A jury verdict holding Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable on every major antitrust theory now faces its decisive test, as U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian prepares to hear post-trial arguments Wednesday on the companies' bids to set aside the findings or order a new trial.

At the center of the latest briefing fight sits a July 13 Second Circuit decision, Cumulus Media New Holdings Inc. v. Nielsen Co., which both sides have rushed to claim as supporting authority. The appeals court held that illegal tying under antitrust law can be imposed through pricing structure and policy rather than an express contractual requirement.

The state attorneys general coalition filed the ruling as supplemental authority backing its opposition to Live Nation's motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. Live Nation responded one day later, arguing the decision exposes gaps in the states' proof.

What Did the Second Circuit Actually Decide?

The Cumulus case concerned Nielsen's sale of two radio-ratings products. Nielsen is the only supplier of comprehensive national radio-audience data in the United States. In local-market ratings, it faces at least some competition from Eastlan.

Cumulus wanted Nielsen's national report but sought to buy local data from Eastlan in some markets. Nielsen adopted a policy requiring national broadcasters to purchase its local data in every market where they operated to obtain the national report. After Cumulus challenged that policy, Nielsen offered the national product separately—at approximately 10 times what Cumulus had previously paid, according to the court record.

A federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction after finding the standalone price was economically unworkable and effectively preserved the same forced bundle. The Second Circuit upheld that order.

The appeals court rejected Nielsen's argument that an illegal tie must take the form of an express refusal to sell one product without another. It held that a company can also impose a "constructive" tie through a pricing structure that leaves a buyer with only one economically rational option: purchasing the products together.

The ruling does not outlaw every bundle or pricing differential. A plaintiff must still prove actual coercion, market power in the tying product, competitive harm in the tied market and the other elements of a tying claim. In Nielsen's case, the court found sufficient preliminary evidence that Cumulus was forced to buy local data it did not want, and that Nielsen's conduct impaired Eastlan's ability to gain customers, scale and industry acceptance.

How Do the States Use It Against Live Nation?

The states argue the Second Circuit applied substantially the same tying requirements that Subramanian gave the jury during the Live Nation trial. The relevant claim did not concern a direct tie between amphitheaters and concert tickets. The states accused Live Nation of using its control over access to large amphitheaters to pressure artists into purchasing the company's concert-promotion services.

Jurors found Live Nation monopolized the market for artists' use of large amphitheaters and unlawfully tied its promotion services to access to those venues. They also ruled against Live Nation and Ticketmaster on separate primary-ticketing monopolization claims.

Live Nation has argued in its post-trial motions that the states failed to establish a legally sufficient tied market, actual coercion or competitive harm to rival promoters. The states say Cumulus reinforces their response because it confirms that coercion need not be contained in an explicit written rule. A company's policies, negotiations and continued enforcement of economically coercive conditions can be enough for a jury to find one product was conditioned on another.

That principle matters because the states' theory rested on the practical leverage created by Live Nation's integrated control of promotion and essential amphitheater access—not a contract expressly telling artists they must hire Live Nation as promoter to use a venue. A jury made that factual determination after hearing six weeks of testimony and reviewing the companies' documents.

What Is Live Nation's Counterargument?

Live Nation argues the states are attempting to detach Cumulus from the facts that drove the ruling. The company notes that Nielsen had adopted an express policy tying national data access to local data purchases, and the Second Circuit found the dramatically higher standalone price continued enforcing that original policy in practice.

Live Nation says there was no equivalent policy in its case and no evidence that any artist unwillingly purchased promotion services. It also argues the states failed to show harm in a properly defined promotion market comparable to the evidence that Nielsen's policy prevented Eastlan from obtaining customers and achieving scale.

The defense points specifically to AEG, its largest concert-promotion rival. The states argued at trial that AEG lost opportunities to promote amphitheater tours, but Live Nation maintains AEG remains successful and was not excluded from the market in the manner described in Cumulus.

The decision also arose at the preliminary-injunction stage. The Second Circuit reviewed whether the district court abused its discretion on an early factual record—it did not issue a final judgment that Nielsen violated antitrust law. That procedural distinction may limit the decision's factual weight more than its legal relevance. The states are not asking Subramanian to treat Nielsen's conduct as identical to Live Nation's; they cite controlling appellate authority confirming that a tie can be imposed indirectly through commercial conditions leaving buyers without a realistic alternative.

Live Nation's stronger response is therefore not that constructive tying is unavailable, but that the trial evidence failed to satisfy the doctrine's remaining requirements.

What Does Wednesday's Hearing Decide?

The dispute arrives more than three months after the jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable across every major antitrust theory submitted to it: monopolization in two primary-ticketing markets, monopolization of artists' use of large amphitheaters, and unlawful tying involving promotion services. Jurors also found harm in the plaintiff jurisdictions and calculated a $1.72-per-ticket consumer overcharge for the states that sought damages.

Live Nation has asked Subramanian to set aside those findings or order a new trial, challenging the states' market definitions, tying evidence, expert testimony and damages model.

The Cumulus decision will not determine those motions by itself. It does, however, give the states recent Second Circuit support for one central legal premise underlying the amphitheater verdict: antitrust law looks at whether a company's conduct actually coerces buyers, not merely whether the coercive condition was formally written down.

Wednesday's hearing will determine whether that principle—and the evidence the jury heard applying it—suffice to keep the verdict intact. The outcome could also shape the path toward remedies, including the states' anticipated request for structural changes that could separate Live Nation and Ticketmaster.