They own some venues, but certainly not "most" of them. Think about who owns all of the sports stadiums in your city (the ones where mega artists would play), it's not TM.
It is very convenient for venue owners to let TM handle ticketing for the events. TM handles more than just sports and concert tickets. Since so many forms of live entertainment use TM, the company can bring in a lot of events to fill in off-season time. So an arena can host basketball & concerts on the weekend, then fill the weekdays with minor things like dirt bike races.
No, Live Nation owns/leases small/midsize places like House of Blues. But they don't own the Honda Center. That's owned by the City of Anaheim. When Jay Z comes to down, he's not playing the House of Blues.
This situation repeats in practically every major metro. The massive arenas are probably owned by the city, or maybe the owner of the team that plays in them.
Which goes back into my argument, they own some venues. But not all of them, and certainly not the major arenas that mega artists play in.
Stadiums are generally owned by the team(s) that play in them and/or the city. Live Nation doesn’t own any stadiums that I’m aware of, but they do own Ticketmaster.
AEG/AXS owns a number of large venues like the Oakland Coliseum + Arena, LA Crypto.com arena, and London O2. Presumably those are ticketed through AXS rather than Live Nation/Ticketmaster.
An interesting thing about AXS tickets is that they are presented using a smartphone app and are only valid for something like 60s before they need to be refreshed. This presumably makes tickets harder to resell outside of AXS's system.
It is very convenient for venue owners to let TM handle ticketing for the events. TM handles more than just sports and concert tickets. Since so many forms of live entertainment use TM, the company can bring in a lot of events to fill in off-season time. So an arena can host basketball & concerts on the weekend, then fill the weekdays with minor things like dirt bike races.