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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steinha and Paul's Wheenie on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: On this edition of Bloomberg Intelligence, we're bring you some
Speaker 2: of the best conversations from our Bloomberg Power Players event
Speaker 2: in New York, brought together some of the world's most
Speaker 2: influential voices in the business of sports.
Speaker 3: Today, we'll look at weather we're set for a major
Speaker 3: change in all areas of college sports.
Speaker 2: Plus we'll discuss what comes next as women's soccer hits
Speaker 2: the mainstream.
Speaker 3: But first we're going to dive into a conversation with
Speaker 3: David Rubinstein, co founder and co chairman of the Carlisle Group.
Speaker 3: He's also principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, and he
Speaker 3: was joined by Cal Ripken, Junior Baseball Hall of Famer
Speaker 3: and founder and partner of Bripkeen Baseball.
Speaker 2: They discussed their connection to the Orioles and the city
Speaker 2: of Baltimore.
Speaker 3: First, we asked David why he even bought the Baltimore Orioles.
Speaker 5: Well, in this case, I grew up in Baltimore, and
Speaker 5: I wanted to give back to Baltimore a bit, and
Speaker 5: I thought the team could maybe use rejuvenation in some way,
Speaker 5: and it's part of rebirth of Baltimore. Baltimore is trying
Speaker 5: to rebuild itself in many ways from some of the
Speaker 5: struggles it's had. I thought a new ownership group would
Speaker 5: probably be helpful, so I did it for that reason.
Speaker 5: And obviously I hope to make money as well for
Speaker 5: myself and my investors, but it's more of a philanthropic
Speaker 5: thing on my part than anything else.
Speaker 2: And Alex he's got a few partners there, including mister
Speaker 2: Bloomberg who owns this radio program.
Speaker 6: Ah, how about that? How about that?
Speaker 2: Secular forces exactly all comes back together. Cal talked to
Speaker 2: us about the Oriel boy man, I'm a Yankee stin
Speaker 2: So I'm looking at them every day.
Speaker 6: Man name look good. Tell us about this team.
Speaker 7: It's an exciting young team to watch, talent all over
Speaker 7: the place. We've had little problems with injuries and our
Speaker 7: pitching staff, but when you have a deeper minor league system,
Speaker 7: sometimes when somebody gets hurt, you can it's an opportunity
Speaker 7: for someone else. So they're playing really well, and it's
Speaker 7: interesting when many owners come in to buy a team,
Speaker 7: the thing they have to fix is what's happening on
Speaker 7: the field. In our particular case, that's the best part
Speaker 7: about the investment is that Michaelias has done a really
Speaker 7: good job of creating an environment of culture that knows
Speaker 7: how to win, knows how to play, and he's put
Speaker 7: talent in the system. So the good part is you
Speaker 7: just take your hands off of and say just keep
Speaker 7: going and hopefully the luck factor with David will in
Speaker 7: the very first year will take that all the way
Speaker 7: to the World Series.
Speaker 3: That's a really dumb question. Yes, why is investing in
Speaker 3: sports like a good business? And I say that because
Speaker 3: at some point we're going to reach the top, Right,
Speaker 3: there's so much money coming in. How do you know that?
Speaker 5: Well, over the last ten or fifteen years, it's been
Speaker 5: very difficult for somebody to buy a major league professional
Speaker 5: sport operation and lose money. People have made staggering sums. Now,
Speaker 5: of course that tends to tract more money, and as
Speaker 5: you suggest, at some point there's always a peak. But
Speaker 5: right now, the interest in sports is so dynamic that
Speaker 5: the live television despite your view in my view that
Speaker 5: live television should focus on interview shows, actually it focuses
Speaker 5: on live sports, and live sports is what's keeping television
Speaker 5: alive really. So if you take a look at the NFL,
Speaker 5: for example, I think of the fifty most watched television
Speaker 5: shows last year, forty five of them were NFL games.
Speaker 5: And now baseball sees a lot of people as a
Speaker 5: lot of people watching as well, so there's a view
Speaker 5: that the population increases and as other things seem to
Speaker 5: be less attractive, sports is still very, very attractive, and
Speaker 5: so the TV contracts are going up and as a result,
Speaker 5: for example, the NBA just negotiated seventy seven billion dollars
Speaker 5: worth of contracts. It's expected in two years that the
Speaker 5: NFL will top that number. So that's what is driving
Speaker 5: and also it's a global phenomenon that people now are
Speaker 5: buying sports teams not only in their own country but
Speaker 5: everywhere in the world. And so it's really not just
Speaker 5: a US phenomenon.
Speaker 7: So can I have a simple All you have to
Speaker 7: do is to look at the health of sports is
Speaker 7: to look at the salaries of the players. Yeah, and
Speaker 7: I guess I'd become one of those players saying, Man,
Speaker 7: I wish i'd played in.
Speaker 2: This always goes up. I mean, I'm like everybody else.
Speaker 2: It's got a top out somewhere, yet it just keeps
Speaker 2: going higher. Cal how has the game on the field
Speaker 2: changed the kids today that you watch at Canbin Yards still,
Speaker 2: by the way, I would argue one of the best
Speaker 2: parks in Major League Baseball twenty five years on. But
Speaker 2: how's the game changed today versus when when you played well?
Speaker 7: I mean, the analytics have taken over and all the
Speaker 7: data and all the information. And I was an analytical
Speaker 7: player and I took the data from but there's no
Speaker 7: way that I was getting all the sort of data
Speaker 7: that you can get now. And the trick is, and
Speaker 7: this is the fun part about learning the game hasn't
Speaker 7: changed much because the diamonds the same, the bases are
Speaker 7: the same, the mounds the same, the game is played
Speaker 7: the same way. But with all this influx of new data,
Speaker 7: teams feel that they have an advantage when they extract
Speaker 7: some of the data and then use that to help
Speaker 7: them play in the game. But the secret is how
Speaker 7: do you give the data to a player to make
Speaker 7: them a better player. And that's the part that I'm
Speaker 7: having fun with is learning what the data affects the
Speaker 7: philosophy of how you play the game, and that's changed
Speaker 7: and positioning on the field. You know, different old philosophies
Speaker 7: have kind of gone out the window because they've been
Speaker 7: proven not to be effective. So it's interesting to watch
Speaker 7: the game from that perspective. But it is all about
Speaker 7: the data. The numbers they track everything that moves on
Speaker 7: that field.
Speaker 6: It's amazing and that's AI.
Speaker 2: That's big data coming into sports and ouse I'm sure
Speaker 2: you know this, but I mean, just cal has he
Speaker 2: has a little record out there.
Speaker 6: He played a lot of games in a row.
Speaker 2: He never took a day off like That's that is
Speaker 2: something that just it'll never be broken down.
Speaker 7: I wish I was wearing probes or something that could
Speaker 7: figure out how I could do that because I'm asking
Speaker 7: all the time, how in the world you play all
Speaker 7: those games in a row, and I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess my question would be with the analytics,
Speaker 2: that's never going to happen again, not even a close.
Speaker 7: Well, I think they're predicting now, at least in a
Speaker 7: medical sort of way, when that you might be inclined
Speaker 7: to have an injury, you know, and so if they
Speaker 7: start to think that you might have an injury, then
Speaker 7: they put you on the list a little early, the
Speaker 7: injury list a little early, and they're they're looking at
Speaker 7: the long term as the short term.
Speaker 3: But I don't know if that's a good thing or
Speaker 3: bad thing.
Speaker 7: There's the one thing that's hard to measure is what's
Speaker 7: inside your heart, your guts, and how you go out
Speaker 7: about playing the game, how you compete. That's not measurable
Speaker 7: right now. And I think that's what drove me is
Speaker 7: when you're an everyday player. The definition of an everyday
Speaker 7: player when I played was every day I had the
Speaker 7: body type in which to do what. I healed really
Speaker 7: well and I could play through pain. And when you
Speaker 7: find out that you can play through being less than
Speaker 7: one hundred percent, because I would argue that even if
Speaker 7: you play one hundred and forty games, you're still playing
Speaker 7: at less than one hundred percent. Maybe the only time
Speaker 7: you're one hundred percent is the first day of spring training, right,
Speaker 7: and then you end up moving towards the year. So
Speaker 7: that's the hard part where that's not measurable.
Speaker 8: Yep.
Speaker 7: And I like to see players that push through and
Speaker 7: force themselves to play every game to see too.
Speaker 2: You see that you don't see that too much anymore, Hey, David,
Speaker 2: And aside from the Orioles, you've got a day job here,
Speaker 2: co founder, co chairman of the Carlisle Group.
Speaker 6: Perfect time to ask you this question.
Speaker 2: I know you bought the Orioles as an individual's part
Speaker 2: of a partnership right now, private equity. The NFL has
Speaker 2: allowed private equity crime in as part ownership.
Speaker 6: What do you think about that.
Speaker 5: Well, Carlisle is one of the groups that's permitted, so yes,
Speaker 5: I think that it was inevitable because the prices of
Speaker 5: NFL teams are going on so much that it's very
Speaker 5: difficult to find somebody by himself or herself who can
Speaker 5: buy a team anymore longer. The last team that was sold,
Speaker 5: Washington Commanders, went for six billion dollars. It's a large
Speaker 5: amount of money. Very few people can buy that by themselves.
Speaker 5: You need to have consortium of people to do this,
Speaker 5: and private equity is a big pot of capital sitting there.
Speaker 5: But the deals are ones where you have to be
Speaker 5: ten percent, no involvement in the day to day management,
Speaker 5: and you have to hold for at least six years.
Speaker 5: So NFL's experimental will see how it goes.
Speaker 3: So Kel, you have had minor league investments, but this
Speaker 3: is the first time that both of you have had
Speaker 3: major league investments. How did this come about? Like, how
Speaker 3: did the partnership come about?
Speaker 6: Has it going well?
Speaker 5: The owner of the team for the last thirty years
Speaker 5: was the Angelo's family. I had talked to them over
Speaker 5: last summer about a possible sale and it came to be.
Speaker 5: But I wanted to have people in the consortium that
Speaker 5: were more connected to Baltimore and baseball than maybe I was.
Speaker 5: I hadn't grown up in Baltimore, but I haven't lived
Speaker 5: there for a while. So I talked to a number
Speaker 5: of people in Baltimore and some of the people who
Speaker 5: are also connected with the Oriels, and obviously the first
Speaker 5: call I made as cal Ripken, they said he would
Speaker 5: like to invest and also help us in other ways
Speaker 5: what she's doing. So I think it's worked out quite
Speaker 5: well and win win for Baltimore and for for.
Speaker 3: That was like a no brainer for you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no brainer. I felt like I've been
Speaker 7: an Oriole through and through my whole life. I mean,
Speaker 7: I grew up in and around the Baltimore area. My
Speaker 7: dad was in with the Orioles in the first fourteen
Speaker 7: years of my life. He was a minor league manager.
Speaker 7: And then you have a dream to be a player,
Speaker 7: You get drafted by the team you want to get
Speaker 7: drafted by. You play your whole career with that team.
Speaker 7: So I know that I went off for a little while,
Speaker 7: and you know, you buy minor league teams, you learn
Speaker 7: about business in other ways. You put your head down,
Speaker 7: you don't pay much attention to what's happening at the Oriols.
Speaker 7: But when David called, it was an opportunity to get
Speaker 7: back in to look at it from the inside looking out.
Speaker 7: And I'm really surprised that I'm way into it now.
Speaker 7: I used to think the whole world revolved around baseball,
Speaker 7: and then you get out and you realize it doesn't.
Speaker 7: But then now it seems like the world revolves around
Speaker 7: baseball again.
Speaker 5: Of course, put it in context for those who don't
Speaker 5: know the record, Lou Garrick played in thirty consecutive games.
Speaker 5: People thought that was the unbreakable record. Cal Ripkin did
Speaker 5: twy six hundred and thirty two games over seventeen years,
Speaker 5: not missing one day. And all of us who worked
Speaker 5: day to day for living in non athletic things. Can
Speaker 5: you imagine going to work seventeen days in or seventeen
Speaker 5: years in rough without missing total?
Speaker 6: Exactly?
Speaker 2: Cal, What do you think the Oils need to work
Speaker 2: on over the next couple of years? Here again, I'm
Speaker 2: looking at the record. The record is great. What do
Speaker 2: you think they need to work on? Is it minor league?
Speaker 6: Is it no?
Speaker 7: No, we have a minor league that's stocked with talent
Speaker 7: and you can only I mean, if you developed three
Speaker 7: shortstops in the minor leagues, you can only play one
Speaker 7: of them.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 7: So many times the talent that you have in the
Speaker 7: minor leagues is used to trade to get to get
Speaker 7: the pieces that you need at the big league level.
Speaker 7: And the Ools are in good position for that. They
Speaker 7: have young players that are going to be superstars that
Speaker 7: are already superstars, and maybe the biggest challenge in the
Speaker 7: future is how do you keep them?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean no salary cap here, so tough to keep
Speaker 2: the star players.
Speaker 5: Right, Yes, Unlike football or basketball, there's no salary cap
Speaker 5: in yet professional baseball, so you can get contracts at
Speaker 5: are as high as seven hundred million dollars, and so
Speaker 5: it's hard for smaller cities to compete in that domain.
Speaker 2: Somewhat all right, thanks to David Rubinstein and Cal Ripton Jr.
Speaker 3: Coming up, we're gonna break down how NASCAR is trying
Speaker 3: to build audiences and a conversation with its president Steve Phelps.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
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Speaker 3: I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm Alex Steele, and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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Speaker 3: We continue as some of the best conversations from our
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Power Players event in New York. It brought together
Speaker 3: some of the most influential people in the business of sports.
Speaker 2: Next up a conversation with NASCAR president Steve Phelps. We
Speaker 2: discussed how NASCAR is trying to build audiences and expand
Speaker 2: outside the US.
Speaker 3: We first asked where we are now with NASCAR and
Speaker 3: the global sports scene.
Speaker 9: Well, I think I would say until two thousand and nine,
Speaker 9: the growth of the sport just continued. You know, the
Speaker 9: recession hit, and I think sponsorship started to go away
Speaker 9: because not necessary to the sport just because of where
Speaker 9: things were with the economy. And then we had a slow,
Speaker 9: steady decline, if we're going to be completely honest, until
Speaker 9: twenty eighteen. But since twenty nineteen, attendance is ratings are up.
Speaker 9: We did a almost a one point one billion dollar
Speaker 9: per year media deal last year for seven years, so
Speaker 9: almost eight billion dollars. And so I'm very bold us
Speaker 9: on where the sport is today, but importantly where it's going.
Speaker 3: Where do you think it's going to go? Like, has
Speaker 3: it broaden appeal? How do you get someone like me
Speaker 3: to watch it?
Speaker 8: Sure, I think you know it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, And that's a and there's the trick, right, So like.
Speaker 6: Me just I don't know. I don't do sports at all.
Speaker 3: I like the Olympics, I like the US Open.
Speaker 9: So I think, you know, we're trying to appeal to
Speaker 9: both obviously our existing audience and serve that audience and
Speaker 9: then bring a new audience in. We're doing that through
Speaker 9: a number of different things. So for example, we did
Speaker 9: a Netflix show earlier in the year, and that audience
Speaker 9: for us has been more female, it has been younger,
Speaker 9: and I think if you look overall in NASCAR in
Speaker 9: the last three years, our growth has come from women,
Speaker 9: people of color, and younger people. And so it's working,
Speaker 9: but we've got to continue.
Speaker 8: To do that.
Speaker 9: The key for me is what content opportunities we have
Speaker 9: that will capture you, Alex right, and what are the
Speaker 9: storylines we have that will capture you. And I think
Speaker 9: that's important because I think people think of it in
Speaker 9: a way that is not right, which is you're either
Speaker 9: going to serve your existing fans or you're going to
Speaker 9: go after new fans.
Speaker 8: I don't think that's true. It's an and it's not
Speaker 8: an or.
Speaker 9: These fans, the existing fans, they want great racing, they
Speaker 9: want great storylines, they want their drivers to win, they
Speaker 9: want to see exciting racing.
Speaker 8: These people want the same thing.
Speaker 9: It's how do you capture them right, And so I
Speaker 9: don't think that two things are all that different. It's
Speaker 9: just where we investing our money. So for example, we
Speaker 9: just built a sixty million dollar productions facility right outside
Speaker 9: of Charlotte next to our R and D facility, and
Speaker 9: it's really two components to it.
Speaker 8: It's live event production.
Speaker 9: So how are we going to put our own events
Speaker 9: on for our five media partners going forward in twenty five?
Speaker 9: And then how do we create creative content and really
Speaker 9: compelling content either be distributed through our own channels of
Speaker 9: distribution or someone else's. So we've got, you know, the
Speaker 9: three new media partners as part of it. So Fox
Speaker 9: and NBC came back, who are existing partners, but we
Speaker 9: add an Amazon, Warner Brothers, Discovery and the CW and
Speaker 9: the CW is for our second series, which is called
Speaker 9: the Xfinity Series. So five media partners, five opportunities for
Speaker 9: us to have, you know, kind of a megaphone of
Speaker 9: where things are going. It used to be alex you know,
Speaker 9: Ford cars, Chevy cars in the race. If you win
Speaker 9: on Sunday, you sell on Monday. That's how important it was.
Speaker 9: Talk to us about the economics of just the teams
Speaker 9: out there. How many teams are there? Do they make money?
Speaker 10: Sure?
Speaker 6: How does that work?
Speaker 9: So I would look at it in three kind of
Speaker 9: three buckets. Right, So we have three national series. The
Speaker 9: one that most people think about is our Cup series,
Speaker 9: which is our top series. So we're coming to a close,
Speaker 9: I think, you know, pretty quickly on something called charter extensions.
Speaker 9: So I would think of it as franchise light. OK,
Speaker 9: so it's not franchise, but it creates enterprise value for
Speaker 9: our race teams. And so we're in the in the
Speaker 9: final throws of getting those extended. Right now, race teams,
Speaker 9: if you probably are collectively losing money. So in the
Speaker 9: charter agreement that we have based on our media deals
Speaker 9: and some other things that we're doing, we're going to
Speaker 9: provide the race teams with more revenue. So two pieces
Speaker 9: of revenue guaranteed revenue and then what they race for.
Speaker 9: And so to me, starting in twenty twenty five, we
Speaker 9: should have cash flow positive race teams, which is what
Speaker 9: we want. And I've heard lots of fans say, well,
Speaker 9: I don't really care about that. My whole point is, yeah,
Speaker 9: that's exactly well, not only that, but it creates more
Speaker 9: compelling racing, right, and that's what we want, we to
Speaker 9: competitive racing. So we have of our twenty six races
Speaker 9: we've had this year, fifteen different winners, nine different organizations
Speaker 9: of the fifteen charter organizations that we have.
Speaker 8: So it's it and the racing is terrific.
Speaker 9: It's just it's the best style of racing I believe
Speaker 9: on the planet, and I think our race fans are
Speaker 9: telling us that. So again, ratings are up despite significant
Speaker 9: rain issues we've had.
Speaker 6: All year long raining.
Speaker 9: Okay, yeah, so Daytona five hundred we were down twenty
Speaker 9: seven percent because we raced on Monday, yep Coke six
Speaker 9: hundred rain event, down fifteen percent. We had a race
Speaker 9: in the streets of Chicago rain again, down fifty percent.
Speaker 9: So our three largest rated events of the year all
Speaker 9: down double digit and yet we're still positive right of ratings.
Speaker 8: So it's it's.
Speaker 2: Working just real quickly. Any new markets got about thirty
Speaker 2: seconds left our sure.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So yeah, so I think.
Speaker 9: So. We are going to race next year for the
Speaker 9: first time outside of our border in the Cup Series
Speaker 9: in Mexico City. So we have some other discussions that
Speaker 9: are going So we're again we're excited about the broadening of.
Speaker 2: Our sport our thanks to NASCAR President Steve Phelps.
Speaker 3: Moving now to college sports, we spoke with Brittany Whiteside,
Speaker 3: vice president of Collegiate Partnerships at Altis Partners.
Speaker 2: We discussed the state of college sports and first asked
Speaker 2: Brittany about how the landscape is changing.
Speaker 11: You know, it is changing rapidly. Probably in the last
Speaker 11: three years, we've seen some of the most change in
Speaker 11: college sports, but also in an industry at large. We
Speaker 11: have the implementation of nil. I'm sure you've heard of that.
Speaker 11: That's a buzzword right now. Athletes can earn money off
Speaker 11: of their name, image and likeness. And so when you
Speaker 11: talk about college athletics and change, and you think about
Speaker 11: that in the last year, in the last three years,
Speaker 11: that's the biggest change. And now we're at a point
Speaker 11: where we continue to see the change and you have
Speaker 11: the House settlement where schools may be able to now
Speaker 11: pay athletes directly and so as you think about college
Speaker 11: athletics and the business model, it is completely shifted and
Speaker 11: leaders across the country are preparing for that.
Speaker 8: All right.
Speaker 2: To me, it's all about the economics, and I think
Speaker 2: most people agree that given the money behind big time
Speaker 2: college sports, that in fact the athletes should be compensated
Speaker 2: for that. The question is, is nil the way it
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it seems like rudimentary at best. You've
Speaker 2: got there's no regulation and there's no way to ensure and.
Speaker 6: Even play playing field. Where do we go from here?
Speaker 6: It seems like we open up Pandora's box and we
Speaker 6: have no idea. Yeah, well, I agree with you.
Speaker 11: It is the right thing for athletes to be able
Speaker 11: to earn money off of their name, image and likeness.
Speaker 11: So but to be able to monetize that right. Nil
Speaker 11: was the first step in that, the ability for athletes
Speaker 11: to go out and to earn income, whether that is
Speaker 11: through working with brands or in some spaces. You've probably
Speaker 11: heard of collectives in this space as well, you know,
Speaker 11: helping athletes generate money off their name, image and likeness.
Speaker 6: Where do we go from here?
Speaker 11: You know, we have the pending House settlement, which as
Speaker 11: we sit today the judge will hear arguments against the
Speaker 11: fairness of that House settlement. Right, House settlement is really
Speaker 11: the next step in the framework for college athletes and
Speaker 11: athletic departments to be able to share in that revenue.
Speaker 11: Right it's a revenue sharing proposal, and so in terms
Speaker 11: of next steps, right now it is the pending House
Speaker 11: settlement and next steps for athletes to be able to
Speaker 11: be paid directly from institutions, SUS brands, and collectives in
Speaker 11: all of the other areas. And then there will be
Speaker 11: some upcoming regulation.
Speaker 6: To that as well.
Speaker 3: What about I mean that this is tied to a
Speaker 3: college or university is also just so odd, Like this
Speaker 3: is like a professional business that one can be a
Speaker 3: part of. But yet you're going to be nineteen years
Speaker 3: old also expecting to like go get your GPA and
Speaker 3: do well in school. How does all of this going
Speaker 3: to coexist?
Speaker 11: You know, it has coexisted now for a while. And
Speaker 11: you know that was a major concern of mine early on,
Speaker 11: is how are athletes, How are college students going to
Speaker 11: be able to navigate this? And what we've seen is
Speaker 11: they've been able to handle it well. Some of them
Speaker 11: engage in the NIL space and do so in a
Speaker 11: way and meaningful ways where they're getting internships and opportunities
Speaker 11: and skill sets that they did not have the opportunity
Speaker 11: to get before. So when you think about nil, you
Speaker 11: think about managing your brand, you think about negotiating all
Speaker 11: of those skills are skills that you need for life.
Speaker 11: And so as part of being a student, part of
Speaker 11: that is preparing for life after you know, your time
Speaker 11: on campus for four or five years. And so inil
Speaker 11: and many ways has been handled for students has a
Speaker 11: great opportunity for them to leverage their their brand and
Speaker 11: be able to generate money and help prepare them for
Speaker 11: a future.
Speaker 2: What's the I guess the other big issue in college
Speaker 2: athletics has been the realignment of conferences. And now we've
Speaker 2: got my poor you know, Rutgers field hockey team sleeping
Speaker 2: on the floor of Newark Airport because they're taking a
Speaker 2: flight out to Stanford, Stanford in Palo Alto.
Speaker 6: What's going on there?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 6: Where? How is this going to evolve? Do you think?
Speaker 3: Wait? Wait, why is that bad?
Speaker 2: Because now Stanford on the West coast is now part
Speaker 2: of the ACC for so they got to go fly
Speaker 2: from Palo Alto to Durham, North Carolina get it.
Speaker 6: And I can.
Speaker 2: Understand that for the football team they're on a charter
Speaker 2: jed all kinds of same thing for basketball. But I thought,
Speaker 2: for like the smaller sports, how is this impacting?
Speaker 11: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting dynamic when you think
Speaker 11: about some of the Olympic sports, right, Yeah, And you
Speaker 11: talked about what are some of the things that we
Speaker 11: still need to figure out in college sports. I think
Speaker 11: that's part of it. Conference realignment as a whole, you know,
Speaker 11: mostly driven by football schools that are eating out the
Speaker 11: highest level with schools that want to compete at the
Speaker 11: highest level. With that comes other Olympic sports that it
Speaker 11: may not make as much sense economically for them to
Speaker 11: travel or for student athlete experience for them to travel.
Speaker 11: But when schools and institutions want to compete at the
Speaker 11: highest level, that is part of it. And so right
Speaker 11: now many schools are having those conversations on where do
Speaker 11: we want to be in this landscape? Do we want
Speaker 11: to compete at the highest level? And if we do,
Speaker 11: that may come with your field hockey team traveling across
Speaker 11: the country to compete against the best in the country.
Speaker 3: But then they still have to go like take a
Speaker 3: test and do grades. I mean, that's that's something else.
Speaker 11: You have wi FI Now.
Speaker 8: OK, fair enough.
Speaker 3: What do you think that athletes could be doing better though?
Speaker 6: Right now?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 11: You know, it's such a key time for athletes to
Speaker 11: hone in on who they are, their their identity, how
Speaker 11: they can manage themselves because we all know.
Speaker 6: That grand team I know, right.
Speaker 11: But also they are also engaging responsibly and thinking about
Speaker 11: like what are some of the brands that I work
Speaker 11: with on or you know a coffee shop that I
Speaker 11: always go to a local coffee shop, how can I
Speaker 11: utilize my NIL with that local coffee shop to create
Speaker 11: a partnership? Right, And so you know that's how athletes
Speaker 11: are navigating it now. They're navigating at the local level.
Speaker 11: And then also they have schools that are putting resources
Speaker 11: together to help educate them on how to really navigate
Speaker 11: it in a way that is best for them.
Speaker 2: What do you advise schools to do as they think
Speaker 2: about how to really implement an NIL and take care
Speaker 2: of their student athletes?
Speaker 6: What are you recommending? Is that kind of an overarching view?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Absolutely, it always starts with education, and so early on
Speaker 11: it's educating the athletes on what NIO is, what it isn't,
Speaker 11: how to build their brand, how social media plays into this,
Speaker 11: how this entire ecosystem works. The second part of that
Speaker 11: is as a department, to really hone in on your strategy.
Speaker 11: How are you going to invest in the resources for
Speaker 11: your athletes to be successful in this space like you
Speaker 11: would in strength and conditioning, like you would in nutrition.
Speaker 6: This is another part of the.
Speaker 11: Student and athlete experience that as an institution, it's your
Speaker 11: responsibility to invest in in resources so athletes can really
Speaker 11: optimize their nil while they're on their campus. And for
Speaker 11: some of the athletes, this is their you know, this
Speaker 11: is their time to their prime time. This isn't their
Speaker 11: prime time. Some are competing at a national level on TV,
Speaker 11: and so as an institution, it's like, how can we
Speaker 11: utilize our network, our resources, our institution IP to help
Speaker 11: athletes generate revenue, generate income for themselves our Thanks to
Speaker 11: Brittany Whiteside, vice President of Collegiate Partnerships at ALTS Partners.
Speaker 3: Coming up on the program and look at what comes
Speaker 3: next as women's soccer hits the mainstream.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
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Speaker 3: I'm Paul Swinging and Amlex Steel and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven three.
Speaker 3: We continue as some of the best conversations from our
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Power Players event in New York. It brought together
Speaker 3: some of the world's most influential voices in the business
Speaker 3: of sports.
Speaker 2: Next up a conversation with Jessica Berman, commissioner of the
Speaker 2: National Women's Soccer League. She joined to give us some
Speaker 2: insight on women's soccer as it hits the mainstream.
Speaker 3: We first asked Jessica to talk to us about the
Speaker 3: state of the National Soccer League.
Speaker 4: In the last two and a half years. It is
Speaker 4: true I think women's sports and the National Women's Soccer
Speaker 4: League in particular, has exploded. We've reached this inflection point
Speaker 4: where it is no longer a question whether investing in
Speaker 4: women's sports is a good business investment. And because of that,
Speaker 4: the money has followed. And we're looking at our ownership
Speaker 4: group across all of our teams fourteen teams across the country,
Speaker 4: and we have the right capital and strategic investors around
Speaker 4: the table to really build for the future. Talk about
Speaker 4: our recent announcement this morning. Bob Eiger and Will Obey
Speaker 4: are now the control owners. It is a Boom is
Speaker 4: a mic Drop are now the controlling owners of Angel City,
Speaker 4: which are the highest enterprise value women's sports team in
Speaker 4: the world. Oh wow, traded for two hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: million dollars. And you know this is a league that
Speaker 4: launched twelve years ago. Angel City is.
Speaker 6: Only three years old, so jealousy.
Speaker 4: If you put that side by side with the men's
Speaker 4: leagues that have been around for decades, some more than
Speaker 4: one hundred years, it's really incredible to see the amount
Speaker 4: of growth. We also announced that Magic Johnson is an
Speaker 4: investor in the Washington Spirit with Michelle Kang. So the
Speaker 4: type of owners who are coming to the table to
Speaker 4: really invest in this is really driven by the future
Speaker 4: vision of you that we really can be the best
Speaker 4: league in the world. And because of the backdrop, as
Speaker 4: you mentioned of women's soccer, it's it's just an incredible
Speaker 4: moment to be part of witnessing this growth.
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to ask as to the why now.
Speaker 3: Part of it? Is it because you've had, you know,
Speaker 3: super good success with some amazing players in the game.
Speaker 3: I also, as a finance nerd, I'm going to go
Speaker 3: back to like the FED had zero interest rates for
Speaker 3: a really long time. There's a lot of money that
Speaker 3: need to be put to work that needed a good
Speaker 3: return because you couldn't put it in the bond market,
Speaker 3: like that kind of stuff. Like what are you hearing
Speaker 3: as to why people with money think this is a
Speaker 3: good investment now?
Speaker 4: I think if you look on a longitudinal basis, particularly
Speaker 4: at men's sports as a parallel over the course of decades,
Speaker 4: it outperforms every other asset class on a long term basis,
Speaker 4: and so you've often seen investors who are long range
Speaker 4: in their thinking around putting capital to work invest in
Speaker 4: sports and see incredible returns. If you look at that
Speaker 4: compared to the product of women's soccer, there really is
Speaker 4: no reason why we should not be as successful as
Speaker 4: men's sports, particularly in a sport that has the backdrop
Speaker 4: of when you think of success and soccer in the US,
Speaker 4: you actually think of women first, and that really creates
Speaker 4: a unique value proposition. Has really woken up the investment
Speaker 4: community to say, if we look at men's sports and
Speaker 4: the way that they've grown in enterprise value on an
Speaker 4: exponential basis over decades, and we are at the inception
Speaker 4: of our growth, there's very few things in the world
Speaker 4: that you can get in at the ground level. I
Speaker 4: think we're definitely beyond the ground level, but we're certainly
Speaker 4: nowhere near the top of our hockey stick growth.
Speaker 2: Media rights, it's the big driver of global sports valuations globally.
Speaker 2: What's the media strategy for US women's the soccer League.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we signed a landmark media deal and announced it
Speaker 4: in November of twenty twenty three. We got a collective
Speaker 4: quarter of a billion dollars invested into our league from
Speaker 4: the combination of CBS, ESPN, Amazon and Script's Ion. And
Speaker 4: in addition to that incredible investment in our league, which
Speaker 4: allow us to put those resources to work to grow
Speaker 4: the league. We've also made the very important strategic decision
Speaker 4: to also invest in ourselves and ensure that our games
Speaker 4: are viewable and discoverable on platforms that are national in
Speaker 4: scope and scale. And so from last year to this year,
Speaker 4: we went from six games being available on national broadcast
Speaker 4: to over one hundred and twenty wo oh my god.
Speaker 4: So now when you are sitting on your couch, which
Speaker 4: some people still do, and channel surf, which some people
Speaker 4: still do, you will find our games. And if you
Speaker 4: were watching the US Open, which I was, and there
Speaker 4: was a promo ad to tell everyone that you can
Speaker 4: watch on ESPN. We are in the places and spaces
Speaker 4: where people consume live content and that will help us
Speaker 4: to catalyze the growth of our audience.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks so, Jessica Berman, Commissioner of National Women's
Speaker 2: Soccer League. We continue with women's soccer. We got more
Speaker 2: insight on the game and conversation with Midge Purse Afford
Speaker 2: for that New Jersey, New York at Gotham Football Club
Speaker 2: and the United States women's national soccer team.
Speaker 3: And we first asked Midge if women's soccer is finally
Speaker 3: having its moment.
Speaker 12: I don't know if I can subscribe to that. And
Speaker 12: I'll tell you why tell me it's because every four
Speaker 12: years we have the Olympics and we have the World Cup,
Speaker 12: and everyone gets really really excited about women's soccer, and
Speaker 12: then it usually dissipates at some point. I do think
Speaker 12: women's sports in general are having an incredible moment.
Speaker 8: I mean you can see it with the WNBA.
Speaker 12: You even see it with like rugby and track. I'm
Speaker 12: with you, I believe in it, but I want to
Speaker 12: wait to see it before I subscribe.
Speaker 2: You've been on the national teams, the US national teams
Speaker 2: for years, so you've seen the global competition. But the
Speaker 2: US team is, in my opinion, I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I'm not that into it the best team for a
Speaker 2: long time globally in terms of looking at the World
Speaker 2: Cups and so on. Talk to us about the growth
Speaker 2: of soccer internationally outside the US. What are you seeing
Speaker 2: in terms of competitiveness, because I know there are a
Speaker 2: lot of international players in the US league.
Speaker 12: Oh absolutely, And I mean I think you can see
Speaker 12: it even with the last World Cup we had. We
Speaker 12: won this Olympic gold, which is absolutely fantastic, and I
Speaker 12: think anyone who watched the games could see that they
Speaker 12: were difficult games. It wasn't six zero, wasn't five zero,
Speaker 12: wasn't three zero? A couple of Germany games where we're
Speaker 12: in our favor, But in general, it's the competition is
Speaker 12: leveling out, and you know, the global stage is getting
Speaker 12: a lot more Even so, I think even seeing a
Speaker 12: lot of those players come over to our league and
Speaker 12: increase the competitiveness that we have here at home, it's
Speaker 12: really amazing to see the progression of women's sports globally.
Speaker 3: What do you think of the how to monetize that,
Speaker 3: like as a player? Like we talked to the commissioner,
Speaker 3: We talked to a partner that sort of helps collegiate
Speaker 3: athletes monetize themselves and understand how to do that and
Speaker 3: works with them work with colleges. Do you think this
Speaker 3: is all being done.
Speaker 6: The right way?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: This is great.
Speaker 3: This is why I want to talk to someone who
Speaker 3: actually does the stuff.
Speaker 6: In short, No, I don't.
Speaker 12: I think that we're still behind in terms of the
Speaker 12: industry approach on how we support players, help players, and
Speaker 12: promote players. I think one of the biggest issues I've
Speaker 12: had with women's sports in general is that the landscape
Speaker 12: for how we market women's sports has always been extremely
Speaker 12: derivative with the land skip of how we market men's.
Speaker 3: Sports and shocking.
Speaker 12: Yeah, they say shrink it and pink it is something
Speaker 12: that Michelle King likes to say, and I'll take that
Speaker 12: from her. But it's not even just derivative of the
Speaker 12: men's game, but we're derivative of the European format as well.
Speaker 12: And you know, the American population, this demographic, it's a
Speaker 12: different audience that you need to cater to, and I
Speaker 12: think we need to be just a little bit more
Speaker 12: specific industry wide with how we do that.
Speaker 2: How do you expect the growth of the of the
Speaker 2: league to be over the next several years? To expect
Speaker 2: it to get more competitive, maybe more teams. What do
Speaker 2: the players feel like?
Speaker 12: Oh, I don't think anything's going to stop this league,
Speaker 12: to be completely honest, I think we will be huge
Speaker 12: competitors with the MLS. I do see a lot more
Speaker 12: teams coming in. I think more international players will want
Speaker 12: to come play here, and I think it's going to
Speaker 12: be even harder to play here domestically.
Speaker 3: Right, What about like, do you think we're going to
Speaker 3: have like competitions not like the Olympics or whatever World
Speaker 3: Cup where like you can play more internationally and make
Speaker 3: it not just like a US soccer sport.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, we have the club World Cup that's happening, so
Speaker 12: it's definitely we are integrating with other leagues and making
Speaker 12: that global community for women's soccer.
Speaker 3: Our thanks to Midge Purse forward for the New Jersey,
Speaker 3: New York Gotham Football Club in the United States women's
Speaker 3: national soccer team. We moved now to a conversation with
Speaker 3: Grant Hill, managing director for USA Basketball and co owner
Speaker 3: of the Atlanta Hawks.
Speaker 2: He took up behind the scenes look at the big
Speaker 2: talent and big personalities who brought home the gold for
Speaker 2: the women's and men's US basketball team.
Speaker 3: We first asked Graham to talk to us about the
Speaker 3: current state of Team USA.
Speaker 10: It's an exciting time and obviously I succeeded Jerry Colangelo,
Speaker 10: who along with coach k had an incredible run together
Speaker 10: starting in two thousand and six, and I came in
Speaker 10: during this sort of Olympic quad. We had our World
Speaker 10: Cup last summer. We didn't fare as well in the
Speaker 10: World Cup. The women won the gold medal in their
Speaker 10: World Cup, but the Olympics were absolutely incredible and both
Speaker 10: teams were pushed. They were tested. There was just excellent
Speaker 10: and on the court all over the world. We saw
Speaker 10: Serbia and our semi final games, they were so worthy
Speaker 10: and deserving of winning. Came up short.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw that one.
Speaker 10: But it was it was just phenomenal. I mean the
Speaker 10: fact that we had, we got tested, we got pushed,
Speaker 10: We had to show some fight and some toughness collectively
Speaker 10: to win that game, but also win the gold medal
Speaker 10: against France. The women's team got pushed and a very
Speaker 10: close tough matchup they had in the gold medal game
Speaker 10: with France as well. So I think it was just
Speaker 10: a win win, not just for USA basketball and our
Speaker 10: continued excellence, there was a win win for basketball universally,
Speaker 10: like I think all across the globe. If you're a
Speaker 10: fan of the game, uh, the Olympic basketball scene was spectacular.
Speaker 3: And even if you don't know the game or watch
Speaker 3: the game normally, like I was totally into it.
Speaker 6: It was amazing. It was really great.
Speaker 3: Talking about investing and where do you see opportunities. I
Speaker 3: know that you and your wife are also investors in
Speaker 3: Orlando Pro women's soccer team, and we were talking about
Speaker 3: that as to where the opportunity set is is sort
Speaker 3: of where women's soccer is.
Speaker 11: Going to go.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 10: Look, so I have two daughters who are who are jocks,
Speaker 10: who are athletes, and and so yes, and you know,
Speaker 10: I think sort of through them really getting exposed to
Speaker 10: women's sports and really wanting them to see women professional athletes. So,
Speaker 10: whether it was the w NBA or the NWSL. We
Speaker 10: live in Orlando, we were fans and consumers at first,
Speaker 10: and we got so caught into it and just loving
Speaker 10: it and having a passion for these teams. We also
Speaker 10: saw the potential and the upside for growth and uh,
Speaker 10: and so the opportunity to invest in the NWSL, the
Speaker 10: Orlando Pride. We're in first place right now. Yeah, we
Speaker 10: haven't not lost the game, had a few ties and
Speaker 10: all wins. But I just feel the momentum is really growing.
Speaker 10: And now you have superior leadership. Jessica Burman is a
Speaker 10: fantastic commissioner, has great vision it is can execute that vision,
Speaker 10: has surrounded herself with a solid team. But also we
Speaker 10: have professional ownership. Now we have owners now who own
Speaker 10: other sports, who've been in this, who understand it, see
Speaker 10: the long term trajectory of the business. And so I
Speaker 10: wouldn't say we're at an inflection point right now, but
Speaker 10: I think we have long term positioned ourselves nicely for
Speaker 10: great success. And I think of all the sports leagues,
Speaker 10: I really believe this. I think the NWSL has the
Speaker 10: greatest upside and so really excited. I was excited to
Speaker 10: see Jessica at Midge person one of the stars in
Speaker 10: the league. And yeah, we're thrilled to be involved, all right.
Speaker 3: Thanks to Grant Hill, Managing director for USA Basketball and
Speaker 3: co owner of the Atlanta Hawks.
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