Trouble in Baton Rouge as developer’s legal woes cloud LSU’s arena future

The LSU stakeholders are now in a terrible position on their Baton Rouge Arena project. There's a chance it's dead in the water as the CEO of the developer chosen by LSU has been indicted on conspiracy charges, leaving the LSU stakeholders in a process of "due diligence."

The relationship with Leiweke and Oak View Group has been pretty public on LSU's end. LSU Athletic Director Scott Woodward mentioned the deal at the SEC annual spring meeting. In an effort to get ahead of the news, a statement by LSU athletics spokesman Zach Greenwell said that while an agreement and formal contract had yet to be signed with the Oak View Group, they were planning to "do their due diligence" on the future of the project.

This is not a good sign for the future of the Baton Rouge arena. This arena was a big dream for LSU as it would be explicitly built for LSU sports and concerts. It was granted approval by the Metro Council in March, but now, in July, they've hit a huge roadblock. Selecting a new developer could hamper the whole project.

LSU arena project faces questions after Tim Leiweke indictment

The problems arise from a deal that was verbalized but not signed with Oak View Group. The CEO of the group, Tim Leiweke, was indicted on conspiracy charges for his shady role in the bidding process for the Moody Center, a project at the University of Texas in Austin. The issue is that Oak View Group submitted the only qualified bid for the project as Leiweke worked out side deals with at least one other competitor in the process.

If the same story happened with LSU, where Oak View Group was the only qualified bid, that's going to be dire for the project. If that's what happened on this project, the best-case scenario for LSU is a restart. Worst case, the project dies in its tracks.

The case isn't settled yet, even after the indictment, a statement on behalf of Leiweke said, "Mr. Leiweke has done nothing wrong and will vigorously defend himself and his well-deserved reputation for fairness and integrity. Vertical, complementary business partnerships, like the one contemplated between OVG and Legends, are legal. These allegations blatantly ignore established legal precedent and seek to criminalize common teaming efforts.”

There's going to be a few more twists and turns in this story, but for now, LSU is working on its "due diligence" as it considers the future of its Baton Rouge Arena project.