Kathryn DickelInterview Highlights"To give some context, my organization is an anti-monopoly organization, meaning we look at harms of consolidation across the economy. And for the past two years, we've dug into the harms of Ticketmaster. This fall, you really saw an opportunity to formalize our efforts and kind of bring together other coalition members, because there was the political interest.
"And then we have the public interest from Bruce Springsteen fans that saw crazy prices over the summer. And then we just have strong leadership right now with Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan, the heads of the antitrust agencies. We see that if there is going to ever be an opportunity to break up this company, now's the time to really go for it.""First and foremost, I would say we wouldn't have seen the results that we did if there wasn't such a bottleneck issue.
"And that's because they have exclusive contracts with 80% of the largest venues. So despite her potentially trying to use an alternative, she can't really get around them. And going back to that bottleneck issue, when you have one sole source of entry, you can't really handle capacity. And we have antitrust laws that are meant to maintain competition and deal with these issues and make sure that customers don't have to engage with just one supplier.
"I think there is some political appetite. New laws are needed. But I agree that what is really necessary is a breakup of the two companies. I mean of the merged firm and make them into two companies. Because that that is the only way that you're going to solve all of these problems. Because a lot of it is related to the market power that they have in concert promotion and into ticket distribution. So, yes, legislation would help.
Absolutely spot on!
OnPointRadio *rein in
Now do dynamic pricing.