Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: An eighteenth NBA title is insight for the Boston Celtics,
Speaker 2: the team advancing to their second NBA Finals in the
Speaker 2: past three years after completing a series sweep of the
Speaker 2: Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. An NBA title
Speaker 2: would cap a successful season for co owner Steve Paliuca,
Speaker 2: who just last week saw his Italian football side at
Speaker 2: Atlanta win the Europa League. Steve, it's wonderful to catch
Speaker 2: up with you, sir, we've been talking offline. I know
Speaker 2: I was so happy for you. Congratulations to you and
Speaker 2: a team. I want to begin with Atalanta and I
Speaker 2: want to go through what this means to you. They
Speaker 2: are the underdogs of Bergamow, overshadowed by their glamorous counterparts
Speaker 2: of Inter and Milan out of Milan. How important was
Speaker 2: that for you, for that side, for the history of
Speaker 2: that club.
Speaker 3: I think it was huge.
Speaker 4: The Atlanta has not won the europea couple one hundred years,
Speaker 4: and the city of Bermos is just ecstatic right now.
Speaker 4: When the team came back from the game that there's
Speaker 4: an shot of the fans in the stands.
Speaker 3: There's ten thousand folks from Burgbo there and when they
Speaker 3: came back, they couldn't even get out of the airport.
Speaker 3: It was mob.
Speaker 4: And then they took a bus to the practice facility
Speaker 4: and that was also a mob.
Speaker 3: And at the field, so they're feeling great.
Speaker 4: There's Cardi sec Yar goalie with the metal and it
Speaker 4: was just a wonderful time.
Speaker 3: That's a big cup. By the way, two NBA Championships
Speaker 3: were inside that cup.
Speaker 2: Steve, your approach to this club and the way this
Speaker 2: business has been run should be a case study in
Speaker 2: a lot of schools. I just want to go through
Speaker 2: some of that so our audience really understands the background here.
Speaker 2: You've taken a chance on a lot of players that
Speaker 2: some clubs have left behind, including my own club Milan
Speaker 2: and the likes of CDK. You picked up Scamaka Lookman too.
Speaker 2: You've identified talent the likes of Coop Minus. This hasn't
Speaker 2: happened once, It's not happened twice, It's happened repeatedly. It's
Speaker 2: not an accident, Steve, where does that come from.
Speaker 4: I got a lot of credits to the a Luca
Speaker 4: Percassi and the Italian team.
Speaker 3: We have on the field, there.
Speaker 4: They've done a fantastic job evaluating talent and really the
Speaker 4: mainstay of Atalanta is their academy. They've invested heavily in
Speaker 4: the academy in the last fifteen years and that's paid
Speaker 4: a lot of dividends. Sol Being's a twenty one year
Speaker 4: old defenseman that starts the youngest one in the.
Speaker 3: Entire Syria and several others like that.
Speaker 4: And then I think really really taking players and putting
Speaker 4: them into a team orian system like the Celtics, and
Speaker 4: having them pass the ball and putting them the right spot.
Speaker 4: So the coaching staff, Luca Percassi, the whole organization gets
Speaker 4: credit for that, and you know, it's it's been been
Speaker 4: wonderful watch. You know. It also helped that we took
Speaker 4: a risk on rest was Foightland two years ago and
Speaker 4: he's a very young player.
Speaker 3: I met him in.
Speaker 4: Stemm Gross, Austria team that he played for, and he
Speaker 4: was eighteen and we paid I think a record sum
Speaker 4: for woman, record sums for eighteen year old that time.
Speaker 4: Twenty million in Manchester United came docking the door of
Speaker 4: the season or we hated to lose them. If they
Speaker 4: paid eighty five million, then we invested in Scamaca and
Speaker 4: several other players to improve the squad and it's been
Speaker 4: imagining season.
Speaker 2: Stave, could we talk a little bit about that as well,
Speaker 2: the difference between Atalanta and the soundtics. When you have
Speaker 2: a star like Hyland and you get Manchester United coming
Speaker 2: in with massive money, how difficult it is to retain
Speaker 2: that talent at a club like Atalanta and whether that
Speaker 2: is still the future, is that inevitable, whether you're going
Speaker 2: to have to sell somebody stars again to continuously reinvent yourself,
Speaker 2: reinvent the club going forward.
Speaker 4: It's really another different the NBA is when you should
Speaker 4: win a championship, everybody watched your players and so we
Speaker 4: think we can continue to prosper Atalanta with a mix
Speaker 4: of young players and a mix of players that are
Speaker 4: our sold because they have great opportunities. I think we'll
Speaker 4: change that a bit. We're playing European football. Before that win,
Speaker 4: we qualified for the Champions League and that win gives
Speaker 4: you a slot in the Championszegue as well, So that's
Speaker 4: going to be really helpful on our recruitment of players
Speaker 4: to improve the team further, Stave.
Speaker 2: To really put you on the spot, has it been
Speaker 2: harder to run a football club or a basketball team.
Speaker 3: They both have similar challenges.
Speaker 4: You know. It's all about getting entertaining top talent and
Speaker 4: keeping them motivated and trying to do everything that you
Speaker 4: can to make their lives easy so they go out
Speaker 4: in the pitch or go on the court and play hard,
Speaker 4: and we try to do that in both organizations.
Speaker 3: It's very similar.
Speaker 4: Atalanta is kind of the can and do team with
Speaker 4: a great culture in Italy. It's the favorite team of
Speaker 4: many in Brahma and Northern Mulan, but also also it's
Speaker 4: a favorite it's probably everybody's second favorite team in Italy.
Speaker 4: I just came back from Rome and when we went
Speaker 4: in an hotel room, my wife and I found a
Speaker 4: large cake with an Atlanta symbol on it, So it's
Speaker 4: semi Atlanta fever in Italy right now.
Speaker 1: Steve, you are living pretty much everybody's dream. So congratulations
Speaker 1: for winning life. You have definitely done it. There is
Speaker 1: this idea, especially as you have two really successful teams
Speaker 1: Celtics heading to their NBA finals, the second finals appearance
Speaker 1: in three seasons, how do you monetize this? And I
Speaker 1: know that that's not the reason why you do this.
Speaker 1: You're in this for the love of the sport and
Speaker 1: all the passion. Is it going direct to the distributors?
Speaker 1: Do you find it actually more compelling right now because
Speaker 1: you have the actual intellectual property in a way that
Speaker 1: has changed with new technological advancements.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: You know, when we purchased the Celtics back in two
Speaker 4: thousand and three, there was no Facebook or minimal social media,
Speaker 4: almost nothing that maybe email was the technology of the day.
Speaker 4: Now what we have is fans were counted back then
Speaker 4: in the hundreds of thousands. Now they're counting in the
Speaker 4: millions and possibly five hundred million a million for you know,
Speaker 4: global soccer teams and also the NBA which is prospering
Speaker 4: in Europe and China and all the world. So the
Speaker 4: landscape's really changed. These teams have become teams of the world,
Speaker 4: and the Boss of Celtics certainly have that reputation.
Speaker 3: It's in terms of monetization. It's just a virtue of circle.
Speaker 4: If you get more popular, you get great players, you
Speaker 4: have more great players, you have more fans, and it's great.
Speaker 4: It's a great place to be right now with being
Speaker 4: in the file a couple years in a row.
Speaker 5: On that point, though, Steve, when you get a trophy,
Speaker 5: where does it immediately start to translate into money? Is
Speaker 5: it immediately in merchandise ticket sales?
Speaker 4: The main area quickly translates into a sponsorship So for
Speaker 4: the for the Celtics, just the building of the brand
Speaker 4: and having a championship team gets us more sponsorship income.
Speaker 4: When we bought the club, especially was Demnimus and now
Speaker 4: it's in the tens of millions and approaching hundreds of millions.
Speaker 4: You know, brands want to be associated with the brand,
Speaker 4: like the Celtics and Atlanta as well. Getting the champions
Speaker 4: League gets up to lonch to more eyeballs. So having
Speaker 4: that championship culture and the brand and the reputation that
Speaker 4: that that's what does it for the long term and
Speaker 4: creates value in the short term.
Speaker 5: You went through what makes Atalanta so special and how
Speaker 5: you really transformed that team. What about the Celtics they're
Speaker 5: always winning? Why are they so good?
Speaker 3: Well, that's one of the better questions I've ever had.
Speaker 4: I guess I think they're good because we've had an
Speaker 4: incredible management team who live by what grosspec for twenty
Speaker 4: years now.
Speaker 3: Rich Gotham, my president.
Speaker 4: It started out with Danny Age and Albrad Stevens in
Speaker 4: the basketball operation a great coach. They all work together
Speaker 4: as a team and have been very smart in player
Speaker 4: trading and acquisitions.
Speaker 3: Same story in Atalanta. So it's all.
Speaker 4: About trying to trying to get the top talent on
Speaker 4: the field and doing you know, in both organizations, we've
Speaker 4: believe been doing more work and exploring.
Speaker 3: Using statistics, you know, using scouts.
Speaker 4: To see players twenty or thirty or forty times, following
Speaker 4: players from when they're eight years old in the high
Speaker 4: school and college. And so that work ethic and kind
Speaker 4: of a will to win championship pervades each organization. And
Speaker 4: we've never been happier with those folks. And that's the
Speaker 4: great thing to see in both these situations. People were
Speaker 4: crying on the pitch at Atalanta after that victory, and
Speaker 4: last night in Indiana, which is a great basketball town.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a huge celebration after that victory,
Speaker 4: and I'm just so happy for those players who work
Speaker 4: so hard. It's just really hard to win championships. The
Speaker 4: NBA has at different champions the last five years. Same
Speaker 4: thing in Europe. It's just hard to get up every
Speaker 4: night and beat these great teams and overcome injuries. So
Speaker 4: I'm just pinching myself and hopeful the dream will continue
Speaker 4: next week.
Speaker 1: Steve, it sounded like you are a stabermetrics believer there
Speaker 1: for a second, so that seems to be part of
Speaker 1: what's going on. I will just say right now, you
Speaker 1: must be on such a high, probably haven't slept in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. There is this question of what's
Speaker 1: next in terms of are you still interested in buying
Speaker 1: other teams? Is there still value out there or do
Speaker 1: you think that basically things have been bid up to
Speaker 1: such a degree given all of the interests that pretty
Speaker 1: much the opportunities aren't there anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, when we bought the Celts in two thousand and three,
Speaker 4: the headline was venture capitalist paid record price for team
Speaker 4: that was three hundred and sixty million, and now the
Speaker 4: values are counted in the four in the four billions.
Speaker 4: So that's been a question to asked every single year.
Speaker 4: I think the fact that this technology has changed and
Speaker 4: sports are now global.
Speaker 3: In the fight for.
Speaker 4: Eyeballs between the new media you know, such as such
Speaker 4: as Facebook and and Apple and old media, the networks
Speaker 4: continues and everyone wants properties and get eyeballs, and the
Speaker 4: properties that get eyeballs are sports properties.
Speaker 3: So I think there's still room room to go up.
Speaker 2: Stay before we go, We've got to talk about a
Speaker 2: loss to the basketball world over the weekend. Bill Walton,
Speaker 2: we'd love a final word from you on his legacy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was devastating lesson. I'm so glad we won
Speaker 4: that game. I felt like Bill was looking down on it.
Speaker 4: I was very close to Bill in the twenty year run.
Speaker 4: We had here and his son named to work for
Speaker 4: us at the Celtics, and I just texted Bill two
Speaker 4: weeks ago. He sent me a nice his sons, I
Speaker 4: mean that message about the winning the Europa Cup.
Speaker 3: Yes, he was watching that.
Speaker 4: He was an avid sports fan and avid Celtics fand
Speaker 4: and everywhere he went he proselytized what a great experience
Speaker 4: it was to be a Celtic and be a champion.
Speaker 3: So the world and the NBA has had.
Speaker 4: A major loss in Bill russ In, Bill Walton and
Speaker 4: two years before Bill Russell, two of the most iconic
Speaker 4: centers of the game. And we're going to really miss
Speaker 4: still and hopefully our players will take extra heart into
Speaker 4: the games because of remembering Bill.
Speaker 2: Steve, we appreciate you, sir. Let's catch up soon. Congratulations
Speaker 2: for your hard work and success. Boston Celtics co owner
Speaker 2: Steve Paliuka