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Speaker 1: This is the business of sports. Let's talk Super Bowl

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Speaker 1: and Fox Sports every single thing that occurs. I want

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Speaker 1: people to remember, this is a business. Guaranteed money isn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily guaranteed. Michael Ball, How high can these valuations go? Scott,

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Speaker 1: everybody loves rooting against him, right, Evan Williams. Off the field,

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Speaker 1: the NBA has never been buzzier. And the leaders in

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Speaker 1: the sports industry Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, Michael Roscoe,

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Speaker 1: He's the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. Here In Smith,

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Speaker 1: president of Ticketmasters, and the race card driver, Elio Castro

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Speaker 1: and Evs Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: I'm Scott, I'm Evan, Novie Williams, and I'm Michael bark

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Speaker 1: And this is the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast where

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Speaker 1: we explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: And today there is one major story, and that is

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Speaker 1: about the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant. He died

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Speaker 1: Sunday in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, along with

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Speaker 1: eight other people. One of the other victims was his

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Speaker 1: thirteen year old daughter. It is really just a very

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Speaker 1: sad story about the people that died on that helicopter.

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Speaker 1: The irony of it is that Bryant spoke with Carol

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Speaker 1: Master and Jason Kelly right here at Bloomberg and it

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Speaker 1: was only just a few months ago. Let's listen. You

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Speaker 1: have gone through transition. Obviously. I love that you're an author.

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Speaker 1: I was reading somewhere that you kind of knew it

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Speaker 1: was time to go that you were thinking a lot

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Speaker 1: about storytelling. Have you always been a writer? I have.

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Speaker 1: I've been practicing writing. I started writing my junior year

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Speaker 1: in high school, and when I got to the NBA,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of downtime in travel and

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Speaker 1: hotels and things of that sort. So I would just write,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of the things that I used to write,

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Speaker 1: we're just ads. I would write advertisements. I had an

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Speaker 1: ad agency that I found in and we did a

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Speaker 1: lot of work. Once some someone wards would be in

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Speaker 1: a small agency. And then when I retired, it was like, okay,

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Speaker 1: well what am I going to do now? Well, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I enjoy writing, and um, I'll write a film.

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Speaker 1: So I wrote Dear Basketball, and it's very fortunate for

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Speaker 1: that to be successful and then just continued on and

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Speaker 1: how is it different from what you know, how many

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Speaker 1: years you played in the n b A. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what are you learning kind of about yourself in doing this? Well?

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Speaker 1: How much I enjoy um teaching and like passing on

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Speaker 1: information to the next generation. It feels much much better

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Speaker 1: than any championship that can be won, because it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's more lasting. Right. If I can do something that

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Speaker 1: inspires a kid in some way, or it gets the

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Speaker 1: kid to view something differently in some way, and then

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Speaker 1: he goes to his life, she goes to her life,

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Speaker 1: and then in turn they inspire someone else. You create

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Speaker 1: this domino effect that is far greater than any championship

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Speaker 1: that can be won. Huge, JJ. You know one thing

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about, and I guess it's

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Speaker 1: kind of near and dear to both of us, but

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Speaker 1: we think about equality and sports, and we've been talking

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Speaker 1: about how tennis seems to have figured it out, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of other sports happen. What are your thoughts

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Speaker 1: on that? Absolutely, and that's probably, like I won't say probably,

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Speaker 1: it is our mission, uh to do something about that.

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Speaker 1: And I have four girls, oh, you know, the first

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Speaker 1: two are definitely athletes. The third one in the fourth phone,

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Speaker 1: we'll see still too young. But if I had to bet,

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Speaker 1: I'd say they'd be athletes as well. So it's important

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Speaker 1: to fight for that and make sure that when they

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Speaker 1: come of age that they are ready to get equal

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Speaker 1: pay right and fight for what it is that they deserve.

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Speaker 1: Why has it been such a struggle? Do you think

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Speaker 1: that's a great question? I do not know. It's like

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Speaker 1: it's like there's a lack of investment. You know, I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you like like in basketball, for example, the w

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Speaker 1: n B A and saying, okay, well, the dumb n

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Speaker 1: B A is not as popular as the NBA. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: I can remember the NBA when it first started, and

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Speaker 1: I remember some companies putting a lot of money behind

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Speaker 1: marketing players, and through marketing those players, the popularity of

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Speaker 1: the game picked up. You guys are sitting here and saying, okay,

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Speaker 1: you're waiting for the w n B A to become popular. Well,

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Speaker 1: we're waiting on the investment from corporations to start telling

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Speaker 1: the stories of some of these young women that have

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Speaker 1: unbelievable stories, unbelievable inspirational stories to tell, and they're not

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Speaker 1: being told why right, And so we're gonna get there.

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Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant's with Carol and Jason Kelly only a few

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Speaker 1: months ago right here at Bloomberg. The thing about Bryant

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Speaker 1: that a lot of people talk about is that he

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Speaker 1: had a very good sense, very good business acumen. And

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Speaker 1: he started this even before he retired from the NBA. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he you know, in two thousand thirteen, a few years

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Speaker 1: before retiring, he co founded a venture capital firm, Bryant Steibel.

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Speaker 1: If you look through the list of their investments, it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty impressive list, right, Dell Technologies, Ali Baba, Epic Games, Cholula,

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Speaker 1: Hot Sauce, the Players Tribune. It's a list of about

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Speaker 1: twenty five, almost thirty companies. Uh, and those are those

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Speaker 1: are all brands that he invested in alongside Jeff Steibel

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Speaker 1: and on his own. He did investments of his own,

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Speaker 1: so he had you know, Body Armor might be the

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Speaker 1: most famous. He put six million dollars into body Armor

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Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, I think, and and after Coke

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Speaker 1: bought a majority stake of it, it was worth around

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Speaker 1: two hundred million dollars. It's not a bad return on

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Speaker 1: investment because I don't have the exact numbers pretty good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there's media companies. He won an oscar recently, he

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Speaker 1: had a best selling children's book. He had his hand.

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Speaker 1: He had to land his hand in a lot of

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Speaker 1: different pots. This is the way I framed it, bar

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Speaker 1: because not long ago we also lost David Stern, the

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Speaker 1: former commissioner of the NBA. And the one thing that

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Speaker 1: David said, if there was an overarching motto or creed

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Speaker 1: for David Stern, it was the relentless pursuit of perfection.

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Speaker 1: That is what he demanded of his employees at the

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Speaker 1: league office. It is what he demanded of the employees

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Speaker 1: at the team's now. That is on the business side,

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Speaker 1: on the actual basketball side, I think there's perfect symmetry

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Speaker 1: here in that Kobe Bryant's creed and his work ethic

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Speaker 1: all in pursuit of the relentless pursuit of perfection. That's

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Speaker 1: what Kobe Bryant wanted. That's what he demanded of himself

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Speaker 1: and times grading on the others who perhaps were less

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Speaker 1: talented or driven than he, but also demanded it of

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Speaker 1: his teammates, that relentless pursuit of perfection. And you saw

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Speaker 1: the loggerheads sometimes even with a guy like Shack, when

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Speaker 1: Kobe would come out and say, well, it's not working

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Speaker 1: hard enough, like a little overweight, and that caused problems.

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Speaker 1: But it just didn't make sense to Kobe that somebody

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Speaker 1: would not be in the gym early, would not stay

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Speaker 1: late because he wanted perfection on the court. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: the thing of it is, too, is that the hard

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Speaker 1: work ethic that he had carried over to a lot

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Speaker 1: of his teammates and it made them better players, not

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Speaker 1: only teammates, kids who were watching him play who are

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Speaker 1: now NBA players exactly. There are so many people that

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Speaker 1: watch him today that say, Kobe Bryant was our Michael

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Speaker 1: Jordan's I guess that's the best way to describe it.

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Speaker 1: And that's the way called him like his little brother. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it became a large part of Kobe's legacy, both

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Speaker 1: in life and in death right that the low are

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Speaker 1: of his crazy work. Everybody seems to have a Kobe story.

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Speaker 1: Right when they got to the gym at six am

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Speaker 1: for ten am practice and Kobe have been there for

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Speaker 1: two hours or he heard himself, And the next day

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Speaker 1: he's in a cast practicing free throws with his with

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Speaker 1: his opposite hand. Everyone seems to have a story like that,

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Speaker 1: either on the basketball court or in the business world.

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Speaker 1: Mark Parker, the former CEO of Nike who was very

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Speaker 1: close with Kobe, you know, he's told stories of how

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Speaker 1: often Kobe would would call him. Kobe talked about cold

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Speaker 1: calling Oprah and Arianna Huffington's Johnny I've you know that

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Speaker 1: there's a whole list of of business leaders who Kobe

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Speaker 1: continually hounded about their business practices because, like he did

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Speaker 1: in basketball, he wanted to get better. And yes, there

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Speaker 1: was a complicated past and we all know about it,

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Speaker 1: but one thing people cannot say about Kobe Bryant is

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Speaker 1: that he was Let's put it this way. He was

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Speaker 1: a very good dad. And you ask, all, well, you

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Speaker 1: wonder how much having four girls changed the man? You wonder,

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Speaker 1: I mean, parenthood, we bar changes you. And for him

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Speaker 1: to have four girls and you see him, uh with

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Speaker 1: his daughter teaching her basketball and teaching life, I mean

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Speaker 1: we saw that. But yeah, I don't want to gloss over.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he was accused of sexual assault. Uh accuser

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Speaker 1: chose not to testify reach a civil settlement um. But

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Speaker 1: even during that trial, and I was there bar I

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Speaker 1: was at Staples Center. He would fly in from Eagle,

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Speaker 1: Colorado from trial during the day and come to Staples

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Speaker 1: Center at night, and there were just a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of number twenty four Kobe Jersey's even on Little Girls.

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Speaker 1: I was actually amazed at the time. But he was

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Speaker 1: so good as a basketball player, it seemed to just

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Speaker 1: overpower everything else, and Nike stood with him. You wonder

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Speaker 1: how many endorsements it did cost him long terms that

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Speaker 1: we will never know. But also, Evan, I'm just wondering

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Speaker 1: if we can back of Napkin. And I know it's

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Speaker 1: on most impossible to put a number on it because

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Speaker 1: we don't know. But I don't think we're out of

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Speaker 1: bounds to say that Kobe if on his path of

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Speaker 1: investment for the next fifteen years, we are perhaps looking

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Speaker 1: at a billionaire act. No, I think you're right, And

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Speaker 1: to go back to to something you just mentioned, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the wake of that sexual assault allegation and that trial,

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Speaker 1: he lost a number of partners. McDonald's cut cut him. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Natella I believe didn't renew its contract when it expired.

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Speaker 1: He lost the business opportunities, And we've talked on This

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Speaker 1: show a lot about how kind of the new age

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Speaker 1: of athlete partnership isn't taking money from an endorsement, it's

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Speaker 1: trying to become an investor, yes, taking equity, being hands

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Speaker 1: on with the company. Kobe Bryant did that. He was

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Speaker 1: on the cutting edge of it, one of the first

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Speaker 1: athletes to do it. I wonder if part of that

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Speaker 1: was also just out of necessity, right, he became for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people for a short period of time.

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Speaker 1: They're kind of a toxic indoor, and that forced him,

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Speaker 1: I think, to use his money in a different way

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Speaker 1: to become on the back end, maybe less about the

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Speaker 1: fore end. And now, no question, you look at people

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Speaker 1: like Lebron James who are copying that strategy and taking

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Speaker 1: it even further. Look at the lineage, though, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I really like to look at the lineage. Let's say magic, right,

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Speaker 1: and Kobe certainly learned from Magic, and then you know,

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Speaker 1: and Michael learned from Magic. Kobe learned from Michael and Magic.

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Speaker 1: Lebron learned from Kobe, Michael and Magic. And you see

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Speaker 1: this this athletes getting it done sooner, getting it done bigger,

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Speaker 1: getting it done better. The goal I get, I get

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Speaker 1: the sense now because of Lebron and Kobe and Michael

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Speaker 1: and Magic. The goal now for athletes is not just

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Speaker 1: to be what they would have considered rich when they

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Speaker 1: signed that deal, like all right, now I've got my

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Speaker 1: money I signed, doesn't matter. It's not to be rich

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Speaker 1: because they understand there's another strata. There's an ownership rich.

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Speaker 1: There's a Joe Tie rich and and there's the Alma

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Speaker 1: player employee rich. And many many athletes are now shooting

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Speaker 1: for that ownership rich with an understanding they can utilize

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Speaker 1: the notoriety to get there. And in media, you know,

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Speaker 1: he we talked about the the the Academy Award he won.

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Speaker 1: He owns the studio you know in Grantity Studios. That's

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Speaker 1: that's Kobe Bryant studio. The book that he the bestseller

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Speaker 1: that he had, that's underneath his umbrella. Also, so all

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Speaker 1: these things, not just investment, but also media. If you

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Speaker 1: own the infrastructure behind the thing, you're a much bigger

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Speaker 1: power player in the entire thing than if you're just

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Speaker 1: the talent that's operating it. You brought up that point

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Speaker 1: earlier about the difference, and Chris Rock said it the

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Speaker 1: best years ago. He said there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are athletes and make a lot of money

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Speaker 1: who are wealthy, but people like Warren Buffett are rich

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Speaker 1: and that's what athletes today, like what Kobe Bryant was

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Speaker 1: trying to do, like what Shaquila Al is trying to

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Speaker 1: do now to be rich and hit that level. There's

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Speaker 1: a story that happened Sunday that to me is a

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Speaker 1: is another heartbreaking moment. As you know, Tiger Woods was

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Speaker 1: friends with Kobe Bryant and he's playing in the final

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Speaker 1: round of the Farmer's Insurance Open, and uh, he's out

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Speaker 1: there doing this thing. He didn't know at the time

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Speaker 1: that Kobe Bryant died. So as he's playing, he's hearing

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Speaker 1: chance from the crowd do it for Mamba, And at

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Speaker 1: the time he didn't know what the heck was going on.

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Speaker 1: So after the eighteenth hole is done, his caddie walks

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Speaker 1: up to him and he says, you know, it gave

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Speaker 1: him the news and you hear uh. The Tiger would say,

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Speaker 1: excuse me, and he was just in disbelief about what happened.

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Speaker 1: And I think disbelief is the right word. And you

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Speaker 1: saw he was so larger than life that it had

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Speaker 1: to be addressed at the top of the Grammy Awards,

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Speaker 1: particularly because they're in l A. Yeah, jerseys are hanging

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Speaker 1: in the rafters there. And the one thing I really

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Speaker 1: loved about Twitter on that day was that you could

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Speaker 1: see the breath of the man's impact from around the globe, athletes, entertainers, politicians,

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Speaker 1: the President of the United States, the former president of

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Speaker 1: the United States weighing in on Kobe Bryant another thing

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Speaker 1: we should mention and you said around the globe there, Scott.

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Speaker 1: Kobe was tremendously popular internationally. He grew up in Italy,

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Speaker 1: he spoke his French are he spoke Spanish, he spoke Italian,

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Speaker 1: and especially in China, he was He was, essentially for

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Speaker 1: a for a decade plus alongside Yao Ming, the other

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Speaker 1: face of the NBA's push into China, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've covered many times, has been tremendously profitable for the league.

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Speaker 1: But but one of the reasons why the NBA and

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Speaker 1: basketball is a sport is so popular in China, Kobe

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Speaker 1: had a massive role in that. Let let me tell

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Speaker 1: you my quick story of Kobe and I haven't done

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Speaker 1: this at all, but here's my here's my quick Kobe

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Speaker 1: story that I that I enjoyed the most. One time,

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Speaker 1: I'm at Staples Center and I was talking to Phil

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Speaker 1: Jackson off on the side. And the funny thing is

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Speaker 1: I learned later like a bunch of other reporters were

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Speaker 1: angry that I got one on one time with Phil

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Speaker 1: Jackson during the playoffs. They were like jealous because you know,

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Speaker 1: why does he get one on one time. I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you why, because you know what I was discussing with Phil.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't the Triangle offense. It wasn't anything to do

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Speaker 1: with basketball. We were talking about reparations to the Sioux Try, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So that was just a discussion we were having. And

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Speaker 1: Phils a Montana guy, right, so that that's what we

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Speaker 1: were just and Kobe was kind of nearby, and I

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Speaker 1: get that he kind of heard what was going on.

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Speaker 1: So then Phil, you know, exit stage left and I'm

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Speaker 1: talking to Kobe, And once again, it had nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with basket bulk. But I was always interested in

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Speaker 1: sort of the you know, the Phil Jackson gives books

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Speaker 1: two players, and I asked him, and this is how

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Speaker 1: I knew I've told the story before. Um, like, well,

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Speaker 1: what what was the book? He gave you that had

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Speaker 1: the biggest impact. And he said, Sun Sue the Art

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Speaker 1: of War. And I'm like, all right, I've read it.

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Speaker 1: What did you get from it? Or did he tell you?

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Speaker 1: He said no, No, Phil never told you why he

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Speaker 1: gave you, why he gave you a particular book. Phil

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Speaker 1: wanted you to extract whatever the lesson you thought should be.

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Speaker 1: So that was a brilliant of Phil. And the lesson

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Speaker 1: Kobe took from that book was if you're the general

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Speaker 1: of the army and the troops are out in the rain,

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Speaker 1: you can't have a tent. If you have a tent

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Speaker 1: and the troops are getting wet, they will not respect you.

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Speaker 1: They will not follow you. You cannot lead with special privileges.

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Speaker 1: Because it's been known a couple of athletes, can I

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Speaker 1: stay an extra day off? I want to be in

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Speaker 1: New York with the shooter commercial. Phil wanted Kobe to know,

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Speaker 1: you cannot get anything that the other guys don't get.

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Speaker 1: The team will not function like that. That's a very

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Speaker 1: good lesson, got it? Very good? Yeah? Uh, let's shift

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Speaker 1: gears for a moment. Let's talk about a brand new

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Speaker 1: golf venture. What's going on with this here? Yeah, Evan, you,

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Speaker 1: you and I were sort of getting a quick glimpse

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Speaker 1: at this something in the golf world where there's going

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Speaker 1: to be the best of the best playing fifty four

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Speaker 1: holes and it's sort of tournaments and the prize money

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Speaker 1: is what really got our Yeah. So this British based group,

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Speaker 1: World Golf Group, it's been rumored they've been talking about

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Speaker 1: this for a couple of years now. UH is looking

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Speaker 1: into starting the Premier Golf League, the PGL, starting two

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Speaker 1: and as you said, it seems like the model is

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Speaker 1: maybe smaller fields, three rounds instead of four. No no

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Speaker 1: sense to me. I just want to see the best

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Speaker 1: players exactly, UH and and high prize money ten million

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Speaker 1: in dollars for for each tournament. So it sounds like

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Speaker 1: the opening season maybe eighteen events, ten overseas or eight

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Speaker 1: overseas ten in the un nobody's really out of it

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Speaker 1: because you're like there's an there's the individual winner, the

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Speaker 1: tournament and the team winner, and it's unclear exactly how

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Speaker 1: one how big these fields are going to be to

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Speaker 1: the big thing that the big question mark can they

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Speaker 1: get people to play in this? Right? If this is

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Speaker 1: Tiger Woods and Roy McElroy and Jordan's. If this is

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Speaker 1: all the big names, fantastic. I imagine this is gonna

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Speaker 1: be a big property. And if none of the big

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Speaker 1: names want to break away from the PGA tour or

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Speaker 1: can't find time in their calendar to do this, you know,

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Speaker 1: then this is something that's gonna struggle. You know. It

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Speaker 1: strikes me that it feels very similar to what Paul

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Speaker 1: Rabel is trying to do with a similarly named Premiers,

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Speaker 1: which is that, you know, take a maybe a new model,

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Speaker 1: challenge an incumbent who's been in this space for a

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Speaker 1: very long time PGA tour, and hope that the big

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Speaker 1: names in the sport recognize that you're trying to build

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Speaker 1: something a little different that might be more profitable or

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Speaker 1: might be better for them, and hope that they are

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Speaker 1: going to migrate over to your property. You know what

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Speaker 1: would work if you are able to include men and

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Speaker 1: women playing together in the whole league. Now, I would

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Speaker 1: love to see that, good idea. Yeah, no, I like that.

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Speaker 1: And you know, a couple of years ago on Thanksgiving,

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Speaker 1: when Tiger and Phil did that one on one showdown

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Speaker 1: for nine million dollars, you know, I think about a

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Speaker 1: million people ended up pay per view or watching that

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Speaker 1: on a variety of different on a variety of different channels.

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Speaker 1: That feels like possibly the future. I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of people look at the golf model right now and

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Speaker 1: see the way that the European Tour and the PGA

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Speaker 1: Tour work, which is, you know, all these tournaments a

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Speaker 1: lot more than maybe people want to watch huge fields.

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Speaker 1: People get cut. You end up watching no Names sometimes

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Speaker 1: on Saturday and Sunday and thinking, you know, this is

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Speaker 1: a star driven sport like anything else, and maybe we

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Speaker 1: should devise a system in which you see more of

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Speaker 1: the stars. Speaking of Rabel, he texted me while I

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Speaker 1: was driving this weekend and the Torrential down Boar and

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna test and see if he's listening. But I'm

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Speaker 1: not gonna sell him out. He had a suggested change

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Speaker 1: for the show. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna see if

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Speaker 1: we can make it happy. No, no, it loves your bar.

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Speaker 1: Do it in Spanish? Will take. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: he loves you bar, but let's let's see if Paul's

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Speaker 1: listening to the end of the show here. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't really text because you know, I was driving,

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Speaker 1: so I had my son. Texting him back, he texted,

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Speaker 1: back Water dogs greater than Atlas, you know cuter. All good,

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Speaker 1: We'll see what we can do for your oh man,

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Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast

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Speaker 1: and we're here every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for you

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Speaker 1: at each at the same time talking to some of

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Speaker 1: the biggest names in sports and also talking about some

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Speaker 1: of the biggest topics that's taking place in sports. And

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Speaker 1: if you want to reach me on Twitter, you can

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Speaker 1: follow me. I'm sorry you kept he said, you said

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Speaker 1: the thought part out loud at Big Bar Sports. Thanks.

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Speaker 1: You can follow me at no V Underscore Williams and

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Speaker 1: you can follow me at Thanks very much for listening

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Speaker 1: and tune in at the end of the week when

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Speaker 1: we once again and speak with the biggest and brightest

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Speaker 1: in the sports business industry. You're listening to the Bloomberg

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