Michael Girdley argues venues and artists, not Ticketmaster, are the real villains. When Fred Rosen took over in 1982, he made venues the customer, not fans, securing exclusive contracts with signing bonuses over $1 million and splitting 25% service fees with them. Some artists get a cut too, aligning their interests with the monopoly.
If you're a concert buyer who's ashamed and mad about paying ridiculously high fees and venue taxes and all that kind of stuff each and every concert, and you're angry at Ticketmaster, well, it turns out you're angry at the wrong people. See, back in 1982, after the Pritzker family bought Ticketmaster, a New York lawyer named Fred Rosen was put as CEO of the company, and he asked a very interesting question: Who's the real customer here? He recognized the answer wasn't you or me, not the real fan. We have no choice. If we want to see our favorite artist, We got to go wherever they're going to play. People who have choice, those are the venues, the amphitheaters, the stadiums, and so on. So Rosen went to every single venue in the United States and he made them an offer. Sign an exclusive deal with Ticketmaster. We'll charge a bunch of fees and we'll split the revenue with you. So say there's a 25% service fee on your ticket. Half of that might be going to the local amphitheater. Many times Ticketmaster is giving those venues an upfront signing bonus, even up to 7 figures, over $1 million before anybody even shows up to the door. But even some of the artists are in on the deal too. Some of those fees get cut to popular artists as well. And while 40% might go to the venue, some of it's going to the artist pockets too. In the end, Ticketmaster's real business was being an outsourced villain. If you wanted somebody to get mad at, you could get mad at Ticketmaster. You wouldn't get mad at the people who are really doing the shady dealing behind— the artists and the venues. That's why none of these venues and artists were really able to escape the Ticketmaster monopoly. It was too profitable. You're right to be angry at Ticketmaster. We all are. They suck. Their technology barely works and we can't go anywhere else. But the reality is they're not the only ones to be mad at. It's important in business to understand how things really really work. Oftentimes there's relationships behind the scenes that have no idea who's really to blame for when you feel pain. And that's why the great entrepreneurs, well, they study business, even if it's in a drainage ditch. All right, if you enjoyed this video, I did a long-form video about the rise and fall of Ticketmaster and why it might be broken up. There's a link to it in the comments below.
