Forum Sale to Clippers Owner Shifts Live Entertainment’s Billionaire Alliances
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is finalizing a plan to purchase the Forum in Los Angeles from Madison Square Garden in a deal that would pave the way for Ballmer to build a new 18,000-seat basketball…
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is finalizing a plan to purchase the Forum in Los Angeles from Madison Square Garden in a deal that would pave the way for Ballmer to build a new 18,000-seat basketball arena for the NBA team, Billboard has confirmed.
First reported by ESPN, the sale would see billionaire MSG chairman James Dolan likely exit the LA market while making the Clippers owner and former Microsoft chief executive — whose net worth is estimated to be $35 billion — a major player in LA’s constantly shifting live music business as the owner of both the forum and a new 18,000-seat arena for the Clippers.
The deal isn’t expected to change the number of top tier headliner acts that play the Forum, but it will likely end an increasingly bitter legal battle between Dolan, the city of Inglewood and Ballmer over the Clippers’ new home venue, being built less than two miles from the Forum on land previously owned by the city of Inglewood and leased to the Forum for parking. As part of the sale agreement, MSG is expected to end its three lawsuits against the project in time for developers to break ground next year and construct the arena in time for the 2024-25 basketball season.
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Sources tell Billboard the agreement is being endorsed by the five major stakeholders in the Forum and the larger redevelopment of the Hollywood Park racetrack into a $5 billion NFL stadium and entertainment campus. That includes:
• Inglewood mayor James Butts, who gets a much needed reprieve from a bruising legal and political battle with Madison Square Garden;
• Live Nation, which can continue to bring its arena shows to the Forum and possibly deliver some content to the new Clippers arena;
• Dolan who can use profits from the sale to fund his Sphere projects in Las Vegas and London;
• Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke who gets a new billionaire partner that might help attract fans to the $5 billion stadium and entertainment district he is building near the proposed Clippers site;
• Music manager and former Forum executive Irving Azoff, who can declare victory and sign off on a deal that likely results in a healthy return of investment.
Sources also tell Billboard the agreement creates a united front against AEG’s Phil Anschutz, who will now see his rivals stop fighting each other and instead join forces and finalize plans to build an alternative to the AEG-managed LA Live campus ten miles north of the Forum.
Dolan bought the Forum in 2012 and formed a joint venture with Azoff to manage and operate the facility, quickly turning it into one of the top-selling arenas in the United States, according to Billboard Boxscore. The popular venue — reopened in 2014 after a $100 million renovation — disrupted the Staples Center’s position as LA’s sole major arena and kicked off the venue wars between AEG and MSG.
In 2018 Azoff and Dolan ended their joint venture at the Forum with Azoff agreeing to buy Dolan out of the partnership and continue to maintain a role at the arena, now as a consultant. Last year, Dolan announced he was spinning off MSG’s concert business from its sports business and moving forward with plans to begin construction on his $1 billion Sphere projects, developing what he says will be the next generation concert experience.
The ownership change is not expected to have a material impact on the number of shows Live Nation brings to the facility. Since opening in 2014, the arena has grossed $477 million in sales, sold 5.3 million tickets and hosted 495 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore.
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