Original article published on VenuesNow (06/18/18) by Don Muret

Oak View Group (OVG) has entered into a new partnership with Elevate Sports Ventures and Live Nation/Ticketmaster to sell premium seats for two National Hockey League (NHL) arenas and other venues where OVG has a principal stake in facility development. Officials with the alliance say that Live Nation/Ticketmaster's technology and consumer database should help Elevate establish the right prices for these seats, while OVG notes that non-disclosed agreements to build new college facilities and renovate civic centers also are underway. OVG's projects include a $600-million redevelopment of Seattle's KeyArena for an NHL expansion team, and a $1-billion mixed-use extension for the New York Islanders arena at Belmont Park. Elevate and OVG both think the Live Nation/Ticketmaster investment could be the deciding factor in their competition against rival premium-seat sellers, with OVG co-owner Tim Leiweke noting access to the company's network of resources "gives us an enormous amount of confidence." He says that the deal with Elevate fills a gap in OVG's service portfolio, and he hopes that the partnership will address $8 billion in annual sales revenue that the secondary ticket market siphons off from venues, promoters and artists. "We have not packaged premium as intelligently and as aggressively as we should," Leiweke admits. "Part of that what we're doing with this new partnership is bringing Live Nation in early on to help us think about pricing and share in recapturing the money from others taking our tickets for our events and venues and reselling them without being part of the process."

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