Not wishing to speak to ill of the very recently deceased, if you are underwriting ticket sales for Michael Jackson, you must be either very rich or have a memory problem.  Michael skipped countless performance commitments in the past, so such a situation must have not have been a million miles from AEG Live’s mind, although perhaps not in such tragic circumstances.  AEG Live are the company behind Michael’s huge UK concerts at the O2 Arena.  Looks like they might be out of pocket to the tune of 300 million.  Read more after the jump.

Jackson had a whopping 50 shows lined up at the O2 arena in London, and was due to start on July 13th.  AEG Live said that it would “self insure” the shows for cancellation in the event that Jacko couldn’t reach to that number of shows.  Now they’re liable for all ticket refunds, along with Ticketmaster, to the tune of £300 million.  They’re reportedly scrambling around for acts to rescue the shows, but frankly you’re going to have a hard time replacing a dead Micheal Jackson.  Might as well throw a Beethoven world tour.