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The ROAR Podcast: George Barrios Return · The ROAR Podcast

• Brice Clinton: In July of 2020, George Berrios had a thick employment agreement sitting in front of him. He just left WWE after more than a decade, the back half of it as co-CEO. Private Equity bought Univision and they wanted him to run it. Someone close to them read the room better than he did. She told him when he'd be excited about something, you can hear it. In listening to him talk about this, he didn't sound excited. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. The next morning, he called and turned it down. Then he called Michelle Wilson, his co-CEO at WWE, and told her he wanted to build something with her instead. She told him of the best call she's gotten in a long time. And this episode is what came after that phone call. Taking Valero public through SPAC in 2021, in the middle of the frothless IPO market in decades, going back to WWE to architect the merger with UFC that created TKO. And this past April, Closing on Global Sports Group with CBC, a holding company built around minority stakes in La Liga, League One, the WTA, FIVA, and Rugby. Leagues and Federations, no teams by design. George Berrius is back for round two, and this one goes where the first one didn't. Why public markets don't demand different skills? Just brighter light. The three questions every management team should be able to answer to a six-year-old. I'm Bryce Clinton. And this is the Roar Podcast. Adam Grossman: Welcome to the Roar Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Grossman. With me today again is George Berryhost. George, welcome back to the podcast. George Barrios: Adam, thanks for having me back. Appreciate Adam Grossman: Well, I think we had to have you back. We got such good feedback on your first episode. It's one of the ones we get the most feedback on. So we pinpointed a few areas from the first podcast that we're gonna jump into. So for those of you who haven't listened to the first one, definitely go back, listen to the first one. George had a book come out, which we're happy to plug again. I don't know if you we can start from there and then we'll we'll jump into the rest of the conversation. George Barrios: Awesome. Yeah, my publisher would kill me if you gave me an opening not to plug Adam Grossman: Yeah, yeah. George Barrios: the book and talk about it. But yeah, I came out in in June, Sometimes Wrong, but never in doubt. It's a business memoir, covers my journey and including the transformation at of WWE and and closing the biggest deal in sports history. So yeah, it was a labor of love to write and available where all books are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. you can read the Prologue on George Barrios dot com if you want to get a flavor for the book. Adam Grossman: Yeah, George had a several events which I've been tracking on social media and it looks like a good time. So hopefully if you haven't seen George at one of the events, you'll see George soon 'cause and I'll be on the George Barrios: That'd be great. Adam Grossman: top of the book too. So in the first podcast and in your book, you mentioned obviously talking about your career. And we spent a lot of time on the WWE. We spent less time about your career post WWE, and that's where we want to start today's conversation. In particular, you had a I don't wanna say interregnum, but you had a time period after you left WWE before you came back to WWE where your life's launched ISOs and ISO's capital. So probably a good place to start there is, how did you go from, really focused on how you went from being an operator to more of an investor working with operators? George Barrios: Yeah, you know, it was it was an interesting journey, Adam. you know, and I I tell you know, part of of how we got there, but you know, Michelle and I, after running WWE as co-CEOs for the last half of our tenure there, so quite a long time, and feeling great about we what we'd accomplished, felt great about our working relationship, like we had really figured out how to make that type of you know, co-leadership role work. But The truth is at that point in time, we both wanted to do our own thing. You know, we wanted to kind of drop the code and go run something. And I actually accepted a role at the at after I left WWE there in those first few months while COVID's happening. I I was going to join Univision and run that company. and and in any event, but as doing that, I'm talking to Michelle throughout that period, you know, those first few months, and we're bouncing ideas, she's looking at things she came close to taking something. But in any event, the more we talked during that time, the more that we were both getting excited about a doing continuing to do something together. So you think you know what you want. And we I thought that we both thought we were like, hey, yeah, it's been great, but we want to go solo. but the more we tell we said, you know what, we we have so much fun doing stuff together. We we think we kind of, you know, there's this steel sharpened steel element to the to the professional relationship. and then there's also this element of like, hey, we've been operators, we know we're good at it. There there was this element of like, how about if we take that though and and do it kind of from a principal perspective, meaning, you know, it be invested in, have ownership in directly in in in a business or or more. So in any event, you know, I'm not sure exactly what how that was going to go, but we had That conversation. And I I still remember, you know, it's July 2020. I've got an you know, big thick employment agreement with around the Univision opportunity. And Carol says to me, She's like, you know, she calls me Al's my middle name. So that's why the book is front written by George Al Dobarios. She calls Al. She goes, Al, she goes, When you're excited about something, like, you know, you're just on fire. And Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: I was when you're talking about this Univision thing, you sound it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. Anyway, so I'm I'm giving you a lot of a lot of the preamble, but it the short story was I wasn't sure. But in any event, at that point in time, I I I pick up the phone the next morning. So we're it's I think it's like July 5th or 6th, because we'd had some friends over for and that what had kind of brought up the conversation. I call Michelle and I'm like, hey, I'm I'm telling the the PE firm that had in Bought Univision. I said, I'm calling them tomorrow and telling them I'm not doing it. And she I go, I want to do something with you. And she I remembers her exact words. She goes, This is the best call I've gotten in a long, long time. so in any way, at that point we decided not sure exactly what we're gonna do, but we're gonna invest, advise in sports and entertainment. So we go on the journey, and now looking back, like I always say, you know, life when you look backwards. This finely crafted novel, a quote by Joe Walsh. You know, looking backwards, everything looks it's perfect. It's neat and it's perfect. When you're going through it, you're like making decisions, not sure if that's gonna work. You kind of pivot. but we've basically done three things. First, 2021, we take Bolero Public, so it's the largest bowling center operator in the world. We join the board, kind of we have our playbook. We work with management on that. While we're on the board, the stocks up 70%. So we do that for the first couple of years. It would great. Then you know, feel kind of our work is done there. So you know, divest, jump off the board. At that point, while we're thinking about, well, what's the next thing? We've got a couple of things in the in the hopper, get a call from from Vince, and he calls me and You know, in fact, if you wanted to get a sense of that call, that's the prologue for the book, which you can get on georgebarris.com, what that conversation was. But basically it ends with him saying, Hey, look, there's I want to do one more big thing. I'm not sure what it is. Can you come back and help? I need the A team. You know, this is gonna be the the kind of the big next big thing. I'm not sure exactly, you know, is it acquire something? Is it be acquired? Not sure. So you know, then he asked me, he goes, Do you think Michelle would come back to it? I Yeah, I think so. He goes, Well, can you call her? And I was like, Yeah, sure. so I call Michelle. Of course, she goes, Yeah, let's do it. So we go back, kind of lead that process that ends up you know, after looking at a lot of different opportunities, ends up being with the merger with UFC to form TKO, new public company that's majority owned by Endeavor and other public companies. So kind of a you know, interesting structure, but regardless. So we spent a year and a half doing that, and that was a home run. So felt, you know, the stocks doubled since then. So, you know, another kind of you know two for two out of the gate. And then the third and got there in a secutest way. And I won't bore you with the journey, but the end point is we end up partnering with CBC, large European private equity firm, or large global private equity firm, but based out of Europe to create Global Sport Group, which in essence we spend Almost two years dur through that process. We just closed the formation of the company in April, so a few months ago. And so Global Sport Group now houses CBC's sports investments, La Liga, Ligoon, the WTA, FIVB, Six Nations Rugby, Prem Rugby, URC Rugby. So it's got seven minority interests in some of the premium sports properties in the world. It now sits in a holding company. So outside the private equity fund structure, CBC is the majority holder, majority equity holder, but there are other equity players, and then we also recapitalize the entire business. So worked on that for two years, and now our investors in that holding company as well as board members. And And you know, just as opportunities, you know, you you don't know when they come, we get a great opportunity as we're working on closing Global Sport Group and creating that on the first acquisition that Global Sport Group does. So it we acquire Equine Network, which is the largest Equine sports business in the United States. and then Michelle and I are investors there and co-chairs of that board. So kind of a whirlwind tour, but Take Bolero Public, join the board, great outcome. Then rejoin WWE board, architect the the merger with UFC, great outcome. And now you know, we're board members and and investors in in the largest sports investment platform in the world. So you know, really excited about that and super active. I mean, we've got a couple of deals we're looking at right now, in fact. so yeah, having a lot of fun too. Adam Grossman: Yeah, I mean as usual a lot of follow-ups from there, but let's start with Bolero. You know, I think George Barrios: Yeah. Adam Grossman: right when that was happening, obviously SPACs were of an interesting and popular investment vehicle. So one, how did you decide to launch the spec? How did you decide that Bolero would be the target? And what was the process to get Bolero through the spec? George Barrios: Yeah, and you know, it bec spAC became kind of a bad word in 2021, 2020 in 2021, because in hindsight, you know, you could always tell again, in hindsight, everything's crystal clear. When you're going through it, not so much. Adam Grossman: Yeah. All right. George Barrios: but there was an IPO bubble happening, right? Wh if you look at historically the number of not just spAC IPOs, just IPOs generally, the number of IPOs that happen every year. Relatively steady for a long period of time. The number of SPACs that happen every year, so a subset of the overall IPO market, relatively steady. 2020, 2021, there's just a ton of companies going public. And in hindsight, companies that maybe shouldn't have gone public. And so what you've seen of that cohort, if you will, and again, not just SPACs, but traditional IPOs haven't done well and on average. Bolero is one of the real success stories. Like I said, Two years in, stocks up about 70%. It's pulled back since then, after we left the board. but we're still big believers in in the company. But so to your question, we're looking at what's happening. You can kind of feel that it's a little frothy because you're seeing things go in public that you're like, you know, Michelle and I are, you know, pretty seasoned public company executives. So we like to think we know what a public company looks like. and you're like, this. A lot of these things don't look like they belong in the public markets. Again, based on what you're seeing. So we decide we're only taking a business public first that we understand deeply. So we got a lot of, you know, it sounds funny now, but it was real. You know, the the flying taxi companies and you know, the thing literally we have probably got 10 of those inbounds. And so we're saying, look, it these are things that we don't really understand, can't really add a lot of value in. However, Bolero is one of those. And when you look at the business, you said, well, look, it's an experiential business. We certainly Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: understand that. They are owners of the PBA, the Professional Bowlers Association. We definitely understand that business really well. And then we look at it, and when you, you know, we do what we do, which is do a deep dive in the business, look at kind of the core economic drivers, and we say, boy, one of the largest participatory sports in the US have a really good management team that is. had consistent growth, same store sales growth, you know, year over year. It's a big acquisition opportunity. They're fundamentally doing almost nothing internationally. So we think we can help there. There's an opportunity on the digital side and the data side as they have more and more customers who are in the in the in the facilities, but what can you do asynchronously, right? you know, like asynchronous bowling leagues, if you will, something where you have people can compete and not have Be necessarily IRL competing directly against it. So anyway, we look at it, we said, boy, really, really like it and move forward. And we'll say in that whole decision making, because it was so frothy, there was a lot of people like us that were out there saying, Hey, you know, we can help a business go public and so on. So part of us being willing to get into that. We we took a hard look. I think there were probably three, two hundred and fifty, three hundred SPAC sponsors, which tells you how frothy it was. Traditionally, the number of SPACs a year is like 20 to 40, but you had a bunch of people doing what we were doing. And so we looked at it and said, Hey, do we really want to go into this kind of you know competitive bloodbath? But when we looked at it, we said, Well, what do we think would make a good sponsor to take someone public? Deep understanding of the business. Deep understanding of the public markets, not necessarily as an investor, but someone who's operated in it, right? Because the value can bring is to the people who are gonna now be operating in the public markets, helping them get their sea legs as quick as possible. Cause a different, it's a different beast. So in any event, we looked at it, we said, look, we may not be the best fact sponsors at the list out of these 300, but we're up at the top in our, you know, in Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: our opinion. Well, we think we're in the top 10. so then then the question became, do we think there's 10 good businesses out there or 20. And we said, Yeah. Do we think there's 300? Like one for every SPAC vehicle? No, probably not. There's just not that many companies kind of that deserve to be in the public domain. So anyway, that was the whole process. ended up, you know, our our thesis ended up being right. Had a lot of fun with the team, had a lot of fun through the process. in and of itself, the the closing of that deal, like every deal dies a thousand deaths and Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: You know, there there there were some a sharp elbows, right? Because you t you're talking about, you know, a lot of people you know, and trying to get the deal done, everybody trying to get what's best for them in the deal, including us. And and you know, we tell some of that story in the book too, some of the sharp elbows that were thrown. But at the end of the day, it was it was just a lot, it was a lot of fun and and and we enjoyed the process. Adam Grossman: Yeah, you mentioned and I think it's good for our audience, you mentioned a lot about difference between public and private and being seasoned operators of public companies. You talk more about some of those lessons, particularly as you're A, what you guys have learned and your experience would be as you're teaching other people to come through the same process. George Barrios: Yeah, so I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll before I answer that, I'll tell you something. Someone told me, a guy who I worked for long time ago, and it was a lesson that stuck with me. And I was running a business, I was a general manager, I was a praxer, so multi-billion dollar business. The business I'm the red general manager of is two to three hundred million dollars, roughly that size. Brand new. I'm I'm probably thirty, thirty-one. First time I'd run a business, right? I'd had kind of jobs reporting to the guy running the business first time running. So it was, you know, a great learning experience, scary as shit. But anyway, at one point we're doing this conversation, and you know, he's the CEO of the company, and we're talking about, you know, what I'm going to do to do this, that, and that implement some and and in that conversation, he told me something that was incredibly powerful. It was a great lesson. He said, George, the easiest thing to do in business, Is to run a business in for the short run. Because all you got to do is cut costs, maybe raise prices real quick, and you can turn a profit. Now, if you may end up pissing off your customers, degrading the product, and then over the long term, you've screwed the business. But the easiest thing to do is to run a business for a short run. The second easiest thing to do is to run a business for the long term. Because then you always sit around just saying, well, What I deliver tomorrow doesn't happen. I've got some vision for 10 years from now, and that's what I'm working towards. Great. So he goes, the hard thing to do, and this is what he was telling me, and it was a tough tough love, because he said to me, he goes, I think you can do this, but I'm not sure. And if you can't do it, I'll find somebody who can. But the tough thing to do is to do both of those. To deliver while you're growing, while you're investing for the future to grow. He goes, that's really hard. And so I remember that you learn you hear that, you're like kind of I think I understand. Then life you learn, you go, yeah, that is hard. Those other two are really easy. Now back to your question about public-private. The thing about the public markets is everybody says they're investing for the long term, but when you look at what actually people do, the average holding is about four to six months. When you look at the air, you know, that's the reality. So Every investor will tell you they're long term they're investing for the long term. But when you actually look at what investors do, that isn't what they do. So the public markets become this cauldron of focus on your short-term results. But they also want to hear that you have a vision for the long term because by the way, everybody knows that the value of a company, 70 or 80% of it, is on the perpetuity of it. It's not on the cash flows of the five to 10 years, right? Nvidia. $4 trillion valuation, you know, 20% of valuation is what the expected cash flow is over the next five. The rest of it is the ability to continue growing perpetuity. So in any event, they want the long term, but it's short short term. So back to the your question, that's one of the things in the public markets that you really have to learn is this kind of you know incessant drumbeat of delivering over the short term. But while still being able to invest for the the long term. And you don't get a respite because you gotta, you know, do it every quarter. You know, Vince used to get that question a lot of you know, why would he get a successful business? He controlled it, why be in the public markets? Why put yourself through that? And I remember him early on, I remember me asking him, I'm like, you know, this is hard. And you know, the stuff we're gonna do, you could and this we could actually buy back the stock relatively cheap, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he and he one of the things that he he he equated it, and I remember him telling me, you know, he he didn't work out or exercise as he corrected me once. He trained. That's what he did. He trained. And there was a difference, and there is a difference. And he said, the thing about being a public company is it forces me, he's putting himself in it, to, to, to manage the company in that same way. There is, there are no, you can't take a break. Because every three months you're getting in front of people and telling them, this is how we did, this is how we're gonna do, and this is what we're building to the future. So what you know, that is the that what you have to be prepared to do. And the private markets, you know, again, depends on the ownership structure when you're private. You could argue sometimes that private equity kind of instills that same kind of discipline. It's debatable, but you could argue that. but other other structures don't. And it it it's it's kind of eye-opening when you get into the into the public market. Like it's like one of those things. Everybody loves the idea of being public if they're private, because it's like, hey, it's almost like a milestone that you've reached, but you know, after you're in it, it's it's painful. It's like I I used to tell people, every everybody wants my job because they want Adam Grossman: Sure. George Barrios: what comes with it. The compensation, the and the, you know, the well, you get to make decisions. I'm like, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of good stuff. But there's a lot of stuff. The stuff you don't see is what you really got to be willing to do. And I think that's the same thing with being public. There's a lot of good stuff, but there's, you know, it's hard. So anyway, that that was the that's the lesson we just. And when we were looking for companies to take public, that was one of the things. And you're making a judgment call of is will this management team be able to execute in the public markets? Adam Grossman: Yeah, and that I wanna I do want to transition back into the you know you're talking about going public, obviously in the private side and what you're doing with the global sports group. but when you say when you're looking for the management team, you know, obviously we've talked about some of the features, but what do you look for then in a management team or what should a management team be really prepared to do? I you know, obviously there's this combination of long term long term and short term thinking and strategic decision making, but you know, what What is like a or what do you consider the effective traits of a management team in the that's operating a public George Barrios: Yeah, there's three things I'd say that somebody who really who now again, none of us are perfect, so you're never gonna get a perfect answer to any of this. Adam Grossman: Of course. George Barrios: But the three questions that you that I like to see that someone can answer very clearly, and I mean when I say clearly, that you could explain, you know, I I think it's an apocryphal quote, but I use it all the time, that Einstein said, you know, if you could if you if you understand something, you can explain it to a six year old. Right. If you really understand so if you can't, you really don't understand it. So the three things that somebody should be able to explain to a six-year-old and that you look for is do you have a clear view of where you're going? Can you very clearly say this is what the business I'm building is going to look like in five years, 10 years or so? And this is what I'm building for, the North Star. I've got a very clear view of what I'm building. That's one. The second one. They can tell you very clearly what they're doing over the next 12 months that gets them to that. And as well as that's the long term, as well as what it'll deliver in the short term, and how it's better than it was last year, because that's the main right, that's what you're shooting for is you want to keep growing better. So again, very simply, very clearly to a six-year-old. And this is what we're doing over the next 12 months that's gonna help us get to that to that long term. And here's what we're gonna deliver. And then the third one is the same thing. on the people. Here's the here's what I will need, right? In terms of team to to be able to execute at the level I'll need to execute to for my North Star. And here's where I am today. And here's the capabilities that we're building up. And here's capabilities I'm going to add. Here's places that I think I could get better where I need to help people get better, whatever. But those three things where am I going in the long term? Where am I going in the short term? And how and who are the people that are going to get me there. You want somebody who can explain all those three things clearly and how they relate to each other. Somebody who could do that is going to do well in the private markets and the public markets. Public Adam Grossman: Yeah. I'd like to hear Einstein. George Barrios: markets expose things. That's what happens. That's what happens. It's not that you need different skills. The problem is it exposes the the lack of the skills because the the the glare is so bright. Adam Grossman: Yeah, well I was gonna say I hope I'd like to hear Einstein explain general relativity to a six year old, but that being said George Barrios: Hey, I gotta tell you, I there's not a lot of video. Richard Feynman, right? Physics professor. Adam Grossman: Yeah. Yeah. George Barrios: Videos of him are out there. Watch him explain quantum. Now look, do you really understand it? No, but do you all of a sudden kind of get the concept? You do, because he really understands. So if you want to have some fun. I'd say throw on a Richard a Richard Feynman video and watch it. It's like it's enlightening. He is one of the most charismatic guys and he's talking literally about the most complex subjects that exist. So I think you Adam Grossman: Yeah, quant George Barrios: can Adam Grossman: yeah, quantum mechanics and quantum physics are very complex. Maybe George Barrios: That's right. Yeah, exactly. Adam Grossman: maybe that a six year old, but still it's very interesting. I I'm George Barrios: Yeah. Adam Grossman: I agree with you. I would definitely like to a good way to put something on to learn something very complicated. And that was his expertise. And he developed Feynman, not that we need to talk about this, but Feynman diagrams and ex you know, explain people still to this day talk about the legend of yeah. George Barrios: Ex exactly. That's right. Yep. Adam Grossman: so definitely would second that as somebody who's a very interested in physics, but definitely not a physicist. So I will second George Barrios: Right. Adam Grossman: that. So now no silky segue from that to global sports group or maybe there is. If anybody could do it, you could do it. But look talk a little bit more about the global sports group, how you got involved. you've talked about it at a high level, but really want to drill into there because clearly and then George Barrios: Yeah, so Adam Grossman: in the context I was going to say it's just investment in sports has obviously taken on a life of its own. There's obviously a lot of stuff in the news, but I want to somebody who's done it and made that transition What does it look like and why are you, so interested in global sports group? George Barrios: Yep. so I'll I'll I'll take the your first question first. So like it's like everything in hindsight. it makes perfect sense. You're an investor, board member, Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: and in a large sports investment platform. It's what you wanted to start out to do, of course. It it actually got there again, circuitous. I I get a call from one of the guys who who I'd known at CBC, and he's actually calling me for a a board seat on one of their investments. you know in that conversation I go well it's great you know very humbled you'd think of me but I don't really go on boards if you know if I'm not invested in you know because boards are tough work so I will you know time is your most important asset so I you know I I don't like to sit on boards where I'm not kind of deeply Adam Grossman: I kinda George Barrios: invested. so probably not a fit. All right so that c caused me late you know during that conversation though we had caught up You know, this whole discussion we just had on Bolero. that's interesting. He asked me, So what are you guys doing? Well, we're looking at finding opportunities to invest in sports, talking to a bunch of different people. why are you guys so interested in sports? I given I'll go back to that because you asked that as your second question. So I'll touch it. I I tell him, you know, I think that you know that starts percolating. You know, one thing leads to another. He calls back, he's like, hey, how about this? We've been thinking a lot about the best. Structure because of the long-term nature of sports investment and the horizon, thinking about the best structure and whether a a fund structure is the best for that, or whether you know this concept of a holding company might be might be better. What do you guys think? What do you think about that? You know, Michelle and I joins me. We start bouncing ideas along with him and his colleagues. All of a sudden we fall. And during that process, we actually are make two different bids. On two two potential opportunities. can't mention them here, but we didn't win either one, but we're working with them on that, right? So we're talking about this bigger holding company structure, and along the way, we're also finding ways where we would co-invest with them and and work with them on these. So we're getting to know them and enjoying that process. Finding out that we're like-minded, right? Because it's one thing to be on a few calls, but when you're starting actually to work on stuff together. So anyway, that becomes a almost a two-year process. Didn't plan it that way. but through all that, we said, boy, this, you know, this gives us a great platform to do what we want to do, what we started out to do, which is invest and help sports businesses grow. so Yeah, it it was it it just was a a a perfect fit. But again, didn't start out saying this is what we want to do. Let's find somebody kind of happened organically. And then, you know, the discussion with with with with the CBC team around how we viewed sports and why we were so excited about it. And now to your question, why are you doing this? Right, because the answers are the same. It's you know, we felt for a long time and continue to believe that. has the media and entertainment sector can, you know, and this has now been happening for 10 years or so, continued to, you know, evolve. You know, some people would say be disrupted, evolved. There were going to be new winners and losers, like they're always all right. You have a value chain, it existed for a long time, and the different players in the value chain, you know, you had the sports properties, you have the networks, you have the distributors, each have their economic kind of fit, you know, Solidified. Everybody knows who gets what. You negotiate a little bit, you do a little bit better. But you know, starting 10, 12 years ago, that all started to unwind. That's what created the opportunity for WWE, and that allowed us to do what we did there. So it's something we've been watching for a long time. And our thesis has always been that in this, as the value chain gets re-u-architected, sports was going to do disproportionately better than other types of content. And better than the intermediaries, that they would have opportunities that the value would accrue there. And why is that? For a lot of the reasons that I know you know sports deeply. It's this multi-generational, tribal, global, community-based engagement, right? That that this is something that people are so passionate about. a most not all sports, but most sports are relatively easy to understand. So they tr they cross geographic boundaries. the ability now with multiple ways to reach someone on all the different size screens and types of screens, the the the audience is just growing. And you know, we were talking AI, obviously everybody talks about it today. We were talking about that 10 years ago. It's just the continued drive of the amount of content being created. and first UGC content, and then it was going, then it was AI-driven content. We we're seeing that even in you know 2020, 2020, even before generative AI, which now has un unleashed it. But in any event, in all of that, the thesis was ultimately what's not gonna change is human craving for human contact. and so the experiential element, the ability to convene global audiences who are passionate about something. across time zones that you know sports was just uniquely positioned to do all that. so that there was just too many things, you know, big trends outside of sports that sports was going to benefit from. And so in any event, yeah. So and we continue to believe that we think we're in early days. Yeah, I tell people all the time there's still three, four billion people around the world that don't have access to high speed internet. So the ability to to to engage in in in video. That's changing rapidly. You know, every year there's another 250 to 400 million people who do get that access. So you're growing the pie is growing massively. And again, sports' position within now what's an almost will be an unlimited amount of video content is so unique. You know, the human provenance of sports. Isn't debatable. Like today, when you're watching video throughout the internet, you're saying, Well, is it AI generated? Is it not? People care about that, right? So whether you're for AI or not, you also there's an element of saying, Hey, there's value I get from seeing something that's human created and curated. In sports, there's nowhere, nobody watches a game and goes, Hey, is that real or not? No, you know, those are people, you know, competing. So, in any event, that's why we got into that's why Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: we that's what we've believed for a long time. And we think, you know, there's another you know, twenty, thirty years, certainly longer than my well, maybe not my life lifetime, but my professional lifetime, that it that the opportunity is still gonna be there. So we're you know, we're excited to be part that Adam Grossman: Yeah, I think one thing we mentioned in the previous podcast we're gonna talk about is and maybe a deeper discussion on AI and the disruption of AI in sports. And that's something obviously roar and surge and the factors of s of sports being live experience and people wanting human connection. That's certainly things that we are focused on. But one other thing that I think is really interesting particularly about C V C is that C V C is relatively early investors into sports and sports as an asset class. And so, now that has been increasingly growing as an asset class, there's an opportunity, for C V C and the global sports group to take the advantage of those learnings and apply them. So one, what are learnings that you think have been had because you've been relatively early investors. And two, What's gonna, differentiate your portfolio compared to other folks who are starting to enter the space? George Barrios: Yeah, and and it's a little bit the answer to the second is is tied to the first. You look at Global Sport Group and and look at the and look at the portfolio, one of the things you'll notice it's that it's leagues and federations, right? So there's no team investments. it's leagues and federations. That's by design, right? So we wanna be kind of at the at the core of the particular sport, and not just at the team level. And I think one of the learnings, Is that you know CBC pioneered the model of partnering with leagues and federations to do that? And so I think from an investor standpoint, it's differentiated because you have that. So you don't have the team performance risk because you're invested at the whole sport level. So that to us is very interesting and strategic. And then for the potential partner, they've seen that This team knows how to work with leagues and federations, right? And then that's important because you're now getting in a world that's it's different, right? The these structures have existed for a long time. There's multiple stakeholders involved. And so you have to learn how to work with them. And and you know, the our the equestrian business in the US, we control, we own 100%. But those other investments I mentioned, La Liga Legal, they're minority investments. and so you, you know, that whole how do you partner, I think is really important. So We think it's the combination of that history of of being able to partner is very validating. And then the the second element, the the fact that our investments are at the core, that's very interesting. And third, you know, a lot of what we did, the playbook we wrote at WWE to ride that scale is what everyone in sports is is still trying to replicate. And so we bring kind of a unique expertise of not just knowing what needs to be done. But actually having done it. Right. So example when people tell me that, you know, that they really have data and that data is helping them, you know, customize the experience for their fans, nine times out of ten, the data they have are emailed lists, right? They haven't gone yet through the hard work of really taking first, second party data, multiple data sets, integrating them, and really getting the value that they can turn around and say, hey, to to their fans, give them things that Do make it more exciting as opposed to just email marketing. so you know, there's a lot to do. I think when you look at the execution element, that's where AI to me is one of the most exciting things, you know, because at WWE, we have it was a laborious, time-consuming process to create that infrastructure. I think the things you can do today, you can move so much quicker, and especially if you know exactly where you're going. So We have that North Star. We know exactly where we want to go. We've been there. We see we know how it works. Now the ability to execute it, I I think is just is, you know, you probably an order of magnitude faster and cheaper to do that. And so that's really exciting. Adam Grossman: Yeah, I mean I that's something that Roar's built a whole suite of product offerings around, particularly really understanding the fan at a zero first second party data perspective. Obviously this is not a Roar sales pitch nor are we trying to pitch you right now, but that is something that how AI powers that understanding of your audience is something we're very familiar with and completely agree with you on that front. and you know, one question, you know, and t whether under using data driven solutions, I think, is one George Barrios: And by the way, sorry to I'll interrupt you. The other element around all this is it's still early days. I don't yeah, I mean, at this point, even the organizations that tell you they're they're AI first, especially organizations that have been for a while and a while, are still in the dabbling stage. You know, there's pilots and this so the opportunity is we're people, you know, if you use the base, we're not even in the first inning. You know, we're in batting practice at this point when it comes to to AI. So the opportunity I think is just is is massive. Adam Grossman: And again, that's something we completely agree with. And that's why we've, taken sports experience and overlaid that on AI to build purpose-built solutions for sports and real George Barrios: Yeah, exactly. Adam Grossman: estate. So to understand the use case. And I think that increasingly will be where value is created and people who can leverage all these things together. That being said, part of what I want to bring up is, you mentioned being a minority investor and C V C having experience, and that clearly has gotten a lot of attention. So I think this is one area where you can as minority investor. out move the needle for a league or federation. So how do you as minority investors, technology, AI, data or otherwise, how do you use that position when you're not in control to help drive change in an organization? George Barrios: Yeah, and look, it's a great question. I mean, again, not to get too much into into the inside baseball, but you know, from from the holding company perspective, and you think of the center of the holding company, right? So the resources at the center, it's definitely an on-demand model with our minority investments, right? They have they've got to feel comfortable saying, Hey, you know, we're trying to tackle something, help us, but Ultimately, what it is is convening people because everybody is doing different things, right? Based on what they think is important to them and they're getting learning. So one of the real powers of the group is convening people and cross-pollinating really quickly. So you're, you know, person, you know, this person over here is working on this project. This person over here is working on another project. That person over there is working on the third project. You get everybody in the room and they're saying, okay, and learn. And this is the mistake we made, right? Because that's always the learning. The most important learning is. I would say what you want is not people to tell you what you should do, because anybody can do that. What you want is people who've already done it have the scars and say, this is what you should not don't do, or be prepared because this is the second order impact you're going to get from doing what sounds like a great idea, and it is, but you're going to get this second or third order impact that you should be prepared for that. So that's really the power of the group. And then to your point on when you do have control, you can just move a little bit quicker. On that, right? It's less of on demand. It's more like, hey, we're we're invested in this, you know, let's let's go in that let's all work together and row in this direction. But yeah, it's you know, ultimately back you back to the first question where one of the first questions you asked is why Michelle and I decided to to partner here and do it is is because of all that. It's just we saw the benefit of multiple touch points, multiple learning touch points that we could then proc propagate more quickly. And because in our case, again. We've done it. So we've failed. We've made mistakes. Have seen the second order impacts. We can take the workflow perspective and couple it with the technology, right? That the this is how you have to stitch this together for it to work. And then use a technology to kind of enable that. So I think that to me really is is you need both of them. Cause otherwise you get lost in a and I look, and we get pitched a lot. I'll be honest. A lot of the folks pitching us, you could tell that, you know. They've got kind of a boilerplate view of what the workflow is, but they don't really understand the workflow. And you know, that's to me, that to me is a big accelerant, is is that Adam Grossman: Can you George Barrios: ability. Adam Grossman: that was gonna be one question before we jump directly into AI. Can you tell me what that's is in reality when you say you hear the boilerplate versus the actual workflow and some of the pitches that you're getting? George Barrios: Yeah. So it look, it comes it's the boring, as I was saying, it's the boring stuff, you know. I've got a pitch we all have pitch decks, right? And our pitch deck describes how we think about creating value in sports, right? And we've got the five levers that we think are important, and then under each of those levers, we've got five other levers. So you go through it, there's six pages, twenty five things on there, and you go, this is interesting. Okay, yeah, yeah. The reality is almost everybody has something similar. What they don't have is four hundred pages of written words of text around each of the for those boxes. So let's say twenty pages each of Great example. I was having and I'll come back to this, was having lunch the other day. Guy runs a major sports property in the United States. And he tells me he's hiring a you know, in this cow hiring a chief digital officer. And I go, Why the fuck would you do that, Don? Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: And he's like, What do you mean? It's important. It's digital. Well, and I go, Well, yeah, I know it's important, but why don't you hire a chief electricity officer? Because you need the electricity to do the digital. And my the reason I make the point is because what what he was trying, and he's a friend, so I could I could kind of be pretty direct with him, and then we talk about him like you're putting stuff together that let's be honest, you're not a hundred percent sure how it all works, so you're trying to shove it into a box. I go, that's not the system you're building. You're you have an IP, your the your core business is intellectual property, and to stick all of a sudden the sales function. The data function, the product all together. I go, that doesn't make to me, it doesn't make any sense. You're you're what I go, that's not the way to structure. And then I gave him what I what I thought he should do. But that's one tiny example of what I mean by workflow is like you really have a perspective, deep, not shallow, not PowerPoint slides, text of how things should work together, what are the right KPIs, who owns what process. Who's I mean, those are the ugly things about execution that nobody, you know, that consultants usually don't want to deal with, right? Because that's hard. So they will sell you kind of the concept and they'll give you two good tools, but the how do I actually make this work day to day with a whole team of, yeah, that's hard. And unfortunately, Adam Grossman: Exactly. George Barrios: it's one of those things you only low it by having done it. Adam Grossman: And then a good segu segue into AI, right? Because there aren't that many people who have done it. There are a lot of people out there, there are a lot of people trying to figure it out. Your friend who needs the chief digital officer is a good example. So, since AI is so new, particularly generative AI, you're right, like earlier versions of AI, we use it at my previous company. But generative AI and LLMs, and how do you, put that into the workflow and how do you think about agentic workflows and agents? So How are you thinking about that just personally and then also how are you thinking about it from a GSG perspective? George Barrios: Yeah, it's it's a great question. And look, Frank, ultimately, how I think about it personally, it'll you know, informs a little bit about how to think about it. GSG, although, you know, again, some portfolio companies may decide to do their their own thing. What I will say is it's early days and but I'll I'll give you one example and it just came up. you know, there's a lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot, there are some there are people out there who are trying to kind of sell the AI, you know, proprietary database s traditional SaaS model, right? You come onto our platform, whatever that platform may be, you entity, you sports entity, and you'll come on and we'll help you do this, that, or the other thing. We'll own the technology and you know, you'll you'll pay us a a a subscription. You know, my view at right now, and it can change, is this is different. and if I was running a company, I would not do that. I would say this is something that I'm going to develop and own the code myself. I don't want to hear about that it's an anonymized data, bullshit. People don't really the people themselves who are making these were you know the frontier companies can't exact aren't exactly sure how that data is being processed and you know what really is anonymized. As opposed to training the actual tool on you. So, you know, people have used the term, you know, the every business has an alpha, their unique secret sauce, which really is a lot of what we were talking about. How it the internal processes that they've created to deliver their product or service, I would not be putting that into anybody else's machine. Right. So that's an example of where right now I could change. I think it's different, but I I tell people all the time I would not be signing up. For some sort of SaaS-like proprietary database model. You may have to do the hard work of building, like you said, whether you call them, you know, the loop engineering, graph engineering, harnesses, whatever terms, and these terms are all changing, but it's you're gonna have to do it yourself. Like anything else, what I would be doing is I would be finding something small, not risky, and saying, I'm gonna take that piece of part of work and I'm going to. Create something that's pure AI to do that, to A to really to learn about it. So that to me is my advice to people is take something, take something that's not core yet. But instead of dabbling around the A edges, you know, somebody says, yeah, you know, we've got everybody, we've got everybody clawed subscriptions, right? So they're using AI for everything. That's great. And we should be, you should be doing that. That's awesome. But in parallel, again, if I'm CEO somewhere, I'm finding some, some. thing that I can encapsulate, some workflow that I can encapsulate and say, I'm going to AI that because I want to learn about how this works. And also the what what I talked about, you know, building my own stack from top to bottom, including the LLM and and seeing how that functions. So I would be doing both. Adam Grossman: You wanna build it just a club. You would you would say build the L L from scratch or build like George Barrios: No, not build the LLM from scratch. Build the harness around the LLM, right? Yeah. And and then, you know, whether you need a frontier model, whether you need open weight model, you can figure that out, but you're gonna own it as opposed to the old model, like let's say, right, for CRM. Hey, you sign up a subscription with Salesforce, they give you all these tools, it's proprietary data, it's not, you know, it's you could argue it's not your the the way the data lives in their system isn't really yours. Right, you can access it. So I'm like that. I I right now would not sign up for that. And there's a lot and I've seen a lot of you know vendors out there selling that model, right? Because for them, it's of course they could they're gonna lock you in. Now you could say, Well, Leah, maybe I don't want to be a software developer and develop my own stack. I've had, you know, SaaS tools forever. I didn't have to do it. My thing is this is different. You are now potentially going to digitize the thing, your alpha. The thing that makes you special. And I'm not sure all your workflows. Everything you do. Adam Grossman: Well what do you what I was gonna say, what do you could I I think there's a obviously you and I don't disagree that often, or at least on these podcasts, I do disagree with you on the enterprise data security perspective. I think you need the LLMs as a whole have a different security profile than what we even say our company from ROR. We won't put anybody else in there, but we're starting from a data security, data engineering, data governance perspective, understanding the data is one of the most important assets. It can't be shared. It has to be stored correctly. There's been a history of companies, most notably in medical records, where you can't share data. It has to be as secure as possible. And I think one of the challenges that LLM companies broadly have had is that's not necessarily their number one priority, right? Their number one priority is training the models. And that typically requires the most data possible. So I think your point is well taken. You have to be careful. You have to always be careful about security risks. but I would push back a little bit and I'm curious to hear about the workflow being the primary competitive advantage. Is how would you find it? George Barrios: Workflow and the data, that c the combination of the two. That to me is if you really boil down every business that's ever existed, that really is their secret sauce, is what they know and how they do whatever it is they do. Adam Grossman: how do you digitize doing what you do? There are certain things you can George Barrios: Well, if you begin to taking every piece of knowledge work that goes into getting a product or service done and you are, you know, in essence trying to AI that workflow, now you're actually teaching, maybe not, you know, you're in essence giving that to someone else. Now it again, people will say, Well, it's all anonymized and you know, and it your specific data is gonna be at this point. I think this is too important to Again, it's not that I don't want to work with partners, but in a closed system, I'm not sure I'd be I'd I wouldn't be signing up for that right now. I would not be str signing up for a closed system. Adam Grossman: Yeah, I think that's a fair point of Chris's. I would just say even if you, let's say theoretically knew how to sell tickets, we can't sell tickets to a sporty. I that's part of obviously one of the features of sports, right? Is we can know how to sell partnerships, we don't sell partnerships. We can know how to sell tickets, we don't know how to sell tickets. So even if you have the know how and the data, you still can't do it because you're not the rights holder. So, from my perspective, and this is something I think you've very well articulated, it's the intellectual property. Yeah. George Barrios: You just put take take that take that example. There's a somebody who's selling you us, the NBA, NFL, every other saying, hey, we'll do all that for you, kind of like Salesforce would have done with CRM. We'll do that for you. You pay us a subscription. Why do you want to develop all the harnessing and all that shit? We will do that. And that model has worked for 30 years with software. I'm saying that at this point, I'm skeptical that I want to do that into the future. Adam Grossman: Yeah, that's that's fair. George Barrios: I don't want I don't want an AI version of Salesforce, you know, fill in the blank of whoever that is yet. I I may get there, but right now I wouldn't be doing that. I would be doing the opposite. I would be building the harness myself. Adam Grossman: Yeah, we've delved into that. I think we disagree on that point, because I think George Barrios: Yeah, that's all right. Adam Grossman: that's not where sports are g from our perspective, that's not where sports or real estate or entertainment. That's to me, it's this somewhat of the SAS model, right? If you can focus on what you're good at and have other people focus on what they're not good at and work together, that's where it comes together. Obviously you have some skepticism. George Barrios: Yeah, I I I I just I I think that you know what? And I always say never whenever somebody says this is different, I always pull back. This time Adam Grossman: Totally, yeah. I I George Barrios: is different, but there's a part of me that it's it's start is feeling like this is different. Adam Grossman: Yes. it kinda actually goes back to your public, what's the hardest thing and we can end on this is the short term and the long term. I think this could both be the same and be different. And I think that's hard. I think that's Yeah. George Barrios: You're right. I think that's I think that's fair. So it back to the title of the book, Sometimes Wrong but Never in Doubt. I I I could be wrong on this. So I'm willing to be proven wrong. But if you said to me, What where are you today? Like what's your mental model is the one I Adam Grossman: Yeah. Yeah, that's George Barrios: said. But but we're early days. It we're early days and you could be right. Yeah, I could see that Adam Grossman: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. George Barrios: too. Adam Grossman: And we gotta talk about the book one more time. So George, we'll continue George Barrios: Yeah. Adam Grossman: this conver again. We have to have you back again. So we'll have to do round three on this topic. Yeah. All right. George Barrios: man, well I I love it. I I I love you. You got you know, I know you and your audience are into sports. It's what I Adam Grossman: Yeah. George Barrios: love, the business of sports, not just sports, it's the the fun of sports, Adam Grossman: Okay. George Barrios: but the business of sports. So yeah, no, I love this conversation. So I would love to do it again. Adam Grossman: Yeah, thanks. George Barrios, thanks for being our guest for round two, and we're hopefully have many more rounds to come. All right, George Barrios: You got it, man. All right. Adam Grossman: take care.