New Yorker Is Named to Run Staples Arena

Bobby Goldwater, a key player in luring the Grammy Awards to New York’s Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, is now in Los Angeles, in charge of the city’s new arena.

Goldwater, 46, was named senior vice president and general manager of the Staples Center Arena on Monday by the arena’s president, Timothy Leiweke.

The boyish-looking former Madison Square Garden vice president and events booker will help develop the controversial parking and traffic plan for the 20,000-seat arena, as well as coordinate the tricky schedules of the three major pro sports teams that will play home games there.

But Goldwater’s legacy hinges on his efforts to lure the Grammys--the record industry’s top award ceremony--from New York to Los Angeles for years to come at the $300-million arena.

“This is a great win for Los Angeles over New York,” said Kathy Schloessman, president of the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission. “The Grammys told us they are ecstatic that Staples hired him because he’s so good at booking events.”

Rob Senn, Grammy Awards executive vice president and general manager, could not be reached for comment Monday. But in a prepared statement issued by Staples executives, he was quoted as saying, “We are delighted with the prospect of working with Bobby again. His extensive involvement with us during the 1997 Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden proved that he is a remarkable executive.”

“It’s a little awkward, frankly,” Goldwater said of switching sides in the middle of the heated competition between the two cities.

But Goldwater said, “There will not be a finer arena for the Grammy Awards than the Staples Center. It’s being designed with the Grammys in mind, and the Grammy people know that.”

Goldwater said Leiweke first approached him in February. He recalled Leiweke saying, “ ‘This is going to be the best job in our business.’ ”

Leiweke called Goldwater “the final element we needed to establish the Staples Center as one of the country’s elite venues.”

Schloessman was more blunt, saying, “Staples went looking for the best person in the industry and got him.”

Goldwater has a lot to prove to Angelenos, who are footing part of Staples’ bill by selling $70 million in municipal bonds. The bonds eventually will be repaid to taxpayers by Staples’ owners.

City officials hope that the center will help revive downtown, and Goldwater said he will seek events that should help them realize such hopes.

Goldwater said he’s focused on bringing the World Figure Skating Championships, as well as the National Basketball Assn. and National Hockey League all-star games to Los Angeles after Staples opens in October 1999.

Both all-star games were played in New York during Goldwater’s tenure there. “Folks in both leagues know me,” Goldwater said. “I was very involved in bringing both those events to New York. It would be really exceptional for the city of Los Angeles.”

Goldwater wasn’t the only executive named to lead the Staples Center on Monday. Others include Kevin Murphy, who will oversee the arena’s design, and Lee Zeidman, vice president of operations.

“We have to assemble a team of people who are going to be . . . quality oriented,” Goldwater said.

Goldwater fell in love with sports while growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y. He’s lived outside the New York City area for just four years while attending college.

He returned to New York to work as a public relations assistant at Madison Square Garden in 1974. He was there for nearly a quarter of a century, moving up the chain to assistant director of public relations in 1976 and director in 1979. In 1986, he became a vice president.

“Bobby Goldwater is the one individual who is capable of performing any job in this business,” his former boss, Bobb Russo, said. “Among his many strengths are his ability to assess each situation with the big picture in mind, and his tremendous knowledge of every facet of our organization.”

Goldwater’s hands flail about when he talks--sometimes like a typical New Yorker. He even defended the city’s rabid fans, saying they’re the best in the world.

“New York is home, and it was very difficult to leave,” he said. But the Staples Center “is going to be the last great building that opens in this century. It’s going to be the first great building of the 21st century. I came here for the opportunity, the challenge.”