Nick Baker
Nick Baker is a senior vice president for the Global Partnerships division of Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc. (AEG), the largest sports and entertainment company in the world. AEG Global Partnerships oversees worldwide sponsorship sales and activation for over 120 world-class venues across five continents and numerous other assets including venues, sports franchises, events, tours, festivals and digital content among other AEG holdings.
In his leadership role within AEG’s most profitable division, Baker is accountable for budgeting, forecasting and sales of sponsorships of AEG’s facilities, franchises, festivals and events in North and South America. In addition to identifying and creating new agreements with emerging companies and categories for the dozens of new AEG venues, Baker’s responsibilities include personnel management and the maintenance of more than 1,000 of AEG’s partnership agreements.
As one of the company’s homegrown talents, Baker joined AEG as an intern over a decade ago, quickly rising through the ranks to become Global Partnerships’ youngest ever vice president in 2010 and youngest senior vice president in 2013. As the lead revenue generator for AEG Global Partnerships, Baker sourced, negotiated and closed agreements for the naming rights entitlement of the Amgen Tour of California, Valley View Casino Center (San Diego, CA), BBVA Compass Stadium (Houston, TX), Allianz Parque (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and StubHub Center (Carson, CA) to the AEG portfolio.
Baker’s creativity has also led to first-time sales in a variety of new categories for AEG, such as secondary ticketing with StubHub, building maintenance services with ABM, and security provision with Tyco Integrated Security. This is in addition to sustainable operations with Toshiba, a groundbreaking rewards program across 41 venues with Samsung, and new technology for Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE, now home to the first 4DX theater in the United States.
In 2015, Baker helped to create new business opportunities for the Global Partnerships team internally as well by developing an incredibly important management tool, KORE/CRM, which tracks technology and analytics across all five continents within the AEG portfolio. This new technology enables the division to be able to strategize on its full budget responsibilities. Recently, Baker stewarded the first founding partnership agreement for the AEG-MGM Las Vegas Arena, reached record sales revenue for the Los Angeles Kings (NHL), Los Angeles Galaxy (MLS), STAPLES Center, L.A. LIVE, and the overall AEG Global Partnerships’ annual sales goal. Baker also worked to secure a multi-year, global strategic business-to-business agreement with ATOS as well as orchestrated the continued global equipment and technology sponsorship package with Cisco. Additionally, in 2015, he was the driving force behind the integration of Pogoseat, cutting-edge mobile ticketing technology, into AXS.com Ticketing and AXS Mobile app for sports and entertainment events at AEG venues on a global scale. The partnership also included an equity position in Pogoseat for AEG.
For all his accomplishments, Sports Business Journal honored Baker in its 2015 “Forty Under 40” issue, and CSQ Business Magazine named Baker to the “NextGen 10” list recognizing top leadership in Los Angeles.
Baker graduated from Arizona State University, W.P. Carey School of Business with a degree in Business Administration and was a member of the Sun Devils football team. He lives in Manhattan Beach, CA, with his wife Heather and daughter Olivia.
