AEG and Pepperdine partnership.
AEG and Pepperdine University, Malibu, Calif., are partnering to provide undergraduate and graduate students with an educational experience to learn the business of sports and entertainment first-hand.
The new initiatives will include giving AEG staff the opportunity to further their education through Pepperdine classes; placing select Pepperdine undergraduate and graduate students in AEG’s internship program; a series of events and custom content with the LA Kings; a collaboration to produce a sports, music, entertainment and business conference and a branded ‘classroom’ inside Staples Center, Los Angeles, home to four professional sports franchises.
“We’re very excited about this,” said Jon Werbeck, VP, AEG global partnerships. “We have a great internship program at AEG, and we wanted to expand on this and partner with a local university. Looking at it from a value perspective, Pepperdine is a great, seamless fit for us. They really want to grow into the Los Angeles community.”
Werbeck said that Pepperdine will be the exclusive partner with Staples Center, L.A. Live and the Los Angeles Kings. “Pepperdine wants to grow their sports and entertainment degree programs, and we felt there was a natural synergy and we could create a mutually rewarding partnership in this space.”
“This program will give students unprecedented access to the sports and entertainment industry,” said Werbeck. “Students enrolled in the program will be able to gain hands-on experience and business insight they couldn’t get in any other way.”
One of the pieces of the agreement will bring a classroom into Staples Center. Pepperdine will bring the faculty, but AEG will develop different business symposiums and provide speakers from all its divisions, such as AEG Global Partnerships, AEG Live, AEG Sports and AEG Facilities. The program will also offer guidance from some of the top executives in the industry today.
“We are going to be developing a ‘best-in-class’ speaker series where we’ll have our AEG talent be part of the different class curriculums,” said Werbeck. “We’re going to bring in our top business executives to speak to the class. One day it might be Lee Zeidman. Another day it could be Luc Robitaille or Dan Beckerman. These guys will be there to answer questions the students may have and to look at different areas of the business.”
Another piece of the partnership will give AEG staff the opportunity to further their education. “The program will afford a number of AEG’s staff the chance to participate in the University’s MBA program or get certificates in different areas,” said Werbeck. AEG will absorb the cost of the Pepperdine programs for employees it sends there.
The program will also place select Pepperdine undergraduate and graduate students in AEG’s internship program.
AEG and Pepperdine will collaborate to produce a sports, music, entertainment and business conference. The conference will be hosted at L.A. Live. The goal of the conference will be to provide attendees an insightful view into the rapidly evolving sports and entertainment industries.
Pepperdine University will also serve as the presenting partner of “LA Kings Business of Hockey,” a regularly scheduled event that gives participants a chance to meet and gain advice from top hockey and sports business professionals both in and out of the AEG organizational network.
The last piece of the agreement will see AEG hosting Pepperdine University alumni at a co-created networking night at one of the 250 events at Staples Center each year. The event will focus on connecting the university’s alumni with top AEG executives.
“By partnering with AEG, Pepperdine will be at the forefront of academic innovation, creating world-class educational programs in sports and entertainment management, “ said Rick Gibson, chief marketing officer, Pepperdine University.
“We anticipate creating both degreed programs for students and certificate programs for AEG employees and collaborators that meet education and talent development needs,” said Gibson.
Programs will include Mini-MBA’s across all major business disciplines, such as negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution; short executive development programs in specialized areas of entertainment and sports management including analytics, finance, innovation, law, leadership, marketing, public relations and team dynamics, and financial management for pro athletes.
Gibson said that some of the certificate programs have the potential to qualify for academic credit that can be counted toward completion of a Pepperdine degree program.
Some of the degrees that Pepperdine will offer include a bachelor of science in business and management degree completion and MBA programs in sports and entertainment management; dispute resolution; entertainment, media and sports law; management and leadership; human resources; applied analytics; strategic communication and sports and entertainment business.
“I applaud them,” said Frank Roach, retired professor of venue hospitality, University of South Carolina. “I think it’s a great move.”
“I moved classes from the academic building over to Colonial Life Arena (Columbia, S.C.) a couple of times,” he said. “We’d use one of the suites and as you're standing up and talking about something, like move-in, you can actually stand up and look at what you’re talking about.”
Roach said picking Los Angeles was a smart move on AEG’s part. “It’s one of the few places I think this would work,” he said referring to the part of the agreement where AEG employees would go to the school. “You would need enough of a critical mass of entertainment and sports venues with employees to send to the school that it could actually work well.”
“They’ll have a lot of resources at Staples Center and it will absolutely benefit the students to have a Lee Zeidman or Christy Butcher come in and talk about what they do day to day,” said Roach.
“Pepperdine is a hike from Staples Center and to get those kinds of big names in the industry to come out would take a lot of coordination and a huge chunk of their day. With a class in the building all they have to do is walk down the stairs and spend a half hour in the classroom and it doesn’t wreck their day.”
“Working together, we are excited to develop this one-of-a-kind platform to amplify the University’s downtown Los Angeles presence and well-respected educational reputation as we recruit and train the next generation of sports and entertainment professionals,” said Werbeck. “As this relationship evolves, we look forward to expanding our partnership with the school on a global level across AEG’s network of assets."
“We envision creating additional flagships into other areas of our AEG portfolio,” he said. “We want to grow this together and have a Pepperdine classroom in London, Germany, Australia and China; we want to grow the Pepperdine brand within our AEG asset mix.”
Interviewed for this story: Jon Werbeck, (213) 763-5416; Rick Gibson, (310) 506-4125, Frank Roach, (803) 446 6482