Speaker 1: I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week Extra. It's our weekly podcast, bringing you
Speaker 1: an in depth interview you will not hear anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And Jason and I both agreed that we had to
Speaker 1: make John Wortheim Are Extra podcast. He's executive editor, senior
Speaker 1: writer for Sports Illustrated, contributing correspondent for CBS sixty Minutes.
Speaker 1: This is someone who's been writing about sports for so
Speaker 1: many decades, really knows this world inside and out well.
Speaker 1: And I was excited to talk to him because obviously
Speaker 1: he knows tennis very well. We talked to him every year,
Speaker 1: as you say, at the US Open. He's been tracking that,
Speaker 1: but also tracking the broader world of sports. He's been
Speaker 1: writing a lot. We also got to talk to him
Speaker 1: sort of get the backstory on a big story that
Speaker 1: he did for sixty Minutes a few weeks ago. You
Speaker 1: and I both watched with our families. Really enjoyed catching
Speaker 1: up with him. Check it out. Well, we're not in
Speaker 1: a great place, honestly. UM. I mean, one of tennis's
Speaker 1: great virtues is it's global cast, but in this case
Speaker 1: that is a liability, and so this is a sport
Speaker 1: where everyone's on a plane almost every week, and player
Speaker 1: has come from all over and it's really been tough.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no guaranteed contracts, there's no players union. Um,
Speaker 1: Roger Federer is going to be just fine, Serena Williams
Speaker 1: is going to be just fine. But there are a
Speaker 1: lot of players who are run of the mill, you know,
Speaker 1: very respectable, serviceable pros that are really feeling the pinch
Speaker 1: right now. And I think the big question too, and
Speaker 1: I think we see this in all sports, is just
Speaker 1: the uncertainty and if you blow out your knee, the
Speaker 1: doctor will say, here's your rehab schedule, and if everything
Speaker 1: goes well, you'll be back by September. And if you
Speaker 1: have a rain delay, you can look at the weather
Speaker 1: map and you can prepare when the baseball game is
Speaker 1: gonna resume. I think just the fact that there is
Speaker 1: no endpoint here has really been something that's been very
Speaker 1: destabilizing to to a lot of athletes who I think
Speaker 1: have lost some some sense of purpose here and they're
Speaker 1: just not quite sure how hard to train. It's it's
Speaker 1: been very strange time, and certainly uh Ted tennis players
Speaker 1: among them. So what kind of assistance could be coming
Speaker 1: their way? Is being asked for? I think about you know,
Speaker 1: each of these individual athletes to some extent are kind
Speaker 1: of a mini small business potentially, and I do wonder.
Speaker 1: You know, we've certainly got gotten small business small business assistance,
Speaker 1: you know, from the federal government. But I'm just curious
Speaker 1: if there's any kind of assistance you know, coming their way.
Speaker 1: It's certainly I'm assuming, is being asked for. It's a
Speaker 1: great question. I've thought about that too. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I mean, these players are basically that they're independent contractors,
Speaker 1: and you're right, there's they're basically small business owners. And
Speaker 1: I wonder about their eligibility. There has been talk about
Speaker 1: setting up some kind of a fund for players. I mean,
Speaker 1: the good news is that they're not incurring expenses. So
Speaker 1: it's very expensive to fly all over the world and
Speaker 1: employ a coach and a trainer and a physio and
Speaker 1: getting massages and rackets strong. I mean, the good news
Speaker 1: is that none of them, no, none of the players
Speaker 1: really have those expenses right now. But it's unclear. I mean,
Speaker 1: both both tours, the a t P which is the
Speaker 1: Men's Tour, and the w T a which is the
Speaker 1: women's are allegedly coming up with I'm sort of a
Speaker 1: relief program. There's also the question of how deep does
Speaker 1: this go. I mean, there are more than a thousand
Speaker 1: players that have rankings. Do you fund the guy ranked
Speaker 1: number five hundred or do you limit this to just
Speaker 1: the kind of players that you and I would see
Speaker 1: at the US Open. Uh? So far, it's been a
Speaker 1: lot of discussions and not a lot of checks being cut, right,
Speaker 1: And and I guess one of the questions sort of
Speaker 1: kind of synthesizing of this together is we don't know
Speaker 1: what what the endpoint is. We saw the French Open
Speaker 1: come out and sort of make their move. We saw
Speaker 1: Wimbledon get canceled all together. We're still waiting, I believe,
Speaker 1: to hear from the US Open. How much uh, how
Speaker 1: much did the French kind of to not put to
Speaker 1: put not to find appointed sort of mess this up
Speaker 1: for everybody. Yeah, we should point out that the French Open,
Speaker 1: which is traditionally uh starts around Memorial Day. The French
Speaker 1: Open said we're canceling, and then a few days later
Speaker 1: they said, oh, and by the way, we're going to
Speaker 1: grab this date on the calendar in late September and
Speaker 1: early October and uh, everybody else and Tennis said, wait
Speaker 1: a second, you can't do that. And the French Open
Speaker 1: said we're going to offer fifty million dollars in prize money. Um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I mean, I don't know. If you saw
Speaker 1: the sports news today, one of the stories, um that
Speaker 1: didn't involve FIFA corruption. One of the stories was that
Speaker 1: the UFC, how's this mystery island where they're gonna hold Kate.
Speaker 1: I said that it's fascinating because it's honestly, yes, sort
Speaker 1: of say this is crazy, this is borderline irresponsible, and
Speaker 1: by the way, why not. And I think tennis actually
Speaker 1: is in a position. Look, you've got two players are
Speaker 1: on the other sides of the net. You don't have
Speaker 1: the social distancing issues you have with contact sports or
Speaker 1: sports like basketball. You need about five cameras to cover tennis.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking tennis actually lends itself to some creative
Speaker 1: problem solving here. So I don't know if we're gonna
Speaker 1: see Roger Federer on a private island, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if people got sort of entrepreneurial about tennis.
Speaker 1: Are pretty fast. Let's get back to our conversation with
Speaker 1: John Wortheim, executive ttor, senior writer at Sports Illustrated, contributing
Speaker 1: correspondent to sixty Minutes. So we talked tennis, We talked
Speaker 1: a little bit of UFC there, John, the whole world
Speaker 1: of sports, though. I mean, we think about the NFL,
Speaker 1: we think about the NBA, we think about Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: all sorts of contingency plans being made. The President speaking
Speaker 1: with the big commissioners last weekend. What I mean, you're
Speaker 1: talking to people all the time about this, what happens next?
Speaker 1: When it comes especially to professional sports, it's a great question.
Speaker 1: I mean, usually in times of crisis, sports bring us together,
Speaker 1: and whether it's nine eleven or Katrina or war, sports
Speaker 1: have this sort of unifying quality. In this case, I
Speaker 1: can't think of anything worse since I mean, you've got
Speaker 1: this communicable, you know, infectious disease, You've got this terrible virus,
Speaker 1: and what could be worse in putting sixty people in
Speaker 1: one play, been telling them to all stand uh in
Speaker 1: tight quarters and then I'll go down the same escalator
Speaker 1: when the game is over. Um, So it's really problematic.
Speaker 1: I mean sports are sort of about the worst thing
Speaker 1: you can do for this virus um. I think the
Speaker 1: big question is just how creative are sports willing to get?
Speaker 1: And somebody said, hey, we should play the NBA Playoffs
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship. Well, I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: such a ridiculous idea. I mean, the sports are really
Speaker 1: been moving towards the viewer at home, the viewer on
Speaker 1: their phone, and away from the family arena. The media
Speaker 1: rights matter more than ever. Maybe this will accelerate that,
Speaker 1: but I think this, I think sports are going to
Speaker 1: sort of have to decide how creative they're willing to get.
Speaker 1: And we keep hearing about this closed door scenario where
Speaker 1: games are played, um, not in front of fans, but
Speaker 1: just so that they're TV cameras and we can all
Speaker 1: watch these at home. I think some sports are sort
Speaker 1: of lending themselves to that more than others. Some sports
Speaker 1: are pre the NFL, they're only eight home games though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but put the put the game, put TV, and doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if they're fans in the stands or not. There's
Speaker 1: some logistical you know, there's some logistical challenges there. But
Speaker 1: I just you know, we keep talking about flattening the
Speaker 1: curve and when we're going to get back to some
Speaker 1: symbols of normalcy. I think sports are going to be
Speaker 1: about the last thing, uh to resume, just because the
Speaker 1: idea of packing twenty fans into an arena to watch
Speaker 1: a basketball game is about the worst thing you can imagine.
Speaker 1: So it's it's really interesting and I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we we've obviously never had anything like this, but I
Speaker 1: think sports are going to have to figure out sort
Speaker 1: of how how creative they're willing to get because you know,
Speaker 1: the the NFL starting the first Sunday in September doesn't
Speaker 1: seem particularly likely right now. Right So, John, so this
Speaker 1: is something in terms of the sports world, at least
Speaker 1: in your view. Do you anticipate that in one easily
Speaker 1: We're still dealing with the after effects of it on
Speaker 1: the sports world. You know, I'm reluctant to sort of
Speaker 1: speculate too much. I mean, I feel like we all
Speaker 1: need to kind of respect the unknown here. Ideally, you know,
Speaker 1: when when there's a vaccine, I think it's a different ballgame,
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I mean, would would you let
Speaker 1: me let me turn this on you guys, would would
Speaker 1: you guys go to a game? Or yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have to say yeah, exactly, and you know,
Speaker 1: and we we know this, We know this from how
Speaker 1: we got into this message. It only takes one person,
Speaker 1: and you know, the idea of of standing in row
Speaker 1: twenty three for three hours with thousands of others just
Speaker 1: I don't know, even if the games are held, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how many people actually show up anyway, but
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's who knows what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: But I think could be a wash. Basically, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: it's been interesting to see, you know, we talked about tennis,
Speaker 1: but also to see golf trying to deal with this,
Speaker 1: which I feel like it goes back to something you
Speaker 1: said at the top of the conversation, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: very international sport. You think about putting something on like
Speaker 1: the Masters, the concern is as much for the players
Speaker 1: right as the fans. So you play it without fans,
Speaker 1: but you've still got people coming from from all over
Speaker 1: the world, and while you're not, you know, like doing
Speaker 1: a lot of physical interaction with each other, and still
Speaker 1: you know, there is still is some sense of proximity.
Speaker 1: But I guess there's also a huge amount of money
Speaker 1: on the line here. And the economics get pretty complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is sort of a classic
Speaker 1: struggle right between between health and and finding. I mean,
Speaker 1: we see this in our our daily uh you know,
Speaker 1: in our daily presidential press briefing, tension between public health
Speaker 1: and this is economic crisis and health crisis. But I
Speaker 1: I think you a sport link golf, a sport like tennis,
Speaker 1: there's only one locker room, and a tennis player made
Speaker 1: this point to me, and I think it's a really
Speaker 1: good point, which is, listen, we all want to get
Speaker 1: back out there, we all want to be making money.
Speaker 1: This has been financially devastating. But it takes one player's
Speaker 1: racket stringer who is on back of a flight from Slovenia.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just the flukiest interaction, and you're talking
Speaker 1: about dozens and dozens of players all in one locker room,
Speaker 1: and you know it, it just takes one positive. And
Speaker 1: we saw this with you know, with with the soccer
Speaker 1: game in northern Italy. It just takes one positive. And
Speaker 1: I think you're right, even if there are no fans
Speaker 1: in the stands, you still have You've got players, you've
Speaker 1: got officials. Someone's kind of operates those cameras. Someone's got
Speaker 1: to be in the broadcast truck and suddenly, even in
Speaker 1: this this closed door scenario, even without selling a single ticket,
Speaker 1: you're still talking about hundreds and hundreds of people on
Speaker 1: the ground. Um. So yeah, I think that the threshold
Speaker 1: for when is it healthy enough and when are we
Speaker 1: economically desperate enough, that's something that's gonna be really interesting
Speaker 1: to monitor well and listen, it's been interesting to monitor
Speaker 1: the Olympics and how long it took them to really
Speaker 1: back off. I mean there's the penultimate, you know, gathering
Speaker 1: of athletes from all over the world, thousands of people
Speaker 1: who come to see it. Uh, and you understand why
Speaker 1: it took them a while to do it, but you
Speaker 1: know they had to. And you do wonder about the
Speaker 1: future of these kinds of events, especially if we continue
Speaker 1: to see, you know, viruses continue to be kind of
Speaker 1: a part of our world. John, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's what's really scary about all of this, that there
Speaker 1: there's a COVID nineteen because they were eighteen predecessors, and
Speaker 1: we may get a vaccine for this, but who knows
Speaker 1: when the next one is coming? And who knows if
Speaker 1: if we go back to normal. And then in October
Speaker 1: they say, you know what, there's been a flare up.
Speaker 1: Everyone back in shelter at home. And I mean, the
Speaker 1: Olympics is just again to what I was saying before.
Speaker 1: Imagine somebody said, you've got It's exactly what he said, Carol.
Speaker 1: You've You've got millions of people coming from all over
Speaker 1: the globe. You have athletes from all over the globe.
Speaker 1: They're going to be staying in something called the Olympic Village.
Speaker 1: They all are staying together. You almost could not imagine
Speaker 1: a worst scenario for an infectious disease. So you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds trite, and we keep hearing words
Speaker 1: like unprecedented, but I really think this is a pivot
Speaker 1: point in street that we are all, uh, we're all
Speaker 1: going through right now. And so John, I do want
Speaker 1: to I want to switch gears a little bit because
Speaker 1: I was excited to talk to you, in part because
Speaker 1: the report you did recently on sixty minutes about Africa
Speaker 1: and basketball players was really well done, just a nice
Speaker 1: piece of investigative journalism. My family and I were big
Speaker 1: sixty minutes fan. We love when you when you do
Speaker 1: stuff on that program, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the story and and maybe where it goes from here.
Speaker 1: Obviously we're in a in a different world. Um only
Speaker 1: got about a minute here to do all of that,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to make sure we talked about it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean a lot, a lot of story shorts.
Speaker 1: There's been this tremendous and tremendously successful wave of African
Speaker 1: players into UH into basketball, into the NBA. It's been
Speaker 1: a great story. But there has been an underside to that,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of players that have come to
Speaker 1: the US under very dubious circumstances and have not been successful.
Speaker 1: And there a lot more tragic figures and there are
Speaker 1: heroes here. And basically I'm a long story shore. What
Speaker 1: we discovered is that you have this this I twenty
Speaker 1: visa program is basically an honor system in schools are
Speaker 1: able to sponsor these kids, and there's very little checks
Speaker 1: and balances, and the school that somebody sets up in
Speaker 1: a church that probably only has room for a couple
Speaker 1: of dozen kids, that's somehow issuing dozens and dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of these these I twenty visas. And it really
Speaker 1: is a loophole that it's how these these kids get here.
Speaker 1: These kids are recruited. Sometimes they're not even basketball players.
Speaker 1: If somebody says, hey, this, this guy's seven feet tall,
Speaker 1: let's let's get him here and we can deal with
Speaker 1: the rest later. And there are there are a lot
Speaker 1: of sad stories, and there are a lot of happy stories,
Speaker 1: but there is a sort of week so that the
Speaker 1: trail is littered with with with sad tail a lot
Speaker 1: of this loophole. And that was John Wortheim, executive editor
Speaker 1: for Sports illustrated, such a thoughtful guy and really left
Speaker 1: us with a lot to think about. Well, I think
Speaker 1: it's summed up our week too, about how could be
Speaker 1: a wash when it comes to sports. And then he
Speaker 1: just took a step back even further about where we
Speaker 1: are in history, and he said this could be pivot
Speaker 1: point in history, and so well said, you've been listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week Extra. Be sure to tune into
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday at two
Speaker 1: pm Wall Street Time. I'm Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser,
Speaker 1: and I'm Jason Kelly. This is Bloomberg