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Speaker 1: This is the business of sports. Should Major League Baseball

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Speaker 1: shorten up the season? How do we present football to

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Speaker 1: the audience of the future. I don't think that most

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Speaker 1: players understand the power that they have. Michael. The future

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Speaker 1: of IndyCar racing is looking bright. Scott slash Nick. Very

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Speaker 1: basic math here, more bidders means more money. Evan Nobody Williams.

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Speaker 1: The team value has essentially quadruples. And the leaders in

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Speaker 1: the sports industry time to bring in our guest, Hal Slimebrunner,

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Speaker 1: National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Betman, Atlanta Braves president Derek Schiller,

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Speaker 1: Patriots President Jonathan Kraft. Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael barn and I'm Scott slash Nick. I am

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Speaker 1: calling in from snowy New Jersey, and I'm Evan Novie Williams.

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Speaker 1: And this is the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast, where

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Speaker 1: we explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: When I played you so you didn't you never said we,

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Speaker 1: So I didn't say we this time reversal. Today, we

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Speaker 1: got lots of topics to talk about. You know what,

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Speaker 1: we never got into it about several topics, but let's

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Speaker 1: start first with the Atlanta stadium pricing, uh, which means

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Speaker 1: now they're going cashless. Yeah. The same stadium that that

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Speaker 1: two years ago announced that it was slashing prices in

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Speaker 1: a way that we're pretty much never seen at a

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Speaker 1: major ballpark. UM is now announcing one. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: they're lowering prices even more on a few of the

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Speaker 1: key items including hot dogs I think, and and soda.

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Speaker 1: And then number two a trend that that that we've

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Speaker 1: talked about a little before and I think we will

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Speaker 1: continue to discuss. Uh, they are going cash less starting

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Speaker 1: next month with some MLS games. Does that be okay

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Speaker 1: with you? Evan? I mean when I go to a game,

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Speaker 1: I mean I'd like to pay cash. This. This is

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Speaker 1: also like Sweet Green does this and they say it's

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Speaker 1: speeds things up. They will have some sort of uh

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Speaker 1: like a t M looking machine in the stadium where

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Speaker 1: you can put the cash in and get a debit card. Um,

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Speaker 1: are you okay with this or do you think there's

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Speaker 1: there's some sort of buys here against folks who might

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Speaker 1: not have a credit card or they just prefer to

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Speaker 1: use cat. I think there's certainly certainly discriminatory ins in

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Speaker 1: some ways. Right. The fd i C says that in Georgia,

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Speaker 1: So where where the Falcons play home state of Georgia,

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Speaker 1: eleven percent of people are unbanked, so they don't have

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Speaker 1: a credit card or a savings account at all. Um,

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Speaker 1: maybe have a savings account, but prefer to do all

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Speaker 1: their transactions in cash. Right, So that's that's a quarter

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Speaker 1: of the state. Yeah, what do you think about the

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Speaker 1: psychology of it? Everybody says that you've seen all the

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Speaker 1: studies when they say, like money managers tell you don't

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Speaker 1: use your debit card, becau. Let's say you go food

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Speaker 1: shopping with a debit card, You'll spend more because you

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Speaker 1: don't have to physically open the wallet and take the

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Speaker 1: money out. Perhaps this benefits them that way as well

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Speaker 1: the psychology. And then the third thing, if you are

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Speaker 1: someone who is going to show up with cash and

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Speaker 1: put it on one of these cards, what they often

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Speaker 1: see is that and this happens in disney World and

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Speaker 1: Disneyland a lot. From what I'm told, Um, you just

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Speaker 1: don't use all the cash on it, right, and you

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Speaker 1: might not go back to a game, or you might

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Speaker 1: lose the card before you go back to a game.

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Speaker 1: And you end up with a lot of money that

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Speaker 1: gets put on these cards that is in turn never used.

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Speaker 1: So you know, would always bothered me. Bar You'll know

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Speaker 1: this David Buster's card. Oh yeah, perfect example exactly or

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Speaker 1: them and they all have like two, three, four or

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Speaker 1: five bucks on it, and that we never used them.

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Speaker 1: But see, here's here's the problem. I've got it. It's

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Speaker 1: two problems. I have one. I want to go back

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Speaker 1: to that we were talking about, that that they don't

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Speaker 1: have a bank account. Now I don't have a credit card,

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Speaker 1: don't have a credit card. Uh. First of all, it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: now I'm forced to go and use this card. I

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Speaker 1: can't even I can. I can't even use a debit card.

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Speaker 1: Can't if you don't, I mean, if you can, if

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Speaker 1: you have a debit card, you can, um. But if

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Speaker 1: you are if you operate your life largely in cash,

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Speaker 1: and you want to go to a Falcons game or

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Speaker 1: a FC Atlanta United game, you end up going to

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Speaker 1: a machine, putting your cash in and getting a visa

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Speaker 1: essentially like a cash card, a visa debit card out

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Speaker 1: all right, And that's the way that you are allowed

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Speaker 1: to participate in this economy. Now, the second one, and

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Speaker 1: this is the one I'm more worried about because you've

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Speaker 1: got a lot of people, a lot of crooks out

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Speaker 1: there who use skimmers, and I'm just wondering how open

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Speaker 1: will this be to these type of guys causing this

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Speaker 1: type of crime. Yeah, it's interesting. Um, it's funny because

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Speaker 1: they when they announced these changes, you know, the things

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Speaker 1: that they're talking about, and and there may be a

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Speaker 1: benefit here. I mean, we're being skeptical so far as

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Speaker 1: we discuss it, but there are potential benefits here, one

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Speaker 1: being that it helps the back end for the stadium significantly. Right,

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Speaker 1: your line is going to move faster because no one

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Speaker 1: has to make change for you. Um, there's no you know,

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Speaker 1: handing of the bills back and forth. Um. That's a

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Speaker 1: security concern, right, you need to protect the amount of

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Speaker 1: cash that you have. It's also a sanitation concern, you know,

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Speaker 1: with all these change going back and forth, etcetera. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of ways that this helps the back

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Speaker 1: end of the stadium. Um. And the pitch that Atlanta

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Speaker 1: is making and Arthur Blanket and his staff are saying, listen,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna save us money on the back end by

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Speaker 1: going cashless. Right, it's a minor inconvenience for some of you.

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Speaker 1: It might be a bigger inconvenience for others. But we're

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Speaker 1: going to transfer that savings back to you in the

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Speaker 1: form of a two dollar hot dog or or a

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Speaker 1: dollar soda. And if wait a minute, I gotta try.

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Speaker 1: If this is Michael Bards he's complaining, I gotta say,

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Speaker 1: the hot dog is a dollar fifty. So I know

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Speaker 1: I've got parts attention now, and I'm gonna I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: rope a bit with the two fifty chips and SALTA whoa,

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Speaker 1: My ears perked up like a German shepherd. Man. Michael

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Speaker 1: barr is like, where do I sign up from my card?

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Speaker 1: You know what? Maybe this isn't after and then real

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Speaker 1: quick just to finish that out. The The other thing

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Speaker 1: it allows them to do is that, you know, if

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Speaker 1: they need to adjust prices either up or down, you know,

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Speaker 1: in in in the in the world where cash is

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Speaker 1: is popular at the stadiums, they only want to do

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Speaker 1: that by fifty fifty cent increments, right to keep like

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Speaker 1: the quarters and the pennies and such out of the stadium.

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Speaker 1: Now that they're cash less, you know, they can adjust

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Speaker 1: prices by eleven cents if they onto or thirteen cents,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't change the timing or the calculus and

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Speaker 1: anything like that. So it does give them a little

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Speaker 1: bit more freedom. And if they are genuinely kind of

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Speaker 1: passing the savings down back to the consumer, then this

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Speaker 1: this might end up being um a win win for

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Speaker 1: both sides. But but in my opinion, yeah, the big

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Speaker 1: concern here is that there are people out there. There

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Speaker 1: are certainly Falcons fans out there who deal either entirely

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Speaker 1: or largely entirely in cash, for whom this becomes a

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Speaker 1: much bigger inconvenience. I'm gonna make a prediction here, we

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Speaker 1: will never see the dollar fifty hot dog at the

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Speaker 1: Barkley Center or Madison squareard. Yeah, that's that's a good prediction.

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Speaker 1: I feel I feel safe on that one. I do think.

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Speaker 1: I do think the cash list is going to continue

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Speaker 1: to I mean, we we heard the Raised announce it,

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Speaker 1: you know, a couple of months ago. I think, if

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Speaker 1: I'm not if I'm not incorrect, I think that it's

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Speaker 1: going to happen in Atlanta first before it happens down

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Speaker 1: in Tampa. But I do think that this is going

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Speaker 1: to become a much more common thing across stadiums across

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Speaker 1: the country. Let's move on now to uh, he could

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Speaker 1: care less? This guy how much a hot dog? Us

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Speaker 1: Bryce Harbor. We didn't. We didn't get a chance to

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Speaker 1: get into this. Mannie Machado had a three hundred million

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Speaker 1: dollar contract and he was the man for about a week.

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Speaker 1: And then Bryce Harper he has made his move. He

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Speaker 1: assigned he has now with the Phillies for three hundred

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Speaker 1: thirty million dollars, the highest because Stanton had so that's

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Speaker 1: what he was on. It meant something to him to

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Speaker 1: be number one. But what I'd like to try and

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Speaker 1: ask the Phillies and I don't think they'll participate, but

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Speaker 1: it would be fascinating to see if you could do

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Speaker 1: sort of a behind the scenes analysis between what the

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Speaker 1: baseball operations people thought Bryce Harper was worth and the

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Speaker 1: calculus behind it, and what the business operations folks of

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Speaker 1: the Phillies thought Bryce Harper was worth and the calculus

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Speaker 1: behind it. That would be absolutely fascinating because something tells

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Speaker 1: me that the baseball and the business side of this

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Speaker 1: particular transaction probably did not see eye to eye. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I agree, anytime you're signing a player, regardless of how

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Speaker 1: good he is in his in his mid twenties. Anytime

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Speaker 1: you're locking him up until the season in which he's

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Speaker 1: thirty nine probably means that at the back end of

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Speaker 1: that deal you're not going to be getting your your

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Speaker 1: money's worth. Right, we see this, This happened countless times.

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Speaker 1: Almost every superstar in baseball in the past couple of

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Speaker 1: decades has ended up signing a free agent contract that

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Speaker 1: at the at the back end of which was dramatically

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Speaker 1: overpaying him. But the great question here, Scotta, we can

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Speaker 1: get into what the Phillies have already seen in the

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Speaker 1: first couple of days and signing him, is that this

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Speaker 1: re energizes your fan base. It obviously sells tickets, it

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Speaker 1: sells uniforms. There is a tremendous marketing ability to having

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Speaker 1: a big name player like him and also showing and

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Speaker 1: proving to your fans that you are interested in trying

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Speaker 1: to win right now, right there's an energy around the Phillies.

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Speaker 1: Now that wasn't quite as energetic a we could go

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Speaker 1: before they had made this deal, but but I thought

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Speaker 1: it amazingly the over under in Vegas on their total

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Speaker 1: wins went up one and a half. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: I would have I know, it's not one guy, so

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Speaker 1: many more games, but I was a little surprised to

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Speaker 1: see just one and a half. Am I wrong to say? Just?

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Speaker 1: It's certainly a smaller number than I would have expected.

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Speaker 1: But if to put you in the shoes of of

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Speaker 1: Philly ownership right now, would you rather that go up

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Speaker 1: you know, four four and a half games and sell

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Speaker 1: less jerseys and tickets? It seems like the metrics that

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Speaker 1: they maybe care more about right now. Right that they

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Speaker 1: sold I don't know the exact number, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of season tickets in the twenty four hours after announcing this.

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Speaker 1: Uh Fanatics announced that that Bryce Harper jersey sales in

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Speaker 1: the twenty four hours after the announcement or the twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours after they were available, they sold more of

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Speaker 1: that jersey than any other you know jersey in a

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Speaker 1: single day in company history. There there seems to be,

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Speaker 1: outside of the fact that it maybe doesn't make the

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Speaker 1: team that much better on paper, there's a tremendous kind

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Speaker 1: of you know, evidence to show that that in the

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Speaker 1: back end, in the marketing side, this has been a

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Speaker 1: success for the Phillies. Now I should add this too,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna bring up a fantasy point, Um, Bryce Harper.

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Speaker 1: Guess all of a sudden, now, anybody doing fantasy baseball

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Speaker 1: out there, Uh, they know that Bryce Harper is a

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Speaker 1: high commodity. Now I'm in a keeper league where also

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Speaker 1: I have Andrew McCutcheon, And at first I was not

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Speaker 1: going to keep Andrew mccutcheen. Then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, mccutcheons playing with the Phillies. Bryce Harper

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Speaker 1: is playing with the Phillies. And we know Bryce Harper

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Speaker 1: is going in the forehole. I mean for three million dollars,

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Speaker 1: Yet you're going in the foehole, which means where's my

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Speaker 1: cutching going in the three or the five? Interesting? So

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Speaker 1: mc cutcheen, you're saying with cutcheon's value maybe increases significantly,

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Speaker 1: and why he has a new high profile. This is

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Speaker 1: this is where I need to know things like what

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Speaker 1: the analytics of baseball say? How many times does he

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Speaker 1: swinging myths? Uh? What what is his putting the ball

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Speaker 1: in play ratio? Because I mean, for me, that'll that'll

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Speaker 1: depend whether he's three or five. I can't have a

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Speaker 1: high strikeout guy hitting three in front of Bryce Hardport.

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Speaker 1: You'd rather him three. I assume hitting five. Also probably

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Speaker 1: he's not a bad Yeah, He's always going to come

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Speaker 1: up to bat with the bases empty a lot of

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Speaker 1: times because Bryce is going to clear him in front

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Speaker 1: of him, which means that he could go in the one. Oh,

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Speaker 1: he could lead off there you Uh, Turner, David Levy,

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Speaker 1: what what happened? What happened? Let's just put it that way.

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Speaker 1: So you know, in the past couple of days, the

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Speaker 1: government's final attempt to break up the A T and

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Speaker 1: T acquisition of Time Warner has fallen through. Right, that

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Speaker 1: is a deal that is officially going to go forward,

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Speaker 1: and we're starting to see the first major changes in

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Speaker 1: how A T and T is going to UH going

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Speaker 1: to absorb Time Warner, which includes HBO and Turner, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: And one of the big things, especially as we talk

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Speaker 1: about the business sports UH, late last week, David Levy,

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Speaker 1: who runs Turner UM, you know, which is a huge

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Speaker 1: buyer of sport meteor rites around UH, around the entire

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Speaker 1: sports ecosystem, he stepped down right one of the more

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Speaker 1: powerful people in in sports business, certainly in sports media. UM.

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Speaker 1: He is stepping down amidst all the changes going on

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Speaker 1: over there. Well, as you said, who runs Turner, I

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Speaker 1: think the more important word here is who built Turner?

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Speaker 1: You know, David is a titan. He was he was

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Speaker 1: the n C A A, he was Bleacher Report, He's

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Speaker 1: the p G A, He's MLB, he then b A.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he really made Turner what it is. And

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Speaker 1: and I spoke to him shortly after the news came

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Speaker 1: out that he was departing, and he you know, I've

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Speaker 1: dealt with him for a long time, and he just

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Speaker 1: simply said, there's just nothing for me to do here.

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Speaker 1: My aspirations, the things I want to do now they

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Speaker 1: don't exist here anymore. So the fun speculation now becomes,

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Speaker 1: where does a guy like David Turner, David David Turner,

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Speaker 1: David Levy? See how see how Tidy is like David Levy,

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Speaker 1: who's been doing this forever, who has unbelievable relationships throughout

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Speaker 1: the industry, who has ideas? Where did he go? Am

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Speaker 1: I looking at Amazon? Am I looking at Google? What

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Speaker 1: can David Levy do with a lot of money behind

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Speaker 1: him in a world that is that is absolutely changing

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Speaker 1: at rapid speed? Very interesting to see where he ends up,

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Speaker 1: and he's had a role, as you said, Scott, he's

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Speaker 1: had a role in kind of this rapidly changing environment.

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Speaker 1: Right Bleacher Report, which was under the Turner umbrella. He

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Speaker 1: was instrumental and in starting that. And that is you know,

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Speaker 1: that is geared towards millennials and your younger sports fans,

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Speaker 1: social media heavy right this they have their own O

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Speaker 1: T T. Now. Um, that is kind of exactly the

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Speaker 1: direction in which sports media consumption seems to be going.

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Speaker 1: For golf fans out there. We talked about it a lot,

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Speaker 1: the Tiger versus film matchup that we saw last Thanksgiving. Um,

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Speaker 1: that was obviously something that David Levy had a had

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Speaker 1: a tremendous role in. Um. He's certainly you know, in

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Speaker 1: terms of people out there who understand the direction of

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Speaker 1: sports media, He's he's up there in your right, Skiny.

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Speaker 1: I think he'd be a he'd be a you know,

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Speaker 1: a valuable free agent for a lot of different places

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Speaker 1: out there. What are you I mean, I'm sure Amazon

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Speaker 1: is out there in the discussion. Where do you kind

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Speaker 1: of see that this thing shaking out? Yeah, definitely at

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Speaker 1: one of I would say digital because he, like you said,

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Speaker 1: the thing he did with with Higer and Phil. He

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Speaker 1: sees where the world is going. But I'm also interested

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Speaker 1: now back at home, who's running sports for Turner. Familiar

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Speaker 1: name in Jeff Zucker. Right, So now you've got Jeff

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Speaker 1: Zucker running four. Jeff a smart guy, but he's not

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Speaker 1: David Levy doesn't have the experience in sports, doesn't have

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Speaker 1: the relationship in sports. Um, but they are. They do

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Speaker 1: have everything up and running, so they'll probably be a

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Speaker 1: lot of layoffs. This always happens when when things are

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Speaker 1: going on. But with Levy, you gotta look at the

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Speaker 1: new players because he likes to be out front. He

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Speaker 1: likes to be bold, he likes to take take the

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Speaker 1: bull by the horns and do new and with the

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Speaker 1: cash that some of the fangs could provide, and you've

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Speaker 1: got like look at Skipworth the zone spending cash. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you have to guess that he's gonna probably wind up there.

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Speaker 1: He's been there with thirty three years, David leaving right,

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Speaker 1: I mean a right about that? I mean And and

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Speaker 1: in the memo he put out he said, not that

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Speaker 1: I'm going to retire, I am ready for a professional change.

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Speaker 1: That bar all I told him in our first conversation.

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Speaker 1: Before he got his first word out, I said, David,

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Speaker 1: just remember what very smart people say, don't spend all

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Speaker 1: day in your pajamas is undignified coming from you. That's

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Speaker 1: that's rich. I'm not even wearing my pajamas. You'd be

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Speaker 1: proud of me working from home. But an um, he said,

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Speaker 1: his wife gives him about two weeks to sort of

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Speaker 1: find a new world order. Let's actually, for a second,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about what we think this means for for

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Speaker 1: the Turner sports properties you mentioned. You know, Jeff Zucker,

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Speaker 1: president of CNN, is becoming the chair of of Warner

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Speaker 1: Media News and Sports. Right, so that will be all

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Speaker 1: of Turners sports assets and Bleacher Report. Um, the non

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Speaker 1: sports parts of Turner. You know, your T n T,

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Speaker 1: your TBS, your True TV. That is all being pushed

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Speaker 1: under a separate department within Warner Media, I think called

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Speaker 1: Warner Media and Entertainment. How does this change? Um? No more,

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Speaker 1: David Levy with with a T and T now obviously

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Speaker 1: trying to assert you know some of its you know,

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Speaker 1: organizational goals for for Turner, for the Turner sports properties,

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Speaker 1: how do we think this changes, um, the sports aspirations

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Speaker 1: for for Warner Media moving forward. I think it makes

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Speaker 1: it more important. I mean, look at this is almost

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Speaker 1: akin to me. I look at what they're doing at

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Speaker 1: New Fox and the murders. I've decided that the way

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Speaker 1: forward with new Fox is live and the two things

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Speaker 1: in live are sports and news, and that is what

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Speaker 1: Jeff Ducker will be presiding over here. They do have

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Speaker 1: a host of big time sports properties. They do have

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Speaker 1: the O T. T. Like you said, it's now what

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Speaker 1: do you do with it? How do you move forward

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Speaker 1: with these rights that the biggest are coming up? How

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Speaker 1: much you're willing to pay to keep it? How are

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Speaker 1: you going to distribute it? How do you keep new fans?

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Speaker 1: If Turner also active? By the way, I think you

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Speaker 1: know any sports, so they're there as well. Um, all

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Speaker 1: the ingredients was there for success, but you had a

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Speaker 1: guy who knew it lived at Breathe that did it,

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Speaker 1: and now you don't because it in news. But sports

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Speaker 1: is a little bit of different animals. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: the general you know. The thought on the street as

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Speaker 1: to why buying Time Warner made sense for A T

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Speaker 1: and T was that it was a way for A

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Speaker 1: T and T to distinguish itself from its telecom rivals, right,

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Speaker 1: so from Sprint, from T Mobile. Um, the way they Verizon, Uh,

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Speaker 1: one of the ways to do that is to kind

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Speaker 1: of shift a lot of the content that Time Warner

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Speaker 1: had onto the mobile side. So I am curious to

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Speaker 1: see how they're able to leverage all these live rights

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Speaker 1: onto mobile if if a T and T becomes, you know,

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Speaker 1: the mobile carrier you need to have if you're a

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Speaker 1: sports fan, because you can watch all of the n

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Speaker 1: c A basketball games, because you can watch NBA playoffs,

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Speaker 1: because you can watch Champions League all on your phone

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Speaker 1: in a much easier way. Um, that would be interesting

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Speaker 1: to see for sports fans. This is the Bloomberg Business

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Speaker 1: of Sports podcast. I'm Michael Barr, along with Scott Sasnik

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Speaker 1: and Abban Nobie Williams. We're here each and every Monday,

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Speaker 1: Wednesday and Thursday exploring the world of money and sports.

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Speaker 1: Join us again at the end of the week when

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Speaker 1: we speak with NFL defensive lineman, restaurant tour and real

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Speaker 1: estate magnate, and Dominican Sue who he played with the

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Speaker 1: Detroit Lines. Okay, you're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio around the world and online Where you

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