PAUL SAMUELS – Executive Director, AEG Global Partnerships

Do you spend an equal amount of time working with AEG’s arenas around Europe, or do you spend most of your time focusing on the O2 Arena here in London?

I have a few priorities. One is the O2, another is the SECC in Glasgow which is a new arena. We have the Ahoy in Rotterdam, and we are currently looking for a naming rights partner for that, so all of those are my responsibility. We also work very closely with the AEG teams in Germany and Scandinavia and I meet with them regularly and we help each other out where we can.

I also look after sponsorship for AEG Live, which is our music arm, as well as our Thames Clipper service, and from January we are looking for a new sponsor for the service.

How excited are you about having two regular-season NBA games being played at the O2 Arena?

This is huge for us. We’ve been talking about it with the NBA for several years – there’s always been a wish to have a regular-season game here – and to get two of them is more than we could ever have wished for.

It is unique and we are now educating people on just how important this is. We’ve had very exciting pre-season games but this is the equivalent of the Premier League going to play league games in America.

The games are going to attract massive awareness globally and it’s going to be great for our partners.

I think at the minute all the talk has been about the pre-season game between the LA Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves, and I don’t think people have quite realised that there are regular-season games coming here in March. But now this game has happened, people will begin to realise this thing is coming and tickets will be snapped up very quickly.

Do you think there is enough of an audience for basketball in the UK for these games to be a success?

Oh absolutely. The latest game sold out in two weeks and that was a pre-season game, not a regular-season game. This will be the New Jersey Nets against the Toronto Raptors and it will be huge purely because it is a real-season game. You get people who would just like to see American sport live, and now they have that opportunity to see it in their own back yard.

How are ticket sales progressing so far and do you expect a sell out?

We absolutely expect a sell out. We are currently above where we thought we would be at this time and tickets are shifting fast. Plus all our marketing is now going to kick in post the Lakers and Timberwolves game.

Are you hoping these real-season games will become a regular occurrence if next year’s are a success?

Yes, we definitely want to make it a regular fixture, but I guess we have to wait and see and talk with the NBA to see if we can do more of them.

Are there any plans to bring other popular American sports to the Arena?

We’ve already had the NHL [National Hockey League] here when we did some real-season games back in 2007. We also have the Barclays ATP tennis here, and they will be here for the next four years. We’ve also had the world gymnastics championships here too, so I guess if there are sports which have an opportunity, then we are very happy to host them. The UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship] Expo we have here is also huge, and it’s a massive emerging sport. WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] and UFC are both great for us. We’re also obviously a London 2012 Olympic venue and will be hosting the gymnastics and the basketball Olympic and Paralympic finals.

How different is it trying to secure sponsorship for a venue than, say, for a team?

There are pros and cons. The pros are, as with naming rights for example, every event staged here, you get an association with. Whether it’s UFC coming here, or The BRIT Awards or the NBA, it’s all at The O2. So they’re getting this association with every event that takes place here.

The benefit for our founding partners as well is that you get a mixture of exposure at all the different events; you get a chance to hit a mixture of audiences. We get over 7.5 million people through our doors every year and we host such a wide range of events that there is opportunity for huge exposure.

Once the current deal with the O2 comes to an end, will you be looking to renew it?

We have a multi-year deal with O2,  and  it is all going well, so it will be a long time before we have to worry about that. We have a great partnership with O2. And I mean partnership. O2 do a great job for us in helping sell tickets and creating experiences for customers to The O2.

Your partners are an even split between international companies and British-based companies. Was that a conscious decision?

We have to try and find the right partners that are right for us. For instance Nissan have just launched an Innovation Centre here at The O2, and when we first heard about it we thought it was a great fit and one that was right for our audience.

Sky is British-based, and we have just signed Best Buy, an American company, who actually want to use The O2 as a platform to promote the stores they are opening over here.

So we’ve got to try and find the right brands and the right fit. Obviously there is an investment to us which is very important, but we also want to continue working to make this the best venue in the world.

What is your most memorable sporting event?

So far at The O2 I would have to say NBA game between the LA Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves, but I expect the games in March (2011) to be even better.

Paul Samuel’s

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