Ari Emanuel / MARI / ATG

I don't know how much he cares about theatre, but he clearly cares about the entertainment industry as a whole. We could have woken up today to news that this was being bought by a faceless private equity portfolio or a Trump loyalist. I would much rather these assets be owned by Ari, whose job is entertainment, even with his reputation as a beancounting taskmaster.

(Politically, Ari is a moderate Dem who has greased palms of people on both sides of the aisle and has repeatedly called for Netanyahu's ouster. His brother Rahm was Obama's first chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, a Biden ambassador to Japan, and is supposedly exploring a 2028 presidential run.)

It's also encouraging to see the line in the press release that he plans to keep the existing ATG leadership team in place.

As for duplicate business entities, layoffs, and slimming-down:

• I assume TodayTix and ATG Ticketing will become one, now that MARI owns both. Which is fine by me. Both are extremely user-friendly.
• ArtHouse is small enough that it could be absorbed into a different agency, or it could separate from MARI.
• AKA is fully independent as far as I know?
• Sonia Friedman's company shouldn't be impacted at all, since ATG was a nearly-silent investor.
• ATG controls a lot of venues around the US, but they don't have the robustness of Nederlander or BAA. So we could see some sales there, or an attempted pivot to more concerts and fan events, instead of national tour stops. (Most of them already do a lot of different types of programming to keep the lights on as many nights a year as possible.)

Updated On: 8/11/26 at 11:50 AM

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I don't know how much he cares about theatre, but he clearly cares about the entertainment industry as a whole. We could have woken up today to news that this was being bought by a faceless private equity portfolio or a Trump loyalist. I would much rather these assets be owned by Ari, whose job is entertainment, even with his reputation as a beancounting taskmaster.

(Politically, Ari is a moderate Dem who has greased palms of people on both sides of the aisle and has repeatedly called for Netanyahu's ouster. His brother Rahm was Obama's first chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, aBiden ambassador to Japan, and is supposedly exploring a 2028 presidential run.)

It's also encouraging to see the line in the press release that he plans to keep the existing ATG leadership team in place.

As for duplicate business entities, layoffs, andslimming-down:

• I assume TodayTix and ATG Ticketing will become one, now that MARI owns both. Which is fine by me. Both are extremely user-friendly.
• ArtHouse is small enough that it could be absorbed into a different agency, or it could separate from MARI.
• AKA is fully independent as far as I know?
• Sonia Friedman's company shouldn't be impacted at all, since ATG was a nearly-silent investor.
• ATG controls a lot of venues around the US, but they don't have the robustness of Nederlander or BAA. So we could see some sales there, or an attempted pivot to more concerts and fan events, instead of national tour stops. (Most of them already do a lot of different types of programming to keep the lights on as many nights a year as possible.)

"

I’m confused…is this a good thing or a bad thing? Somebody fill me in here…

Oh goodie. Art always benefits so much from being operated by big business.

THDavis said: "Oh goodie. Art always benefits so much from being operated by big business."

Exactly, because we all know private equity firms and venture capital sectors are ALWAYS fantastic for the arts and artists involved. Strip mining Broadway is truly evil and will only get much, much worse.

Updated On: 8/11/26 at 06:58 PM

Remember that ATG is being sold by a private equity company, and has been run by one for the past 13 years (the entirety of its U.S. expansion era).

It's basically not possible for one Broadway landlord to gouge producers on rent unless the others follow suit: if ATG is significantly above Nederlander and Shubert, producers will just flock to the competitors. Kristin Caskey and co. have built up a lot of goodwill within the Broadway community, and that will be important to continue.

Only 10% of ATG's venue portfolio is Broadway houses. I don't know how much revenue that generates, but it's probably less than 50%.