Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay
Speaker 1: ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping
Speaker 1: today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news
Speaker 1: as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with
Speaker 1: Carol Masser and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Business Week on this Thursday, August twenty eight,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. We are not live from the Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Interactive Brokers studio today. We are on site at the
Speaker 2: US Open right outside of Arthur Ash Stadium here at
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty five US Open. I'm Tim Steneveek. That
Speaker 2: is Molly Smith. She's not just a Bloomberg News economics enter,
Speaker 2: she's also tennis expert, in house tennis expert at Bloomberg. Well,
Speaker 2: our next guest needs no introduction. You know him from
Speaker 2: the Tennis Channel as a correspondent for sixty minutes, from
Speaker 2: his many books and leading Glory Days, the Summer of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four and the ninety Days that changed sports
Speaker 2: in culture forever. He also joins US pretty much each
Speaker 2: year at the US Open. We've got John Worth. I'm
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: How are you good? Good to be here.
Speaker 2: How are you guys? We're doing pretty well. How's the
Speaker 2: tennis this year for you?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 4: It's like a three week event now, so it's it's Thursday,
Speaker 4: and it feels like February now because of Fan Week. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean Fan Week really has gone from sort of
Speaker 4: this fun novelty for hardcore connoisseurs to this is a
Speaker 4: three week event and they handed out trophies in week
Speaker 4: one for mixed doubles and hundreds of thousands of fans
Speaker 4: came through the gates and it's really great for tennis.
Speaker 4: For those of us working, it's you know, it can
Speaker 4: be a bit of a slug, but no, it's great.
Speaker 4: This is where we feel like we're like at the
Speaker 4: halfway point, even though we're only a few hours into
Speaker 4: round two.
Speaker 5: So as one of these hardcore connoisseurs, I'm gonna start
Speaker 5: using that one. I like that word, thank you so much,
Speaker 5: so I will self proclaimed hardcore connoisseur. I gotta hear
Speaker 5: from you, John, what did you think of the mixed
Speaker 5: doubles format this year?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm interested to hear you're from where I stand.
Speaker 4: Twelve out of ten big success. I mean, we sort
Speaker 4: of had this irony where an actual to the defending champion.
Speaker 4: So a real committed mixed doubles team won the title
Speaker 4: over these sort of shotgun marriages of singles players. But uh,
Speaker 4: you know, they filled the stadium. There was great interest
Speaker 4: mixed doubles is it sounds great in theory. It's sort
Speaker 4: of one of tennis's great virtues. As the men and
Speaker 4: women compete at the same time, a mixed doubles has
Speaker 4: kind of become a bit of a side show. And uh,
Speaker 4: this tournament figured out how to make it newsworthy and noteworthy,
Speaker 4: and it was.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 2: Do you think we'll see that from other tournaments because
Speaker 2: of the success here?
Speaker 4: It's a great I mean this is this is tennis
Speaker 4: in a nutshell, like uh, you know, the sincerest form
Speaker 4: of flattery.
Speaker 3: I don't think Wimbledon because of the grass, it's a
Speaker 3: variable you would get destroyed.
Speaker 6: Your addition to I think.
Speaker 4: Australian, I think Australia is looking very closely. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, getting the player on site for three weeks
Speaker 4: as opposed to two is a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 4: But yeah, if Australia doesn't have something similar, I would
Speaker 4: be shocked.
Speaker 5: Well, let's talk about the scheduling challenge. It was particularly
Speaker 5: a nightmare this year. We had the tournaments in Canada
Speaker 5: and Cincinnati coming into this a really bizarre scheduling where
Speaker 5: those finals were played on a Thursday and a Monday, respectively.
Speaker 5: Didn't know if they were going to get here on
Speaker 5: time for the mixed doubles. Can you tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about how packed this tennis calendar is and
Speaker 5: why this summer in particular was really very jubled up
Speaker 5: coming into this US Open.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm dating myself. Do you remember Tetris?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: The tennis calendar is just this sort of its NonStop
Speaker 4: combinations and permutations, and the players say there are too
Speaker 4: many events and these tournaments keep popping up. But it's
Speaker 4: a global sport, so you're I mean, it's the great
Speaker 4: riddle of tennis, and it has been ever since I
Speaker 4: started covering the sport.
Speaker 3: It has not been solved.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure overlapping events in Canada and Cincinnati is
Speaker 4: the end.
Speaker 2: No, you're right.
Speaker 4: We had a final in Cincinnati on Monday and then
Speaker 4: this event started Tuesday, and thankfully the Pennsylvania Turnpike was
Speaker 4: not crowded. No, I mean, even flying private and getting
Speaker 4: here as quick as you can, it's still logistically it's
Speaker 4: it's a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, a lot of those players have deals now with
Speaker 2: these private jack companies.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 5: The Egos fiancee's singles final was played at Believe six
Speaker 5: pm in Cincinnati Monday night.
Speaker 6: She had a match here in ash the.
Speaker 3: Next day Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Speaker 2: They got to figure something out, exactly, you got to
Speaker 2: figure it out. What kind of toll does that take
Speaker 2: on the players. I mean, I think people romanticize the
Speaker 2: life of pro athletes a lot. But if you if
Speaker 2: you look at this schedule and you understand these people,
Speaker 2: and I was going to say, in some cases, kids
Speaker 2: are literally living on the road, out of hotel rooms
Speaker 2: for much of their formative years, Like that takes a toll.
Speaker 6: It makes me think of Amanda.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm who you reference a player who who just
Speaker 4: basically needed a mental health sabbatical just basically said, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take a break. Maybe I'll come back, maybe
Speaker 4: I won't. We're seeing that more and more don't you know.
Speaker 4: I'm sure your listeners can relate to this. You can
Speaker 4: stay at the nicest hotel and they can put a
Speaker 4: little orchid in the room service, and you know what,
Speaker 4: it's still not your bed, and it's still not your sheets,
Speaker 4: and it's just there's something that's disruptive that you're you're dislocated.
Speaker 4: And you can have all the amenities and drivers and
Speaker 4: people fetching you water, it's still not home. And I
Speaker 4: think that's something that people, you know, we all know.
Speaker 4: In sports right now, we're seeing how sleep in the
Speaker 4: study of sleep is getting a lot more emphasis. Does
Speaker 4: not do great things for your sleep to change time
Speaker 4: zones and change hotels in different pillows and at some level, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is an international tour. This is what you sign
Speaker 4: up for if you're your Taylor Swift plays all over
Speaker 4: the world. Like, you can't have it both ways. But
Speaker 4: the flip side is it's a real challenge. I don't
Speaker 4: think we talk about it enough. Even with the nicest amenities,
Speaker 4: it still takes something out of you to be on
Speaker 4: the road as much as these.
Speaker 6: It takes a lot of money to do that too.
Speaker 2: You know, only people at the top are the ones
Speaker 2: earning enough to actually like make a living too.
Speaker 5: And this is where I wanted to come back actually
Speaker 5: to this mixed doubles tournament because I think what I
Speaker 5: would personally love to see and what I want to
Speaker 5: hear your opinion on this going forward?
Speaker 6: Maybe this is the way to get mixed.
Speaker 5: Doubles onto the map by having all the singles players
Speaker 5: doing it as this glorified exhibition, so to speak. But
Speaker 5: I think sustainably going forward, we want to see the
Speaker 5: doubles players. I mean, that was really the beauty of
Speaker 5: Irani and Fava story winning. And would you want to
Speaker 5: I personally, again, I know I'm the connoisseur here, I
Speaker 5: would love to see the mixed double the player the
Speaker 5: doubles players playing doubles. Is this Does this format maybe
Speaker 5: set the stage to get them back in and get
Speaker 5: a chance at that bigger prize money.
Speaker 6: They're the ones that are needing.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's a good point.
Speaker 4: I think it's a fundamental question of tennis really, of
Speaker 4: any workplace, right, what is the right sizing, what is
Speaker 4: the right number of tennis players, what is the right
Speaker 4: distribution of prize money? And I think getting these singles
Speaker 4: players to play mixed. It was a great coup, but
Speaker 4: what did it entail. It meant they had shortened sets,
Speaker 4: They had only sixteen players in the draw, and it
Speaker 4: spanned two days. And I think if they opened the
Speaker 4: draw up and suddenly it's three days and suddenly it's
Speaker 4: thirty two teams, the top stars are just going to say,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm trying to win the big trophy here,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to win the singles trophy. It was fun
Speaker 4: when it was you know, I knew it wasn't going
Speaker 4: to take much out of me. But I'm not playing
Speaker 4: three days of mixed doubles before I try and defend
Speaker 4: my real.
Speaker 6: Title, of course.
Speaker 5: So that's where the challenge has been to the mixed
Speaker 5: doubles is that it was played at the end of
Speaker 5: the tournament and the singles players kept advancing, and we're like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're not word to pull out now, We're focused on
Speaker 5: the singles. I want to hear from you this last
Speaker 5: one here, John. We talked to a lot of fans
Speaker 5: about how you know, a lot of people obviously this
Speaker 5: is such a marque New York event.
Speaker 6: They love coming to the US Open. But a lot
Speaker 6: of people have grown.
Speaker 5: Very frustrated about how crowded, how expensive it's become. You
Speaker 5: talked to so many of the players. What's their experience
Speaker 5: like being here from a play.
Speaker 3: I mean it's an interesting you're you're right, we've sort
Speaker 3: of hit on this.
Speaker 4: So's what's the ogi barrism that's so crowded?
Speaker 3: No and goes there anymore?
Speaker 2: I mean it's I said that.
Speaker 4: Friends here exactly, you know, I mean at some level
Speaker 4: like this is great. This is what all entertainment events want, right,
Speaker 4: You want to high demand, you want ticket prices to
Speaker 4: go crazy. Something would be really wrong if you know
Speaker 4: they were begging people to come.
Speaker 3: The players, I think, first of all, they.
Speaker 4: Like the prize money five million to the winner, one
Speaker 4: hundred and ten thousand dollars if you lose in the
Speaker 4: first round. And as you say, this is an expensive sport.
Speaker 4: And we see the high end, and we see the
Speaker 4: Carlos Alcarez and fifty million dollar endorsements, there is a
Speaker 4: whole cohort of players that are on the other side
Speaker 4: of the net from Carlos Alcarez that you know, are
Speaker 4: taking extra bananas out of the players lounge so they
Speaker 4: don't have to pay for breakfast.
Speaker 3: It's really not evenly distributed.
Speaker 4: But I think the players are really they see the
Speaker 4: investment here, They see this is a great showcase. I
Speaker 4: mean not every event on a Thursday afternoon, pick your
Speaker 4: random tournament spot. They don't resemble this. They're not you know,
Speaker 4: mark bands and tens of thousands of fans.
Speaker 2: What about from the perspective of fans, because I've noticed
Speaker 2: in just this is my fourth I've been to what
Speaker 2: more than a half dozen US opens? Molly, you've been
Speaker 2: doing the twenty you think, I think twenty.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my first was in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you were too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're coming up on my thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 2: So you've seen it change a lot just in the
Speaker 2: last three years. I remember getting a ticket a grounds
Speaker 2: pass for my wife for one hundred and fifteen dollars
Speaker 2: day of oncon you know, ticket Master, what have you?
Speaker 2: I mean, if I look at the prices right now,
Speaker 2: which I did right before because I'm trying to get
Speaker 2: her at grounds pass for tomorrow, but a rund four
Speaker 2: hundred bucks, Yeah, well that's prohibitively expensive. And I went
Speaker 2: by the box office and they don't have it.
Speaker 4: You know, they've they've done a great job of washing
Speaker 4: their hands with this whole discussion and saying, hey, listen,
Speaker 4: you know this is the market is speaking more.
Speaker 2: So than any of the year. When colleagues came up
Speaker 2: to me, when friends or even people I had never
Speaker 2: met who realized I was going to the US Open,
Speaker 2: they asked me the same question this year, since the
Speaker 2: pre sale, what is going on with tickets?
Speaker 3: Supply meets demand at a very extreme I mean.
Speaker 2: I start to do an economics editor here, Yeah, I can.
Speaker 4: I can give you my my spiel as my riff,
Speaker 4: which is, you know, it's fine, right, we have luxury goods,
Speaker 4: we have not not everyone gets a rolex at some
Speaker 4: level like this is what you want, right, you want
Speaker 4: the supply curve to look like it does here.
Speaker 3: I do kind of think that you can't have it
Speaker 3: both ways.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of talk here about inclusion, and
Speaker 4: you have various you know, tributes and kids, and you
Speaker 4: come here and it's like, wait, Chicken McNuggets are twenty
Speaker 4: six dollars, My grounds pass is four hundred dollars. It
Speaker 4: seems to me you can't have it both ways either.
Speaker 4: You are those populist event that takes place in a
Speaker 4: public park and we want everyone to feel welcome or
Speaker 4: you are this commercial and this transactional, which is fine,
Speaker 4: you know, I get it. We're running a business here,
Speaker 4: not a philanthropy. But I think it's a little bit
Speaker 4: strange that they sort of try to they try to
Speaker 4: play it both ways.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess that would be their answer to
Speaker 5: that is Fan Week of course, that this is this
Speaker 5: you know, a couple of days where you can come
Speaker 5: in and watch for free, but now that has also
Speaker 5: become increasingly a.
Speaker 6: Ticketed event as well. That you know that, yeah, it
Speaker 6: is free to come in here.
Speaker 5: You can watch the qualifying tournament, you can watch them
Speaker 5: players practice, you can watch.
Speaker 6: A lot of DJ sets, that's for sure, but like
Speaker 6: you not ultimately watch a lot of really what people
Speaker 6: want to see.
Speaker 4: Why so Wimbledon does not have DJ sets, but wimbled
Speaker 4: it has a lot of this this this sort of
Speaker 4: high end and you know, you've got the private jet
Speaker 4: set that that's come in. But they also there are
Speaker 4: ten thousand seats that are set aside for the cures people.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, you got to spend the night
Speaker 4: in a field to get these tickets. There are ten
Speaker 4: thousand fans that come through the gates Wimbledon, this sort
Speaker 4: of bucket list location, and the tickets are like thirty
Speaker 4: bucks strawberries and cream, you know the signature dish, it's
Speaker 4: like two pounds fifty, it's like three dollars yea. And
Speaker 4: so they've really done a nice job of Yes, you've
Speaker 4: you've got your high end and you've got your debenture
Speaker 4: group and your club seating, and you can spend thousand.
Speaker 3: You can also spend thirty bucks and have a great day.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting because it looks from the outside like
Speaker 2: such an exclusive event and it's so much more formal
Speaker 2: and buttoned up. John, We always love hanging out with you.
Speaker 2: You are a busy guy. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: spending so much time with us and being janious with
Speaker 2: your time, John Worth. I'm even from the Tennis Channel
Speaker 2: correspondent for sixty minutes. He's got more than ten books
Speaker 2: that he's authored and co authored, including Glory Days, The
Speaker 2: Summer of nineteen eighty four and The ninety Days That
Speaker 2: Changed Sports in Culture Forever. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily.
Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming
Speaker 2: up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch
Speaker 1: US live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
Speaker 1: Listen on Applecarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app,
Speaker 1: or watch US live on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Tim Stentevik and Molly Smith live at the US Open
Speaker 2: here in New York City. We're in Queen's right now
Speaker 2: at Flushing Meadows. It's still a windy one.
Speaker 6: Molly.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, I just got distracted.
Speaker 7: Sorry.
Speaker 5: Andre Rufelov is walking by in front of us. I
Speaker 5: am distracted everywhere.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 6: That's the part.
Speaker 2: That's the part of being here. Scripts that's what makes
Speaker 2: the US Open magical, that you're just sitting. I mean, granted,
Speaker 2: we're in the media area, so we're close to the players.
Speaker 2: But the way that Andra got here was he walked
Speaker 2: through the entire crowd. Yes, he was flanked by some security,
Speaker 2: but if you're out there, you can get pretty close
Speaker 2: to these players, which is pretty cool about the US Open.
Speaker 5: I mean, our seat is really, i would say, the
Speaker 5: most accessible to the players from where we are.
Speaker 2: You got to stay here. You can't get up and
Speaker 2: go and talk to the players, just so you know.
Speaker 6: I'm good. I mean, we've had a great guest here
Speaker 6: to stick with.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little media here, because last week ESPN,
Speaker 2: which is the largest sports media company in the world,
Speaker 2: did something that just a few years ago, I think
Speaker 2: many observers thought, who would never do? They undercut the
Speaker 2: traditional PATV business, which generates billions of dollars in profits
Speaker 2: for its owner, Walt Disney. Yet it was time to
Speaker 2: just go straight over the top. We've got Tim Bunnell
Speaker 2: with US, senior vice president of Programming for Esgenny joins
Speaker 2: us here on site at the US Open and Flushing,
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 8: So in my.
Speaker 2: Early earlier career, I covered media and streaming and one
Speaker 2: thing that analysts told me over and over again was
Speaker 2: Live Sports holds the bundle together. And in a few
Speaker 2: very short years that narrative has seemed to shift, and
Speaker 2: I think this is a sea change moment for ESPN
Speaker 2: to say, you know what, in order to watch everything,
Speaker 2: you don't need to pay a PATV provider. What's thinking here?
Speaker 8: Yeah, look, I think it's.
Speaker 7: I would agree that sports holding the bundle together is
Speaker 7: an accurate description, but I think what we're seeing now
Speaker 7: is as you aggregate services, whether it's you know, whether
Speaker 7: it's Peacock or whether it's Paramount Plus or whether it's
Speaker 7: the ESPN direct to consumer offering. You know, we're starting
Speaker 7: to see, you know, kind of aggregation in a different way.
Speaker 7: But I think where we feel, you know, we've done
Speaker 7: well is kind of manage that transition that you referenced from,
Speaker 7: you know, from a kind of a five hundred channel
Speaker 7: in universe is when direct to consumer offerings first were
Speaker 7: sort of a thing and the leagues were doing their
Speaker 7: own services. I think that the feeling at the time was,
Speaker 7: why does an ESPN go out and they should just
Speaker 7: be the Netflix of sports. There's a very good reason
Speaker 7: we didn't do that right away, and you cited it,
Speaker 7: Tim that that you know that we were walking away
Speaker 7: from billions of dollars of revenue and you have to
Speaker 7: kind of manage your existing golden goose business with the future.
Speaker 2: Well, you also had those negotiations that in those long
Speaker 2: term rights agreements that you'd made with leagues that sort
Speaker 2: of kept things together too, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, you know, those deals typically typically for
Speaker 7: the US sports least, we try to do as long
Speaker 7: term deals as we can, and I think the understanding
Speaker 7: going into them, is the world's going to Given the
Speaker 7: pace of change and the media business, the world's going
Speaker 7: to change, it's going to look very different by the
Speaker 7: time these deals, you know, expire, and so we've had
Speaker 7: to kind of, you know, whether it was the launch
Speaker 7: of ESPN Plus or our direct to consumer service you know,
Speaker 7: more recently, you had to.
Speaker 8: Kind of manage that transition within deal terms.
Speaker 7: And that's what these partnerships and these league relationships.
Speaker 8: Are all about.
Speaker 5: Let's come back to that, just for our listeners who
Speaker 5: maybe don't know the difference between what is the ESPN
Speaker 5: Direct to Consumer app now and ESPN Plus.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so actually one contains the others the way to
Speaker 7: think of it. So the ESPN Direct to Consumer app,
Speaker 7: simply enough, is all of our video services available in
Speaker 7: one place direct to the consumer. That includes all of
Speaker 7: our linear networks. It includes ESPN and ABC and ES.
Speaker 7: What we know today is ESPN Plus and so when
Speaker 7: we launched the Plus service a number of years ago,
Speaker 7: it was didn't include any of the linear networks. It
Speaker 7: was just incremental programming that we anchored by UFC and
Speaker 7: a bunch of other big properties. But the direct to
Speaker 7: consumer product takes ESPN Plus and all of the networks
Speaker 7: and available content we have and puts them in one
Speaker 7: place that's called the ESPN Unlimited. You can also still
Speaker 7: subscribe to just ESPN Plus called the ESPN Select Package.
Speaker 8: So if you're only you know, we would prefer that
Speaker 8: people not do that. We'd actually like them, you know,
Speaker 8: to go for the full package.
Speaker 7: But if you're only interested in making it up Bundesliga
Speaker 7: or something that's your passion for sports, we have all
Speaker 7: the matches on ESPN Plus and you could do just
Speaker 7: that as well.
Speaker 2: Know when pre covid, when retailers were trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to respond to the rise of online shopping,
Speaker 2: there was this sort of thing that people said, which is, okay,
Speaker 2: what can we provide in the store that you can't
Speaker 2: replicate online? So Lulu Lemon was doing like yoga classes
Speaker 2: and stuff to try to build a brand and build
Speaker 2: an audience. I feel like there's an opportunity with a
Speaker 2: direct consumer media offering where you can offer something that
Speaker 2: you can't offer in a traditional pay TV package. We
Speaker 2: saw that with Peacock in the Olympics, where you could
Speaker 2: kind of choose different camera angles and watch a bunch
Speaker 2: of different stuff. I see that being and granted I've
Speaker 2: been watching the US Open Linear on ESPN, I see
Speaker 2: it being promoted the direct consumer app being promoted in
Speaker 2: a way that says, wait a second, I kind of
Speaker 2: would rather be watching this on the app because I
Speaker 2: get to watch whatever I want.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Look, I mean I think there's some of it
Speaker 7: is just having all of the content available in one
Speaker 7: place just builds consumer choice. I think the other big
Speaker 7: piece of the app launch and of the product launch
Speaker 7: last week is the improvements to the ESPN app and
Speaker 7: the expansion of the app. So whether it's some of
Speaker 7: the stats and data and fantasy and betting info you
Speaker 7: can opt into.
Speaker 8: Or the multiview experience.
Speaker 7: That we're providing Sports Center for you, vertical video, and
Speaker 7: there are a bunch of things that you know that
Speaker 7: came along with the the what I would call the
Speaker 7: content offering at the same time, and so if you're
Speaker 7: asking sort of what is it that says to the consumer,
Speaker 7: I really I need this product. Apart from just the
Speaker 7: content that's provided, it's all these features and functionalities that
Speaker 7: come with it.
Speaker 5: So with the US Open specifically, I mean, you guys
Speaker 5: have had the broadcast rights here for a number of years.
Speaker 5: Is your got a bit longer with the mixed doubles
Speaker 5: at the beginning, a lot more programming that you guys
Speaker 5: probably had to offer. Can you talk about what those
Speaker 5: conversations were like with the USTA when they were talking
Speaker 5: to you guys about this format, how that goes into
Speaker 5: planning the rights and the deals around this Because more airtime,
Speaker 5: that's got to be a lot more work for you guys.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and a lot more fun.
Speaker 7: So, you know, I would say that really there was
Speaker 7: there was two big innovations that affected us directly. One
Speaker 7: as the Sunday start, which we were totally in favor of.
Speaker 7: I mean, I you know, we've talked about this before,
Speaker 7: Molly that I always felt like the US Open beginning
Speaker 7: on a Monday morning at eleven am, which just began quietly,
Speaker 7: and this is New York City, like it should be
Speaker 7: a festive opening. And so that Sunday telecast, that Sunday start,
Speaker 7: in addition to being good for the tournament as a whole,
Speaker 7: gives us the window on ABC on Sunday afternoon where
Speaker 7: we're able.
Speaker 8: To program it there.
Speaker 7: That allows us to be on ABC opening Sunday middle
Speaker 7: Sunday and the men's final, and then and then the
Speaker 7: other big thing was obviously the mixed doubles. So that's
Speaker 7: another one where you know, all of the Grand Slams
Speaker 7: that we work with talk about building a week that
Speaker 7: leads into the tournament.
Speaker 8: That means something.
Speaker 7: They've done a great job of it here, but mixed
Speaker 7: doubles was something that you know, sort of I felt
Speaker 7: gets kind of buried in the main draw and so
Speaker 7: lifting it out adding a lot of star power to it.
Speaker 7: And I know that was controversial, but to me that
Speaker 7: really sent a lot of juice to fanweek, which gives
Speaker 7: us a lot of added momentum for the entire tournament.
Speaker 6: And you just alluded to ABC.
Speaker 5: There's so many networks here under the Disney umbrella. At
Speaker 5: your disposal, we have ABC, ESPN, ESPN two of course,
Speaker 5: all the outer courts on ESPN Plus. How do you
Speaker 5: within the main cable networks, what's the decision making process
Speaker 5: that goes into where do we place which courts?
Speaker 8: Good question.
Speaker 7: I mean up until this year we actually sim willcast
Speaker 7: the semis quarters and final quarters, Semis and finals on
Speaker 7: you know, on ESPN Plus along with so so there
Speaker 7: was you can sort of get it both ways, But
Speaker 7: I think ultimately, you know, once you get to you know,
Speaker 7: once you get to the round of sixteen on it's
Speaker 7: pretty much it's all. You know, you can cover everything
Speaker 7: on your miniar networks. It's early in the tournament where
Speaker 7: you're saying, all right, we were going to focus on
Speaker 7: Ash and Armstrong or if there's a you know, an
Speaker 7: interesting match going on court eighteen, you.
Speaker 8: Know, we'll we'll head out there.
Speaker 7: But to me, the app that we have and the
Speaker 7: multiview experience could not be better tailored to any sporting
Speaker 7: event than at tournament.
Speaker 8: Maybe maybe a golf golf tournament as well.
Speaker 6: Will you over that too?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I gotta go to the other US Open
Speaker 2: and talking. We're speaking with Tim Bonnell, Senior vice president
Speaker 2: of Programming at ESPN. Tim, when when you think about
Speaker 2: the tennis actually moving the needle when it comes to
Speaker 2: people subscribing, where where does it fall under the you know,
Speaker 2: when you think about sports that are so popular in
Speaker 2: the US, because tennis, even though it's really hard to
Speaker 2: get a ticket here and even though this draws a
Speaker 2: huge crowd, Like we're not talking NFL, MLB, you know,
Speaker 2: or NVA here.
Speaker 8: You know, it's funny.
Speaker 7: I think tennis is terrific for us, for it performs
Speaker 7: very well across the board. The the skew between men
Speaker 7: and women is very favorable for us. Often we're sort of,
Speaker 7: you know, it's a more heavily skewed male network.
Speaker 8: Uh. And so that's an attractive element to us.
Speaker 7: And I think, you know, just we're a network and
Speaker 7: a business that's about big events, be it tennis or
Speaker 7: golf or NBA or college football or whatever it is.
Speaker 7: And so when I look across the Grand Slam, this landscape,
Speaker 7: the US Open in New York, in our backyard, all
Speaker 7: the hospitality that it allows us to you know, to
Speaker 7: provide to our to our fans and to our sponsors
Speaker 7: and customers. Uh, it's you know, to me, it's it's
Speaker 7: punches well above its weight, even even apart from its
Speaker 7: programming value. And so you know, this year, like we've
Speaker 7: gotten off to a terrific start through the first round.
Speaker 7: We're up thirty seven percent P two plus. Uh, you know,
Speaker 7: it's a it's a I feel like the US Open
Speaker 7: is is just it's an upward spiral for us, and
Speaker 7: and uh yeah, I mean it's speaking of program value,
Speaker 7: who just walked by us.
Speaker 6: Oh goodness, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. We have
Speaker 6: Naomi Osco.
Speaker 2: Painting the picture a little bit first. Yeah, went on here.
Speaker 8: Yeah, all right, I feel like I've arrived.
Speaker 2: You got got one more question.
Speaker 6: But I'm sandwiched between the two tims right now.
Speaker 5: Which is the most important part of the program. So
Speaker 5: tim long tennis calendar throughout the year. You guys have
Speaker 5: the US Open, you have Wimbledon, you have the Australian Open.
Speaker 5: Just quickly here in this last minute, do you ever
Speaker 5: think of the French Yes, yeah.
Speaker 8: We actually have it in Latin America.
Speaker 7: We've had it for a long time, so we were
Speaker 7: you know, we're at the tournament. We've been familiar with
Speaker 7: with the French Kinnis Federation of Rolling Garrels for a
Speaker 7: long time.
Speaker 8: We looked at it.
Speaker 7: We look at everything, any significant event that comes up,
Speaker 7: we look at it. But I think in the end,
Speaker 7: you know, the WVD put up a.
Speaker 8: Big number, you know, and and.
Speaker 7: I think that that the French Tennis Federation and IMG
Speaker 7: did an excellent job in negotiating it, and we would
Speaker 7: love to have it. It does work well with our schedule
Speaker 7: and obviously would complete the Grand slams for us. But
Speaker 7: what we're learning in this environment we're in as you
Speaker 7: can't have everything and you just have to make hard
Speaker 7: decisions here and there. So but you know, yes, that's
Speaker 7: we We love that event and.
Speaker 2: Your job making that decision easier for the consumer when
Speaker 2: it comes to options. Tim, thanks for joining us and
Speaker 2: taking the time. That's Tim Bonald, Senior vice president of
Speaker 2: Programming at ESPN. From the US open. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Business Week Daily. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business
Speaker 2: Week Daily coming up after.
Speaker 3: This, some macle how about you let me drive?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, no, this is not a toy, honey.
Speaker 3: Please excuse me. I want to drive.
Speaker 7: It's good question.
Speaker 3: This is the drive to the Clothes Punk's musing well
Speaker 3: led it down on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Tim Steneveek. That is
Speaker 2: Molly Smith. She is Bloomberg News Economics Editor, alive from
Speaker 2: the US opening the Shadow of Arthur Ashe Stadium here
Speaker 2: in Flushing Meadows, Queens. But we're not forgetting about everything
Speaker 2: happening with the markets, because we just have shy of
Speaker 2: sixteen minutes until markets close on what could be another
Speaker 2: record day for the S and P five hundred. I
Speaker 2: want to right now bring in Bloomberg News cross ass
Speaker 2: that report. Isabel Lee and managing editor for the Bloomberg Markets,
Speaker 2: alag Christina Quino that join us from our studio back
Speaker 2: in midtown man Manhattan. Isabelle, I want to start with
Speaker 2: you and just set the scene for today's trade with
Speaker 2: of course in Vidia front and center.
Speaker 9: In Vidia's front and center, but the stock is actually fluctuating.
Speaker 9: But for the broader market, we're seeing the S and
Speaker 9: P top sixty five hundred, and that's ahead of the
Speaker 9: PCE report tomorrow. That's all important because that's the fed's
Speaker 9: favorite or favorite price gauge. Molla Smith would know a
Speaker 9: lot about that. But really we're just really seeing recession
Speaker 9: Jater's kind of decline.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 9: I feel like Christine, that investors aren't as worried anymore,
Speaker 9: even if Nvidia didn't really excite as much as people
Speaker 9: were hoping.
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely, Isabelle. I mean you even forget that procession
Speaker 10: fears were a thing in markets like just a few
Speaker 10: months ago, right. I think that was theme in April
Speaker 10: when we first got the reciprocal tariffs announcement. From Trump
Speaker 10: administration and then since then, animal spirits have just taken over.
Speaker 10: I feel like, I mean, the fact that we're talking
Speaker 10: about six to five hundred s and BFI hundred right now,
Speaker 10: what recession risk?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 9: And if you look at the cross assets.
Speaker 2: Well that's the question. Yeah, go ahead as a belle, Yeah,
Speaker 2: go ahead as a bell.
Speaker 3: Sorry, they just.
Speaker 9: Really continue to feed positively into the equity rally, Tim.
Speaker 2: So I want you to weigh in on that a
Speaker 2: little bit and sort of cross asset what we're seeing
Speaker 2: here because we're and this has been a theme really
Speaker 2: since I would argue, gosh May at this point, and
Speaker 2: a ton of people have come out and said, wait
Speaker 2: a second, why aren't we actually seeing the effect of
Speaker 2: tariffs on asset prices as a result, like similar to
Speaker 2: what we saw post you know, quote unquote liberation day
Speaker 2: before the president sort of said the bond market became
Speaker 2: a little yippie and he did the pauses and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. But why do you think we're we're not
Speaker 2: seeing asset values declined as a result of the increased
Speaker 2: prices that companies or people depending on you know how
Speaker 2: you're defining it, are paying for these things?
Speaker 10: Well, Tim, I mean from my perspective, you know, I
Speaker 10: think it's just a question of timing, right. It takes
Speaker 10: a while for that effect to be done. I think
Speaker 10: at the moment it's kind of lying primarily with a
Speaker 10: lot of the producers in retailer. We've seen a lot
Speaker 10: of commentary from the retailer earnings recently talking about how
Speaker 10: they are trying to absorb some of those costs because
Speaker 10: they don't want to be raising the prices on their
Speaker 10: customers and turning them away. But I think the warnings
Speaker 10: that we've gotten from the likes of Best Buy Today,
Speaker 10: right and Coals and a lot of these major retailers
Speaker 10: also indicating that they might not be able to do
Speaker 10: that for very long. And so you know, we might
Speaker 10: suddenly get that wave of higher prices, probably just in
Speaker 10: time for that peak holiday season right as well.
Speaker 9: Yes, and you see a lot of adjustments. Victoria's Secret
Speaker 9: for instance, their outlook includes an updated estimated tariff of
Speaker 9: around one hundred million dollars this year, double the prior projection.
Speaker 9: But you see Dick Sporting Goods, for instance, including expected
Speaker 9: impacts from all tariffs currently in effect. That's the key
Speaker 9: phrase I'd like to point out that's currently in effect,
Speaker 9: acknowledging that things could still change. But Tim and Mollie, Tim,
Speaker 9: Christina and I were actually looking at this fun story.
Speaker 9: It's titled hell No Shop Okay. Nine hundred and thirty
Speaker 9: four dollar bill shows tariff pain to hit shoppers. So basically,
Speaker 9: there's this gentleman. He bought something and then suddenly a
Speaker 9: bill of almost one thousand dollars in tariffs came in
Speaker 9: and he owes this to the US Customs and Borders Protection.
Speaker 6: Christine, how will you react.
Speaker 9: If you get something like that?
Speaker 6: What if you just want a fifty dollars I.
Speaker 10: Probably react the same way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely not.
Speaker 10: But imagine buying something and then suddenly getting a follow
Speaker 10: up bill. Mollie, I saw you nodding. I think you're
Speaker 10: familiar with this. This is a deminimous exemption that a
Speaker 10: lot of American consumers have been enjoying up until this week,
Speaker 10: and that all goes away tomorrow, I believe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's this is a brutal development for consumers. What
Speaker 5: this is talking about lower priced goods coming into the US,
Speaker 5: that if they're under a certain value, would not have
Speaker 5: a tariffy on top of that, that exemption though, is
Speaker 5: now ending. So that's what our friend on this story
Speaker 5: here that you guys were talking about, who had a
Speaker 5: nice hell no to skick off the headline. That's what
Speaker 5: he was reacting to right there. Keeping on this price
Speaker 5: data though, Christine, we're looking ahead to the PCE price
Speaker 5: data tomorrow. I mean, you've got the SMP setting new records.
Speaker 6: Basically every day.
Speaker 5: Is there really any world in which the PCE report
Speaker 5: can really disappoint this momentum in the stock market right now?
Speaker 10: Yeah, Molli, it's really hard to see, given that we
Speaker 10: are talking about just continued rally in the S and
Speaker 10: P five hundred. I mean, you know, unless it's maybe
Speaker 10: a big shock to the upside, that could be once
Speaker 10: an era where markets are suddenly thinking about inflation once again.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think the feeling is that.
Speaker 10: We are still headed towards a world of lower interest rates.
Speaker 10: In the latest markets Paul survey, for instance, that we
Speaker 10: conducted over an the M Live team, we asked readers,
Speaker 10: you know, what would get stocks boosted again? Would a
Speaker 10: lower interest rate from the Fed boost stocks even if
Speaker 10: it comes at the expense of pressure from the Trump
Speaker 10: administration and a majority of Versawana has actually said, yeah,
Speaker 10: so we're in this environment where there is such an
Speaker 10: impetus to rally based on hope for lower interest rates,
Speaker 10: which seems like that's where a lot of the road
Speaker 10: is leading towards. We'll see, of course, once we hear
Speaker 10: from the Federal Reserve in September. I'm sure Molly you're
Speaker 10: looking forward to covering that and seeing what the result
Speaker 10: of does is going to be. That's a big one,
Speaker 10: isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's a big one. But I'd say, Molly, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of data that we're still going to gap it
Speaker 2: before that September meeting.
Speaker 5: I was just going to say for me right now,
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm obviously trying to say in the moment
Speaker 5: of the US open, but I'm also thinking ahead to
Speaker 5: the jobs report next Friday, and then we get those
Speaker 5: big revisions a couple of days later. That's going to
Speaker 5: be a huge one right now, and again, it's just
Speaker 5: so hard for me and my eco brain to conceive
Speaker 5: of right now the SMP just hitting record after record
Speaker 5: when we're supposedly in this environment where the labor market
Speaker 5: is weakening, and you know, maybe we'll see that jobs
Speaker 5: market and the revisions show as much. Maybe you'll be
Speaker 5: what was probably perceived as a brief pickup to stocks
Speaker 5: because we're in that bad news good news environment right
Speaker 5: now where if we get a bad job zumper, we
Speaker 5: get a bad inflation number, it's great news because we're
Speaker 5: going to get an interest rate cut to That's.
Speaker 2: That's where we are again. I feel like we were
Speaker 2: just there.
Speaker 6: I think that's where we've been for the every lease.
Speaker 6: We're just waiting right goods.
Speaker 10: I don't think we have a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Hey, speaking of leaving, Speaking of leaving, we gotta go.
Speaker 2: We is windy here. We appreciate you guys holding down
Speaker 2: the port down at Bloomberg headquarters in midtown Manhattan. That's
Speaker 2: our Bloomberg News crossouts. That reporter Isabelle Lee, also managing
Speaker 2: editor for Bloomberg Markets Live Blog. Christine Aquino joining us
Speaker 2: from Bloomberg Headquarters. Just have about ten minutes ago until
Speaker 2: the close of it. Could be trading on this Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: If we take a look at the S and P
Speaker 2: five hundred, we are hired by three tons of one
Speaker 2: percent as we speak, could be another record close today.
Speaker 2: Taking a deeper look at the industry, groups utilities in
Speaker 2: the red to the tune of nine tens of one percent, lower,
Speaker 2: consumer staples down six tens of one percent, health dot
Speaker 2: half a percentage point. On the upside, communication services up
Speaker 2: a percentage point, IT information technology have eight tens of
Speaker 2: one percent, and energy up seven tenths of one percent.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Businessweekdaily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
Speaker 1: afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App.
Speaker 1: You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
Speaker 1: and always on the Bloomberg terminal