PRO BASKETBALL
The Man in the Middle
By SCOTT CACCIOLA
After he begins his morning by reading 75 emails, Irving Azoff makes five phone calls to the same five friends. Azoff, a music industry executive, has a reputation as a slick negotiator, but he is also a man of routine. So he picks up the phone and dials.
He calls Glenn Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles, the music group that Azoff has managed since the 1970s. He calls Allen Grubman, the entertainment lawyer who has represented Azoff for 40 years. He calls Richard J. Bressler, the president and chief financial officer of Clear Channel. And he calls James L. Dolan, the executive chairman of Madison Square Garden and the owner of the Knicks.
Azoff, 66, who does his most effective work behind the scenes, emerged into full public view last week as the man who helped broker the deal that brought Phil Jackson to the Knicks as the team’s president. And while Azoff described the morning phone calls to his closest confidants as more social than business in nature, he did acknowledge that there was a purpose to his making them.
“We chat,” he said, “and get ready for battle.”
As the Knicks embark on a new era with Jackson at the helm, the circumstances of his arrival underscore Azoff’s unusual relationship with Dolan. Last Tuesday, when Jackson was formally introduced at a news conference at Madison Square Garden, Azoff — the owner of courtside season tickets to Los Angeles Lakers games since 1979 — had a front-row seat. Dolan thanked him publicly and profusely for playing matchmaker.
In two subsequent interviews, Azoff said that he was merely helping two friends, describing the arrangement between Jackson and Dolan as a win for both sides.
“The thing I enjoy most,” Azoff said, “is being able to put a plan together and have it work.”
It may sound simple, but when it comes to Dolan’s stewardship of the Knicks, every move he makes is subject to considerable skepticism. His track record is lacking when it comes to his choice of advisers (Isiah Thomas), his personnel decisions (Eddy Curry) and his pledges that he will cede control of basketball operations (Donnie Walsh). It requires a mammoth leap of faith by the team’s fans to think that the new Knicks will be any different from the old Knicks.
Enter Azoff, who has been business partners with Dolan since 2004, when Dolan began investing in Azoff’s management company. (Dolan and Madison Square Garden have since poured millions more into other Azoff ventures.) They speak on the phone several times a day, Azoff said, and spend time together socially. It was at a party in December, at Azoff’s home in the exclusive Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, that Dolan and Jackson retired to a downstairs office so they could discuss the Knicks. It was all a part of Azoff’s plan.
“Phil had R.S.V.P.’d and Jim had R.S.V.P.’d, and I just said, ‘Hmm,’ ” Azoff recalled.
Interviews with several friends and business associates show that making deals is what Azoff does. He has been an agent and a manager. He has run record labels, promoted concerts and operated as a fierce advocate for his clients. But above all, it is the process that fuels him.
For Azoff’s 60th birthday, his family made him a collage of photos that featured him on the phone.
“I think when he started out, it was because he loved music and he wanted to make money,” said John Scher, a co-chief executive of Metropolitan Entertainment, a concert promotions company based in New York, who recalled being a guest at Azoff’s home in the 1980s. “Now, it’s to be on top. It’s to be a dealmaker. It’s to get his phone calls instantly picked up and returned by anyone and everyone who’s within his grasp. He’s both charming and intimidating. For him, it’s all about being the king.”
Music Power Broker
Azoff, a self-made impresario who began booking rock concerts as a high school student in Illinois, has consistently been one of the music industry’s biggest power brokers, as well as one of its more volatile personalities. In the 1980s, he turned around a moribund MCA Records, and more recently he served as the executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that includes Ticketmaster.
But the crux of Azoff’s power has always been his role as a manager of pop and rock icons like the Eagles, Van Halen, Steely Dan and Christina Aguilera. Until Azoff left Live Nation at the end of 2012, his full management stable included more than 200 artists.
“He is the best artist representative that has ever existed in the modern era of music,” said Bob Lefsetz, a music industry commentator who writes a widely read blog, The Lefsetz Letter. “He defends his clients; he gets the best deals for his clients; he has the most loyal clients.”
Short, feisty and ruthless, Azoff is a constant figure of entertainment industry lore. In some of the oft-repeated stories about Azoff from the salad days of the business, his behavior could rival those of the most outlandish rock stars. He lit menus on fire in restaurants, sent gifts of live boa constrictors to his rivals and once used a chain saw to cut a door through a hotel wall to a client’s room.
Those antics have made Azoff one of the music business’s rare executives with colorful public profiles, but they belie his legacy as a canny dealmaker who has retained his management business despite numerous shifts in corporate alliance.
When Azoff returned a phone call last week, he had just gotten out of a meeting with the actor Jared Leto. Harry Styles of the band One Direction was staying at his house. He and his wife, Shelli, hosted the 2009 wedding of Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom, then a forward with the Lakers.
“Everyone in Los Angeles knows Irving Azoff,” Lon Rosen, the executive vice president of the Dodgers, said in a telephone interview.
It does not mean that Azoff is universally beloved. He has had his share of public spats. In a 2010 interview with The New York Times, Azoff acknowledged his propensity for bending the truth when it suited his purposes or those of his clients.
“I wouldn’t call it charisma,” said Chelsea Handler, an author and comedian who is one of Azoff’s many clients. “It would probably be the opposite of that. He’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex, with a big brain on top of a smushed-up body. But it helps him. He’s very convincing.”
She added: “He makes people believe that he knows best. If he wants Phil Jackson to come back and coach the Knicks, he’ll convince Phil to come back and coach the Knicks.”
Azoff denied that he would have any role with the Knicks, and he said Dolan had never sought his thoughts on the team’s affairs — except when it came to Jackson. In recent months, Azoff was the consigliere who arranged several meetings between Dolan and Jackson as they hammered out an agreement.
Todd Musburger, Jackson’s agent, said the deal would not have happened without Azoff and his “absolute attention to detail.”
Azoff said he met Dolan in the early 2000s, after Azoff had left his position as the head of Giant Records. Azoff was making a return to artist management, which entailed booking shows at the Garden, where Dolan was the (relatively new) man in charge. That Dolan was a huge music fan only helped their friendship, Azoff said.
“He would come to the concerts and say hello,” Azoff said. “In those days, he was much more focused on his guitar playing, and he was just starting to get serious with his music. Music is an amazing thing. I could give you the names of about 20 billionaire friends who care more about going to concerts than they do about their companies.”
After Dolan first invested in Azoff’s management company in 2004, they teamed up again in 2012, when Madison Square Garden put $100 million into a renovation of the Forum. Azoff was an adviser. The Eagles played six concerts to commemorate the arena’s relaunch in January. Dolan’s band, JD & the Straight Shot, was the opening act.
Azoff and Dolan’s latest project, begun last year, is Azoff MSG Entertainment, a multifaceted company that includes artist management, live events and music publishing — backed by $175 million from Dolan’s company. Azoff described the venture as “the last one of my career,” and he said he was determined to see it succeed.
Dolan said part of his motivation for hiring Jackson was that he wanted to leave the Knicks to someone else so he could devote more attention to Azoff MSG Entertainment.
“I’m going to start to go to work on that,” Dolan said in an interview, “which is what I really should be doing.”
Longtime Laker Fan
Last Wednesday, the day after Jackson was formally introduced in his new role, Azoff returned to Los Angeles, where he said he had dinner with Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, and Jeanie Buss, the Lakers’ president and Jackson’s fiancée. Azoff considers both longtime friends. After their meal, Azoff found a television at Staples Center to watch the conclusion of the Knicks’ victory over the Indiana Pacers. He did not get to his courtside seats for the Lakers’ loss to the San Antonio Spurs until halftime.
Among fans of the Lakers, reaction to his role in the negotiations that sent Jackson to the Knicks has been mixed, Azoff said. Jackson, after all, is a revered figure in Los Angeles. He coached the Lakers to five championships before leaving the team in 2011, partly because of a fractious relationship with Jim Buss, who runs the team’s basketball operations. (Jim and Jeanie Buss are siblings.) Jackson has a home in Playa del Rey, Calif., not far from the Lakers’ practice facility.
“Some people are saying, Hey, this was unfair for Phil to sit out and wait for the Lakers any longer,” Azoff said. “We got other people saying that it’s good this happened because it puts even more pressure on Jim Buss. And then there are others who are heartbroken and saying, Oh, this is the worst thing that could have happened.”
Azoff has been a fan of the Lakers since 1976, when he became a season-ticket holder, he said. In 1979, Azoff and Frey, his friend and client from the Eagles, acquired adjacent courtside seats when Azoff agreed to let Jerry Buss, then the team’s new owner, promote four Eagles concerts at the Forum.
“We walked into Camelot,” Frey said, referring to the start of the Showtime era of Magic Johnson and Pat Riley.
Azoff has kept his courtside spot through the decades. In fact, he and his son Jeffrey were captured for posterity on a 1991-92 basketball card for the Chicago Bulls’ Will Perdue, which depicts Perdue and the Lakers’ Vlade Divac grappling for a rebound. Azoff and his young son are seated behind them. Jeffrey Azoff, 26, who now works as a music agent at Creative Artists Agency, keeps a copy of the card in a frame on his desk, he said.
It was during the years that Jackson coached the Lakers that Azoff got to know him well. Azoff said he was already close with Jerry Buss and his daughter Jeanie, whom Jackson had begun to date. “They’ve been friends of mine forever,” Azoff said. “So I knew Phil two ways: one, as coach of the Lakers, and two, as Jeanie’s guy.”
Regardless, Azoff said, Jackson was “very attentive” to the courtside ticket holders, and perhaps for good reason. Fans who can afford those seats tend to be powerful people with powerful jobs and powerful checkbooks. Jackson was skilled at making the rounds.
Over the coming years, especially after Jackson left the Lakers in 2011, Azoff said he continued to talk about Jackson with Dolan. In 2012, he even broached the idea of going after Jackson to replace Mike D’Antoni, though D’Antoni was still coaching the Knicks at the time. Dolan, Azoff said, wanted to stick with D’Antoni.
“Jim said: ‘I gave D’Antoni my word. He’s staying,’ ” Azoff said. (D’Antoni wound up resigning at midseason.)
Azoff finally found a way to steer Jackson to Dolan this winter.
“He gets the credit for getting the deal closed,” Handler said. “Jim’s not the easiest man to deal with, and Phil’s not the easiest man to deal with, either. So you’ve got Irving running back and forth, assuaging everyone’s fears, making Jim feel like he’s making a good decision, and the same for Phil. That’s what Irving does well.”
On Tuesday, the Knicks will play the Lakers in Los Angeles. Irving Azoff plans to be there, in the same seats he has had for 35 years, the same prime spot reserved for Dolan at the Garden: along the baseline, about 10 feet from the home bench, right in the middle of all the action.