Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, welcome to the Deal.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jason Kelly, alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez.
Speaker 1: All right, Alex, we're going to get to our interview
Speaker 1: with Kevin Warren, of course, the president and CEO of
Speaker 1: the Chicago Bears in a minute.
Speaker 2: So much to talk to him about.
Speaker 1: He was the former Big Ten commissioner, now the president CEO,
Speaker 1: as I said, of the Chicago Bears. But let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what's been going on with us lately,
Speaker 1: very recently, very appropriately. You were at the Big House
Speaker 1: in ann Arbor visiting your daughter Natasha. You saw a game.
Speaker 1: I mean, the scope of college football. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: It really is, Jason, and it reminds you every time
Speaker 3: you go back. Well, let me just check you on that,
Speaker 3: because I think I saw half the game. The other
Speaker 3: half I was like lou Lemon and shopping and working
Speaker 3: my credit card for my daughter. I keep getting hooked
Speaker 3: into this much football, dad, but it's really about let's
Speaker 3: go shopping.
Speaker 1: You're a great credit card bearer. I mean, listen, you're
Speaker 1: really really good at just offering them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I keep falling for it. I mean, just like you
Speaker 3: do with your son, right, of course. Yeah, it can't
Speaker 3: help reminds me. It feels like the Michigan football is
Speaker 3: like the New York Yankees of baseball or duke basketball.
Speaker 3: There's this or around it that is them against the world,
Speaker 3: and in many ways, everyone has a feeling about Michigan,
Speaker 3: like just like the Yankees, you either love him or
Speaker 3: hate them. So it was fun to be back to
Speaker 3: the big House.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it also is a reminder of the scope
Speaker 1: of the Big Ten. I mean, when you think about
Speaker 1: how the college athletics landscape, certainly the college football landscape
Speaker 1: is evolving, it's really coming down to the SEC and
Speaker 1: the Big Ten as the massive drivers of revenue, talent
Speaker 1: transferst Like, every single bit of it, it feels like,
Speaker 1: is being dictated by those two conferences. And so with
Speaker 1: Michigan as a recent national champion at the white hot
Speaker 1: center of that putting on your business at you must
Speaker 1: be looking around and just thinking, God, I mean, these
Speaker 1: football teams, these college football teams are bigger than a
Speaker 1: lot of professional franchises in terms of their importance and
Speaker 1: maybe even the revenue.
Speaker 3: They're massive, massive businesses, and I think our viewers and
Speaker 3: listeners would find it really interesting to think that these
Speaker 3: kind of jobs Big ten, Big twelve, they're almost like
Speaker 3: running a public company, except they're private, but much more
Speaker 3: complicated because a lot of times you don't have the
Speaker 3: infrastructure or the budgets. And the truth is these businesses
Speaker 3: NCAA football, Duke basketball, they've grown so fast it's impossible
Speaker 3: to have the infrastructure to keep up with that growth.
Speaker 3: And what a massive responsibility when you negotiate these media rights,
Speaker 3: and Kevin Warren did that. You're talking about billions and
Speaker 3: billions of dollars, which public companies don't deal with that
Speaker 3: type of scale, and they do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, and a lot of a very disparate group
Speaker 1: of stakeholders in that as well. One other thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention is by the time, folks who are
Speaker 1: listening to this episode, I will have come out of
Speaker 1: a really interesting event that we're doing here in New York,
Speaker 1: a partnership between Bloomberg and the Earthshot Prize, which is
Speaker 1: Prince William's Climate initiative. Messiah Jerry and Joel Embi talking
Speaker 1: about the business of sports. In Africa, economic development has
Speaker 1: tied to sports, so I'm definitely going to get a
Speaker 1: copy of that and send it along to you because
Speaker 1: I know it's a subject you're quite interested in personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait to see it. And look, we've
Speaker 3: talked a lot about this on the globalization around sports. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and one of the main drivers of why these enterprise
Speaker 3: values are gone through the roof. But what's interesting about basketball,
Speaker 3: It is a massive global sport. I mean, you have
Speaker 3: more people in China and India watching basketball nightly than
Speaker 3: you do in the US. That's incredible. And like, as
Speaker 3: you know, Jason, there's so much going on in the
Speaker 3: continent of Africa. I'm very bullish with anything around Africa.
Speaker 3: A lot of smart capitals going in the the billions
Speaker 3: and billions of dollars, and it's so smart for the
Speaker 3: NBA to bring basketball there with partners like Grant Hill,
Speaker 3: Barack and Michelle Obama. I'm really intrigued to watch what
Speaker 3: you're doing anything to do with Africa basketball.
Speaker 1: All right, coming up on the deal, our interview with
Speaker 1: the president and CEO of the Chicago Bear is Kevin Warren.
Speaker 1: All Right, so now we're going to bring in Kevin Warren.
Speaker 1: He is the president and CEO for the Chicago Bears. Kevin,
Speaker 1: welcome to the deal. We actually like to have people
Speaker 1: at the start introduce themselves and just tell us what
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 4: I mean, my goal is to basically lead this franchise.
Speaker 4: This is one of the most oracle sports franchises in
Speaker 4: the industry. I'm very cognizant conscientious that this franchise is
Speaker 4: one hundred and five years old, was founded by George Hallis.
Speaker 4: It's one of the founding franchises in the NFL. So
Speaker 4: what I'm trying to do on an every day basis
Speaker 4: is from a business, from a football from an entrepreneurial,
Speaker 4: from a vision standpoint, is to make sure that we're
Speaker 4: operating in an innovative manner. So that's the goal, although
Speaker 4: we're under the umbrella of the National Football League.
Speaker 3: So, Kevin, when you think about and Jason and I
Speaker 3: were prepping and we were laughing, your resume seems like
Speaker 3: just the most stellar resume you've seen from you know,
Speaker 3: undergrad a pan where you played hoops, You have an NBA,
Speaker 3: you have a law degree. You negotiate one of the
Speaker 3: biggest and not the biggest, you know, TV deal in
Speaker 3: Big ten history. Obviously, you work for almost a handful
Speaker 3: of teams in the NFL, the Vikings just because I'm Minnesota.
Speaker 3: I mean, the halo of Kevin warn is still there
Speaker 3: in a great way because you came in at the
Speaker 3: beginning for a six hundred million dollar buy and now
Speaker 3: the team, the Vikings are probably worth north of six billion.
Speaker 3: You build a stadium on time and on budget. What
Speaker 3: lessons can you drawp on for your mission now with
Speaker 3: the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the lessons I draw from it are
Speaker 4: all the lessons that I learned from my parents and
Speaker 4: even from my grandparents. Is one to be diligent, to
Speaker 4: be focused, to be resilient, to be able to operate
Speaker 4: with grit. You know, I have a saying to be
Speaker 4: able to operate with dirt in your mouth. And these
Speaker 4: things aren't easy, and so I always chuckle sometime when
Speaker 4: I have some of these calls and the first thing
Speaker 4: business people or politicians or stadium developers will talk and
Speaker 4: they'll they'll say, boy, this is a really hard project
Speaker 4: or these things are very difficult, and I say, that's
Speaker 4: why we're here, I mean, because otherwise we have robots
Speaker 4: who could do it. The lesson aloge back to your question,
Speaker 4: that I learned the most is really about. The result
Speaker 4: is a stadium. The result is a World Series like
Speaker 4: you've won. The result is being an MVP. The result,
Speaker 4: you know, is a super Bowl champion. But it really
Speaker 4: the input is relationships. And so at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, it's all those basic core tenets. You know
Speaker 4: that my grandparents and my parents are teachers taught us.
Speaker 4: You know, be diligent, be focused, clean up, you know,
Speaker 4: when you make a mess, say I'm sorry. You know,
Speaker 4: work hard, you know, drink your water, wait in line,
Speaker 4: be patient, get your sleep, all those different things that
Speaker 4: seem so very basic, but they really are today, and
Speaker 4: as I get further in my career, I just recognize
Speaker 4: that this world is really, you know, small. People will
Speaker 4: say that, boy, it's a small world, but it really
Speaker 4: is small. But the biggest thing is that all of
Speaker 4: these deals, and the more complex they are, the more
Speaker 4: relationships from a positive standpoint, you need to have. It's
Speaker 4: just not about who's the smartest person in the room,
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, when you do
Speaker 4: these deals, you come together and everyone has great lawyers
Speaker 4: and great advisors and great financial advisors and accountants, and
Speaker 4: they understand the terms of the deal. But when you
Speaker 4: break it down to the basic core elements, people do
Speaker 4: business with people who they like and respect more. And
Speaker 4: I also found that the more you learn and understand someone,
Speaker 4: they are more attuned to be able to do business
Speaker 4: with you. So that's why I say it all the time.
Speaker 4: I don't do business with people. I do relationships. And
Speaker 4: if you do relationships the right way, like we've been
Speaker 4: able to develop Alex, the business part becomes very easy.
Speaker 2: And so how does that playbook apply Kevin?
Speaker 1: As you take on you know, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a stadium for the city of Chicago, as you say,
Speaker 1: and this historic franchise, how do you start that process
Speaker 1: to kind of unpack the different pieces, understand the different stakeholders, like,
Speaker 1: take us inside your head as you sort of sit
Speaker 1: down and start to map that out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the way it works for me is the first
Speaker 4: thing that I do is I have these freethink sessions
Speaker 4: with myself. I usually start in a conference room and
Speaker 4: most of the time it starts alone. And what I
Speaker 4: do is I will just write down all the different
Speaker 4: attributes that I feel that our team will need to
Speaker 4: be able to solve and resolve to bring whatever we're
Speaker 4: trying to bring to life, whether it's a world championship,
Speaker 4: whether it's a stadium, whether it's a you know, acquisition
Speaker 4: of a deal. And I'll just free think. I'll just
Speaker 4: write all these different things down. And so when I
Speaker 4: think about, you know, you take Chicago and I think about, okay,
Speaker 4: we need a new stadium. Yes, all these things. It's
Speaker 4: a place to play, it's a place you know that
Speaker 4: people will get married, people will get buried, or you know,
Speaker 4: have funeral services, Businesses will make decisions on whether they
Speaker 4: relocate to the state of Illinois. I'll just go through
Speaker 4: all of those attributes and just get them all down
Speaker 4: on a piece of paper. And then what I try
Speaker 4: to do is to say, who are the people involved,
Speaker 4: who are the organizations and the agency involved, who can
Speaker 4: bring those things to life? And then I try to
Speaker 4: just create this tapestry and mosaic of this what this
Speaker 4: picture looks like. That's one thing. The other thing, as
Speaker 4: a lawyer, always start in the courtroom, you know, what
Speaker 4: is the using argument look like? And I even will
Speaker 4: visualize from a deal standpoint, where are we going to
Speaker 4: have And I'll ask my team where are we going
Speaker 4: to have the closing dinner, and people say, well, what
Speaker 4: do you mean, We're just starting this process right now,
Speaker 4: Because if you can get it in your mind where
Speaker 4: the closing dinner is going to be, then it's easy,
Speaker 4: always easier instead of working toward a deal, to work
Speaker 4: backwards to the beginning of the deal. And so once
Speaker 4: I get those elements set, then I start building relationship
Speaker 4: because I found once you get in the room to
Speaker 4: really negotiate the terms of the agreement, you have to
Speaker 4: have the terms of engagement set, and you have to
Speaker 4: trust each other. You have to know that you're working
Speaker 4: toward a common calls. Many times when I meet with
Speaker 4: technology companies who are pitching, the first question I'll ask
Speaker 4: is does your product work? And sometimes people will chuck
Speaker 4: on go well, yeah, obviously that's why we're here. It's
Speaker 4: like no, no, no, no, you're showing to me. Then it
Speaker 4: works for one person, but can it work for ten
Speaker 4: million people at the same time, And a lot of
Speaker 4: times people will say, I don't know, I haven't been there.
Speaker 4: It's not in the judgmental fashion. So in the deal,
Speaker 4: the first thing I will ask, do we all agree
Speaker 4: that we do want to get a deal done, that
Speaker 4: we have a common goal, and then what I will do.
Speaker 4: I'll spend weeks in putting myself in that other person
Speaker 4: or person's position, and to say, if I were in
Speaker 4: their shoes, what are the most important things that we
Speaker 4: need to accomplish? Because if I accomplish the other party's goals,
Speaker 4: my goals will come easy.
Speaker 3: So, Kevin, I've never met anyone to your point about
Speaker 3: having the relationships you have, But in many ways, I
Speaker 3: think one of your biggest superpowers is the ability to
Speaker 3: recognize and recruit top tier talent. Yes, A, where do
Speaker 3: you get that from? And B maybe another one of
Speaker 3: your superpowers that you think separates you from the rest.
Speaker 4: You know, I think about that often because what I
Speaker 4: try to do is make sure you keep those superpowers.
Speaker 4: And I love the way you phrase that is keep
Speaker 4: those sharp. And it's no different than an athlete. There
Speaker 4: were things that Alex that you did on the baseball
Speaker 4: field better than any other human being in the world,
Speaker 4: So you got to keep those sharp. Then there are
Speaker 4: other things you say, you know I do pretty well.
Speaker 4: I can't regress in that area. So one is relationship,
Speaker 4: and I think it's a couple of different ways you
Speaker 4: build relationship there are a lot of people that they
Speaker 4: build relationships for the reason of getting something else. And
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that I learned from
Speaker 4: my parents was the most beautiful relationships you can build
Speaker 4: in your life are the ones that you hope and
Speaker 4: pray that as you put people together, that they develop
Speaker 4: a relationship that one day, one year, five year, ten
Speaker 4: years down the road, that you gear back from them
Speaker 4: and you get a note from them and they say,
Speaker 4: you know what it was based upon that dinner that
Speaker 4: we had three years ago. That now these two other
Speaker 4: people are either married or their business partners, or now
Speaker 4: they've gone on to do something that even makes the
Speaker 4: world a better place. So many things, and I'm always
Speaker 4: working with our young individuals. That I mentor is to
Speaker 4: tell them, don't be a person that looks over somebody's shoulder,
Speaker 4: don't be in a conversation and look into the person
Speaker 4: who comes into the room to see what you can do,
Speaker 4: or don't build a relationship saying well, I'm gonna do
Speaker 4: this for this person because I think I can get
Speaker 4: that back. It has to be I'm doing this for
Speaker 4: this person because it's the right thing to do. So
Speaker 4: I think that's one thing I think the other thing,
Speaker 4: and a lot of it emanates from the car accident
Speaker 4: I had as a kid, is just you got to
Speaker 4: have a sense of grit and you got to be
Speaker 4: grimy in business. And I say that in a good way,
Speaker 4: just to figure things out and to be uncomfortably comfortable,
Speaker 4: to be able to climb flat mountains and don't start
Speaker 4: today with boy, that's going to be hard and I'm
Speaker 4: going to take a shortcut, but to do it in
Speaker 4: a manner where you say, you know that really is
Speaker 4: a gift from God. I really know that God is
Speaker 4: in the atmosphere and is present when we enter into
Speaker 4: business deals or relationships that are complex, and you say,
Speaker 4: this is going to take some supernatural powers to figure
Speaker 4: this out. And I think if people can be more
Speaker 4: patient and be more diligent, be more caring, be more loving,
Speaker 4: be more creative, and not go into a deal with
Speaker 4: their mind made up, that's really where the beauty and
Speaker 4: the benefits come out of these complex relationships. And that's
Speaker 4: those are the ones I thrive the most on.
Speaker 1: And so when I think about complex relationships and organizations
Speaker 1: and institutions, Kevin, my mind actually goes back to your
Speaker 1: previous job.
Speaker 2: At the Big Ten, and you know, you've.
Speaker 1: Got stakeholders with a lot of different backgrounds and needs
Speaker 1: and wants and desires. You're also talking about a massively
Speaker 1: fast growing business. Alex mentioned the seven billion dollar media
Speaker 1: deal that you did, which was a signature not just
Speaker 1: for the Big Ten, but really for college sports and
Speaker 1: certainly for college football. What is something that you remember
Speaker 1: about that time at the Big Ten that you feel
Speaker 1: like was either a key decision or a key moment
Speaker 1: that really sort of set you on the right path.
Speaker 4: You know, that's a great question, and I think I
Speaker 4: learned so much because I went from pro sports to
Speaker 4: college sports. I started at the Big Ten in the
Speaker 4: fall of twenty nineteen, and you know, the greatest job
Speaker 4: you can have is when you're a commissioner elect of anything.
Speaker 4: Because I had really three months or four months that
Speaker 4: fall where I was able to shadow Jim Delaney and
Speaker 4: you know, going to meetings and didn't have to speak
Speaker 4: much and didn't have to make any decisions. And Jim
Speaker 4: was coming toward the end of his thirty one year
Speaker 4: brilliant career and I was starting. And then I ended
Speaker 4: up becoming commissioner on January second, after the Rose Bowl
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty and then in March the world shuts
Speaker 4: down and it was amazing. I got a lot of
Speaker 4: gifts from people, you know, books of first ninety days,
Speaker 4: first one hundred days, first year on the job, and
Speaker 4: it's no different than sports. And that's why I think
Speaker 4: sports allows the ability for you to kind of understand
Speaker 4: business and relationships. This was truly one of those days
Speaker 4: that we had a game plan going into it. You know,
Speaker 4: I had my first year mapped out as commissioner the
Speaker 4: Big Ten, and then seventy two days on the job,
Speaker 4: all that had to go out of the window. So
Speaker 4: one of the things I learned was although you can
Speaker 4: be prepared and be diligent and plan that, you have
Speaker 4: to be able to pivot and to be nimble. I
Speaker 4: remember when I went from high school in Tempie, Arizona
Speaker 4: Public School Good Basketball to play at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: I had a coach of Bob Weinhouer, who was a
Speaker 4: great technical coach. I never knew like we had offensive
Speaker 4: plays once you got the ball up to court, but
Speaker 4: I had never run a transition offense. And I remember
Speaker 4: the first time they put it in, I said a
Speaker 4: transition off I was taught, you know, get the ball
Speaker 4: out of the net, or get a rebound and get
Speaker 4: it up to court and once you get over half court,
Speaker 4: set it up. We had plays in transition, and that's
Speaker 4: something that I think in business. One thing I learned
Speaker 4: at the Big Ten is you have to have a
Speaker 4: plan in a transition, and so that was really helpful.
Speaker 4: The other thing I learned is to make sure that
Speaker 4: you take the proper amount of time to find out
Speaker 4: who the decision makers really are. And every university is different,
Speaker 4: and so it really helped because all those things come
Speaker 4: together and you need to make sure that you know
Speaker 4: where everyone is to get that group to coalesce and
Speaker 4: make decisions.
Speaker 1: So, Kevin, when you think in that context about say
Speaker 1: the stadium project, and you think about the uniquely Chicago
Speaker 1: nature of it all you've talked about potentially a partnership
Speaker 1: with the White Sox, what do those conversations look like.
Speaker 1: How do you think about essentially the Chicago sports ecosystem,
Speaker 1: because it's different, you know, with multiple teams, obviously multiple
Speaker 1: baseball teams. You know, you've got professional sports across the
Speaker 1: gamut in a critical city in the center of the country.
Speaker 1: How do they intertwine as you think about the next
Speaker 1: few years.
Speaker 4: I love that question. At Chicago is a very special place,
Speaker 4: especial to me, special to my family, and I think
Speaker 4: it's the most unique and robust sports town in all
Speaker 4: of the world. Like you said, you got two baseball teams,
Speaker 4: you have a basketball team, you got hockey, you got football,
Speaker 4: you have women's soccer, you have the MLS, you have colleges.
Speaker 4: This is a major metropolitan area with colleges and universities here,
Speaker 4: with a great business community, with a fantastic downtown. So
Speaker 4: it's an interesting area. So one of the things that
Speaker 4: I like about Chicago is that we're at a inflection
Speaker 4: point where we really if we come together, which I'm
Speaker 4: confident we will. As we come together, we have a
Speaker 4: chance to make a major and massive impact on athletics
Speaker 4: all the way from the youth sports standpoint, all the
Speaker 4: way from high school to college to pro athletics, not
Speaker 4: only within Chicago, around the world. The interesting thing that
Speaker 4: I love about Chicago, because it's a complex environment, is
Speaker 4: you know, there was a study done and it came out.
Speaker 4: I live downtown. I live in a neighborhood called Streeterville,
Speaker 4: nine miles south of where I live, in a neighborhood
Speaker 4: that's called Inglewood, just nine miles. There's a thirty year
Speaker 4: age disparity, thirty years average age disparity. And so I'm
Speaker 4: constantly always thinking about what can we do in this
Speaker 4: context and umbrella of sports to be able to change
Speaker 4: the world. What can we do to shorten to bring
Speaker 4: together that age disparity. What can we do in the
Speaker 4: building of a stadium to put people to work, to
Speaker 4: increase the tax base. There are only eight cranes right
Speaker 4: now in Chicago. That's up. There's only two cranes up
Speaker 4: in the air north of the river in downtown Chicago.
Speaker 4: You compare that to a place like Nashville they have
Speaker 4: twenty one. Las Vegas is twenty four. You look at
Speaker 4: Toronto has two hundred and eleven. And in my estimation,
Speaker 4: cranes means progress. But the beautiful thing that I love this,
Speaker 4: I love your show is the fact you all deal
Speaker 4: with that cross section of sports, but a business of life,
Speaker 4: of health, of all those different things. So I'm trying
Speaker 4: to make sure that we work together these different sports
Speaker 4: teams of what can we do to make Chicago just
Speaker 4: a strong and fortified city under the auspices of sport.
Speaker 4: But a lot of the things that need to be
Speaker 4: changed improved, not only in Chicago, but in our surrounding
Speaker 4: communities in the state of Illinois. That we can do
Speaker 4: it through sport. How can we come together to be
Speaker 4: able to make Chicago with the epicenter of sport, but
Speaker 4: not only in sport the goodness associated with sport.
Speaker 3: Kevin, you mentioned a cranes. I mean, I'm here in
Speaker 3: Coconut Grove at our headquarters and I'm seeing eight cranes
Speaker 3: from my office.
Speaker 2: I mean starn A boom down I am.
Speaker 3: And so your challenges, which I'm sure you had similar
Speaker 3: challenges in Minnesota, I am confident that you will get
Speaker 3: that done. If anyone can, I know you can.
Speaker 1: And so just to follow on to that, in order
Speaker 1: to get this stadium done, does it necessitate essentially working
Speaker 1: together with some of the other franchises. Is that the
Speaker 1: cleanest or clearest path forward, do you think, Kevin?
Speaker 4: I think in all these big deals is that everyone
Speaker 4: needs to go back to their respective constituents and feel
Speaker 4: like they had a positive experience there. There can't be
Speaker 4: a winner and loser in a deal, So not only
Speaker 4: from a political standpoint, and that's why I said, I
Speaker 4: spend time putting myself in the shoes of politicians the
Speaker 4: best that I can do. I've never set in that seat,
Speaker 4: but into CEO business leaders to other owners of pro
Speaker 4: sports franchises, because that's the way you really can reach
Speaker 4: a resolution there. You know, you may not always get
Speaker 4: what you want, but if you walk away and say
Speaker 4: people were fair and that my company that I represent
Speaker 4: is better by us coming together. And I'm constantly and
Speaker 4: Alex and I have talked about this, you know, this
Speaker 4: can't be that anytime I see people walk out of
Speaker 4: a negotiating room and they say, yeah, we won and
Speaker 4: we got the deal, and that doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4: And I think that's one of the reasons why you've seen,
Speaker 4: you know, businesses have gotten kind of crossways, is that
Speaker 4: we have to walk out and try to figure out,
Speaker 4: you know, how do we work out where you walk
Speaker 4: away and say, may, yeah, maybe I didn't get everything
Speaker 4: I wanted to, But it wasn't even about me getting
Speaker 4: when I wanted. It was you know, how did we
Speaker 4: leave the situation better than it was, you know when
Speaker 4: we got there. And that's been my focus that was
Speaker 4: my focus at the Vikings, that was my focus at
Speaker 4: the Big Ten, and that was my focus since I've
Speaker 4: been here. That any time and I walk out of
Speaker 4: the door for the last reason and the last day,
Speaker 4: is that I hopefully I look back on it and
Speaker 4: those around to say he added value, He made us better,
Speaker 4: and if anything, he fortified the platform for us to
Speaker 4: build upon even more. And so I just think it's
Speaker 4: important for us to have a collaborative relationship, to work
Speaker 4: together to see how we can create a win win
Speaker 4: win opportunity.
Speaker 1: I realized there was one thing I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about from a deal perspective, Kevin, I shit, if
Speaker 1: you don't mind, which is I feel like it would
Speaker 1: be negligent if we didn't ask you about one of
Speaker 1: the biggest things that's happened in your league recently, which
Speaker 1: is private equity coming in as a piece of This
Speaker 1: may not be something that affects your franchise immediately, but
Speaker 1: it is going to it already is affecting the nature
Speaker 1: of the league and conversations around it. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: what does it mean and what does institutional money coming
Speaker 1: into sports mean at the pro level and even at
Speaker 1: the college level, because we're starting to see that.
Speaker 4: I think the private equity vote that our owners took,
Speaker 4: I think it's positive. It's positive for the NFL. I
Speaker 4: think anytime you get in and give an opportunity, provide
Speaker 4: an industry and opportunity to take on investors, it's positive.
Speaker 4: I think it'll help in a lot of different things.
Speaker 4: I know for me, I actually have started it already.
Speaker 4: I promised myself before I make any recommendations, I need
Speaker 4: to become an expert in this space to understand it.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to take the next between now and
Speaker 4: the end of the year to really study this industry
Speaker 4: and how the interplay between I understand private equity, I
Speaker 4: understand the NFL, but the interplay between of it because
Speaker 4: so many times in these deals, I want to make
Speaker 4: sure that I truly spend time and try to understand
Speaker 4: kind of the obvious is obvious, but it's always the
Speaker 4: unintended consequences. You know, what is it really? You know, mean,
Speaker 4: what's the you know what the whole period is, But
Speaker 4: what happens if down the road a private equity company
Speaker 4: wants to sell, who can buy it? How does that
Speaker 4: impact evaluation? You know how much access do they have
Speaker 4: to your books and records? And so I'm going to
Speaker 4: be really diligent. I'm talking to people in the private
Speaker 4: equity space, not only even the companies who've been approved
Speaker 4: by the NFL, but just generally speaking, I'm looking at
Speaker 4: other sports leagues. I'm looking at other leagues how it's
Speaker 4: impacted them, and I just want to make sure you
Speaker 4: know that I understand it from that area. But I
Speaker 4: think it's good for the business. I think is good
Speaker 4: for the economy. Again, it reiterates to show that how
Speaker 4: much people really love, you know, sports and sports ownership.
Speaker 1: All right, we're going to do We like to end
Speaker 1: the episode with a rapid fire around Kevin, So brace yourself,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll start, and then we'll kick it over
Speaker 1: to Alex. What's the best deal you've ever made?
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a good one. The best deal that I
Speaker 4: ever made was probably was probably marrying my wife, Greta.
Speaker 3: I love that. Who's your dream deal maker partner?
Speaker 4: My dream deal maker partner would be Ken schanal Oh,
Speaker 4: former CEO of American Express. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Why is that?
Speaker 4: Why? Because you know I keep a picture of him
Speaker 4: right over my shoulder here in my office. Ken Shanal
Speaker 4: and Ken Fraser. You know one that they were African
Speaker 4: American CEO is a massive companies American Express for Ken
Speaker 4: Shanaul and MRK for Ken Frasier. But the reason why
Speaker 4: I think Ken Shanad I am attracted to him so much.
Speaker 4: He's been a mentor of mind and really I don't
Speaker 4: make any major decision while I'm talking with him is
Speaker 4: because he's done it in a manner that's just true elegance.
Speaker 4: And he can deliver bad news to people, but do
Speaker 4: it in a manner where you hug him and walk
Speaker 4: out of the room. And so that's just a certain art.
Speaker 4: And because of his position American Express and just understand
Speaker 4: the kind of economic infrastructure of this country, he knows
Speaker 4: how really deals work. But you know, he just he's
Speaker 4: just one of those guys that has always done it
Speaker 4: in the manner and early on I learned from him
Speaker 4: to be really a thermostat, not a thermometer. He controls
Speaker 4: the temperature of the room.
Speaker 2: All right, what's the most nervous You've ever been?
Speaker 4: The most nervous I've ever been, I would probably say
Speaker 4: after my car accident when I was hit by that car,
Speaker 4: I was in traction for a couple months, and then
Speaker 4: a body cast for multiple months, and because I didn't
Speaker 4: know if I because I wanted to test it and
Speaker 4: if I could walk again, and I didn't know if
Speaker 4: I'd ever be able to walk again. And I knew
Speaker 4: if I wasn't able to walk again after they took
Speaker 4: the body cast off, that I would need time to
Speaker 4: get my mind right, because your body follows your mind.
Speaker 4: But that was the first time that I really understood
Speaker 4: when people say a relationship with God and angels and faith.
Speaker 4: But that was the most nervous I've been in my life.
Speaker 4: Since they cut the cast off of me, I haven't
Speaker 4: been nervous.
Speaker 2: How old were you when that happened?
Speaker 4: Ten and a half? Wow, totally smokes.
Speaker 3: All Right, what's your hype song before you go into
Speaker 3: a big meeting or negotiate?
Speaker 4: That's that's a great question, Alex. I would say it
Speaker 4: depends on the nature of the meeting. I mean, my
Speaker 4: music love is broad. I mean I listened to Mozart,
Speaker 4: to Vivaldi, to Walter Hawkins, gospel to a little dirt
Speaker 4: and rap. You know, you can go down the list,
Speaker 4: So it kind of depends. But I think music you know,
Speaker 4: we play music constantly in our office. I grew up around,
Speaker 4: you know music. I love music and it has so
Speaker 4: many memories.
Speaker 1: If you had to distill down your advice, or if
Speaker 1: you had to pick the one sort of piece that
Speaker 1: you would give someone who wants to be in your
Speaker 1: seat someday, any of the seeds that you've had, what
Speaker 1: would that piece of advice be.
Speaker 4: I think the piece of advice I would give them
Speaker 4: would be to just to slow down and enjoy people.
Speaker 4: And you know, because there's so many times we rushed
Speaker 4: back past our marriages, past our kids, We rush past
Speaker 4: you know, business deals. But sometime slowing down a little bit,
Speaker 4: you know, is good. I mean because what it does,
Speaker 4: there's all kind of attributes that come along with taking
Speaker 4: your time because you can enjoy those things instead of
Speaker 4: just kind of rushing, you know, rushing by. So I
Speaker 4: think the advice I would give people is slow down.
Speaker 4: A bus ride sometime is better than a private jet
Speaker 4: because it takes time and you got to learn how
Speaker 4: to spend time with each other.
Speaker 1: Well, Kevin, thank you so much. This has been a
Speaker 1: real pleasure for us. And look for thank you.
Speaker 3: See kay, We'll be in touch.
Speaker 1: The deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
Speaker 1: This episode was made by Stacy wung Anamasaracus, Lizzie Phillip,
Speaker 1: and Victor Eveaz. Our theme music was made by Blake Maples.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Kelly Laferrier, Ashley Honig, and Brendan Newnham.
Speaker 1: Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts, additional support
Speaker 1: from Rachel Scaramzino and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the deal. If you have a minute, please subscribe, rate,
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Speaker 2: I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.