Darius Dunn
General Manager | Capital One Arena
Darius Dunn, general manager at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., was already a 15-year public assembly facilities veteran when he was named by Global Spectrum as general manager at Saint Louis University’s new $80 million multi-purpose sports and entertainment arena, which opened in 2008.
Doug Higgons, at the time a Global Spectrum regional vice president, hailed Dunn’s experience when he was selected to run the newly won business, a sentiment echoed by Billikens vice president and chief financial officer Bob Woodruff.
Now, with 30-plus years under his belt, Dunn is a senior member of the industry’s most trusted cohort.
His public assembly facilities career has taken him through an ascending arc of high-level positions, and he’s had a hand in budgeting, recruiting, hiring and training staff and over the years has supervised procurement, booking, marketing, operations financial and accounting procedures, plus sponsorship sales.
He has opened buildings and worked at venues from 1,300-seat theaters to 60,000-seat stadiums.
Dunn, who received a bachelor of science degree in sport management from Temple University, started his career in operational support at the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, where he worked NFL Eagles and MLB Phillies games, concerts and other events.
He was operations and events coordinator at Lehigh University’s Stabler Athletic Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, from 1993-2000 and was a sector coordinator for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.
In 2000, he was named associate director of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he remained before heading to St. Louis
Dunn left Saint Louis University to join the University of Houston, where he helped open the school’s new football stadium, and in 2016 he joined the staff at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, where he ran operations.
Before the recent promotion to GM, he was assistant general manager, arena operations at Capital One Arena — home of the NHL Capitals, NBA Wizards and Georgetown University men’s basketball.
He takes pride in serving a vast and diverse market, even when things get hectic.
In 2023, he and his colleagues handled what he called a bucket list item: five concerts in five days. That string of shows came before nine games in nine days: three Capitals games, three Wizards games and three Georgetown Hoyas games.
“It’s a work of art when you see the behind-the-scenes peek behind the curtain, so to speak, of what goes on,” he told local media at the time. ” — James Zoltak
