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Devils CEO Scott O'Neil, left, and president of business operations Hugh Weber have teamed to improve the Devils' business operations.

(John Munson/The Star-Ledger)

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he plan is to divide and conquer, and for the two men determined to make the Devils a profitable business while helping to revitalize Newark in the process, the first question is an easy one:

Where do you even begin?

On this night, with potential investors from NASDAQ waiting in one room and angry season ticket holders in two others, Hugh Weber starts with a kernel of popcorn. He sees it sitting on a staircase inside the Prudential Center, pinches it between his index finger and thumb, and tosses it in the trash.

That, really, sums up the task he and his partner Scott O’Neil are facing. The scope and potential of what they are trying to accomplish is so enormous, but the details are tiny.

Weber is president of Devils Arena Entertainment, the man who runs The Rock. He is a boss who knows the name of every arena employee and many of its best customers, and whose jarring laugh — "HA HA HA!" — has become as omnipresent as the sound of pucks clanging against the boards.

O’Neil is the CEO of the Devils, the Prudential Center and the Philadelphia 76ers. He is a former senior vice president for the NBA with the rare ability to make every conversation seem like his most important in weeks, and whose skill as a salesman made him a rising star in the sports business.

Together, they are remaking the Devils as a business under new owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer. They’ve already hired 85 employees — the entire staff before their arrival was just 72 — attempting to win back the business community, one partnership at a time.

Will it work? Time will tell. But it is obvious after one hectic game night following them around the arena that they’ll work, from the luxury suites to the cheap seats and beyond.

A MAN FOR THE PEOPLE

Hugh Weber came from New Orleans, where he was credited for saving the city's NBA franchise after Hurricane Katrina.

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t is 5:10 p.m., about two hours before the Devils will drop the puck against the Boston Bruins, and Weber is making his rounds on the lower concourse. He stops in the souvenir shop, stocked with green T-shirts in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

"You selling anything?" he asks a cashier.

"Trying," she responds.

"Trying?! HA HA HA!"

And off he goes. This becomes clear in a hurry: Weber, after just six months on the job, knows nearly everybody who comes to the arena regularly. The ushers. The program sellers. The loudmouth fans.

This is no accident. It is a business plan. The Devils arrived here in 1982. Put it this way: If consistently excellent hockey was enough to fill the arena, it would have happened a long time ago.

Weber is selling the experience. He wants people to feel welcome, like they are part of something.

"We are defined by who we are on the ice, and that’s awesome," Weber said. "It’s tradition. It’s loyalty. It’s team first. I think they missed an opportunity over the years to make that the brand, instead of just a hockey style."

He is moving through the lower concourse, where a group of about 150 Woodbridge residents — including mayor John McCormac and favorite son Eric LeGrand — are as part of a "My Town" event.

The Prudential Center opened 6½ years ago, and the challenge is still getting people in the building. The Devils have 8,700 season ticket holders. They want closer to 13,000.

Weber likes to call it a puzzle: How can a team with a history of success, in a beautiful new arena in a prosperous part of the country near mass transportation, be losing money?

"We’ve talked to a lot of people," Weber said, "and they’ve mostly told us the same thing: That the experience felt more like visiting a castle on a hill than the town square."

So he wants to make The Rock a destination, one that ties in the other budding projects in the city and the university campuses. He wants to see more shops, more apartment buildings, and his arena sitting at the center of it all. And this is where the cynical will no doubt roll their eyes.

In six years, The Rock has only had a minimal impact on the area around it. Fans come to the arena, watch an event, then load back into the train or cars and go home. The new owners have deep pockets, to be sure. But the city has seen plenty so called saviors come and go.

Will this really be different?

Weber thinks so, and he speaks with a passion about the changes, big and small, already underway here. In many ways, this is a less challenging gig than his last one in New Orleans, where he was trying to save an NBA franchise from extinction.

This was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when the NBA took ownership of the franchise (then called the Hornets) as it played home games in Oklahoma City. Plenty of people figured the team would just stay there.

Then Weber increased season-ticket sales to an all-time high and drummed up enough corporate support to save the team for the city. When the new owner, Saints owner Tom Benson, brought in a new team president in 2012, the four-word headline in the Times-Picayune summed it up:

"Weber kept Hornets alive."

This is a different task in Newark. The Devils don’t need saving; they need marketing and corporate support. Weber spent his first five months on the job living at the Courtyard hotel on Broad Street, trying to figure out how to make The Rock more than a place people just go for concerts and games.

He has solicited opinions from everyone. The diehard at the Prudential Center identify themselves by where they sit, and the fans in Section 208 became so enamored with Weber they showed up for a recent game wearing T-shirts with his mug shot and the hashtag "#ThankHugh."

He strides up to the last row of that section during the second period, and immediately, the banter begins. "Where’s Steve?" he asks. "Steve isn’t here. Tony isn’t here. You call you guys diehards?!"

One of the men, unprompted, yells out that he has renewed his season tickets early. Weber starts clapping wildly.

"Yeah!" he yelled. "HA HA HA!"

A SUITE LIFE

Scott O'Neil, CEO of the Devils, wants to rebrand the team. "Who are we, really?" he asks.

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he scene is much more subdued inside a corporate lounge. Waiters pass out mahi-mahi tacos and jumbo shrimp cocktails as 15 executives whose companies trade on NASDAQ mingle with one misplaced Devils legend.

"Feel the girth of that," Ken Daneyko said as he passed around one of his three Stanley Cup rings.

The execs are not here for a hockey game. They are here, in the words of O’Neil, to build "a business relationship." O’Neil enters and, within minutes, he has a private audience with NASDAQ senior managing director Eric Bernbach.

The team’s new management was hit with several surprises after they took over the team from previous owner Jeff Vanderbeek in August, including a pile of lawsuits they are still working to resolve. But nothing was quite as stunning as the fractured relationship with the business community.

It doesn’t take a sports business expert to see the result. On most game nights, the upper bowl of the arena is filled to capacity while the club seats and luxury suites closer to the ice are half empty.

"I can’t look backward. It would drive me crazy and I don’t have time," O’Neil said. "There’s an old expression: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today."

So he’s spent the last six months dropping seeds. He spends 10 minutes inside a luxury suite before the game with the Jay Gould, CEO of the Piscataway-based American Standard. He pumps his fist as he walks out the door, a new sale in the books.

"How many more suites are empty?" he is asked.

"Enough," he said.

O’Neil always has had a natural ability as a salesman, from the days when he was promoted from a marketing intern to a corporate sales manager with the Nets. He was just 22.

He moved from the Nets to the NBA to Madison Square Garden in July 2008. O’Neil was president of MSG when he met Harris, his current boss. O’Neil had hoped to sell the billionaire a suite.

"I don’t know, Scott. Should I buy a suite?" Harris asked him that day. "Or should I buy a team?"

O’Neil fell out of favor with Knicks owner Jim Dolan — who doesn’t? — and resigned in September 2012. Eight months later, Harris hired him with the 76ers. He had that job for 13 months when he added the Devils and the Prudential Center to his official titles, so now he spends more time on the Turnpike than most toll collectors.

He is still trying to figure out the culture. "Who are we, really?" he asked. He points to a group of cheerleaders standing on a platform. "Is that really our brand?" he wondered, and it seems clear he already has an answer.

He wants the game-day experience — the food, the entertainment, everything — upgraded. There will be resistance, and the outcry over a decision to change the team’s goal song is proof. But O’Neil believes if the Devils give the fans more, they’ll have more fans.

He is watching from his club seats, letting out a loud "NO!" when the Bruins take a 1-0 lead, when he is asked if this job — two teams, two cities, one arena — is too much for one man.

"I love competition," he said. "I love this. I love games. I love the fans. This is in my blood. It’s tough to even complain."

Then, after the first intermission, he heads up into a suite to try to convince a group of season ticket holders to renew. One wants to know if the team is going to make the playoffs.

"I sure as hell hope so," he said, and a few minutes later, they all agree to renew.

EYE ON THE PRIZE

Hugh Weber (left) and Scott O'Neil already have hired 85 people, bolstering a front office that had just 72 before their arrival.

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fter spending the night running in different directions, Weber and O’Neil meet in the Platinum Lounge, an exclusive club close to the ice, to compare notes. To the outside, their task must feel like someone has dumped a trash can of rubber balls onto the ice. They’re trying to gather up as many as possible ... without falling and dropping them all.

Six months in, they’re trying not to lose sight of the bigger goal: Making the arena part of a bigger revitalization in the city. Again, they know others have tried (and failed) before them, and they don’t care.

"To see social and fundamental change to a city and be part of it?" Weber said. "It’s inspiring."

For now, though, the job is in the details. Suites to fill. Executives to woo. A culture to change. They leave the arena together, but they’ll be back to divide and conquer another day.