How AEG leveraged its L.A. fans into a global | Real Estate news

Sports and music fans, flocking to a once-questionable nook of downtown, have been the springboard for an L.A.-born multibillion-dollar empire of venues and occasions for screaming fans around the globe.

AEG, the company behind Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live district, has turned its know-how about internet hosting and selling huge exhibits into a components it has rolled out on 5 continents. It is actually setting the phases for the world’s largest pop stars, sports activities groups and even — most just lately — sumo wrestlers.

It is one of the town’s lesser-known global success tales. With more than 20,000 staff and billions of {dollars} of tasks working at any one time, AEG is one of the planet’s largest venue and occasion corporations. L.A.’s high focus of sports activities groups and musical expertise pressured it to develop a system that makes use of its areas for up to 5 totally different occasions in a day.

“We learned how to be nimble in moving from one to the other to really maximize,” AEG Chief Executive Dan Beckerman instructed The Los Angeles Times.

AEG is prospering by executing a pretty easy business plan, stated Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College. Its industry is pretty easy — and more use of each seat means provides the company more capital to construct more venues.

“You have to pick your niche, have capital, have tenacity,” he stated. “And stick with it.”

Sumo wrestlers bashed bellies this month in AEG’s latest venue on the grounds of a legendary fortress. The just lately opened IG Arena stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan, which was constructed in the early 1600s, when samurai battles raged in the area.

While the summer season sumo event required a conventional ring of sand, clay and rice straw bales, the world shall be soon be remodeled to host such various occasions as a basketball clinic hosted by the L.A. Lakers’ Rui Hachimura, a skilled boxing match and a live performance by English musician Sting.

In Nagoya and more and more across East and Southeast Asia, AEG is doing what it does higher than most — construct arenas that can host professional sports activities and exhibits by big-name artists, with the venues usually constructed within an ecosystem of bars, eating places and resorts also constructed by the company and its companions.

The company was based in 1995 when Denver billionaire investor Philip Anschutz purchased the Los Angeles Kings and in 1999 opened the downtown area then identified as the Staples Center, which was constructed by Anschutz and Kings co-owner Ed Roski.

It was thought-about a dangerous project at the time, when the gritty blocks close to the Los Angeles Convention Center have been deemed undesirable by most real estate builders. AEG added the $3 billion L.A. Live advanced in 2007, and different builders also moved into the South Park district, building resorts, eating places and 1000’s of residential models.

The widespread venues have now hosted 22 Grammy Awards exhibits, a Democratic National Convention, two Stanley Cup championships, six NBA championships and All-Star hockey and basketball weekends.

That high-profile success gave it an edge when competing to construct or buy around the world. AEG has expanded to own and operate more than 100 venues serving 100 million visitors yearly. Among its holdings are the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer workforce and German professional ice hockey workforce Eisbären Berlin. As the second largest occasion promoter in the world, it places on massive festivals including the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and American Express Presents BST Hyde Park music pageant in London.

It has confronted slowdowns and different powerful intervals as effectively.

Its London area was the location of Michael Jackson’s deliberate comeback introduced in 2009. During a period when he was rehearsing for the bodily demanding exhibits, Jackson died.

His mom and three kids sued AEG Live in 2010. The lawsuit alleged that AEG was negligent in its hiring of the doctor who administered the deadly dose of propofol that led to Jackson’s death. A Los Angeles jury unanimously determined that the live performance promoter wasn’t liable in the singer’s death.

“People heard of AEG because of Michael Jackson and the and the subsequent lawsuit from the family,” stated Randy Phillips, former supervisor of music promotions at AEG. “They would never have even known what it is.”

The company was laid low during the pandemic, when dwell occasions have been canceled beginning in March 2020. Venues stayed darkish until effectively into 2021, when AEG began placing on sports activities occasions with no audiences and later with restricted seating. Times modified in 2022 when revenues reached new data as fans stormed back, Beckerman stated.

“We were all very pleasantly surprised,” he stated. “I think people learned during the pandemic that there really is no substitute for live events.”

AEG also misplaced a longtime area tenant when the Los Angeles Clippers moved to a new area in Inglewood after the workforce’s lease at Crypto.com Arena expired in 2024. Owner Steve Ballmer stated he needed the Clippers to have their own home that they didn’t share with different groups.

AEG’s touring business lifted off with a 2001 live performance with Britney Spears at Staples Center.

“The Britney Spears tour is what broke the company wide open,” stated Phillips, who grew to become head of music promotions for AEG after touchdown Spears. “That’s when we became players.”

Big acts adopted including Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Pink.

AEG expanded its U.S. live performance touring empire by building massive multipurpose arenas in Las Vegas and Kansas City. It also is establishing a community of smaller venues such as the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and the Showbox in Seattle. It just lately opened the Pinnacle at Nashville Yards, a live performance corridor that is an element of a mixed-use district including housing and workplaces that AEG and a native associate are developing in downtown Nashville.

Its highest-profile property outdoors of Los Angeles is in London, where the company resurrected a massive dome-shaped building constructed to home an exhibition celebrating the flip of the millennium in 2000. After AEG’s redevelopment of the location, the O2 Arena grew to become one of the world’s busiest venues for leisure and sports activities with 10 million guests a 12 months.

In Berlin, the company constructed the Uber Arena, one of the highest-grossing arenas in the world and half of an leisure district with eating places and theaters.

The Nagoya project is an element of the company’s pan-Asian strategy to grow its real estate empire and create more venues for artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

The United States and Europe, where AEG has long been lively, are largely built-out with fashionable arenas for sports activities and leisure, but many Asian international locations are prepared to improve their outdated amenities.

“Japan is at the top of the list” for AEG, stated Ted Fikre, head of development at the company.

The nation’s venues are usually a long time outdated and pale in comparability to fashionable multi-use arenas usually discovered in the U.S. and Europe.

The IG Arena in Nagoya, with a capability of 17,000, is predicted to yearly host 150 occasions for 1.4 million attendees at concert events, basketball video games and different dwell leisure.

AEG has an even bigger development in the works in Osaka. Plans call for an 18,000-seat area that will anchor an leisure district with resorts, workplaces, outlets and eating places along with housing. Valued at more than $1 billion, Fikre in contrast the Osaka project to its largest mixed-use districts — L.A. Live in Los Angeles and the O2 in London. The project is set to break ground in 2027.

In partnership with the NBA, the company constructed Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai in 2010. It is also concerned in plans for South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.

“The ambition for us is to establish a strong presence throughout the Asia region, and we’ve got a good head start,” Fikre stated.

A panoramic view of L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, July 18, 2025.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

AEG opened a 4,500-capacity venue in Bangkok final 12 months with a live performance by Ed Sheeran. The company is also working with one of Thailand’s largest mall operators to construct an 18,000-seat area in a sprawling regional mall just east of Bangkok, set to open in 2028.

AEG’s community of venues all through Asia makes it simpler to e book big-name artists.

“It’s a bit tricky to tour in Asia because of the expense of traveling around the region,” Fikre stated. “It’s not like you’re in the U.S., where you just take a bunch of trucks” from metropolis to metropolis.

Aerial view of Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live sports activities and leisure district of Los Angeles.

(AEG)

Swift accomplished the worldwide leg of her most up-to-date tour final 12 months that included six nights in Singapore and 4 nights in Tokyo to sold-out audiences booked by AEG Presents as her worldwide promoter. Sheeran performed in Bhutan, India and different Asian international locations he hadn’t beforehand visited in venues booked by AEG.

The worldwide development now works in both instructions for AEG, with Okay-pop acts such as BTS, Blackpink and different global stars packing AEG venues in the West.