Floor seats
Ticketmaster's music monopoly
Good morning, pop fans. This is your Stock Market Rundown for November 10th, 2023. Thank you so much for reading. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: GOLDEN TICKETS 🎫
Ticketmaster: a brand that’s with us at the most painful moments of our lives. We’re either striking out on snagging Doja Cat concert tickets… or gulping as we blow this month’s budget on $1000 floor seats to Bad Bunny.
And don’t forget the nasty “service fee” surprise, tacked on at checkout. I’m buying these tickets on my iPhone while sitting at home wearing my Superman pajamas… what “service” am I getting, exactly?
In a free-market economy, if Ticketmaster is so infuriating, why haven’t any competitors cropped up to challenge them? Well, that brings us to the dirty secret of the global concert business.
Ticketmaster isn’t just a ticket vendor. Their parent company, Live Nation, also runs tours for major artists. And they own dozens of key venues.
This vertical integration gives Live Nation a chokehold on the industry, which has led to tough questions. When ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s recent concert tour kicked off, Ticketmaster’s systems melted down and millions of Swifties simultaneously burst into tears. Live Nation execs got grilled by senators, who demanded an explanation for the fiasco.
But even though lawmakers have taken run after run at Live Nation, nobody has managed to crack their monopoly. In fact, they just reported another blockbuster quarter, blowing through estimates like Post Malone goes through Bud Lights.
Ongoing tours by Beyoncé and Queen Tay Tay herself drove revenue to a record. The ladies in shimmery tights are definitely keeping Live Nation’s shareholders entertained.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Popeye needs a new gig. In a negative signal for the global economy, shipping company Maersk is cutting 10,000 jobs due to plunging freight rates and “subdued” demand.
Remember Blackberry? The CEO just peaced out after trying and failing to turn the business around for the past decade. Yes, we loved tap-tapping away on those teeny keyboards, but Blackberry hasn’t been relevant since Kesha topped the charts.
Elon Musk wants Twitter to become the home of your “entire financial life” by making it a banking and payments hub. Considering he can’t even stop porn bots from replying to my tweets, I’m not sure I trust him with my savings account.
You can finally take your gas guzzling El Camino out of storage: fuel prices are in decline thanks to supply from refineries coming back online, after planned maintenance outages.
Leaked tax records revealed that Warren Buffett traded stocks in his personal account before Berkshire Hathaway bought or sold shares of the same companies, a big no-no under ethics rules. I always assumed if some Buffett scandal broke, it’d be due to playing grab ass with the secretaries, not a compliance flub.
And with that, we're done for the week, my respected peers; let's gather again first thing Monday morning for more nonsense. Yours in capitalism, The Axe