Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Previously on the Deal and get yourself a great partner
Speaker 2: like Constance Schwartz Marini, who I'm scared of because she's
Speaker 2: behind me. So I got to say all these nice
Speaker 2: things about the boss. She is so lovely. Cannot wait
Speaker 2: for you too to have a conversation with her.
Speaker 3: Michael is obviously my business partner, but we always say
Speaker 3: like brother from another mother, mister from another sister.
Speaker 1: You guys know a snoop.
Speaker 3: We had a little bit of an exchange in the
Speaker 3: boardroom that I stood up to him, and next day
Speaker 3: someone from his team called and he said, we want
Speaker 3: the girl from the NFL running the snoop team. I
Speaker 3: was like, whoa, whoa, I'm not a manager and they're like,
Speaker 3: too bad, you're a manager now.
Speaker 4: So Constant Schwartzmarni. This episode is kind of a part
Speaker 4: two of a two part series, as it were, Alex,
Speaker 4: because she is the business partner to Michael Strahan. But
Speaker 4: you've known her for years. Who is she to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: In many ways you mentioned Michael Strahan and Constant. The
Speaker 5: comparable for me is like Charlie Munger to Warren Buffett
Speaker 5: and Warren's the guy out there right, so is Michael,
Speaker 5: but she's the one in the background that just brings
Speaker 5: a lot of sanity and self awareness and they make
Speaker 5: each other better. And if you think about some of
Speaker 5: the brands that Constant has been involved with, from Deon
Speaker 5: Sanders to Snoop to Aaron Andrews to cutting her teeth
Speaker 5: in the early nineties in the NFL, and the stories
Speaker 5: that she told us, oh, fascinating.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable because she gets into, like you said, those
Speaker 4: early days of the NFL, before the NFL was the NFL,
Speaker 4: when little sport called baseball was probably the more dominant
Speaker 4: in the culture. NFL takes off in part because of
Speaker 4: some of the things that she does. She goes to
Speaker 4: the music world. I mean talk about being at the
Speaker 4: center of the culture. She is a primary architect of
Speaker 4: Coach Prime, like today's Coach Prime. It's crazy.
Speaker 5: And to think that Constant was in the cover of
Speaker 5: Sports illustraated with Dion was fascinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no question. And when you think about what's happening
Speaker 4: at this intersection we talk about it all the time, sports, business, culture, music, technology.
Speaker 4: No one has been at the center of it more
Speaker 4: than she has, and yet she self describes in this
Speaker 4: interview working class kid born in Yonkers goes to Sunios WeGo,
Speaker 4: but she's like as Hollywood as they come.
Speaker 1: At this point.
Speaker 4: On this episode of The Deal, Constance schwartz Marini, I
Speaker 4: guess we should have you formally introduce yourself, hell us
Speaker 4: who you are.
Speaker 3: That would be helpful. So first of all, thank you
Speaker 3: for having me. This is so exciting. But I'm Constance
Speaker 3: schwartz Marini, and I'm co founder and managing partner of
Speaker 3: Smack Entertainment.
Speaker 4: And so Michael Strahan is your business partner. We spend
Speaker 4: some time with him. Who is he to you?
Speaker 1: Can I cuss?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So Michael is obviously my business partner.
Speaker 3: But we always say like brother from another mother, mister
Speaker 3: from another sister. We've met, oh my gosh, yeah thirty
Speaker 3: years ago when he was playing for the Giants and
Speaker 3: I was working at the NFL. I'm an only child,
Speaker 3: so I say he's the brother I never wanted. He
Speaker 3: was my minister and my wedding like it goes deep
Speaker 3: yeah wow yeah. And my husband's name is Mike too,
Speaker 3: So the two of them jokes that it takes to
Speaker 3: Michael's to handle one contence.
Speaker 5: And I love Michael so much and I admire him
Speaker 5: so much. What is it about Michael from your point
Speaker 5: of view that makes him different and special?
Speaker 3: Because Michael and I had the same workout thick and
Speaker 3: the same sort of ethos, which is when, not if,
Speaker 3: when this happens, when I can do this? And I
Speaker 3: say that only because you have to have the trust
Speaker 3: with whether it's a client, a partner, or a friend,
Speaker 3: to say, what's your dream, what do you want to
Speaker 3: go build?
Speaker 1: Let's do it together.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the many things it's so attracted
Speaker 3: about him to many fans in that they don't.
Speaker 1: See just a retired football player.
Speaker 3: They don't see a good morning American news anchor, they
Speaker 3: don't see the NFL on Fox sportscaster. They think that
Speaker 3: he's their best friend. And that's something that you can't explain,
Speaker 3: you can't teach, you can't buy. And that's one of
Speaker 3: the many, many qualities that's just so endearing about him
Speaker 3: is any room he's in.
Speaker 1: Everyone feels like they know him. He makes you feel
Speaker 1: like he knows you.
Speaker 3: He's friendly with everyone on the set, not just the talent,
Speaker 3: but whether it's the grip or the sound guy or
Speaker 3: whoever it is, and he will reach out to me
Speaker 3: for more favors for those kind of folks that he
Speaker 3: works with than any talent ever. You know, when Pop
Speaker 3: fifty was at Yankee Stadium, he said, can you please
Speaker 3: get me four tickets?
Speaker 1: The sound engineer wants to go.
Speaker 3: I was like done, and for me too, I'd much
Speaker 3: rather help someone like that out who's not going to
Speaker 3: have the access that we are all privileged to have.
Speaker 4: This guy. So, speaking of Michael, I mean, when you
Speaker 4: think about like the through line of the people that
Speaker 4: you've worked with over the years, what is it? Because
Speaker 4: it's such a fascinating collection of people.
Speaker 1: It's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 3: If you really dig deep and look at all of them,
Speaker 3: they're like Alex, they're a multi hyphen it. You know,
Speaker 3: they excelled greatly at their core career. Obviously he was
Speaker 3: a baseball player, but you've gone on right to have
Speaker 3: a show like The Deal and all your investments in
Speaker 3: your television career.
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing.
Speaker 3: Whether it's Michael or Aaron Andrews or Kurt Menafie and
Speaker 3: Coach Prime, they all did so well at the core,
Speaker 3: but they knew they could do more and wanted to
Speaker 3: do more. And that's how we look at it is
Speaker 3: there's no guard rails, there's no blinders.
Speaker 4: It's like, let's go, let's talk about you. Let's talk
Speaker 4: about the early days, because I think something Alex and
Speaker 4: are both fascinated with. Is you starting your career at
Speaker 4: the NFL before the NFL is really the NFL, it's
Speaker 4: not what it is today. What was it like when
Speaker 4: you got there? What were you doing in those early days?
Speaker 3: So in those days, the NFL was two different companies.
Speaker 3: There was the National Football League and then there was
Speaker 3: the marketing and licensing arm called NFL Properties. So my
Speaker 3: first job was an assistant at NFL Properties in the
Speaker 3: corporate sponsorship to do. This was the early nineties, nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety one. Wow, Yeah, I was a junior in high school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was. It was awesome.
Speaker 3: I had two amazing bosses, Jim Schwabl and Maureen Rosen.
Speaker 3: I'm still super close to Maureene. She really gave me
Speaker 3: my start in my shop because she would say, whatever
Speaker 3: you can handle, I'm going to give you more of,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's what she did and she gave
Speaker 3: me the best advice that I used to this day
Speaker 3: with everyone that comes and works with us at SMACK,
Speaker 3: which is, when you mess up, although it was a
Speaker 3: different word, and you will, you come to me, you
Speaker 3: own it, you say I messed up and need help,
Speaker 3: let's fix it. That has stuck with me throughout my
Speaker 3: whole career, my whole life and everything, because it's such
Speaker 3: simple common sense. But unfortunately more people go the other direction,
Speaker 3: which is to cover something up or lie about it,
Speaker 3: and then the issue snowballs. And that's how we work
Speaker 3: with everybody at the company, not just the talent, but
Speaker 3: the staff too, And that's just was the best thing ever.
Speaker 3: And yes there were women executives back then, not many,
Speaker 3: but I was very blessed that she was the one
Speaker 3: that looked out for me.
Speaker 4: And I want to sort of stick with this notion
Speaker 4: of what the NFL was then, in part because the
Speaker 4: show is called The Deal. What were those early deals
Speaker 4: that you remember?
Speaker 3: I couldn't have received an MBA at any school that
Speaker 3: would have taught me what the NFL taught me about
Speaker 3: the art of the deal, in the sense that it
Speaker 3: was just our jobs, like everyone's like, oh you got
Speaker 3: into producing so late in life. I'm like, no, we
Speaker 3: produced at the NFL, but you didn't get a credit
Speaker 3: in a sense because it was your job. When the
Speaker 3: network deals were done, there were hours carved out for
Speaker 3: the NFL to program and you'd go to the sponsor
Speaker 3: say what are your guys objectives? And you know, nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety three and it was Miller Lte at the time.
Speaker 3: They're like, well, the Pro Bowl, which was in Hawaii,
Speaker 3: that's our target. So you know, the NFL Films guys
Speaker 3: would come up with the Pro Bowl Beach Challenge, and
Speaker 3: then there was the NFL on Skills Challenges and then
Speaker 3: the NFL Lineman Challenge, which was one of the ways
Speaker 3: Strahan and I got to really interact and connect because
Speaker 3: the show needed a little dusting off, and so Tracy Polman,
Speaker 3: who's still at the NFL, was like, you guys need
Speaker 3: to sit with Strahan, and we brought him in and said,
Speaker 3: what do you think of the show. You've you've participated
Speaker 3: in it, you know enough years, and he was like,
Speaker 3: I like this, I like this, but why don't we
Speaker 3: replace this skill challenge with that one?
Speaker 1: That was when the light bulb went off about him.
Speaker 3: You're like, Wow, this guy isn't just great on the field,
Speaker 3: but understands all the things you know that go into
Speaker 3: off field careers.
Speaker 4: You're doing these deals and the NFL does start to
Speaker 4: take off a little bit. I think we're both fascinated
Speaker 4: with this idea, is like, what was it like inside
Speaker 4: there was there a sense that something special was happening
Speaker 4: in terms of the NFL and the culture, because that,
Speaker 4: I think is one of the most fascinating things about
Speaker 4: you is that you're looking at this not just through
Speaker 4: a sports lens, not just through a business lens, Like
Speaker 4: what was happening then?
Speaker 3: It was early nineties, so hip hop, you know, is
Speaker 3: really starting to take off, whether it was Snoop and
Speaker 3: Ice Cube and they're all rocking jerseys and Starter was
Speaker 3: was the it jacket, and I think they might have
Speaker 3: even been doing some jerseys as well back then. And
Speaker 3: we saw that and we just ended up really tapping
Speaker 3: into it, and we hired a company called Loud Records.
Speaker 3: It's Steve Rifkin, where he's like, I can help you guys,
Speaker 3: and started placing jerseys on the you know, folks that
Speaker 3: weren't already wearing them. And then I just even keyed
Speaker 3: in to say, Okay, we have the Super Bowl halftime
Speaker 3: in the anthem, but there's so much more. And I
Speaker 3: started working with the music industry and we would do
Speaker 3: these NFL New Artists tours and we'd tap people to
Speaker 3: play at the Pro Bowl, which.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever really paid attention to. And the cool thing.
Speaker 3: About it was the artists that we would tap in
Speaker 3: at that point were on the come up. So then
Speaker 3: two three years later were they're the biggest stars in
Speaker 3: the world, whether it was in Sync or the Backstreet Boys,
Speaker 3: even Creed Kelly Clarkson, like, they all wanted to just
Speaker 3: stay and be a part of it and would still
Speaker 3: come back and not charge the seven figures that they
Speaker 3: could have to be a part of all the events
Speaker 3: and activities concerts.
Speaker 5: Is interesting. You say nineteen ninety three, and that was
Speaker 5: the year that Michael Strahan and I were both drafted.
Speaker 5: But at that point, at least what I remember was
Speaker 5: Major League baseball was still America's pastime. And some may
Speaker 5: say that at that point mob Baseball was greater than
Speaker 5: the NFL. But what's happened over the last thirty years
Speaker 5: is phenomenal. I mean, it's incredible, and they become behemoth
Speaker 5: of network television in the world that everything's dying and
Speaker 5: they're still growing. Their numbers are crazy. In hindsight when
Speaker 5: you look back thinking about the deal, was there one,
Speaker 5: two or three things that happened that started changing really
Speaker 5: the future and landscape of the NFL.
Speaker 3: This is just my opinion, and I think it's what
Speaker 3: sets them apart still to this day, is you know,
Speaker 3: on Sundays and Mondays where you were going to be watching,
Speaker 3: Like you knew on Sundays and Mondays that was NFL
Speaker 3: football and that's what we really would drive to and
Speaker 3: for when I was there, it was all about, Okay,
Speaker 3: the NBA, the players aren't wearing helmets, so how do
Speaker 3: we make sure our players are identified? And that was
Speaker 3: when the groups that I was in, whether it was
Speaker 3: special events or liaising with the NFL Films Group, is
Speaker 3: let's get more content out there that showcases our players
Speaker 3: without the helmets. I think those two things for me
Speaker 3: would be identifiers looking back on when you could see it.
Speaker 3: And then Michael Jackson's halftime performance which was at the
Speaker 3: Rose Bowl, that was pivotal. I mean I wasn't involved
Speaker 3: in any of that, but just being a small, little coordinator.
Speaker 3: And then we also started the NFL experience back then,
Speaker 3: which was really I think the first fan fest, which
Speaker 3: is what a lot of people call them, where you
Speaker 3: would really lean in to the local community. But as
Speaker 3: you guys know, how many hundreds of thousands of people
Speaker 3: show up in a Super Bowl city, so you were
Speaker 3: giving them another activity to do than just drink at a bar.
Speaker 4: What is it about the NFL? What is it about
Speaker 4: pro football that makes it so culturally relevant and valuable today?
Speaker 4: The gap between every other sport in the NFL is
Speaker 4: massive when you think about valuations, when you think about viewership,
Speaker 4: when you think about every element. What is it about
Speaker 4: the NFL.
Speaker 3: In the thirty years you know since I started there
Speaker 3: to where we are now. Fantasy football huge, huge, and
Speaker 3: you went from just cheering for your local team to now,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, wait a minute, I have players
Speaker 3: spread out at all the teams. Then Sunday Ticket was born,
Speaker 3: so you didn't have to just watch your team in
Speaker 3: your market. You could then watch all the teams. And
Speaker 3: I think the betting, you know obviously has just for
Speaker 3: every sport, has just taken it through the roof. But
Speaker 3: those would be the things that stick out for me
Speaker 3: right now. And then the limited amount of games. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know better than I do. How many games do
Speaker 3: the NBA and MLB play a year?
Speaker 5: Eighty two and sixty two?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: So, because I haven't, you know, I'm always thinking about,
Speaker 5: like what happens inside these very famous boardrooms that all
Speaker 5: of our viewers would love to be a fly on
Speaker 5: the wall. But when you think about the last thirty years,
Speaker 5: is it Roger Goodell? Is it Jerry Jones? Is it
Speaker 5: Robert Craft? Who were the key players in that room
Speaker 5: that you think shifted this?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I wasn't in those boyfriends, but one thousand percent. I
Speaker 3: mean they are such visionary leaders. And you know, I
Speaker 3: was lucky enough to get to know Kim Bogoula from
Speaker 3: the Buffalo Bills, and I think she was a big
Speaker 3: visionary for one of the new ownership teams that came
Speaker 3: into play. Steve Ross, who I know you know very well.
Speaker 3: My dad was his driver. Talk about the.
Speaker 4: Deal and no way what?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting, And it's this is how much I
Speaker 3: love Steve Ross. So I run into him at Super
Speaker 3: Bowl every year, and whether it's the tailgate party or
Speaker 3: the Commissioner's party on Friday night and he's with all
Speaker 3: of his fancy billionaires and he's a big hug and
Speaker 3: he says, this is Consent's her father used to work
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: And you can see them like, what did he do?
Speaker 3: And we both go to his driver and it's the
Speaker 3: greatest thing because I'm a blue collar kid, and I
Speaker 3: think that's something that gets so lost in the deal
Speaker 3: that you have to go to an Ivy League school
Speaker 3: and you have to know Steve to have connections. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons I love him so much
Speaker 3: is it doesn't matter what you did, if you were
Speaker 3: smart and you're a good person, you just excel. And
Speaker 3: when he went in, you know, and bought the Dolphins,
Speaker 3: I know there's like this, there's always controversy with every
Speaker 3: team owner, but he brought such a different point of view,
Speaker 3: coming from the successful real estate market and everything. So
Speaker 3: but Jerry obviously and the whole family. I mean, Charlotte's
Speaker 3: a dear friend and what she's done, you know, in
Speaker 3: marketing the team and building the star and Robert Kraft
Speaker 3: just what hasn't Robert Craft and the Craft family done?
Speaker 3: But absolutely those are the owners that I just remembered vividly.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about music if we can, because you
Speaker 4: mentioned that, you know, those early days, you bring in
Speaker 4: these artists and music becomes really interesting to you. Talk
Speaker 4: to us about that transition into a different part of
Speaker 4: the sort of cultural zeitgeist, as it were.
Speaker 1: I owe my music career to Hoody and the Blowfish.
Speaker 4: Believe it or not, don't we all have.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited they're touring again next summer.
Speaker 3: We a whole bunch of us text are like, we
Speaker 3: have to go and see them on the road somewhere.
Speaker 3: But literally, Don Garber, who's commissioner of Major League Soccer,
Speaker 3: was my boss at the NFL at the time, and
Speaker 3: he said, hey, I just got a call from someone
Speaker 3: at a record company. Can you take it? And that
Speaker 3: one conversation changed the course of my career. And I said, Saron,
Speaker 3: I called this woman and she said, we have this band.
Speaker 3: They love sports. They're playing at Jones Beach. Would you
Speaker 3: come see them because we think there's something to be
Speaker 3: done with them. In my mid twenties, I was like cool,
Speaker 3: grabbed a couple folks from the NFL. It's like, let's
Speaker 3: go to Jones Beach. And see this band forgot They
Speaker 3: were opening for like Genesis, somebody like that. And I
Speaker 3: was so in awe and so blown away. And again
Speaker 3: this is mid nineties. I go back to the office,
Speaker 3: is Don, we have to hire them for the tailgate party.
Speaker 3: And for those of you that don't know, the tailgate
Speaker 3: party is the party of the super Bowl. It takes
Speaker 3: place right before the game. It's all the corporate partners,
Speaker 3: the owners, the networks. I mean, every fancy is at
Speaker 3: this party. So you have to come correct, not just
Speaker 3: with the music, the food, the decor. And that was
Speaker 3: one of the projects I worked on. And Don says
Speaker 3: what I said, Don, You've got to trust me on this.
Speaker 1: He's like, are you crazy?
Speaker 3: You think I can take a band that no one
Speaker 3: knows and have them play for the owners.
Speaker 1: I said, just trust me.
Speaker 3: Well, Book, I think it was Casey and the Sunshine
Speaker 3: Man as well. I said, And if I'm wrong, you
Speaker 3: can publicly fire me and then we'll put.
Speaker 1: Those guys as the headliner.
Speaker 3: This is August, September, October, November, climbing, climbing climbing. By
Speaker 3: the time the Super Bowl comes around, I don't even
Speaker 3: know how many Grammys they're nominated for so Don was like,
Speaker 3: con this is what you're going to be doing now,
Speaker 3: and so that set me on this course. And everyone
Speaker 3: I met from the hoodie camp, you know, from the
Speaker 3: publishers and the record company, they said, what more can
Speaker 3: we do?
Speaker 1: And it's time.
Speaker 3: Garber was like, go go create this entertainment marketing division.
Speaker 3: And I would just cold call because there was no
Speaker 3: social media, and so you would use a telephone like
Speaker 3: a handheld telephone, and you dial numbers and I said, Hya,
Speaker 3: it's Constant Schwartz from the NFL. We're expanding our music interactions.
Speaker 3: It's outside of just Super Bowl halftime pregame. Would you
Speaker 3: be interested? And who didn't want to work with the NFL?
Speaker 3: So we created NFL New Artist Tours, where you'd work
Speaker 3: with the record companies and they'd put new artists on
Speaker 3: tours going to each stadium because how else are these
Speaker 3: new artists ever playing in front of seventy eighty thousand people.
Speaker 3: And it just kept snowballing. And then we started securing
Speaker 3: venues at the super Bowl outside of obviously the stadium,
Speaker 3: and we'd set comedy. Jamie Fox played in the late
Speaker 3: nineties like it was the Super Bowl comedy tour, and
Speaker 3: then we started a Super Bowl concert series that took
Speaker 3: place at the NFL Experience, and all those things just
Speaker 3: kept elevating and growing. And next thing, you know, after
Speaker 3: the Cowboys Thanksgiving Game, we held a Shania Twain concert
Speaker 3: at the stadium that was then rolled right into CBS's
Speaker 3: you know after the game.
Speaker 1: Was so much fun. God, I'm like sitting here reminiscing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to go back.
Speaker 4: But it's interesting, I mean, because you were living obviously
Speaker 4: deep in baseball world. Baseball's not doing this. No, Like
Speaker 4: baseball is like, we're America's past time. We're good. Everybody's
Speaker 4: going to watch, and meanwhile, the NFL is eating their lunch.
Speaker 5: And to think that in the late seventies when the
Speaker 5: Yankees played the Dodgers, forty five million people watched that
Speaker 5: game six and you cut to twenty twenty and those
Speaker 5: eleven million people and watch the Dodgers win the World Series.
Speaker 5: So it's been interesting to watch one ascending and the
Speaker 5: other one.
Speaker 4: Being a little bit challenged. But the cultural relevance is
Speaker 4: obviously at the core of that. When we come back,
Speaker 4: we talked to constants about managing Snoop Dogg ing Smack
Speaker 4: with Michael Strahan and everything coach Prime. Then you start
Speaker 4: to really get into the to the music business. I mean,
Speaker 4: fast forward to today. You're still there. You and Snoop
Speaker 4: Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg' like you know all the names.
Speaker 4: How does he come into your life? You have a
Speaker 4: movie coming out with him?
Speaker 5: Do?
Speaker 3: We have a movie that's streaming right now on Prime
Speaker 3: Video called The Underdogs. But my last two years at
Speaker 3: the NFL, there was a new show they were developing
Speaker 3: called NFL Under the Helmet, which was our answer to
Speaker 3: inside stuff, and it was let's get the helmets off
Speaker 3: the players, and Michael Strahan was our correspondent with Brandy
Speaker 3: Chastain while he was still playing for the Giants. We'd
Speaker 3: send him out into the field. But it was where
Speaker 3: we literally combined sports media and culture because artists on
Speaker 3: that show were everybody from run DMC and ice Cube
Speaker 3: and so at that point I start getting calls from
Speaker 3: management companies and labels and they said, Okay, we know
Speaker 3: you're having a time over there and it's been great
Speaker 3: for us, but we want you to come work at
Speaker 3: a record company. I was like, I'm not leaving the NFL,
Speaker 3: and then another a management company in LA, was like,
Speaker 3: come out here, you can do strategic marketing and all
Speaker 3: the partnerships.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm not leaving New York City.
Speaker 3: But then I just kept getting so many offers that
Speaker 3: you get to the point where, Okay, someone's offering me
Speaker 3: a senior vice president position to create a new department.
Speaker 1: In a new area.
Speaker 3: And as you guys are doing the show called the Deal,
Speaker 3: how do you say no to that? And that was
Speaker 3: how I ended up leaving the NFL after a decade there,
Speaker 3: and I went to work at a record company for
Speaker 3: eleven months. Wasn't for me, but I learned so much
Speaker 3: and I'm so glad I did it. And then I
Speaker 3: moved made the jump and moved to LA to go
Speaker 3: really in the entertainment space. So when I was at
Speaker 3: the firm, we represented everybody that you can imagine in
Speaker 3: the early two thousands.
Speaker 4: Remind us about the firm, because that's seminole not just
Speaker 4: for you, but in the sort of.
Speaker 3: Many people that are going to be in these chairs
Speaker 3: with you. So the Firm was a talent management company
Speaker 3: who wrapped everybody from Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Martin Scorsese,
Speaker 3: Ice Cube, Vin Diesel, Kelly Clarkson, Enrique Iglesias.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just goes on and on.
Speaker 3: And I was brought into strategic market, the talent, brand partnerships, endorsements,
Speaker 3: and believe it or not, the music business wasn't as
Speaker 3: comfortable as they are now with doing endorsements, so it
Speaker 3: was sort of helping them understand that it doesn't compromise
Speaker 3: the integrity of your music or who you are.
Speaker 1: It just enhances it.
Speaker 3: And if we can get a brand to cover, you know,
Speaker 3: your release week, your tours, your release parties, why wouldn't
Speaker 3: you want to do that, especially if it's something that's
Speaker 3: so organic. And Enrique Iglesias was just coming off Heroes,
Speaker 3: the biggest thing in the world, and we just had
Speaker 3: so much upside and so much fun with him. And
Speaker 3: again early on how it's so important to establish trust
Speaker 3: with the talent because I'm new to the talent space. Yes,
Speaker 3: I worked with football players, but I was at the NFL,
Speaker 3: and I mean, my goodness, Enrique had a Dorrito campaign.
Speaker 3: He was in a Pepsi campaign globally with Britney Spears,
Speaker 3: Beyonce and Pink playing a Gladiator.
Speaker 1: You have to look that one up. It's phenomenal. And
Speaker 1: then the way Snoop came into my life.
Speaker 3: We threw a Super Bowl party in San Diego and
Speaker 3: I remember what year and Snoop was a guest and
Speaker 3: somebody from his team ended up talking to someone from
Speaker 3: my team about the firm. And the next couple of
Speaker 3: days their call comes in that Snoop wanted a meeting
Speaker 3: and I'm barely out of a suit right, like, I'm
Speaker 3: as corporate as you could be. And Snoop was doing
Speaker 3: that GFL, the Gangster Football League, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to work with him, Like I don't understand,
Speaker 3: like I'm going to stick in the pop world. You
Speaker 3: guys know a Snoop once you meet him, I mean
Speaker 3: the best. And so I was on his marketing team,
Speaker 3: though different than I was anyone else, but we had
Speaker 3: a little bit of an exchange in the boardroom that
Speaker 3: I stood up to him, and next day someone from
Speaker 3: his team called and he said, we want the girl
Speaker 3: from the NFL running the Snoop team. I was like, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 3: I'm not a manager. Yeah, this isn't my forte And
Speaker 3: they're like, too bad. You're a manager. Now the talent
Speaker 3: wants you, and wow, I jumped on a plane I
Speaker 3: think it was the next day to Reno, Nevada, where
Speaker 3: Private was waiting for him. He was on tour to
Speaker 3: take him to New York to do press for Starsky
Speaker 3: and Hutch and maybe soul plane.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And that was the beginning. And I never looked back,
Speaker 3: and we had an amazing run together. But I stepped
Speaker 3: down as his manager when I turned forty just because
Speaker 3: I wanted a life, Because.
Speaker 1: When you're with Snoop, that is your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I think we should stick on that for
Speaker 4: a second, because I feel like now it's like, oh, Snoop,
Speaker 4: he's like Mark, he's doing a show with Martha Steward,
Speaker 4: and he's got he's like this empire. That wasn't totally
Speaker 4: the vibe then.
Speaker 1: No, right, not at all.
Speaker 3: Snoop was in his thirty and you know, still had
Speaker 3: a lot of activity happenings, say, you know, at home
Speaker 3: from Long Beach, and maybe some kerfuffles with the law
Speaker 3: here and there. But once you really understand him, there
Speaker 3: was never anything that he has done or still does
Speaker 3: with bad intentions. Right, A lot of it's wrong place,
Speaker 3: wrong time kind of things. And I saw that, and
Speaker 3: he is such a star, and yes he had a
Speaker 3: global footprint, but we saw because this was again pre
Speaker 3: social media, so a lot of people aren't going to
Speaker 3: understand what I'm talking about. But in order to really
Speaker 3: build your base, you needed to be there. And so
Speaker 3: we just hit the ground running. And I was on
Speaker 3: tour with him internationally for that entire time, and we
Speaker 3: hit every continent, whether it was hosting the Europe you know,
Speaker 3: Video Music Awards MTV was so big that you'd go
Speaker 3: to Germany, he'd host that and that would pop. And
Speaker 3: we had a family doc on the E channel called
Speaker 3: Snoop Dogg's Fatherhood. Clothing lines had him in commercials like
Speaker 3: he was in a commercial with Yaya Coca for Chrysler.
Speaker 3: That just really took him from say the gangster rapper
Speaker 3: to the media sweetheart that you know him today and
Speaker 3: my most proud accomplishment with him, And there you'll see
Speaker 3: a string.
Speaker 1: A thread for me. I said, what's your dream?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Forget any barriers, what is your dream? And he said,
Speaker 3: I want my own youth football league. He said, I
Speaker 3: played as a kid and I tried to coach my sons,
Speaker 3: but where we live, they didn't want me. And just
Speaker 3: all I need, like my whole career is, don't tell
Speaker 3: me why I can't tell me how I can. And
Speaker 3: when a client tells me, you know that someone's telling
Speaker 3: them now, it just it gets me going and it
Speaker 3: puts the battery in my back. And I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: if you'll follow my lead, I will make this happen.
Speaker 3: So Commissioner Taglibu was still the commissioner at the NFL.
Speaker 3: Roger Goodell was the second in command, and I called Roger.
Speaker 3: I said, Okay, I know this is going to sound
Speaker 3: completely insane, and I know I've only been gone for
Speaker 3: less than two years, and you're going to say, what
Speaker 3: the hell has happened to you since you moved to California.
Speaker 3: I want to bring Snoop Dogg in to the NFL
Speaker 3: headquarters on Park Avenue for a meeting to talk about
Speaker 3: supporting us starting our own youth football league in southern cal.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 3: To their credit, Snoop and I showed up. We walked
Speaker 3: up those stairs and I said to him, do not
Speaker 3: smoke one blunt before we go anywhere near these offices.
Speaker 3: And if you do, you are spraying yourself with some clone.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a tip travel for Breese, a tiny
Speaker 3: little bottle throat in the purse which got me through
Speaker 3: my time with him.
Speaker 1: But it was one of the most.
Speaker 3: Memorable meetings I ever had, and Commissioner Taglibou and now
Speaker 3: Kimishner Cadell couldn't have been more gracious and more open.
Speaker 3: And going back to what you're talking about is the
Speaker 3: cultural relevance of the NFL. They saw it, they got it.
Speaker 3: The majority of players going into professional sports aren't growing
Speaker 3: up in Greenwich, Knnikut. I'm sorry, like you know, at
Speaker 3: least not in the NFL. And for them to see
Speaker 3: the impact he can have on these children that not
Speaker 3: everybody comes from a two parent home, not everybody's you know,
Speaker 3: working nine to five jobs. A lot of these kids'
Speaker 3: parents might have been in jail, and Snoop is helping
Speaker 3: them as any way he could, and they greenlit it,
Speaker 3: and we just said we want to be able to
Speaker 3: just know we have your support. We don't need anything else,
Speaker 3: but the kids want to be wearing the NFL team jerseys.
Speaker 3: And then we ended up starting to play a Snooper
Speaker 3: Bowl game at the Super Bowl every year, and they
Speaker 3: allowed us to use that because that's something you get
Speaker 3: to see. Some desistance shut that down, and there are
Speaker 3: thousands of kids that went on.
Speaker 1: To play at the collegiate level. CJ.
Speaker 3: Stroud right now is an SYFL kid. Black Mamba Shuster,
Speaker 3: He's another SYFL kid, And that's actually the inspiration for
Speaker 3: the Underdogs was just these kids. It's still going strong.
Speaker 3: I think the last number I heard was eighty thousand
Speaker 3: kids have come through that lead.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: So that kind of brings us to Smack and sort
Speaker 4: of this relationship network we talked with with Straighthand about it.
Speaker 4: This is a very interesting collection of people, is as
Speaker 4: I think we both appreciate. I mean, we're talking about,
Speaker 4: you know, Whiz Khalifa, Aaron Andrews, Tony Gonzalez, you know,
Speaker 4: Michael obviously talked to just a lot about that. What's
Speaker 4: the underlying idea.
Speaker 1: For me starting SMACK.
Speaker 3: I actually didn't plan on going on my own truly,
Speaker 3: Like I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur. I always
Speaker 3: joke about it, like kale and entrepreneur weren't words you
Speaker 3: used back.
Speaker 1: In the nineties.
Speaker 3: And when I went on my own, it was because
Speaker 3: I got fired, which was the best thing ever. So
Speaker 3: I'm so thankful to them for, you know, telling me
Speaker 3: to hit the road. But when I parted ways with Snoop,
Speaker 3: I had Michael and I had Dion, but they weren't
Speaker 3: coach Prime and Straighthan. The media, you know, behemoth now
Speaker 3: and I understood it. But wherever I was interviewing at
Speaker 3: they wanted me, well, you worked in sports, you'll work
Speaker 3: in sports. You produced Snoop's reality show, you should be
Speaker 3: a reality show producer. You're great at brand partnership. So
Speaker 3: don't you get it, Like I have twenty years of
Speaker 3: the best experience ever combining what I learned at the
Speaker 3: NFL and what I learned at the firm. That's what
Speaker 3: this company is. That's what it's about. One of our
Speaker 3: new people that just came into the company on the
Speaker 3: production side, he said to me what McDonald's is to
Speaker 3: hamburgers and what phones are to Apple smack is.
Speaker 1: To game changers.
Speaker 3: And I never looked at it like that, And I
Speaker 3: actually had a little a little teary for somebody that
Speaker 3: didn't work at the company who had that perception of
Speaker 3: us on the outside.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's what it is, and that's truly
Speaker 1: what it is. It was.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of when Strahan went into the Pro
Speaker 3: Football Hall of Fame. When you get that, you go
Speaker 3: back to your team and they present you, you know,
Speaker 3: with the team, and you get a ring. And I
Speaker 3: was on the field when he was being honored and
Speaker 3: all the Giant sponsors were there, and a wife of
Speaker 3: a big sponsor overheard or she goes, why is Michael
Speaker 3: Strahan from Live with Michael and Kelly being honored at
Speaker 3: the Giants game. I never looked at me like that
Speaker 3: that I was going to be upset, and I started
Speaker 3: high fiving my team.
Speaker 1: I was like, my god, guys, like.
Speaker 3: We've done this, like in these short years, in six years,
Speaker 3: we've crossed him over, you know, from being a retired
Speaker 3: athlete to a media powerhouse.
Speaker 5: Sokasa's described the business of SMACK. What is it, what
Speaker 5: does it do? And what kind of people are you
Speaker 5: looking for?
Speaker 3: So SMACK stands for sports, media and culture and it's
Speaker 3: a multi hyphen it like talent management, production and brand
Speaker 3: incubator company. So we manage talent, we produce whether it's scripted,
Speaker 3: non scripted documentaries and now feature films, and then on
Speaker 3: the brand side, we launched straighthands like head to toe skincare,
Speaker 3: you know, clothing lines, and then we have a pet
Speaker 3: line called Snoop Doggie Dogs with Snoop, and then a
Speaker 3: headscarf line with John tay rottis his wife and Snoop
Speaker 3: in the whole family.
Speaker 1: We have whereby.
Speaker 3: Aaron Andrews, which we launched with Aaron five years ago.
Speaker 3: That's what the culture comes into play, because we look
Speaker 3: and see what's happening in the world where there's white space,
Speaker 3: you know, where there's something that we can really lean
Speaker 3: in on, and those are the ones we've targeted.
Speaker 4: Right now, I want to talk about this moment that
Speaker 4: happened in this NFL season where probably the most famous
Speaker 4: person in the world, Taylor Swift, shows up at her
Speaker 4: second game in Kansas City, and she's wearing Aware by
Speaker 4: Aaron Andrews. Top. I walk us through that moment in
Speaker 4: sort of what led up to it and what it
Speaker 4: means for a brand like that.
Speaker 3: Aaron, like Michael, is one of the moost hands on
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs you will ever meet.
Speaker 1: When I tell you, she busts her ass at every.
Speaker 3: Game, not just obviously being super prepared, you know, for
Speaker 3: sideline reporting. But she will come with a stack of
Speaker 3: gear and hand it out to the fans, and the
Speaker 3: fans are like, Aaron am wearing this, I'm wearing thiss
Speaker 3: like they're screaming, And I tell you that just to
Speaker 3: say that didn't just happen with Taylor, I would love
Speaker 3: to say it did. But Taylor's PR team had reached
Speaker 3: out to Aaron, you know, to come to a show
Speaker 3: over the summer, and then when it came out to
Speaker 3: Taylor and Travis were dating, we sent a huge care
Speaker 3: package to Taylor's PR team and then Aaron's very good
Speaker 3: with Travis, and even on her Calm Down podcast over
Speaker 3: the summer, they'd put it out there because Travis was
Speaker 3: telling the story how we went to a concert and
Speaker 3: couldn't get the bracelet tour. So everyone on this like Tiree,
Speaker 3: like Taylor, please go on a date with Travis. It'll
Speaker 3: be great for America too, like going on and on.
Speaker 3: So there was some connectivity there. We had no idea
Speaker 3: she was gonna wear their jacket, And when that happened
Speaker 3: on Thursday Night Football, Aaron calls me, she said, I
Speaker 3: think she's in our jacket. I'm like, oh, my god,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I pulled it up on my phone. I
Speaker 3: forgot where I was. But the way she was wearing it,
Speaker 3: we couldn't see the whole jacket and like the shot.
Speaker 3: So we're just literally spent five minutes like we were
Speaker 3: John Madden, you know, with teleprompter dissecting, called someone else
Speaker 3: from the team like it's our jacket is not. We
Speaker 3: were screaming like we were little girls at our first
Speaker 3: time at Disneyland.
Speaker 1: We couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: And then it was just like, oh my gosh, buckle up.
Speaker 3: Our partners at Fanatics were like, okay, we need to
Speaker 3: go now. Our manufacturer I said, if you have to
Speaker 3: send somebody overseas to go stand in these factories and
Speaker 3: make more jackets. We sold out that night. The orders
Speaker 3: kept coming in, pre sales kept happening. But even more
Speaker 3: so and exciting than that, how many young girls are
Speaker 3: now fans of the NFL, specifically the Kansas City Chiefs.
Speaker 1: So just seeing that hotailor effect, it's phenomenal.
Speaker 3: I mean, thank you, Taylor, including my two daughters and
Speaker 3: not watch ye right, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4: So we think about cultural relevance and I think about
Speaker 4: the last twelve months. There's one man who has emerged
Speaker 4: as one of the most culturally relevant people in sports,
Speaker 4: and that is Dean Sanders. Coach Prime. Talk about a
Speaker 4: man who's had many names. How do you distill down
Speaker 4: Coach Prime.
Speaker 3: I've worked with Coach Prime now for over a decade.
Speaker 3: I think it's probably about thirteen fourteen years. Dion could
Speaker 3: have had a television career as big as is Michael
Speaker 3: is You.
Speaker 1: But he wouldn't leave Dallas. His commitment was coaching the kids.
Speaker 3: He started a truth league, similar to how Snoop had
Speaker 3: his Snoop Youth Football League. That's what Dean did as
Speaker 3: soon as he retired. So every time something would pop up,
Speaker 3: a new talk show, a radio show of this, he'd
Speaker 3: be like, can I do it from Dallas? And this
Speaker 3: is before COVID, I mean, this is you know, a
Speaker 3: long time ago. And they're like no, and he's like, nope,
Speaker 3: I'm good then, And so he had his NFL network job.
Speaker 3: Shiloh was off at University of South Carolina. Shadore the
Speaker 3: Baby is now senior year high school and getting ready
Speaker 3: to make his decision and where he's going to go
Speaker 3: play on at the collegiate level, and I popped into
Speaker 3: the NFL network to see Diani was doing a shoot
Speaker 3: or something, and he said, I've been baking an idea,
Speaker 3: but you know, I don't like to bring them to
Speaker 3: you till they're fully cooked. I'm there, I said, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, you're just sort of like what's coming. I
Speaker 3: sent a letter to the ad at Florida State. I
Speaker 3: want to help them recruit. Why would you help them recruit?
Speaker 3: I said, what do you mean? I said, I understand
Speaker 3: it's not the norm for somebody to go from coaching
Speaker 3: six year old to high school to the collegiate level,
Speaker 3: but you're not anybody. You're Deon Sanders. And he said, hmmm,
Speaker 3: let's figure it out. So again, good at what I know,
Speaker 3: better at what I don't know. I called one of
Speaker 3: my best friends, Jordan Bejon's now at Fox Sports, who
Speaker 3: was an agent at the time. I said, hear me out,
Speaker 3: kind of like when I called Christer Cadell. I said,
Speaker 3: Dion is ready, you know, to move on to the
Speaker 3: next level, and he's going to be a.
Speaker 1: Head coach at a college. Hello, And Jordan's like, you
Speaker 1: know what.
Speaker 3: Con If it was anybody else, I'd tell them they're crazy,
Speaker 3: but it's you and him.
Speaker 1: He's like, let's do this. And Jordan helped prep us
Speaker 1: because it's a.
Speaker 3: Whole different world and if you don't come from that world,
Speaker 3: you don't understand it. And so there's the search firms,
Speaker 3: and the search firms make the first calls, and then
Speaker 3: you have to prepare your playbook and you present your playbook.
Speaker 1: To whoever it is.
Speaker 3: It's doing the interviewing from the ad to the board
Speaker 3: of trust, you know, all the folks, and Dion like
Speaker 3: he is the most prepared individual. It's remarkable and he
Speaker 3: was crushed these interviews. But I think those schools just
Speaker 3: weren't ready. And he always says, God's plan is something
Speaker 3: that none of us you know, really know, and you
Speaker 3: have to follow it. And there was a reason why
Speaker 3: he didn't get those first couple of jobs because then
Speaker 3: a call came in from Ashley Robinson, who's the AD
Speaker 3: at Jackson State, and said, I heard he's looking to
Speaker 3: be a head coach and I'd love to.
Speaker 1: Talk to you guys about it.
Speaker 3: And coaches eyes lit up, and he said, this is
Speaker 3: my calling and I want to go to Jackson State
Speaker 3: and I'm going to shine a light on all the
Speaker 3: HBCUs and let's go do this this year especially he's
Speaker 3: been a blur and what an amazing run he had
Speaker 3: at Jackson State. And we still help, you know where
Speaker 3: we can with the HBCUs, with brand partners and anything
Speaker 3: of that sort. And then when it came time to
Speaker 3: go to Colorado, Rick George, who's our boss at AD
Speaker 3: at Colorado, I said, Rick, you have to understand you're
Speaker 3: not just getting a head coach. You're getting the machine
Speaker 3: that comes with it, and you're getting a docuseries that
Speaker 3: comes with it. So if that's not something you're comfortable
Speaker 3: with the Board of Regions, he probably won't want to.
Speaker 1: You know, take this job. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of other offers.
Speaker 3: And Rick was like, I am all in, Like I
Speaker 3: understand you know him and what comes with it, and
Speaker 3: I am all in. And Rick honestly was the main
Speaker 3: reason Dion chose Colorado because he's such an innovative AD
Speaker 3: and just truly welcoming and partnership and everything. And when
Speaker 3: that spring game hit and everyone went like all of
Speaker 3: it that day was sold out, the whole season was
Speaker 3: sold out, and then it just kept going and going,
Speaker 3: and I would love to sit back and tell you
Speaker 3: what a great deal maker I am. And then I
Speaker 3: knew all this was coming. There is no way anybody
Speaker 3: could have predicted how big and how fast it was
Speaker 3: going to take off. But what I absolutely do you
Speaker 3: know and continue to know is he's a winner. And
Speaker 3: for everybody that started, you know, just criticizing the way
Speaker 3: the season ended, we knew that we would have some
Speaker 3: dogs coming. And so when Jordan Seaton you know, announced
Speaker 3: that he was signing with Colorado, and it just silenced
Speaker 3: the haters.
Speaker 1: That is the best part of it all.
Speaker 3: But one thing, and like I said, you know him, well,
Speaker 3: none of the noise ever creeps in ever, like I've
Speaker 3: I call him and I said, okay, I think we're
Speaker 3: going to clap back at this.
Speaker 1: We're going to respond to that. He said, oh no,
Speaker 1: you're not. I was like, but why he.
Speaker 3: Goes It just feeds us like haters are the marketing team.
Speaker 3: We have a show that we're developing with him, scripted comedy,
Speaker 3: amazing writer Ali Larroy. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 3: have worked with him. Everybody hates Chris and a few
Speaker 3: other great shows and in the pitch because it's it's
Speaker 3: loosely inspired by coach's life, takes place of a celebrity
Speaker 3: head coach in a like a professional NFL team, but
Speaker 3: in like Wichita and what Ali says in this pitches,
Speaker 3: haters never focused on a loser.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I'm going.
Speaker 3: To start using that, Like, think about that because it
Speaker 3: takes a second to sink in.
Speaker 4: I feel like that's going to be written on the
Speaker 4: corpse soon.
Speaker 3: But it's so true, right yeah, Like I've never thought
Speaker 3: about it like that, and that helps me as the
Speaker 3: person that has to guide him that I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't care when anybody's saying anything. I really don't because
Speaker 3: if someone's gonna hate when we win, they're definitely gonna
Speaker 3: hate when we lose.
Speaker 1: It's cool.
Speaker 5: Not only is Deon a force of nature, but he's
Speaker 5: also like I consider I'm a friend and a mentor.
Speaker 5: And I remember when I signed my big deal with
Speaker 5: Texas going back to two thousand and one, We're playing
Speaker 5: the Reds and we were running sprange right before the
Speaker 5: game and spring training, and I asked Ian. I said, Dan,
Speaker 5: what advice can you give me? And he said, obviously
Speaker 5: you'll take care of the baseball, but just make sure,
Speaker 5: you're the best teammate in that clubhouse to those twenty
Speaker 5: four other guys, and I never forgot that. But my
Speaker 5: question to you is what is Dion's super power? What
Speaker 5: makes him so special?
Speaker 1: His faith?
Speaker 3: And why I say that is because it's that faith
Speaker 3: that makes him want to lift everyone up around him.
Speaker 3: For a lot of the critics, they're not listening to
Speaker 3: what he's saying. They might hear it, but they're not
Speaker 3: listening because if you read his social media posts, if
Speaker 3: you listen to him an oppressor, if you read an interview,
Speaker 3: he's not talking about himself just to talk about himself.
Speaker 3: He's talking about whatever he's working on to build the
Speaker 3: people up around him. I'll call him and say, I
Speaker 3: can't believe you just blah blah, I didn't do it.
Speaker 3: We did it. It's such inclusion and mentorship and guidance.
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like it. I really haven't. It's
Speaker 3: the most endearing quality about him is the faith that
Speaker 3: he helps you have in yourself, no matter who you are,
Speaker 3: whether you're a student athlete, whether you're one of his coaches,
Speaker 3: whether you're one of his brand partners. It's just this
Speaker 3: faith that he helps you to believe yourself. It's the
Speaker 3: advice he gave you exactly when you were playing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it is his superpower.
Speaker 4: One of the things that clearly happened both at Jackson
Speaker 4: State and then at Colorado. He was at the forefront,
Speaker 4: leading edge, poster child, whatever you want to say, for
Speaker 4: an entirely different business of college football. We talked about
Speaker 4: you being a witness to the NFL at this catalytic moment.
Speaker 4: This is a catalytic moment for college sports if there
Speaker 4: ever was one. How do you see it from where
Speaker 4: you sit, Like what's happening right now?
Speaker 3: I am so immersed in it that it's hard for
Speaker 3: me to take a step back at the three sixty level.
Speaker 3: But the one most important role we all have is
Speaker 3: it's got any deal we do, it has to be
Speaker 3: authentic to him. We're getting a lot of offers in
Speaker 3: many different categories, but if it's not something that he
Speaker 3: uses or does, we don't. We've passed and we'll leave
Speaker 3: money on the table. But it comes back to you,
Speaker 3: and that goes for the docum series, that goes for
Speaker 3: any appearances he's making. I mean, I'm talking about off field. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm off field, And when the mania hit everyone at Smack.
Speaker 3: It was like all hands on deck, including Michael, like
Speaker 3: we needed to get the kids dressed in our suits,
Speaker 3: so what I mean all hands on deck, But we
Speaker 3: had to make sure it was never too much, it
Speaker 3: wasn't off brand, and we would end up having debates
Speaker 3: internally do we launch this? I mean the sunglasses should
Speaker 3: be an Anita Elber's Harvard Business School study because those
Speaker 3: weren't supposed to come out until November. And we worked
Speaker 3: for a year finding the right partner. Because he wears
Speaker 3: sunglasses all the time, this was just like, oh, let's
Speaker 3: get a sunglass Like no, no, he needs his own
Speaker 3: line because there's many instances and Alex knows this that
Speaker 3: you're going to put your name on someone else's brand
Speaker 3: and there are times where it needs to be your own.
Speaker 3: He needed his own sunglass line. And we called these
Speaker 3: guys at Blenders when the coach the Colorado disrespected Mama
Speaker 3: Connie and we said you need to go now, like
Speaker 3: we need to go this week, and to their credit,
Speaker 3: they ramped up and we got all the glasses in
Speaker 3: the kid's hands at the team.
Speaker 1: Deane's mom gave the pregame speech that week with the rock.
Speaker 3: We sold in the first couple of days that week
Speaker 3: over a million dollars in sunglasses and they're reasonably with
Speaker 3: fist like these, aren't you know, over the top ridiculous sunglasses.
Speaker 1: Like it was nuts.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just you. You can't make this out.
Speaker 3: Like every time something happens. I'm like, if we wrote
Speaker 3: this in a script and turned it in, the studios
Speaker 3: would push it right back to us to say this
Speaker 3: is just too far out. Even with I mean, we
Speaker 3: lost I think it was the last five or six games,
Speaker 3: but we signed the number one O line in the country.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought he was going to.
Speaker 3: All the other Power five schools who loved to throw
Speaker 3: some shade our way, and Jordan's Seaton signed with us.
Speaker 4: I mean, one thing that I've been thinking about in
Speaker 4: talking to you and talking to Michael about you, is
Speaker 4: this idea that you know, you get these epiphanies again,
Speaker 4: Like you're in this seat where you're seeing some of
Speaker 4: the most disruption, some of the most opportunities, some of
Speaker 4: the biggest challenges in the sports and culture world. What
Speaker 4: happens next?
Speaker 3: Do you think On a smaller scale, what I'm seeing
Speaker 3: is more and more brands want real people. And what
Speaker 3: I mean by that is not a celebrity, not a
Speaker 3: paid influencer, but real life executives or coordinators, you know.
Speaker 3: Just that's a shift that I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: and just even internally here at SMACK is like as
Speaker 3: we talked about them being seen and honored, that's the
Speaker 3: shift where nobody. I think people are kind of sick
Speaker 3: of just hearing from the suits in a sense, and
Speaker 3: it's like the world shifted since the pandemic and you
Speaker 3: want to just have more one on one, real conversations.
Speaker 3: And that's a shift that I'm seeing, and that's where
Speaker 3: a lot of these podcasts.
Speaker 1: Are coming up.
Speaker 3: And the fact that I'm here, like I don't take
Speaker 3: this for granted that you guys are having me here
Speaker 3: when you're having the Michael Strahans of the world, but
Speaker 3: that to me is indicative of what's happening in the
Speaker 3: real world. Is people want to understand more about like
Speaker 3: how did you get there, what happened and being proud
Speaker 3: of it, Like I'm a blue collar kid. I went
Speaker 3: to Suniasuigo and I to this day still fight every
Speaker 3: day for every win that we have, and you want
Speaker 3: to celebrate those wins and that's what I'm seeing and
Speaker 3: I'm going to see a national championship in our in
Speaker 3: near future for Colorado.
Speaker 1: Wow, there's my vision.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm a buyer of that stock if you say it.
Speaker 5: But you know, as we were prepping for who do
Speaker 5: we want on our show? Here the deal, your name
Speaker 5: came up very quickly. With the work we've done and
Speaker 5: me getting to know you over the years with Michael,
Speaker 5: people say, how would you describe Constance, And some of
Speaker 5: the words I use was savant, definitely a visionary.
Speaker 4: Gritty and a plus character.
Speaker 5: Right, So if you think about nineteen ninety one when
Speaker 5: you first started your career, what advice would you give
Speaker 5: some of our young viewers and all viewers of what
Speaker 5: can they do to be like you?
Speaker 3: Thank you for saying that. And I'm kind of little speeches,
Speaker 3: which we all know it is not hard. I mean
Speaker 3: it's hard. Out of those words you use, the only
Speaker 3: one that I recall at twenty two years old was gritty.
Speaker 3: I've always been gritty. I didn't see any you know,
Speaker 3: of those words back then. Those characteristics and adjectives and
Speaker 3: descriptions don't give up, you know, if I could look
Speaker 3: at my younger self and just say, I wish you
Speaker 3: had a little bit more belief in how things were
Speaker 3: going to work out, because I don't ever like to
Speaker 3: lean into the male dominated industries. It was what it was,
Speaker 3: right and here we sit and a lot of times
Speaker 3: I'm the first woman. I just want to be the best.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what you know, sex you are, and
Speaker 3: things like that. That's what I would tell these young
Speaker 3: kids is hard work does pay off.
Speaker 1: Nurture your relationships.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's one of the reasons why you
Speaker 3: both have me here right Like, I mean, it just
Speaker 3: can't be pounded enough. Respect each other, like somewhere that's
Speaker 3: gone away and it's common sense. I have a little
Speaker 3: bag that says common sense is not so common And
Speaker 3: if we could.
Speaker 1: Just go back to that.
Speaker 3: I know this you're expecting some big visionary but that's
Speaker 3: the core and that's the base. It's just truly work
Speaker 3: hard and respect one another. And you two be sitting
Speaker 3: at to deal with you.
Speaker 4: Guys, well, thank you. This was really fun. I mean
Speaker 4: to really sort of go back and get into it.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we agreed prepping for this, like
Speaker 4: few people have seen the things you've seen, and I mean,
Speaker 4: if you were to put together this collection of people,
Speaker 4: it's like, what is the through line? Like you're the
Speaker 4: through line, which is kind of an amazing, amazing thing
Speaker 4: to witness.
Speaker 5: And here's my forecast. First of all, congrats for all
Speaker 5: the extraordinary things that you've done and are continue to do.
Speaker 5: But I believe that you're still in the early stages
Speaker 5: of this empire that you're building, because I feel like
Speaker 5: you're just getting started and I'm so excited for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Life begins after fifty.
Speaker 4: There you good. That's good to know, all right, Thank
Speaker 4: you so much.
Speaker 6: The Deals of Production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
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