Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Wait inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, we have a great guest if you
Speaker 2: come out to LA Yes, it's so much about the
Speaker 2: content business, the studios and all the good stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's also known for some iconic sports
Speaker 2: teams La Lakers, La Dodgers, La Rams, just to name
Speaker 2: a few sports too. Is such a muse in terms
Speaker 2: of creating content here in the United States and really globally.
Speaker 2: And our next guest knows a lot about that. She's
Speaker 2: part of the La Rams Inner Circle. She was in
Speaker 2: an earlier session here at screen Time. It was called
Speaker 2: perfecting your Partnership Strategy in the world of So I
Speaker 2: got to.
Speaker 3: Catch a little bit of it.
Speaker 4: You did.
Speaker 3: It was great. Good to have you with us this afternoon.
Speaker 3: Jennifer Prince. She's chief Commercial officer for the La Rams.
Speaker 3: She's on site here at Bloomberg screen Time in La
Speaker 3: all about commercializing La Ram's content business, helping connect the
Speaker 3: NFL team to a larger media landscape of social media,
Speaker 3: TV and film. How are you?
Speaker 5: I'm great, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I was the session. It seemed like it went really well.
Speaker 5: It was very dynamic, It went well, and it possibly
Speaker 5: could have gone on another thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: I always feel like all of these, right, they're just
Speaker 2: such great discussions, and I think about the sports world generally,
Speaker 2: it is such a great no joke, It is such
Speaker 2: a great news in terms of creating content. How do
Speaker 2: you think about it. You've got players, You've got teams,
Speaker 2: You've got lots of stuff going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, sitting in the center of LA we have an
Speaker 5: incredible team, an incredible brand. This brand is global. We
Speaker 5: have fans everywhere, and we get to play in Sofi Stadium,
Speaker 5: which is a beautiful meca of what sports and entertainment
Speaker 5: and technology and that intersection is. And so we get
Speaker 5: to really lean into all of the assets, from the
Speaker 5: football players to the team, to our coach, everything on
Speaker 5: the field to them. Thinking about our brand and the
Speaker 5: way that we present ourselves and how we work with
Speaker 5: partners to reach our fans, our future fans, and really
Speaker 5: creating this intersection.
Speaker 2: What's the thing that really moves the needle. That's something happens,
Speaker 2: you post something you know, and it's just like it
Speaker 2: just blows up.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So football first, right, anything.
Speaker 2: Football from the game or any of it.
Speaker 5: Any highlight, any moment not only on the field, but
Speaker 5: also the arrivals and the you know, the talks with
Speaker 5: coach after the game, all of it, it all, you know,
Speaker 5: resonates with fans and it gives access. And so that
Speaker 5: access point is really what does well our fans, even naysayers,
Speaker 5: like to hear what coach has to say, whether we
Speaker 5: win or lose, and how he motivates the team and
Speaker 5: keeps the team moving. So I would say, like the football.
Speaker 3: First, Silly me, I thought she was going to say
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift So well, how much? So we have to
Speaker 3: ask how can we be out Let's.
Speaker 2: Be real, like were you guys? Can we have our
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift moment? Like was it frustrating a little bit?
Speaker 2: Or like oh my god? Because so much attention right
Speaker 2: has been on you know, tailor or trailer as they
Speaker 2: call it.
Speaker 4: So how do you think about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, really the NFL is having a moment right
Speaker 5: when you think about the fan base and everyone who
Speaker 5: rallies around football, and then you think about that future
Speaker 5: fan and you think of that younger female demo and
Speaker 5: how to reach them. I mean, this is a moment
Speaker 5: and it's not like Travis Kelsey needed any help. He
Speaker 5: will be a Hall of Famer. He's incredible on the field.
Speaker 5: But the two of them together, it's a phenomenon. It's
Speaker 5: something that is really impacting ratings to Jersey sales.
Speaker 2: Are you guys seeing following? Are you also seeing an
Speaker 2: impact of result?
Speaker 5: I think just the overall consumption and who's watching and
Speaker 5: who's leaning in. We all need to lean into this moment.
Speaker 5: It isn't happening in our team right or within our family,
Speaker 5: but we still get to capitalize on what it means
Speaker 5: for this fan base to be so ripe and present
Speaker 5: at this time, Which are young females.
Speaker 2: Are you telling a member of the team like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know there's a popular singer.
Speaker 3: That's like she's well, I think about he's not available?
Speaker 4: Do you know what?
Speaker 2: I think about the old Hollywood studio system, right, and
Speaker 2: they would link actors and actresses together just so that
Speaker 2: their pictures showed up, just to create some momentum. I know,
Speaker 2: I know, I know who's saying right.
Speaker 6: We don't know?
Speaker 3: Well, you know. It brings up an interesting point about
Speaker 3: the presence on social media that these players have even
Speaker 3: before potentially signing with a pro team. How do you
Speaker 3: work with the players who have this direct connection to
Speaker 3: make sure that, look, what they're posting is something that
Speaker 3: aligns with your own values.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so listen, I've spent nine years at Twitter years
Speaker 5: ago to come, and so everyone has a personal life,
Speaker 5: Everyone has a point of view, and those who are
Speaker 5: notable can use their voice and carry their voice in
Speaker 5: all the right ways and also can make some right
Speaker 5: and left turns. It isn't my job specifically to work
Speaker 5: with the players and player marketing. That's our CMO. We
Speaker 5: have teams of people doing that. But we have a
Speaker 5: really great team, I would say have incredible players who
Speaker 5: are not necessarily leaning into things that they shouldn't be
Speaker 5: and we like when they're using their voice that helmet
Speaker 5: off who they are as people going through their journeys,
Speaker 5: their paths. Everyone has a story, so we like for
Speaker 5: them to tell their own story. But it's always something
Speaker 5: just to keep our eye on. But we have those
Speaker 5: who are well behaved.
Speaker 2: I and if not, they probably get reminded to be
Speaker 2: well behaved.
Speaker 4: Don't we all need that occasionally?
Speaker 2: Who is it that you like to take meetings with
Speaker 2: to figure out how do you best, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of leverage your brand.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we have over one hundred partners and we don't
Speaker 5: just want to create volume and scale around these partnerships.
Speaker 5: We like to partner in deep, meaningful ways. We like
Speaker 5: to say we partner with purpose. And so when we're
Speaker 5: talking to brands right the existing brands that.
Speaker 7: We have from Sofi to Toyota and Pepsi to Verizon,
Speaker 7: we have so many incredible brands and usually those want
Speaker 7: to leave it lean into us who are doing sports marketing,
Speaker 7: want to reach a future fan base with us and
Speaker 7: reach our existing fan base in meaningful ways with surprise
Speaker 7: and delights and offers and access.
Speaker 4: Like I talked about, what's.
Speaker 3: The read that you're getting from your partners right now?
Speaker 3: In the economy. We love talking to people like you
Speaker 3: because you see where the money's going. You see how
Speaker 3: much money is going to a certain places. We're not
Speaker 3: going exactly. What is the read on the economy that
Speaker 3: you see from your purchase chief commercial officers?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, we have the benefit of sitting
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles and we are working typically with not
Speaker 5: only heads of marketing, but those in the region who
Speaker 5: are looking to increase sales produce outcomes with us. So
Speaker 5: we like that we are a bridge and a conduit
Speaker 5: to providing outcomes. So it's not just the upper funnel
Speaker 5: fun stuff in terms of marketing with brands. It's also
Speaker 5: getting down to metrics and measurements. So coming from a
Speaker 5: world that was highly measured, I ensure that my team
Speaker 5: has all the right partnerships in place with vendors so
Speaker 5: that we can provide outcomes. And so when we hear
Speaker 5: from a brand that they're doing incredibly well with us,
Speaker 5: we dig into that what does that mean? And we
Speaker 5: want to make sure that we're marching with our brands
Speaker 5: to the outcome.
Speaker 2: So anybody pulling back though because of the economics.
Speaker 5: So you know what there are I was going to say,
Speaker 5: so the few categories right that are having a harder
Speaker 5: time is whether it's crypto or some mortgage finance interest rates,
Speaker 5: Like the things that are present right now that you're
Speaker 5: more familiar with. Those are the categories who are at
Speaker 5: times having to either readjust or realign, commit, but commit
Speaker 5: in different ways and at different levels.
Speaker 2: All Right, you're in an elevator with somebody really matters
Speaker 2: more important than us, and they said, give me thirty
Speaker 2: five forty seconds on Twitter?
Speaker 4: You know Twitter, this company? What do you say?
Speaker 3: You were there for eight years? Vice president? Don't eat
Speaker 3: up her time on content partnerships? What is it?
Speaker 4: Eat up time time?
Speaker 8: Listen?
Speaker 5: I worked at Twitter. We were priding ourselves on being
Speaker 5: this megaphone to the world and really where public conversation
Speaker 5: could happen. We did all the right things. I left
Speaker 5: December of twenty one, a long time ago. What Twitter
Speaker 5: is now, it's just take going on to be x.
Speaker 5: It has a little different meaning the way that they're
Speaker 5: leaning into product innovation and no comment really other than
Speaker 5: I had incredible years there and miss those that I
Speaker 5: worked with.
Speaker 3: Do you still use it?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 5: I'm not posting as much or tweeting, or it's not tweeting,
Speaker 5: it's posting coming and so I'm but I'm consuming for
Speaker 5: sport more than I'm talking about myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different world me too. I found myself
Speaker 2: backing up. What a pleasure, Thank you so much, So enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I shit you Jennifer Prince. She's chief commercial officer for
Speaker 2: the La Rams. On site at Bloomberg screen Time in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, I have Carol Masser along with Tim's Stanevik.
Speaker 2: Don't go anywhere More to come from screen Time Here
Speaker 2: on the West.
Speaker 1: Coast, you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business App, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 4: You know, going viral can be good or it can
Speaker 4: be bad.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's more often bad and good.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, a discussion here at screen Time was kind
Speaker 2: of all about this. It was entitled Viral Lessons, and
Speaker 2: it included top creators of social content. We have one
Speaker 2: of them with us, Drew A. F Walow is TikTok,
Speaker 2: creator and host of the comment section. Welcome, Welcome, and
Speaker 2: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to
Speaker 6: be here.
Speaker 4: We are excited to have you here.
Speaker 2: And it is right viral, Like you know, it can
Speaker 2: be such a great thing and then it can be rough.
Speaker 4: How do you think about it?
Speaker 2: Do you ever think about when you're doing something like,
Speaker 2: all right, I'm gonna get a.
Speaker 9: Lot of craft for this.
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, for my niche in particular. Absolutely, I
Speaker 6: a lot of feedback.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my feedback is one way to put it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, feedback is definitely one way to put it. I
Speaker 10: built my business off the shoulders of men who hate me,
Speaker 10: so i'd call that a win from women women of color,
Speaker 10: and I think it's been a it's been a real,
Speaker 10: like consistent barrage of hate for so long now that
Speaker 10: I think it's just white noise to me, specifically from
Speaker 10: misogynistic people in general.
Speaker 2: But when you started, what did you think about what
Speaker 2: you wanted to do?
Speaker 10: I mean when I first originally started, I just started
Speaker 10: telling silly stories that made me laugh and made me giggle,
Speaker 10: and so some people started kind of relating to it,
Speaker 10: and then I had one video that really took off,
Speaker 10: and then it kind of just snowballed into this crusade,
Speaker 10: which I'm happy to carry out and I have been.
Speaker 6: For a long time now.
Speaker 10: But yeah, it was never anything I thought was gonna happen,
Speaker 10: although now I'm glad it has.
Speaker 3: So when you when you carry it out, I mean
Speaker 3: it's not without its own challenges. You've been yeah, you've
Speaker 3: been blocked, You've been banned, yourn has been shut down. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: how do you get past those things?
Speaker 10: I mean, I think I just like even when I
Speaker 10: lost my TikTok account four times, I got locked out
Speaker 10: of it, and it was when I was like on
Speaker 10: a real growing like growth spurt, like I was growing
Speaker 10: like one hundred thousand followers every other day, and so
Speaker 10: I got banned twice first, then I got signed, then
Speaker 10: I got banned two more.
Speaker 3: To why why did that happen?
Speaker 10: Mass reporting, which is an issue that I've talked to
Speaker 10: TikTok about too, which helps. It helps to have you know,
Speaker 10: a team. I think me getting a team really helped
Speaker 10: in that you.
Speaker 3: Have like a direct line to TikTok. Now I have
Speaker 3: a rep.
Speaker 10: I think most creators do who are verified, they have
Speaker 10: some sort of contact person that they can reach out
Speaker 10: to if they have any issues at all. And once
Speaker 10: I got my contact person, I think it really kind
Speaker 10: of helped. Also, getting verified helps too, it helps legitimize
Speaker 10: you in the eyes of the app.
Speaker 6: And also true algorithm.
Speaker 2: You know, we're in this era of like trying to
Speaker 2: figure out so much social media out there, and there's misinformation,
Speaker 2: there's really problematic information, there's dangerous information, and yeah, there's
Speaker 2: opinion and entertainment. What do you think is the fine
Speaker 2: line here?
Speaker 10: I mean, I think for my particular niche there is
Speaker 10: really no other side. You see bigotry platformed openly and publicly,
Speaker 10: so I respond to it accordingly. I don't give them
Speaker 10: a chance to defend themselves because I don't really want
Speaker 10: to hear why you feel so bigoted and felt it
Speaker 10: was funny to platform it and perpetuate and uphold all
Speaker 10: these different forms of oppression. I don't need to hear
Speaker 10: the other side because I've seen it for myself. So
Speaker 10: I feel like for my content particular, I like to
Speaker 10: describe mine as like it's a real one way street
Speaker 10: on my platform, Like I see what you say. I
Speaker 10: don't give you a chance to defend yourself. I make
Speaker 10: fun of you publicly, and since we're all joking, let's
Speaker 10: all laugh together.
Speaker 3: I love to laugh, so I guess I guess my
Speaker 3: question is we love to laugh too. Is it working?
Speaker 3: Like I know it's working for you professionally, and you've
Speaker 3: built an amazing following. You're among the people on TikTok
Speaker 3: with the most followers, I mean, what eight million? At
Speaker 3: this point? Is it working to do you think? To
Speaker 3: make the space safer, to make the platform safer. But
Speaker 3: does it deter these guys?
Speaker 10: Yeah to an extent, Yes, for sure. At one point
Speaker 10: I felt like I did too good of a job
Speaker 10: of cleaning up those streets of TikTok because.
Speaker 6: I couldn't find anybody.
Speaker 10: But I don't think it necessarily gets rid of it entirely.
Speaker 10: I don't think that I could never have that kind
Speaker 10: of impact. I think what it does is it instills
Speaker 10: a very real fear that other people who sit lower
Speaker 10: on the oppression ladder experience every single day, not just
Speaker 10: on social media. So they experience that all the time.
Speaker 10: That fear is very real of being attacked. And so
Speaker 10: the men that I choose to stitch have never felt
Speaker 10: that way before. Now it's instilled a fear in them.
Speaker 10: If you do do it, there is a chance I
Speaker 10: will find it and I will talk about it. So
Speaker 10: they have to decide for themselves whether or not that's
Speaker 10: worth the risk, and some of them decide it is,
Speaker 10: and some of them decide it isn't. So I would
Speaker 10: say it definitely has made a difference. I wouldn't say
Speaker 10: it's gotten rid of it entirely. I mean, I think
Speaker 10: that would be crass of me to take credit for
Speaker 10: getting rid of a subject, because that's not true by
Speaker 10: any stretch.
Speaker 4: Oh it's still out there, Yeah, for sure it is.
Speaker 10: And I think my bigger goal though, is not necessarily
Speaker 10: to get them to stop. It's to empower all the
Speaker 10: people that they hurt all the time.
Speaker 2: Well, this is where I want to come to because
Speaker 2: people come up to you, right listen, and people who
Speaker 2: don't have the voice that you do, and.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're yeah, absolutely a little.
Speaker 2: Bit about that, like the feedback you get from just
Speaker 2: I hate to say normal people, but yeah, who don't
Speaker 2: have platforms.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's it's one of the few things that
Speaker 10: makes me emotional, like when it comes to my TikTok journey.
Speaker 10: But it's also one of the few things that makes
Speaker 10: it worth it because you know, I laugh and joke
Speaker 10: all the time about you know, getting hate from men,
Speaker 10: because it is true. It's silly in a very superficial way,
Speaker 10: but in a very real way. There's a very real
Speaker 10: danger that has come with me doing this for a
Speaker 10: living like it's posed a very real threat to me
Speaker 10: and my family.
Speaker 4: These are about security, yeah.
Speaker 10: Overall, because you know, when biggots are bigots, they get
Speaker 10: so angry that sometimes they want to kill you because
Speaker 10: they see your content. So it has posed a very
Speaker 10: real threat to me and my family in a lot
Speaker 10: of ways. I've taken extensive, extensive precautions and measures to
Speaker 10: protect myself and my family, but it is at risk
Speaker 10: I had to make peace with. So you know, when
Speaker 10: I hear testimonies from people who have used my content
Speaker 10: in a very real way, like they've put it into
Speaker 10: their lives in a way that has made a huge
Speaker 10: difference for them, it makes it worth it. I like
Speaker 10: hold that those kinds of stories so dearly when I
Speaker 10: feel like I can't do it anymore, because it does
Speaker 10: get really hard at certain points dealing with the very
Speaker 10: specific niche that I find myself in. So I mean,
Speaker 10: I've heard many different stories, like from women who are
Speaker 10: in their fifties who got a divorce because they've been
Speaker 10: watching my content. I've heard testimonies from trans women who
Speaker 10: told me my content kept them on this earth longer
Speaker 10: than they planned to be. So I've heard many, many
Speaker 10: different stories that have made me very aware and confident
Speaker 10: that it is impacting in a very positive way.
Speaker 4: You realize the power of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, rue, this is Bloomberg. We follow the money.
Speaker 3: We want to know about some money.
Speaker 4: Do you think ten year yield is going to go?
Speaker 3: You know you came here with It's not just you. You
Speaker 3: have a team. I mean, like I'm looking at it
Speaker 3: doesn't make sure afterwards. This is your full time job. Yes,
Speaker 3: talk to me about you know, the money behind this,
Speaker 3: the brand deals that you have. Please share and share
Speaker 3: some numbers if you can.
Speaker 10: You. Oh, yeah, I mean I have a pretty extensive
Speaker 10: team as of right now. I have like I have
Speaker 10: an agent, I have a manager, I have a lawyer.
Speaker 10: I have three publicists. I have a stylist. I have
Speaker 10: a hair and makeup artist. I actually have two managers. Yeah,
Speaker 10: two managers, and you know the list goes on. I
Speaker 10: have lots of Like I work with people at Spotify,
Speaker 10: I work with people on my book. I have, like,
Speaker 10: you know, very very expensive team, which I think it
Speaker 10: just it takes a village right to run something like this.
Speaker 10: I could never do any like even half of the
Speaker 10: things I have done just by myself. So I'm very
Speaker 10: grateful for a team. But yeah, I'm very lucky to
Speaker 10: have worked with many different brands that.
Speaker 3: I put A team is expensive.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 10: I mean they're expensive, but it's all about I think,
Speaker 10: what's worth it to you? Right, So the only way
Speaker 10: I get bigger opportunity is by hiring experts. And I'm
Speaker 10: not not too proud to admit that I don't know
Speaker 10: everything about this business.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I mean, sorry, it's.
Speaker 4: Like they're listening.
Speaker 6: You know who they are?
Speaker 4: Just thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: When you think about working with a brand, what's going
Speaker 2: to be top of mind? Is it about the financial
Speaker 2: composition of it?
Speaker 4: Or is it also who they are? Just really quickly, I.
Speaker 10: Mean, I think finances play a huge role, for sure.
Speaker 10: Obviously I'm a business and I have to remember that
Speaker 10: we're a business. But at the same time, I think
Speaker 10: as long as their ethos matches mine, and they understand
Speaker 10: my platform and agree with it and feel empowered by
Speaker 10: it or feel like it needs to be spread even larger,
Speaker 10: I think that's really all.
Speaker 6: I focus on.
Speaker 2: Well, congratulations and for willing to make the fight for
Speaker 2: people who don't have a voice out.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Really cool stuff.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Drew Afwalo, a TikTok creator of course and content creator
Speaker 2: should say and host of the comment section. Joining us
Speaker 2: here at Bloomberg screen Time.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business app, and YouTube. You can also listen
Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station
Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: We got a great guest with us this afternoon, Laura Miles,
Speaker 3: President of Entertainment and Technology at the thirty five billion
Speaker 3: dollar market cap and gaming giant EA. You also might
Speaker 3: know it as Electronic Arts. She knows this company well.
Speaker 3: She was a former COO and c chief Studios Officer
Speaker 3: of EA as well. She's with us right now at
Speaker 3: the Bloomberg screen Time event here in Los Angeles. We're
Speaker 3: in sunny Hollywood.
Speaker 11: How are you.
Speaker 9: I'm great? Hello, Thanks for having me. Thank you. What
Speaker 9: a great event it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you get out of something like this?
Speaker 12: I just I love the cross section of technology, media
Speaker 12: and then just the conversations that are happening. So the
Speaker 12: presentations are awesome, but the richness comes from the you know,
Speaker 12: getting a cup of coffee and having interaction in exchange
Speaker 12: with people. I just did to talk about gaming and
Speaker 12: it was great to hear people from nonprofits that are
Speaker 12: very passionate about education and how gaming can contribute to that.
Speaker 12: And I don't know if I would have had that.
Speaker 12: I don't know if I could have organized that or
Speaker 12: have you know, planned that conversation. So it's great, it's
Speaker 12: great to be here.
Speaker 4: It's so funny.
Speaker 2: It's a very bloomberg ish kind of thing where we
Speaker 2: all kind of have to like run into each We
Speaker 2: don't have to, but we just do.
Speaker 4: But it's amazing that you're like, oh, I didn't.
Speaker 9: Know you was doing that. Like maybe happy accidents, right, yeah, great.
Speaker 2: Happy accident tell us about your world and when you
Speaker 2: are thinking about I mean, actually, let's go to the
Speaker 2: big story.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about soccer. Okay, can we go there first?
Speaker 9: Sure?
Speaker 2: In terms of this long term relationship that you guys
Speaker 2: have with FIFA and now you're you're doing your own thing.
Speaker 2: Was that a complicated, difficult switch to do.
Speaker 12: It's been it's been years in the making, and it
Speaker 12: was such a great time for us, given shifts that
Speaker 12: we're seeing in the industry, shifts we're seeing in technology,
Speaker 12: it was a moment for us to say, hey, gosh,
Speaker 12: can we really create our own brand? And you know,
Speaker 12: Ea Sports Football Club. It's such an the idea and
Speaker 12: concept of it's such an inclusive idea for players and
Speaker 12: partner we have with clubs. We have nineteen thousand athletes
Speaker 12: in the game, and so it's remarkable. And where the
Speaker 12: industry is headed is you think about games now as
Speaker 12: platforms and in the case of E Sports FC, we
Speaker 12: have a mobile game, we.
Speaker 9: Have online game.
Speaker 12: In Asia, we have the HD premium game, and they're
Speaker 12: all about this big ecosystem. Hundreds of millions of players
Speaker 12: in this and they play multiple versions of the game,
Speaker 12: and they socially connect and they create together and they
Speaker 12: watch games together. And so that's really the future and
Speaker 12: what we're seeing in the industry. And when we think
Speaker 12: about electronic arts, we also have Battlefield, the SIMS and
Speaker 12: Apex and Skate and so you apply this model of
Speaker 12: this connected ecosystem, these massive online communities, we see that
Speaker 12: that's a really important direction for our growth and where
Speaker 12: we're headed.
Speaker 3: But this game, I mean FIFA's legendary one of the
Speaker 3: best selling series in the world, more than three hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy five million copies sold, versions in twenty different languages,
Speaker 3: and for people who are just catching up. And there's
Speaker 3: a great article and the great in this week's edition
Speaker 3: of Bloomberg Business Week. EA and FIFA were not able
Speaker 3: to come to a licensing agreement, So this year it's
Speaker 3: not called FIFA anymore. It's called EA Sports FC twenty four.
Speaker 3: How do you make sure that consumers of the game,
Speaker 3: people who are new to it as well, know that
Speaker 3: this is the next iteration of what last year was
Speaker 3: called FIFA.
Speaker 12: Are they already well, you know, we launched the A
Speaker 12: Sports FC twenty four a few weeks ago and we
Speaker 12: are so thrilled with the reception of the game. And
Speaker 12: keep in mind, the game is everything that it was Again.
Speaker 12: We have nineteen thousand athletes, over three hundred clubs and partnerships,
Speaker 12: So when players in Liverpool show up, their club is there,
Speaker 12: their athletes are there, and that's what's really meaningful to them.
Speaker 12: That was super important that we maintain that integrity of
Speaker 12: the experience and so and we were also able to
Speaker 12: innovate in the game with some really great technology and
Speaker 12: really realistic soccer experiences and animation and with the players.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's amazing when you guys get
Speaker 2: so specific on details in of whether it's how there's shorts.
Speaker 4: Move like I know our story in Bloomberg Business, we
Speaker 4: talks about it.
Speaker 2: But it does say something about the attention to detail
Speaker 2: so that when somebody is playing, it's like being at
Speaker 2: a real it's advan.
Speaker 12: It's about realism and yeah, and having and having that expression.
Speaker 12: And I am a soccer player on the you know,
Speaker 12: on the pitch, and so I think that that's that's
Speaker 12: what players really really look for. So yeah, we're we're
Speaker 12: really proud of of where it's landed, how the game
Speaker 12: is received by players right now, and where we're headed.
Speaker 12: That's the exciting thing. Again, these connected communities are massive,
Speaker 12: So what.
Speaker 4: Do you do with that?
Speaker 2: Because you know, when we talk about connected communities, I
Speaker 2: think we go to the traditional social world, right and
Speaker 2: we think about those communities better or worse. Tell us
Speaker 2: about that community and what's the power of it and
Speaker 2: where else you can go with it.
Speaker 12: You know, the idea about play, clearly, games are about
Speaker 12: play being and playing games, right and as we continue
Speaker 12: to think about our design and our innovation, we really
Speaker 12: want to extend the modality of experiences for players. So
Speaker 12: creation in games is also significant right now, really big,
Speaker 12: creating your own objects, creating your own modes so your
Speaker 12: friends can come play.
Speaker 9: And then the next.
Speaker 12: Modality is watching that and so people can record and
Speaker 12: create short form videos and then broadcast that. And then
Speaker 12: to your point, the social connection around all of that
Speaker 12: is what is really meaningful, and that's the flywheel multiplier
Speaker 12: effect of engagement. We have billion people spend billions of
Speaker 12: hours in our games every year. It's remarkable how much
Speaker 12: time people spend with us. We'll launch a game and
Speaker 12: will they can come back and play it every day
Speaker 12: a whole course of year. We used to launch twenty
Speaker 12: thirty games a year. We launched maybe seven or eight now,
Speaker 12: but we launch four to five hundred life service updates
Speaker 12: a year, and so we're there for players with events
Speaker 12: and seasons and content and just keeping the game alive.
Speaker 12: And to your question about social engagement, having those components,
Speaker 12: having those events and having those shared experiences super important
Speaker 12: for the social engagement.
Speaker 2: Keep going back, yes, exactly, now it's new or what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 3: Where's the growth happening for EA right now? Is it
Speaker 3: with the same people buying more games, playing these games
Speaker 3: more or are you successfully bringing more people into gaming.
Speaker 12: It's both, I would say so first really meeting the
Speaker 12: gen Z gen Alpha motivation and need through creation, through
Speaker 12: self expression, through sharing content, and then that social connection
Speaker 12: around that's super important for us to hit that key
Speaker 12: motivation of the of that generation of those players. And
Speaker 12: then I would say that players as well, spending more
Speaker 12: time in our games is also another area of growth
Speaker 12: for us. So we look at, you know, continue to
Speaker 12: expand our tam having you know, bringing new players into experiences,
Speaker 12: whether it be through new gameplay modes, new brands, new franchises.
Speaker 12: Apex has been a huge success for us, and that's
Speaker 12: been a great game for younger players. And then and
Speaker 12: then just having more content for players. Our SIMS game
Speaker 12: SIMPS four right now is about ten years old, and
Speaker 12: we just we continue to put out content. People just
Speaker 12: continue to spend even more and more time so new
Speaker 12: players address large addressable markets, and then just more time
Speaker 12: I'm in the games are really critical.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: This may be a little weird, but you know, coming
Speaker 4: off a bar Go there, Go there.
Speaker 2: And I know that's been a big conversation here, but
Speaker 2: I do think you know, folks are saying, nobody would
Speaker 2: have thought they've talked about a Barbie movie forever. Finally
Speaker 2: happened and it was a really huge success. And so
Speaker 2: I think anybody who owns any kind of toy property
Speaker 2: is like rethinking. So how do you guys think about? Okay, now,
Speaker 2: where's another avenue that could be a great content creator
Speaker 2: for gaming?
Speaker 4: Where do you go? What do you look for? What
Speaker 4: kind of trending or you know, innovators or TikTokers like, yeah,
Speaker 4: who is it or what is it that you look at?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 12: The beautiful thing about where we are right now as
Speaker 12: an industry is that as we looked to our players,
Speaker 12: I mean again this idea about creative self expression and
Speaker 12: creating sandboxes and tools and frameworks for them to create experiences,
Speaker 12: I think it is it's been phenomenal to see what
Speaker 12: people create and how they engage with our tools and
Speaker 12: our worlds.
Speaker 9: And so we've been inspired.
Speaker 4: By you could just keep kind of playing, yes completely, and.
Speaker 12: We're super inspired by how people think about things, and
Speaker 12: you know, in ways that are very unexpected and how
Speaker 12: they engage and interact in our world.
Speaker 3: Microsoft is trying to pull off a huge acquisition at
Speaker 3: after I don't know if that's happening. So what does
Speaker 3: that mean for you being sort of among the last
Speaker 3: you know, quote unquote independent publicly traded game studios if
Speaker 3: this deal goes through, not like we're like a lawyer
Speaker 3: and m and a exactly.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 12: I think it's well, first of all, I think it's
Speaker 12: it's it's amazing. Actually it's I mean that this will
Speaker 12: be one of the largest tech acquisitions in the US history,
Speaker 12: I believe, and the fact that it's about gaming is
Speaker 12: remarkable to me, and it just punctuates the significance of
Speaker 12: our sector and what gaming is to technology and needing entertainment.
Speaker 9: So I think it is.
Speaker 12: I just think it's interesting and really positive for the
Speaker 12: perception of But.
Speaker 3: What about your relationship with Microsoft? Then what happens.
Speaker 12: We will maintain of the strong partnership and then they're
Speaker 12: very they're important partner to us, they have a meaningful platform,
Speaker 12: and of course they're on they have PC as well,
Speaker 12: and so we will we will maintain a strong no concerns, no,
Speaker 12: no concerns. I mean, I think that it seems like
Speaker 12: all the things they've gone through to get to this point.
Speaker 3: The government's concerned exactly several different governments.
Speaker 9: Are they are, and they seem that there seem to
Speaker 9: be a lot of a lot of things they're putting
Speaker 9: in place.
Speaker 2: But like a lot of the technology world, right, it's complicated,
Speaker 2: like these relationships and you have them, but you compete,
Speaker 2: and that's just the state of the world, right, And
Speaker 2: it's and.
Speaker 12: It has been that way, and to your point, it
Speaker 12: is getting more complicated, that's for sure.
Speaker 9: Yeah, But again, I.
Speaker 12: Just it's it's fascinating to see where gaming is going
Speaker 12: to go in entertainment and the role that gaming can have.
Speaker 12: I mean, we again the engagement model that we have
Speaker 12: relative to linear content or for streaming. I think that
Speaker 12: but the bundling of content in the future is going
Speaker 12: to be meaningful partnerships that we can have with with
Speaker 12: media and entertainment companies and technology companies in the future.
Speaker 12: So lots of conversations, oh, but there always have been, right,
Speaker 12: there always there always have been partnership conversations. And I
Speaker 12: would also tell you that making games is really hard,
Speaker 12: as evidenced by several large companies that have invested billions
Speaker 12: of dollars that have.
Speaker 4: Tried, and you could do it, but to do it
Speaker 4: really well, you to do.
Speaker 9: It really well.
Speaker 12: We've been in business for forty years and it's it is.
Speaker 12: I think it's the highest form of entertainment media that exists,
Speaker 12: and so it's it's very complicated and very hard to
Speaker 12: make great games. So yes, there is interest and.
Speaker 2: Can you just dig a little bit into that, because
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg story in the magazine kind of gets into that.
Speaker 2: Like just creating you know, whether it's face or or
Speaker 2: the shorts moving like you would expect it to do.
Speaker 2: I mean can take a long time, right coders, and so.
Speaker 12: Of iteration, the iteration yes, in game engines and AI
Speaker 12: is going to play a pretty meaningful role for us
Speaker 12: in content creation. How so the you know, the way
Speaker 12: we're looking at it. So AI has always been part
Speaker 12: of our company.
Speaker 9: I mean, if you go back.
Speaker 12: Even nineteen eighty eight, Madden had twenty two players on
Speaker 12: you know, little AI players on the field. So we
Speaker 12: are an AI native entertainment company and always have been.
Speaker 12: And we're looking at AI in a way of optimizing
Speaker 12: what we currently have. So we know that AI can
Speaker 12: optimize tools and workflows for our developers and so our
Speaker 12: players as well as they're creating things. And also AI
Speaker 12: is going to help us expand content. So we talked
Speaker 12: about there are three point four billion players in the world.
Speaker 12: They on average, they spend four to five hours a
Speaker 12: week with us, and so there's you could have all
Speaker 12: developers in the planet and not develop all the content
Speaker 12: and metal demand that exists. And so AI, I think,
Speaker 12: is going to play a meaningful role to help our
Speaker 12: creators expand content and creation. And then of course it
Speaker 12: can be very transform transformational.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you who's a typical gamer? Because it's
Speaker 4: because it's massive.
Speaker 2: And the amount of time people are spending on your platform.
Speaker 2: Who is your I ha to say average gamer, but
Speaker 2: who is your typical gamer?
Speaker 12: Well, and I love this question because of three point
Speaker 12: four billion gamers by the end of this year that
Speaker 12: we project, I'm close to fifty percent are women. That's
Speaker 12: what I had and so I just and so I
Speaker 12: love that. And mobile devices are incredibly significant. I mean,
Speaker 12: there are mobile devices everywhere in the world, so we
Speaker 12: can reach all corners of the world. So that's the
Speaker 12: beautiful thing about it. I don't know if there is
Speaker 12: a typical gamer.
Speaker 6: And that age age.
Speaker 4: Is there a typical age? Nope?
Speaker 12: No, I mean that's we had when we you have
Speaker 12: people that are you know, gen xers and played games.
Speaker 12: They play a signific amount of console games that you
Speaker 12: may have Jen alphagen Z playing on PC and mobile.
Speaker 9: So it's just it's it's quite perfect. It's it's an
Speaker 9: incredible place to be.
Speaker 3: What is your favorite game that is non made.
Speaker 9: By E A World of Warcraft as I played, I
Speaker 9: played many years.
Speaker 3: Yes, Hey, what is your favorite game that is made
Speaker 3: by E A.
Speaker 9: Command and conquer It Alert.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. You are allowed to have favorite children a
Speaker 3: lot I do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 12: I play less probably than I have. But I play
Speaker 12: a lot of mobile games now because they're so accessible.
Speaker 12: I travel a lot, and so that's it's great too.
Speaker 3: U Plus it's working when you're playing games.
Speaker 9: And it's working.
Speaker 3: You got research. It's R and D exactly.
Speaker 2: Really interesting stuff. So love it and thank you for
Speaker 2: finding some time for us. I know, thank you for
Speaker 2: having me. This is really fun, Laura, so appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Laura Mieli, she is president of Entertainment Technology. Did I
Speaker 2: say the name right?
Speaker 3: Yes? You did.
Speaker 2: Okay, we like to get it right, of course at
Speaker 2: Electronic Arts. Joining us here on Bloomberg Business Week, I'm
Speaker 2: Carol Masser, a long with Tim stand back.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast, catch
Speaker 1: us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business App, or watch us live on YouTube from.
Speaker 4: Bloomberg screen Time.
Speaker 2: It's all about this, really talking about the content creators
Speaker 2: where they're getting kind of their ideas from. And we've
Speaker 2: seen athletes, we've seen TikTokers, we've seen you know, executives
Speaker 2: all coming.
Speaker 3: Together, sports culture, business, entertainment, the future of content. Also
Speaker 3: covering all of these issues, the new issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 3: It it's out now, it's on newstands, it's online at
Speaker 3: Bloomberg dot com, slash BusinessWeek, and it's on the Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 3: I got it in my hands right now. It's all
Speaker 3: about the conversation we've been having at screen Time from
Speaker 3: Disney's Bob Iger and his next act to struggles that
Speaker 3: EA is having in Life after FIFA.
Speaker 2: So let's get to it, because right with us is
Speaker 2: the two individuals have put this all together the new
Speaker 2: issue of Bloomberg Business you repegan, of course, he is
Speaker 2: BusinessWeek's senior editor and of course the editor of the magazine,
Speaker 2: Joel Weber. So when did you guys start thinking about
Speaker 2: I mean, this has.
Speaker 13: Been a big event.
Speaker 14: Months, but you know, I think that there's some really
Speaker 14: important ingredients here and we wanted to think about some
Speaker 14: of the stories that we felt like would be imperative
Speaker 14: to have in this issue.
Speaker 3: There's a couple.
Speaker 4: I think, what was the first idea?
Speaker 14: You're like, got to do it, you know, I think
Speaker 14: to talk about Disney in this context was a really
Speaker 14: important one one hundred year anniversary for the company. Things
Speaker 14: have not gone especially well since Iger's return, and so
Speaker 14: to make sure that we had a moment to talk
Speaker 14: about what Disney and what an effort there can look
Speaker 14: like and the challenges it speaks to such a lot
Speaker 14: of the turmoil that is.
Speaker 13: Gripping the industry right now.
Speaker 14: I think as everybody tries to find what a profitable
Speaker 14: growth strategy can look like, and obviously this was a
Speaker 14: place where he helped put it on a certain trajectory.
Speaker 14: And then things have kind of changed when he left
Speaker 14: and he has to come back and kind of you know,
Speaker 14: have this second act and a strike that has not
Speaker 14: gone his way.
Speaker 13: Like, there's a lot of.
Speaker 14: Interesting elements of tension there, Brett, What else did you
Speaker 14: feel like had to be in a screen time issue?
Speaker 2: Can I just say to what was really cool is
Speaker 2: that has come up so much so many of the conversations.
Speaker 14: That's the defining element of like how do we how
Speaker 14: does this industry in this in business models find a
Speaker 14: way forward?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 8: I would say that, you know, even bigger than excuse
Speaker 8: me movies is gaming, of course, so we were fortunate
Speaker 8: to be publishing around the same time that Ya's new
Speaker 8: soccer game came out and talk about time. Yeah, for
Speaker 8: anyone listening, they know that FIFA, the game, sorry, the
Speaker 8: game formerly known as FIFA is like, you know, the
Speaker 8: biggest game in the world. Basically you basically refer to
Speaker 8: it as Ya's you just call it. Everyone knows what
Speaker 8: you mean. And they decided not to well, there was
Speaker 8: a disagreement about the renewal. It was let's say it
Speaker 8: was complicated, and so it was life after FIFA became
Speaker 8: a really big story because even bigger than Hollywood is gaming.
Speaker 8: I mean, it's it's absolutely massive. So the opportunity to
Speaker 8: look at the biggest, one of the biggest franchises in
Speaker 8: all of gaming and to figure out, how does a
Speaker 8: company that was so reliant on a name, what do
Speaker 8: they do in their post FIFA era and how do
Speaker 8: they still claim that top spot?
Speaker 13: You want to give that away? What do you do?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the question that the article asked.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the article basically says, well, you just rename it,
Speaker 8: call it EF.
Speaker 3: You know, we had a great talk earlier today with
Speaker 3: Laura Miele. She's president of Entertainment Technology at EA. We
Speaker 3: spent a lot of our conversation asking her this question.
Speaker 3: She's optimistic about it, though she thinks they can pull
Speaker 3: it off.
Speaker 8: It's it seems likely that she's probably right they I mean,
Speaker 8: one of the things I thought was so cool and
Speaker 8: interesting about the article is the amount of time that
Speaker 8: they spend dealing with things like the players shorts. We
Speaker 8: talk to her about that, so, like, I feel like
Speaker 8: they're they're spending a lot of time on things that
Speaker 8: are really important to the people who play these games,
Speaker 8: and as long as they keep doing that, I think
Speaker 8: they gamers will probably be okay with not having the
Speaker 8: work up.
Speaker 3: There just is this incredible image in that story showing
Speaker 3: FIFA in what was it, the nineteen nineties, Yes, right
Speaker 3: next to a picture of FIFA today, And it's incredible
Speaker 3: to see. You know, each year it's incremental, but when
Speaker 3: you look at it thirty years apart, Yeah, it's mind blowing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Well, and those shorts and the way they wave are
Speaker 13: going to blow your mind now, right.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 14: The other thing I learned that I thought was really
Speaker 14: interesting about that is that I talked to Alyssa Thompson here,
Speaker 14: who's on our Ones to Watch list. She's a forward
Speaker 14: four Angel City here in LA. She's also a member
Speaker 14: of the national team. She's in the game, right, And
Speaker 14: there's this whole other thing that's happened is that it's
Speaker 14: always been men in the game, and now all of
Speaker 14: a sudden, women are in the game. And you think
Speaker 14: about what that changes for girls growing up, where they
Speaker 14: can play or boys, they can.
Speaker 13: Play as anyone they want in the game.
Speaker 14: It just speaks to the reach that video games have
Speaker 14: always had and like it can get bigger still, right,
Speaker 14: That's that's an impressive thought.
Speaker 2: The Ones to Watch you actually talked about it a
Speaker 2: little bit here last night. Talk to us about those
Speaker 2: individuals and what you guys were looking to do and
Speaker 2: who you wanted to how you figured out who you
Speaker 2: wanted to single out.
Speaker 8: Bred Yeah, so I mean I think you know we're
Speaker 8: talking about Hollywood. What does Hollywood always look for?
Speaker 3: What's next?
Speaker 8: Or yeah, who's the next big thing? Then the next
Speaker 8: big star. So we said about, you know, months and
Speaker 8: months ago, trying to figure out, well, who do we
Speaker 8: want to draw people's attention to, so that you know,
Speaker 8: you can be at a cocktail party and you can say, well,
Speaker 8: you know that person is a big deal, but you
Speaker 8: should really be paying attention to so and so so
Speaker 8: Alyssa Thompson a great example. I had a nice conversation
Speaker 8: this morning in studio with Brooke Michael Caine, who is
Speaker 8: basically looking at how the concert going experience can be
Speaker 8: bought into the year twenty twenty three. Like people going
Speaker 8: to concert, it's basically been the same experience fear twenty
Speaker 8: so outside of the.
Speaker 13: Sphere right, which is its own thing.
Speaker 8: Is but that is not that is a not really
Speaker 8: it's hard to replicate that.
Speaker 3: Maybe they can do in the UK.
Speaker 8: Maybe maybe but that's really relies on a residency model.
Speaker 8: So I wanted to get her take on, like, how
Speaker 8: can we just improve this experience a little bit? Like
Speaker 8: so she's literally working on things like how to direct
Speaker 8: people to the shorter beer line, how to help people
Speaker 8: with parking, how to get them a better seat if
Speaker 8: they are have already seen an artist live. So we're
Speaker 8: looking for people who are thinking about the big questions
Speaker 8: of tomorrow and sort of answering them now in part,
Speaker 8: but hopefully in a year down the line, two years
Speaker 8: in the line, but a fuller answer.
Speaker 14: The other one I really liked there was the the
Speaker 14: guys who are trying to transform DC. All right, so
Speaker 14: it's like we've seen what Marvel could accomplish. It was
Speaker 14: it's been like a twenty year just incredible, not even
Speaker 14: twenty ten years.
Speaker 3: You're talking to d C comics.
Speaker 13: Comics, Yeah, yeah, yeah, watching drama.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we see, we can't we can't help.
Speaker 14: There are some things beyond our capabilities. But what what
Speaker 14: these two guys have are going to do? There is
Speaker 14: going to be one to watch because we saw a
Speaker 14: Marvel universe unfold and what these what they have the
Speaker 14: potential to do with DC? Is to kind of reboot
Speaker 14: the other side, and we're gonna have these big comic
Speaker 14: book wars, I think.
Speaker 8: And it's really interesting because they're now coming out this
Speaker 8: at a time when we're starting to see some fatigue
Speaker 8: in this universe. The movie cells are recently for Marvel
Speaker 8: have been a little bit down. So you know, how
Speaker 8: do you basically try to do what they've done in
Speaker 8: an era where people have already been through five, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five to thirty movies?
Speaker 13: Right?
Speaker 6: A lot? Right?
Speaker 8: How do you come in now and try to make
Speaker 8: it feel vibrant and fresh?
Speaker 4: I have an idea.
Speaker 13: Oh go ahead, Jo, There's just one more story I
Speaker 13: think we have to talk about too, which is.
Speaker 4: Can I just say way to fix it? Taylor Swift?
Speaker 3: But will Yeah, there's that.
Speaker 4: You know, we'llcome back to her later.
Speaker 14: I think in every event at the screen toime the
Speaker 14: name Taylor Swift and Beyonce. But you can't three words
Speaker 14: that you can't have a screen time without so bts. Obviously,
Speaker 14: this amazing band, Global Reach put K pop. I think
Speaker 14: just as a became a household word, but they didn't
Speaker 14: do it on their own, right, Brent and and the
Speaker 14: guy who actually made them has a new thing.
Speaker 13: Right because the O didn't know about BTS. They're on
Speaker 13: pod right now.
Speaker 8: Right, So BTS not just to make sure we're confusing
Speaker 8: her audience, not ones to watch clearly.
Speaker 3: Already is that I've been watched.
Speaker 9: Many have been watched.
Speaker 8: Many have been watched. But yes, the so, the the
Speaker 8: the mogul behind BTS. His name is Bong. He even
Speaker 8: at their height when they were, you know, selling out
Speaker 8: arenas all over the world, Like any good executive has
Speaker 8: to start thinking about life after. You know, this man
Speaker 8: and all boy bands go through cycles. There isn't a
Speaker 8: boy band you can name that didn't have a huge
Speaker 8: peak and then a huge valley. So what is his
Speaker 8: next act? So he's kind of trying to do a
Speaker 8: multi prong strategy, and we had Lucas Shaw and so
Speaker 8: he can sort of look at this strategy for the magazine.
Speaker 8: So they're trying to build basically a music tech company.
Speaker 8: They've launched an app that they hope will better connect
Speaker 8: fans and bands, and the other thing they're doing is
Speaker 8: in La they have a they're basically trying to put
Speaker 8: together a new BTS. But it's gonna be a girl group,
Speaker 8: and they're drawing in people with women from basically all
Speaker 8: over the world, So they have people from Brazil, Sweden, China,
Speaker 8: US all here, all trying to be the next big
Speaker 8: girl band.
Speaker 13: So they've got that going on and that tryouts are underway.
Speaker 8: Tryouts are underway. They've already eliminated I believe you get
Speaker 8: voted off the island. It's there's a Netflix documentary about
Speaker 8: it that will air next year. They are basically voting
Speaker 8: people off the island and people can vote so on
Speaker 8: so wea versus you know that can vote through Weaverse
Speaker 8: and YouTube and TikTok and they are solely eliminating people.
Speaker 8: And they are going to eventually form a group, and
Speaker 8: then this group is going to record an album and tour.
Speaker 8: And he's hoping that they can export this model basically
Speaker 8: to other cities so they can say, okay, this is
Speaker 8: it's called Dream Academy, and the IPE they can take
Speaker 8: Dream Academy and say, let's do Dream Academy. I don't
Speaker 8: know Berlin, Let's do Dream Academy, sell Paula like, they're
Speaker 8: just going to try to export this model once they
Speaker 8: have it down. That thinking is, hey, this works we'll
Speaker 8: just replicate it.
Speaker 3: We'll see, Hey, Joel, Well go ahead.
Speaker 14: Oh, I just I think that is like such an
Speaker 14: amazing experiment because we've seen how how a band like
Speaker 14: this you create it right, and it can hold pop
Speaker 14: culture for five plus years and drive it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's interesting because you know, you were talking about
Speaker 8: this movie that Taylor Swift is coming out with and
Speaker 8: Beyonce is doing one, and I ask.
Speaker 4: Who is this tailor you speak Tyler is Swift?
Speaker 8: Yes, perhaps you've heard of her, Carrol kind of a
Speaker 8: big deal. I was tagging at Brooke Michael Kaine this
Speaker 8: morning and I said, you know who else could do this?
Speaker 3: The third band she.
Speaker 8: Mentioned was Black Pank, huge, huge K pop band. She's
Speaker 8: that's the only other one she thought could do this,
Speaker 8: So there actually is a tie in there. And you know,
Speaker 8: I think that they're hoping this they this new band
Speaker 8: can rise to that level.
Speaker 14: But you think about creating a model like this right
Speaker 14: where it becomes its own franchise, and you can not
Speaker 14: only do it once, but you could replicate that again
Speaker 14: and again. You basically create your own little engine. And
Speaker 14: I think that's a really interesting thing and it speaks
Speaker 14: to you know, let's let's properly bring it back to Taylor,
Speaker 14: you know well, and like it shows what fandom looks
Speaker 14: like now and in pop culture, it's like you can
Speaker 14: have that relationship with an artist in a way that
Speaker 14: I don't think we've ever quite seen it happen like this.
Speaker 14: I mean, it's one thing when you think back about
Speaker 14: what the Beatles were able to do in that moment
Speaker 14: in time, but like there's an intimacy now that I think,
Speaker 14: especially with Taylor, where she like turns her vulnerabilities into
Speaker 14: like business success, right, and you know, we have this
Speaker 14: story and the issue, but what she's basically done by
Speaker 14: re recording her own albums to make sure that she
Speaker 14: retains those rights because she didn't like how that naive
Speaker 14: was going. It's like she she's not done with that yet, right,
Speaker 14: And everyone listens to that new drop, and her fans
Speaker 14: will do everything for her, go to the theater or
Speaker 14: go to the concerts where tickets are upwards of one
Speaker 14: thousand dollars. And now like AMC has to like release
Speaker 14: the movie a day early because they were also that
Speaker 14: we already right, that's yeah.
Speaker 8: It is kind of fascinating though that you're right, Taylor
Speaker 8: has come up in almost every talk I've heard. But
Speaker 8: the flip side of that coin is whenever it looks
Speaker 8: like she's about to pioneer or new model that other
Speaker 8: people think, oh well, let's just do that, who'll say
Speaker 8: Taylor can do it because she's tailor sweating. I mean that,
Speaker 8: So don't get ahead yourself. Don't start thinking that you
Speaker 8: can do a you know, a concert of what any
Speaker 8: other band and they'll sell out movie theaters.
Speaker 3: Joel I wanted to say it's a screen time issue,
Speaker 3: but a story about bonds snuck into the hood. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: actually it's actually a super fascinating story. Did there's a
Speaker 3: couple if you guys have an editor or where, Yeah
Speaker 3: as well?
Speaker 14: Yeah, look, we we have to talk about everything in
Speaker 14: the world, I mean, and look like we we'd be
Speaker 14: remiss to not talk about what's happening in Israel too, right,
Speaker 14: But you know she has also come up a lot
Speaker 14: in the financial markets, what's happened in fixed income and bonds.
Speaker 14: It's like, look like this bond again again. Thing turns
Speaker 14: out it's really bad. And that story is about this
Speaker 14: goes back two hundred and fifty odd years. People haven't
Speaker 14: seen it be this back for a really long time.
Speaker 4: You should have seen the face of Drew A.
Speaker 2: Wallow and we said, so, where do you think the
Speaker 2: ten year is going to go? Yes, when we're just kidding,
Speaker 2: Joe Webber, Brettbeacon. It's a great new issue of Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week. It's a screen time issue.
Speaker 3: I'm brother Marca, a journal. How about you let me drive?
Speaker 6: Oh no, no, no, no, please gone.
Speaker 3: And drive, honey, please, I'll do the gravel.
Speaker 11: Let's wat I want to drive.
Speaker 8: It's a good question.
Speaker 1: This is the drive to the Globes dot com.
Speaker 11: Think we'll buy around yold it on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody just got under eighteen minutes left in
Speaker 2: today's trading session. You are listening and watching Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: Week live on the West Coast at Bloomberg screen Time.
Speaker 4: Tim Steneviek and Carol Massive.
Speaker 3: That's me, that is you.
Speaker 4: What a fun conversation with Drew Wallow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really good, really cool stuff. Hey you know
Speaker 3: who else is on the West Coast?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Russ Gerber. He's president CEO of the Santa Monica
Speaker 3: based Gerbert Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management. I've had about
Speaker 3: two point three billion dollars in assets under management. They've
Speaker 3: also gotten actively managed advisor shares gerber Kawasaki ETPP. It's
Speaker 3: been around for a couple of years. It's got a
Speaker 3: market cap about seventeen million dollars. Ross joins us this
Speaker 3: afternoon from Santa Monica. Ross, how are you.
Speaker 11: I'm good. I heard you're in LA and you didn't
Speaker 11: come by and say hi.
Speaker 3: I know, and you know I was in Sana. I
Speaker 3: was in Santa Monica last night. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: But next time we're here, come visit us in person.
Speaker 2: I well talked to us about the market environment and
Speaker 2: what's what's interesting for you at this point, is it
Speaker 2: is it a little bit challenging?
Speaker 11: Yes and no.
Speaker 15: You know, I actually like this environment because I think
Speaker 15: the FED is well over, Donnette. So you know, we
Speaker 15: were seeing peak rates in here, and we haven't seen
Speaker 15: the economy roll over. The economy continues to be strong,
Speaker 15: and so we're expecting a much better than expected earnings
Speaker 15: report for Q three here, and then as we move
Speaker 15: into Q four, you know, once again, I think the
Speaker 15: economy is pretty solid here. So you know, if the
Speaker 15: FED really gives us more clarity and backing away from
Speaker 15: this constantly rising interest rate bearish hawkish talk. I think
Speaker 15: it would really be a great potential environment for the
Speaker 15: economy going into next year.
Speaker 11: So, you know, I'm bullish.
Speaker 3: I like this.
Speaker 15: It's one year anniversary of when the bull market started.
Speaker 15: Technically we're up nicely since then, and I expect that
Speaker 15: to continue over.
Speaker 11: The next couple of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Ross, you said that the FED you think
Speaker 3: has overdone it. I mean, do you think they've overdone
Speaker 3: it to the extent that something out there is going
Speaker 3: to break?
Speaker 15: Well, the biggest risk to me is commercial real estate
Speaker 15: and who owns the debt on commercial real estate because that,
Speaker 15: you know, has a secular change with offices not being
Speaker 15: very popular among the youth, on top of a tremendous
Speaker 15: amount of overbuilding and leverage. So you know, as bonds mature,
Speaker 15: you know, with interest rates of two to three percent
Speaker 15: and need to be refinanced, especially in the real estate
Speaker 15: sector now at eight, nine, ten percent rates, I mean,
Speaker 15: these will all go into default. So so the damage
Speaker 15: the FED is done hasn't actually been felt yet in
Speaker 15: the economy. It's going to take years because they froze
Speaker 15: the real estate market with such a rapid increase in rates,
Speaker 15: and so we really won't know how much damage and
Speaker 15: who will really fall. But we've seen it in companies
Speaker 15: like Hudson Pacific Properties, which owns a lot of real
Speaker 15: estate here in LA and the stocks down, you know,
Speaker 15: seventy five eighty.
Speaker 11: Percent really being in commercial real estate.
Speaker 15: So you know, I think the fed's caused a lot
Speaker 15: of damage to the economy and it'll take years to
Speaker 15: fix it.
Speaker 1: Ross.
Speaker 2: Something we always talk a lot about is Tesla with you.
Speaker 2: I believe it's still the top holding in your fund
Speaker 2: and you you know, we've talked about the car itself,
Speaker 2: we've talked about the individual Elon Musk of course behind Tesla,
Speaker 2: and we've talked about the company.
Speaker 4: And I'm assuming you still like it. You like the car.
Speaker 2: What was interesting here at screen time we're walking into
Speaker 2: the event and it's kind of a whole experience and
Speaker 2: as you walk in, you're passing some really cool cars
Speaker 2: and that includes some other evs like the BMW EV
Speaker 2: and it's just a reminder that you know, a few
Speaker 2: years ago, Elon kind of had this space, certainly the
Speaker 2: high end EV space to himself.
Speaker 4: It's a different game today. You know what what changes your.
Speaker 2: Mind, if anything ultimately about the company.
Speaker 4: And the car.
Speaker 15: Well, you know, to start off with what you started with,
Speaker 15: I one hundred percent agreed. You know, even my partners
Speaker 15: here at GK have diversified. So one of my partners
Speaker 15: has the I seven and the other one another one
Speaker 15: has a Rivian now, and so we park next to
Speaker 15: each other, my plaid next to the I seven, next
Speaker 15: to the Rivian.
Speaker 11: Uh it's I think it's the RS one And they're.
Speaker 15: All great cars, you know, Like I really like the Rivians,
Speaker 15: and in La, the Rivian is becoming like what Tesla
Speaker 15: was as like the cool higher end car to own,
Speaker 15: and Tesla is I think, are now priced the same
Speaker 15: price as Prius, and I think people look at the
Speaker 15: model why much more like a normal like Preus kind
Speaker 15: of car, which is good and bad you know for
Speaker 15: Tesla's brand.
Speaker 11: So you know, as Tesla moves forward, they have to.
Speaker 15: Accept that the competition is actually exists now and is
Speaker 15: pretty good, and it is affecting their sales.
Speaker 11: I don't think there's.
Speaker 2: Any doubt, but you still think it's worth owning. It's
Speaker 2: obviously a big holding. You're still in for the long.
Speaker 11: Run, Oh absolutely. I mean, you know, one must look
Speaker 11: at Tesla as the whole. So we're going to sell.
Speaker 15: Almost two million evs this year, and we're going to
Speaker 15: launch the cyber truck hopefully any day, and the cyber
Speaker 15: truck will be, you know, an incredibly impactful vehicle and
Speaker 15: also helped sell other Teslas as well, so we will
Speaker 15: see an increase in production going into next year. And
Speaker 15: then the three other businesses that Tesla I'm super excited about.
Speaker 11: One being charging. They are the dominant player in charging.
Speaker 15: There is nobody even close to them in charging, and
Speaker 15: they will like have probably a monopoly on charging in
Speaker 15: this country maybe globally. Then you have energy storage, which
Speaker 15: is like this massive opportunity and it's been super helpful
Speaker 15: in La and Texas. For example, in California have had
Speaker 15: you know, benefits from putting in battery storage and keeping
Speaker 15: our grid you know, solid during a really hot summer.
Speaker 11: And then the third is full self.
Speaker 15: Driving, which you know, actually yesterday I saw a Waymo
Speaker 15: car driving next to me with no driver and that's
Speaker 15: the first time I've seen a Waymo car not having
Speaker 15: a driver. In Santa Monica, in heavy traffic area where
Speaker 15: I use full self driving, and I was actually fairly
Speaker 15: impressed that it was doing this because, you know, quite frankly,
Speaker 15: it's dangerous. You know, there's a lot of people around,
Speaker 15: a lot of a lot of kids walking around, so
Speaker 15: you know, full self.
Speaker 3: Maybe got lost way, you know, from from the bay. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe got lost on the way from the bay.
Speaker 15: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean it was I'm just talking about honestly.
Speaker 11: So yeah, I think full self driving is a real thing.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 4: Did you move away?
Speaker 11: No, I got closer. I wanted to. I wanted to
Speaker 11: like watch it work through it was.
Speaker 15: I was right by the pier where it's like kind
Speaker 15: of crazy, so but I was turning, so I didn't
Speaker 15: get to actually see it navigate through some difficult stuff.
Speaker 13: But it did.
Speaker 15: Nobody got run over. So full self driving is coming,
Speaker 15: whether it be Weimo or Tasla. You know, a lot
Speaker 15: of people think this is much farther away than it
Speaker 15: really is, but it's it's not.
Speaker 3: Okay, Ross, we onlyave up with thirty seconds left. But
Speaker 3: just give me some comments on the ETF, which you
Speaker 3: came on our program a couple of years ago. When
Speaker 3: you launched it, I was surprised to see it's only
Speaker 3: got about seventeen million dollars in assets in it right now.
Speaker 3: What's what's holding me back from bringing more in?
Speaker 15: Well, you know, we started at the top of the market,
Speaker 15: so that was no great timing, you know thing, which
Speaker 15: is really typical actually starting ETFs, because you get everybody
Speaker 15: wants you to do it when you're at the top
Speaker 15: of your game, right, And then we went through a
Speaker 15: very difficult year, so our perform it kind of sucked
Speaker 15: in year one. In our second year we sort of
Speaker 15: started really making back funds and moving forward into this
Speaker 15: calendar year, we've had a pretty good year. So I
Speaker 15: think we just need growth back and people will invest
Speaker 15: in the ATF, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so appreciate it. Listen, ros Garber, thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the fund is up about thirteen percent so far here
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg.
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