Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're headed to Boston the MIT Sloan Sports
Speaker 2: Analytics Conference. The guest this time is going to be
Speaker 2: none other than David Blitzer.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited about David.
Speaker 4: First of all, he's been at Blastow since nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 4: and on top of that, he probably owns equity on
Speaker 4: more teams and more leagues than any human alive.
Speaker 2: There are some big questions that come out of that,
Speaker 2: which is, what do you learn from all of that?
Speaker 3: How do you apply it?
Speaker 2: Because he's backing some of the most important sports franchises
Speaker 2: across the world.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about being back in Boston? A
Speaker 3: not so good. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: All right, Thank you so much. Thank you guys for
Speaker 2: having us. It's good to be in Boston.
Speaker 3: It was funny.
Speaker 2: We were reminiscing, you know, on the on the way in,
Speaker 2: and Alex was giving me what it's like to play
Speaker 2: at Fenway. You and I probably watched games at Fenway,
Speaker 2: but a little bit of a different experience.
Speaker 3: It's awesome.
Speaker 4: It's my probably my favorite park to play other than
Speaker 4: Old Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 3: It's it's classic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not the easiest place to be a visiting fan.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 5: I've had some tough moments.
Speaker 2: It's safe to be Yeah, yeah, TD gardened. Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is going to be hopefully a very
Speaker 2: fun conversation. You know, Alex and I host this podcast
Speaker 2: called The Deal, where you know, we talked to folks
Speaker 2: at this intersection of business, sports and culture, and there
Speaker 2: are very few people who are in it as deep
Speaker 2: as our guest today, David Blitzer. Blitz is someone who
Speaker 2: when we created this show was at the top of
Speaker 2: our list as someone that we really wanted to chop
Speaker 2: it up with.
Speaker 3: So we're really excited Blitz that you're here with us.
Speaker 2: I guess I would start by asking you, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to go back to my own roots a little bit.
Speaker 2: You and I met when I covered private equity at Bloomberg,
Speaker 2: and you are a very successful guy at a little
Speaker 2: firm called Blackstone, and somewhere along the way you became
Speaker 2: one of the most influential investors in sports.
Speaker 3: How did that happen?
Speaker 6: Well, A thank you for having me. I've known Jason
Speaker 6: for a long time. I've known Alex for a long time,
Speaker 6: so it's really nice to be all here together. And
Speaker 6: I do think we also need to do a shout
Speaker 6: out for Jessica Gellman, so we don't have the jersey,
Speaker 6: we blew that with Jessica, Happy, Happy fiftieth birthday. Yeh,
Speaker 6: you do an amazing job with this conference, and we're
Speaker 6: all really happy to be here and.
Speaker 5: To celebrate with you.
Speaker 6: So yeah, Private Equity for you know, now, at this
Speaker 6: point in time is my thirty fourth year in the business.
Speaker 6: In about I guess it was twenty and ten was
Speaker 6: when my journey started on the sports side of the equation.
Speaker 6: So unlike Alex one of the greatest athletes of all time,
Speaker 6: I was, like many probably in this room, a failed athlete, which,
Speaker 6: like I thought I was good when I was, you know,
Speaker 6: like a teenager. Then I realized by high school that
Speaker 6: I was adequate at best and certainly was not playing
Speaker 6: past high school. So instead of failed, maybe we say
Speaker 6: always aspire, always aspire. I'm still aspiring just new sports.
Speaker 6: But I basically I'm clearly a massive fan of sports
Speaker 6: in general, and obviously I think a lot about business
Speaker 6: and investing in companies and and you know, what are
Speaker 6: trends that are out there that you can get behind.
Speaker 6: Really like we talk about good neighborhoods or mega trends.
Speaker 6: But I hadn't really thought about investing in a sports
Speaker 6: team until somebody came to see me. I was living
Speaker 6: in London for about a decade, and towards the end
Speaker 6: of that decade in London, a friend of mine came
Speaker 6: to see me and basically said he was involved in
Speaker 6: the NBA. He was like an assistant GM somewhere and
Speaker 6: he basically said, Hey, I think you sho should really
Speaker 6: think about investing in a basketball franchise. There's like six
Speaker 6: or seven that are for sale right now, are looking
Speaker 6: for capital. And it was a very it was a
Speaker 6: real inflection point for the NBA for those who want
Speaker 6: to go back and remember this was twenty ten when
Speaker 6: this conversation first took place, and it was pretty clear
Speaker 6: that there was going to be a lock app okay,
Speaker 6: there was going to be a new media rights agreement
Speaker 6: and basically something like twenty three, twenty four, twenty five
Speaker 6: of the teams are actually losing losing money at the time,
Speaker 6: which is why you were seeing a lot of things potentially,
Speaker 6: you know, go up for sale leading into that change. Anyway,
Speaker 6: long story short, I was really interested in the concept,
Speaker 6: but I was living in London. When I was home
Speaker 6: over that December break of twenty ten, I went to
Speaker 6: see a friend of mine who I'd gotten to know
Speaker 6: quite well when he lived in London as well a
Speaker 6: couple of years earlier.
Speaker 5: It was this a guy named.
Speaker 6: Josh Harris at Apollo, and I said, hey, Josh, he
Speaker 6: and I had gone to a pub one night when
Speaker 6: we were both living in London, and I don't know
Speaker 6: how this subject came up, but I just it's stuck
Speaker 6: in the back of my head that he was interested
Speaker 6: in investing in sports. And so when this call came
Speaker 6: and I thought it was really interesting and wanted to
Speaker 6: like really dig in. Sitting there in London, and I
Speaker 6: went to see Josh and said, hey, why don't we
Speaker 6: look at the Philadelphia seventy six ers, Because amongst the
Speaker 6: teams that were saled, they were actually officially for sale,
Speaker 6: you know, with a banker and the process, and you know,
Speaker 6: some of the others were more you know, sort of
Speaker 6: whisper campaigns. And you guys had both we had both
Speaker 6: gone to school at University of Pennsylvania. We both had
Speaker 6: other roots from family members in Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia,
Speaker 6: and it's an iconic brand, and our view was, yeah,
Speaker 6: let's go try to do that. So we agreed to
Speaker 6: sort of partner together and try to ultimately go by
Speaker 6: or invest in the Philadelphia seventy six ers, which was
Speaker 6: a transaction that signed in the summer of twenty eleven,
Speaker 6: and sure enough, there was a lockout that fall. Because
Speaker 6: I still remember my first ever NBA board meeting was
Speaker 6: not the easiest meeting in the world because it was
Speaker 6: in the middle of the lockout trying to figure out
Speaker 6: both the dynamics between obviously players in the league and
Speaker 6: the CBA, but also even amongst the various owners in
Speaker 6: the group. And you know, I will just say again
Speaker 6: for those fans out there, it was kind of wild.
Speaker 6: I went into my first ever NBA board meeting and
Speaker 6: I've got literally Larry Bird sitting on one side of me,
Speaker 6: Michael Jordan sitting about four seats down, and again the fan.
Speaker 5: Part like kicked in a little bit. I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, this is kind of wild. But that
Speaker 5: was the start of the journey.
Speaker 6: The reality was we treated it very much like a
Speaker 6: very business oriented investment, like does this make sense not
Speaker 6: just from an emotional standpoint, but you know, from a
Speaker 6: business standpoint. And I think you know, given what Josh
Speaker 6: and I had done for our careers in terms of
Speaker 6: investing in business and buying you know, divisions out of
Speaker 6: you know, larger corporations, et cetera, this was a purchase
Speaker 6: of a small business inside of a large corporation, being
Speaker 6: Comcast Corporation, And we had a lot of experience in
Speaker 6: corporate carve outs. We had a lot of experience in
Speaker 6: bringing in new management teams and thinking about incentive structures
Speaker 6: in ways that I don't really think sports had had
Speaker 6: really done. Franchise had done that in the past. So
Speaker 6: any case, all that said, it's still isn't easy, as
Speaker 6: we all know, and Alex is on all sides of
Speaker 6: this equation. But being an investor in any of these
Speaker 6: teams and leagues is fun, it's rewarding, it's challenging, it's
Speaker 6: really difficult. Everybody always thinks about it as like the
Speaker 6: fun part, but it's tough.
Speaker 4: So in twenty ten, that's a long time ago. What
Speaker 4: do you know now that you didn't know then? And
Speaker 4: how accurate was your thesis on investing in sports?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I put that in two buckets.
Speaker 6: The first thing is I get a lot of people
Speaker 6: who come to me over the last whatever number of
Speaker 6: years that are thinking of investing in a sports franchise
Speaker 6: or a league, etc. And they always ask me, you know,
Speaker 6: for lots of advice, and I kind of bloil it
Speaker 6: down to like one piece of advice that hopefully they
Speaker 6: will listen to me on, which is, don't do anything
Speaker 6: in your first season, like literally, don't just learn. Just
Speaker 6: go around and meet everyone in the organization, watch what
Speaker 6: they do, how they do it. Do not come in
Speaker 6: and do big things in your first season. By the way,
Speaker 6: no one has taking that advice. I was gonna say,
Speaker 6: I don't think so for those of you know, no
Speaker 6: one listens toiece advice, and it is the best piece
Speaker 6: of advice. Take your time to really learn what's going on,
Speaker 6: and don't just jump in and want to make a splash.
Speaker 6: You know, this isn't fantasy sports, right, And so what
Speaker 6: I've learned number one is take your time, really know
Speaker 6: what you don't know. Okay, even though we've been investing
Speaker 6: in businesses our whole careers, the reality is, you know,
Speaker 6: sports team investments are very different than owning a consumer
Speaker 6: products company or investing in a data center or a
Speaker 6: you know, metal bender, et cetera, and the nature of
Speaker 6: those businesses and the fact that what you really are
Speaker 6: is you really are a steward of a community business like,
Speaker 6: let's not kid ourselves, that's what we are, and getting
Speaker 6: used to that, versus just investing in a kind of
Speaker 6: more normal industry. I guess I would say, I don't
Speaker 6: know if normal it's the right word, but.
Speaker 5: You know, et cetera.
Speaker 6: Traditional, traditional is something I think it takes a lot
Speaker 6: to learn. But the thesis Alex at the time, to
Speaker 6: be honest with you, wasn't that complicated. And it's still
Speaker 6: to me a thesis that I have today on this sector,
Speaker 6: which is fundamental laws of supply and demand. It's the
Speaker 6: easiest thing I ever learned in school, which is just
Speaker 6: the basic, you know, law of supply and demand. And
Speaker 6: they're not making any more of these major teams, and
Speaker 6: the demand for them is going up dramatically. The demand
Speaker 6: is going up partly because you know, you have I
Speaker 6: think there's something like five times the number of billionaires
Speaker 6: in the world today that there was, you know, less
Speaker 6: than twenty years ago. Frankly, if you took that threshold
Speaker 6: up even more to like ten billion or more, it's
Speaker 6: even more stark in terms of the growth. So you've
Speaker 6: got this massive demand side on high net worth. And
Speaker 6: then obviously, as I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about,
Speaker 6: but you now have institutional investors coming into the space.
Speaker 6: And having kind of watched that movie with my Blackstone
Speaker 6: lens over the years, when institutional money starts to come
Speaker 6: into a new area, set class, et cetera, obviously capital
Speaker 6: formation is can be quite dramatic, and prices tend to
Speaker 6: move in an.
Speaker 5: Upward sloping direction.
Speaker 6: So you've got the ultra high network dynamics, you've got
Speaker 6: the institutional capital dynamics, and you don't have more supplying Okay,
Speaker 6: So that curve is unbelievable when you just think about
Speaker 6: that supply demand curve. And then secondly, and I know
Speaker 6: everybody here knows this, but these are just these are
Speaker 6: content and media businesses and they have some of the
Speaker 6: best ip in the world. And frankly, in today's world,
Speaker 6: when you think about live content, there's probably nothing more valuable.
Speaker 6: There is nothing more valuable than sports content because other
Speaker 6: streamers and broadcasters and media companies have done amazing job
Speaker 6: of basically delivering us whatever we want, literally whenever we.
Speaker 5: Want other than sports.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, So the combination of the growth in the
Speaker 6: value of the IP and the broadcast rights, and I
Speaker 6: would say, what do you say, broadcast I'd say METI
Speaker 6: rights more broadly coupled with this supply and demand was
Speaker 6: our thesis back in twenty ten and would still be
Speaker 6: my thesis to the.
Speaker 5: And so you go.
Speaker 3: From being one of a few.
Speaker 2: You know, as Alex knows very well, these are pretty
Speaker 2: small clubs in terms of ownership across the major leagues.
Speaker 2: But now, and I think Alex you would agree with this.
Speaker 2: Now you're one of one because you have equity stakes,
Speaker 2: some majority, some minority across literally every major sports league
Speaker 2: in North America. Then you tack on the EPL and
Speaker 2: other European soccer leagues, plus things like League One volleyball.
Speaker 2: I had a press release come across my desk just
Speaker 2: this week. There was like Table Tennis League David Blitzer,
Speaker 2: and I was like, this guy, help us understand that
Speaker 2: like broad portfolio approach that you have taken.
Speaker 6: All right, let me try to put it into two
Speaker 6: different buckets. The first is on the major sports. Okay,
Speaker 6: so let's call it soccer. I'm sitting here in America.
Speaker 6: If I was in London, day would be very angry
Speaker 6: at me. So soccer slash football, American Football, NBA, NHL, and
Speaker 6: MLBA in those sort of areas. To me, the real
Speaker 6: value in the equation of being across that piece is
Speaker 6: both from the business side of the equation. Okay, what
Speaker 6: we can get as a synergy across having all those
Speaker 6: multiple sports is amazing. So both on the efficiency side
Speaker 6: of the equation, we can have sales reps and branding
Speaker 6: partners and sponsorship folks that go across the teams. Not
Speaker 6: everyone goes across the entire organization, right, but significant numbers do.
Speaker 6: So we can do a deal that we did earlier
Speaker 6: this year that I thought was really innovative is we
Speaker 6: did a deal with Campbell's across a number of their
Speaker 6: consumer products and across four of our properties. It was
Speaker 6: across the Commanders, the Sixers, the Devils, and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Speaker 6: If you only had one team, you have whatever your
Speaker 6: inventory is, that's what you can offer a sponsor, particularly
Speaker 6: in today's kind of global world that we have our
Speaker 6: ability to look at some of the you know, the
Speaker 6: greatest companies in the world that are looking for those
Speaker 6: kinds of exposures and being able to offer to them
Speaker 6: both across geographies and of course across US markets and
Speaker 6: different sports I think is quite compelling. So that's sort
Speaker 6: of on that synergy side of the equation. And then
Speaker 6: if you just think about also where the world is
Speaker 6: going from a sports science perspective, from a technology perspective,
Speaker 6: from an AI and data analytics perspective, et cetera, our
Speaker 6: ability to invest in these areas and amortize that across
Speaker 6: four or five or more different organizations allows us to
Speaker 6: make investments that you just wouldn't make necessarily or couldn't
Speaker 6: make of that scale if you just had one particular
Speaker 6: little property, you know. And I think about the lot
Speaker 6: with my Blackstone hat on, which is our ability to
Speaker 6: invest in many things that are going to drive you know,
Speaker 6: significant growth in the future. We can do because we're
Speaker 6: across all of these alternative investment products, whereas if we
Speaker 6: were just a private equity firm or just a private
Speaker 6: credit firm, you wouldn't be able to make those types
Speaker 6: of investments.
Speaker 4: So, speaking of Blackstone, you were into pen and then
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety one you land as a young lad in Blackstone.
Speaker 3: What lessons virtues.
Speaker 4: Have you taken from there in your thirty three years
Speaker 4: and applied it to your sports portfolio?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well, I think, you know, the first part of that
Speaker 6: would have been the sort of the art of the deal.
Speaker 6: You know, basically there's a level of pattern recognition when
Speaker 6: one is investing in something, just from the standpoint of
Speaker 6: dealing with the counter parties, understanding the key items on
Speaker 6: our due diligence in order to be able to, you know,
Speaker 6: decide what we think something is worth. Being able to
Speaker 6: actually execute these deals are immensely complicated.
Speaker 5: I know that's that's obvious, et cetera.
Speaker 6: But again, having done that your whole career, those types
Speaker 6: of financings, both equity and debt, and those carve outs
Speaker 6: of corporations and incentivizing the management teams in very different
Speaker 6: ways and really aligning interests across the organizations. I think
Speaker 6: a lot of that, you know, clearly came from my
Speaker 6: background at Blackstone. But the other thing I would say
Speaker 6: again is is this mega trend question. You know, why
Speaker 6: am I still doing this? Meaning in this sports media
Speaker 6: and entertainment space. It really stems from a mega trend.
Speaker 6: And you know what, I and many others at Blackstone
Speaker 6: spend a ton of time on are thinking about what
Speaker 6: those longer term trends are and let's get behind them early, okay.
Speaker 6: And so if you take like digital infrastructure as an example,
Speaker 6: everybody in the world wants to invest in digital infrastructure
Speaker 6: right now, right, but we've been doing it for fifteen
Speaker 6: plus years, all along the way, different journeys, okay, and
Speaker 6: different ways, and we Blackstone, okay, many wes data.
Speaker 5: We have to define our wis.
Speaker 6: So when you think about constantly looking for those mega trends,
Speaker 6: powered recognition, being able to bring that to this what
Speaker 6: I call my night job in sports media entertainment sector,
Speaker 6: I think has been really important.
Speaker 2: And so in terms of the data of it all,
Speaker 2: that is very of keen interest to this audience, especially
Speaker 2: how do you approach the data side. You know, you
Speaker 2: talked about sponsorship opportunities and things like that. I would
Speaker 2: imagine there's also a massive amount of data and analytics
Speaker 2: possibilities when you look across both the professional portfolio, the
Speaker 2: sort of big cap as you were talking about, as
Speaker 2: well as more of the startup level as well. How
Speaker 2: do you pick and choose and distill down the data
Speaker 2: side of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, the good news again for somebody in my
Speaker 6: seat is I get to just ask a lot of
Speaker 6: questions and hire amazing people like I am, by no
Speaker 6: means any expert in data and analytics. However, I've been
Speaker 6: dealing in data analytics my whole career, both you know,
Speaker 6: from a Blackstone perspective and a sports perspective. So that
Speaker 6: allows me to go in and a higher amazing people
Speaker 6: both on the sporting side of the equation and on
Speaker 6: the business analytics side of the equation. Because as you mentioned,
Speaker 6: like these are in many cases two totally different worlds, right,
Speaker 6: and so obviously I think many of you in this
Speaker 6: room would obviously be familiar with you know, Darryl moriy Right.
Speaker 6: So of course the Philadelphia seventy six ers are going
Speaker 6: to have an amazing data and analytics department and where
Speaker 6: we're getting a ton of help on the business analytics
Speaker 6: side of the equation as well as a course who
Speaker 6: we have on our existing teams and staffs right now.
Speaker 6: But again, the multi property aspect of it allows us
Speaker 6: to really invest behind it, and I would say, what
Speaker 6: really is AI? I always ask people now because I
Speaker 6: don't know the answer. Like, we've all been using data
Speaker 6: analytics our whole careers to some degree, but obviously it's
Speaker 6: gone exponential, particularly in the last couple of years, right,
Speaker 6: And we're still on this large language model frontier, and
Speaker 6: we're going to hit another frontier pretty soon, which is
Speaker 6: really going to be all the application layer side of
Speaker 6: the equation. But at its core, you need good data.
Speaker 6: All these tools in the world are sort of, you know,
Speaker 6: not that relevant if you don't actually have great underlying data.
Speaker 6: And each one of these sports and teams to some
Speaker 6: degree have different data sets, right okay, And so like
Speaker 6: the baseball data is incredible because it's single event. There's
Speaker 6: a pitch and a swaying over and over again, and
Speaker 6: these games have been filmed at that level for a
Speaker 6: really long time. Basketball then got cameras into the arenas
Speaker 6: pretty early. Okay, So basketball data excellent.
Speaker 5: In the pros.
Speaker 6: College is you know, moving but certainly behind where the
Speaker 6: NBA is. Hockey doing a great job right now, but again,
Speaker 6: day didn't get cameras, and we're able to capture certain
Speaker 6: types of data sets that we all captured today. I
Speaker 6: can't go back twenty years. I can't look at some
Speaker 6: of the things Wayne Gretzky was doing and what that
Speaker 6: means in today's NHL and then soccer, and you know,
Speaker 6: motion based also is quite different than single event based.
Speaker 6: And so it's a long way of saying, the data
Speaker 6: is getting better and better, the models are obviously getting
Speaker 6: better and better, and ultimately the insights will get better
Speaker 6: and better, both on the sporting side of the equation
Speaker 6: and on the business side. And I think that we're
Speaker 6: testing a lot of different things. You know, I was
Speaker 6: literally talking to Diryl about it earlier today and talking
Speaker 6: with our teams about it, and you know, we're trialing
Speaker 6: lots of stuff. So on the ones hand, sure we
Speaker 6: can get coding done much more efficiently, okay, But in
Speaker 6: terms of outcomes, okay, like will we be able to
Speaker 6: scout better, will we be able to automate player tagging
Speaker 6: or or pick and roll tagging as an example, versus
Speaker 6: just having somebody sit there and watch one hundred hours
Speaker 6: of film, right you just crank it into the computer, Okay,
Speaker 6: So those types of efficiencies and then ultimately, again as
Speaker 6: all of this is getting smarter and the data sets
Speaker 6: are getting better, et cetera. How far will it go
Speaker 6: in terms of will you still where will your scouting department?
Speaker 6: It's sort of an interest question. I have no idea
Speaker 6: what the answer to that is other than we try
Speaker 6: a lot of different things and we see and we're
Speaker 6: in the super early innings. Similarly, on the business side,
Speaker 6: you know where everybody wants to get to is they
Speaker 6: want to actually know their fan base incredibly well. And
Speaker 6: most teams think they know their fan base as well,
Speaker 6: they don't actually number one, they're getting better at it,
Speaker 6: and number two, they don't really know what they're doing
Speaker 6: very often outside of the arena. So yes, we're all
Speaker 6: capturing concession data, and you know there's plenty of good
Speaker 6: ticketing type data out there these days. But when you
Speaker 6: start going further and further and wanting a more and
Speaker 6: more personal experience again between a brand and the consumer,
Speaker 6: we're like in the first or second inning of that
Speaker 6: entire game, and AI is going to pay a huge
Speaker 6: role in that equation to where you know you're going
Speaker 6: to be getting offers from your team, okay to a
Speaker 6: fan that's literally personalized to that one individual.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 6: And so all of that is super early in things,
Speaker 6: But I would basically just say, while we all are
Speaker 6: doing plenty on the data and analytics side, I think
Speaker 6: we're really really early, both sporting wise and business wise
Speaker 6: in terms of how we can get closer to that
Speaker 6: customer and fan and monetize it over time in very
Speaker 6: very different ways.
Speaker 2: So when you say person line splitz, are you you're
Speaker 2: talking about, I'm going to get I'm going to get
Speaker 2: an email or a text message it says, Hey, come
Speaker 2: to this game. We know you like to sit in
Speaker 2: this particular spot, this is what you like to eat,
Speaker 2: this is I'm going to know where you go.
Speaker 6: On your way home from the game. I'm going to
Speaker 6: know that your favorite player is Tyree s Maxi, and
Speaker 6: I'm going to send you a personalized Tyree Maxi X
Speaker 6: Y or Z. I might then, depending on your level
Speaker 6: of spend with the organization, serve you up for an
Speaker 6: experience with Tyree s Maxey after the game on Thursday night.
Speaker 5: If you can make it. I mean it's going to
Speaker 5: be that level wow of detail and more.
Speaker 3: You talked about baseball a little bit.
Speaker 4: You have your investment with the Cleveland Guardians, your paths
Speaker 4: control Baseball's had extraordinary a couple of years with the
Speaker 4: rout changes. Rob Manford's really on top of it. Our
Speaker 4: numbers at Fox were amazing. We did over twenty million
Speaker 4: people because we had the great matchups of the Dodgers
Speaker 4: versus the Yankees.
Speaker 3: My question, you're making a lot of friends here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well we lost, so it did really
Speaker 4: work out for us since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: But my question to you is, David.
Speaker 5: But we're not talking about two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, definitely not, definitely not if you were
Speaker 4: whispering in Rob Manford, the commissioner Baseball's ear, or if
Speaker 4: you're the commissioner for a day or a week, what
Speaker 4: are some of the things you would continue to improve
Speaker 4: in the game to make the game a little bit
Speaker 4: more dynamic and more really popular for the younger friend.
Speaker 5: You know, it's really interesting question.
Speaker 6: I mean, what baseball did two years ago in terms
Speaker 6: of the size of the bases and what that did
Speaker 6: on a stolen base, that what they did on the
Speaker 6: you know, on the shift and you know you can't
Speaker 6: have two guys on the other side of second base.
Speaker 6: What they did on the pitch clock, and a few
Speaker 6: other smaller things. I mean, that's pretty dramatic in general
Speaker 6: for any league, Okay, and Baseball I find to be
Speaker 6: the one that more than any other sport, everyone says, well,
Speaker 6: we can't do that, because that's the way it's always
Speaker 6: been done. In baseball, there's just more pureists, I guess,
Speaker 6: I would say, in the overall fan base and the ecosystem.
Speaker 6: So the fact that Commissioner Manfred, working with you know,
Speaker 6: some wonderful executives, were able to come up with things that,
Speaker 6: by the way, the players didn't want to do that first,
Speaker 6: and there were plenty of folks out in the analyst
Speaker 6: community and media, etc.
Speaker 5: Who thought this was just.
Speaker 6: Like crazy baseball camp do this, and again you're not
Speaker 6: gonna have one hundred zero type you know, approval for it.
Speaker 6: But I think massive positive reaction to the fan base.
Speaker 6: So as a couple examples, you know, number one, as
Speaker 6: you well know, the games are about twenty four to
Speaker 6: twenty five minutes faster, and that is a huge difference
Speaker 6: to the fan base out there. You've had the average
Speaker 6: age of a viewer of Major League Baseball go down
Speaker 6: about four years over the last couple of years. You've
Speaker 6: had the average age of a new account on MLB
Speaker 6: dot com is down something like six years, okay in age.
Speaker 6: And if you looked at the viewership numbers and both
Speaker 6: the attendance people in a seat and people watching on TV,
Speaker 6: the average as again has come down in and around
Speaker 6: five years. So from a demographic perspective, if you're Fox
Speaker 6: and some of the other you know, kind of broadcasters,
Speaker 6: that's that's amazing. Let alone, the interest is up. You
Speaker 6: pointed out the numbers on you know, kind of the
Speaker 6: World series. But the reality is also if you think
Speaker 6: about it from a global perspective, the interest going on
Speaker 6: right now more globally, and obviously a lot of that
Speaker 6: is Otani all right, and so what else? You know, Look,
Speaker 6: it's kind of funny. I don't really have the answers.
Speaker 6: I think Rob is continuing with his team. Commissioner Manfred
Speaker 6: is continue with his team to look at ways that
Speaker 6: we can increase the attractiveness and continue that push from
Speaker 6: a demographic perspective to lower the average age. I will
Speaker 6: say one other thing, having been involved in the youth
Speaker 6: sports business, and particularly in baseball, you know people all
Speaker 6: say kids aren't.
Speaker 5: Playing baseball anymore, not like they used to. It's just wrong.
Speaker 5: It's just not true more than ever.
Speaker 6: So first off, little League World Series, go take a
Speaker 6: look at the ratings on a Little League World Series.
Speaker 6: But going to participation once, I think is more relevant.
Speaker 6: Youth participation was at a ten year high this past
Speaker 6: year and has been growing at a keger of about
Speaker 6: seven percent okay on youth baseball participation, So depending how
Speaker 6: you define and cause you to find it, grassroots is
Speaker 6: about nine million, okay, And that's baseball, by the way, softball,
Speaker 6: which is amazing and finally getting more exposure like many
Speaker 6: of the women's sports. You know, I think youth participation
Speaker 6: in softball is like eight million kids across the country.
Speaker 6: And again both those numbers are significantly up over the
Speaker 6: last decade, not down, So we are getting people in
Speaker 6: the ecosystem. One of the problems with baseball is a
Speaker 6: lot of kids play baseball and they stop after that
Speaker 6: you thirteen year unless they're on a track for a
Speaker 6: scholarship or they're you know, a complete and utter unicorn
Speaker 6: like my friend over here. But the reality is is
Speaker 6: so a lot of kids age out at you thirteen.
Speaker 6: So what I've talked to Major League Baseball a lot
Speaker 6: about is like, how do we open that funnel further
Speaker 6: from a participation perspective, But how do we not have
Speaker 6: that funnel close so much at that you thirteen level?
Speaker 6: How do we create more and more pathways for kids
Speaker 6: continuing to play that aren't necessarily looking for that scholarship
Speaker 6: or that you know, minor a major league baseball career.
Speaker 3: What would you do?
Speaker 4: Well, that's a great question. I've thought a lot about this.
Speaker 4: I think I would open up the floodgates. I mean,
Speaker 4: in a world where content is king, then certainly baseball
Speaker 4: should be king. Right. You have two hundred games and
Speaker 4: about two hundred and thirty two days including spring training playoffs.
Speaker 4: You guys went really deep into the playoffs last year. Blitz,
Speaker 4: congrats on that. But look, if we're all at a
Speaker 4: desk when you're at Blackstone, when you're in Bloomberg, there
Speaker 4: should be your phone or your iPad where you just
Speaker 4: should be able to see all thirty teams in real time.
Speaker 4: Batting cage is open. I want to see Aaron Judge.
Speaker 4: I want to see Otani, but not in uniform. I
Speaker 4: want to see him in shorts. Behind the scenes, what
Speaker 4: is he working on? What can I share with my
Speaker 4: son or daughter? Of Otani's mechanic because I'm also hearing them.
Speaker 4: I'm also seeing weight rooms and bullpens. That's one thing
Speaker 4: I would do a lot more microphone, I think one
Speaker 4: of the greatest things. We have some of the best
Speaker 4: athletes in our game today, but we have no idea
Speaker 4: who the hell they are. I mean, I barely know
Speaker 4: enough about Aaron Judge. I know him because I've known
Speaker 4: him since he was a kid. But Aaron Judge is
Speaker 4: an incredible story. We stole him from football and he
Speaker 4: decided to go to smaller college and play baseball. Well
Speaker 4: that's a benefit to us. So Blitz to your point,
Speaker 4: at the age of thirteen, how do we gap at
Speaker 4: thirteen to age seventeen when I got drafted, and we
Speaker 4: hopefully can create a lot more Aaron Judges. So I
Speaker 4: will say I think entertainment first. Baseball's just your mote,
Speaker 4: but I think media entertainment. And you have to take
Speaker 4: the straight jacket of a history away and be able
Speaker 4: to try new things. Not everything's gonna work, but the
Speaker 4: more chance you try, the more you fail, the better
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 5: You're totally right.
Speaker 6: And interestingly, again, maybe it goes back to a little
Speaker 6: bit of this purest concept. Maybe it doesn't, but the
Speaker 6: superstars haven't been marketed as clearly as they have in
Speaker 6: other sports. The teams have been. But that's different than
Speaker 6: the total superstars, right. And when you talk about like
Speaker 6: having the ability to watch Aaron Judge at batting cage,
Speaker 6: or watch schemes throw one hundred and whatever miles an
Speaker 6: how or however many times in a row, like back
Speaker 6: to that's amazing content. And the next generation is consuming
Speaker 6: content and completely different ways. We could spend hours talking
Speaker 6: about that, but that's the type of content that that
Speaker 6: next generation and that younger demographic wants versus you know,
Speaker 6: watching an entire game of anything, for you, just baseball.
Speaker 5: My kids are huge sports fans. It is rare for a.
Speaker 6: Regular season game for them to watch any of the
Speaker 6: major sports all the way through.
Speaker 3: Blitz.
Speaker 4: When you were nineteen ninety one, when you entered Blackstone,
Speaker 4: I was drafted in ninety three.
Speaker 3: I mean that's not that long ago. That's three decades ago.
Speaker 4: Baseball was number one by far, and I think the
Speaker 4: way to get back there is we've given the other
Speaker 4: league's almost ten strokes on a golf course, and we
Speaker 4: can't do that anymore. And you can't play with one
Speaker 4: hand tie behind your back. The greatest content in the
Speaker 4: world is like we have it hidden in the library.
Speaker 4: I mean to watch Aaron Judge and o'tani and some
Speaker 4: of these guys through their side work, Kershaw talk about
Speaker 4: what is he working on with a technique if you're
Speaker 4: a lefty pitcher or your lefty pitcher who's a softball.
Speaker 4: There's so much content out there, there's so much value
Speaker 4: saying if we unlock that, it could be really.
Speaker 5: Agree and so blitz building on that.
Speaker 2: I mean with a lot of the investments you have
Speaker 2: in some of these you know, not really challenging league,
Speaker 2: sort of startup leagues. You know, even I know you
Speaker 2: are deeply engaged in the NWSL for instance, which is
Speaker 2: I think by definition less purest because it's a new league,
Speaker 2: it's only been around for about a decade. It's the
Speaker 2: third try at you know, professional women's soccer in this country.
Speaker 2: What are you learning there that you sort of apply
Speaker 2: or vice versa.
Speaker 6: Well, look again, I put these in some slightly different buckets.
Speaker 6: I go back to this sort of thematic view that
Speaker 6: I have around a variety of things. So let's hit
Speaker 6: women's sports really quickly. So women's sports is, from my perspective,
Speaker 6: a mega trend, a mega theme that one should get
Speaker 6: behind from an either a well from every perspective, from
Speaker 6: a fan perspective, from an engagement perspective, from an invent perspective,
Speaker 6: it's probably.
Speaker 3: For this audience like a great place to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And by the way, aside from the fact that these
Speaker 6: athletes are absolutely incredible and in my opinion, haven't been
Speaker 6: marketed particularly well over the years. So I look at
Speaker 6: even you know, Caitlin Clark and Angel Race, okay, absolutely
Speaker 6: amazing Okay, and when they started getting marketed differently in college,
Speaker 6: take a look at those college ratings.
Speaker 5: So the NCAA Women's.
Speaker 6: Final last year had I believe, eighteen million eighteen point
Speaker 6: something million people watch the women's final. The men's final
Speaker 6: got something like high fourteens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I remember sitting with Jimmy Pataro when he was like,
Speaker 6: the women out drew the men of ESPN, okay, and
Speaker 6: he was following it all the way through because it
Speaker 6: wasn't just that one game. By the way, as well,
Speaker 6: my point is there have been amazing women basketball players
Speaker 6: for pick your period, fifty years, eighty years, whatever, since
Speaker 6: they invented the game, Okay, why now? Why did it
Speaker 6: suddenly explode from immediate perspect in popularity? And some of
Speaker 6: that was the same storytelling, okay, and content delivery that
Speaker 6: you described. Some of it was just plain marketing. I
Speaker 6: feel like ZBS and ESPN really got behind women's basketball
Speaker 6: and did an amazing job and once people watched. Because
Speaker 6: I always talk about the funnel when I talk about fans.
Speaker 6: What you want to get is somebody who's not a
Speaker 6: fan to be a casual fan of a sport, and
Speaker 6: then you want to drive a journey of the casual
Speaker 6: fan to become an avid fan of the sport. Okay,
Speaker 6: So we have to start with the funnel, and I
Speaker 6: find when people watched. I remember taking my own daughters
Speaker 6: to a WNBA game and to a women's hockey game
Speaker 6: and said like, let's just watch this game for what
Speaker 6: it is, meaning amazing athletes and performance, and they were hooked.
Speaker 6: But they had to be taken right in a sense,
Speaker 6: or at least in my case. And that's why I
Speaker 6: always say to people, like about hockey. So many of
Speaker 6: my friends have never been to a live hockey game,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, why don't you come to a hockey
Speaker 6: game and they all go to a live hockey and
Speaker 6: they were like, oh my god, that was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 6: So now I have a casual fan. So back to
Speaker 6: women's sports. I think the trends are there. I mean
Speaker 6: just really big picture. I mean, if you think about
Speaker 6: the WNBA right now, aside from where the prices of
Speaker 6: these franchises seem to be going.
Speaker 5: Look at the viewership numbers. They're absolutely incredible.
Speaker 6: So it's not like it's just I mean, I think
Speaker 6: it's something like thirty percent of when an NBA game
Speaker 6: on average about is the WNBA. But they're getting two
Speaker 6: percent of the media rights money. So what do you
Speaker 6: think is going to happen the WNBA media writes overtime
Speaker 6: like they're going to go up back to my sort
Speaker 6: of content.
Speaker 5: Ip, etc. So I'm bullish on all of the women's sports.
Speaker 5: You're right.
Speaker 6: I spent a ton of time on soccer. I'm extremely
Speaker 6: bullish on volleyball. I think hockey's doing an amazing job,
Speaker 6: which was a reboot because you used to have separate
Speaker 6: American and Canadian leagues and they finally merged. You can
Speaker 6: actually have the best players in the world all playing together.
Speaker 6: And then you mentioned startup leagues, which, to be honest,
Speaker 6: you know there's there's startup leagues in the sense of
Speaker 6: like venture capital, right, and then there's some others that
Speaker 6: are maybe a different format. Okay, So like if you
Speaker 6: think about TGL, which I think is getting an Innovation
Speaker 6: Award today, that was a different format that you know,
Speaker 6: Mike McCauley and some colleagues realize that, you know, hey,
Speaker 6: we should think about golf competitive golf in a different way, right,
Speaker 6: And again, I'm sure some of you have seen it,
Speaker 6: others might not have. I think TGL has done an
Speaker 6: amazing job.
Speaker 3: Huge content play too, I mean, that's what that's.
Speaker 6: And again, demographic very very different from who's watching on
Speaker 6: Saturday or Sunday afternoon on a PGA tour, and of
Speaker 6: course there's crossover, but they're bringing a new demographic into
Speaker 6: the sport. So that's kind of like, hey, let's go
Speaker 6: try to do something different. Then, like you said, you've
Speaker 6: got you know, major League table tennis, right, you know,
Speaker 6: we'll see. But on these I'm bullish because again, on
Speaker 6: these niche sports, we all underestimate the audience numbers and
Speaker 6: we're all used to hearing these broadcast numbers. But what
Speaker 6: we're not probably is it tuned too or that some
Speaker 6: of the people in this room might be is the
Speaker 6: YouTube numbers right, is the Instagram numbers? Is that you know,
Speaker 6: all of these different ways that younger folks are consuming
Speaker 6: and not just younger folks. But I just point to,
Speaker 6: I don't know again in the habit of like looking
Speaker 6: at what my kids are doing and why and their
Speaker 6: friends and so as an example.
Speaker 5: You know, you've got the you've got the slaps, Dana White, genius.
Speaker 6: Okay, if I told you five years ago there was
Speaker 6: going to be this situation when we sat across the
Speaker 6: table for you as I was going to slap you
Speaker 6: as hard as humanly possible, okay, and then if you
Speaker 6: were able to get up, you were able to do
Speaker 6: it back to me. And that was going to be
Speaker 6: a sport that people were watching and turning into a league.
Speaker 6: I don't know that you would have thought that that
Speaker 6: was a very good idea, and they're unbelievable, but I
Speaker 6: mean you're just using like an example of people are
Speaker 6: consuming that content in incredibly different ways. The number of
Speaker 6: views on YouTube for some of these slap matches is,
Speaker 6: like you know, sort of stunning. So again it comes
Speaker 6: a little bit back to Alex you mentioned it before,
Speaker 6: like where do I think there can be great storytelling?
Speaker 6: And maybe it's in places that you didn't even think about.
Speaker 6: I mean, we all know about Drive to Survive, Okay,
Speaker 6: Like what Netflix did to Drive to Survive and what
Speaker 6: that did for Formula one is you know, unbelievable. But
Speaker 6: like I think about some others too. I think about
Speaker 6: like Queen's Gambit, yeah, okay, and what Queen's Gambit did
Speaker 6: the chess. I mean, it's beyond dramatic in terms of there.
Speaker 6: And if you look at Welcome the Rexham or Ted
Speaker 6: Lasso okay, or you look at you know, quarterbacks, So
Speaker 6: that storytelling goes back a lot to what you're saying.
Speaker 6: Let's bring these amazing athletes and sports closer to us
Speaker 6: in ways that we didn't consume it before, and let's
Speaker 6: watch that continued growth out there in the marketplace.
Speaker 2: All Right, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about youth sports. And one of the ways
Speaker 2: that I would love for you to get into it,
Speaker 2: Blitz is you mentioned volleyball and Caitlin galhoo Ce Young
Speaker 2: co founder of League one Volleyball, was on this stage earlier.
Speaker 3: You're an investor there.
Speaker 2: I remember you and I talking about this years ago,
Speaker 2: and you were talking about how compelling it was, mostly
Speaker 2: because it's youth to pro which we don't see a
Speaker 2: lot of talk to us about the opportunity in youth sports.
Speaker 2: Let's the through line for youth sports from an investment perspective.
Speaker 6: So from an investment perspective, it goes back to something
Speaker 6: we were talking a little bit about before. It's massively fragmented, right,
Speaker 6: so the demand is there. I think the people again
Speaker 6: calculated differently. I calculate the youth sports business at about
Speaker 6: forty billion dollars growing it, you know, high single digits
Speaker 6: a year. Our own business is growing much faster than that.
Speaker 6: But it's if you think about it, most people who
Speaker 6: run a youth sports business is a relatively small, mom
Speaker 6: and pop oriented business. Where they got into that business,
Speaker 6: I'd like to think in the vast, vast majority of
Speaker 6: cases for the right reasons. Okay, they wanted to help kids,
Speaker 6: they wanted to get them active on fields. Okay, that's
Speaker 6: even become more prevalent in today's world, where the kids
Speaker 6: are on screens way more than like when.
Speaker 3: We grew up.
Speaker 6: So I think people got into these businesses to do
Speaker 6: really good things with kids with youth, but they don't
Speaker 6: want to deal with accounts, payable and insurance and you know,
Speaker 6: legal and complain. You know, they just want to program,
Speaker 6: whether it's leagues or tournaments or I don't know, Alex,
Speaker 6: if you ever went through baseball factory, but as an example,
Speaker 6: Baseball Factory, you know, takes kids through their baseball journeys
Speaker 6: in terms of instruction at higher and higher levels along
Speaker 6: the way. So you have all these different areas of
Speaker 6: youth sports, but at its core a I think, just
Speaker 6: again big picture, it's great to have kids enrolled and
Speaker 6: engaged in as many sports as possible, and actually they
Speaker 6: spread it across. I think there's too much specialization. As
Speaker 6: one of my other big things, kids are specializing way
Speaker 6: too early. You talk to any professional athlete, they will
Speaker 6: tell you that they either did or wish they had
Speaker 6: played more sports for long enew okay, So the ability
Speaker 6: to actually show up with capital now okay, then show
Speaker 6: up with great brands. So as an example, cal Ripkin
Speaker 6: was somebody who is like my idol as a player,
Speaker 6: but more relevantly post his playing career. Cal basically wanted
Speaker 6: to help kids. He wanted to teach them to play
Speaker 6: baseball the right way in a safe environment, and he
Speaker 6: and his brother Bill started Ripkin Baseball and they have
Speaker 6: the best youth baseball business in the country in my opinion.
Speaker 6: And once we got into youth sports, I had been
Speaker 6: talking to Cal for years about trying to partner with
Speaker 6: him in some way, shape or form, And once our
Speaker 6: business started to grow, etc. Went back to Cal and said, hey,
Speaker 6: maybe we should merge our businesses.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 6: You've got the best brand in the world and you
Speaker 6: and Bill are still involved, which is amazing, and we'd
Speaker 6: love to keep all of that the same way.
Speaker 5: We're just going to give you.
Speaker 6: A bigger platform, so you're gonna be able to help
Speaker 6: more kids in more markets, etc. So again that ability
Speaker 6: to bring capital the equations, so we have better fields,
Speaker 6: we have safer environments, we have better instructors, we have
Speaker 6: better facilities overall, because a lot of them are now
Speaker 6: starting to turn into these sports vacations right where you're
Speaker 6: going with your parents and your siblings, and maybe it's
Speaker 6: three days, it's a long weekend. In some cases, we
Speaker 6: have one of our baseball facilities in Cooperstown, New York,
Speaker 6: is basically a week, So you go with your whole
Speaker 6: family for an entire week. And we keep upgrading all
Speaker 6: of these facilities, and so it's sort of this fragmented
Speaker 6: industry that we think we're both doing something that's really
Speaker 6: good for society, for lack of a better term, for
Speaker 6: the kids and their families. But we also think that
Speaker 6: they're good business in us.
Speaker 2: All right, So we like to end every episode with
Speaker 2: little rapid fire, So good luck to you. We'll bounce
Speaker 2: it back and forth a little bit, you know, keep
Speaker 2: it tight, and we're excited to hear what you bring
Speaker 2: to the table here. But let's all right, what's one
Speaker 2: word to describe your deal making style?
Speaker 5: One word to describe my deal making style? Direct?
Speaker 4: What's more important to you your gut or data?
Speaker 2: Keep in mind you are at the MIT Sloan Sports
Speaker 2: Analytics Conference.
Speaker 5: Blackstone Data Sports Gut.
Speaker 3: Okay ooh okay, split the metal. Who is your dream
Speaker 3: deal making partner?
Speaker 5: My dream deal making partner? Well, I hope one day
Speaker 5: it's my kids.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, good answer.
Speaker 4: What's the best piece of advice you received on deal
Speaker 4: making or business.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it was somebody told me early on
Speaker 6: in my career, clearly because I wasn't doing it very well.
Speaker 6: But it's actually it sounds simple, but it's the best
Speaker 6: advice I ever got, which is, David, you talk too much,
Speaker 6: listen a lot more. So you don't need to be
Speaker 6: the loudest voice in the room. You don't need to
Speaker 6: be the person who spent the most time talking in
Speaker 6: the middle of a meeting. Doesn't mean don't say anything,
Speaker 6: just means listen a lot more. Why it might not
Speaker 6: feel that way. I'm actually a pretty good listener.
Speaker 3: What's the worst advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 5: The worst off given, worst advice I've ever been given.
Speaker 4: Don't buy the Sixers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was actually not the Sixers. It was don't
Speaker 6: invest in hockey. Really it was terrible advice, meaning because
Speaker 6: I didn't take the advice. Yeah, but I had people
Speaker 6: warning me that, you know, they didn't have national TV
Speaker 6: deals that were great and it was really a local
Speaker 6: business and don't do that.
Speaker 5: And I didn't listen.
Speaker 4: All right, So what's your hype song before a big
Speaker 4: meeting or big negotiation?
Speaker 5: Hype songs?
Speaker 6: It's on my phone, I think it's like Bob Marley,
Speaker 6: it's not so hyped up.
Speaker 5: Three little birds.
Speaker 2: If you have to pick the top three teams from
Speaker 2: your portfolio, what are they?
Speaker 5: I can't answer it.
Speaker 6: My answer anytime any of that body asked me about
Speaker 6: your my favorite team is, let's be clear, it's who's
Speaker 6: your favorite kid, which, by the way, so I'll answer
Speaker 6: it differently.
Speaker 5: I do have a favorite kid sometimes.
Speaker 6: But it's a different favorite kid depending on what's going
Speaker 6: going on that week or that year or whatever. So
Speaker 6: I definitely don't have a favorite team over a long
Speaker 6: period of time, but like right now, it's probably the command.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a pretty good answer, David, No favorite blitz.
Speaker 4: You can only watch one sport for the rest of
Speaker 4: your life. Which one is it?
Speaker 6: That's really brutal? One sport for the rest of my life?
Speaker 6: Hockey if it's live. Okay, okay, so live. My answer
Speaker 6: is hockey.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: This is funny because it's sort of it's sort of
Speaker 2: a retread of the earlier, earlier question, but I'm gonna
Speaker 2: ask it anyway.
Speaker 3: What team do you want to see win a championship more.
Speaker 2: Than any that's your favorite kid question? So can I
Speaker 2: give you a cheat on this one. We asked the
Speaker 2: same question of Melody Hobson, and you know what her
Speaker 2: answer was?
Speaker 3: What mine?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's that's that's a pretty good answer for sure.
Speaker 5: It'd be nice to have one. We don't have it.
Speaker 5: We don't have a championship yet.
Speaker 4: Blitzer, you have a fun fact about yourself that will
Speaker 4: surprise all of us, but mainly your colleagues.
Speaker 6: Maybe that I we talk about Jusic a lot, and
Speaker 6: maybe it's how much I absolutely love a lot us
Speaker 6: more set. They would look at me like, really a
Speaker 6: lot of more set because everyone thinks I'm just like
Speaker 6: a big Springstea fan.
Speaker 2: But all right, Blitzer being a big a lotus more
Speaker 2: set fan. I mean, that's my takeaway from from this entime.
Speaker 2: From the brilliant insights you've given us about business, that's
Speaker 2: something I'm not gonna soon forget.
Speaker 3: That was a curveball. That was a curveball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have something better
Speaker 2: for you. No, that's pretty good. I think I think
Speaker 2: we got ended there. Uh David Blitzer, what a treat
Speaker 2: to spend some time with you. Alex always fun. Uh m,
Speaker 2: I t sloan you guys are the best. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for having us really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
Speaker 1: The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
Speaker 1: This show was produced by Anna Maazarakis, Lizzie Phillip, and
Speaker 1: Stacy Wong. Original music and engineering by Blake Maples.
Speaker 3: David E.
Speaker 1: Ravella is our managing editor. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,
Speaker 1: Brendan Francis, Neonham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Andrew Barden, Kelly Leferrier,
Speaker 1: and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our Head of Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Rachel Carnivali, Elena sos Angeles, Nick Silva,
Speaker 1: and the team at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Speaker 1: Rubob Shakir is our creative director. Art direction is from
Speaker 1: Jacqueline Kessler. Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Camera
Speaker 1: operation by David Degner. Listen to The Deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also tune
Speaker 1: into the video Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening,