SURJ Sports Investment, Live Nation and Oak View Group (Pollstar‘s parent company) today announced the formation of radia, a joint venture to develop sports infrastructure across Saudi Arabia through venue management, operations, activations, branding and marketing while enhancing the country’s growing portfolio of stadiums, arenas and major sports precincts.
Xavier Campbell was named radia’s Chief Executive Officer. Campbell formerly worked for Essenden Football Club, PwC sport & entertainment practice and SURJ Sports Investment, which is a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) portfolio company.
The PIF, according to its website, has some $900 billion in assets and a strategic commitment to developing its sports sector forecasted to reach more than $22 billion in 2030.
“SURJ’s mandate was to build a company that was going to deliver on the live event experience and the infrastructure projects that are going on across the kingdom,” Danny Townsend, CEO of SURJ Sports Investment, the majority shareholder in radia, told Pollstar. “We’re going through the biggest sport entertainment infrastructure development boom that any country has ever gone through. We’re building stadiums, arenas, festival grounds, national tennis center, F1 tracks, you name it.”
“I don’t think there’s any place on the planet that has the ambition of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when it comes to investing in live entertainment infrastructure right now,” OVG’s Chris Granger added. “The opportunity to partner with SURJ and Live Nation to think through commercial sustainability, to think through world-class fan experience opportunities, to think through how we create and accelerate operational capabilities across all these different venue types– there’s quite simply nothing like it. We are thrilled to be at the launch stage of this truly amazing project. “
SURJ has already helped bring a wide swath of sports to Saudi Arabia including Professional Fighters League (PFL), The Kings League (7-on-7 soccer with soccer legend Gerard Piqué), the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) and the tennis ATP Masters 1000 tournament.
“The Ministry of Sport identified 20 priority sports,” Townsend explains. “We’re very focused on investing in sports that are important to the Kingdom. Our mandate is to invest in those sports to drive the domestic sport economy. In doing that, you start to then fill out a national events calendar with assets that you own rather than rent. Up until recently, all the major event activity that happened in Saudi Arabia were rented. We pay boxers to come to the Kingdom, they fight, they leave. What we want, like our ATP Masters 1000, to own the license. They’re only 10 of them. They’re scarce assets. We own it in perpetuity. We have Professional Fighter League events because we own them. We’re trying to build out an event calendar that is full of events that SURJ or the Kingdom own without having to repurchase the right every year to put on that event.”
OVG is already working in the Middle East and in 2023 started a joint venture with Abu Dhabi-based event management and venue operator Ethara. Live Nation, for its part, has been working in the Saudi Arabia for the last nine years. And with FIFA’s World Cup slated for Saudi Arabia in eight years, radia already has a tall order to fill.
“We’ve talked at length about commercial sustainability and how we make sure these venues, many of which will be used for the World Cup in 2034, are sustainable post World Cup,” OVG’s Granger said. “It’s been a very deep, methodical, thought-provoking and strategic conversation over the past two-plus years. I can’t think of a better team to attack this than SURJ, OVG and Live Nation.”
A key aspect to radia’s business model is bringing in quality live events and concerts, which its partnership with the world’s largest promoter should facilitate.
“Live Nation has been working and investing in Saudi Arabia since 2017, and this partnership builds on that long-term commitment,” said Live Nation’s Chairman EMEA John Reid in a statement. “By bringing our expertise in programming venue operations and live events, we’ll help build venues and experiences that work for artists, athletes, audiences and the wider industry.”
“They’re fantastic,” says SURJ’s Townsend when asked about seeing concerts in Saudi Arabia. “It’s no different from going into any other venue, in any other country in the world. What people probably don’t know is that Saudi is a very young culture. Eighty percent of the population is under 40 so it’s a vibrant emerging youth culture that naturally gravitates to music, sport and entertainment. We’re fortunate that we’re at that stage of the country’s development cycle that we’ve got young audiences craving live entertainment. Radia has the ability to serve that pent up demand.”
When asked of his favorite concert in the Kingdom, Townsend mentions a certain superstar who one wouldn’t necessarily expect to see perform in the Saudi Arabia.
“Eminem was amazing,” he says. “There is a major music festival called Soundstorm, which he played at. It’s a huge festival that I think has over 100,000 people a day. It’s a huge event on the calendar, and he played that. It was absolutely fantastic. Some people think there is a different sort of vibe here around music. It’s certainly no different to any other developed music marketplace. Music and other entertainment are emerging as key pillars of the Saudi culture.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.pollstar.com ’
