Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I want to win with people that know how to lose.
Speaker 2: I can, you know, sip champagne or buy the glass,
Speaker 2: whatever it is when you're winning, Like, I know what
Speaker 2: that feeling's like. But when things are not going well,
Speaker 2: when you're losing, when you have a losing streak, can
Speaker 2: be a year, can be a few years. And who
Speaker 2: are those people that are in that process?
Speaker 3: Right? What's their mentality?
Speaker 4: I'm Alex Rodriguez and I'm Jason Kelly. I am fired up, Jason.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is our first episode and is a
Speaker 4: good one, but we've been talking about this for a
Speaker 4: while now, almost a.
Speaker 1: Couple of years.
Speaker 5: I mean, what I think we're trying to do with
Speaker 5: this show is have conversations candidly that aren't being had
Speaker 5: anywhere else. I mean, there's a lot of great stuff there,
Speaker 5: but I don't think there's the perspective of what is
Speaker 5: really in people's minds when they're making big decisions around
Speaker 5: their businesses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Jason, I think you and I have a
Speaker 4: lot in common, but one of them is that we're
Speaker 4: both having incredible thirst for information and we're both very
Speaker 4: inquisitive and I think a lot of people out there
Speaker 4: are a lot like us. You have a lot of
Speaker 4: questions about my sports career, and I have a lot
Speaker 4: of questions to you about your incredible career, And I
Speaker 4: think the combination of both of us is what the
Speaker 4: deal is all about.
Speaker 5: Well, and also, I think we've seen our world's collide
Speaker 5: in a lot of ways, right. And one of the
Speaker 5: things that I think is unique is you look around
Speaker 5: the owner's table, a lot of guys, men and women
Speaker 5: who came out of private equity, who came out of
Speaker 5: real estate. You know, they had these huge careers there
Speaker 5: and now they've turned their attention to sports. And by
Speaker 5: the same token, what was once pretty rare, meaning you
Speaker 5: know you, Magic Johnson, Michael Strahan, who's going to be
Speaker 5: a guest coming up in this season, Now that's assumed
Speaker 5: if you're an athlete, you're a business You're a business man,
Speaker 5: you know. And so this notion of athletes knowing from
Speaker 5: the beginning that they have aspirations not just on the field,
Speaker 5: on the court, but you know, well beyond. I think
Speaker 5: one of the things that also makes this show unique,
Speaker 5: other than you know, you and I being together, is
Speaker 5: this concept that the deal is our north star. You
Speaker 5: know that we are talking to people about their business,
Speaker 5: we're talking about their lives, We're talking about their careers
Speaker 5: on the field, but what happens off the field. These
Speaker 5: key decisions they make, the key hires, they make, the
Speaker 5: risks that they take. I don't think they've told a
Speaker 5: lot of these stories before, and I think there's a
Speaker 5: lot to be learned by not just what you know,
Speaker 5: but what went into those big decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've learned, Jason so much from you in a short time,
Speaker 4: and I want to audience to be able to learn
Speaker 4: from you and your experiences. And I think one of
Speaker 4: the things I think about a lot is, you know,
Speaker 4: knowledge helps you prevent a lot of headaches, and knowledge
Speaker 4: is power, and there's another form to educate and learn,
Speaker 4: quite frankly, from some of my mistakes. Deals are not
Speaker 4: just home runs, some are strikeouts, and sometimes the lessons
Speaker 4: in those strikeouts are most valuable.
Speaker 6: I see what you did there. It's a baseball.
Speaker 1: Metaphork Okay, can't help myself.
Speaker 5: And Alex, our first guest, is a perfect distillation of
Speaker 5: everything we've just described. Maria Sharapova, you know someone who
Speaker 5: I feel like has been in our lives for a
Speaker 5: long time. You guys have intersected as business people. You
Speaker 5: also kind of came of age at the same time
Speaker 5: in terms of the spotlight.
Speaker 4: What an amazing story and I was so inspired when
Speaker 4: we spoke to her, the challenges that she had to overcome,
Speaker 4: and what a brilliant woman and the things that she's
Speaker 4: doing in business today are incredible. I think one of
Speaker 4: the things that you'll find fascinating is her background, her
Speaker 4: work ethic and her father and that relationship and really
Speaker 4: developing really thick skin at a global level. I think
Speaker 4: it's set her up beautifully for business.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: The other interesting thing, too, is that I think we
Speaker 5: sort of discover in this interview a woman who is,
Speaker 5: you know, in her mid thirties, you know, very much
Speaker 5: discovering herself as a business person in this next phase
Speaker 5: of life. And you've encountered her in that regard. What
Speaker 5: was your impression coming in.
Speaker 1: I was wildly impressed.
Speaker 4: I mean, she is someone who is fears humble, ask
Speaker 4: tons of questions and if you're an investor, you're a
Speaker 4: founder of a company, is disarming and you want to
Speaker 4: work with Mario because she is nice. She is a champion,
Speaker 4: and you have this incredible package of a world class
Speaker 4: athlete and potentially a world class partner, which is what
Speaker 4: most founders are looking for.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean she is so quick, you know, that willingness
Speaker 5: to kind of go there, to be in the moment.
Speaker 4: I want to build one more thing on that, Jason,
Speaker 4: because I think that's a great point.
Speaker 1: When she started making fun of me.
Speaker 4: You know, she's always very serious as I watched in
Speaker 4: these like big Wimbledon and all this, Yeah, and she
Speaker 4: was always game faced. And when she started ripping on me,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my gosh, I really like this person.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 5: It came out of nowhere, and yet it as we
Speaker 5: got to know her more and more through the course
Speaker 5: of the interview, it's.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, yeah, this is on brand.
Speaker 1: On this episode of The Deal. Maria Sharapova.
Speaker 6: All right, so officially introduce yourself.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Maria Sharapova. I am a five time Grand
Speaker 2: Slam champion, and I am now a mother and entrepreneur
Speaker 2: and just a curious human being.
Speaker 5: We have so many things that we want to talk
Speaker 5: to you about. And I read your book and I
Speaker 5: have to say, like it really is like lodged in me,
Speaker 5: like your story, and I think.
Speaker 7: That's a big compliment.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I think.
Speaker 5: It's your willingness to kind of go there, you know,
Speaker 5: and I think the sort of rawness and the vulnerability
Speaker 5: you show in telling that story. I mean I do wonder,
Speaker 5: like going all the way back, like when did you know?
Speaker 5: And you've written about this, like did you know that
Speaker 5: you had something special?
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever allowed myself to accept or
Speaker 2: to realize that I had something special. Because the moment
Speaker 2: that you think you have it down or you know
Speaker 2: too much, or you know everything and you consider yourself
Speaker 2: the best internally, maybe the outside world can, but internally is,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, is a time that you have to
Speaker 2: be very careful about because as you start believing in
Speaker 2: the hype and you start hyping your own self up,
Speaker 2: and then you're living up to these unprecedented expectations and
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're ever going to be met.
Speaker 1: Maria.
Speaker 4: I'm such a big fan of everything you've done off
Speaker 4: the court, obviously the five Grand Slams and what you're
Speaker 4: doing now. It takes so much courage to do that.
Speaker 4: But going back to the early days, building what Jason
Speaker 4: just asked you. I come from two parents that are
Speaker 4: immigrants from Dominican Republic, very modest beginnings, and there was
Speaker 4: always a sense of imposture syndrome, and I think that
Speaker 4: was my gift and my curse, right. It led me
Speaker 4: to a great career, but it also led me to
Speaker 4: a one year suspension that was very hard on me.
Speaker 4: Did you ever feel coming up a little bit of
Speaker 4: an imposter syndrome or did you feel like you belong
Speaker 4: From day one.
Speaker 2: I knew that what I was doing was different to
Speaker 2: other families, to other children. I knew that I had
Speaker 2: a different path and I was living almost I mean,
Speaker 2: it was a dream, but I had a very clear vision,
Speaker 2: and so did my mother and my father. My father
Speaker 2: particularly because he was my coach for many years and
Speaker 2: it was, you know, his big goal. I was too
Speaker 2: young to really have those big goals. But as I
Speaker 2: followed this road that he, you know, paved for me,
Speaker 2: I realized very much that this dream was becoming a
Speaker 2: reality that you know, you had a choice to make
Speaker 2: every single day when you wake up to be the best.
Speaker 2: And I was given an incredible gift of you know,
Speaker 2: having a strong mind of persistence of focus. And I
Speaker 2: was talented, but I wasn't like as physically strong as
Speaker 2: other children. And I loved this idea of being different,
Speaker 2: and I accepted that I didn't have a typical upbringing,
Speaker 2: that I was an immigrant, that I came to the
Speaker 2: United States as a young girl, and I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like I always belonged. But I found that as a gift.
Speaker 2: I didn't find that as a disadvantage.
Speaker 4: So, just following up on that, I remember the first
Speaker 4: time that I traveled to Texas and I was fifteen
Speaker 4: years old, and I wore the US uniform representing the
Speaker 4: US and the US Olympic teams. And I looked around
Speaker 4: the room and I was a rising junior. Everyone was
Speaker 4: a rising senior in the summertime, and I said, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, I'm as good as everybody here, and I'm
Speaker 4: a year younger. I was the only underclassman. That was
Speaker 4: the first time that I go I can go big
Speaker 4: if I really focus. What was that moment for you
Speaker 4: that you said I can be something special?
Speaker 2: So you see, it's funny because you give me that
Speaker 2: example in that story, and there's not one that I
Speaker 2: particularly look back to because after a victory or after
Speaker 2: beating someone that was older than I was, or a
Speaker 2: boy that you know, was stronger and you know, perhaps
Speaker 2: had a better talent or was just physically better at
Speaker 2: the sport, I still knew that I had to wake
Speaker 2: up and keep doing it tomorrow and prove myself again
Speaker 2: and go to another tournament over the weekend in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere, in the dumps of Florida, and figure
Speaker 2: out a way to win. And so I think it
Speaker 2: was just this reality element that kept coming back to me.
Speaker 2: Like I came from, you know, as you have, from
Speaker 2: very humble beginnings, and I was never afraid to go back.
Speaker 2: But I dreamed of the very best. I dreamed of
Speaker 2: holding the biggest trophy. But I also, in this other context,
Speaker 2: if I went back to what I had before, I
Speaker 2: didn't think badly of it, Like the foundation that my
Speaker 2: parents had built back home in Russia. They were both
Speaker 2: my mother was very young, shustill in university, but my
Speaker 2: dad had a decent job. He wasn't making a lot
Speaker 2: of money, and the United States considered no money. But overall,
Speaker 2: like I had a great environment, I had a healthy environment,
Speaker 2: I had food on the table, I had great loving parents,
Speaker 2: and so if those were the conditions that I had
Speaker 2: to go back to, I was okay with And perhaps
Speaker 2: that is what gave me the confidence to just keep
Speaker 2: going and just keep striving for better and better, and hey,
Speaker 2: if the top didn't happen to what I envisioned, then
Speaker 2: it was okay to go back to those humble beginnings.
Speaker 5: So you've mentioned your parents a couple of times, and
Speaker 5: when we think about the concept of the deal, the
Speaker 5: sort of unifying principle of all that your earliest partnership
Speaker 5: is your dad in terms of like you.
Speaker 7: But it wasn't a choice.
Speaker 6: It wasn't a choice, right exactly.
Speaker 3: And I'm okay with it, and I was lucky.
Speaker 5: And so as you come of age, even as you
Speaker 5: get to be you know, even ten eleven years old,
Speaker 5: eleven years old, you know you sign with Nike. I
Speaker 5: believe you are at a very young age in a
Speaker 5: business partnership. Yeah, with your dad. How did that feel
Speaker 5: and what were sort of the undercurrents of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I'm an only child and was and still am,
Speaker 2: and so I built this very strong bond with my parents.
Speaker 2: They're both very young. My father, you know, enjoyed sport,
Speaker 2: he loved sport. He played hockey. That was a big
Speaker 2: sport in Russia. He thought he was some tremendous athlete.
Speaker 2: I kept telling him he wasn't that good, and I
Speaker 2: still do till this day. My mother would take me
Speaker 2: to the ballet no matter what city I was in,
Speaker 2: and just helped me grow everything else but sport. And
Speaker 2: so they had these very different gifts that they helped,
Speaker 2: you know, instill in me and shape me in many ways.
Speaker 2: And I think that grounding element of those partnerships. Like
Speaker 2: I would go to the tennis court and I would
Speaker 2: be around my dad, and of course i'd negotiate with
Speaker 2: him whether I was there. You know, i'd start my
Speaker 2: practice with serving for forty five minutes or i'd end
Speaker 2: like I had a preference and he had his preference,
Speaker 2: and you know, it would be a little bit of
Speaker 2: a negotiation no matter how young I was, Like I'd
Speaker 2: find my way to you know, give an opinion. And
Speaker 2: then I'd come home and you know, my mom had
Speaker 2: my schoolwork in front of me, and she made sure
Speaker 2: that I ate the right things and that I stretched,
Speaker 2: you know, before I went to sleep, because she thought
Speaker 2: that would help me grow. She was right, because I'm
Speaker 2: much taller than my parents.
Speaker 6: Sure, you're hanging from a bar.
Speaker 3: Though, hanging from a bar.
Speaker 2: And then I had to stretch right before going to
Speaker 2: sleep because she said, when you go to sleep, that's
Speaker 2: when you elongate. That's when your body recovers and it
Speaker 2: needs to be nice and loose.
Speaker 5: So here we are, and the biggest business decision your
Speaker 5: parents make is for you and your dad to come
Speaker 5: to the United States. I mean, we talk a lot
Speaker 5: about risk when it comes to business. That's a huge bet,
Speaker 5: huge risk on you at age five. You know, you
Speaker 5: get a little bit of encouragement from Martina and never
Speaker 5: to love it. And you've talked about how you know
Speaker 5: there are these key moments that you look back on
Speaker 5: that are clearly catalytic in your progression and in your success. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but that is a massive risk that you must look
Speaker 5: back on and think, Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my father and I were breaking roles on the
Speaker 2: public tennis courts from the first day we arrived in Miami.
Speaker 2: I remember we arrived, someone was supposed to meet us.
Speaker 7: They didn't.
Speaker 2: We happened to stay with a family sharing a hotel room,
Speaker 2: and the next morning my dad said, let's wake up.
Speaker 2: We got to go find a court, a tennis court,
Speaker 2: and we just happened to go around Collins Avenue and
Speaker 2: then found some private court that he jumped the fence
Speaker 2: on and here we were opened the gate from the back, practicing.
Speaker 2: So those are like the recollections of arriving to the
Speaker 2: United States of America, finding your way, finding your path,
Speaker 2: and there are many times where it could have gone wrong,
Speaker 2: but your determination and you know outside voices, and there
Speaker 2: are many people along those paths that help shape you
Speaker 2: know your future.
Speaker 4: So, Maria, when I hear you talk about your father,
Speaker 4: I can't help to think about, you know, my dad
Speaker 4: leaving my family, my mother, my brother, my sister, and
Speaker 4: kind of left the four of us behind, and my
Speaker 4: mother went on to take two jobs. And I always thought,
Speaker 4: I think about the gift of your father and the
Speaker 4: curse of my father leaving us.
Speaker 1: There's both sides. Right.
Speaker 4: Part of him leaving was I had nobody to kick
Speaker 4: me in the butt. I had to do it myself.
Speaker 4: And I knew early on that I had to be
Speaker 4: the provider for my family. Probably when I was abound
Speaker 4: eleven or twelve, I hear all the good, any challenges
Speaker 4: of having that first partnership, be with your father.
Speaker 1: You can't just fire your father. He can't fire you.
Speaker 1: I mean this blood. Yeah, any challenges along the way.
Speaker 2: Tennis wise, I have to give him so much credit.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are many in his position. He was
Speaker 2: in his early thirties with seven hundred dollars in his
Speaker 2: back pocket of his levies. He was trying to find
Speaker 2: any kind of job that would help support, you know,
Speaker 2: string my next racket for my next tournament. So I
Speaker 2: don't you know the greatest gift that he gave me.
Speaker 2: He was acknowledging that at some point he will have
Speaker 2: to step back and for a father in sport, particularly
Speaker 2: in tennis, as a father of a girl that's won
Speaker 2: grand slams with him, is a very tough acceptance to have.
Speaker 2: I did that after my third Grand Slam at the
Speaker 2: Australian Open. I think he knew it was coming because
Speaker 2: I wanted to do it with him, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to do it on my own. I wanted to have
Speaker 2: that independency and it was more for me than anything else.
Speaker 2: It was not about money, it was not about victories.
Speaker 7: It's just this little little bird, this little.
Speaker 2: Instinct of mine that said, you know, what this is
Speaker 2: time I won my third Grand Slam at the Australian Open,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 1: Drafted and I'm scared for you, Maria.
Speaker 4: Is that conversation happened on text on phone?
Speaker 3: I drafted a really good email.
Speaker 2: I just thought I was gonna do this much better
Speaker 2: on email and craft my thoughts better.
Speaker 3: And I did.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't look at him in the face while
Speaker 2: saying that. But I also knew that he knew it
Speaker 2: was coming. He just didn't think it was going to
Speaker 2: happen after I just won my third Grand Slam.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tough one, but you have to like
Speaker 2: rip that band aid. As someone that was in my twenties,
Speaker 2: I was ready. It'd been a partnership for you know,
Speaker 2: over twenty years, and it was time to do it
Speaker 2: on my own.
Speaker 4: And to do it after a third Grand Slam so
Speaker 4: much better than after a terrible defeat, right, Yeah, which.
Speaker 7: Is what happens most of the.
Speaker 6: Time, exactly.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, and it was interesting too because you essentially kind
Speaker 5: of turned his own logic on him, right, because he
Speaker 5: had been pretty robust in terms of like turning over
Speaker 5: your team pretty consistently, you know, firing coaches, along the way,
Speaker 5: just to make sure you kept it fresh.
Speaker 6: Is that fair?
Speaker 2: I mean I never really fired him. He was still
Speaker 2: very much involved. I guess the only thing that and
Speaker 2: when you say fired, like you evolve, right, And that's
Speaker 2: one of the hardest the challenges that I find now
Speaker 2: is like, what you needed two three years ago, perhaps
Speaker 2: is not what you need for the future, And like,
Speaker 2: how do you make that change and acknowledge that this
Speaker 2: person was right for you at this time, but is
Speaker 2: no longer right for you and for your own future
Speaker 2: and perhaps not for theirs. And that conversation is one
Speaker 2: of the most difficult ones that you have in business
Speaker 2: because team is everything and if you don't see and
Speaker 2: feel that your team is moving with you toward that
Speaker 2: one direction. And the fact that he just was able
Speaker 2: to step back and say, hey, you do this, I mean,
Speaker 2: he was still very much involved. He'd call all the
Speaker 2: coaches and speak to them after matches. He's always the
Speaker 2: first person I call. It wasn't like I went to
Speaker 2: my coach, I call my dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right right, you have that partnership and relationship.
Speaker 2: He knows you better than anyone and I respected that
Speaker 2: and I always respected his opinion.
Speaker 5: So speaking of building your team, I mean one of
Speaker 5: the catalytic moments clearly too is IMG, because that sets
Speaker 5: you it feels like on a completely new path, or
Speaker 5: it sort of helps set the direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my father and I arrived to the academy on
Speaker 2: a Greyhound bus in the middle of the night. We
Speaker 2: didn't know if it was open or not, but it
Speaker 2: was the only time that the bus came to Bradenton, Florida,
Speaker 2: and we knocked on the door. The receptionist said, you're crazy.
Speaker 2: Come back at six am when our front office opens.
Speaker 2: So we went to a hotel, came back in the
Speaker 2: morning and they put me and my father said, we.
Speaker 7: Don't have a reservation.
Speaker 2: I just brought my daughter from Russia and she's talented
Speaker 2: and I'd like for her to practice here. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure they looked at him with eyes wide open and said,
Speaker 2: this guy's nuts, and so let's let's bring them in
Speaker 2: for the day and then try to get rid of
Speaker 2: them later. They put me in a group and the
Speaker 2: coach that was running the group said, hey, called Nick
Speaker 2: BOLETI right away.
Speaker 7: I went to see Nick.
Speaker 2: Within hours and Nick called IMG and that's how it spiraled.
Speaker 7: Wow, within twenty.
Speaker 1: Four hours and how old we then?
Speaker 7: I was seven six and a half, right.
Speaker 5: And then it I mean it takes a couple twists
Speaker 5: and turns though, because you end up at a different Yeah,
Speaker 5: because bulletary is this isn't working out, oh military.
Speaker 2: It was a sports factory, right, Like if you want
Speaker 2: individual training where you come in and there's one person
Speaker 2: looking after you for six hours a day, that's most
Speaker 2: likely not going to happen. But it was also a
Speaker 2: time where we need an investment. We needed money in
Speaker 2: order to go and train. I mean, you know, tennis
Speaker 2: is a very expensive sport. You need to invest so
Speaker 2: much capital and with absolutely no guarantees. And so IMG
Speaker 2: put the first check in. And I think that was
Speaker 2: the last time that I felt really awful about owing
Speaker 2: money to someone.
Speaker 4: I've never I've never heard that so IMG investing you,
Speaker 4: how do they get their return on their capital?
Speaker 2: So once you make a little bit of cash, then
Speaker 2: you return with certain interest. I hated that feeling, I
Speaker 2: mean the.
Speaker 6: Feeling of yet, why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: I just even now, like anytime I'm in business and
Speaker 2: I do deals or even buying a house, like the
Speaker 2: idea of borrowing someone's money and then owing it to
Speaker 2: the is like, I don't know if it's because of
Speaker 2: the past and that I needed that money in order
Speaker 2: to survive in the sport. It like left to really like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, this feeling of I never want to
Speaker 2: be in that position. Yeah.
Speaker 5: When we come back, we discussed Maria's signing with Nike.
Speaker 5: Her first grandson went at Wimbledon, and the highs and
Speaker 5: lows of what came after. I can't get too far along.
Speaker 5: I want to get to sort of your success on
Speaker 5: the court in a second. But from a business perspective,
Speaker 5: every athlete's dream, or many athletes dream, is to sign
Speaker 5: with Nike.
Speaker 6: You do that at eleven? Are you conscious of that?
Speaker 2: Really, it wasn't like a big deal to me because
Speaker 2: I didn't recognize what that even means.
Speaker 6: To me.
Speaker 2: That meant that I could have free tennis skirts, right,
Speaker 2: and that was fantastic during the time I'm a one
Speaker 2: one then I was on a very small, mediocre Nike
Speaker 2: contract as a teenager, and after I won, they very
Speaker 2: sweetly flew us up to Portland and gave us the
Speaker 2: whole you know, shebang experience. That was the moment, yeah,
Speaker 2: where I realized that Okay, I had done something special.
Speaker 6: Well, let's talk about that.
Speaker 5: Because winning Wimbledon the first time, I think it's safe
Speaker 5: to say, literally changes everything. I mean, it changes your
Speaker 5: Nike deal. It also brings Motorola in. Tell us about that.
Speaker 5: The business of Maria Sharpovt totally changes.
Speaker 2: When you frame it that way, I'm like, he wow,
Speaker 2: that is so big. But like when you're a seventeen
Speaker 2: year old girl, you don't look at it that way
Speaker 2: because if you think that, wow, everything now has changed,
Speaker 2: how do you wake up at six am, put on
Speaker 2: your training gear when it's like freezing outside and go
Speaker 2: and hit one hundred serbs and with a cold shoulder,
Speaker 2: Where's the motivation going to come from? So, if I
Speaker 2: can be honest, I never allowed myself to feel that
Speaker 2: change or that shift has happened, because you constantly have
Speaker 2: to find those moments of inspiration to keep going. An
Speaker 2: inspiration to me was not by signing a contract with
Speaker 2: Motorola or getting the new Raizor phone, even though that
Speaker 2: was an incredible brand. It was the fact that, like now,
Speaker 2: when I went to train in Los Angeles, I stayed
Speaker 2: in this hotel room in Hermosa Beach, and I got
Speaker 2: an upgrade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a better room, and that was exciting.
Speaker 4: I'm here like freaked out because it's resonating so much.
Speaker 4: At seventeen, I was drafted from Miami to the Seattle Mariners,
Speaker 4: Like all the way across the country. I had to
Speaker 4: kind of bring out the map and go where exactly right.
Speaker 4: But there's a moment when I signed my contract where
Speaker 4: I saw my mom work so hard that I made
Speaker 4: a promise that I would buy our house. I got
Speaker 4: to use Mercedes Benz. I remember one ninety and I
Speaker 4: promised our show never working and she's eighty seven to.
Speaker 1: This day, and she's never worked a day in her life.
Speaker 4: After my contract, when I bought my black Cherokee, I
Speaker 4: got to tell you, jeep Cherokee. It was black with
Speaker 4: a little gold that was my flex And I was seventeen,
Speaker 4: and I just felt like the king of the world.
Speaker 4: Was there ever a little moment where you either got
Speaker 4: a big check that for a minute you said, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna enjoy this quietly and then I'm gonna go
Speaker 4: back to my serfs.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I took my mom and two girlfriends to the Caribbean
Speaker 2: on my first ever vacation I've never seen to Nevis
Speaker 2: and it was the closest resort, decent resort to Sarasota
Speaker 2: where I was training, And we took five days off
Speaker 2: and I'd never been on a vacation in my life.
Speaker 2: And I left there and I thought, Wow, the fact
Speaker 2: that I could fly my mom, two of my girlfriends
Speaker 2: on a private jet to this place with blue water
Speaker 2: and boogie board all day long like that was our thing,
Speaker 2: and come home and train the next day is the greatest,
Speaker 2: most amazing gift until this day. Like that feeling going
Speaker 2: away of disconnecting from the world, of being with my
Speaker 2: friends and my family and treating them to this amazing
Speaker 2: experience that incorporates travel and wellness.
Speaker 6: And so this is just post Wimbledon, after that season.
Speaker 7: I was not taking vacations before that, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, why weren't you? You just couldn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what that meant. I don't think I
Speaker 2: ever took more than a day or two off. But
Speaker 2: the grind of the year, the schedule of playing seventeen
Speaker 2: to twenty tournaments a year, the travel, the media responsibilities,
Speaker 2: the brand responsibilities, you need to disconnect from that.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to bring you back to when you
Speaker 4: were seventeen. Call it a month before you win at
Speaker 4: your first Wimbledon. What is a day like for Maria
Speaker 4: to give us a taste of your work ethic and
Speaker 4: your schedule.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So a month before that Wimbledon was the French Open
Speaker 2: and it was actually the first Grand Slam quarter final
Speaker 2: that I'd been in. It was a big event for me.
Speaker 2: It was a big result for me. People expected good
Speaker 2: things for me, perhaps not on the clay courts, but
Speaker 2: it was where I made my mark, where I felt like, wow, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got to the quarterfinal, baby steps and moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction. And the following week was the first
Speaker 2: warm up tournament in Birmingham in England, and they were
Speaker 2: showing the final of the French Open, and at the
Speaker 2: time I was sitting in a hotel room with a
Speaker 2: Russian colleague that was also playing the same tournament, and
Speaker 2: there were two Russians playing that final in Paris, and
Speaker 2: I just watching the TV and knowing that there was
Speaker 2: going to be a Russian woman like holding that trophy.
Speaker 2: I want, honestly, I just I wanted it to be me,
Speaker 2: and I was so upset that it was happening to
Speaker 2: somebody else, and I remember speaking about it with hers
Speaker 2: it was a calling named Maria as well, and just
Speaker 2: telling her how this should be us, like we should
Speaker 2: be in the final. Why are the other these two
Speaker 2: girls are in the final. So I already had that
Speaker 2: competitior of spirit in me, and I was training for
Speaker 2: that Wimbledon victory without even knowing it.
Speaker 5: Because one of the things that comes through very clearly
Speaker 5: and sort of learning about you is you are a
Speaker 5: ferocious competitor. I mean you would set your sights on somebody.
Speaker 5: I mean Serena is obviously sort of like the alpha
Speaker 5: example of this. Do you still have that feeling in
Speaker 5: your mind of being so intent on winning?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If I competed in the same tournament, no matter if
Speaker 2: it was a woman or a man winning that tournament
Speaker 2: and it wasn't me, like I would inside I would
Speaker 2: feel upset that it wasn't me on the stage, like
Speaker 2: I would envision myself being there, And if it didn't
Speaker 2: happen to be that tournament like I would genuinely be
Speaker 2: upset and eager to get out on the practice court,
Speaker 2: whether it was an hour later or the next morning
Speaker 2: or like it.
Speaker 7: It fueled me absolutely.
Speaker 5: So I want to take you back just for a second,
Speaker 5: because you mentioned Motorola, or you mentioned sort of that
Speaker 5: moment of winning, and that it didn't resonate with you
Speaker 5: as much as a competitor. And yet I have to
Speaker 5: think you look back on that as a business person, yeah,
Speaker 5: and realize that was a massive moment massive.
Speaker 2: I was on Center Court after that that when tried
Speaker 2: to call my mom. She was on a Jet Blue
Speaker 2: flight on her way to New York to actually meet
Speaker 2: me because I had some things to do over that weekend.
Speaker 2: I was late because I happened to be in the final.
Speaker 2: She watched me when on the television mid flight, I
Speaker 2: tried to call her so from Center Court using was
Speaker 2: one of those crap phones, can't reach her, And then
Speaker 2: I realized she was on the flight. And then next
Speaker 2: thing you know, a week later, I have a global
Speaker 2: deal with Motorola. And the deal itself wasn't financially heavy.
Speaker 2: It was actually I think it was a few hundred
Speaker 2: grand a year, perhaps more, but it was such a
Speaker 2: great brand alignment. At the time they were coming out
Speaker 2: with their razor phone, right, I was one of the
Speaker 2: first few people that ever seen it. Was on all
Speaker 2: the campaigns with it. And it was a smart move
Speaker 2: by by my team and I because it was taking
Speaker 2: you know, it was taking a company that was about
Speaker 2: to do a lot of many campaigns around a product
Speaker 2: that I was involved with, and it got me on
Speaker 2: billboards and from Tokyo to Seoul to Paris, and it
Speaker 2: opened up so many more doors than perhaps a deal
Speaker 2: that was worth a few millionaire.
Speaker 6: And were you and your team conscious of that at
Speaker 6: the time?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Okay, So that this had sort of a and this
Speaker 5: is something we've talked about before, you know, sort of
Speaker 5: this cultural relevance, right, I mean it was just like
Speaker 5: a zeitgeist type of deal.
Speaker 7: I don't think.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know better than than anyone. You don't
Speaker 2: take deals just for the money. There's you have to
Speaker 2: think of the right positioning in your career. Is it
Speaker 2: about the team, is it about the founder? Is it
Speaker 2: about the product? Is it how are they helping you?
Speaker 2: Know your name and your image where they focused on?
Speaker 2: Is there a market that you're particularly interested in, Like
Speaker 2: I love going to Asia and Japan and China. I
Speaker 2: loved playing there. I loved my fans there. I had
Speaker 2: a huge fan base. So you know, if there was
Speaker 2: a company that was focused on a particular campaign in
Speaker 2: that area. Then you know that would be something that
Speaker 2: I'd be curious about.
Speaker 4: You know, some are just like you see it, you
Speaker 4: hear it, you smell it. You know it's a no brainer.
Speaker 4: And sometimes you know, Warren Buffett talks about he knows
Speaker 4: if he's an investment, a founder, or CEO in the
Speaker 4: first five minutes.
Speaker 1: So motorole isn't.
Speaker 7: Over you do you do that too?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I was going to tell you about this one because
Speaker 4: this guy is Siria or mutual friend.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know.
Speaker 4: One of my biggest misses of all time was Uber
Speaker 4: and I remember I was living in the West Village
Speaker 4: and we had just finished playing The Red Sox and
Speaker 4: we were having dinner at the Waverley. Now it's past
Speaker 4: midnight and we're having a couple of cocktails and he goes,
Speaker 4: I have this investment for you I want you to
Speaker 4: look at and I only have two fifty for you
Speaker 4: to invest in. I said, great, great, So we walked
Speaker 4: down the street and he presses a button and he
Speaker 4: sees the car and the cars coming and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: that's a great you're mentalist.
Speaker 1: Do it again.
Speaker 4: He goes, okay, I'll erase it, and he does it again.
Speaker 4: Two minutes a car pulls up. I goes, okay, and
Speaker 4: now I want this investment. And by two fifty I
Speaker 4: needed to wire before noon.
Speaker 1: The next day.
Speaker 4: My business manager was out in the West coast, out
Speaker 4: in La so timing and I missed it.
Speaker 7: Is he fired?
Speaker 1: No, he's still with me. But that's two fifty.
Speaker 3: You're loyal.
Speaker 4: The two fifty Maria would have been close to fifty
Speaker 4: million bucks today.
Speaker 2: Oh my, But do you think of that, like do
Speaker 2: you think that that was a missed opportunity? Like do
Speaker 2: you look back and think that's a regret.
Speaker 1: But my point is, and this is my question.
Speaker 4: Sometimes the team, the business manager, the lawyers, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of handlers that we have sometimes around us, and
Speaker 4: I feel like paralysis by analysis. There's sometimes you just
Speaker 4: got to say kind of screw it.
Speaker 1: A have you had? Missus?
Speaker 4: And two do you sometimes say, you know what, guys, team,
Speaker 4: I appreciated there's a Maria's call, I'm going to go
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 2: I see a lot of deal flow, and I see
Speaker 2: many things that could work well and many things that
Speaker 2: are not necessarily go well. And sometimes you take chances
Speaker 2: and you bet on it. But there was one deal. Actually,
Speaker 2: Andy Roddick called me up. Not that I want to
Speaker 2: blame Andy, but he did call me up. He says,
Speaker 2: there is a It was an app failed app right now.
Speaker 2: At the time, it was very similar to what cameo
Speaker 2: ended up doing very well. The user face had two
Speaker 2: different apps, so one for the user and one for
Speaker 2: the hotels that was offering these services. And I said
Speaker 2: to the founder, I said, why can't this just be
Speaker 2: one app for the people that are providing the service
Speaker 2: and for the user, And he said, we just can't
Speaker 2: do that. And I said, well, okay, I still believe
Speaker 2: in you. But I never I just I thought that
Speaker 2: was going to be challenging, and I actually invested quite
Speaker 2: a bit into it and it never took off. That
Speaker 2: was my first bit of technology. And this must have
Speaker 2: been over ten years ago. Yeah, there are many of them,
Speaker 2: but you can say that about so many deals, like
Speaker 2: you think so many of them will work, and they're
Speaker 2: so passionate, found there's great backgrounds. You know, they know
Speaker 2: what they're doing. Here's my money. We have so many
Speaker 2: people around us that help guide us and help us,
Speaker 2: and whether it's assistants or managers, whether it's a business
Speaker 2: manager or you know in wme or someone else. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you control everything. And
Speaker 2: that's a big lesson that I've learned, is like, if
Speaker 2: you're passionate about something, if you want to get something done,
Speaker 2: you do it. Don't rely on others. If you need
Speaker 2: to wire two hundred and fifty grand somewhere, you call
Speaker 2: your bank, like and make sure you have your details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you have to.
Speaker 2: And that's that's a very important lessons because there are
Speaker 2: so many middle men in the system and things get lost.
Speaker 1: I agree that was a great lesson.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean you have been pretty expressive about
Speaker 5: this idea of trusting your gut, which I would imagine
Speaker 5: must come from your just athletic back. I mean, because
Speaker 5: as much as is you know, baseball does rely on
Speaker 5: obviously individual achievement. Ultimately you're a part of a team.
Speaker 5: You're not a part of it. It is you out there,
Speaker 5: and so you I wonder if that in part comes from, well,
Speaker 5: it's just me out there. Everybody else is sitting in
Speaker 5: the stands. I have to, like, I have to be
Speaker 5: responsible for whatever happens.
Speaker 2: Next Yeah, there's a lot of responsibility on yourself, and
Speaker 2: so much of it is instinctual. And you know, you
Speaker 2: can have all the mechanic coaches and the physios and
Speaker 2: the fitness trainers, but when you're in the tiebreaker in
Speaker 2: the third or fifth set, you're not looking back at stats,
Speaker 2: You're not thinking of the YouTube videos that your coach
Speaker 2: showed you before the match. You're just you're relying on
Speaker 2: your body, on your flow, on your mindset to let
Speaker 2: you get to that match point and win it. So
Speaker 2: even though I didn't have that team environment, I did
Speaker 2: have a team that I relied on till the very
Speaker 2: last second until I walked on the court. And one
Speaker 2: of the things I missed till this day are those
Speaker 2: people you know that helped me win, that helped me
Speaker 2: achieve the best things.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I'm going to talk about you to Jason
Speaker 4: in front of you. So, Jason, I got to tell
Speaker 4: you and our friends at home that we've had a
Speaker 4: couple of calls on businesses that we were looking to
Speaker 4: invest her family office in mind, and we had mutual
Speaker 4: interests and we both passed. But I got to tell
Speaker 4: you when you have such huge stars like Maria a
Speaker 4: lot of times you expect the zoom call, maybe for
Speaker 4: them to come in a little late, or maybe to
Speaker 4: have a couple of handlers or team members. She was
Speaker 4: the first one in the zoom call. She was there
Speaker 4: by herself, she was taking notes, she was asking the
Speaker 4: smartest questions.
Speaker 1: I was blown away.
Speaker 3: And you're so blown away. You didn't call me back. Deal?
Speaker 3: Where are those other deals?
Speaker 6: But he owes you multiple deals.
Speaker 3: He was giving me a compliment and I shut him down.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think that's where I think when superstars
Speaker 4: in anything they do, when they're able to pivot, the
Speaker 4: one thing to be careful for is because you were
Speaker 4: so successful, things can actually go wrong in business.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I thought she was a perfect balance of optimism,
Speaker 4: but yet you know, some reservation and the question that
Speaker 4: she asked that was incredibly impressed and that made me
Speaker 4: understand a little bit about your greatness over a thirty
Speaker 4: minute zoom call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm a products person, like I love like if someone
Speaker 2: says invest in this, like there's no reason this is
Speaker 2: going to fail, I'd be like, send me the product,
Speaker 2: here's the address, and don't contact me for four weeks.
Speaker 2: I want to live with it. I want to breathe it.
Speaker 2: I want to try it, I want.
Speaker 3: To wear it.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is like, I want it, and I want
Speaker 2: to give it to my friends, and I want them
Speaker 2: to give me their feedback. I want to give it
Speaker 2: to my family who have different tastes, different you know,
Speaker 2: appreciations and aesthetics. And until they tell me that they
Speaker 2: like it and they're into it, I won't have an
Speaker 2: ex call with you.
Speaker 5: One of the things you guys haven't is during your
Speaker 5: playing days, you're thinking about your business. You're thinking about
Speaker 5: your brand increasingly, especially as you go along, and yet
Speaker 5: at some moment, you're not on the baseball field, you're
Speaker 5: not on the tennis court anymore. No, what is that
Speaker 5: moment like when like, what's the first day, like when
Speaker 5: you wake up after retiring and you sort of have
Speaker 5: to look at your next life at you know, age
Speaker 5: of thirty, what.
Speaker 7: Two something like that.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I remember that day clearly. I went skiing
Speaker 2: and it was pretty bad at it. I thought it'd
Speaker 2: have more coordination than I did, and then I thought
Speaker 2: it'd get better at it. And then we're all stuck
Speaker 2: stuck at home during COVID and you know living a
Speaker 2: very different life for several months. But look, in all honesty,
Speaker 2: it's a big decision when you decide for yourself, for
Speaker 2: your team, for your family, that this is the end.
Speaker 3: And I was ready. My body was ready.
Speaker 2: It was challenged for several years, and ultimately I let
Speaker 2: a little bit of stubbornness get in the way of
Speaker 2: those last few years. I tried so hard to get
Speaker 2: my body back, but you can't turn back time, right
Speaker 2: Like when something's damaged and something's broken, you have to
Speaker 2: like admit it move on. And stubbornness that once propelled
Speaker 2: me to greatness eventually I think was getting in the
Speaker 2: way of better things.
Speaker 3: So I was ready.
Speaker 2: To say that I was ready for the next chapter
Speaker 2: is an understatement. I was ready to have a family.
Speaker 2: I was ready to be a mom. I was in
Speaker 2: a good place mentally. I had a good outlook on life.
Speaker 2: But it's not like you just turn the switch and
Speaker 2: move on like everything that you've built. The great thing
Speaker 2: about moving to the next chapter is that you've built
Speaker 2: a foundation. Now maybe it's a completely different world. And
Speaker 2: I know, you know we say sport and business. Yes
Speaker 2: there's a lot of alignment, but there are many differences,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't forget the fact that over so many
Speaker 2: years I built a phenomenal foundation of strength, of resiliency,
Speaker 2: a focus of termination, and all these apply to business.
Speaker 2: So today, you know, I sit here in this chair,
Speaker 2: and yes I'm an investor, I'm on several boards. But
Speaker 2: I also can't take away from the fact that it
Speaker 2: took me more than twelve years to become great at
Speaker 2: one thing, and it takes time to build, you know,
Speaker 2: strength in another arena. So while I do have the foundation,
Speaker 2: I'm still growing. I'm still learning, you know, I still
Speaker 2: want to be better. On my way here, I talked
Speaker 2: to my mom and she said, you know, the educator,
Speaker 2: and her I told her this morning I was going
Speaker 2: on a podcast. She didn't ask too many questions, but
Speaker 2: she called me back as I was in the car,
Speaker 2: and she said, you know, I just want to make
Speaker 2: sure that you're not just talking about your career, that
Speaker 2: you have like other things to offer and other things
Speaker 2: to say, like are you reading enough?
Speaker 3: She actually asked me, are you reading enough? On my
Speaker 3: way here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that I would have other things, you know,
Speaker 2: to say beyond just support. I was like, Mom, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm actually listening to the all in podcasts while I'm
Speaker 2: on my way here, like I'm still Garias.
Speaker 1: Don't worry so thinking about that.
Speaker 4: There's going to be viewers that have watched this that
Speaker 4: are founders that have a business that their dream would
Speaker 4: be for Maria to invest in their business. Can you
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about how you think about
Speaker 4: businesses which sectors kind of broadly check sizes.
Speaker 1: How do you think about being a value added investor?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 2: One of my first investments, actually the first investment was
Speaker 2: into a sunscreen brand called Supergoup. I was a user
Speaker 2: myself founded a Sephora market. I think that was their
Speaker 2: only distribution at the time. This was twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: I knocked on the on the door of the founder
Speaker 2: and I said, I love your product. It's the only
Speaker 2: one I can wear while I play. Doesn't run in
Speaker 2: my eyes, it doesn't burn my eyes or sting them.
Speaker 7: Can I please help you out.
Speaker 2: I don't know what stage you're at, I don't know
Speaker 2: how young or old you are, but I love what
Speaker 2: you're doing and from what I've read, I love your mission.
Speaker 7: And that was it.
Speaker 2: And two years ago they sold seventy five percent of
Speaker 2: their steak for close to a billion dollars. So it
Speaker 2: was my first It was the first time where I
Speaker 2: didn't take that paycheck at the beginning, and I said,
Speaker 2: let me invest, let me give you my time, my platform,
Speaker 2: my voice, and help share this message about preventing skin cancer.
Speaker 2: And that was a successful example, and there's been you know,
Speaker 2: several others not so. But the point is is that
Speaker 2: it came from loving the product. It came from the
Speaker 2: mission that the founder had that I resonated with, and
Speaker 2: the fact that I could help it, Like I was
Speaker 2: realistic that I had the right platform and that I
Speaker 2: had the right usership in order to help them grow.
Speaker 2: So I think all that was it was a good
Speaker 2: foundation in my investment story. And not to say that
Speaker 2: there's something that I may not be familiar with or
Speaker 2: that I'm taking a chance on. I still should take
Speaker 2: the call, I still should spend time with the founders,
Speaker 2: but ultimately I want to have a good feel of
Speaker 2: what this is right. I want to spend time. I
Speaker 2: want to have dinner with these people, right, and I
Speaker 2: want to win with people that know how to lose.
Speaker 2: Like if you're I, can you know, sip champagne or
Speaker 2: you know, buy the glass, whatever it is. When you're winning,
Speaker 2: like I know what that feelings like. But when things
Speaker 2: are not going well, when you're losing, when you have
Speaker 2: a losing streak, can be a year, can be a
Speaker 2: few years. And who are those people that are in
Speaker 2: that process right, what's their mentality? How are they helping
Speaker 2: bring back you know, the fire and the team and
Speaker 2: the product and the branding. So I want to believe
Speaker 2: in people that know that know how to lose and
Speaker 2: how that will come up and find ways to win.
Speaker 5: I mean one of the things that I feel like
Speaker 5: you're spending more and more time thinking about too, is
Speaker 5: this notion of and certainly this is something that will
Speaker 5: resonate with you, Alex, this notion of high performance, this
Speaker 5: notion of like working under pressure. I mean I'm sitting
Speaker 5: in between two people who who loves pressure, who love pressure,
Speaker 5: I mean, who like you know, like beyond thrive on it.
Speaker 5: How do you translate that, though, into a life that
Speaker 5: doesn't have such clear winning and losing on a like
Speaker 5: minute to minute basis.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's acceptance that it's not always going to
Speaker 2: go well, no matter you might have the best intentions,
Speaker 2: you might have the strongest preparation, the strongest mindset, the
Speaker 2: best team. I always say, you have to be realistic.
Speaker 2: You can be confident, you can be underplaying your results,
Speaker 2: but you still have to go out and show up.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's things are out of your control. People
Speaker 2: say certain things. You don't like it, Go home, do
Speaker 2: your job, keep working. You'll get the results. So acceptance
Speaker 2: is one of them. Work Ethic, I mean work ethic
Speaker 2: from a young age, understanding that nothing comes easy. You know,
Speaker 2: we both come from humble backgrounds, and when you know
Speaker 2: what that feels like. I mean, I'm not a big spender.
Speaker 2: I take like I know what's in my bank. As
Speaker 2: star athletes, we go through these like moments of you know,
Speaker 2: fame and spending and you kind of lose track of
Speaker 2: what you have. I thankfully go in that direction. I
Speaker 2: was very you know, I had a purpose and how
Speaker 2: I spent what I spent Like I counted like little
Speaker 2: coins when I was young, and I would still count
Speaker 2: them if now we have to do those cyber coins.
Speaker 5: Turning it on you, I mean this whole notion of
Speaker 5: like pressure to business, I don't I mean you, how
Speaker 5: do you get that same you know, it's funny that's
Speaker 5: the same charge.
Speaker 1: I think athletes.
Speaker 4: Marie and I and our colleagues get a bad rap
Speaker 4: about being bad business people. But I actually think that
Speaker 4: we have the greatest preparation to be really good at
Speaker 4: business if we can check our ego, if we can
Speaker 4: surround ourselves with better people than us that have complementary
Speaker 4: set of skills, that have an aligned vision. But the
Speaker 4: work ethic, the passion, not punching a clock from nine
Speaker 4: to five. We're just going to do it to the
Speaker 4: job is done, even if we have to work around
Speaker 4: the clock. That is something that I always underscore because
Speaker 4: most people really are and it's okay, they're not willing
Speaker 4: to pay that price. So we have a tremendous track record.
Speaker 4: We're persistent, We're resilient. And here's the biggest thing I
Speaker 4: think in business is we understand how to deal with turbulence. Yeah,
Speaker 4: in public noise, and that I think Jason is one
Speaker 4: thing that a lot of people can give great advice,
Speaker 4: but when there's a bad article about them, I mean
Speaker 4: they literally melt in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean there are some significant stats about Fortune.
Speaker 2: Five hundred female CEOs, eighty percent of them have had
Speaker 2: high intensity, sport background, whether it's in college, high school,
Speaker 2: league level, why is that because of the amazing lessons
Speaker 2: that you learn along the way, right, the resiliency, What
Speaker 2: do you do under pressure?
Speaker 7: How do you cope with it? How do you take
Speaker 7: care of your body?
Speaker 2: I mean like when you have a big event, Like
Speaker 2: it's easy for me now to say, oh, I can
Speaker 2: go and have dinner and have a big curry, But actually,
Speaker 2: if I really want to be prepared and for my
Speaker 2: mind to be fresh, I'm going to have a lean
Speaker 2: dinner because I want to wake up and I want
Speaker 2: my mind to be ready to go. So strong body,
Speaker 2: strong mind. And those are so many of the lessons
Speaker 2: that you learn as an athlete.
Speaker 4: I want to ask one question because I'm sincerely intrigued
Speaker 4: by your answer here. You know, you talked about, you know,
Speaker 4: coming with your father, mom had to stay back checking
Speaker 4: in IMG in the middle of the night motel, and
Speaker 4: then Wimbledon happens at seventeen, and your world starts changing
Speaker 4: from a global place. Now you're in your mid thirties, right,
Speaker 4: and you have a little one at home. What is
Speaker 4: your north star when you're forty five fifty? Your next
Speaker 4: this this business career is going to be much longer
Speaker 4: than your playing career. You know, God Willing, What does
Speaker 4: a Wimbledon north star look like for you?
Speaker 1: In business?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I don't look so far ahead. I don't
Speaker 2: look at forty five. I don't look at fifty. The
Speaker 2: biggest difference and the biggest shift in my life is
Speaker 2: when you have a child.
Speaker 7: The free time changes.
Speaker 2: Even when I was at the top of my sporting career,
Speaker 2: I had free time to recover, right to rest my body,
Speaker 2: to be curious about other things. Now as a mother,
Speaker 2: if I can be honest when even if you do
Speaker 2: have free time, or you're not in the same city,
Speaker 2: you're on a trip, you know, a working trip, vacation,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, your child is not there. You're thinking
Speaker 2: of your child. You're doing everything you can. So that
Speaker 2: juggle has definitely been an adjustment for me. Business wise,
Speaker 2: There's a platform that I'm working on and developing that
Speaker 2: will take time. But as I said, I'm not in
Speaker 2: a rush, and I recognize. I realize that everything that
Speaker 2: I've built for my tennis career was built upon years
Speaker 2: and years of work and ups and downs, and it
Speaker 2: will in my business career. But I'm curious. I'm not
Speaker 2: afraid to take chances. I'm not afraid to take on
Speaker 2: roles that might be intimidating. I mean, I'm on the
Speaker 2: board of Montclair and I sit, you know, in an
Speaker 2: Italian conference room with a translator in my ear because
Speaker 2: it's an officially public trading Italian company, so it has
Speaker 2: to be done in Italian. It's intimidating. I mean, some
Speaker 2: of the figures, the numbers of decisions that you are
Speaker 2: responsible for in that room are you know, are high stakes,
Speaker 2: and so I feel like I have a responsibility to
Speaker 2: know what the hell's going on in that room. And
Speaker 2: so by doing that, by putting myself in that situation,
Speaker 2: you know, it gives me. I'm a little scared. It's new,
Speaker 2: but I have to prepare for it, and I love
Speaker 2: that work.
Speaker 4: I've heard you talk about strategy and vision, and I
Speaker 4: think we share that in as athletes. We do always
Speaker 4: have to have a strategy and a vision. When I
Speaker 4: thought about life after baseball, one of my north stars
Speaker 4: that I would be embarrassed to tell people because you're
Speaker 4: probably not going to get their way. Your north stars
Speaker 4: something it is hard to share. It was team ownership,
Speaker 4: right and I'm having so much fun with the Timberwolves,
Speaker 4: and now my North starts to bring a world championship
Speaker 4: with my partner Mark Glory to Minnesota. Any ambitions, and
Speaker 4: I see more women now which are so exciting or
Speaker 4: getting involved in team ownership, WNBA, NBA football ideas in
Speaker 4: the future that you would like to be involved.
Speaker 2: It's a hot topic, and if I can be completely honest,
Speaker 2: I'm not someone that is oriented. My business decisions aren't
Speaker 2: oriented on what's hot and what's trendy. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about being, you know, a co owner of
Speaker 2: a league. I mean, whether it's pickleball or padel or
Speaker 2: you know, a female soccer team. I do come from
Speaker 2: individual sport background, and so I do believe in the
Speaker 2: power of an individual and raising and bringing the stories
Speaker 2: out of these impactful individuals. I've loved the conversations around
Speaker 2: powerful females, but I do still think they've been in
Speaker 2: the context of leagues and media rights and not necessarily
Speaker 2: what these athletes are about. So I see my my
Speaker 2: involvement more in the individuals as opposed to the leagues.
Speaker 5: Right now, Yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't
Speaker 5: talk to you, or if we didn't ask you about tennis,
Speaker 5: and I have to say, it was so cool to
Speaker 5: see a different side of you in Breakpoint, you know,
Speaker 5: as to a luminary of the sport.
Speaker 2: Coming in a few blink you'd miss me. I must
Speaker 2: have not blinked during that show.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I feel like you popped up it like very opportune times.
Speaker 5: But I did, you know.
Speaker 6: In part because you know, we did get a taste
Speaker 6: of it there.
Speaker 5: I mean, I did want to ask you. I mean,
Speaker 5: tennis as a business is at this fascinating moment. It
Speaker 5: feels like in terms of I mean you've been a
Speaker 5: part of and you've witnessed generations of tennis players. We
Speaker 5: are at a generational shift on both the women's and
Speaker 5: the men's side. You know, there's new investors coming into
Speaker 5: the WTA. There's talk of WTA and ATP merging as
Speaker 5: a business person who has more than a passing interest
Speaker 5: in the game of tennis.
Speaker 6: Like, what do you see happening there?
Speaker 2: Uh, the schedule and the system is still slightly broken.
Speaker 2: There's so much going on. This season is ten months
Speaker 2: out of the year. There's several different federations involved. They
Speaker 2: are the Grand slams that are not connected to the
Speaker 2: rest of the tour. There's inequality. I mean, we could
Speaker 2: spend a whole another hour on the state of where
Speaker 2: the game is. But the bottom line is that the
Speaker 2: actual faces and the names and the characters and the
Speaker 2: athletes that are coming out from this new generation are
Speaker 2: spectacular and they're going to lead the sport. And that's
Speaker 2: that's what excites me. And to break Point, it was
Speaker 2: actually the first tennis interview that I had done since retirement,
Speaker 2: and so it felt, you know, tennis was something I
Speaker 2: will always know and I knew for so many years,
Speaker 2: but it was nice to have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a healthy distance from it. And so when I went
Speaker 2: into this recording for Breakpoint, it like it opened up
Speaker 2: so many you know, cans from my past and my
Speaker 2: present and reflection where I felt like I could commentate
Speaker 2: on it, but it wasn't like involved, and it felt
Speaker 2: so good not to be part of any of anything
Speaker 2: of what was going on, Yeah, and to share my vision,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what was reflected and what you saw.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I still don't think it was as great of an
Speaker 2: impact to what they did with Formula one, but tennis
Speaker 2: is a tricky sport to unbox. There's so many layers.
Speaker 2: And that's what I mean by you know, the schedule,
Speaker 2: the equipment. All of these things are tricky. Their players
Speaker 2: are hurt for a lot of the season.
Speaker 7: You're not.
Speaker 2: You're one of the biggest events, but not all the
Speaker 2: top talents playing. Like, what are the reasons? So I
Speaker 2: like to get in before I look at who's investing
Speaker 2: in what?
Speaker 6: Yeah? All right? Last question? Do you have anything? All right?
Speaker 6: Do you have anything else you need to tell us? God,
Speaker 6: you have any questions for him?
Speaker 3: I mean asked me to introduce myself. I was like,
Speaker 3: I was not going to go down. Well, I wasn't prepared.
Speaker 6: For what's your question for him?
Speaker 3: What are you going to call me on your next deal?
Speaker 1: I'm going to call you. I'm gonna definitely what's the.
Speaker 3: D see I want to see the roll of ducks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to see what deal you guys would
Speaker 6: do together.
Speaker 4: I'm true the platform building. Yeah, I want to be
Speaker 4: part of that.
Speaker 6: Okay, wow, real deals happening right now. You're on the deal.
Speaker 1: We'll come back and announce something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Just make sure your business manager wires the check.
Speaker 5: That's a good point, I wire my own checks now
Speaker 5: yeah yeah yeah lesson learned, Yeah yeah exactly, Maria, thank you,
Speaker 5: Thank you a lot of fun.
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