Ilitch sports activities and enjoyment team president leaves for new position

Chris Granger, a top govt at Detroit-based Ilitch Holdings Inc., has taken a new career.

Los Angeles-dependent venue administration corporation Oak Check out Team declared Wednesday on Twitter that Granger was employed as CEO of Oak Group Facilities as the company expands its get to at stadiums all-around the state.

“Venues, arenas, and stadiums significantly play an irreplaceable part in society,” Granger mentioned in a prepared statement. “They convey varied people collectively to cheer, to sing, to vote, to protest, and to celebrate. Additional, we are seeing amenities lead the way in areas of community overall health, general public basic safety, and sustainability.”

Granger will stay in Detroit in his new position, an Ilitch spokesman said.

Christopher Ilitch, president and CEO of Ilitch Holdings, stated in an emailed assertion that the corporation will recruit for a successor.

“Chris Granger has brought various and distinctive programming to a single of the most vital and passionate marketplaces of are living sports and enjoyment wherever in the planet,” Chris Ilitch stated. “He and his gifted crew shown that the distinctive electric power of sporting activities and leisure can be harnessed to contact life, improve the local community, and carry up the town of Detroit. I am grateful to Chris for the expertise, leadership and passion he confirmed each working day.”

Granger took the task as team president of sporting activities and amusement for the Ilitch group in 2017 after doing work as president and COO of the Sacramento Kings, wherever he drove up income and oversaw growth of the Kings’ Golden 1 Middle.

With the Ilitch firm, Granger documented immediately to Chris Ilitch and oversaw the company’s portfolio of performance venues and organization operations of the Detroit Tigers and Crimson Wings. Wings Normal Manager Steve Yzerman and Tigers GM Al Avila oversee team functions and report right to Ilitch.

Through Granger’s tenure, the dwell amusement earth was shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ilitch organization endured money losses ensuing in layoffs for its athletics and leisure businesses.

“I would like to thank Chris Ilitch for the wonderful chance to steward the business operations of two iconic teams, six planet-class venues, and the hardest performing people today in sports activities and entertainment,” Granger claimed in an emailed assertion. “I glance ahead to unapologetically rooting for the Tigers and Purple Wings, just as I will root for the employees of this business, and the men and women of this town, for many years to come.”