How COVID is shaping the future of live events

UBS Arena intends on being 100% carbon neutral by 2024. Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group, joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down how venues are faring amid the pandemic and discuss the outlook for live events in a post-COVID world.

Video transcript

MYLES UDLAND: As vaccinations continue to roll out here in the US, people itching to get back to live events. And Sozz, the NBA has started to bring fans back. There are fans in seats at MLB games. And everyone wants there to be concerts coming up soon. The gears are really starting to turn on this front. Let's talk to one company working in arena development right now. A couple of exciting projects coming online over the next few months.

Tim Leiweke is the CEO of Oak View Group. Tim, thanks for hopping on with us this morning. Let's start with the project that is local to us here in the New York area. That's UBS Arena being built for the New York Islanders right out at Belmont Park. Would love to just talk about some of the challenges you guys came through with getting the project or keeping the project on time through COVID, and then some of the sustainability initiatives that are being built into this project, what I think is quite exciting for folks out on the island.

TIM LEIWEKE: Thanks, Myles. Glad to be on today. It's an amazing project. But it's all privatized. So it's a difficult path to begin with to try to build a project like this privately. And then we had to go figure out a way to get it done in the middle of the greatest health crisis in the last 100 years. So it has been trials, but it has also been rewarding because everyone rallied around it, from the state to all of our workers on site, to the hunt folks, the contractor.

We are actually back to where we need to be, which is we'll have this open in time for next season and the Islanders season. And for the first time in 30 years, we get to give the Islanders fans a brand new home that they deserve. Again, not without trials and tribulations, but we've been able to overcome all of that. And it's going to be an amazing arena, probably the last great arena built in New York in our lifetimes.

JULIE HYMAN: Wow, that's an interesting perspective. And I also wonder, as you talk about some of the challenges during COVID and building the arena, whether COVID also influenced the design of the arena as you were building it. In other words, were there things that you had to change? Was there any talk-- I mean, I don't think the economics can necessarily make it that people would be further spaced from each other when they're in the arena, but were there any changes that you guys had to make?

TIM LEIWEKE: Well, the good news is, the folks at Northwell Health were our first partner. And so Michael Dowling and Dr. Farber and all of the team there, early on, they started working with us to try to teach us about what we were trying to deal with, with the COVID and all of the different issues and public gathering spaces. And what we learned literally a year ago is, Michael told us, this is airborne. It's not about wiping and sanitizing.

So we went back and reengineered our air circulation system. We literally have an air circulation system now-- and yes, we put a bunch more money after this system-- that's 80% more fresh, clean air in our building compared to Nassau Coliseum. So not only are we flowing in an enormous amount of fresh air, we're pulling out an enormous amount of air. And then we have a filterization system that literally traps the bad guys. And so, we have the ability to cleanse the air quickly. We have the ability to keep a lot of fresh air through the bowl and the rest of the building.

But we also have new technology like Amazon and their ability to do just take-out, where you could go in, you pick what you want. You don't have to go up to a counter. You don't have to go to a cash register. You literally walk out of the store. So we have come along and taken what was a billion dollar project and add a lot of technology, added a lot of science, and thought through what we need to do so that this November, we could open up at 100% capacity, but make sure that our fans, our players, and our employees feel safe, knowing that we're committed to health, and add to it our huge commitment to sustainability, which this building will be the first carbon neutral arena in New York within two years after we open. And we're really committed to that as well.

MYLES UDLAND: You know, Tim, you said a couple of interesting things here about just the future of arena development. This is a private project. And we've seen for so many years the public-private partnership model. This is also-- the UBS arena is also a new facility, but you guys are working at Climate Pledge Arena out in Seattle of restoring an existing facility for another NHL team to crack and start playing there next fall. Talk us through a little bit of the development of that project, which has been-- I think NBA and NHL fans are well aware of the Seattle story for a long time. And I think everyone hopes there will one day also maybe be a basketball team in there.

TIM LEIWEKE: Including us. So these two buildings are two of 10 that our company is developing and building right now worldwide. I'm not sure if that makes us the smartest company or the dumbest company, Myles, so you'll figure that out probably in about six months. But the two that are really the first ones to open that we've had to develop and build in the middle of the COVID virus and have been unbelievably challenging because we are under a timeline where we need to open both these buildings for the NHL season next year.

So the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle is amazing. It is a partnership between us, David Bonderman, and the owners of the Seattle Crack and NHL team. My brother, Todd, is actually operating that for us out there. Incredible success. Amazon is our partner. Instead of putting their name on it, we put a cause on it. And that is the first carbon neutral arena ever built. So we recycled rainwater. It is that recycled rainwater we collect and our fans collect and bring in that we will recapture, and that will make the ice sheet at Climate Pledge Arena.

We are committed to no gas in the building, all electrical energy in the building. We are doing a huge amount of solar systems that ultimately will-- the solar panels will drive our energy. We will eliminate single use plastics. So we're really geared towards, how do we create the new standard, open the building up day one.

And what made the project even harder and more unique, we kept the roof from the 1962 World's Fair because that's the World's Fair that put us back into technology and the transportation and back into space. We wanted to honor that tradition. So we raised the roof, lifted it temporarily. It hovered there for two years. We built an 850,000 square foot brand new arena and dropped the roof back on it.

So, like this project here with UBS Arena, where it's the first of its kind, it is an unbelievable construction feat to try to pull both of these arenas off, get them open on time, not close to on budget, but we did fairly well. And our rates of return will be fairly well. But it's hugely important for us and for the NHL that these two new arenas signal a new age of sustainability, a new age of sanitization, and a new age of technology that will change the way the facility business is operated and develop going forward.

MYLES UDLAND: Tim, really interesting stuff. And I know our crew here behind the scenes, we've got a lot of questions we'd love to talk to you about another time. We didn't even get to Julie Hyman's favorite, which is the concert business, which we know is coming back in time for these facilities as well. All right, Tim Leiweke is the CEO of Oak View Group. Tim, really appreciate you jumping on. And hopefully we can be in touch.

TIM LEIWEKE: See everybody in the fall.