Two U.S. Senators are pressing Ticketmaster to clarify whether executives misled Congress about their efforts to combat ticket-buying bots, following last month’s Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging the company enabled widespread price gouging.
In a letter sent late Tuesday to Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold, Blackburn and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) raised “grave concerns” that Ticketmaster had presented a false picture in 2023 Senate testimony. At that time, Berchtold told lawmakers the company was “doing everything we can to fight the people who attack our sales and steal tickets meant for real fans.”
“It is astounding that you would make such a claim while actively colluding with scalpers and bad actors to extort the American public,” Blackburn wrote, citing evidence in the FTC’s complaint that Ticketmaster “turned a blind eye” to brokers using bots to scoop up inventory.
The FTC’s lawsuit, filed in September, accuses Ticketmaster and parent Live Nation turning a blind eye to users purchasing tickets using bots in violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, and even relaxing purchase limits for favored brokers. Regulators are seeking billions in penalties, with potential liability in the “hundreds of billions of dollars” given the BOTS Act’s per-violation fine structure.
Ticketmaster has not yet responded to the lawmakers’ letter or requests for comment.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scrutinized the company’s practices since its chaotic handling of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” presale in 2022, which triggered fan lawsuits and bipartisan calls for reform. At that hearing, Blackburn criticized Live Nation’s defenses as “unbelievable,” and senators pressed Berchtold on whether its billion-dollar investments in anti-bot technology were truly effective.
The new FTC case—and now congressional demands for clarity—mark another escalation in the long-running battle over whether Ticketmaster has abused its dominant position in ticketing by enabling the very practices it once blamed on outside scalpers.
Blackburn has asked the company to provide written responses by October 14, including whether it stands by its prior testimony that it does not “turn a blind eye” to BOTS Act violations, and whether it has ever intentionally relaxed ticket limits for financial gain.
The full letter from the Sens Blackburn and Lujan is embedded below:
