Oak View Group’s Tim Leiweke and CAA Icon’s Tim Romani look back on more than 20 years of sports venue development during a session at last month's VenuesNow Conference. (Black Coffee Productions for VenuesNow)
The second annual VenuesNow Conference June 19-20 featured leading figures from every corner of the sports and live entertainment industry engaging in a robust exchange of ideas and thoughtful discussions centered on the most important projects and greatest innovations in our industry. This, along with a myriad of informal (and sometimes rollicking) networking opportunities, helped attract more than 500 elite players from the business who made this year’s record-setting conference a rousing success.
Here, at the historic Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the city stood front and center in much of the dialogue. The massive L.A. mixed-use development currently under construction in nearby Inglewood, which will include the L.A. Stadium at Hollywood Park, the future home of the NFL’s Rams and Chargers when it’s completed in 2020, is set to top out at a whopping $5 billion.
It’s a trend. Stadium and arena projects now typically reach or surpass the $1 billion mark as teams create 24/7 destinations with venues as the centerpiece. The biggest challenge facing sports development is keeping construction costs under control, said panelist Tim Romani, CEO of CAA Icon.
“It’s become a pressure point again,” Romani said in a candid and elucidating session with Oak View Group co-founder and CEO Tim Leiweke (OVG is also the owner of VenuesNow). “In MLS, there’s a $150 million application fee and a $200 million building. You’re into it for [up to] $400 million before you sell a ticket.”
Cutting-edge technology was another common thread as building executives peered into their crystal ball to predict how innovations like facial recognition technology may take shape at sports facilities.
Jerry Jacobs Jr., co-CEO of Delaware North, and Chairman and Founding Partner of TPG Capital David Bonderman, on different panels, both mentioned facial recognition similar to Amazon Go’s “transactionless” retail technology as a potential feature for arena concessions.
At Delaware North’s TD Garden in Boston, the company pushes cashless systems such as ApplePay to create frictionless transactions. This past season, 81 percent of attendees at Bruins and Celtics games used credit cards, up from 54 percent the year before, Jacobs said.
Jacobs also touched on the topic of sports betting at sports facilities. Delaware North runs casinos across the country and he sees opportunity in betting on games due to the sizable and untapped market of people in the U.S. who would bet if it were legal.
On a revealing panel with Jason Gannon, managing director of the L.A. Stadium and Entertainment District, along with L.A. Chargers’ EVP/COO Jeanne Bonk and L.A. Rams’ EVP/COO Kevin Demoff, the trio discussed the notion of the aerial appeal of the new venue.
“We’re working on that,” said Gannon “Certainly, there are a lot of interested parties in that conversation. That’s in our design model.” This because the sprawling project, which spans 300 acres, sits directly under the flight path for LAX, which is ranked as the world’s fifth-busiest airport with some 85 million passengers.
Another high-power session drilled down on the NHL’s expansion into Seattle with Bonderman, film producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Seattle Hockey Partners President/ CEO Tod Leiweke.
Leiweke shared his prediction that the Seattle franchise will be approved by the NHL in September and that construction of KeyArena (where OVG won the development rights) will begin in October with a 24-month window. The group also supports the idea of bringing an NBA team back to Seattle to join the NHL team in the redeveloped facility. As for a hockey team name, Bonderman quipped “Whatever we decide, 80 percent of the people will be against it.”
Another theme throughout was the industry’s bull market. Kenneth Feld, CEO of Feld Entertainment, in a session with Feld EVP Nicole Feld and Chase Center Executive Director Eric Bresler, told attendees that based on the state of business in the first quarter, “this year will be the greatest ever.”
Though Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey have left the road, Feld’s Monster Jam drew 350,000 to its first-ever booking at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Supercross had 17 shows this season and drew 1 million people. And having Black Panther in “Marvel Universe Live: Age of Heroes” helped boost attendance.
Endeavor co-CEO Ariel Emanuel participated in a riveting and freewheeling keynote to close out the conference with Ray Waddell, president of Oak View Group Media & Conferences.
This included everything from the 2009 merger with the William Morris Agency (“We brought in consultants and laid out for two days a map of the business from our level. It took three to four years … but we did it.”) to buying the UFC for more than $4 billion (“There were no sports rights available until 2022. … I love the sport and represented them for a long time.)”
The power exec also provided additional insights on a variety of issues ranging from his admiration for other chief executives like Disney’s Bob Iger and Live Nation’s Michael Rapino to his four-decade relationship with business partner Patrick Whitesell (which he compared to a marriage) as well as his take on the AT&T-Time Warner merger and Comcast and Disney’s bids for Fox.