‘Don’t Mess With The Swifties!’ Jim Acosta Cheers Action Against Ticketmaster-Live Nation

CNN anchor Jim Acosta celebrated news of a Justice Department probe into Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation, and said the moral of the story is “Don’t mess with Swifties!”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the DOJ is preparing to sue Live Nation for antitrust violations.

On Tuesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Acosta convened CNN regulars and analysts Lulu Garcia-Navarro, David Frum, Shermichael Singleton, and Elliot Williams to talk about the news. They chalked some of the impetus for the action up to outrage over a widely-publicized snafu involving pop superstar Taylor Swift’s tour:

ACOSTA: All right, joining us now, CNN’s senior media analyst and senior media reporter for Axios, Sara Fischer. Back with us, David Frum, Shermichael Singleton and Lulu Garcia-Navarro. I mean, Sara, what is your sense of this case? I mean it sounds like the Justice Department is going to go after Live Nation. And I can speak on half of myself, and I think a lot of other people who go to concerts and sporting events, people are tired of paying for these crazy fees on these tickets.

SARA FISCHER: And they’re getting exorbitant, right?

ACOSTA: Yes.

FISCHER: You’re talking thousands of dollars.

ACOSTA: Totally.

FISCHER: So, we’ve had a source close to the matter also confirm to us that the DOJ is preparing a suit. What’s unclear is exactly when it’s going to happen, if it’s next month, if it’s in the next few months.

The big thing here is that Live Nation acquired Ticketmaster in 2010 and the DOJ declined to block it. So now you’re looking over a decade later at these anticompetitive practices and I think the regulators are saying, should we have blocked it then? Is there something we need to revisit now? That’s why they’re doing an investigation.

ACOSTA: Yes. And I guess one of the morals of the story here is, don’t mess with the Swifties.

FISCHER: Don’t mess with the Swifties, right?

ACOSTA: Yes.

FISCHER: Like, I think one of the reasons that there’s so much attention to this issue is definitely because of the Taylor Swift fiasco in 2022. You’ll recall in January 2023, the issue went to Capitol Hill, where senators debated over this. They all got their 15 minutes of fame by quoting Taylor Swift lyrics. But it did prompt a lot of regulatory response. And so, to your point, Jim, the big conclusion here, if you’re going to take on a massive tour, like the Eras Tour and Taylor Swift and mess it up, better watch your back.

ACOSTA: You’re going to pay the consequences.

And, Lulu, I mean, this kind of reminds me of the conversation we were just having in the previous segment about what people care about, the bread-and-butter economic issues. And this is one of those things, you know, we’re — we were talking about during the break, people credit card — going crazy with their credit cards in this economy and so on. I mean the fees that they put on these tickets, it’s got everybody fired up right now it seems.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It’s — I mean, it’s crazy.

ACOSTA: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As a consumer, as someone who just took their daughter to a concert, her first concert, and the sticker price on that was absolutely shocking. And I do think it hits everyone because we all want to be able to enjoy live music, right? We all want to go to these concerts. We all want to have these communal experiences.

ACOSTA: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But to go and do that at now, it’s just like so hard to even get the tickets, to then pay all these fees. And I think people do rightly blame these companies for that because, frankly, it is a kind of monopoly.

ACOSTA: It feels like a monopoly. I mean I took my kids to March Madness and it was like, what, like $80 in fees per ticket. And I’m thinking to myself, what — where are these fees going? I mean, I just clicked on a button and bought a ticket.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.