Hank Abate New OVG Facilities President

– Hank Abate
OVG Facilities

OVG Facilities has hired veteran arena manager Hank Abate as president and opened an office in suburban Philadelphia, where the Oak View Group division will be based.

Abate, 60, has spent close to 40 years in the facility management industry. He most recently served as executive vice president of venue management for Madison Square Garden’s six properties, including MSG, home of the Knicks and Rangers. Abate spent about two years at the company before leaving in April.

Abate worked 20 years with SMG before joining Spectra in 2013 for about three years.

At OVG Facilities, Abate joins a division overseen by Peter Luukko, co-chairman of the Arena Alliance, a group of more than 25 big league arenas that works with Oak View Group to book events in their buildings. OVG is also the owner of VenuesNow and Pollstar.

Abate and Luukko have known each other since 1981, when they were both working for SMG at small arenas in New Haven, Conn. and Providence, R.I.

Abate said OVG Facilities will be aggressive in pursuing management deals in both the U.S. and internationally by taking advantage of the strong relationships the company has with event promoter Live Nation and OVG Global Partnerships, the firm’s sponsorship division. 

“We’re not just a company that comes in and keeps the facility clean and maintained,” he said.

OVG Facilities’ competitors include AEG, SMG, Spectra and VenuWorks. Apart from AEG, which Tim Leiweke ran for 17 years before leaving the company in 2013, facility management firms get paid a fee to run a building and don’t typically invest money into constructing arenas. On its own, OVG’s model is to put equity into those projects in exchange for assuming a greater role in operating and marketing the venues. That’s the business model for the KeyArena reconstruction in Seattle and a new arena at Belmont Park for the New York Islanders. OVG is part of separate development teams for those two NHL projects.

In the overall facility management space, though, the most opportunities remain in secondary markets where arenas owned by public entities hire private management firms to maximize revenue, and OVG plans to be in the mix for those deals as well, Luukko said.

“We’re moving in all directions in markets of all sizes, to add equity and secure long-term contracts,” he said.

Abate will manage a group that already includes senior vice presidents Doug Higgons and Tom Paquette, plus Sims Hinds, vice president of development. OVG Facilities plans to hire more personnel and build a staff of 10 to 15 working in Philadelphia, Luukko said. Abate lives in Connecticut and will split his time between Philly and New York, where OVG has an office tied to the Belmont Park project.

“The team we have now has made it a better business and allowed us to expand at a faster rate,” Luukko said. “Hank is an outstanding operator, and he has the experience we need for brick-and-mortar projects.”

The new Philly office is south of the city in the suburb of Chester, in an old power plant that has been converted to commercial space. It’s next to Talen Energy Stadium, home of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union.

“We just signed the lease,” Luukko said. “It’s an affordable market to live in with great access to the airport.”

The addition of OVG Facilities strengthens Philadelphia as the home of facility management firms. Both SMG and Spectra, whose owners include Comcast Spectacor, have their headquarters in Greater Philadelphia.