NFL should pay attention to this verdict

[Grogan14]

Jury finds that Ticketmaster and Live Nation had an anticompetitive monopoly over big concert venues

A jury has found the concert giant had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues, dealing the company a loss over claims brought by dozens of U.S. states.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Vindicate]

Jury finds that Ticketmaster and Live Nation had an anticompetitive monopoly over big concert venues

A jury has found the concert giant had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues, dealing the company a loss over claims brought by dozens of U.S. states.

www.cnbc.com

It's almost difficult to imagine a more greedy institution than a professional sports league, however, it should be noted that Ticketmaster is historically terrible in this regard. Truly a vile group and the world (and local music) will be much better off the day they get reigned in.

**** Ticketmaster.

 

[Triumph]

It's almost difficult to imagine a more greedy institution than a professional sports league, however, it should be noted that Ticketmaster is historically terrible in this regard. Truly a vile group and the world (and local music) will be much better off the day they get reigned in.

**** Ticketmaster.

They used to reasonable and pretty good, but no more.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Meh - doesn't make any difference to me. I just sneak in through a hole in the fence at Gillette and see most of the games for free.

 

[Thelonious]

Customers get the service they insist upon getting. In this as in other areas of commerce, we seemingly prefer whining about how ill-treated we are, rather than doing the adult work of seeking out alternatives. If you are willing to overpay for "convenience - in this as in so many other things - you are lazy, and you are getting what you deserve. Long live the free market and its incentives, both positive and negative. It works for those who work it.

 

[neuronet]

Customers get the service they insist upon getting. In this as in other areas of commerce, we seemingly prefer whining about how ill-treated we are, rather than doing the adult work of seeking out alternatives. If you are willing to overpay for "convenience - in this as in so many other things - you are lazy, and you are getting what you deserve. Long live the free market and its incentives, both positive and negative. It works for those who work it.

There often aren’t alternatives that’s the point.

This was an impressive win.

 

[Thelonious]

There often aren’t alternatives that’s the point.

This was an impressive win.

Hence the need for free competition. Competition, including the prospect of failure for vendors, drives quality. If a consumer chooses to continue to buy an inferior product or service, that's on the consumer. To whine about one's "plight" in that circumstance is to whine about one's own childish dereliction. It's very much like those who fail to make themselves useful enough to warrant and earn a decent living, then whine about how they can't afford what they need because they are being "exploited." Weak-ass ********. Make yourself (more) useful, or shut up and suffer in at least somewhat dignified silence.

 

[n1997y]

Hence the need for free competition. Competition, including the prospect of failure for vendors, drives quality. If a consumer chooses to continue to buy an inferior product or service, that's on the consumer. To whine about one's "plight" in that circumstance is to whine about one's own childish dereliction. It's very much like those who fail to make themselves useful enough to warrant and earn a decent living, then whine about how they can't afford what they need because they are being "exploited." Weak-ass ********. Make yourself (more) useful, or shut up and suffer in at least somewhat dignified silence.

Said competition is too often is missing, prevented by powerful incumbents. Successful vendors manage the competitive environment to eliminate potential competition, ensure that they are too big or too well entrenched to fail, and provide the least quality for the highest price.

That’s why the NFL will fight to the bitter end trying to preserve their exemption from antitrust laws. It’s why the lawsuit cited in the OP was necessary, because the free market failed consumers.

 

[Grogan14]

How can any league directly compete with the NFL under the current system?
I am not advocating for the DOJ to actually lift the exemption as that would ruin the sport.
But use the "threat" of lifting the exemption to stop the owners and NFL from squeezing every last drop out of the consumers.
Enough is enough.
If the NFL is not stopped now, it's clear where their greed will take them over the next 20 years. PPV for every game and expansion to international cities.

 

[n1997y]

How can any league directly compete with the NFL under the current system?
I am not advocating for the DOJ to actually lift the exemption as that would ruin the sport.
But use the "threat" of lifting the exemption to stop the owners and NFL from squeezing every last drop out of the consumers.
Enough is enough.
If the NFL is not stopped now, it's clear where their greed will take them over the next 20 years. PPV for every game and expansion to international cities.

And 52 games a year…

 

[Thelonious]

Said competition is too often is missing, prevented by powerful incumbents. Successful vendors manage the competitive environment to eliminate potential competition, ensure that they are too big or too well entrenched to fail, and provide the least quality for the highest price.

That’s why the NFL will fight to the bitter end trying to preserve their exemption from antitrust laws. It’s why the lawsuit cited in the OP was necessary, because the free market failed consumers.

I favor withdrawal of the exemption, always have. Anti-trust laws, because they help to sustain competition when properly applied, are one of the few sort of market regulations upon which I look with unreserved favor. Regulation in my view ought, like government, to be as minimal as feasible. My default position is always in keeping with Jefferson's words - "That government government governs best which governs least," - this ought to be our most fundamental political principle, but of course it is not.

 

[Grogan14]

I favor withdrawal of the exemption, always have. Anti-trust laws, because they help to sustain competition when properly applied, are one of the few sort of market regulations upon which I look with unreserved favor. Regulation in my view ought, like government, to be as minimal as feasible. My default position is always in keeping with Jefferson's words - "That government government governs best which governs least," - this ought to be our most fundamental political principle, but of course it is not.

Lifting the exemption will destroy the competitive balance of the league but
So be it if owners won’t curb their greed

 

[TommyD4207]

Hence the need for free competition. Competition, including the prospect of failure for vendors, drives quality. If a consumer chooses to continue to buy an inferior product or service, that's on the consumer. To whine about one's "plight" in that circumstance is to whine about one's own childish dereliction. It's very much like those who fail to make themselves useful enough to warrant and earn a decent living, then whine about how they can't afford what they need because they are being "exploited." Weak-ass ********. Make yourself (more) useful, or shut up and suffer in at least somewhat dignified silence.

Almost as if near-monopolies and monopolies are a bad thing.

 

[Thelonious]

Lifting the exemption will destroy the competitive balance of the league but
So be it if owners won’t curb their greed

It is as you say a little complicated. We want to see competitive games, certainly, but too often when you meddle with free competition - in any context - what you get is assured mediocrity across the board. In sports, as frankly in all things, "equality" must be enforced - inequality being the natural state of affairs among human beings in all commensurable parameters - so that non-football factors supplant to a degree actual competitiveness. It is very much analogous to affirmative action which, whether you favor it it or not, does unquestionably cause merit to be less valued than it would be in a more genuinely free - and genuinely competitive - market. The result, of course, can be mediocrity at best, pervasive failure at worst. I think it also gives greater authority to the beancounter types over the "football guys," which might make following your team's approach in the off-season a little less entertaining. The rantings of Dan Campbell et al are just more interesting than the spreadsheets of your average capologist. Whichever way you go, you are going to get some sort of mixed blessing, I guess.

Will and Ariel Durant's The Lessons of History gives a beautifully balanced analysis of such things. It's one of those books I wish everyone would read. Public discourse might be a little less pervasively stupid if that were to happen.

“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.” - Durant​

 

[Thelonious]

Here's a passage from Durant (the Durants) I used to use in my philosophy course. It always made for a snappy, not to say instructively acrimonius discussion. This was back in the day, of course, when actual discussion. was still possible, and legal:

History is a fragment of biology: the life of man is a portion of the vicissitudes of organisms on land and sea. Sometimes, wandering alone in the woods on a summer day, we hear or see the movement of a hundred species of flying, leaping, creeping, crawling, burrowing things. The startled animals scurry away at our coming; the birds scatter; the fish disperse in the brook. Suddenly we perceive to what a perilous minority we belong on this impartial planet, and for a moment we feel, as these varied denizens clearly do, that we are passing interlopers in their natural habitat. Then all the chronicles and achievements of man fall humbly into the history and perspective of polymorphous life; all our economic competition, our strife for mates, our hunger and love and grief and war, are akin to the seeking, mating, striving, and suffering that hide under these fallen trees or leaves, or in the waters, or on the boughs. Therefore the laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution, to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest to survive. If some of us seem to escape the strife or the trials it is because our group protects us; but that group itself must meet the tests of survival. So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law. Co-operation is real, and increases with social development, but mostly because it is a tool and form of competition; we co-operate in our group-our family, community, club, church, party, "race," or nation-in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups. Competing groups have the qualities of competing individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, partisanship, pride. Our states, being ourselves multiplied, are what we are; they write our natures in bolder type, and do our good and evil on an elephantine scale. We are acquisitive, greedy, and pugnacious because our blood remembers millenniums through which our forebears had to chase and fight and kill in order to survive, and had to eat to their gastric capacity for fear they should not soon capture another feast. War is a nation's way of eating. It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition. Until our states become members of a large and effectively protective group they will continue to act like individuals and families in the hunting stage. The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection. In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival. Since Nature (here meaning total reality and its processes) has not read very carefully the American Declaration of Independence or the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, we are all born unfree and unequal: subject to our physical and psychological heredity, and to the customs and traditions of our group; diversely endowed in health and strength, in mental capacity and qualities of character. Nature loves difference as the necessary material of selection and evolution; identical twins differ in a hundred ways, and no two peas are alike. Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before. Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest. Life and history do precisely that, with a sublime injustice reminiscent of Calvin's God. Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups. This competition becomes more severe as the destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states.

 

[n1997y]

Interesting, and currently topical. Here’s a passage from the Wikipedia review that you might use for some additional snappy discussion:

In March 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a press conference, referred to a passage from the book, in which history is described as a process analogous to natural selection. Netanyahu stated that “history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christhas no advantage over Genghis Khan,” arguing that power and ruthlessness often prevail in historical outcomes. B In the book, Will Durant and Ariel Durant note that religious leaders have long assured their followers that moral virtue would ultimately prevail; however, they conclude that “goodness receives no favors” and that “the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.” Netanyahu's quotation was made in the context of defending Israel's military actions, where he stated that Israel, along with other democracies, has “no choice” but to confront its enemies while it is still able to do so.

The remarks drew media attention and criticism, particularly for the comparison between Genghis Khan and ************, with some commentators interpreting them as disparaging ************ or as expressing admiration for Genghis Khan. Netanyahu later indicated that the statement was intended as a reflection on historical realities rather than a theological judgment, where he subsequently issued a statement clarifying that no offense was intended, stating that his remarks were meant to convey that “a morally superior civilization may still fall to a ruthless enemy if it does not have the power to defend itself.”

Here's a passage from Durant (the Durants) I used to use in my philosophy course. It always made for a snappy, not to say instructively acrimonius discussion. This was back in the day, of course, when actual discussion. was still possible, and legal:

History is a fragment of biology: the life of man is a portion of the vicissitudes of organisms on land and sea. Sometimes, wandering alone in the woods on a summer day, we hear or see the movement of a hundred species of flying, leaping, creeping, crawling, burrowing things. The startled animals scurry away at our coming; the birds scatter; the fish disperse in the brook. Suddenly we perceive to what a perilous minority we belong on this impartial planet, and for a moment we feel, as these varied denizens clearly do, that we are passing interlopers in their natural habitat. Then all the chronicles and achievements of man fall humbly into the history and perspective of polymorphous life; all our economic competition, our strife for mates, our hunger and love and grief and war, are akin to the seeking, mating, striving, and suffering that hide under these fallen trees or leaves, or in the waters, or on the boughs. Therefore the laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution, to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest to survive. If some of us seem to escape the strife or the trials it is because our group protects us; but that group itself must meet the tests of survival. So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law. Co-operation is real, and increases with social development, but mostly because it is a tool and form of competition; we co-operate in our group-our family, community, club, church, party, "race," or nation-in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups. Competing groups have the qualities of competing individuals: acquisitiveness, pugnacity, partisanship, pride. Our states, being ourselves multiplied, are what we are; they write our natures in bolder type, and do our good and evil on an elephantine scale. We are acquisitive, greedy, and pugnacious because our blood remembers millenniums through which our forebears had to chase and fight and kill in order to survive, and had to eat to their gastric capacity for fear they should not soon capture another feast. War is a nation's way of eating. It promotes co-operation because it is the ultimate form of competition. Until our states become members of a large and effectively protective group they will continue to act like individuals and families in the hunting stage. The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection. In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival. Since Nature (here meaning total reality and its processes) has not read very carefully the American Declaration of Independence or the French Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man, we are all born unfree and unequal: subject to our physical and psychological heredity, and to the customs and traditions of our group; diversely endowed in health and strength, in mental capacity and qualities of character. Nature loves difference as the necessary material of selection and evolution; identical twins differ in a hundred ways, and no two peas are alike. Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before. Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest. Life and history do precisely that, with a sublime injustice reminiscent of Calvin's God. Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups. This competition becomes more severe as the destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states.

 

[Thelonious]

Interesting, and currently topical. Here’s a passage from the Wikipedia review that you might use for some additional snappy discussion:

In March 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a press conference, referred to a passage from the book, in which history is described as a process analogous to natural selection. Netanyahu stated that “history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christhas no advantage over Genghis Khan,” arguing that power and ruthlessness often prevail in historical outcomes. B In the book, Will Durant and Ariel Durant note that religious leaders have long assured their followers that moral virtue would ultimately prevail; however, they conclude that “goodness receives no favors” and that “the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan.” Netanyahu's quotation was made in the context of defending Israel's military actions, where he stated that Israel, along with other democracies, has “no choice” but to confront its enemies while it is still able to do so.

The remarks drew media attention and criticism, particularly for the comparison between Genghis Khan and ************, with some commentators interpreting them as disparaging ************ or as expressing admiration for Genghis Khan. Netanyahu later indicated that the statement was intended as a reflection on historical realities rather than a theological judgment, where he subsequently issued a statement clarifying that no offense was intended, stating that his remarks were meant to convey that “a morally superior civilization may still fall to a ruthless enemy if it does not have the power to defend itself.”

It is hard to think of an historian - I might say philosopher - who takes more to heart the importance of cultivating morality and culture than Will (and Ariel) Durant. It would be unfortunate if this story, which I recall, were to be mistaken as implying otherwise. He is the furthest thing from the sort of rabid, jejune pseudo-Nietzschean who looks with equanimity, or glee, on barbarity.

Years ago, my brother-in-law and I formed a agreement that we would both read all eleven volumes of the Durants' Story of Civilization - something approaching ten-thousand pages. We both completed the task and found it an edifying delight. Some historians write beautifully - Gibbons and William Shirer come to mind - which redeems the density of their subject matter. The Durants' Dual Autobiography is a beautiful book, and Will's Story of Philosophy is a book I used in my philosophy course, off and on, for years. It was a surprising best-seller when it first came out, something inconceivable today. The Lesson of History, a very short book the Durants wrote together after competing what they could of their Story of Civilization, is another terrific book. Its wisdom is comprehensive, so that no one with a partial view - and we ALL have a partial view - will agree with every idea; but anyone will benefit from reading it. I reread it every several years in my ongoing quest to be something other than a complete ass.

 

[Family]

Lifting the exemption will destroy the competitive balance of the league but
So be it if owners won’t curb their greed

In principle I want the exemption gone, but it will make a worse product.

And the exemption doesn't apply to streaming, just broadcast, so taking it away could produce a worse outcome.

 

[Wozzy]

Ticketmaster get sued every few years, they pay a fine then go back to their price gouging ways. It’s not different from any other corporate model where they make a billion dolllars, pay a ten million dollar fine and consider it the price of doing business.

If the corrupt government has no intention of breaking up monopolies anymore, and they don’t… nothing
will change. We’ll just have more performative court cases like these.

Shut off the money spigot, organize and stop going, convince others not to go… vote with your wallet. That’s the only way to effect great change.

 

[Family]

Shut off the money spigot, organize and stop going, convince others not to go… vote with your wallet. That’s the only way to effect great change.

So stop enjoying your life in order to fight a monopoly?

Let them eat cake.