Tim Leiweke

heavily involved in sports as well. But it was taking my background, in my experience with twenty years at AG and before that of building the Denver Nuggets and the Pepsi Center and the Minnesota timber Wilson the Target Center, and essentially trying to redefine a way to build the business around building new facilities, renovating new facilities, representing current facilities, getting into the service business, the sales business, the food

and beverage business. So it really is centered around the live entertainment experience with a heavy emphasis of the facilities. And although I have in the past created and been heavily involved in the promotional side of it, this one's much more specific, and we strike partnerships with the promoters, but we ourselves do not promote sell them to we promote.

So it's a core competency. It's highly focused. It's about facilities, it's about live entertainment, it's about the guest experience, and it's about trying to ultimately also build the next great generation of those live venues that people could go and enjoy their favorite artists.

at arenas. It was an amazing survival for arenas to try to figure out how we were going to weather that storm, and we had to figure out what we were going to look like when we came out of the storm. We had just a whole new set of assumptions and risks and operating challenges that we had to

inherit coming out of COVID from air circulation. And look, who would have ever thought, I know, in our case, with many of the arenas that we just recently built and open, we were in the middle of building seven of these seven during COVID, and I had to go back and every one of our projects ultimately had to be rebuilt with new experiences, with new challenges, and with a new way of dealing with germs and COVID and trying to figure out how we were going to now

take something that so dramatically stopped all of our industry and its tracks and be able to convince people to come back and feel safe in a live environment in arenas and stadiums in theaters. And so we had to go back and rebuild and re engineer and rethink our HVAC systems, and we installed a filtering system and all of our buildings that essentially traps and kills the bugs. And I never thought ten years ago that this would become one of the highest priorities and the largest expenditure

we would make when we're developing new arenas. But if you look at our Mer thirteen filterization systems we built a UBS arena and a climate Pledge arena. They are massive, gigantic filter systems that essentially hump fresh air in and take air out. And as we're taking the air out, we now, I'll send that air through a bunch of filterization systems, trap the bad stuff, and then literally burn those germs on site. And so again we had to learn we had to alter the way we think about safety,

about customer convenience. We had to regain the confidence and the trust and the consumer that they could walk back into these buildings and be safe and not get sick. And in particular, one thing that was unique about COVID is the scientists and all of the experts that we brought in to help us think through it. The ice facilities in particular were a bit challenging because of the way air floats and airs trapped and hot air and cold air and the unique aspect of COVID and how

that bug could hang in the air. It was suddenly a whole new set of rules and a whole new set of thinking on engineering and airflow that we had to adjust and quickly react to. So we came out of that. I think our industry did a phenomenal job of surviving. We were not an industry that got bailed out. So the interesting thing is I didn't get one dollar of subsidies, or we didn't. We didn't get any of

the COVID funds that the government ultimately parceled out. I think there was a perception, why help billionaires, even though we're not billionaires. I think sports owners and facility owners in particular, they weren't going to They weren't going to get any of the PPP money, and we didn't, and so we had to go do this on our own. We had to survive on our own, and in the case of our company, we didn't lay anybody off. I didn't let anybody go, we didn't furlough anybody. I didn't

ask anyone to take a pay cut. We we had great faith that this society that we live in today and the smart brilliant people that were working on this on a daily basis. They were going to find a solution, and we had to be prepared to come out of this and hit the ground running, so we weren't going to shut everything down. We very much valued everybody that worked for us. We had literally tens of thousands of people that were employed by this company because of all

the people working on the construction sites. And so instead of sitting here trying to figure out how to save money or how to go get subsidies or PPP funds, we did exactly the opposite, which is, how do we go take care of our people, how do we create safe work sites today, how do we continue constructing our seven new arenas, How do we ultimately survive this? But then how do we come out of this at the right time and be better for what we're going to

learn in the next couple of years. I'm not sure. At the time we thought it was a couple of years, Bob. We were hoping it was a year, but it wasn't a year. We're just now just now getting back to what I would say is business as usual and normal and so hugely challenging for us. Life lessons character in particular, a very very strong character building moment for our industry

and for our company. And I will say, in the roughly forty plus years I've been doing it, I probably lost more sleep and had more nights where I'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking, my God, I'm not going to make it through this. Our company's not going to make this, make it through this. We're ultimately not going to be able to get these arenas open. I'm not going to be able to ultimately get people to buy naming rights or sponsorships or suites. We're never

going to see business as usual again. You have I call them the demons, and I never had the demons as much as we did during COVID, and yet God works in mysterious ways. We came out of that and now we've had the best year in the history of

live entertainment. And if you see the pent up demand, and you see what Elton John just did, what Taylor Swift is doing, what Ed Sheard's doing, what Cold Play's doing, if you see the success of arena shows now and Harry Styles just shocking what Harry Styles has pulled off here.

And by the way that young man is my hero because he stayed through that tour during COVID and dealt with all the issues he had with the bubble, with his crew, with his band, with safety, with people getting sick, and he fought through it in the middle of COVID kept this tour going, and the poor guy is still out touring. And so huge admiration for the industry and in particular the year that we've had and the passion that the fans have to get out and live life.

We're seeing that and we're all benefiting from that, but also the artist and how resolute the industry was at giving people reason to come back together and to celebrate, giving people an opportunity to be happy, to go back to these public places and be able to forget about all of the things and all of the demons and

all of the problems that we were dealing with. I think it was our finest moment in the music industry and the live entertainment industry, and I am absolutely proud to be a part of it, but also hugely grateful back to the fans that they came back and supported the industry, our facilities, and the artists the way they have, and in particular we understand now people everyone appreciates life.

Now when you go through something like that, you're going to go live the rest of your life and you're going to live it every day and you're not going to take it for granted. And music and sports, but especially music a huge part of that. And I think that's why our best years are directly ahead of us and we're going to continue to enjoy this surge in our business that we've seen this past year.

early stages of COVID. So ironically, just by chance, if you look at when COVID broke out, there were three or four hotspots where it first hit where we're all going, what is this thing? So one of them was Seattle and the nursing homes. Unfortunately, just terrible what happened there. But that was the first place in the United States where suddenly you're like, wait a minute, something's wrong, hair,

this is serious. Second place was the town in New York, just outside of New York City, where it was a temple and a congregation and an actual event became a super spreader event first, one of those things that we've seen. No one quite understood super spread until that. And in the third place that just got absolutely hammered and was ground zero. I think for what it was how quickly it was spreading and how many people it was killing,

was Milan. I happened to be in all three of those places in that one to two week period of time when all of this started popping. So I was in Seattle and suddenly you began to hear stories about people in retirement homes that were getting sick and dying, and then people not wanting to go into the retirement homes and trying to figure out how to get the people out of the retirement homes. And you were scratching your head, going, man, this is bad. What happens if

this spreads? And it did. And then I went to New York. I'm sure enough just that one event and that one particular temple, and then how that reached out instantly, and You're like, oh my god, this thing is highly contagious. This is a problem. And then literally the day I went into Blan, we had a meeting with the mayor and the Olympic Committee and the meetings get canceled. We're sitting there in the square outside the Great Cathedral in the center of Balan, and they closed the cathedral down.

Now I'm a Catholic boy and grew up in a church and went to Catholic school, and I know when they start closing the churches down, there's trouble. And so I'm like, this is not good. And so as we immediately changed plans and went to the airport to try to get back home. The airport started shutting down and they were taking everyone's temperature, and by the way, it was not a real exact science on how they were testing people and taking temperature, and so you looked at

it and said, this is a shit show. They don't have this figured out. This this isn't working whatever they're trying to do. And by the way, they don't really have a method of trying to figure out who might be sick and who might not be sick. And they're putting all these people on airplanes. This is a disaster. And that's when I knew. I came back home and told my wife, this is the most serious problem we

will ever experience in our lifetime. So I was on the front line, and I'm like, I'm really really worried about this. So I called up a friend of mine who happens to be one of our best partners at ubs Irene in New York with us in the Islanders, and I talked to the president of the hospital and said, Michael, what is this. Can you help me understand this? And he said, he said, this will be the most contagious, deadly outbreak you will ever see in your lifetime. I

said serious, and he said, this is really bad. And I said, well, explain to me how does this transmit itself? I mean, what's going on here? And we in particular, he told me, we got a massive problem because we people don't understand it. The government thinks it's touching. It's not touching. It's in the air and it's circulating in the air. And I'm like, well, if it's circulating in the air, tell me, how are you doing that with your emergency rooms. And by the way, how's it getting

out of the emergency rooms. If it's circulating in the air, don't you shut those systems down in your emergency rooms. And he said, it's getting into the ventilating system. And he said, Tim, it's circulating through the whole hospital. And he said, we're getting people sick and other wings of the hospital where there are no COVID patients, none of the COVID personnel that are working on those patients because we think it's in the air system and it's traveling

by air. Now, Bob, when I heard that, that was probably I got to say, the most dreadful, shocking bit of news I've ever had, with the exception of the death of some of my family members. I was stunned when he told me that and I said, Michael, if that's the case, we're screwed. I mean, how do I build arenas? And he was the one that said, you got to give some serious consideration to the way you're treating your handling systems and arenas. I'm like, Michael, we

got twenty thousand people in our arenas. Do you understand the magnitude of me trying to figure out how to clean my air up? And he said I do, and you're going to have to figure it out. And that's

when everything changed, Bob. That's when suddenly I had We went back to our engineers and literally after I got off that call, I went back from the advice that Michael and Northwell gave me, and I called my engineers in Dallas that we're doing the air handling system for all of our buildings, but in particular our New York building, are Austin Building and our Seattle building that we're all

under construction. And I said, look, I just had a really smart guy that I trust tell me this thing's in the air and it's circulating and infecting people within the air, which means air circulation. And he got shocked and said, are you serious? And I said, yeah, I think that's what this thing is. Tell me what that means and he said, well, you're not building a system that ultimately deals with that in any of your buildings.

That's not what we're putting in your system. We're bringing fresh air in and we're taking her out, but we're not doing anything ultimately to test the quality of that air or kill anything that's in the air that may be coming or going. You don't have filterization systems like that, and I said, well, he mentioned this scene called MERV thirteen.

He said, yeah, routine is what we put into like emergency rooms and operating rooms in hospital tim It's the highest filterization system you could possibly have to not only monitor your air, but clean it and kill the germs on the spot. I said, well, how complicated is it? And could we put it in an arena? And he said, you can't put it in an arena. I said, well, I think we're going to have to figure out how

to put it in an arena. And to their credit, Ed and his team worked for about two weeks straight round the clock and came back to me two weeks later and said, I think we figured out how to do it, but you're going to have to start fresh with all of your ventilation systems, and you're going to have to build giant, giant plants with this filterization system

and suck everything into this filterization system. And then Tim, You're going to have to figure out how to burn it and kill the germs at a high heat rate. And I'm like, all right, let's figure it out now. The complication, Bob, that came out of that problem for Steve Collins, who's my president, develops all of our arenas, was profiled to try to figure out space and we had to start fresh, and we had to change our plans, and we were in the middle of constructing our arenas

and had to change on the fly. What was even more interesting is the MERV thirteen filterization system they were proposing to add to our HVAC system was driven by ultimately gas that would come in and burn and kill the bad guys to the grums. But the problem with that is I happen to have a carbon neutral arena in Seattle. We don't use gas. We use solar power

and electricity. And went back to the engineers and said, I can't put gas in there, and he said, there's not enough electrical power in order to generate the kindy heat you're going to have to generate to kill the bug, and only gas works. And I'm like, ed, You're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to make it work through electrical power,

because that's all we're pulling into our arena. We pulled our gas lines out already, so Bob, halfway through building what became Climate Pledge Arena, we made the pledge to be carbon neutral, and I pulled all my gas lines out and we went one hundred percent of the energy that we utilized at Climate Pledge Arena the solar powered energy.

So we had to refigure not only do we have to rebuild our systems, we had to go back to the engineers and refigure out how to get enough heat in order to build a bad the germs without using gas. So it was just that, I mean, honestly, I'm so proud of our team that we were able to turn on a dime like that and come up with new ideas and new ways to keep our people at our

arenas safe. And then we had to go do what everyone else had to do, which is how do I create bubbles, how do I ultimately, And it was funny when I talked to Michael and Northwell, he said, you know those guys, those Ghostbuster guys you have going in and spring your seats. He said, it's Olbs. Said it doesn't work, said go send them all in. He said that that doesn't it's Timiate's not touch it's here, And

we had to rethink everything we were doing. So then we pull calls together, Bob, back to your question, and we'd have our arena Alliance and the twenty nine arenas on there, and we brought these experts on and said you need to hear this, you need to understand what

we're learning and what we're dealing with. And they were all shocked, but to their credit, a lot of them, for example the State Farm Arena and Steve and his team down there, unbelievably diligent at how they jumped in and dove into this to try to learn what it is we're dealing with and how do we correct it.

And so shocking moment, but an absolutely brilliant moment because, as is typical for our industry in particular, we shared, we communicated, we explored, there was no territory whatever we learned, we shared with everybody else, and then we went out and we tried to deal with the politicians and warned them what we were dealing with and asked them for help.

And the only request we ever made to Washington was can you give us subsidies to help us pay for the systems that we're going to have to now re engineer and redeploy and all of our arenas. So this is millions, tens of millions of dollars in some cases that we're all going to have to spend. Can you help us? They didn't. So proud of the industry that we rolled up our sleeves and again not only found creative solutions, but we paid for ourselves.

Hires me because that's where our industry started, and to this day we still use many of the architectural designs and the genius of that particular building and everything that we do on every design and every building we go develop.

And so I spent time there, and then we also went to the Vatican and saw the genius of the architects and the artists that that took the the great parts of the Vatican and including the Grand Cathedral and the Systeine Chapel, and just looking at Michaelangelo and some of the people that ultimately were responsible for thinking through the way that they designed that chapel and the way they they they thought about architect and they thought about paintings,

and they thought about finishes, and they thought about the experience that people have when they go through those places like the Colosseum. It really is shocking, and every time I go there it changes my view of arenas. But what you begin to understand is from there, from those two buildings, ironically came huge inspiration, huge knowledge, and a huge amount of what affects our industry today was really

started with the Colosseum in particular. So there's thousands of arenas around the world, but if you really talk about our e industry, there's probably two hundred and fifty of these things, right, So it's kind of crazy. It's a very big world out there, and there's billions and billions of people on the planet, but there's only probably two hundred and fifty arenas that I would consider to be

an A class arena, and even fewer stadiums. And when you think about, in particular in our country, the demand that is created in stadiums with the NFL are Major League Baseball, and then the rest of the world this little sport called football soccer, and the impact that's had. What we forget, especially in North America, is we have lots of new arenas and new stadiums, brilliant stadiums like

Sofar and Allegian. But then as you get into Europe and even more in particular when you get into Africa or South America or Asia, there are very very few new arenas right now. And so in the last couple of years when we've opened up seven, we've opened up the only seven that have been built in those two years. So it was OVG with seven arenas and no other arenas were getting built, partially because of COVID. So what you realize is thousands of arenas. Most of them aren't

very good, most of them are very old. There are hundreds of arenas that are kind of driving our industry as we know it today, but there are not very many arenas like we have in North America and the

rest of the world. It is pretty shocking. But therein lie is the opportunity, which is we're going to see a huge explosion and a huge opportunity to build these world class arenas and take what we've learned here on how to build them and the technology and the acoustics and the experience in the premium and now transfer that and be able to take that with us everywhere we go in the world. And if you don't think the industry is changing, then go look at what Jim Donald's

building with the sphere, because it's revolutionary, it's masterful. I don't know how the hecky came up with all of this, not sure how the hell you pay for it, but what I know is he's going to change our industry forever, and the minute that opens up in September, we will

never be the same. And so thousands of arenas, most of them highly outdated, most of them in effective compared to where the customer expectations and conveniences, the artists expectations and conveniences, the technology, the acoustics, the engineering, the demand is going to be immense for new arenas going forward, and we keep on reinventing the experience. So we spent one point one billion on Climate Pledge, Jim spending billions of dollars on the sphere, Steve Baumer spending billions of

dollars on the indto an arena. And if you look at how quickly it's changing because of technology, and you look at how quickly it's changing because of the customer experience, just things like engineering and acoustics and led, we're in. We're in a revolutionary moment in time. So even though there's thousands of arenas, there's very few new arenas outside of North America, and yet the demand has never been greater.

And I think you're going to see the greatest amount of development of arenas in the history of the industry in these next twenty years.

And if you do have a multi yet use building, how do you make it a good experience for concerts?

AG and I'll put that's my fault. And so we ended up selling the forms of the Church. The church then sold it to Jim, and Jim was very intelligent about coming in and realizing, how do I go create the same experience that we created at the Garden for music with a low ceiling, great acoustics, get rid of the signage, get rid of the scoreboard. I don't care about sports. We're not going to do sports. I don't care.

We're not going to have an ice plant. We're not going to do hockey, We're not going to do basketball. I don't care about any of that. We're just going to be phenomenal at music. And he spent a couple of hundred million dollars and from that, by the way, came the Sphere. So if you ask Jim Dolan, what he'll tell you is what they created at the Forum spurred him on to the thinking that eventually is the Sphere. And if when the Spear opens, I encourage everyone to

go see it. It is a absolute you want to talk about, an entrepreneurial spirit and an entrepreneurial moment. God blessed Jim for what he's done there. It is going to change our industry forever. And so the great debate that came out of that. So and by the way, it's a debate I have with Jim. So Jim tells me you you never build another arena, you should only build spheres, and I'm like, well, I get it, but you know I can't afford to bill spheres. I got

to figure out a way to pay for it. Because, by the way of the seven arenas we built, we didn't take one penny from the public sector on any of those seven arenas, and most of the arenas we built and then gave back to the city. So we privatized everything, which means we had to pencil this out and figure out how naming and right sponsorship, premium ticket sales, food and beverage, parking can pay for the privatization of

these particular buildings. In some cases, Seattle is an example, You're going to build one arena, and you got to make it work for hockey, and you got to make it work for basketball. When we get the NBA back, but you got to make it perfect for music. And that was the problem up there. So not only did the Old Key Arena kind of have that huge roof that was kind of a pyramid at the top of it, so the sound of a concert would go up into the roof and bounce around a few times and then

bounce back down. It was I always use to tell people Earl's Court is my favorite place to go for a concert because I get to hear the band three times because the first time and then the second time with the echo. On the third time the echo from the echo. And so we had to go recreate the music experience in Seattle. And what we did is we learned from the forum as well, and from an engineering standpoint, we figured out how to build clouds in our ceiling

with acoustical treatment and drop them and have panels. So in Seattle, our panels open and close based on where we know music is coming from and the sound and the reverb and the base compared to where sports noise comes from. And so in a very can they both work together and be aligned. They can't. And here's how you do it. So if you think about creating the

graized environment humanly possible for sports. And you think about the crowd noise, which is what you want to amplify and keep in the building so that you create that wonderful environment and so many great sports facilities. You understand that that crowd noise comes from the bowl, not the ice, from not the cord, It comes from the bull. So as that crowd noise goes up, you want it not to be trapped and killed in the roof. You want it to bounce in the roof and come back down.

That's what creates that intimidating experience in many arenas today. But for concerts, you do want to kill it. You want to trap it and take make sure there's no echo, no reverb. And that means you've got to build acoustical systems and your roof and your walls and anything that's a surface that stares at the speakers. And so our engineers came in and figured out a system in the

roof where it allows sports noise to bounce. But they knew where the speakers were going to be positioned with music, and we knew how to take the baffling system and actually kill the noise, the echo and the reverb as that noise is coming out of the speakers. We add the ability to take our acoustical panels and hang them and curve them in a way where they're directed at where the speakers are going to be hung for concerts.

So you can make it work together. You can build a great venue for sports Iubs or by the way, Moody Center or what we did at Climate Pledge and have an intimidating environment for sports, but a perfect environment for acoustics. And for me, the greatest critic in the world on acoustics are the artists, because they got to live with it and they're the ones that hear it. By the way, they're the ones that to deal with

bad acoustics more than anybody. And if you talk about an artist that really does care about the experience for their fans, Don Henley is top of the list in my opinion of an artist that really will critique you and give you feedback on good experiences and bad experiences. And the great thing for Don is he noticed in

all of our buildings, including the renovation in Baltimore. He knew the work that we put in there on acoustics because he felt it and heard it on the stage, and he knew the difference in our buildings with the acoustical treatment that Irving and I had committed to compared to other buildings, and so same with Springsteen. He really loved the acoustic He so to one of the great stories in my life. And as I fooled, Sir Bruce, He's been running around in my head for about twenty

five years and I can't get rid of him. So when we open up Staples Center, Bruce agreed to open the building for us, and we were truly honored, because you know, when you're in the business for forty five years, Bruce Springsteen is God. So I'm like, Bruce Springsteen is going to open our building. Coolest thing ever. And we had him for a couple of nights, and Rob White from CAA did a favor and intervened and convinced Bruce to do it for us, and so Bruce came the

first night. Never forget it, and you know, huge success for us. Really cool to have Bruce open the building. And he gets on stage and after one song or two songs, he said, Hey, all you people up there in all those boxes, why don't you come on out and join the rest of us, and I'm like, did he just say that? And then the person I was listening, Yeah, he just said that. I'm like, oh shit, and I

was embarrassed. I'm like, oh my god. And then you can tell he was a little myfthed that there were a lot of people in those suites having parties that weren't part of the concert, and you can't do that to an artist. That's a mistake. And I instantly realized three levels this week. That was the moment I realized I made a terrible mistake with three levels of suites here. I did not think about the artist like I should have.

And so I went to see him afterwards after the concert and thanked him for opening the building, and then he said something to me that has run in my head for twenty five years, which is, you know, Tim, I know you put a lot of love into the building, but I like hot, sweaty holes. And I walked away going jeez. I just got like I'm dressed by the boss.

This is not good, and it stuck with me. So when we started OVG, ironically, the very question you asked has been running around my head all these years, which is, can we build an arena that is phenomenal for music, acoustically perfect for the artists and their fans so that they feel like they're right there next to each other. And can we make it so it's a dominal advantage for the home team for basketball and hockey when you're

going to share the building. Sometimes like Manchester, We're going to build the perfect building for music because I'm going to do one hundred and fifteen nights of music every year, so I don't need to worry about an ice hockey team or a basketball team. But other times, like Seattle, to cover a billion dollar bat, we got to happen an NHL team and we won an NBA team, so

it all has to work. There are very smart people that have perfected this if you are willing to spend the money necessary to build the acoustical treatment in order to make it perfect. And that's what we've done in the buildings. And so when Bruce played, he was very kind and did two nights for us at ubs this last tour. It was the only two nights he did. He did one night every place else, so really cool because he had kind of committed to help us open

the building. But then Covid hit, and he didn't forget us. So remarkable him, John and the whole team at Bruce's came phenomenal. How loyal they are to their fans and to our business. I have huge respect for them for the way they treat people. It's just so refreshing to be with people that are that down to earth and that loyal to the music, the experience, the fans, and the building. And so they came back into two at ubs and they told me the acoustics were perfect. They said,

you did a great job here. Good on you. And they talked about Moody Center and how what a cool experience that was in Austin. And they talked about Climate Pledge and how great that was and how unbelievable that we were able to build a carbon neutral arena. They cared, they actually knew the whole stick. I'm like, God, you guys sound like a walking brochure for OVG. So by the time they got to Baltimore, he was going to play the baseball stadium and instead did us a favor

and they helped us open the arena. They were one of the first nights in the renovated arena. Because he cared about Baltimore. He cared about us spending a quarter of a billion dollars of a city that some in the media, not you, but some in the media Fox trashed, absolutely destroyed the city, absolutely buried it, absolutely treated the people that are a part of that community with huge disdain for their own political purposes. And most of it

is absolutely untrue. The city is not burning up in flames. People are not being shot when they come out of their homes. Bruce knew that, and he knew that that city had been treated unfairly, and they need people to come lift them up. Our partner in Baltimore, Sparrell and Farrell, talks about steps, giving people that first step on the ladder and helping them get up, and then they're going to go the rest of the way up on their own if you can help them on that first step.

But you got to build the ladder. You got to build the first step. Bruce got it great news as he came in and said, the building's phenomeno and it's amazing what you did here. Good on you because most people wouldn't have taken this chance. Those they prove two things, Bob. First, you can build arenas that ultimately are advanced enough to

be acoustically perfect for concerts and work for sports. And second of all, what a phenomenal industry we all get the chance to work in when you get had those moments, and one, I have stopped Bruce from running in my head for twenty five years finally, and number two, I guess what I learned from them and understood the mistakes I had made, and I vowed to myself I'd never make those mistakes again, and I'd be smarter and better

because I listened to what the artists ultimately want. And so when Don Henley tells me where we're good and where we're bad, I listen because Don Henley, in my opinion, is one of the great artists of our generation. And I care about how he cares about his fans and the experience he wants people to have in an Eagle show. Same with Bruce. I think that's the great thing about our building or our industry, And it's what you ask

at the very beginning, which is the industry shares. The industry will learn from one another, the industry will try to get better from one another. And it's the passion that an artist has that we have that the fans have. If you could kind of combine that and align that together, then great things are going to come out of that, great musical experiences, great venues and stadiums and arenas and festivals.

But that's part of what I think is encouraging about our industry right now, is we are building better arenas and theaters and stadiums. The experiences are ten times better than they used to be, and people are having a lot more fun at our concerts when they come into this environment because we ultimately have figured out how to make it a better experience for them.

The forums of phenomenal experience. We're an artist in their fans. There are no suites, none, right, so everybody's right in that bowl, tight to the artists, tight to the stage, tight to the experience. The acoustics are perfect, there's no bounce back, there's no reverb. That's what I learned is guess what it does matter? And so, okay, you.

We have fifty six weeks total at Climate Pledge Arena, but it's one level and the seats are all out. So we have taken the seats and extended them over the lower bowls, so they actually go into the bowl and the people are sitting out in that experience. And then we tuck the sweeps and the common area, the kitchen area, and the food area. We tuck them back further and kind of hide them. And we only have roughly forty of those on that one level at Climb

to Pledge Arena, so we minimized it. And then we build bunker suites down low. But the bunker suites are completely hidden. You don't see them in the back hallway. And so you come down a tunnel of vomitory by the way from the coloseum, and you walk down that vomitory and you come into the seats down low from

your sweet but they're disconnected. And so what we're beginning to learn is with our clubs, with our suites, with our premium areas, put them on the outside of the skin of the building, put them so they don't disrupt the bowl. Put them so that there's not the hous

and the have nots. Still have premium experiences, bring them out to the seats, but designing it away where the flow of the bull is perfect and you don't have three levels of suites and three levels of glass and three levels of people make a noise where everything's bouncing off of those suites in that glass. So we still have suites, we still have premium. We have four or five thousand premium seats and most of the buildings we're

building today. But what we've done is we've taken the clubs and integrated them into the concourse, not the bowl, and then we use the seating in the bowl as the opportunity to fulfill those commitments for the premium seat holders in great locations. But we don't disrupt the flow of the bowl, the acoustics of the bowl, the experience of the fans by ultimately building three levels of suites.

in London underneath a tent. Crazier building it up underneath a tent and not having the ability to go down because there's a thing called the Thames River are up because the tent is a National Historic landmark, and so it's like, how the hell are you going to go

do that? But it was a daring, bold bat by Phil to provide the money and to the team that we put together to design it and build it stunningly brilliant as to here's an idea, let's build the arena under the tent and create the greatest arena outside of the United States, and we'll pay for it privately and all work. And again there's an old saying Bob I have, which is there are people that want to participate in

the parade. There are some people that want to lead the parade, and then there's a segment of people that just want to pee on the parade. And there were a lot of people that wanted to pee on the O two idea. And everyone was telling us what a mistake this was, and partially why are you building an arena in London? Why are you building an arena in London? It's music specific. There's a Euro's Court, there's the Wembley Arena. We don't need another arena. We're fine. So one night

Irving brings the Eagles over. This is, you know, and a story of my partner, Irving and Tim. There's parts of our life where we were getting along quite well and none were parts of our life where we wouldn't talk to each other and we didn't like each other very much. So we've seen it all. This was good Tim and Irving right. So Irving brought the Eagles over to the old Wembley Arena and I went out to say out of Irving and the band and I'm working

on getting the O two started and built. This is at the very early stages of us making the deal for the Millennium Dome. And I, you know, during the concert, I go walk the concourse to go see, Okay, how are they doing here? How do they do food? How do they And I go up to the one of the stands and I say to the woman, I'll take

a beer, and she goes okay. So she goes back to this like crazy ass antique machine and presses the button and she's pouring twenty four beers at one time onto this machine, and she presses the button and it begins to fill up the twenty four cops. But as she comes away from pressing the button, she hits one of the cups and knocks the half full cup of beer over and immediately panics and stops the points that

puts the stop machine. And now she's sitting there with twenty three half empty cops and she's pondering, well, what the hell do I do now? And so she gets a fresh cup, puts it down where she knocked the old cup over, presses the button and then starts to fill the beer up. But then she realizes, well, wait a minute. The machine thinks I'm pouring a fresh cup of beer instead of a half a cup of beer. And now she's panicked because there's beer running everywhere from

these cops. She doesn't know what the hell to do, and I'm looking at her like, this is the worst time I've ever see. So then she gives me the beer and I drink the beer and I'm like, oh my god, this beer tastes awful. And I realized, first of all, it's warm, and second of all, and I asked her, I'm like, man, I'm trying not to be considered, because you know, after all, they think we're ugly, stupid Americans to begin with, and they were mostly correct. And

I'm like, where where's this beer coming from? She says, Oh, it's you know, the tap room. Says, well, where's the tap room? She says, Oh, it's downstairs. I'm like, are you telling me you got a line that runs from that stupid ass twenty four person, twenty four cup machine all the way through the concrete downstairs to some back of room commissary where you got all the kegs of beer stacked. She said, yeah, and it's not refrigerated, and what I realized is two things. One it was an

absolute stupid way to serve a customer. And two, what happens is those lines that have beer in them get polluted, and there's a lot of bad stuff in those lines, including mildew, because remember there's long periods of time where there's no one in the building and it gets hot during the summertime, and they didn't add their conditioning back in the day at Wembley, and so I realized that this is the worst cup of beer I've ever had in a place where they absolutely love to drink beer.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. We got to fix that. And so the idea of building in refrigerators at every concession stand and serving clean beer where we had a minimal line was revolutionary, revolutionary at the O two and everyone was happy because they were getting a really cold cup of beer, and by the way, they weren't having to worry about a polluted line that the

bear was traveling from. And so we knew we were going to succeed because we knew that the threshold and the expectations were very low, and we were going to do something extraordinary. Ironically, now that we see the evelp back to one of your earlier questions. The evolution of the experience is dramatically different today than it was twenty years ago when we started building the two. So the two is old, by the way, and it's outdated in my opinion, because they haven't put money into it to

update it. So Manchester, why do we go into Manchester where there's an existing arena? And by the way, Manchester used to be and you know this, Manchester was a top five market forever for live ticket sales and the old men Arena was a top two or three arena in the entire world for music. It sold more tickets and did more concerts than any other building in the world, with the exception of maybe the Garden, the Forum and occasionally one of the buildings is in London, but it

was that successful. When we went to Manchester ovg we went through exactly what you were asking about, which is the evolution of the experience and how is it going to change? One have we learned that ultimately could build a better arena and a better experience for artists and fans that fans will pay for. And what we do is the AO Arena was built for fifty six million pounds for the Commonwealth Games. All public, by the ways, is a public building and it was built for sports.

It was never built for music, and they've never put a penny into it since they're just now putting money into it because here we come, and so they're like, oh, we better put some money into it so we could compete. Too late. Can't put a band aid on a gaping wound, not when we're spending three hundred and sixty five million pounds, so call it five hundred million US to build the greatest arena ever build anywhere outside of the US, and

we didn't because the experience in AO is bad. It's not good for the customer, it's not good for the artist. We have multiple artists when we go over to them and say, what is it you'd like us to do back a house at co Op Live that you will love and that will be meaningful for you in the experience. And we happen to have Harry Else who's our partner. Harry has strong opinions on the experience for the artists and for his fans, and he has been actively involved

in the design of the building. And what we know is that our building when we open it up in April is going to be shocking for the industry internationally because they've never seen anything like this, far better, far better than the AO experience. They'll never be able to catch us, no disrespect. It's too good and much better

than the O two. Because we now have twenty years worth of Jim Dolan and the Forum and Jim Dolan and the Spear and Tim Lwiki and Irving Azof at Climate Pledge Arena with Todd Lwiki and David Bonderman and UBS Arena, and Scott Malkin as our partner, the thinking, the new ideas, the new air systems, the new acoustic gold treatment, the new system of creating premium without disrupting

the bull. We have thirty two clubs and restaurants and private spaces at co Op Lives thirty two, but they're all buried on the outside of the building, not the inside of the building. That's why we get twenty four thousand people into that building. And it's a hot, sweaty hall. So when Bruce goes in there and plays it, he's going to look around and go, oh my god, they're all right on top of me. This is fantastic. I love

this experience. We've had twenty thirty years worth of evolution on how to make the experience better, and this is the first arena that's going to be built outside of the United States. Is taking all of that thinking and all of that evolution and now putting it to work. And it's just being entrepreneurial, listening to what people want, trying to understand your competition, and then building a better mouse trap.

the music. In addition, the name keeps changing. Is this just a giant middle finger to at the fans because not everybody goes regularly. They don't even know where the alls. I mean, even in this business we use, some of these names changed so much you can't remember what city. Just to add a little add on to that, a number of these buildings are sponsored by companies that have a short shelf life, they've gone bankrupt or they're crypto companies.

In some cases, the arena got paid, there was an advance, et cetera. So what's really going on in the whole naming right sphere.

It's presented by Chase, and he actually makes more money off the Chase deal than almost any other naming rights deal in the entire industry. But it's still called the Garden. Some names are they flow naturally. The O two worked out extremely well and it's still called the O two, So good on them for that. That has created a great brand and a great experience and a massively intelligent investment.

Because I always used to tell Matthew, who we made to deal with for the two in London, Matthew, if they think you named your company after the arena, that is a really good bet. And they do. They think they named a telecomt company after the arena in London. That's how successful that partnership's been. That's a great partnership that works for the fans, works well for the city, works well for O two, and worked well for ag Climate Pledgerina got to give Amazon a whole lot of credit.

It's one of the largest naming rights ever done in the business. And you don't hear the Amazon name anywhere. It's their commitment to sustainability and carbon neutral so they call it Climate Pledgerina, and by the way, was voted the best facility in the world last year, in the entire world. And that's with so Far and Allegiance Stadium and the others that were up for the award at

the same time. Huge commitment and statement about not only Jeff Bezos who drove that decision, but Amazon and Andy Jassey, the CEO, for their commitment towards sustainability. That name works extremely well. Ubs Arena works extremely well. It's a good name. It rose well. They're headquartered in New York. Made all the sense in the world. Moody Center again, we got lucky. It's a not for profit foundation based in Austin. Wanted

to do something great for the city. Appreciated ourselves in Live Nation spending three hundred and fifty million privately with Matthew mcconaugheyt and wanted to do something to do to be a part of that, and so they wrote a massive check for twenty years, so it's a twenty year guaranteed deal. They paid upfront and they we never had

to change that name for twenty years. And the Moody Center is not only a very well known name because the family's from Austin, and there are other things on the campus and into the city named after Moody, but the Moody Center has a great ring and a role to it, so it works out well. Sometimes it's it's

not a natural kind of fit. Acrosuur Arena. Acrosture is based in Michigan, but the president owner very smart about trying to create a brand that he wants to get more momentum for as he grows, the company doubles and triples in size. So we saw a great buy in Palm Desert because it was Irving and OVG and Tim and he knew we'd do well. We'd go get Harry Styles, and we'd go get the Eagles, and we'd go we'd

get Paramore and sell it out. And so he made a bet on us at a rate card that is a fraction of what these other people are paying for some of these name it rights. And it turned out to be great for acrature and great exposure, and they're ecstatic. So you got to be smart, you gotta be clever, You got to find good partners. You got to try to make it last. I don't find any joy and changing staples out to Crypto or FTX coming and going

in a matter of a couple of years. That's tough for the brand, it's tough for the building, it's tough for the city. But they are a necessary evil on in particularly the privatization of these facilities now and so stan Kronki spent five point five billion dollars building Sofi Stadium. He deserves to be be able to put a naming rights on there and try to recoup some of his money. And I think the name worked well for San and

for the Rams and for Los Angeles. It's a great name and people refer to the stadium in as Sofi Stadium. So it's a tricky business. You got to find the right companies, You've got to make sure it stands the test of time. We're just now beginning to go out and talk about our new arena we're going to build in Las Vegas and the naming rights partner there and we want to do the right thing. We want to make sure that it's the right partner that could last a long period of time and that the name rings

well and rings long. But that one's tricky because we're not the first arena in the marketplace. And it's tricky because we don't have an anchor tenant. If the NBA wants to expand, we'll go after it, but we'll see what happens. I think it'll be years before they make that decision. So when you price it at who do

you go get that has longevity? If you get a team after you open, then what do you do with the naming rights and the value and by the way, will they support the team and so tough business, complicated business now and it's not like there's a million companies out there that can afford to buy naming rights.

with them, and by the way, love them. They're awesome partners. We don't go make a big bet without them, so we're aligned. We see everything the same way and if we don't do it, that's the deal. They've been They've never told us no, so they've been phenomenal. They've invested a lot of money in our company. Irving and I

have put money into our company. They put more, they have more, and so we ultimately went for a long period of time with the company where we actually didn't have any debt on the company itself and just recently put some debt on the company because the company is growing and we're out acquiring things. So we bought Spectrum from Comcasts a couple of years ago. That got us into the facility management business and the food and beverage business.

And we didn't think the food and beverage brand and the way we did food and beverage with Inspector our OVG was great. So we kept on buying additional food and beverage companies, including most recently a company called Rubarb that's the best food and beverage catering company I've ever seen. And so we are trying to figure out a way to continue to grow, trying to figure out a way to be the best service provider for all of the needs of an arena. So we're in the food and

beverage business. We sell naming rights through OVGD Global Partnership. We sell our own sponsorships through Global Partnership. We have one hundred and fifty people that sell in Global partnership.

We have our own parking company, we have our own facility management company, we have a sustainability company, and so unlike the rest of the industry, we actually have a group of people that do nothing but figure out how to have a more sustainable operation for all of our buildings and created a company called Goal with a Fenway Sports and our friends at State Farm Arena in Atlanta that are our partners, and we track how you operate a building one quarter to the next and whether or

not you're more sustainable the next quoter than the last quarter, and then we grade everybody and we publicize those grades so everyone knows if you truly have a commitment to sustainability, not on how you design it. That's leads, but that's not what's going to stay in the earth. It's how you operate it. So we have our own sustainability company, We have our own special event company. We have our

own food and beverage and catering company. So we have fourteen different service companies now that we build and those service companies they provide all of the knowledge and all of the outside help that we need when we bring in outside people for the purpose of operating our buildings. That's all under OVG. Pardon me, you can hear I've

been traveling too much. That's also part of the core business, which is our own and operated and the equity we put and the seven arenas we built today and the eight more arenas now we have under development somewhere in the world. And then we have probably four hundred accounts where we manage arenas, convention centers or food and beverage for facilities. And we're committed to growing, and so we'll double in size here in the next couple of years.

quick spin. My daughter is one of the key executives here. She's hopefully going to inherit this company and run it. She's good at it and I'm proud of her. She's earned it. My executives are committed long term, and so when you look at Chris Granger, where you look at Dan Griffiths, or you look at Christina Song who's our general counsel, or Steve Collins who's the president are Development, and you look at the group we put together, this group's going to operate this company for a long period

of time. My executive committee average age is in their forties. By the way, the majority of my executive committee or females. We're diverse, and I'm proud of that. Our new CFO just came on and is minority, and he's fantastic, and he's young. He's in his forties. So we're built to be long term. We're built to be private, We're built to be generational, and that's what we intend on doing. And we took Spectra when we bought it. We've doubled

in size in our first full year. We'll double again in the next two years, and that's what we're going to do. We're entrepreneurial, we see outside the box. We're not afraid to take risk. We're very driven. We love building this company, we love operating this company. We have no intention of selling it. We will always own it, at least as long as myself and Dudley, my dog, are alive.

success is not because of their failure. We can both succeed, and we both will succeed. They they're they're owned by an investment firm in Toronto, a good investment firm. I knew them when I ran a police sports and entertainment. They're very good and we very much like Jerry Schwartz and the people that run that company. But Onyx is they're gonna they're they're gonna buy it, they're gonna build it, and then they're gonna sell it. That's what they do.

That's the difference between having silver Late that invest in my An Irving's company compared to having an investor that owns your company. They're going to spin it at some point or another. So does it shock me that they're for sale. No, but that I don't know that for a fact. I don't tell them how to run their company. I used to have that privilege. I don't anymore. I kind of focus on our company. So we're going to stay focused on our company. We're going to win thirty

of the next thirty three bits we go make. We're going to build eight new arenas. We're going to continue to buy food and beverage companies. We're going to continue to create new genius. I hope service companies like Goal and that all of this focused on us and what makes us unique and different than everybody else. I own seven arenas, Irving and I own seven arenas. We understand how to run arenas. We understand how to build arenas. We understand how to book arenas. We understand how to

sell arenas. I'm not involved in all the other stuff. We stay focused on our core. But when I go out to somebody and say, let me run your building for you, I looked them in the eye and say, because I am you, I built the arena, I am in the business. I have accountability, I have risk, I have money that I put into this. I get the way you think about what you need out of me as a service company, and I will be much more unique at answering your needs because I have been where

you ben and I walk in your shoes. That's the difference.

He happens to be very fortunate to have a partner and a young man named Jeffreys Off, who I think is really one of the finest young men in the industry, one of the best people in the industry. I love Jeffrey's Off. He's a breath of fresh air and done an unbelievable job on Full Stop. And Jeffrey, at some point or another will probably inherit his portion of this company. And Jeffrey and my daughter Francesca went to school together and get along quite well, see the world the same way.

So we are uniquely set up to make sure we pass us on to the next generation, who happens to get along extremely well. And they're both in the business and Jeffrey's doing a good job with full Stop, and Francesca is doing a good job of trying to run this company. Irving when I need him. He's an invaluable resource because no one understands the business more than Irving. And he's smart and he's good do Irving and I, you know, have we had forty years worth of heavenly bliss. No,

but that's what makes us fairly unique. We've had good days and bad days together. But we're both very emotionally committed to this company and doing something spectacular, and we're both passionate about what it is we're doing, and we're both heavily involved and trying to make this a great company. The difference is I had to get up every day and operate it. That's my job, that's my part of

this partnership. But there is no one to have that is a better partner than Irving when it comes to content and an understanding pipeline and music and how to book our buildings. And he is a huge resource. He is a he is the Encyclopedia Britannica. Anything I need to know about the business, I pick up the phone and call Irving, and he knows that particular issue because

he's experienced that particular issue. He knows everybody in the business and you know there aren't many people that are going to book around Irving.

to do two things very well. Number one, be a good thief and steal other people's ideas and admit it and say, you know, I really like what Jim doo one did at the Forum. It's really clever. He built a acoustically perfect building. I love the technology Jim Dolan is putting in at the Spirit and it's going to change our industry, I admit it. And I spend a lot of time trying to learn from Jim what he's

doing with new technology. You knew stakes at the sphere, so one just go learn from other people and still take those ideas. You don't have to recreate everything yourself. And the second thing is acknowledging that with time comes good decisions and bad decisions, and you could put that to work for you. And so I've been doing this a long time now, and I've made a lot of good decisions, and I've made a lot of bad decisions.

And I remind our young executive team around here come back to me and at least involve me in the conversation, and chances are pretty good. I've been there already and I've done it, and I either did it well or I probably did it poorly, but I did it, and I can at least make that experience work. That's the advantage we have as a company. I am an arena geek. I've spent my whole life doing this. I've built more arenas than anybody in the world, some good, some bad,

but I'm getting better at it. Just time goes on. You know, I'm getting smart in my old age. Finally, Bob, and so the advantage we have with our clients and our partners and our arena alliance. We have twenty nine in the top thirty three arenas in the business that are part of our alliance. And we learned, we are saying as we book together, we buy together, we think together, and we try to act together. We learn from each other and we communicate. Once a month we get on

a phone and talk. Irving and I are still actively involved. We got another call next week and we try to learn with them about how do we operate buildings better, how do we become more profitable? What else can we do to be a better business. But we have a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge. We do a lot of communicating with our twenty nine partners in the alliance. I got seven arenas that I operate, so I can tell them what I'm doing well when I'm

not doing so well. Of the seven, most of them are really good. A couple of them we're trying to get it where we want them to be in or out there yet, but they'll get there. Most of them are doing much better than we thought we're Seattle's one of the high grossing arenas in the world. It's top ten arena in the world. We're really proud of that fact that we build an arena privately and it's one of the top arenas in the world. Now the Moody Center is one of the top arenas in the world.

We're really proud of that building. Very creative what we did there to build an arena on a campus at the University of Texas that the state owns, and we figured out a way to make it work. And so that's unique to have that kind of experience when you're talking to people about managing their building or we have twenty nine partners in the alliance. They respect us because we have put up four and a half billion dollars to build arenas and I'm about to spend another four

and a half billion on eight more. And by the way, I'm going to put eight more in the pipeline as soon as those eight are under construction. So we're we want to have twenty five to three arenas that are the best arenas in the world that we own and operate, and that's we're allowed to do that, right. There's no competitive issues there. That's what I love about our industry is I could have twenty five of the best arenas

in the world, I could sell them together. I could great naming rates, so I could sell somebody at naming rights in one city, but then take that brand and make them sponsors in ten other cities and give them a worldwide reach. They're not going to get any other place. It's impossible to do what we do because we have arenas and some of the biggest best markets in the world. Now I can learn from premium. I could go to companies and sell them premium in multiple arenas in multiple cities.

I can go to artists and ultimately say, come play all my buildings and all of my different markets, and by the way, I'll give you an economic advantage for giving me bolk mass that is unique on what we're building, and we're the only ones that could do it. Now. There is no one that will hit our critical mass. If you think about it, twenty five of the top fifty arenas in this world five or seven years will be ours. No one else could claim that, and no

one else could replicate that. That's the goal, that's the ambission, that's the job at hand. We got a lot of work to do to get there. But that's what we're trying to do. That makes us unique, doesn't make us smarter, doesn't make us better, just makes us unique.

a five year deal. You would give an advance to the building, and the building would come back for more money, and then ultimately the ticketing enter rise would get more years. So what is your belief in feeling about exclusives and how much should the building get in fees? This is dark arts if the average person doesn't understand, but you know, like the back of your head.

could probably be our own ticketing company. But the decision we make of ticketing has a little bit less do with money and more to do with having a system and having a technology that actually works without having to go spend the time and the money to go create it. So at AG I started with Brian Perez on building Access Ticketing and they're still going strong. Into Brian's credit, he's done a good job of building that company from the ground floor. Hard to do, really hard to do.

It's like a black hole. I mean it is. The amount of money you got to spend on technology in order to make a ticketing system efficient is just astronomical. What people don't get about Ticketmaster and the reason we're with Ticketmaster is a couple of things, and it's really simple. They are the best ticketing company in the world. Everyone can sit here and argue, but look, I sell more tickets I think than just about anybody else in the world.

Ticket Master is the best ticketing system in the business, bar none, no disrespectbody else. No one sells as many tickets as Ticketmaster. No one does it as well as they do it, and yes they have their days, but guess what this whole thing with Taylor, that's Taylor. She's amazing. I mean, I don't care what system you use, she'd break it. She's that big. We've never had an artist like this before ever. There has never been someone this young lady is a force of nature that we've never

seen in our industry. And again people will say, what about Elton John, what about this? We've never had a Taylor Swift. She's incredible. She'll break any system out there, guarantee you, because she's that good. With that much demand day to day, every show we put on sale and we put on you know, we've had hundreds and hundreds of shows in our buildings. Ticketmaster's system is highly reliable and they do a good job. So one, I don't want to have to go spend the time and the

money to go create my own system. It's you don't fight a war on two fronts. That's stupid. So if we find a good partner that is best in class, that could do that for me while I spend my time trying to figure out a way to build a great arena, then why wouldn't I do that so I could stay focused on my core business. That's one. Number

two is they've been great partners. Honestly, they're fantastic. When I got a problem, I pick up the phone and Marla and the team there, they are unbelievably responsible back to me. They help me, They help us think. They know how driven we are on technology and a customer experience, and they're very good at trying to make that experience better.

When we had COVID issues and we had four checkpoints, four checkpoints people had to go through to get into our buildings, they came along and they were unbelievably good at trying to help me eliminate wait times because we had people waiting for twenty or thirty minutes weather in some of our buildings because they had to do the COVID test and they had to do security checking, and they had to do tickets waye and it was a problem.

And so I love the fact that the smartest, most experienced, most knowledgeable people in the world happened to also be my best partners, and they're unbelievably good at helping me think through problems. And then finally, my relationship with Live Nation is one that started out of necessity. At first, Age didn't want to work with us, and I get it they I guess, I don't know what I m to them, but they didn't go to Polestar, they didn't

participate in Pollstar. I begged them to ultimately participate, speak, be on a panel, do their own panel, do a keynote anything. They've prohibited their people from going to Polestar, So what was I supposed to do? Irving and I went with Live Nation because I didn't have an alternative, and they accepted us and put their arms around us and made a huge bet on us. Now they look pretty good. So Ticketmaster looks pretty good and Live Nation

looks pretty good because we exploded. I'm never going to forget who helped me start this company. I'm never going to forget the fact they made a bet on us and believed in us to begin with. And now they're my partner on a bunch of buildings. So now they're writing checks with me. So I'll work with any promoter in the business because I'll work with any artist. This

is about the artist period. Every artist should play our building because I'm trying to build the best buildings Irving and I are committed to building the best area has ever built. We want every artist to come experience that We're dedicated to that. That's why I think we'll win is because we have a unique thought process of what does the artist and their fans want out of this experience.

But I'm not going to forget Ticketmaster because they gave me the best system and adopted me from day one, and I'm not going to forget Live Nation because at the end of the day, they were there when I started the company and they've been unbelievable ever since, and they put their money where their mouth is. I have a great relationship with Jamar Seattle. They book our buildings. They've had a pretty good run with us in Austin

and Seattle in particular. I wish they booked the building more, but in time that'll come and so we get on with it. But I love Ticketmaster because it's a good system, and they're loyal people and they've been great friends, and it's the best system in the business. And I absolutely adore Live Nation. Doesn't mean we don't fight every day.

We do, but when I have a problem, I pick up the phone and call Michael or Omar Bob or the team over there, and they call me right back, and we are unbelievably good at solving problems and creating opportunities. They think outside the box like we do. So look, I'm blessed, Honestly, I am so damn lucky to have partners like Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which made our decision much easier. Now doesn't mean, Bob, we don't go press. So I've had huge battles with the leagues about our

security system. We happen to own a security company called Prevent Advisors. It's the best security company and the facility business. We do the Homeland certification checks for Homeland certification on all the facilities. We're the only one that is certified by Homeland Security, so we're certified. We have a system on security that we think is the best system in the industry, and we couldn't get the leagues to allow us to use it in our buildings because that system

wasn't certified. But it takes three to five years to get certification from the US government. It's a bureaucracy, and so we're always pressing for new systems, new technology, new ways to make the experiences better. We'll always look outside the box. We're not wedded to somebody because of an old boys network. We will go explore new ticketing. We will go find new ways to do ticketing. But right now there is no one better than ticket Massart, and

they're doing an extraordinary job for us. Last thing, I don't believe in the secondary tickets companies don't. I don't think they have skin in the game. I've spent Irwie and I have spent four and a half billion dollars trying to build these arenas. I've had the demons come visit me often at night, in the middle of COVID, in the middle of economic stress and inflation and interest rates going up. There's a lot we have to fight through to be successful. As an entrepreneur and as somebody

who is privately financing these arenas. What right do they have to come in? No skin in the game. They don't give us a penny, They don't make the arena better for the fan ar the artists. They don't give the artists any money. So they're not sharing anything with Bruce or Down or Tailor. So they just simply come in and exploit as a middleman. Right, They're just a mentalman buying tickets and then reselling them for a lot

more money, and in particular they're disrupting the system. So the bots the they unleash on early on sale are part of why we see some of the technical issues we see on Giant on sense is because the bots and the technology they deploy absolutely cost having and their middlement. They don't share the money with the artists and they're not sharing the money with the building. Now that's my own opinion. I'm you know, I check my car every

day because i know I'm not their favorite person. But we don't believe that scalpers and the secondary ticket companies have the right to exploit the fans and the artists the way they do without sharing in the risk, sharing in the entrepreneurial spirit, and sharing where the money should go, which is we come to go see Don Henley in the Eagles. That's what I pay money to go see. Why is Don Henley in the Eagles not making a portion of that money like they should?

what a great world to be able to participate. And as a fan, I went to Hide Park is by the way, guests of age thanked them, and what a great experience. They've done a phenomenal job with that counselor experience there, and it just it made me understand how much I love this industry. Is just someone that want that night to go experience Bruce Springsteen. After or I've seen them I don't know eight times this year already, and I walked away. My daughter went with me, and

I said, how great was that? Bruce Springsteen should get the money? He just should, So I see it the way they see it, which means on the manifest when we build a new arena, we have to find in economic balance. Now I gotta go pay for the arena. I've created a better experience for them. And by the way, they're making a hell of a lot more money in my arena than they used to making the old arenas.

So I'm giving them more seats. They could charge more for the seats because the experience is better for the seats and cut I do bonuses if you will, back to promoters and artists to reward them for the number of dates they'll do in my buildings. So what we

do is actually very simple. On my premium seats, I will buy the ticket from the artists, and then the upside for the premium services, for the special food, the special club, the special parking, the special experiences, the right to buy the tickets before the rest of the people get a chance to buy them, so they got predictability. I'm going to keep the upside. I'll give them a little bit of the upside, that's that bonus. But I'm going to buy the ticket from them because they deserve

to be paid for the ticket. We're going to do that now we have to go deal occasionally with an artist that comes on and says, well, I don't want anybody getting a first right to the tickets. I want the fans, everybody to have the first right to the ticket. So we work through that. There are a lot of bands out there that are passionate about that, Kurnel Jam

for example. We figure it out. We take our premium seaholders and say, hey, occasionally, we're going to do the best we can that not every night are we going to be able to guarantee the first right to buy that seat. And so you got to be flexible. You got to understand the ne aedge of the artists. You got to be fair. You should buy the ticket from the artists. We don't buy the sweet tickets because we sell them annually. That's the one place where it goes

to help pay for the building. Every promoter we deal with, and every manager we deal with, and every agent we deal with, they understand that. They get that I'm spending five hundred million on average to build an arena, and the arena's making them a lot more money than they used to make, and it's a much better experience, and the back house is better, the loading is better, the rigging is better. They spend less money coming and going.

They make more money at the end of the night because they could charge more for my arenas because the seats are fantastic. We share, We figure out a way to be partners. We're aligned. We make sure we take care of them and respect them. That's what does get me wound up about. You know, those that are making money that don't participate in that alignment, don't take risks, don't make the experience better, and don't reward the artist. That's a problem. But I'm not the problem. I figure

out a way to see it in their eyes. I try to treat them fairly, and I also ask them to remember, I'm spending five hundred million dollars to build this arena. I got to make my money back. Help me do that, and I'll help you and I'll pay you for the tickets.

being a part of our partnership up there. So both of us have enjoyed growing our careers together. We enjoy spending time with each other. We just jointly been on Memorial Stadium and Seattle won that bid, So we owe a huge debt of gratitude to both my mom and dad who have passed. One of our brothers just died and it was sad because he died quickly, and it was an experience that shook both of us because we were with him. He's the healthiest of everybody in the family,

so it was quite shocking. But it shows you how devastating cancer could be because he literally he disappeared in front of us in three weeks. So it was the just one of the worst things I've ever seen, and so we appreciate every day the five that remained. We were installed great work ethic. I didn't go to college because I couldn't go to college. We were doing the

dog paddle. My brother didn't go to college. Todd and I are very unusual to be in the positions and to have the fortunate opportunities that we both had, and neither of us have a college education. But we were very fortunate that our mother and our father, and we lost her mother. I was I think seven or eight years old when she died. But they taught us work ethic, and they taught us how to get up every day and earn your keep, and so both of us are

relentless at living our lives every day hard. We are relentless at trying to be successful. Were relentless on pushing ourselves and our people. But he, in particular builds some of the greatest culture I've ever seen for employees. He does a phenomenal job up there for not just the people that work for the Kracking and for Climate Pledge, but for the fans of the KRACK and the people

that come to that building every day. And I think that's kind of Yes, we kind of had to fight when we were young and went through some really tough times, but I think that installed within us a character and a work ethic that hopefully still at our core value today.

Todd and I learned how to sell. But he bounced a lot, and you saw him deteriorate as a you know, that takes a huge toll on this. The next wife died of cancer, so he went back to back and we lost our mom and our step mom to cancer, and so that that changed him and he was never the same, and thank god he didn't. You know, quite frankly, that would have driven most people to abuse their life, and he didn't. He got up every day and worked hard.

But it he lost confidence, and he lost hope, and he lost ambition, because you can't go through life and take two gut punches like that and not have it affect who you are as a human being. But he didn't let the demons get him, and I have a deep appreciation for the fact he lived till his nineties and he never let the demons get him. Meant the rest of us Again, the dog paddles in the middle

of the lake. I was very committed and attached to my mother, And then I'd say I was a disciplined young man, and I worked two or three jobs at all times in my life. When I was growing up, I'd get up early in the morning and work at a bakery, and then I'd go from the bakery to a deli. And so I always worked hard and I didn't cause a lot of havoc and a lot of trouble. And I say that for my later years, and now I'm making up for being a good kid, I guess,

so it all averages out. But lucky that those values also give me a wife of thirty plus years and a daughter I'm really proud of who has chosen to go into business and two grandsons, and the oldest grandson, who's eight, wants to go build arenas for a living.

And so it's a full circle. And I've been blessed, and I'm very fortunate that I learned a lot of tough lessons early on that have come in and I hope given me other opportunities later in my life that have overcompensated me quite frankly for some of the early challenges.

I could have gone to college, but I was working, and I had to work. I wasn't living at home. I was living on my own and I had to go work, and I was working two jobs. And then I started with a company called New England Life, which is a very old, conservative, established life insurance pension investment firm out of Boston. And you had to be twenty one years old. Somebody had to recommend you into the company.

You had to have a college education. I didn't have two of the three, but I had somebody that really believed in me, called Bill Whitney, and he spoke up and said, we got to bring this kid in and let him do the internship program. Stanley. He's only twenty years old, but there's something about the kid. They did. And then I was a Rookie of the Year. And my third year of doing that and beginning to have success, I went to work for an indoor soccer team. I

was the number two employee. The number one employee got caught doing something he shouldn't have done, and I became the number one employee and became the president like twenty one or twenty years So wait, wait.

this is really interesting. And I grew up in a family that liked sports and enjoyed sports, and they offered me a job and I decided to take it. And so ironically, the Saint Louis Steamers averaged about eighteen seventeen thousand people, and I ate our first year shocking. So we sold out the Czecherdome. The Blues were there, and the guys that ran the Blues thought we were a circus, and I said, I know, and everybody loves the circus.

You don't get it, do you. We were unbelievably successful, and then I got hired at the age at twenty five to be the president of Baltimore Blast, which is my passion for Baltimore. We sold out pretty much every game there and did well. And then went to Kansas City and we created the comments and did extremely well there.

the time. Except Geentenheimer was our keeper. I remember him quite well. And then we had another kid named Alan Mayer, and we brought him in during the summer and said, look, we're going to we're going to work. You're going to help me go out and meet everybody in this community. And every weekend we'd go to every festival and every fair everywhere in Baltimore and Maryland, and we do beat the goalie. And by the way, I was the third goalie, so we'd rotate, so I'd give them a break and

I wouldn't let the kids score on me. That was the difference. I'm like, no one's scoring on me today. We met thousands, tens of thousands of people and turned them into Blast fans because we got to know them and we got to build a relationship. And then we did a thing in Saint Louis, in Kansas City and in Baltimar called Introductions, which no one had ever tried before. So I was working with my brothers in Kansas City, but in Saint Louis and Baltimore, I did Introductions. So

in Saint Louis we created a song. We stole a song called Ain't No Stopping Us Now, and I created a light show with mirror balls and I'd turn out the lights and I'd use small because we were the steamers, so we came out of steam and I made it a show. And then in Baltimore we did Diana Ross

I'm Coming Out. I made it a bigger show. And by the time we got to Kansas City, we were absolute, like perfect at producing the circus and we were the circus and we created a ten minute show in an introduction where every night we do a different piece of music and I'd orchestrate a different special effect from fireworks

to mirror balls, to smoke to lasers. And one day, true story, We're sitting at lunch in Kansas City, my brother and I and the bus boy comes up and I'm looking at this kid and he says a few words and I'm like, has anyone told you you look exactly like Michael Jackson And he says, oh, yeah, I do a Michael Jackson imitation. I said, well, can you show me? So right there in the middle of the hind it where we're having lunch, he is the middle. I want you to come see me after your shift today.

He came down to the Kemper arena and I said, do you sing? And he sings a few songs he is Michael Jackson. Like, my god, I've never seen anything like it. We put him in the pregame show, so we do some Michael Jackson music. Introduced this young man. He's out there in the middle of it, and he's so good that everyone thinks it's Michael Jackson. I'm like, yeah, Michael Jackson is doing the opening of a Kansas City comments,

believe what you will. He became a sensation. We actually everyone would show up ten minutes, had a tip off to see the pregame show. Sixteen thousand people every night, and we became a sensation. That was really the first time you saw introductions in sports, and it was the beginning. And then I think the bulls and Steve Shamwald came

in and did an even better job. God bless him with Manford, man of the Earth being if I'm not mistaken, and so we were perfectionists though, and I'd literally go create a new ten minute pregame show every night, and I'd hire people. I brought it in a kid's choir one night to do the course for Kenny Loggins. I'm

free and we'd coreograph it and rehearse it. And I had these special effect guys that were stagehand guys for and Roll, and I said, I want to create a rock and roll show every night for ten minutes before we introduced the players. It was going along swimmingly until one night the mirror ball he forgot to turn the crane off and it hit the top of the ceiling busted and came down on the floor and almost took out my entire team, But we had a good time.

It was a life lesson. I'd learned how important it was to put on a show. And also we kind of ran temper arenas, so we got to get into the rock and roll business and we were promoters. So that's what got me into arenas, and that's what got me into music, and that's what got me into eventually promotion.

had ever invented. Bill Musselman believed in running out the shot clock every possession and if a player tried to score too quickly, he'd bentioned. It was like, oh, this is god awful. But we sold twenty seven thousand tickets a night, and then we moved into the new Target Center and helped build that. Although that was not my

favorite building, it's amazing it's still there today. They needed a new arena in Minnesota, the timber Will snow it and then spent four years there and then hired as the youngest president in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets and came in and resurrected that franchise from near bankruptcy,

and then we had great success on the court. Bernie Bickersteph was the general manager and Danis was the head coach, and we had the mutumble mathon Zoellis and a group of kids that were fantastic, and we made it all the way to the Western Conference finals, I think in our third year, and that's where we created the Pepsi Center at the time, so I negotiated the deal to build a new arena and we decided to do it

privately and it became the Pepsi Center. And then I went from there to a thing called the La Kings and it became ag.

a terrible team that didn't have a philosophy. We had just traded away the greatest player in the history of the game and Wayne Gretzky, which was stupid, and we had to build it from there, and I ended up having to fire everybody and bring on a whole new staff. And I didn't know anything about hockey, so I had to teach myself the game, and I wasn't very good

at it, by the way. At first we made a lot of mistakes, but then we Phil partnered with a guy named Ed Rosky, and I got to know ed Rosky, and ed Roski's the guy that created the genius behind LA Live. That was Ed's vision, not mine, not Phills, that was Eds. But we took it and ran with it as I said. We took a good idea and said, Okay, I get it. Let me go try to make this happen. Forged an unbelievable partnership with doctor Buss. He put me under his wing and I learned about naming rights and

premium seats and showtime. I was the only non Bust member on the board there for a very long time and got to watch genius at work. We won. I still have I think five or six championships and rings from my time with the Lakers. Loved Genie Buss, loved the Bus family, loved doctor Buss. He taught me more than anybody I've ever been around in my life and

was an unbelievably good partner. We were highly lucky with Staple Center that we had two kids named Shaquille O'Neil and Kobe Bryant, and we won championships, and then when they slowed down, the King started winning championships in twenty twelve and twenty fourteen and won Stanley Cups. So we were blessed by the Lakers in the run they had and Jerry West and Phil Jackson. Amazing to be around those gentlemen and learn that literally from doc Bus to

Jerry West, to Phil Jackson and just watched them. They taught me a lot about how to win, and I use that in order to help the King win and helped the Galaxy win, and we grew as a company. We bought the only Galaxy. We built the Home Depot Center, and then we went out and I got a little English lad named David Beckham to come to the league

and to help us change the league forever. And then we got into the promotion business and decided to do concerts and became the second largest promotion company in the world and bought We were lucky. We found a partner and a young man named Paul Tillett, and became partners in Coachella and then created the festival called stage Coach.

The Eagles were our partners on Stage Coach originally, and we grew from there, and we jumped into Randy Phillips and j Marciano got us into things like Hyde Park. We built new arenas in London, and built a new arena in Berlin at the Wall, literally staring at the wall our first night we had Metallica opened the building for us, and five thousand people protested and I couldn't understand it. It's like, wait a minute. We privatized the building, built it for free. We hired all these people. We

brought in Metallica to open the building. What are they protesting? And they said, they're just protesting. They don't care. They just wanted to come together and protest you because they can. So we built arenas in Shanghai and other places around the world. It was an unbelievable experience. Philly Anshuts is to this day someone I highly respect for the risk and the money he gave us to go build that company and get into all things that he probably would look at me and go, what the hell are you

doing here? But it was an amazing experience in an amazing twenty years, and we enjoyed every moment of including building what became the most important entertainment district in the industry, LA Live and showing what you could do. I remember when we were debating building Staples Center and getting approval, and remember we priva sized it, so we built the

arena ourselves privately. Mister Anshuts and had Rosky paid for that out of their own pockets, and in the debate to get entitlement there was a council the named Joel Wax, and Joel was opposing us because he could. He was Piston on the parade and Joel would hold these public meetings and be showcases. And as I learned at the time and now it's my other favorite, saying every city

has cave people, which is citizens against virtually everything. And so they all came out, and Joel brought in this professor from the University of Chicago, and he said, sports facilities do not make an economic difference. Sports facilities don't create jobs. Sports facilities will have zero impact on the future of urban growth in a community. And there's no reason to get these guys the entitlement they want because

they won't help the city. They'll hurt the city. And I remember getting up after the guy spoke and said, I cannot believe this man is teaching our kids. We have a serious problem. Turns out, I think Staple Center

saved downtown Los Angeles. And when you look at downtown Los Angeles, to the credit of ed Rosky and the vision he had, it dynamically changed a city that no one wanted to live and no one wanted to work, and then no one wanted to come down and play in and LA Live and the investment that happened the JW. Marriott and the Ritz the Convention Center and turning that back into something that was an important, dominant convention center

in the industry pretty amazing. And then my favorite part of my favorite thing is the Grammy Museum that we built there and a wonderful gentleman that also adopted me, Jerry Perncio, giving us the grant to help build that thing, and moving the Grammys downtown and being a part of the lure of Staples Center, and changing lives, hopefully of thousands and thousands of kids because we put music back into schools at a time when they were the first

damn program everybody was yanking out of the curriculum. So really enjoyed LA Live and enjoyed AG, enjoyed AG Presents, and it was a fascinating time. But eventually, when you have two people that are a bit polar opposite, which Phil and I were politically and in a lot of other ways. And by the way, it was his company and he felt like I didn't respect that he was probably right after twenty years, I forgot that he wrote

the checks and he owned it. And so I respect that now as somebody that owns the company and has taken the financial risk that we've taken here, I get that and so fortunate that I get a chance to go build my own company with Irving and our executives here and my daughter and Silberly, Okay.

not have a conflict. If I would have started OVG that first year. My guess is it would have been a bigger fight between the two companies because that that was really rubbing, and out of respect to Phil, he treated me well at AG for most of the years and he gave me a great opportunity, and so I wasn't going to go pick that fight. And I had to get out of LA and let him go do his thing. And by the way, they have a hell

of a company today. So I went to Toronto. Larry Tannebon was kind enough to convince me to come up there, and I quickly realized they were definitely afraid of winning. Crazy, right, we're in the sports business. We should get paid to win and that's all we should think about. They were afraid to win, didn't know how to win, and had too much pressure on them. I remember going to one of my first soccer games for the Toronto FC and we're in this it was a sweep and I called

a nutri suite. It was a sweet substitute and I said, I'm going to go outside and sit outside and I said, don't do that. I'm like, why not? I said, well, the fans are going to help you and throw things at you. And I said, well, first of all, we deserve it, and if I was a fan, I threw rocks at me based on the way you guys have run this franchise. We stuck, so let them have that me and it'll make them feel better. And sure enough they did. They hurled stuff at me and insulted me,

and I'm like, you're right, I get it. We're going to switch it. But it taught me about kind of how they just respect. They forgot about the fans. So we came in and we rebuilt the organizations. Was. I was there roughly four years, so two years full time in two years where I was allowed to do both jobs. It was. It was actually a lot of fun. Met great people, had a great staff, great organization. Stolen me Si you Jerry from Denver and he came in, was

the president. Stole a kid a kid. Then Tim Vezbachenko from MLS and he became my president. We won championships with TFC. We went and got Giovinco and he came in and toured the league up Michael Bradley. So we had a lot of fun with the team and that team changed the league in a iamic way and we were winning championships and having fun there and then Messa.

I won a championship with the Raptors that I was fortunate enough to be a part of at the end there, and you know, I still think they're going to win a Stanley Cup. I hired Brendan Shanahan to be the president there, and I think they're on the right track and will win a Stanley Cup here. So I enjoyed winning. That was fun. Championships are fun. That culture was fun.

We became much more aggressive at music, had a good joint venture with Live Nation, made music a much higher priority in the building, built a new training center for the Raptors, built essentially a new stadium for Toronto FC, and great owners with Rogers, Bell and Larry and enjoyed it. But I told them day one, hey, I'm going to do this, but understand, there's going to be a day and time sometime in a five years here where I'm

going to go build my own company. And I just want you to know that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to be here forever. And they knew it. But you know, when I walked in the door one day and said I think I want to go do that, it was hard because we were just starting to win.

So we figured out a way to share, and I bounced between OVG and maple Lice forts and entertainment, and they were kind enough and good enough to allow me to do that for some period of time before we found a successor Do you have any free time or do you just consider work to be play? Where is there some you have down time where you either do something else, maybe you don't want to travel or watch streaming television, read whatever. So it's definitely work is not play.

It's hard. I do like working, I do work hard, and I do really enjoy what I do. But it's hard. It's very hard. We started with four of us at OVG. We now have forty thousand employees, and so it's hard. And we've grown quicker than even I thought we would. You go from COVID to inflation to interest rates to you in Manchester Brexit. Still can't figure out why the hell they did that one. It is just you just

it's not easy to be an entrepreneur anymore. I don't get the politics and most of the places we're at in putting here, I stretched my head saying, what the hell happened here? And we got to deal with a lot of politicians, some phenomenal like in Baltimore, unbelievably blessed. Mayor Scott is fantastic, young, dynamic, great for the city, believes in the city. Governor Moore, He's going to be president one day. This guy is fantastic, just fantastic. It

gives me new hope for our country. There are still great leaders out there that are willing to sacrifice their lives and their time and their families to go make a different and he's going to make a difference. So we were lucky that we get to deal with a lot of good politicians. We you know, in Texas, I wanted to make it a carbon neutral building, and they're

looking at me, going what's carbon neutral? So you know, to each his own, and you've got to adopt, and you got to make sure you're a mirror image the community you're supposed to represent it. We're trying to do that. That's hard work. Traveling is hard work. I just spent three weeks traveling internationally. Hard work. But I look, I get to go to places now. I just came back from Riad. We don't understand Saudi Arabia. We're making a mistake with Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince is going

to change that country. And we have you could have your opinions on the politics there, but he's opening the country realts. You can't wave a switch and do it overnight. And I understand a lot of people on on what happened with the journalists and it's unfortunate. But as some of the people's Honey Arabia said to me, just people on the street when we would talk, and I said, tell me, I said, first, our lives are better. He's opening up society. The quality of life is ten times better.

They're reinvesting, there's less less corruption, they're putting money back into the system. And by the way, look you guys didn't exactly do a great job with the Indians, and so you've got to understand there are moral standards and values each society needs to put upon themselves and then figure that out from within that society. I'm not sure you have the right to go tell us how we're supposed to run this country. And I'm like, I get it.

I understand. I am shocked at the trillions and trillions of dollars they are putting into that country and rebuilding that country as quick as they are and by twenty thirty, Rion is going to be the center of the universe. The airport, the development, the arenas, which you see the arenas they're building there, they're all the charts. I've never seen anything like it. Abu Dhabi, Yes Island, Dubai, That whole world there is just amazing, and it's the center

of the universe. And let's not forget they are right next to India, which is one of the fastest growing, most important countries in the world. They're right near Africa, and Africa is going to be a really critical part of the world and a part of our society that we need to pay attention to. Think of what Nigeria is doing to music today and the artists that are emerging and dominating our music from places like Legos. So we're going to build an arena in Legos because that's

the future. And by the way, that's all centered around places like Rihann and so earth shattering to go learn about the rest of the world. We spend a lot of time in the UK. We hopefully are going to get an arena on the West side of London. One day. We're on another project in Bristol, so we're excited about that.

We just wanted to bid in Vienna, fascinating part of the world in Central Europe because Vienna has about thirty million people that live in and around that region to go to Vienna for their culture and their activity, their sports, their music. It is the birthplace of music in many ways, with great composers that came from that part of the world, like most art. So highly excited about that project. We're excited about San Pollo, thirty million people in Brazil, South America.

You cannot ignore Brazil and the growth of that country and Pollow thirty million people trying to bid in Singapore because we understand that part of the world is growing as well. So the majority of our growth is internationally and that means to spend a lot of time working internationally. That's good news, but it's hard. It's not easy. It's not easy to have forty thousand employees. We got five

thousand permanent employees. We have six headquarters I think six in London and New York and Los Angeles and Austin. It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to try to do this right. We're not always right. We have a lot to learn. We could do better, we will do better. But you've got to be committed and you've got to be passionate, and it doesn't leave

a lot of time for everything else. Do have a family, and they travel with me when they can, love my two grandsons and spend as much time with them as I can, and blessed, I'm the favorite person to play golf with it at my club because everyone could beat me,

so I'm the sure thing. But I do try to get out occasionally and play with some of my buddies and I we have a home still up in the mountains in Colorado, and I love Colorado, and so we're going to open up another office there and I'll have the fortunate working out of there and working out of LA and working out of New York. So my job is my passion. I do enjoy my job. That it's hard, and I'm not that good at golf, so I think I better keep the day job.

That's why sports is still the most valuable commodity and the most valuable asset, and they're going for six billion dollars because you don't know. It's highly unpredictable and a lot of fun. We're partners with the Kracket. We're partners with the Islanders, so we do a lot there. I still have great Genie Buss and Linda Rambis were kind enough to do a preseason game in our arena, and I for sure Steve Baumer, God bless his heart, he's

doing a preseason game for us in Seattle. Adamsilver was one of my best professional friends and relationships I have in the industry. I hope they expand one day. If they do, we're going after it. In Las Vegas and I have phenomenal partners there and we're excited about the possibilities of that ever occurs. So I'm still heavily involved in sports where partners with the greatest sports franchise in

the world today that no one will ever guess. It just astounds me that people don't understand the absolute brilliance of man City. So City Football Group and US are fifty to fifty partners with Harry Styles on co Op Live. I am Manchester and I get to spend a fair amount of time with them and went to the Championship in Istanbul where they got the TRIFECTA huge admire of that franchise and they have where they grossed more money this past year than any other franchise anywhere in the world.

They are the most valuable franchise. We're partners with Fenway Sports and Tom Warner, who's a dear friend, and John Henry, So we were fans of the Red Sox and fans of Liverpool and fans of the Penguins. We run PPG Arena, so I'm partners with the Penguins and we do a lot with them. We're about to announce another partnership in basketball. We're going to be partners with an NBA team, So I am a huge sports fan. I spend a fair amount of time with Gary Bettman on new arenas for

NHL teams. It's the world that we live in. It's you know, we live and die with music, we enjoy sports in between, and I love being a part of that because it moves people. I always like to say the uniqueness of sports is it's the only industry I know where you were the name of the community on your uniform, that's pretty damn unique. I didn't have that at the bakery or the deli.