This L.A. company builds venues for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and sumo wrestlers

Los Angeles Times

4 days ago

Sports and music fans, flocking to a once-questionable corner of downtown, were the springboard for an L.A.-born multibillion-dollar empire of venues and events for screaming enthusiasts around the globe.
AEG, the company behind Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live district, has turned its know-how about hosting and promoting big shows into a formula it has rolled out on five continents. It is literally setting the stages for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and even — most recently — sumo wrestlers.
It is one of the city's lesser-known global success stories. With more than 20,000 employees and billions of dollars of projects running at any one time, AEG is one of the planet's biggest venue and event companies. L.A.'s high concentration of sports teams and musical talent forced it to develop a system that uses its spaces for up to five different events in a day.
'We learned how to be nimble in moving from one to the other to really maximize,' AEG Chief Executive Dan Beckerman told The Los Angeles Times.
AEG is prospering by executing a fairly simple business plan, said Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College. Its industry is fairly straightforward — and more use of each seat means gives the company more capital to build more venues.
'You have to pick your niche, have capital, have tenacity,' he said. 'And stick with it.'
Sumo wrestlers bashed bellies this month in AEG's newest venue on the grounds of a legendary castle. The recently opened IG Arena stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan, which was built in the early 1600s, when samurai battles raged in the region.
While the summer sumo tournament required a traditional ring of sand, clay and rice straw bales, the arena will be soon be transformed to host such diverse events as a basketball clinic hosted by the L.A. Lakers' Rui Hachimura, a professional boxing match and a concert by English musician Sting.
In Nagoya and increasingly across East and Southeast Asia, AEG is doing what it does better than most — build arenas that can host pro sports and shows by big-name artists, with the venues often built within an ecosystem of bars, restaurants and hotels also built by the company and its partners.
The company was founded in 1995 when Denver billionaire investor Philip Anschutz bought the Los Angeles Kings and in 1999 opened the downtown arena then known as the Staples Center, which was built by Anschutz and Kings co-owner Ed Roski.
It was considered a risky project at the time, when the gritty blocks near the Los Angeles Convention Center were deemed undesirable by most real estate developers. AEG added the $3 billion L.A. Live complex in 2007, and other developers also moved into the South Park district, building hotels, restaurants and thousands of residential units.
The popular venues have now hosted 22 Grammy Awards shows, a Democratic National Convention, two Stanley Cup championships, six NBA championships and All-Star hockey and basketball weekends.
That high-profile success gave it an edge when competing to build or buy around the world. AEG has expanded to own and operate more than 100 venues serving 100 million guests annually. Among its holdings are the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and German pro ice hockey team Eisbären Berlin. As the second biggest event promoter in the world, it puts on large festivals including the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and American Express Presents BST Hyde Park music festival in London.
It has faced slowdowns and other tough periods as well.
Its London arena was the site of Michael Jackson's planned comeback announced in 2009. During a period when he was rehearsing for the physically demanding shows, Jackson died.
His mother and three children sued AEG Live in 2010. The lawsuit alleged that AEG was negligent in its hiring of the physician who administered the fatal dose of propofol that led to Jackson's death. A Los Angeles jury unanimously decided that the concert promoter wasn't liable in the singer's death.
'People heard of AEG because of Michael Jackson and the and the subsequent lawsuit from the family,' said Randy Phillips, former manager of music promotions at AEG. 'They would never have even known what it is.'
The company was laid low during the pandemic, when live events were canceled starting in March 2020. Venues stayed dark until well into 2021, when AEG started putting on sports events with no audiences and later with limited seating. Times changed in 2022 when revenues reached new records as fans stormed back, Beckerman said.
'We were all very pleasantly surprised,' he said. 'I think people learned during the pandemic that there really is no substitute for live events.'
AEG also lost a longtime arena tenant when the Los Angeles Clippers moved to a new arena in Inglewood after the team's lease at Crypto.com Arena expired in 2024. Owner Steve Ballmer said he wanted the Clippers to have their own home that they didn't share with other teams.
AEG's touring business lifted off with a 2001 concert with Britney Spears at Staples Center.
'The Britney Spears tour is what broke the company wide open,' said Phillips, who became head of music promotions for AEG after landing Spears. 'That's when we became players.'
Big acts followed including Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Pink.
AEG expanded its U.S. concert touring empire by building large multipurpose arenas in Las Vegas and Kansas City. It also is establishing a network of smaller venues such as the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and the Showbox in Seattle. It recently opened the Pinnacle at Nashville Yards, a concert hall that is part of a mixed-use district including housing and offices that AEG and a local partner are developing in downtown Nashville.
Its highest-profile property outside of Los Angeles is in London, where the company resurrected a large dome-shaped building built to house an exhibition celebrating the turn of the millennium in 2000. After AEG's redevelopment of the site, the O2 Arena became one of the world's busiest venues for entertainment and sports with 10 million visitors a year.
In Berlin, the company built the Uber Arena, one of the highest-grossing arenas in the world and part of an entertainment district with restaurants and theaters.
The Nagoya project is part of the company's pan-Asian strategy to grow its real estate empire and create more venues for artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
The United States and Europe, where AEG has long been active, are largely built-out with modern arenas for sports and entertainment, but many Asian countries are ready to upgrade their old facilities.
'Japan is at the top of the list' for AEG, said Ted Fikre, head of development at the company.
The country's venues are typically decades old and pale in comparison to modern multi-use arenas typically found in the U.S. and Europe.
The IG Arena in Nagoya, with a capacity of 17,000, is expected to annually host 150 events for 1.4 million attendees at concerts, basketball games and other live entertainment.
AEG has an even larger development in the works in Osaka. Plans call for an 18,000-seat arena that will anchor an entertainment district with hotels, offices, shops and restaurants along with housing. Valued at more than $1 billion, Fikre compared the Osaka project to its largest mixed-use districts — L.A. Live in Los Angeles and the O2 in London. The project is set to break ground in 2027.
In partnership with the NBA, the company built Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai in 2010. It is also involved in plans for South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
'The ambition for us is to establish a strong presence throughout the Asia region, and we've got a good head start,' Fikre said.
AEG opened a 4,500-capacity venue in Bangkok last year with a concert by Ed Sheeran. The company is also working with one of Thailand's largest mall operators to build an 18,000-seat arena in a sprawling regional mall just east of Bangkok, set to open in 2028.
AEG's network of venues throughout Asia makes it easier to book big-name artists.
'It's a bit tricky to tour in Asia because of the expense of traveling around the region,' Fikre said. 'It's not like you're in the U.S., where you just take a bunch of trucks' from city to city.
Swift completed the international leg of her most recent tour last year that included six nights in Singapore and four nights in Tokyo to sold-out audiences booked by AEG Presents as her international promoter. Sheeran played in Bhutan, India and other Asian countries he hadn't previously visited in venues booked by AEG.
The international trend now works in both directions for AEG, with K-pop acts such as BTS, Blackpink and other global stars packing AEG venues in the West.