OVG top shot Francesca Bodie to bow out

Image: Oak View Group

The Oak View Group (OVG) Chief Operating Officer (COO) Francesca Bodie will leave the company at the end of October. She shared the news on October 7^th in an internal company email but didn’t give any indication of her next move.

‘SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL’ quoted Bodie as stating, “I’m personally so proud of the projects we’ve built and how we challenged and reinvented the facility development business and generated the much-needed economic impact for our communities.”

The Oak View Group, LLC is an American professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Denver (US). It manages several sports venues including the 18,300-capacity Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle which was constructed under the company’s supervision.

‘SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL’ further stated that Bodie will remain on OVG’s Board of Directors. She will exit the company’s day-to-day operations several months after her father, the OVG Co-Founder and former head honcho Tim Leiweke was indicted by the Department of Justice for bid-rigging. He stepped down as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) shortly after the single charge was announced last Summer but remains the Vice-Chairman of OVG’s Board of Directors. Chris Granger was named OVG’s interim CEO.

Bodie was not implicated in her father’s legal issues.

She joined Leiweke at OVG 10 years ago, the business he co-founded with music mogul Irving Azoff. She gradually became deeply enmeshed in OVG’s arena development business – “My passion is in that intersection of real estate and entertainment and creating what I call Good Vibes LLC. How can I be part of the brain trust that creates somebody’s amazing experience?”

Bodie was centrally involved in OVG’s Climate Pledge Arena, the 17,255-capacity UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, the 16,223-capacity Moody Center in Austin, Texas, and the 11,000-capacity Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, California, as well as sourcing new international arena opportunities and the other OVG investment opportunities. In late 2023, she was promoted to COO.

Bodie’s internal note closed with this, “I consider so many of you part of my family and have so enjoyed working with you all. It has truly been an honor and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together. I’m also deeply grateful for your hard work, sacrifices and commitment to building OVG into what it is today. I’m excited to see OVG’s continued growth in the future. There is no doubt you are unstoppable.”

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