May 4, 2025
The owner of the Sphere sought legal action after Cowboy Carter tour attendees shared footage of the venue’s use in the show visuals.
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour has already faced some controversy as its first slew of shows begin. The singer received a cease-and-desist from the owner of the Las Vegas Sphere over the venue’s image use.
According to footage shared by concertgoers, an enlarged Beyoncé picked up a digital version of the Sphere. Fans recorded the clip of the singer juggling the venue with her hands as the real-life Beyoncé transitioned between songs. The viral video has led to legal action by Sphere Entertainment Co., owned by James Dolan.
In letter sent to Beyoncé’s Parkwood Entertainment, Dolan’s attorney accused the singer of “featuring and manipulating” imagery of the Sphere without its knowledge or permission.
“It has recently come to SEG’s attention that a Cowboy Carter tour interlude video contains the unauthorized use of SEG’s intellectual property,” detailed the letter, as reported by Billboard. “SEG is sure that multiple aspects of the interlude video, including other brands, clips and music, were duly cleared by the tour with rights permissions from the rights holders whose works were used in the video, as is common practice.”
It added, “Beyoncé — many orders of magnitude larger than the Sphere venue — leans over, picks up the venue, and looms over it… SEG was never asked and the prominent appearance and manipulation of SEG’s Sphere venue in the video is unauthorized.”
The letter demanded that Beyoncé remove the video from her tour visuals. If she refuses, the letter noted that Sphere Entertainment “reserves all rights to take further action as SEG deems appropriate without notice.”
Moreover, they want all of the Sphere’s current and future use in Cowboy Carter tour material removed. This includes merchandise, promotional or marketing items, and any future movies surrounding the tour.
However, the bad blood between the two parties may have occurred even before the tour began. In 2024, the New York Post first reported that negotiations for Beyoncé to host a Sphere residency broke down. The deal’s axing stemmed from the Sphere refusing Queen Bey’s request to shut down for two weeks for rehearsals. Furthermore, her ask for the similar $10 million U2 received for their stint of shows also soured the talks.
Now, the singer is reportedly exploring a 100-show deal with MGM. The deal remains unconfirmed as many eyes continue to watch out for the success of her Cowboy Carter tour.
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