Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Well, the FIFA twenty twenty six World Cup kicking off
Speaker 2: next week across the county. Tickets I did not. I okay,
Speaker 2: I don't know that I could afford them.
Speaker 1: I know somebody who's going to five games. Somebody, I'm
Speaker 1: not joking. A friend of mine is going to five games.
Speaker 1: He's been saving up.
Speaker 2: Did they mortgage did he mortgage his.
Speaker 1: He said, I remember I was seven years old the
Speaker 1: last time this was in the US, in North America.
Speaker 1: I am going to go. He's going. He's going to
Speaker 1: four games that he paid for and one for work
Speaker 1: that a client has taken him to.
Speaker 2: I don't I get it if you really were to Seattle, La,
Speaker 2: New York all over the country also going to games
Speaker 2: are of course, our our team here at Bloomberg, who
Speaker 2: covers sports. Bloomberg's Vanessa Prodomo Maglione will be at some
Speaker 2: of the games as well, and she's been reporting out
Speaker 2: on what to expect some of the controversy because it's
Speaker 2: not inexpensive to go see some of these games, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of issues at play in including security,
Speaker 2: so Vanessa joins us. Vanessa, of course She is Bloomberg
Speaker 2: New Sports business reporter and host of the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: of Sports podcast back at Bloomberg headquarters in New York City.
Speaker 2: Also with us as Dan Arnold, he's senior vice president
Speaker 2: National Operations at the managed security services provider Proto Security.
Speaker 2: He joins us from Omaha, Nebraska. Dan, great to have
Speaker 2: you here with Tim Vanessa and myself. Security is a
Speaker 2: big issue. You've been in the industry for like a
Speaker 2: quarter of a century. I'm not trying to date you
Speaker 2: or age you or anything, but you've seen a lot.
Speaker 2: You understand you've worked with corporate security. Put the World
Speaker 2: Cup Games here in North America, here in the United States.
Speaker 2: Give us some context. How do you characterize this event
Speaker 2: in terms of span, difficulty and heightened concerns?
Speaker 3: Keryl's a great question, and Carol, Tim Vanessa, thanks for
Speaker 3: letting me participate. Carol, you can join me in Kansas
Speaker 3: City if you want to come watch MESSI here in
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: I would love to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it. You'll sit right beside me. I'm
Speaker 3: going to be in the stand to chairing with the others.
Speaker 3: But sitting in those stands, you know, I think that's
Speaker 3: that's really where your question and how do you get
Speaker 3: safely to those stands? This is like eleven sites across
Speaker 3: the country. Right in the United States alone, it's eleven
Speaker 3: simultaneous Super Bowls, and the challenge of security for those
Speaker 3: environments eleven at one time is a major strain on
Speaker 3: public and private, municipal and federal security partnerships.
Speaker 4: Dan, you know, I think the interesting thing here is
Speaker 4: how differently each city is handling it. We've had a
Speaker 4: lot of cities come out against the funding that wasn't
Speaker 4: released right away, But how are different cities, you know,
Speaker 4: in Kansas City, how is it being handled differently than
Speaker 4: New York. How are each city and the size of
Speaker 4: those cities go into play here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the funding certainly is controversial and some challenge, but
Speaker 3: I know what the local folks are doing, and you
Speaker 3: get private private security companies and the public law enforcement,
Speaker 3: the municipal leadership. I know, well over a year right,
Speaker 3: there's been very detailed planning and those groups are very
Speaker 3: tight and very coordinated. And while they always will want
Speaker 3: more funds, setting up communication understanding where forward operating centers
Speaker 3: will be understanding how you're going to use technology in
Speaker 3: and around the venues, different routes, different patrols. You know,
Speaker 3: how are we going to get people safely in and
Speaker 3: out of these environments? So the coordination has been very
Speaker 3: strong and it's been very exciting to watch these private
Speaker 3: public partnerships.
Speaker 4: And just so we know, I mean, because of how
Speaker 4: differently everyone's handling it is it up to each city
Speaker 4: to decide how much they want to invest into security.
Speaker 4: I mean every city. Like we said, it's different, the MetLife.
Speaker 4: Getting to MetLife is completely different, and having to deal
Speaker 4: with potentially a NIX NBA Finals overlap there is going
Speaker 4: to cost a little bit more and have a little
Speaker 4: bit more people. So how are the budgets decided there
Speaker 4: and how do they spread out this money?
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly with deep coordination their standards and minimum standards
Speaker 3: for safety and security. But these venues have great and
Speaker 3: strong security operations teams, right they support NFL events and
Speaker 3: other events. So these venues have a lot of expertise
Speaker 3: and experience and understand the funding it does take to
Speaker 3: provide safety and security for these events. But it's important
Speaker 3: that it's not one plan fits all, and I think
Speaker 3: that's what's been very good about the local jurisdictions and
Speaker 3: the local venues to say roots like you mentioned to
Speaker 3: get the met life or get to Arrowhead. Wildly different,
Speaker 3: wildly different needs in each community in each market. And
Speaker 3: so again I think the funding has been appropriate, could
Speaker 3: always be more, but they've been able to design good, safe,
Speaker 3: solid security plans, you know, in all these local markets
Speaker 3: that really fit the local market.
Speaker 1: Dan, I don't want to obviously don't want to give
Speaker 1: away any secret sauce here, but in an age of
Speaker 1: where we're seeing drones deployed in ways that was kind
Speaker 1: of work, kind of unthinkable in the last few years,
Speaker 1: it does seem like sort of airborne threats are potentially
Speaker 1: some of the biggest challenges around the country. How do
Speaker 1: you think about that in sort of drone technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think with drone technology, with the advancements of
Speaker 3: you know, some of the AI with camera systems and
Speaker 3: operations in security space is being it has become much cheaper,
Speaker 3: you know, less expensive to maybe cause some chaos or
Speaker 3: cause some frustration. Right with with drones and other things.
Speaker 3: People most of the time in good nature want to
Speaker 3: have cool videos and something for socials, but they don't
Speaker 3: understand the disruption it causes, and so it is certainly
Speaker 3: part of the plans. Right. There is counterintelligence teams, there
Speaker 3: are teams with technology trying to monitor. There are flight
Speaker 3: restrictions around these facilities, and all those are in place
Speaker 3: to try to prevent but it doesn't mean it's one
Speaker 3: hundred and so the teams have response plans and have
Speaker 3: been working hard understanding that some of these technologies and
Speaker 3: the cost of these technologies have made it a little
Speaker 3: bit easier to causal the disruption.
Speaker 4: Dan, One thing I want to ask you about that
Speaker 4: I've been hearing about because of the inflated prices on
Speaker 4: some of the transportation, is that some fans are going
Speaker 4: to try and find ways to walk to the stadiums.
Speaker 4: How do you plan for something like.
Speaker 3: That, Well, it's it's certainly depends on the market. Right,
Speaker 3: a little harder to probably walk the met life than
Speaker 3: it is some others. But you have major issues with
Speaker 3: all the just transport in general, right with the public
Speaker 3: transportation routes like you mentioned. But as we're talking about
Speaker 3: pedestrian traffic, the choke points and guide paths that you
Speaker 3: need to be able to do that safely and securely
Speaker 3: not disrupt traffic is highly challenging, and so they are
Speaker 3: working very hard to allow pedestrians and others to get
Speaker 3: to these facilities. It is not the easiest path, it
Speaker 3: is not usually the common path of these facilities, but
Speaker 3: there are i'd say centrific, centrific levels of security right
Speaker 3: there are layers and layers of security. They start it
Speaker 3: very very close to the facility, and so as you
Speaker 3: go out.
Speaker 2: Further around, Dan, we got to run. We got to run.
Speaker 2: So apologize Dan Arnold and of course our own Vanessa
Speaker 2: Perdomo Maglione. This is Bloomberg