Ticketmaster has been targeted by attack ads paid for by a conservative group, alleging that the company is attempting to “distract attention from their corporate failures by playing woke politics.” Major League Baseball is also a target of the campaign, which is paid for by Consumers’ Research as part of its Consumers First Initiative “name and shame” effort targeting such corporations.
The ads will run the week leading up to and during the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was relocated to Colorado from Georgia earlier this year in a reaction to a voting law passed in that state that many argue deliberately disenfranchises minority and low income voters. The Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit challenging the Georgia law, which supporters maintain is about election integrity and not targeted at any specific group or poilitical leaning. The league and its players’ association were sued over that choice, but the lawsuit failed to gain traction and was withdrawn in June after a judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction preventing the All-Star Game being played at Coors Field on June 13.
Ticketmaster parent Live Nation Entertainment joined more than 500 other corporations in signing an ad published in the New York Times earlier this year criticizing the Georgia and other similar legal efforts to impact voting rights across the country in the wake of the 2020 election. “We all should feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and to oppose any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot,” the ad read, in part.
“Ticketmaster has been on our radar as they continue to increase service and convenience fees to almost half the actual ticket costs. Ticketmaster CEO Michael Rapino continued to make over a million dollars last year while the company held three rounds of layoffs, and the Justice Department cracked down on their parent company, Live Nation, with the strongest anti-trust action in decades,” said Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild. “Ticketmaster also just agreed to pay a ten-million-dollar criminal fine for hacking their competitors. Instead of cozying up to woke politicians on issues they do not understand, they should focus on serving customers better, and competing in the market without committing felonies.”
The ad, which chides common consumer complaints against Ticketmaster over high service and convenience fees as well as the hacking settlement, is viewable below:
Other companies targeted by past Consumers’ Research campaigns include American Airlines, Coca-Cola, and Nike.