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Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
This LA company builds venues for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and sumo wrestlers
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 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 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. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
FBI Chicago Special-Agent-in-Charge Doug DePodesta talks triumphs, challenges
Doug DePodesta's first days atop the FBI Chicago Field Office were during last year's security-heavy Democratic National Convention. The FBI in Chicago has been busy in the months since. Just Tuesday of this week, DePodesta's team ran point on a nine-hour standoff at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Meanwhile, the FBI is rolling out a program to double down on the drop in violent crime in Chicago — known as Operation Summer Heat. "We are surging additional resources, bodies, to arrest fugitives, to redouble our efforts in carjackings," DePodesta said. DePodesta took over as special agent-in-charge at the FBI Chicago Field Office in early August 2024 — coming up on a year ago. Partnerships between police agencies are what he thinks is behind the 30% drop in homicides in Chicago, the 40% drop in gun violence, and 50% drop in carjackings since last year. "You know, I think it's a lot of things, but I can really point to law enforcement cooperation, engaged with community," DePodesta said. "It's a very complex problem that has a lot of answers." But why has the number of federal prosecutions in the Chicago area has fallen since the start of President Trump's second administration? "It's hard to look at stats like that to really get the whole picture. We are looking for more impactful cases," said DePodesta. "So I think one great example is the Mike Madigan case. That took over a decade to investigate, took a lot of effort from my agents — our agents — and also the U.S. Attorney's office. But it had a huge impact in the state and around the country." While DePodesta has only been in the top post less than a year, he spent years in Chicago working, among other things, on high-profile public corruption cases. He worked on the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for the FBI, while colleagues built cases against former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and former Chicago alderman and City Council Finance Committee chairman Ed Burke. Are there more public corruption cases or organized crime cases in the pipeline? "The FBI has been around 117 years investigating public corruption, organized crime, and I don't see it slowing down any time soon," said DePodesta. Also showing no signs of a slowdown are foreign bad actors stealing U.S. secrets, who are also a target for the FBI. "The People's Republic of China has 50-to-1 agents trying to get into our intellectual property as FBI agents try to defend it," said DePodesta. DePodesta runs the fourth largest FBI field office in the country. A total of 1,000 people report to him. He is aware of the Washington budget axe. "We will see what Congress and the president do," DePodesta said. "What I'll tell you is we have not seen a reduction in our personnel here in the Chicago area or our budget at all." As dollars and priorities shift in Washington, DePodesta — who is originally from Detroit and previously served as a Cincinnati police officer — said he is glad to be back in a city where he logged 15 years as an agent. "I was scared to come into this office for many, many years," said DePodesta, "and now, I come in every morning." "Yesterday morning, I was at a speaking event," DePodesta said. "I got the call, and we had to mobilize our SWAT team, our crisis negotiators down on site to work with the United States Marshals Service." The U.S. Marshals said a man armed with a knife tried to get past security in the building, but was stopped before he could. As a result, the building was placed on lockdown shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday. Nine hours later, the suspect would be taken out alive. That no members of the public were hurt in the incident was a win for DePodesta, whose team helped choreograph the response. "It was very complex. Anytime we're dealing with a large building, someone trying to hurt themselves within that building, a lot of unknowns, it is complex. But that's what we train for," DePodesta said, "if it's in a house, if it's in a train station, because you never know when something like that is going to happen." As for what keeps him up at night, DePodesta said lone wolves. In fact, on one night in mid-May, his phone at home started ringing with just such a case unfolding. The case was out of Washington, D.C., but had Chicago roots. "So I was at home sleeping. It was midnight or so," DePodesta said. "Unfortunately, two Israeli Embassy employees were assassinated." Two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., Sarah Milgrim, 26, and Yaron Lichinsky, 30, were assassinated outside the D.C. Jewish Museum. The suspect was quickly identified and arrested, and within minutes, the FBI began looking into the background of 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez. "That subject lived here in Chicago. I got a call. I immediately started talking to our Washington office about what they were experiencing, and what resources we would have to surge here," said DePodesta. "We want to find out everything about that person, what they've done, you know, in the past, who they've talked to, to find out if there are co-conspirators — and that's where we are most concerned about — or any other plans." The case against Rodriguez is still active, but it appears he had no accomplices. But that middle-of-the-night maneuvering is part of the FBI's job.
New York Post
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Stevie Wonder, 75, speaks out about possible retirement plans
Well, isn't this lovely. Stevie Wonder clarified that he has no plans to retire for as long as he's alive during Monday's episode of the BBC's 'Sidetracked' podcast. 'For as long as you breathe, for as long as your heart beats, there's more for you to do,' Wonder, 75, told host Annie Mac. 'I'm not gonna stop the gift that keeps pouring through my body.' Advertisement 7 Stevie Wonder performs at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post The 'Superstition' hitmaker, whose career began in 1961, explained that he's still happy singing and performing. 'I love doing what I'm doing,' he shared. 'An artist doesn't stop drawing just because. You keep on. So as long as you can imagine, as long as you are going to be creative, and as long as you let your mind work, you don't have to retire.' Advertisement 7 Stevie Wonder playing the piano in 1970. Redferns 7 Stevie Wonder performs at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 1983. Getty Images Wonder continued: 'I love playing music, that's like my mantra. I think I can do all the stuff I want to do – still have fun and do what I need to do – but I'm not going to stop the gift that keeps pouring through my body.' The music legend declared that 'songs are like children, they're with you forever.' Advertisement 'They are statements from the spirit within you,' he went on, 'and singing those songs is like me taking another breath.' 7 Stevie Wonder performing at the Democratic National Convention in Aug. 2024. Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post Wonder confirmed on the podcast he's working on 'Through the Eyes of Wonder,' his first album since 2005's 'A Time to Love.' 'I'm excited about that,' he said of the upcoming project. 'I have a lot of songs I haven't released yet. I'm going to let it just be there.' Advertisement 7 Stevie Wonder performs during the 2025 Grammy Awards in February. Getty Images for The Recording Academy Wonder has put out 23 studio albums and won 25 Grammy awards in his career. He's been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame. Last year, he embarked on his 10-date 'Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart' tour in the fall ahead of the election, following his performance at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. 7 Stevie Wonder speaks onstage at the 2025 BET Awards. AFP via Getty Images Earlier this month, Wonder addressed the long-standing rumor that he isn't actually blind during a stop in Wales on his Love, Light and Song UK tour. 'I must say to all of you, something that I was thinking, 'When did I want to let the world know this?' But I wanted to say it right now,' Wonder said to the crowd. 7 Stevie Wonder at the GRAMMY Museum LA Live on July 15, 2025. Getty Images for The Recording Academy 'You know there have been rumors about me seeing and all that? But seriously, you know the truth,' the 'Overjoyed' singer added. Advertisement Wonder recalled losing his eyesight shortly after his birth, which he called 'a blessing.' 'It's allowed me to see the world in the vision of truth, of sight,' he said.
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
This L.A. company builds venues for the world's biggest pop stars, sports teams and sumo wrestlers
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 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 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.
Chicago Tribune
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
St. Charles to recommend Daniel Likens as Police Chief in September
St. Charles has announced its likely pick for police chief, according to a news release from the city on Friday. Daniel J. Likens is set to take over the post beginning in September, the city said. Likens comes from the Illinois State Police, where he served as a lieutenant colonel and the assistant deputy director for the Division of Criminal Investigations Statewide Investigative Command, according to the ISP's website. Per the release from St. Charles, he was also on the planning committee for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, leading operations for the event, and worked as the project lead for an initiative managing the installation of more than 500 license plate readers across the state. Former St. Charles Police Chief James Keegan — who had been on a personal leave of absence since November, the city has said — stepped down in March, according to past reporting. Deputy Police Chief Eric Majewski has been serving as interim chief while the department searched for a replacement. Since then, the city said it has been conducting a national search, which Mayor Clint Hull, members of the City Council and some city staff members participated in. In June, the city said they made an offer to a candidate, but the individual accepted a police chief job elsewhere, according to past reporting. Likens is set to be formally recommended for the role by City Administrator Heather McGuire at the Sept. 2 City Council meeting, the release said. He will assume the role on Sept. 15.
