OPINION:
The price of a sports ticket has more than doubled since 1999.
So it’s understandable why D.C. Council member Charles Allen would want to help decrease the cost of tickets. He has introduced legislation that would ban the reselling of tickets at more than 10% above face value, an effective price cap.
It might sound like timely relief for Nats fans, but in reality, it’s a corporate ploy meant to enrich the biggest ticket retailer out there.
In the world of ticket sales, the unchallenged king is Ticketmaster, owned by the entertainment company Live Nation. One study found that 63% of Americans who bought event tickets online from 2023 to 2024 did so using Ticketmaster.
Given all those sales, you would think the District’s ticket legislation would have Live Nation hitting the panic button, but Live Nation supports a price cap on ticket sales.
The company’s smaller, ticket-focused rivals stand to lose a lot more if a price cap on tickets is put into place. Live Nation, on the other hand, will be just fine, relying on its other profit centers (concerts, sponsorships, venue operations, which make up 85% of its business) to make up any lost revenue.
As its competitors flail and even go out of business, Ticketmaster can absorb those companies’ customers, eventually dominating an even larger share of the ticket market than it does now.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration is opposed to this price cap. So is former council member William Lightfoot. A January op-ed article in the Washington Informer cautions that a Ticketmaster monopoly would mean “fewer opportunities for smaller, independent artists — many of them Black-owned or community-based.”
This is one of those rare moments when the D.C. government needs to take a cue from Capitol Hill and say no to Ticketmaster’s price cap.
AURELIEN PORTUESE
Research professor, founding director, GW Competition & Innovation Lab, the George Washington University
Washington
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