Nebraska Candidate Dan Osborn Rips Into Live Nation's 'Oppressively Expensive' Ticket Fees as He Rakes in Campaign Cash From Its New England Chairman

Dan Osborn, the independent Nebraska Senate candidate endorsed by the state's Democratic Party, took a public victory lap in mid-April when a federal jury ruled that Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation, has operated as an illegal monopoly in the live music marketplace, with Osborn saying the company sells "oppressively expensive" tickets to finance the inflated salary of its CEO.

But just one month prior to that ruling, on March 12, Osborn's campaign cashed a check from Live Nation New England chairman Donald Law, the famed Boston concert promoter credited with playing a key role in helping Ticketmaster's nationwide dominance through an exclusive partnership deal he inked with the company in 1986. Law has contributed $1,500 to Osborn's campaign across six monthly distributions beginning in October. The concert promoter disclosed his employer as "Live Nation Worldwide" on all six donations, describing himself as "Chairman" on three, Federal Election Commission records show.

Osborn has accepted Law's contributions even as he has criticized Live Nation's merger with Ticketmaster, which he said in February has been an "absolute DISASTER for artists and fans" and pledged to support legislation that would rein in the firm and ban excessive ticketing fees.

"Dan Osborn has never taken a dime of corporate PAC money and he never will," an Osborn campaign spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon. "No one can buy Dan, and he's been crystal clear on where he stands: Live Nation is a predatory monopoly that scams fans, screws artists, and should be broken up and forced to pay back the millions they've ripped off from consumers."

The Osborn campaign did not say if it would return Law's contributions.

Law played a key role in developing the Ticketmaster fee structure that a federal jury in Manhattan ruled in April was stifling competition and overcharging consumers in violation of antitrust laws. Law, who signed an exclusive contract with Ticketmaster in 1986 that promised him upwards of 50 cents per ticket sold in the Boston region in exchange for his loyalty, according to the American Prospect. By 1992, the Boston region's ancillary concert fees ranked as among the most expensive in the country, clocking in at 25 percent of the typical concert ticket price, the Prospect reported.

News of Osborn's ties to Ticketmaster's New England chairman comes as Osborn faces allegations of doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars from his campaign to his wife and other relatives in violation of campaign finance laws. Osborn's campaign has denied the allegations, which were made in an FEC complaint filed in early April by the conservative watchdog group Americans for Public Trust.

Osborn has secured widespread support from the Democratic Party even though he's running for Senate as an independent. The Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman, Jane Kleeb, endorsed Osborn's campaign in 2025, and the party did not recruit its own candidate to challenge incumbent Republican senator Pete Ricketts, the Nebraska Examiner reported. Two Democratic candidates will be on the ticket during the upcoming May 12 primary election. One of them, Cindy Burbank, has pledged that, if she wins, she will drop out of the race to give Osborn a better shot at unseating Ricketts.

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