You may opt-out by, 2013, the day his company went public. So in the middle of one night, Bob and I took off all of our clothes and ran back and forth in front of the glass naked. In 2017, he almost lost the home after defaulting on a $12.5 million loan, The Post reported at the time. What would be the ultimate winning scenario for Sillerman? AI Is Creeping Into the 'Functional' Music Market What H Meet the Women in Music Honoree Who Escaped the Iron Curtain, Bright Eyes Return to the Road With Eight-Date U.S.Tour, Brandi Carlile, Trey Anastasio & Stick Figure To Headline 2023 LevitateFestival, British Indie Rockers Lovejoy Announce 20-City U.S.Tour, It Takes a Lot of People to Create All This AIMusic. Nearly three years ago, Robert F.X. Im not very knowledgeable about real estate, he reportedly told the New York Post at the time. For its money, CKX got a 90-year lease on Graceland, stipulating, among other things, that the premises may not be used as a massage parlor, a mortuary, or [for] the manufacture, sale, or distribution of feminine hygiene products. (Gives you an idea of how much attention Lisa and Soden pay to protecting Elviss image.) Once on the Forbes 400 list, . Capstar applied for and received permission to operate more than one class of radio station in the same market. Robert FX Sillerman is the Founder at Function (x). SFX grew into the nations seventh-largest chain and sold its 71 radio stations for $2.1 billion in 1998. Mr. Sillermans plan transformed the concert industry even as it drew complaints, which still linger, about rising ticket prices and the outsize power of a centralized super promoter. Sillerman had bought Elvis Presley Enterprises from Lisa Marie Presley in 2005, but later sold it to a private equity firm. Robert F.X. There were people who told me, Im not doing a deal with this guy, hes going to die, Estopinal says. Can we monetize that? [22][23][24], On October 9, 2013, SFX went public on the Nasdaq. The founder. Didnt work. Okay, so come on, Bob, what does F.X. Besides buying Elvis Presley Enterprises from Lisa Marie Presley last February, Sillerman and his lieutenants have purchased the smash-hit TV show American Idol and other properties from a company called 19 Entertainment, which was owned by British pop impresario Simon Fuller. Hes like a little boy. While some might find that a 25th wedding anniversary is best celebrated privately, Sillerman held his at the Manhattan rock hall Irving Plaza with hundreds of guests. Embattled music executive Robert Sillerman, who founded the company that would eventually become ticketing and concert giant Live Nation, has died at the age of 71. Once on the Forbes 400 list, he also briefly owned the WLAF's New York/New Jersey Knights. According to Billboard, Sillerman died of a. So, how much is Robert F.X. He also carried heavy personal pain after the suicide of his 18-year-old daughter Mackinley in 2012, losing his only child in the home he shared with his wife Laura Baudo Sillerman. We dont have enough time on this call to talk about the mistakes I made, said Sillerman during a 30-minute phone conversation from his New York City home, his voice gravelly and occasionally interrupted by a breathing apparatus due to a past bout with tongue cancer. In 2000 he sold a company that owned concert venues to Clear Channel for a reported $3 billion. He can outlast and outtalk anybody. Says a close colleague: His BlackBerry messages start at 6 A.M. and never stop into the night. What about a world champion Idol drawn from all the different nations? The show venue may be moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to save money (and perhaps to fill a certain 2,000-seat theater). Since then, revenues have grown but profits have vanished. And I haven't a fucking clue what they do or what they're talking about. In December 2016, former SFX board member Mitch Slater sued Sillerman for an unpaid $2.5 million loan from 2015. The third and fourth floors boast a bedroom with 20-foot ceilings, a woodburning fireplace, two bathrooms one of which has another woodburning fireplace and two dressing rooms. Sillerman, an investor and media executive who built and sold radio empires, controlled the Elvis Presley estate and consolidated the American concert industry, died on Sunday. Which suggests that Sillerman is either very confident in his ability to create more value with these two companies, or believes he can sell them to someone who has even more confidence, or both. Sillerman was also a major shareholder of CKX Inc. Sillerman has a $1 billion plan to conquer the world of dance music, read the publications cover line. In February 2014, a lawsuit was filed against Sillerman, for allegedly having defrauded a trio of business partners. Contestants on the new Fox hit So You Think You Can Dance.Jason Merritt FilmMagic/Getty Images, So why did Sillerman buy Fullers company? Over half a million tourists from all over the world stream into the shrine called Graceland each year. (Photo: Robin Marchant/Getty Images). The company also held a stake in Morra, Brezner, Steinberg & Tenenbaum Entertainment, the management company for Woody Allen, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. [6], In 1978 Sillerman and disc jockey Bruce Morrow bought two radio stations in upstate New York for $1.875 million. Sillerman Dies at 71; Built Entertainment Empires, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/arts/music/robert-fx-sillerman-dead.html. SFX CEO Entertainment Robert F.X. As his radio empire grew, Sillerman increasingly came up against Federal Communications Commission regulations restricting his ability to own multiple public broadcast stations, until 1996 and the passage of the Telecommunications Act, which lifted the restriction on owning multiple radio and television stations in a single market, paving the way for Sillermans firm to merge with Command Communicationsand become SFX Broadcasting. Says his longtime business partner, disc jockey Cousin Brucie Morrow: Bob is very exhausting to be with. They wanted to marry content with distribution, where CKX will not be in the traditional distribution business. Sillerman, an investor and media executive who built and sold radio empires, controlled the Elvis Presley estate and consolidated the American concert industry, died on Sunday. So far Idol stars like Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken have sold over 14 million albums. To Sillerman the soft patch was an opportunity to reload. CKX raised $251 million at its IPO earlier this year, which it used to pay back $150 million in loans from Bear Stearnsthe rest it paid directly to 19 Entertainment or kept as capital. Sillerman also bought the business of sports superagent David Falk (he repped Michael Jordan, among others) and other pieces of the sports world, such as figure-skating championships. Mr. Sillerman had recently been living in Hinsdale, N.H. For decades, Mr. Sillerman was a regular in the headlines of the financial press, buying and selling numerous media and entertainment businesses, often at a huge profit, and presenting a brash public persona that sometimes rivaled those of the celebrities he dealt with. Ive tried to get him drunk to get him to tell me, says Brucie. [37], In May 2012, Sillerman was accused of sexual harassment by an employee of Function X. Sillerman, poses after ringing the Nasdaq closing bell on Oct. 9, [+] 2013, the day his company went public. He refounded SFX Entertainment in 2012 as a promoter of electronic music festivals; that company is now known as LiveStyle. Revenues at the company that manages his affairs, Elvis Presley Enterprises, have been flat at $40 million for five years. And they said they would synergize their content. And because Sillerman was known as a savvy business mogul within the entertainment industry, his faith in the Company was interpreted as evidence that SFX was in fact valuable, even if that value was not yet reflected in the Companys financial reports, McMahon wrote. Sillerman, the founder of SFX Entertainment, has died at the age of 71 due to respiratory illness. DJ Afrojack (left) and Sillerman at the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York in 2013. Sillerman Net Worth. On Saturday, however, Sillerman was fielding questions on whether the company would go bankrupt--he said there was a zero percent chance--and admitting that he didnt work with the right people. Its also unclear if he was ever the right man for the job. However, since doubts of Sillerman's take-private began to emerge in July, the company hasn't disclosed a bona fide competing offer. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. In February 1982 the probate judge told the trustees of the estate that he feared it would go bankrupt because of taxes and legal fees, says Jack Soden, a Kansas City money manager brought in to advise the Presley family. Investor Robert Sillerman, who bought Elvis Presley Enterprises, photographed with Elvis impersonators, 2005. Perhaps the bigger question centers on the inherent limits of EDMs popularity. ", "Mobile app Viggle sets terms for $50 million NASDAQ listing", "GetGlue Sale to Sillerman's Viggle Cancelled", "GetGlue Acquired by Viggle for $25M, 48.3M Shares of Stock", "Viggle Buys Dijit Media, in Another Second-Screen TV Mashup", "Viggle Acquires Dijit, Will Connect Its Rewards Program To Dijit's TV Discovery App", "With Over 9.5 Million Registered Users, Viggle Expects Fiscal 2015 Revenue to Increase More Than 40% Year-Over-Year to $25.6 Million", "SFX Beefing Up Digital Capabilities, Plans to Buy Tunezy, Fame House and Arc90", "Mogul to Increase Bets on Electronic Dance Music", "SFX Enters Ticketing Business with $16.2 Million Acquisition of Europe's Paylogic", "Electronic music promoter SFX files for $175-million IPO", "Robert F.X Sillerman on SFX's IPO, Stock Prices, Future Acquisitions, Afrojack", "SFX's Bumpy Ride Continues With $20 Million in New Financing", "SFX Entertainment Emerges From Bankruptcy With New Name: LiveStyle", "SFX Emerges From Bankruptcy with a New Name, LiveStyle, and New Leader in Randy Phillips", "Former SFX CEO Robert Sillerman Speaks Out for the First Time About His Company's Implosion: 'I Don't Begrudge the Employees' Anger', "Choosing honorary degree recipient an often-painstaking process", "Sillerman Family Makes $10 Million Gift to Heller to Begin New Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy", "Steven Spielberg and George Soros Stock Senate Democratic Super-PAC", "Music Managers Allege Deceit by SFX Founder", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_F._X._Sillerman&oldid=1135076047, American entertainment industry businesspeople, American telecommunications industry businesspeople, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 22 January 2023, at 14:00. Within a matter of weeks it is likely that CKX will announce some sort of Elvis Presley or Graceland-themed casino in Las Vegas. Bob is like a Clint Eastwood character in an old Western movie, says Dennis Arfa, a business associate of Sillerman. But it had to be a biggie to make economic sense. In 2011, he tried to replicate his past success by capitalizing on the dance music craze, consolidating the EDM business into what he hoped would be a Live Nation-style powerhouse. His timing seemed impeccable. And then in early 2000, lightning struck again. Robert F.X. The studio of course had a glass wall. But where did it go wrong for SFX? [29] In December, the company went private and was renamed LiveStyle, with Sillerman exiting the company in favor of former AEG Live executive Randy Phillips as CEO. I suppose there are all kinds of gratifying lines of work, he says. Elvis's 37-year-old daughter and heir, Lisa Marie, has been unhappy . Terms & Conditions. We thought there were only three rock groups worth owning, says a source in Sillermans camp, Elvis, the Beatles, and the Stones. Offers may be subject to change without notice. And $6.5 million went to Priscilla Presley for use of the family nameeven though Sillerman wasnt legally obligated to pay her anything, since Priscilla and Elvis were divorced, and Elviss estate went to Lisa Marie. The orginal goal was to buy Pasquale RotellasInsomniac, explained Estopinal. It didnt scale and this round was young promoters that werent as established as the promoters from the first round of buyouts in the 1990s. (Photo by PATRICK McMULLAN/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images) Embed. Unable to issue new debt without breaching bond covenants, SFX sold stock before the quarter's end to raise collateral that its banker, Barclays, had demanded in order to borrow from the companys credit line, a rainy day source of cash. Robert F.X. (Rumors suggesting that Sillermans next big acquisition has been delayed have been a drag on the stock.) Sillerman insists that cancer hasnt impeded his business or his social life, which can be a bit wild and woolly. A crucial part of his strategy was using the nationwide audience at SFXs shows to lure sponsorship deals by big consumer brands like Smirnoff and Levis. Posh Spice). They acquired additional radio and TV stations, including WALL and WKGL (Middletown, New York); WJJB; (Hyde Park, New York); WHMP (Northampton, Massachusetts); WLOM (Orleans, Massachusetts); WRAN (Randolph, New Jersey); WPLR (New Haven, Connecticut) and the television station WATL (Atlanta). This is a BETA experience. Sillerman, the entertainment entrepreneur who helped. We've received your submission. He followed the 1998 sale with a Feb. 29, 2000, deal that Playbill called a quantum leap on the first Leap Day of the century, selling his concert and theatrical production firm SFX Entertainment to Clear Channel for $3.2billion. Even more worrying, SFXs cash reserves dwindled to $38.6 million. Sillermans actions signaled to the market that he saw significant value in SFX. SFX Broadcasting sold its 71 radio stations for $2.1 billion in 1998. When asked if Bob was dishonest about the companys health, Finkel told Billboard, It was more complicated than that. After selling SFX Entertainment, Mr. Sillerman pursued various entertainment projects. This company owned "American Idol" and the licensing rights to Elvis Presley and his Graceland estate. CKX also gets royalty rights to 24 Elvis movies. Take a walk through Elviss home with the throngs, and the feeling you get is reverential. Investor Robert Sillerman is combining the King, American Idol, and other entertainment assets to build his next media conglomerate. I liked him, she says. Its different, Sillerman says. Industrial Media. [35] For thirteen years, Sillerman served as the Chancellor of Southampton College and is the founder of The Tomorrow Foundation. He also acquired a majority of the Presley estate, with the right to operate Graceland, the Presley home in Memphis; took over the company behind the long-running television hit American Idol; and acquired the rights to Muhammad Alis name and likeness. It declared bankruptcy in 2016, and many of the assets it had amassed were sold off. But Mr. Sillermans success ran out in recent years when he tried to repeat his concert model with a new version of SFX Entertainment, this time going after electronic dance music, or EDM a bull market in 2012, when Mr. Sillerman opened the company with a $1 billion war chest. Sillerman attempted to rebrand the project as a Baccarat Hotel but this also failed. When SFX went public in Oct. 2013, businesses the company owned or was in the process of acquiring earned $14.6 million in adjusted EBITDA on combined revenue of $239 million. The company that emerged would become Clear Channel, which is now known as iHeartRadio. The transaction renamed the company to Function (X), Inc. and changing its listing on the stock exchange to FNCX. Though these unfortunate events have more to do with the young generation experimenting with different ways of altering their consciousness while listening to music than the music itself, MDMA-based drugs have a certainly become a part of EDM culture. [4][5] His father founded the Keystone Radio Network. He often named his companies using some combination of those initials. Today about 600,000 visitors make the pilgrimage to Graceland each year (30% from abroad), paying between $22 and $55 apiece. We want to make money both by selling tickets and by putting a live audience in front of Madison Avenue, he said in an interview in 1998. Another show with legs? In 1989 he sold a group of radio stations to Westinghouse (now Viacom) for $389 million. The company has teased burned investors with an "indication of interest" from an unnamed bidder. Nearly three years ago, Robert F.X. Once Morrow had a beef with the late-night deejay at their Middletown station. Sillerman, the New York businessman who consolidated a number of U.S. concert promoters in the 1990s and created the company that would eventually become Live Nation, died Sunday.. dialogue with Robert Sillerman. When Mr. Sillerman tried to corner the fractious world of dance music festivals in the early 2010s, for example, he played the part of a devil-may-care rebel to a sometimes puzzling extent. Pei through the hallowed halls. 19 also manages the career of soccer superstar David Beckham and his wife, Victoria (a.k.a. He rides into town and leaves with all the money and the women. The results supported theories that Sillerman--who proposed in late May to take the company private at a price of $5.25 per share--didnt have the financial partners or intent to buy his cash-strapped company. Maybe, but maybe not. Arent companies like Viacom (VIAB) and Time Warner (TWX) disassembling or considering disassembling their empires, while Sillerman is putting one together? As a business, though, Elvis has been stagnating. Fuller is signed up to head 19 Entertainment in a five-year contract. Lisa received $50 million in cash, plus $26 million in CKX common and preferred stock. Thats the whole game., Robert F.X. Correction: In The Man Who Bought Elvis (Dec. 12), we wrote that SFX Entertainment once owned New York Citys Roseland Ballroom. Its main app NextGuide and Digit Reminder Button was integrated into Viggle software. 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