Guy Oseary, a highly influential name in the US entertainment business, is leaving his role at Maverick – the artist management collective he founded at Live Nation in 2014.
Oseary has agreed to consult for Live Nation President/CEO Michael Rapino over the next three years, and will continue to have a relationship with the events company as manager of Madonna and U2.
Oseary said in a statement: “I’m ready for my new chapter and welcome the opportunity to have more time to focus on management of Madonna and U2 while furthering my passion for identifying and incubating revolutionary businesses.”
Added Rapino: “Guy built an incredible team at Maverick and his work with U2 and Madonna is unmatched. Live Nation has always been about putting the artist first and no one knows that better than Guy. I look forward to continuing our work together on projects including U2, Madonna and beyond.”
Live Nation’s Maverick is a collective of superstar managers, whose ranks today include the likes of Larry Rudolph (Britney Spears), Sal Slaiby (The Weeknd), Clarence Spalding (Jason Aldean) and Scott Rodger (Sir Paul McCartney).
These and other managers working under the Maverick umbrella will continue to operate as part of Live Nation’s wider home for artist managers, Artist Nation.
Earlier this month, Rapino publicly stated Live Nation’s mission to cut annual costs by $600m, as it battles the impact of a COVID-19-hit marketplace.
That $600m target was upped from a previously-stated $500m cost-cutting goal. Rapino himself is forgoing his $3m base annual salary until LN is out of the woods amid the global cancellation of concerts and festivals.
Live Nation says that Guy Oseary will now be “concentrating on his entrepreneurial interests, investing in and incubating companies on the cutting edge of technology and entertainment”.
Oseary is the co-founder, alongside Ashton Kutcher, of VC firm Sound Ventures, which has invested in the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Spotify and Square.
Live Nation’s latest annual filing, for FY 2019 stated: “We believe we are one of the world’s leading artist management companies based on the number of artists represented… as of December 31, 2019, we had nearly 110 managers providing services to more than 500 artists.”
And when Live Nation says “we had”, it really means, “we owned a stake in the businesses of”.
According to the same annual filing, Live Nation said that, at the close of 2019, its “subsidiaries” included Roc Nation Management, Philymack Management, Blueprint Artist Mangement, Faculty Management, Vector Management, Dalton Entertainment, Element 1 Management, Spalding Entertainment and Big Loud Mountain Management.Music Business Worldwide
