Spotify, SeatGeek, and the Expanding Extraction MachineWhen Platform Leverage Meets Ticketing Power
•February 20, 2026
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Why It Matters
The deal amplifies Spotify’s control over the entire artist lifecycle, potentially reshaping revenue distribution and inviting regulatory scrutiny of platform‑mediated ticket sales.
Key Takeaways
- •Spotify adds SeatGeek ticket routing to its platform
- •Integration creates a vertical funnel from discovery to tickets
- •Potential antitrust issues: leveraging, tying, vertical foreclosure
- •Artists risk further revenue dilution and data asymmetry
- •Regulators may need new rules for platform‑mediated ticket sales
Pulse Analysis
Spotify’s partnership with SeatGeek marks a strategic leap from pure music streaming into the lucrative live‑event arena. By embedding ticket listings and purchase pathways directly within its app, Spotify leverages its massive discovery engine to steer fan demand toward a preferred ticketing partner. This vertical integration mirrors trends seen at other tech giants, where control over both the front‑end consumer experience and the back‑end transaction layer creates powerful data feedback loops. For artists, the promise of increased ticket sales is tempered by the reality that a larger slice of the revenue pie now flows to the platform that curates their exposure.
From a competition‑law perspective, the arrangement raises classic concerns about monopoly leveraging and tying. Spotify’s dominance in music discovery gives it the ability to influence which concerts fans see, potentially biasing traffic toward SeatGeek and away from rival ticketing services. If access to enhanced promotional tools or algorithmic boosts becomes contingent on using the SeatGeek channel, regulators could view the setup as a de facto bundle that forecloses competition. Such dynamics echo earlier antitrust battles involving Google’s search dominance and its control over downstream advertising markets.
The broader industry impact hinges on transparency and consumer protection. Current ticket‑sale statutes were crafted for traditional brokers and resale platforms, not for algorithm‑driven routing embedded in a streaming service. As Spotify captures more granular fan behavior data, the opacity around referral fees and pricing could erode trust among fans and artists alike. Policymakers may need to update disclosure rules and consider new safeguards to ensure that platform‑mediated ticket sales do not undermine fair competition or the economic health of creators.
Spotify, SeatGeek, and the Expanding Extraction MachineWhen Platform Leverage Meets Ticketing Power
The Pattern: From Streams to Live — Same Economic Logic
For years, critics have pointed to the economic asymmetry in the dominant streaming model: artists generate value, while platforms capture scale, data, share price, and leverage. Many musicians receive minuscule compensation relative to the engagement they generate, a byproduct of pro-rata distribution and concentrated gatekeeper power.
Live performance historically functioned as a counterweight — a domain where artists retained more direct control over pricing, fan relationships, and revenue timing. Now we find out from Music Business Worldwide that Spotify is horning in on that domain:’
Last month, Spotify‘s Head of Music algorithms, Charlie Hellman, revealed in a blog post that the streaming giant paid out over $11 billion to the music industry in 2025.
Buried in the same post was another eye-catching stat: According to Hellman, Spotify has, to date, “helped artists generate more than $1 billion in ticket sales.”
The streaming giant aggregates concert listings via integrations with multiple partners, including Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, AXS, Bandsintown, Japan’s ZAIKO, as well as UK-headquartered ticketing platform Skiddle and Dutch event management platform Stager. The company currently lists over 40 ticketing partners within its concert discovery-dedicated FAQs.
Now it’s struck up yet another partnership, this time with New York-headquartered ticketing platform SeatGeek.
“Helped”? “Helped”? Humping a trap case is “help.” Sicking an algorithm on fans that artists drove to Spotify is us helping them. The integration of ticket routing into a dominant discovery platform changes the traditional balance. When a platform that shapes demand begins steering that demand into a monetized ticket ecosystem, the economic center of gravity shifts.
Platform Dominance Freeriding Vertically and Horizontally
Spotify does not invest in the artists or the live venue infrastructure. So it uses platform dominance to freeride sideways — both vertically and horizontally — into adjacent revenue streams built by the sweat equity of others.
The progression is visible:
1. Streaming → diluted recording payouts to make room for Daniel Ek’s billions.
2. Discovery → algorithmic leverage over exposure
3. Data → monetization of listener behavior from fans that artists and labels drove to the platform
4. AI/content expansion → supply pressure without proportional compensation
5. Ticket routing → gatekeeper entry into live revenue flow
Each step moves closer to controlling the artist lifecycle without investing in those artists or in artist development, sustaining venues, or keeping the live ecosystem alive.
Control of the Funnel: Discovery → Demand → Ticket → Data
Spotify’s SeatGeek “integration” creates a vertically linked funnel with another free rider:
– Spotify influences who is discovered
– Discovery shapes who generates touring demand
– Demand is routed into a ticketing ecosystem
– Ticket transactions generate pricing and behavioral data
– Data reinforces Spotify’s leverage over future demand
This structure may not inherently unlawful (although we’ll see about that). But when one entity influences multiple stages of a value chain, risks of steering, foreclosure, and self-preferencing increase — particularly where independent artists depend on the platform to reach audiences. (That’s also called Google.)
Antitrust Leveraging, Tying, Foreclosure
When a dominant discovery platform such as Spotify expands into ticketing, the legal analysis does not begin and end with contract structure or referral mechanics. It implicates several well-established competition-law doctrines that focus on how market power in one layer of the ecosystem can reshape adjacent markets.
Monopoly Leveraging.
Monopoly leveraging concerns arise when a firm with substantial power in one market uses that position to influence outcomes in another. Spotify’s core strength lies in music discovery and listener attention—the upstream funnel that determines which artists are surfaced, followed, and promoted. If that discovery power meaningfully affects where fans are routed for ticket purchases, regulators may ask whether market power in streaming is being used to advantage a preferred ticketing partner. The issue is not merely whether Spotify enters ticketing, but whether its control over demand signals—algorithmic recommendations, in-app notifications, artist pages, and tour prompts—allows it to shape downstream ticket distribution in ways competitors cannot replicate.
Tying and Bundling Concerns.
Competition law also examines whether access to one product or service is conditioned—explicitly or implicitly—on participation in another. If artist visibility, promotional tools, or enhanced discovery features become functionally linked to participation in a platform-preferred ticket ecosystem, questions of tying or de facto bundling may emerge. Even absent a formal contractual requirement, economic pressure can create similar effects. Talent buyers and industry participants have long observed that platform alignment can influence promotional exposure. Where discovery visibility and ticket routing intersect, regulators may evaluate whether competitive neutrality is being compromised.
Vertical Foreclosure.
Vertical foreclosure focuses on whether a vertically integrated platform disadvantages rival channels by controlling a critical gateway. If in-app ticket routing becomes the dominant pathway through which fans discover and purchase live events, independent ticketing services, direct-to-fan sales models, or artist-controlled distribution mechanisms could be marginalized. Foreclosure need not eliminate competitors entirely; it is enough if the platform’s control over demand materially raises rivals’ costs or reduces their effective access to consumers. In markets characterized by network effects and data advantages, even subtle routing preferences can compound over time.
Taken together, these doctrines underscore that the competition analysis turns on structure and incentives. When a discovery platform becomes a commercial intermediary in adjacent markets, regulators may examine whether integration enhances efficiency and consumer welfare—or whether it entrenches platform power across multiple layers of the live-music economy.
Transparency, Disclosure, and UDAP Risk
Neither Spotify nor SeatGeek publicly discloses what Spotify is paid per ticket conversion—whether a referral fee, revenue share, marketing consideration, or data-rights package. The absence of clear disclosure around the economic terms of routing raises questions about how consumers are being guided within the purchase path and whether they are aware of any commercial incentives influencing that guidance.
Modern ticketing and consumer-protection regimes place increasing weight on transparency, particularly where users are directed toward transactions framed as “official primary tickets from an authorized source.” Such language can carry implied assurances about authenticity, pricing integrity, and relationship to the artist or venue. If undisclosed compensation or commercial arrangements materially influence which ticketing options are surfaced, regulators may scrutinize whether consumers are receiving neutral information or are instead being steered within a monetized distribution channel.
Under unfair-and-deceptive-acts-and-practices (UDAP) frameworks, the key inquiry is not simply whether a statement is literally false, but whether the overall presentation could mislead a reasonable consumer about the nature of the offering or the incentives behind it. When the economic structure of routing remains opaque, enforcement authorities may evaluate whether “official” designations function as purely informational labels or as components of a demand-steering commercial architecture that should be more clearly disclosed.
Congress and the States: Guardrails Being Tested
Congress and numerous states have moved in recent years to curb deceptive ticketing practices, strengthen fee transparency, regulate speculative ticket sales, and protect the integrity of the artist–fan relationship. At the federal level, measures such as the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act and broader consumer-protection enforcement under the FTC Act target bot-driven purchasing, fraud, and misleading resale conduct. Parallel efforts at the state level have been significant. New York and New Jersey have imposed disclosure and consumer-protection rules addressing speculative or “tentative” ticket sales; California has enacted transparency and resale regulations aimed at misleading pricing and unauthorized ticket practices; and Maryland, Minnesota, and Nevada have adopted clearer prohibitions on selling tickets without possession or a qualifying contract.
As digital discovery platforms increasingly insert themselves into the ticket-routing pathway, policymakers face a more structural question: whether existing statutory and consumer-protection frameworks—largely designed for brokers, venues, and resale marketplaces—adequately address platform-shaped demand, algorithmic steering, and control over fan data. When a dominant digital intermediary can influence where fans buy tickets, how events are surfaced, and which commercial partners receive traffic, regulators may need to assess whether traditional ticketing rules sufficiently capture the competitive and consumer-protection risks associated with platform-mediated distribution.
The Artist and Fan Impact
Artists face increased dependency on platforms that control discovery, promotion, and now ticket routing. As more of the live-event funnel moves inside large digital ecosystems, artists risk losing direct fan relationships that historically formed the backbone of touring economics. Data asymmetry compounds the problem: platforms can see audience behavior, conversion rates, geographic demand signals, and pricing elasticity in real time, while artists often receive only aggregated or delayed reporting. This imbalance can translate into continued margin compression, as intermediary layers capture referral, marketing, or data-driven value that does not necessarily flow back to the creator.
Fans, meanwhile, experience a different but related set of consequences. When ticket routing occurs within multi-layered digital environments, pricing clarity can erode. Service fees, referral economics, resale overlays, and dynamic pricing mechanisms may be bundled into a seamless interface that obscures how value is allocated. Consumers may not easily distinguish between primary inventory, resale listings, or algorithmically surfaced offers. As resale economics blend into “official” pathways, transparency into who ultimately captures the transaction margin becomes less visible.
At a structural level, the roles in the live ecosystem are distinct. Artists build careers and cultivate audiences. Venues sustain cultural infrastructure and local economies. Platforms route transactions and monetize attention. Those functions are complementary but not equivalent. When the routing layer expands its economic footprint across discovery, data, and ticketing, policymakers and market participants must consider whether the balance among these roles remains aligned with long-term creative and consumer welfare.
Do you think if you asked artists whether they’d like “help” in the form of a share of Spotify’s market cap rather than “help” from Spotify getting its beak wet in their live shows, what answer do you think you’d get? If you asked many working artists that question, the answer would likely be less about rhetoric and more about where real value flows. Artists generally want alignment between the success of the platforms that monetize their work and their own economic outcomes. A share in platform upside—whether framed as equity participation, revenue alignment, or improved royalty economics—would be seen by many as a more durable form of “help” than incremental participation in downstream revenue streams like ticket referrals.
From the artist perspective, live performance has historically been one of the few domains where creators retain relatively direct control over pricing, fan relationships, and margins. When additional intermediaries insert themselves into that channel, even under the banner of support or promotion, artists may perceive it as further dilution of already thin economics. The contrast, then, is between participation in platform-level value creation versus additional raiding of artist-controlled revenue streams.
The Structural Question
Spotify’s trajectory reflects a recurring platform pattern: Expand → Integrate → Capture → Normalize.
When a platform mediates both listening and live demand while obscuring the economics of that mediation, the issue becomes structural governance of the artist economy — and who ultimately controls it.
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