Tim Leiweke, CEO, Oak View Group, addressing the crowd at VT RISE (Raising the Industry in Sports & Entertainment). (VT Photo)
(EDITOR'S NOTE: For more coverage of VT RISE, including more from Tim Leiweke's keynote address, see the September issue of Venues Today.)
REPORTING FROM LONG BEACH, CALIF. - Tim Leiweke sees a venue industry in need of change and plans to ignite that change with his newest endeavor, Oak View Group, Los Angeles. His vision for Oak View Group which includes a consortium of big arenas and stadiums is as “a home to some, but a change to all.”
Leiweke, CEO of OVG shared his history and vision of an industry, promising a further rollout of specifics over the next 60 days.
His guiding principle in business is “You have to factor in vision. Vision is as important as feedback from people. Leadership has to have an entrepreneurial spirit.”
A self-proclaimed “arena rat,” Leiweke said that sitting on boards for the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association throughout his industry career which included 15 years with AEG and two with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment showed him a lack of concentration on the business of venues. This was especially clear when it came to operations, construction, security and “how best to ultimately realize financial upsides from the buildings,”
According to Leiweke,“That is a huge void that we need to solve and we need to address in our industry,” With security and terrorism being an especially “personal hot button” for him. With the last eight major terrorist attacks occurring outside of security zones, Leiweke said that venues need to concentrate their security resources on the areas surrounding their venues. Entertainment districts are particularly vulnerable in his eyes. Guests congregate there before passing through metal detectors to enter venues. These areas are also valuable to attackers since the surveillance of security cameras is sure to gain media attention following an attack.
Leiweke said that venues would do well to concentrate on an implementable strategy for a unified “master vision on how we take that idea and solve the problems that we face.”
Just as the NBA has formed team marketing and business operations (TMBO) to improve the fan experience and arena profitability, Leiweke said that the Oak View Group is aiming to be a TMBO for the venue side. This is especially important since he has seen that “the entire industry has changed and yet the facility industry has not changed.”
Leiweke shared that as the debate over who owns the seating manifest, the act or the venue, continues, citing a debate he had over that very question “back in the day” with his current partner in OVG, Irving Azoff, OVG is planning to bolster the venue’s clout. OVG is pursuing a vision that can unify stadiums and arenas and find “a new way to create economics associated with the positive partnership of that manifest.” And he wants to weed out the elements that have not put money back into technology, content and the fan experience such as StubHub. “Are they good for the industry or bad for the industry? Do we love StubHub or not? I think we want to replace them.”
StubHub built a brand very well and very wisely, so that consumers are comfortable buying their used tickets from StubHub. “We don’t want to kill them; we want to replace them,” Leiweke said.
OVG’s vision is bolstered by the strength of having real money, an alliance of 24 arenas and six stadiums that want to change the present economic model, and Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke leading the charge with their ideas, he told RISE attendees.
The company is rolling out four major divisions including consulting which has been working with the New York Islanders at the Barclays Center and the Raiders in Las Vegas, among others around the world. Narrative Partners is the second, led by Dan Griffis which sells sponsorships and naming rights. The division currently works with 12 clients and categories within the alliance members’ purview that have yet to be sold.
The third division is made up of the arena and stadium alliance, and the fourth, which Leiweke said he is “most stoked about,” is a fund to invest and buy different elements in which OVG finds value. He shared that a ticketing company, security and terrorism consulting firm, and the Miami FC Stadium and the Beckham MLS eam are all a part of these investments. OVG is also looking into future investments in trade publications, conferences, at least five “brick-and-mortar projects” in arenas and theaters around the world, and a new league to start soon.
With partners in Azoff Music Management and MSG Entertainment already announced, with more to come involving new partners and assets, Leiweke said that “we’re putting real money up just so that we put our money where our mouth is.”
When asked about what other venues can expect when it comes to OVG’s vision, Leiweke talked about a triangle with the alliance of 24 arenas, including Madison Square Garden, New York, The Forum in Los Angeles, the planned arena in Las Vegas, and six stadiums, including Dodgers Stadium, Los Angeles, at the top and the benefits for other venues spreading out from there, with a global reach.
“We will be able to touch every facility everywhere in the world soon,” said Leiweke, emphasizing that OVG is committed to making entry points within reach for all venues.
“We have no interest in owning the industry,” Leiweke said. “We also have zero interest in penalizing people that aren’t a part of our world because the industry is far more important and relevant than our world. We’re just a part of it.”
Leiweke urged others to not be afraid of mistakes and to foster an entrepreneurial spirit that is not afraid of mistakes. Ideas like subscriptions for tickets, premiums, and new approaches to sponsorship models are all ripe avenues for exploration in his eyes, as opposed to what he sees as a current attitude that finds “a vision and a path that decides that the lowest and the most often-traveled path is the best path to travel because no one is going to question that.”
It is a new time, new place, new dream, Leiweke told said of those wanting to Raise the Industry in Sports & Entertainment (RISE). “Other industries have changed dramatically. Pandora, Spotify, and Apple didn’t exist 10 years ago. OVG is about positive disruption of our industry.”
The possibilities for new growth and more success goes beyond business for Leiweke. After the success of L.A. Live that has been pursued by others, he said that “there needs to be relevant conversations about the economic impact that we are all making when we build facilities or theaters or clubs or stadiums because we do change the economics of a community. We do change the way that community feels about itself. We are a great industry, and that’s what OVG is going to try to do, is remind all of us.”
Contact: Tim Leiweke, (310) 954-4800