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Comcast arena unit hires SMG veteran

Hank Abate moves to Philly to help run Global Spectrum

Revised: Comcast-Spectacor's Global Spectrum unit, which manages arenas in Phoenix, Atlantic City, Miami Beach and more than 100 mostly midsized cities, has hired Hank Abate, who previously worked at rival SMG, to serve in the newly-created job of senior vice president, arenas and stadiums, bulking up a management team depleted by the recent departure of longtime operating executive Peter Luukko.

(In a previous version of this item I made it look like Abate left SMG to join Global Spectrum; that's wrong; Abate left SMG a year ago, according to SMG.)

Abate had been with SMG since 1992, managing arenas in Connecticut and Pittsburgh. The two firms have competed to run a series of city-owned centers, with SMG recently beating Comcast-Spectacor for a contract to run the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, while Global Spectrum displaced SMG to run the Atlantic City convention centers, starting Jan. 1. (The companies have some common roots: Ed Snider, who runs Comcast-Spectacor, formerly owned a stake in SMG). Abate is moving the family from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to take the job.