Business News Industry People Live Business

AEG chief comments on Phillips’ departure

By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 28 November 2013

In case you were wondering where the customary “Randy is a brilliant, inspirational, wonderful genius, and that’s why we’re firing him” quote was when AEG announced it was axing the boss of its AEG Live business earlier this week, well it’s arrived via an interview given to Billboard by the overall chief of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, Dan Beckerman. It seems that Randy Phillips was the right man for ‘then’ but not for ‘now’.

Beckerman told the US trade mag: “I can’t say enough how thankful we are for all of [Phillips’] contributions in making AEG Live the strong company it is today, and the role he played in that. We’ve always had a great relationship with him, and I know that we’ll be working together in the future because he’s so strong in this business. I know that he’s going to continue in the music business and do great things”.

Adding that “Randy was absolutely the right CEO for that group of people for that period of time”, Beckerman goes on to use a basketball analogy to explain why it is now time for Phillips to step down, but I’m assuming that most of you, like me, know nothing about the NBA so there’s no point sharing his line (and the CMU Daily readers who would understand are likely busy eating turkey today). But to paraphrase slightly, Phillips did a great job leading the AEG basketball team, but it turns out they’re actually a concert promoter so they’re bringing in a baseball coach to run their operations instead.

As for the future of AEG Live, says Beckerman: “We will be as active, if not more so, and we will continue to invest capital, time, and people, and grow the live business, because it’s such a critical part of our overall company”.