The Great Leiweke Mystery

If you’ve read the bevy of articles on the former MLSE/AEG boss and still have no idea what he’s up to, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

There’s only a handful of people that understand what the Oak View Group actually does and that’s probably OK with Leiweke.

Being intentionally vague is kind of his thing – that and making sweeping statements about how mediocre we all are.

“No one gets together in the arena industry and sits down and talks about how to book more music and have direct conversations with Live Nation and AEG,” he told me, to which many people instantly thought, Wait a minute. Tim? Doesn’t ArenaNetwork do that? Isn’t that kind of their thing?

“That’s not any disrespect to Ed Rubinstein and what those guys do,” he said of the ArenaNetwork boss. “This is geared toward the big market arenas and trying to give them an alliance, as well as providing additional services around the music part of their business.” 

That last line did not get a great reaction from the many buildings in ArenaNetwork. At least a half-dozen GMs approached me to express their displeasure with that line.

But all negativity was immediately followed with curiosity: What are Leiweke and Azoff really up to? Who are they planning to compete against?

I think the answer is simply “stay tuned.” If you accept the logic that the Oak View Group is the real deal (and you should) then you have to accept one other slightly uncomfortable assumption – that the arena business is leaving a lot of money on the table.

Leiweke and the Oak View Group are all about generating more money within the concert business – more sponsorships, more high-end experiences and, most importantly, more concerts.

Leiweke is not a guy who accepts the silo mentality – the “this is mine” attitude that seems to be everywhere in this business.

Whatever you thought belonged to you now potentially belongs to Tim, which is both exciting and terrifying. Now it’s time to watch Tim and Irving execute their plan. We’re all about to learn whether the Oak View Group is really an extremely expensive consultancy or an entertainment industry powerhouse poised for major disruption.

Either way, I’m glad to have Tim back; our industry is much more exciting when he’s in the headlines.