With the benefit of a newly minted Master of Studies in Law, Connor Treacy is relaunching his career as an independent executive producer in the music industry and an entrepreneur in the world of celebrity restaurants.
At 31, Connor Treacy (MSL 2024) is reinventing himself for perhaps the fifth time — and positioning himself for his next big move.
Past incarnations have racked up a series of remarkable achievements.
At 10, the Venice, Calif. native was already a U.S. national champion in judo.
At 18, he was a nationally ranked tennis player at California Lutheran University by day, Justin Bieber’s party planner by night. As an event promoter, he gained fame for throwing blockbuster Westside bashes drawing hundreds of guests.
At 24, Treacy was an A&R manager with Universal Music Group. His credits include two platinum hits and a Grammy-winning “Best Pop Vocal Album” for Dua Lipa.
Three years ago, he co-founded OffSunset, a hidden luxury nightclub frequented by music moguls and A-list recording artists.
All these versions of Treacy were successful. But something was missing.
The Sporting Life
“I’m not from the Hollywood famous crowd,” he told Celebrity Access in a 2020 interview. “I didn’t grow up rich.”
Treacy’s Irish immigrant dad supported the family as an electrician-contractor. His mom, a hairstylist, worked the same chair in a Marina Del Rey salon for 25 years.
His childhood was all about sports. He started judo at the age of 4; by 10, he was a national champion. After qualifying for the Junior Olympics, however, he abruptly stopped. The unrelenting training and tournament schedule was too intense.
The day after he quit judo, Treacy’s father left a tennis brochure on his bed. “Sports is important to my dad,” he says, grinning affectionately.
A year after starting lessons, Treacy was competing in 12-and-under tennis tournaments. Soon he was Santa Monica High’s top player and giving private lessons on the side.
He parlayed his earnings as a tennis coach into a thriving business venture as an event promoter. By freshman year at Cal Lutheran, he was hosting large-scale parties all over L.A.
Go-To Guy for Young Celebrities
The energy and stamina he’d perfected as a competitive athlete Treacy now brought to event planning, but to take his business to the next level required knowledge he lacked.
“No one showed me how to do anything,” he recalls. “I had to figure things out for myself. The parties were all packed, but I was losing money because of little things I didn’t know—like the going-rate for top artists, or getting hit with a bar minimum if my customers were mostly under 21.”
He didn’t let up. “I just loved the feeling of promoting something and getting everyone to show up,” he says. And Treacy knew everyone. World-famous movie stars, rock stars and pro athletes were regulars on his guest list. So were edgy young artists on the brink of fame.
“At 21, I was the go-to guy for the young celebrity crowd,” he says. In 2015, he formed his own management company, Connor Treacy LLC.
The pace was brutal for a full-time NCAA Division III scholar-athlete. There were nights Treacy headed straight from a party he was throwing in downtown to a tennis match in Thousand Oaks. “Sometimes I’d sleep in my car on the side of the freeway because I was so exhausted,” he recalls.
In his senior year, Treacy left Cal Lutheran to give his full attention to business. He spent the next few years working in marketing for top nightclubs and music venues. He ventured into the tech startup space, leveraging his celebrity connections to help raise $40 million for Healthy Together, a top-rated mobile app. In 2017, he was recruited by Universal Music Group as a talent scout. It was Treacy who helped launch then up-and-coming British rocker Yungblud to platinum-record status.
Then suddenly Covid closed everything. “No nightclubs, no music, no touring, no restaurants, nothing. My whole world got shut off,” he says.
Back to the Classroom
Treacy decided to use the downtime during quarantine to finish his education.
Working in the music industry, he’d seen how little time pros spent in the recording studio. Most of the work happened in conference
rooms, negotiating with record labels, managers, agents and lawyers—a process that can go on anywhere from two weeks to six months, he says.
Looking back, Treacy realizes not only had he lost money on poorly negotiated contracts for his events. He’d missed opportunities to receive production credits on lucrative recording projects. “Before, I had no idea what master splits or publishing splits are, or how to figure out deal points,” he says.
Filling in those knowledge gaps was Treacy’s main educational goal, but so was shaking off what he calls “the stigma of being ‘the young person who knows famous people.’ That’s a hard thing to maintain. You’re on-call for them 24/7. Sometimes they leave and you don’t hear from them for a year. I didn’t like to rely on connections,” he says.
Completing his bachelor’s degree remotely through Penn State, Treacy went straight into USC Gould’s Master of Studies in Law program. By then the pandemic was receding, and he was back to managing talent, producing songs and running the OffSunset nightclub he’d launched with his business partners in 2021.
The MSL program gave him the tools he’d lacked and a new confidence. He no longer got “that butterfly feeling in my stomach” (the same one he’d experienced before tennis tournaments) when walking into a room full of lawyers and managers.
From his first day in Anitha Cadambi’s constitutional law class, Treacy knew he’d made “the best decision in my whole life.” Robert Robertson’s mergers and acquisitions was especially useful, as were courses on dealmaking and business organizations.
He’s already experiencing the benefits of the Trojan Network.
“The USC name alone has helped me tremendously. People talk to me differently. There’s a vibe: Trojans take care of their own. When people hear I went to USC, they want to work together.”
Fighting On
In late August, Treacy will return to USC to begin a second graduate degree—an MBA through the Marshall School of Business.
When he earns his degree in 2026, Treacy intends to re-enter the recording industry. His long-term plan is to rise to the presidency at a record label.
Meanwhile, he continues to reinvent himself. In September, Treacy made his debut as an independent executive producer. The song, “Don’t Like To Sleep,” brings together big names like Bipolar Sunshine, Lovelytheband and Skylar Mones with up-and-comer Sevek. Treacy personally negotiated all the splits, artist fees and distribution rights with Hallwood Media.
“My goal is to use this song as a proof-of-concept, where I can start working with major artists at various record labels, executive producing new songs and building my catalog,” he says.
In May, he stepped back from managing OffSunset, though he retains a stake in the popular nightclub, to make time for a new venture called R3. The company will focus on acquiring, managing and growing existing celebrity-backed restaurants.
The tempo of Treacy’s life has dramatically changed. He seldom goes to parties now. “If Spotify is doing one, I’ll still go. But for the most part, I stay at home,” he says.
He says he listens to music all day. His current fixation is EDM. He’s teaching himself to DJ, and says he wants to learn how to produce music from behind a computer. Treacy still plays tennis about two hours a day. Sometimes with fellow Trojans (he was on the USC Men’s Club Tennis Team during his time at USC Gould). Sometimes with friends from his junior tournament days. “I even play with my dad three times a week,” he says smiling.
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