Tim Leiweke is probably best known as the long-time CEO of AEG, where he spent 18 years and was hailed as a visionary leader, before leaving the sports and entertainment giant suddenly in 2013, pitching up not long afterwards in Toronto as CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
Almost three years later, he was back in his adopted home of LA, this time starting his own venue specialist operation, Oak View Group – or OVG – which he launched alongside his partners music biz legend Irving Azoff and the Madison Square Garden company.
James visited Tim in his well-appointed office in Westwood, Los Angeles, on a cloudless February or March day this year.
On the conversational agenda:
- OVG: What is it? Why did he leave Toronto so quickly to launch it? And is it competing with AEG?
- The arena business in general: how to fill them, how to commercialise them, how to programme them, how to secure them, how to service them, and how to pick opportunities in the space;
- David Beckham in Miami – and why that Major League Soccer project will happen;
- a new Kevin Plank-driven arena project in Baltimore;
- why Tim would never have given the go-ahead to AEG’s O2 project in London had he had real skin in the game;
- secondary ticketing; and the next frontier for content in major global arenas.