Live Nation’s Share-Price Reveals It As A Visionary, Not A Monopolist

LOS ANGELES, CA – JANUARY 05: Los Angeles Dodgers President/CEO Stan Kasten and Live Nation announce Billy Joel’s first show ever to be held at Dodger Stadium during a press event at Dodger Stadium on January 5, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Earl Gibson III/WireImage)

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Frank Price, the former President of Columbia Pictures, died last month. While at Columbia, he “green lit” critically acclaimed hits including Tootsie, Ghostbusters, Gandhi, and Out of Africa. Price clearly had a sense of the moviegoing public. Or did he?

While he presided over some major successes, Price also had Howard the Duck on his resume. Worse, a New York Times obituary about Price reported that he declined to make Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Apparently Columbia’s internal research concluded it would mostly appeal to kids. E.T. broke box office records, only for the Times to describe Price’s decision as “one of the biggest blunders in Hollywood history”

That E.T. wasn’t obvious to one of Hollywood’s keenest eyes is a reminder that on matters of commerce, the future is powerfully opaque. As screenwriter William Goldman once famously explained it, “nobody knows anything.”

Goldman’s quip, and Price’s garlanded career, rate serious thought as the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues its antitrust case against Live Nation. Begun under the Biden administration when DOJ antitrust head Jonathan Kanter lamented that Live Nation is “just so entrenched,” a Trump administration occasionally prone to share its predecessor’s skepticism about commercial achievement continues a lawsuit that makes no sense.

To see why it doesn’t, just stop to contemplate the Washington Post’s description of Live Nation as “a concert promoter, artist manager, venue owner, and ticket seller and reseller.” The description requires a pause. While Live Nation’s origins can be traced all the way back to 1996, it hasn’t for all that time been “a concert promoter, artist manager, venue owner, and ticket seller and reseller.” Which is the point, or should be.

That’s because in business, every business decision is a bit of a blind speculation about the future. Nothing is ever obvious, and if this is doubted, consider yet again Frank Price and his decision to pass on E.T. The decision almost certainly kept him up late at night long after he made it.

Consider price with Live Nation’s remarkable evolution well in mind. Every decision that led to an expansion of Live Nation’s business remit was almost certainly preceded by enormous amounts of uncertainty and sleepless nights. Precisely because the future is so difficult to grasp, every decision about the future brings with it enormous amounts of uncertainty. Or as any successful investor will confirm, all the best investments are preceded by the greatest amounts of worry. All of which vivifies just how powerfully uncertain Live Nation’s path to industry giant was. See its stock price.

While a Live Nation share traded for $10.75 on December 16, 2005, in 2025 that same share can fetch $164. It amounts to a 1,430 percent return for investors since 2005. Contrast the latter with the S&P 500’s 400 percent return over the same timeframe. What the sizable disparity tells us is that to get where it is presently is, Live Nation’s executives didn’t just take numerous risks, they also did so amid enormous market skepticism.

If anyone had had a faint clue that what Live Nation was doing was correct, the returns would have been much smaller as a reflection of rapid investor embrace of decisions made. Just as important, Live Nation would have faced much more competition from its presently ankle-biting competitors amid its evolution.

Which is a reminder of what’s true: Live Nation faces an ongoing antitrust suit not because it’s a monopolist, but because it quite remarkably saw a commercial future that its competition didn’t. Rather than penalizing success, the Trump administration should be cheering it while ending a lawsuit that only makes sense insofar as it’s true that achievement must be suffocated.