By Ben Jacobs ('11)
Whenever Jon Niemuth and Brett Fuller of AECOM Ellerbe Becket come back to Athens, the students of the Center for Sports Administration can be confident of both an entertaining and extremely informative presentation on not only their latest architectural project, but also a great deal of insight on the current state of sports business in general.
On Thursday, April 29 Mr. Niemuth and Mr. Fuller spoke to members of both the graduate and undergraduate programs about their current project at the University of Houston, as well as the surrounding context that made this venture an extremely unique one. One of these was the purchase of Ellerbe Becket by its new parent company AECOM in the time since last year’s Symposium. This change in ownership has allowed the new combined entity to pursue more projects globally and much larger ones at that, while still working in their specialty of projects with U.S. colleges, sometimes as small as a few hundred thousand dollars. The University of Houston project represented a major milestone for the new AECOM Ellerbe Becket as both its first pursuit and first capture.
The Houston project came with its own unique challenges. The proposal was to replace the football stadium and renovate the basketball arena, which has seen no changes since the school’s Phi Slamma Jamma heydays in the early 1980s. In addition, some of the usual revenue streams were missing due to family legacy naming rights of both facilities. By detailing the challenges of the project Niemuth and Fuller were able to provide a great example of the types of issues AECOM Ellerbe Becket face and are able to overcome from project to project.
Despite the extremely interesting material offered in any AECOM Ellerbe Becket presentation, the key takeaway is always a better understanding of how the business of sports operates as a whole, not just in the world of sports architecture. The economics of the sports industry have changed with those of the world as a whole in the past few years and projects such as the one in Houston have had to change as well. AECOM Ellerbe Becket has always been able to provide a great deal of in-depth analysis in the economics of a new facility and on this particular project that skill was integral in both their being awarded the project and in its hopeful eventual successful outcome.
With a project like Houston where one key funding element, like naming rights, is missing, a key question becomes, in Brett Fuller’s words “What over revenue streams or budgets can we tap?” Having the ability to run multiple scenarios gives AECOM Ellerbe Becket a huge advantage in presenting to the client a number of options to both satisfy what they are looking for aesthetically as well as find a profitable option that their fans will be excited about. By studying comparable competitors, analyzing the results and designing accordingly, AECOM Ellerbe Becket was able to give the University of Houston the best option for them.
Jon and Brett closed their presentation by answering questions regarding the changing methods of financing new facilities and how those methods differ between professional and college sports, among other topics. Later in the weekend Brett announced that AECOM Ellerbe Becket would be continuing its partnership with the Center for Sports Administration for another 3 years. The students of the Ohio University Center for Sports Administration would like to thank Jon Niemuth and Brett Fuller for their continued partnership and another great Symposium weekend.
