The NFL American football league has appointed Henry Hodgson and Charlotte Offord as general managers for the UK and Australia, respectively.
Hodgson (pictured left) formerly served as the NFL’s vice-president of international marketing. In his new role, he will lead the NFL’s UK business and report to Brett Gosper, the league’s head of Europe and UK.
Offord (pictured centre) will move from her current role as NFL UK’s senior director of marketing to drive business in Australia and New Zealand. She becomes the league’s first full-time employee in Australia and will report to Damani Leech, the NFL’s chief operating officer, international.
Hodgson will have overarching responsibility for the successful delivery of NFL UK’s strategic priorities, including fan growth, maximising live games, the overall development of the league and supporting continued commercial growth. Offord will play a key role in driving fan growth, NFL development and revenue generation in Australia and New Zealand.
Hodgson and Offord will begin their new roles in July.
The O2 in London has promoted Christian D’Acuña to the position of senior director of programming.
D’Acuña (pictured right) formerly served as a director at the arena. His new position will see him continue to lead on programming at The O2 alongside Emma Bownes, while he will also join Steve Homer’s team at AEG Presents and oversee the programming initiatives of the three AEG Presents venues.
D’Acuña will also run the industry-wide marketing and repositioning of the refurbished Wolverhampton Civic Halls, which will reopen in 2023. Additionally, he will work with the team at the indigo at The O2 to expand its traditional music and comedy content.
Co-op Live, the new 23,500-capacity arena under construction in Manchester, has appointed Dave Hough as its programming manager.
Hough will join next month and will act as the venue’s booker, focusing on arena touring content. He joins Co-op Live from ASM Global, where he led programming for seven UK venues.
Co-op Live is due to open in 2023 and is being developed by Oak View Group.
Mobile-focused ticketing platform SeatGeek has announced its board of directors that will lead the combined company following the closing of its combination agreement with RedBall Acquisition Corp.
Subject to approval of RedBall’s shareholders and other customary closing conditions, the board is expected to include directors who have been serving on SeatGeek’s board and its most recent members, as well as Anna Baird, chief revenue officer at Outreach; and Melissa Selcher, chief marketing officer at LinkedIn.
As well as Baird and Selcher, members will include SeatGeek co-founder and chief executive Jack Groetzinger; fellow co-founder Russell D’Souza; John Locke, partner at Accel; Steve Hafner, co-founder and chief executive of Kayak.com; and Laurel Richie, former president of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
SeatGeek said last week that its business combination with RedBall is set to be completed in May.
The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has named Matti Nurminen as its new general secretary.
Nurminen will assume the role in the summer following the conclusion of the Ice Hockey World Championship in his native Finland. He has served on multiple boards of the Finnish Olympic Committee and has been a board member of the Finnish Hockey League since 2010.
Nurminen has also worked on several organising committees for IIHF tournaments, including the 2009 Women’s World Championship, 2004 World Junior Championship, and the 2003, 2013 and 2022 World Championship.
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