WASHINGTON — Ticketmaster chief executive Irving Azoff said that for the right price, he would sell the company’s TicketsNow unit that angry Bruce Springsteen fans accuse of scalping concert tickets. Azoff, testifying before Congress for a second time this week to defend Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation, told a House subcommittee he would advise Ticketmaster’s board “to take the right offer” for the subsidiary.
Fans complained they were overcharged Feb. 2 for tickets sold online for two Springsteen concerts in New Jersey scheduled for May. Ticketmaster told the would-be concert-goers the tickets were sold out and steered them to TicketsNow, where tickets were available for hundreds of dollars over face value. To demonstrate that the combined company won’t have a monopoly, Azoff said Ticketmaster received a warning letter from one of its largest clients, Anschutz Entertainment Group, saying it may end its contract if the merger is completed.
