Listen to the Live Nation CEO’s alleged threats to a concert venue

Was it a threat or a reality check? That’s a key question in the government’s anti-monopoly case against Live Nation, which is currently in limbo after the Justice Department reached a settlement with the company and as dozens of states push ahead.

The Verge obtained the audio of a 2021 call at the center of the case. The recording, a public exhibit that was played for jurors in the first week of trial, features then-CEO of Barclays Center John Abbamondi and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino arguing over a ticketing deal for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena. A transcript of the call was previously posted to the docket, but the audio gives a better sense of how tense it really was.

The audio starts partway through the call, when Abbamondi broke the news that Barclays planned to switch from Ticketmaster to SeatGeek for ticketing. (To identify the voices, Abbamondi testified, “the nervous guy was me and the angry guy was Michael.”) Barclays and Live Nation disagreed about when their existing contract was set to end, and near the end of the conversation, Rapino pointed to “a new venue in town” that Abbamondi believed referenced the UBS Arena near Queens. “What I’ve told you from day one was, it was going to be a tough time to deliver tickets or concerts with a new competitor in town, regardless of ticketing,” Rapino said. Abbamondi testified that he understood this to be a “maybe not-so-veiled threat that it would be difficult for them to put concerts at Barclays Center” if they stopped working with Ticketmaster.

Listen to the call and decide for yourself — Rapino’s comments about a new competitor begin around 4:14.