unless you have a majority of the states trying to force something. - Right, right. What about the states that didn't join this case from the start? Why didn't they join the case? It's just something that they didn't take, they didn't need necessary to take on or did they rule against it from the start? Are, yeah. I honestly don't know. My guess is you don't need all 50 states to take something like this. They went out, they tried to get people, people who are not easy to deal with. It's like who needs you? We've got 35 or 40. It's like at that point, do you really need everybody? - Yeah, yeah. What would you like to see happen to move the industry forward in the right direction? Yeah. That is the hardest question anyone has possibly ever asked me. But being that I'm so aligned with the independent venues, I would say some remedy that is going to empower the independent venues to have more control over their business and not be so threatened. The other thing I would say is something that will continue to drive innovation in ticketing. And this won't come out of the case directly, but that hopefully some of this innovation will help us fight the secondary market as well. - Interesting. Yeah, a big focus of yours is the secondary market, which is probably like a lens on this conversation that folks should consider is, based on my conversation with you, like you're feeling that that's the more kind of necessary thing to take care of in general, right? Well, it's a $10 billion industry that's stealing from all of us. And part of the reason that I talk about them so much, especially even on this topic, is they're running around spending a lot of money right now to say, look at this case, this shows how evil ticket master is, which is fine, I don't care if they attack ticket master, but they're framing that they're right and they're the good guy. And ticket master often is fighting to protect the artist and to protect the fans from them. Like, there are bad problems with ticket master. We've covered that, I'm not saying they're not, but they're doing things currently, they're using a new tool called Persona, where it verifies that you're a real person before you can buy a ticket if they suspect you to be a scalper. And the scalpers are pushing back, saying that ticket master is being unfair to fans and trying to harvest their data and creating a whole other narrative. So it's basically anything that ticket master does to help the artist venue and promoter, Indie or Major, the scalpers in there injecting themselves, trying to fix a problem, but by making it worse. - Yeah, yeah. - So I'm just speaking up, fighting back. And that's why you hear me talk about them so much. It doesn't mean that I don't think that there's bad actors within our side of the system as well. It's just that they're in an industry where there's only bad actors because that's what it's built on as a bad action. It's like saying, oh, this assassin is a much nicer assassin than the other one, there's still assassins. - Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. And I know that there's, like, to those out there that are, do you believe that it's the best possible thing to break up live nation in a small or big way? You basically, your prediction is that it's not gonna happen in this context, but you don't have a crystal ball. And I know you're just gonna come all that out. And I like how you said, it's always possible. So for those out there that believe in that or in a lot of it's coming from independent music venues that do are a little bit different than you ran me and they're thinking in that they think that and it'd be curious to get someone on here at some point to make that case that this is, in fact, the most important thing to do to help the independent venues. The work is not futile. This is the fact that there's a trial happening and MicroPenos about to take a stand is like and it's unbelievable progress on that initiative front. And you never know, you never know what's gonna happen and live nation certainly doesn't know and there's no reason why they would have prematurely declared a victory. if they weren't at least aware of the possibility that it might not go the way that they want to. So we will see what happens in the future. It's been a fascinating conversation. >> Yeah, I want to throw one last thing out there. >> Good, good, good. >> And it's just that with this case, it's not that, I think everything should stay the same. I think they brought the wrong case. >> I got Jeff. >> The case that they should have made against them is that they're a vertical monopoly, not a horizontal monopoly. It's not about how much market share they have. It's about how they control the market from top to bottom, from artist to ticketing and advertising. And because of that, they can overpay an artist and have a lower ticket price, which is great for the consumer, but terrible for the competing promoter. And that is the case that I would love to see tried. Because that's something where I feel like there's a real conversation to be had. Because on the other side of it, there's always three or four offers I could get. That is never a problem. There's always multiple offers on every show. So the issue isn't nobody can operate in the market and they own everything. The issue is that they have such favorable terms that they could overpay the artists. And the reason why you have no artists speaking up in this trial against live nation is not because they're afraid of them, but because this vertical monopoly pays them incredibly well. So for what's next, if there's another trial, that's the one that they're actually should be afraid of. Yeah, interesting. And I think it's worthwhile calling out what perspective that you're coming from. So you came from the artist's management side of things. I think you don't operate an independent venue. You're thinking more holistically about not that independent venue doesn't think holistically, but they're going to come out of the lens, owning an independent venue. But you're correct if I'm wrong, but you're coming out of the lens of like, hey, if I've got artists out there in the world, what is the best possible economy and ecosystem for them to go and tour and sell tickets and for their fans to go to shows. Yeah, part of you think that part of you knows that there's a monopoly doesn't service that industry well, but at the same time, there's benefits to what you're saying about like, beginning dollars in artists pockets. But I think it's an interesting perspective that you have for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's important. I think for I know a lot of the listeners with podcasts are probably venue operators. So it's important for them to know, you know, as an artist manager, if I have two offers that are apples to apples and one's live nation and one's an indie and it's truly apples to apples, I 100% of the time want to play for the indie. And I want to support the indie community. The problem is my job is I work for my artist. My job isn't to support and grow independent venues. So if your independent venue is in the cool side of town and they're doing everything right and they're developing artists and it's a two or three percent difference, I'm still my play for you because I believe in you and you're doing something important. And we need to keep you in business to keep the live business going to support my artists in the future. But when the differences are so massive because of this vertical monopoly we spoke about, I have a fiduciary responsibility to my artists to make them the most money. And that's the challenge. So my views come from a different place at times. But I fully understand their value and we have to do everything we can to support them. And it's like, you know, one of the things in the UK, they've the venue trust, they're doing things to put money back to support them. So I and I support things like that where if I have to take more money and we give a couple of pennies back that's going to truly support, like that's great too. I just have to make my artist the most money possible in the best scenario. Yeah, and I think it's an amazing point and it is, I think we're peeling onion back with this conversation in ways that doesn't always happen. So I appreciate that. And I think the independence would say, hey, we don't mind being putting our name in the hat of offers, live nation being in there. But I don't have the big festival down the street or the distribution that live nation has where I can make sense of the numbers that they can throw out to your point about the vertical monopoly, the ticket master fees, the parking or whatever. So I just I just want it to be I just want it to be fair. And then I think the next point that they would make is if the independent venues name is no longer in the hat, the offers, then you're dealing with the world where it's like you're only getting offers from the largest corporations or eventually two or three of the largest corporations. And like there's going to be a long term negative effect of that independent independent offer not being in there. So they're, you know, I think they're coming out from a place of like advocating for the bigger for the and they're important. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a knock on a sack to the local community that they're a part of because that they take in to work for them who might not get hired by a live nation and they're training them to be the next executives in the business. Like it it goes to so many layers and I truly understand and care about them. Yeah. So it's it becomes tough, which is why you know, when it's like, you know, equal, I'm always going to support that. And they typically care more about the customer too because that customer is someone they've been seeing since their little kid coming to their venue in live nation. It's rich best is in Atlanta now. Now he's in LA like it's and no knock on rich, but it's just like they're not ingrained in the community in the same way. Yeah. I think full circle. That's why I think that this case is different than your typical like anti-trust kind of counterpoints like, hey, this isn't just about like taking down a big American company. We need American business on the global stage. It's like, hey, like again, like and I'm oversimplifying it, which you call that rightfully so. But just to oversimplify it, it's like, you know, but by taking research away from live nation, you give to these, you know, local purveyors of music. And you know, concerts happen on a local level. And I think the point that they would make and they're probably fair in saying is that it's better music is better organized locally than outside of an office in LA because in the end, it's going to be a better experience for the fans, for the kids, for the community, for the artists. And it's going to keep ticket prices down overall for, you know, a local venue to, you know, a thriving local venue in the market can keep ticket prices lower than, you know, a publicly traded office outside of LA, you know, I kind of have a conversation at South By with some people back in Nashville and they were saying that, you know, concerts that would have been an independent venues are you can't, you can't get a ticket now for less than $60 or whatever. And look again, it's very simple to just blame the corporations for that. Like there's more to go go towards it. But you know, that's what's that's what that this is the bad of things that are being considered in this, you know, giant push and, and yeah, and I'm, you know, obviously like my job depends on a thriving independent live music scene, but I do it because I believe, you know, I really do believe in it. And the conversation is more nuanced than the headlines way more nuanced. I think that's why I love this conversation so much. I think I do think we did a lot of sense making, but you it's what I said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to end on one note that I think is a perfect spot to end this conversation on is if you look at radio, it used to support community in a very similar way to a local venue all the way down to the fact when Robert Siliman rolled up all the promoters, he sold it off to Clear Channel. Clear Channel was this giant monster amongst a handful of others that bought up all the radio stations and changed radio stations from being locally operated and programmed to nationally promoted radio stations that pretended like they were local and cared about their community. And because of it, nobody listens to radio anymore. So we don't want to see the same thing happen to music and we need to fight back. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Randy, incredible conversation. You're gonna, you're gonna speak the truth regardless. You're not gonna speak to the headlines and regardless of if it's, you know, if it pleases certain people and displeases other people and like that's why I'm new, I need to have the conversation with you on top of you doing the work to like burrow into these details. So can't thank you enough for jumping on and again, just given the recency of this. I'm gonna get this podcast out pretty quickly and like wow, amazing conversation. Really appreciate you man. Yeah. Great talking to you.