AEG Sets Sights on LA Convention Center

Los Angeles - AEG's plan to build a football stadium is still a work in progress. It needs city approvals and an NFL team to make it work... but ut looks like the giant entertainment conglomerate has got even bigger plans.

AEG already runs the Staples Center and LA Live, and an NFL stadium is huge on it's wish-list. Now we find out, the company may be aiming to run the Los Angeles city-owned Convention Center.

An AEG spokesman wouldn't go on camera, but confirmed his company's interest in bringing its business magic to the Convention Center.

Greg Nelson, Former City Gen. Mgr.
"If I were AEG, I'd want to run the Convention Center so I would have a monopoly on everything that happens in that part of town."

Greg Nelson, a former city official who worked on the original AEG Staples Center deal, says the Convention Center... now run by LA civil servants... is a drain on the city budget.

Greg Nelson, Former City Gen. Mgr.
"There's a real strong argument that the private sector can do a better job of running certain things... like convention centers. I'm not sure how many other cities use city employees."

The Convention Center now barely earns enough to cover its operating costs, much less pay its yearly $48-million mortgage on a half-billion dollar loan.

The first step to privatizing the management of the Convention Center will be taken up by the city council in the next couple of weeks. Now that proposal... along with the stadium proposal... seem to be moving on the fast track at City Hall.

Whether it's AEG's stadium plan or Convention Center plan, lawmakers vow to protect taxpayers.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl
"I don't want a dime of city money, directly or indirectly, going to AEG. I want a business deal that works for the taxpayers, not for corporate America. I don't want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge."