Mr. Abbamondi testified that the first sign of troubles with Live Nation came before Barclays revealed its new deal with SeatGeek, when word about the arrangement started to leak through the industry. A friend who worked at Live Nation, Mr. Abbamondi testified, sent him a private text message encouraging him to “think about bigger relationship with LN not just who is writing a bigger sponsorship check,” which Mr. Abbamondi said was a reference to SeatGeek. The message ended with a wink emoji.
Mr. Abbamondi, who was at BSE Global, the company behind Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets, from 2020 to 2022, testified that he interpreted that message as a “warning” to stick with Ticketmaster or else lose access to Live Nation’s concerts.
After SeatGeek began handling the tickets for Barclays, Mr. Abbamondi said, Live Nation appeared to follow through on its threat by reducing the number of shows it sent to the Barclays Center. But in 2021, while the concert world was still in a fitful recovery after being shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of Live Nation-promoted shows at Barclays plummeted. Before Covid, Mr. Abbamondi testified, Barclays had about 22 Live Nation shows a year, and in 2021 the venue had anticipated getting 17; instead, Live Nation sent only eight.
In its cross-examination of Mr. Abbamondi, a lawyer for Live Nation, David R. Marriott, focused on the competitive market that Barclays faced, and on the particulars of the arena’s deal with SeatGeek.
Mr. Abbamondi said that weeks before the tense phone call with Mr. Rapino and another top Live Nation executive, Mr. Rapino had told Mr. Abbamondi about the arrival of UBS in Elmont, N.Y., which would introduce a fourth arena to the region, counting the Prudential Center in Newark. That was the “new competitor in town” that Mr. Rapino was referring to, Mr. Marriott said.
Mr. Abbamondi testified that SeatGeek offered superior ticketing technology and better financial terms, saying that his company had determined it would come out ahead even if the arena lost 50 percent of the Live Nation tours it had previously received. SeatGeek offered a lucrative share of the fees on resold tickets as well as $5 million a year for sponsorship rights at Barclays, such as posting banner displays along the venue’s entrance.