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D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed another lawsuit against the owners of the Washington Commanders.
The suit alleges ownership implemented an illegal scheme that cheated ticket holders out of their deposits for season tickets to use the money for their own purposes.
Last week, Racine filed a separate lawsuit against the Commanders and the NFL, alleging they colluded to deceive D.C. residents and fans for financial gain.

A general view of fans in front of the Washington Commanders logo during the first half of the game between the Washington Commanders and the Philadelphia Eagles at FedExField on September 25, 2022 in Landover, Maryland.
Scott Taetsch | Getty Images

The attorney general of Washington, D.C., sued the Washington Commanders on Thursday, alleging the team implemented a scheme that cheated District residents out of their deposits for season tickets and used the money for its own purposes.
It is the second lawsuit brought forth by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine in the past week.

In Thursday’s filing, Racine alleged that since 1996, the Commanders sold premium seating tickets to D.C. fans, some of which required a security deposit. The team promised these ticket holders they would automatically get the deposits back within 30 days of the contracts’ expiration, but Racine alleges the team kept the funds, in some cases for more than a decade, and used the money.
The lawsuit also says that when ticket holders asked for their deposits back, the team then “intentionally complicated the return process by imposing extra, burdensome conditions that were not previously adequately disclosed.”
A spokesperson for the Commanders pushed back on Racine’s allegations Thursday.
“The Team has not accepted security deposits for over 20 years in the case of premium tickets and over a decade in the case of suites, and we began returning them to season ticket holders as early as 2004,” a Commanders spokesperson said in a statement Thursday. “In 2014, as part of a comprehensive review, Team management was instructed to send notices to over 1,400 customers with deposits and return all security deposits requested.”
The Commanders spokesperson added the team had hired a law firm and forensic auditors to look into the team’s accounts, and found no evidence the team intentionally withheld security deposits that should have been returned or that the team improperly used the funds.

A representative for the NFL didn’t immediately respond to comment on Thursday.
Racine said in a statement Thursday the latest lawsuit demonstrates “yet another example of egregious mismanagement and illegal conduct by Commanders executives who seem determined to lie, cheat, and steal from District residents in as many ways as possible.” He accused the team, which is owned by Dan Snyder, of “arrogance and blatant disregard for the law.”
The lawsuit also alleges a Commanders’ employee had alerted team corporate officers in 2009 that this violated contract terms, but the team continued to impose additional obligations on customers.
“As a result of these deceptive practices, the team illegally withheld hundreds of thousands of dollars from district residents,” the attorney general said.
Although the Commanders had returned some of the money to ticket holders, they still held nearly $200,000 in unreturned security deposits as of March 2022, he added. The lawsuit also alleges the Commanders forfeited thousands of dollars from D.C. residents’ security deposits and converted the funds into revenue for the team.
In the first lawsuit, separate from this filing, Racine said the Commanders, Snyder, the NFL and its commissioner Roger Goodell deceived D.C. residents about the team’s alleged toxic culture and sexual harassment for its own financial gain.
The Commanders, and Snyder, who’s owned the team since 1999, have been the subject of recent investigations by both the House Oversight Committee and the NFL for sexual harassment and financial misconduct.
In a statement last week, a Commanders spokesperson said that the team’s owners had earlier acknowledged “that an unacceptable workplace culture had existed within their organization for several years and they have apologized many times for allowing that to happen.”
The spokesperson said that ownership agrees with the attorney general that the public needs to know the truth. “Although the lawsuit repeats a lot of innuendo, half-truths and lies, we welcome this opportunity to defend the organization — for the first time — in a court of law and to establish, once and for all, what is fact and what is fiction,” the representative said.
A review by the NFL is underway. It is being led by former SEC Chair Mary Jo White. The probe into alleged financial improprieties has sparked other various investigations into the Commanders.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia opened a criminal investigation into the financial misconduct allegations against the team, ESPN recently reported.
Meanwhile, Snyder has put the team up for sale. The deal could value the Commanders at as much as $7 billion. The NFL has said any deal would have to go through its financial committee and win approval of 24 of the NFL’s 32 teams.

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Tickets for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour will no longer be put on sale for the general public Friday, Ticketmaster said.
Fans flocked to the ticketing website, which is part of Live Nation, earlier this week for the first round of presale tickets, causing site disruptions and slow queues.
The site was only supposed to be open to around 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans, but 14 million people, including bots, hit the site, said the CEO of Live Nation’s biggest shareholder.

Taylor Swift poses with her awards during the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022 held at PSD Bank Dome on November 13, 2022 in Duesseldorf, Germany.
Kevin Mazur | Wireimage | Getty Images

Tickets for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour will no longer be put on sale to the general public Friday, after Live Nation’s Ticketmaster said there weren’t enough tickets to meet meet demand.
“Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled,” Ticketmaster said in a tweet.

The company announced the cancellation hours after the CEO of Live Nation’s largest shareholder blamed a surge of demand from 14 million users, including bots, for site disruptions and slow queues for presales earlier this week.
The site was only supposed to be open to around 1.5 million verified Swift fans, Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei told CNBC.
Maffei said Ticketmaster sold more than 2 million tickets on Tuesday and demand for the superstar’s 52-date tour “could have filled 900 stadiums.”
Shares of Live Nation closed down nearly 3% Thursday.
Much of the demand for Swift’s stadium tour stems from the record-breaking release of her new album “Midnights” and the fact that the singer has not toured since 2018′s “Reputation” stadium tour. Her “Lover Fest” tour was canceled due to the pandemic.

The “Eras” tour is set to kick off March 17 in Glendale, Arizona.
Ticketmaster and Live Nation came under fire this week after activists and lawmakers suggested the company, which merged in 2010, should be broken up following a storm of glitches and site failures during the presales for Swift’s upcoming tour.
Legions of Swift’s fans took to social media to complain about the long wait times and confusion over “verified fan” tickets and presale codes. The verified fan program, which was established in 2017, was designed to keep tickets in the hands of actual fans and not resellers.
But, that didn’t appear to work in several cases. Within hours, tickets for the tour were already up for sale in the secondary market at exponential markups.
“Eras” tour tickets are priced from $49 to $450, with VIP packages starting at $199 and reaching $899. Secondary market prices can be seen ranging from $800 to $20,000 per ticket.
Representatives for Ticketmaster and Swift’s touring company, AEG Worldwide, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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General Motors expects its new electric vehicles to be in-line with traditional cars and trucks with internal combustion engines by mid-decade.
GM CEO Mary Barra on Thursday said the significant increase in profits factors in federal incentives under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
GM also boosted its 2022 cash flow guidance to between $10 billion and $11 billion and tightened its adjusted earnings range.

Mary Barra, CEO, GM at the NYSE, November 17, 2022.
Source: NYSE

General Motors expects its new electric vehicle profits to be in-line with cars and trucks with traditional engines by 2025 – years ahead of schedule and what many thought was possible.
GM CEO Mary Barra on Thursday said the updated forecast factors in federal incentives under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes money back for companies that produce EVs in North America as well as for consumers and fleet customers that purchase the vehicles.

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“It’s clear these credits are going to help usher in a new era of technology innovation and job creation that’s going to achieve what was intended,” Barra said during an investor day. “It will be good for the American economy. It’ll be good for American families. It’ll be good for the environment, and frankly, General Motors is well poised.”
The incentives are expected to increase profit margins on GM’s EV portfolio an additional five-to-seven basis points from the “low- to mid-single digit” margins by then without the federal stimulus, according to CFO Paul Jacobson. He said GM expects to be among the first, if not the first, to be eligible for the full $7,500 consumer tax credits that will take into account stricter sourcing of EV battery materials.

Such profits are expected to assist in growing GM’s revenue at a 12% compound annual rate to more than $225 billion, including $50 billion from EVs, in 2025, the company said Thursday.
Ahead of the event in New York, investors and analysts had expected GM to shed light on its near-term profitability plans for EVs as well as its outlook for the business during a period of rising interest rates, surging inflation and recessionary fears.
Shares of GM swung from red-to-black during the event but closed Thursday up by less than half a percent to $38.64 per share. The company’s stock is off 34% in 2022, amid fears of an economic downturn impacting consumer demand.

Guidance change

For 2022, the company also boosted its cash flow guidance and tightened the range of its profit forecast. It boosted its cash flow guidance to between $10 billion and $11 billion, up from $7 billion and $9 billion. It also tightened the adjusted earnings range to between $13.5 billion and $14.5 billion, compared to its previous guidance of $13 billion and $15 billion.
GM said total capital spending is expected to be between $11 billion and $13 billion per year through 2025, funded by ongoing cash flows. Jacobson said the increase is a result of pulling investments ahead from later in the decade.
The company did not give formal guidance for next year, but Jacobson and Barra, among others, outlined continued overall growth for the company in the years ahead – targeting adjusted margins of 8% to 10% in North America through its growth investment period.

Those margins are on the way to achieving operating profit margins of 12% to 14% and annual revenue of $280 billion by 2030 – a goal GM announced last year.
“We are on track to hitting those goals,” Jacobson told investors Thursday. “We are fully committed to those 2030 goals .. Make no mistake, we intend to lead the industry in this EV transition.”
More than $80 billion of that revenue is expected to be from newer growth businesses involving Cruise autonomous vehicles, OnStar connectivity and BrightDrop electric commercial vehicle unit, among others.
GM on Thursday singled out BrightDrop, which will launch full production of electric delivery vans next year. The automaker said the business is on track to reach $1 billion in revenue in 2023. The company expects to be capable of producing 50,000 vans annually by 2025.
Another profit-booster GM expects in the coming years is a new digital retail platform with its U.S. dealers. The automaker expects the new system to reduce costs to GM by an estimated $2,000 per vehicle.

EV profits

GM is bullish on its profits and plans regarding EVs largely thanks to its investments in recent years on a new vehicle platform called Ultium as well as ongoing construction of domestic plants through a joint venture called Ultium Cells LLC with LG Energy Solution.
Wells Fargo analyst Colin M. Langan was skeptical before the event that GM’s electric vehicles can be sustainably profitable by 2025, even with federal incentives. He said pricing and raw material assumptions will be key.
“At the last Investor Day, GM promised ICE-like EV margins by 2030. Since then, battery raw material costs have dramatically spiked; therefore, it would be surprising if GM can still see EV profitability by 2025,” Langan wrote Tuesday.

The Detroit automaker said Thursday that it plans to reduce its Ultium cell costs to $87/kWh in 2025 and below $70/kWh by later in the decade. That would be a substantial decline compared to today’s expected costs, which GM declined to release.
Jacobson on Thursday said building its own cells through the joint venture will unlock substantial cost savings compared to purchasing them today.
Tesla holds a sizable lead over competitors when it comes to paying less for lithium battery cells and having the lowest cost EV battery packs, according to a report last year from Cairn Energy Research Advisors.
The joint venture is expected to be operating plants in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan by the end of 2024, which would make the company a leader in domestic cell production; a fourth U.S. cell plant is planned.
GM previously said it secured binding commitments for all the battery raw material it needs to deliver its 2025 electric vehicle capacity target of 1 million vehicles. The company has plans for capacity of 1 million EVs in China by then as well.

New product plans

GM President Mark Reuss on Thursday detailed a litany of new EVs and redesigned vehicles with internal combustion engines, also known as ICE, which will assist in funding the company’s plans to proliferate electric cars and trucks.
The company’s product plans through 2025 will include several EVs the company has already announced, such as all-electric versions of the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickups, and Chevy Blazer and Equinox SUVs. Those are in addition to updates to popular gas-powered models such as the Chevrolet Travers and GMC Acadia SUVs as well as an “electrified” Corvette, Reuss said.

Mary Barra, CEO, GM at the NYSE, November 17, 2022.
Source: NYSE

“Our ICE vehicle portfolio is in incredibly high demand and helping us generate record profits to invest in an all-electric future,” Reuss said on the company’s plans to exclusively offer consumer EVs by 2035.
In 2020, GM said it would release at least 30 new EVs globally by 2025, including more than 20 just for North America. It’s unclear whether the company still plans to achieve that goal, as it has shifted to focus more on its EV capacity rather than the number of models being released.
Reuss outlined how future vehicles on GM’s Ultium platform will be able to ramp up more quickly than today’s first models such as the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq. He also noted the company plans to be able to transition traditional plants to EVs faster than it has been.
“Do not bet against this company,” Reuss said. “We have been preparing for this for three-plus years. We put this plan in place, and we haven’t changed our strategy. We’ve only accelerated, as you’ve seen.”

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State of Freight

BrightDrop, GM’s EV subsidiary, is forecasting $1 billion in revenue for 2023, its first revenue disclosure which came during GM’s annual investor day on Thursday.
CEO Travis Katz says the 30% tax credit for commercial EVs in U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is expected to be a big tailwind for BrightDrop.
BrightDrop has 25,000 reservations or letters for intent for its Zevo electric delivery van, with customers including Walmart, Verizon and FedEx, and expects to produce 50,000 units by 2025.

BrightDrop CEO Travis Katz says he’s “charged up” about 2023 and the forecast for the General Motors EV unit to top $1 billion in revenue in 2023.
The announcement, tied to General Motors’ investor day on Thursday, is the first time BrightDrop has released revenue numbers. The company did not release revenue data in 2021, the year it launched, or the current year.

“What we are seeing is an incredible amount of demand,” Katz told CNBC. “This isn’t just about saving the environment or saving the planet. This saves companies money. That’s part of why we’re seeing so much interest even in the middle of a lot of economic uncertainty.”
BrightDrop estimates that operating one of its Zevo all-electric delivery vans costs approximately $10,000 less than a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle. The company has 25,000 reservations and letters of intent from large fleet operators, including Walmart, FedEx and Verizon.

Brightdrop EV600 van
Source: Brightdrop

FedEx and Kroger are also testing the use of BrightDrop’s Trace E-carts, which are motorized pallets that can be used for package or grocery delivery.
“All of these big companies have made commitments to their customers, their shareholders to start to eliminate their carbon emissions. A lot of them have committed to zero emissions goals by 2035 or 2040. So they’re really looking for help and we’re going to help the world’s largest companies meet those goals,” Katz said.
BrightDrop also expects the $30,000 tax credit for commercial EVs in the Inflation Reduction Act to be a tailwind for sales going forward. In December, it will open up a factory in Canada.

GM said at its investor day that it expects EVs to be as profitable as traditional autos by 2025, years ahead of schedule.
“The economics of switching have never been better,” Katz said. “What we’re hearing is when you have dual forces of wanting to meet climate goals, and wanting to save money, it’s a win-win. We’re going to start producing these vans at scale, starting in December, and then ramping up very quickly from there with the goal of getting to 50,000 units of production out of that facility by 2025.”
Katz said BrightDrop will continue to operate as a part of GM, despite being based in Silicon Valley, and there no plans to spin off the EV maker into a separate company. More

Former employees of SpaceX filed federal complaints against the company alleging Elon Musk’s venture illegally fired them.
Eight complaints, filed against SpaceX with the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, say the company conducted a “campaign of retaliation and intimidation” in response to employees who internally circulated an open letter to executives about Musk.
In the letter, the former employees wrote that Musk’s “behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us,”

SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images

Former employees of SpaceX have filed federal complaints against the company, alleging Elon Musk’s venture illegally fired them in response to the concerns they expressed, including about sexual misconduct allegations directed at the CEO.
Eight complaints, filed on Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board, say the company conducted a “campaign of retaliation and intimidation” in response to employees who internally circulated an open letter to executives. The former employees allege that SpaceX violated the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 by firing them after they spoke up.

The complaints — one of which was filed by Paige Holland-Thielen and first reported by The New York Times — allege that SpaceX fired five employees the day after the open letter was distributed in June.
The complaints also allege that SpaceX terminated four others in July and August “in retaliation” for either drafting or sharing the letter internally. The additional firings followed meetings and interviews with “dozens of employees” where SpaceX “falsely” said “the conversations were attorney-client privileged and could not be disclosed to anyone,” according to the complaints.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the complaints.

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Holland-Thielen and her co-workers wrote the letter as a protest of Musk’s public statements, following a report that claimed he propositioned a flight attendant on one of SpaceX’s private jets in 2016. Musk has publicly denied the sexual misconduct allegations, calling them “wild accusations.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas.
Michael Gonzalez | Getty Images

The letter, a copy of which was included in the complaint reviewed by CNBC, was directed “to the executives of SpaceX” and went beyond the specific misconduct allegations. In the letter, the former employees wrote that Musk’s “behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us,” noting that he “is seen as the face of SpaceX.”

The letter called for SpaceX to condemn “Musk’s harmful behavior.”
“By staying silent on his public actions, taken on [Twitter] which is considered official company communication, SpaceX and its executives have affirmed that Elon’s behavior is acceptable at our company,” the letter said.
Additionally, the letter said that the “current systems and culture” at SpaceX “do not live up to its stated values,” with “unequal enforcement” of its “no a–hole” and “zero tolerance” policies. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell has previously described those policies, including in an email to employees responding to the open letter. Shotwell also addressed the misconduct allegations made against Musk in her June email, titled: “Please stay focused on the SpaceX mission.”
“Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” Shotwell wrote at the time.

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Rents are still higher than they were a year ago, but the gains are shrinking, as landlords lose pricing power in the face of inflation.
Rents in October rose 4.7% compared with October 2021, the slowest annual increase in 18 months, according to Realtor.com.
The majority of landlords still said they would continue to increase rents over the next year — although by a smaller margin than they have recently.

A “Now Leasing” sign is displayed in front of an apartment complex in Washington, DC, on January 24, 2022.
Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The red-hot rental market is finally starting to cool off along with the rest of housing.
Rents are still higher than they were a year ago, but the gains are shrinking, as landlords lose pricing power in the face of inflation.

Rents in October rose 4.7% compared with October 2021, the slowest annual increase in 18 months, according to Realtor.com. The U.S. median rent was $1,734.
“Our data indicates that we are finally starting to see a bit of relief from the double-digit pace of rent growth that we experienced during the height of the pandemic,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “While it’s still a bit early to say that we’re officially on a downward trajectory for rent prices, the data shows a promising return toward normal seasonal slowdowns and suggests that the astronomical price gains of the past several years may be behind us.”
A fall survey by Realtor.com found that despite more tenants struggling to afford the rent, the majority of landlords still said they would continue to increase rents over the next year — although by a smaller margin than they have recently.
Rents are up 23.5% from the October of 2019, before the Covid19 pandemic hit. The largest gains in rent were in two-bedroom units, as tenants looked for more space in the new work-from-home economy.
Rent growth annually has now been slowing for nine straight months and has been in the single-digits for the past three months. But rents are still growing faster than they just before the start of the pandemic, in March 2020.

Despite the cooler gains, more renters are considering moving due to affordability. Of those surveyed by Realtor.com who had seen their rents increase, 69.5% said they were considering finding something cheaper, up from from 66.2% in July.
The survey covers both multifamily and single-family rentals. Other reports show that apartment rents are cooling more quickly than single-family rents.
Single-family rent growth has been shrinking for the past five months, but is still in the low double-digits, according to CoreLogic. Rents were up 10.2% year-over-year in September, the most recent month for which the data is available, down from nearly 14% growth in April of this year, when interest rates really took off.
“High mortgage interest rates may be causing potential homebuyers to hit pause and remain renters, keeping pressure on rent prices,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “However, the monthly rent change was negative in September, resuming the typical seasonal pattern for the first time since 2019, which could signal the beginning of rent price growth normalization.”
The pressure on multifamily rents is trickling down to both builders and investors. Developer confidence in the market for multifamily housing dropped sharply in the third quarter of this year, according to a report from the National Association of Home Builders. The report tracks both production and occupancy of apartment buildings.
The number of multifamily units under construction is at its highest level in nearly 50 years, and construction spending continues to increase, but developers are starting to see signs of a slowdown.
“They are citing the high cost of materials and land along with weakening financing conditions given the recent monetary policy of the Federal Reserve as the main reasons for this decline in confidence, impacting affordable housing projects the most,” according to the report.
The NAHB is now projecting a significant decline in multifamily construction in 2023.

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FanDuel’s Amy Howe said the company expects to defend and expand its market lead in U.S. online sports betting.
The company is projecting U.S. sportsbooks could be worth nearly $23 billion by 2030.

Fanduel CEO Amy Howe attends The Future of Everything presented by the Wall Street Journal at Spring Studios on May 18, 2022 in New York City.
Steven Ferdman | Getty Images

FanDuel CEO Amy Howe is predicting that her company will defend its leading share of the online sports betting market in the U.S. − and even widen the gap with its competitors.
The remarks go against expectations in the gaming industry that FanDuel will cede some of its dominance as new players work to grab a bigger share of the sports betting market. FanDuel projects the market will grow to $22.6 billion by 2030, based on more states legalizing it and the industry expanding in places where it’s already allowed.

In January, sports memorabilia and collectibles giant Fanatics is planning to launch its own sports betting operations.
Without mentioning Fanatics by name, Howe threw down the gauntlet.
“It should be clear that new entrants that are entering now at this point may face a real challenge taking on scale players who have more than a four-year head start,” Howe said at the company’s Capital Markets Day on Wednesday.
Howe’s comments came a day after Fanatics, valued a more than $27 billion, held its own investor day. Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin has laid out an ambitious goal: launching sports betting operations early next year and rolling out gambling across the nation by the start of NFL season in 2023. CNBC reached out to Fanatics but the company declined comment.
“We’ll be in every major state other than New York, where you can’t make money,” Rubin said at a Sports Business Journal World Congress of Sports event in October. Last fall, Fanatics applied for a mobile-betting license in New York, but was not selected.

Rubin predicts sports betting and Fanatics’ other business segments “could be $8 billion, even in the next decade, in profits.” He said his built-in network of 94 million sports fans will allow the company to differentiate itself by spending less on marketing and promotions to win customers.
But Rubin is facing an increasingly crowded space.
And FanDuel boasts a 42% market share, based on published reports by state gaming regulators. It has maintained its position as market leader and widened the gap over time.
“FanDuel is America’s number one sports book by a wide margin,” Howe said Wednesday. Company executives insist they can use that advantage to acquire customers more efficiently and retain them for longer.
Of the 59 sports betting operators in the U.S. in October, only three had double-digit market share. Draftkings and BetMGM, jointly owned by MGM Resorts and Entain, hold the second and third place positions, respectively.
“Almost 90% of the operators have a sub-2% share of the market,” Howe said.
Smaller players are struggling. On Wednesday, MaximBet announced it would cease operations, citing “challenging macroeconomic conditions and increasingly cost-prohibitive marketplace.” The company operated Colorado and Indiana and had planned to expand to more states.
Last month, FuboTV also said it would shutter its sportsbook immediately due to a “challenging” economy.
“It’s hard and size matters a lot in the sports betting industry,” Mike Raffensperger, FanDuel’s chief commercial officer, told CNBC.
Following FanDuel’s presentation, CBRE gaming analyst John Decree raised the price target on FanDuel parent Flutter from 140 pounds to 148 pounds ($166 to $176).

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Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, has faced longstanding criticism about its size and power in the entertainment industry.
People amplified their complaints this week when tickets for Taylor Swift upcoming “Eras” tour went on presale on Ticketmaster’s website.
Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, which owns a majority stake of Live Nation, addressed concerns about the company while on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday.

Now we got bad bots.
The CEO of Liberty Media, Live Nation’s largest shareholder, defended the event promoter against calls that it should be broken up following a storm of glitches and site failures during Ticketmaster presales this week for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour.

Live Nation is sympathetic to fans who couldn’t get tickets, Greg Maffei said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday. “It’s a function of Taylor Swift. The site was supposed to open up for 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans. We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots, which are not supposed to be there.”
Maffei said Ticketmaster sold more than 2 million tickets on Tuesday and demand for Swift “could have filled 900 stadiums.”
“This exceeded every expectation,” he said, explaining that much of the demand was centered on the fact that Swift has not toured since 2018’s “Reputation” stadium tour.
Liberty Media owns stakes in a vast array of media and entertainment interests. On Thursday, it announced that it would split off the Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves into an asset-backed stock. Liberty also said it would create a new stock called Liberty Live, which will include its stake in Live Nation.
Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, has faced longstanding criticisms about its size and power in the entertainment industry. People amplified their complaints this week when tickets for Taylor Swift upcoming Eras tour went on presale on Ticketmaster’s website. The company was forced to extend presales after fans flocked to the site, causing site disruptions and slow queues.

Maffei also defended Live Nation against lawmaker and activist concerns that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are abusing their market power. One staunch objector to the company’s decade’s-old merger has been Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, who tweeted Tuesday that Live Nation and Ticketmaster should be broken up.
“Though AOC may not like every element of our business, interestingly, AEG, our competitor, who is the promoter for Taylor Swift, chose to use us because, in reality, we are the largest and most effective ticket seller in the world,” Maffei said. “Even our competitors want to come on our platform.”
Activists argue that because Live Nation controls 70% of the ticketing and live event venues market, competitors have little choice on where to sell their tickets and have called on the Department of Justice to reverse the 2010 merger.

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