Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / US Services Expands at Modest Pace, Power Players Event
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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- 0:20Speaker 1: us live on YouTube.
- 0:23Speaker 3: We're taking a look though at the ECO data that
- 0:25Speaker 3: just crossed right in ISM Manufacturing had come in a
- 0:27Speaker 3: week earlier in the week US services sector expanding at
- 0:31Speaker 3: a modest pace. For the second month in August, ISM
- 0:33Speaker 3: service a little changed about fifty one point five. Now
- 0:36Speaker 3: remember readings about fifty still indicate expansions. Who want to
- 0:39Speaker 3: get right to the guy behind the data. Steve Miller
- 0:42Speaker 3: is chair of the ISM Services PMI Hay, Steve, what
- 0:44Speaker 3: do you make of the data today?
- 0:47Speaker 4: Well, we're encouraged to see the second month in a
- 0:49Speaker 4: row of growth, and it's the six month out of
- 0:52Speaker 4: the year that we've seen growth, so definitely encouraged. One
- 0:56Speaker 4: of the things that was one of the sub indexes
- 0:59Speaker 4: is at a bit of a prize, was backlog dropping
- 1:01Speaker 4: significantly down to about forty three percent. And what we
- 1:07Speaker 4: attributed that to is a lot of the commentary has
- 1:10Speaker 4: been around improving supply chain performance and utilizing capacity to
- 1:15Speaker 4: catch up. So we attribute that to maybe catching up
- 1:18Speaker 4: on late orders that were impacted during supply chain dissuptions
- 1:21Speaker 4: earlier in the year.
- 1:25Speaker 5: So give us a sense of what this means. Do
- 1:28Speaker 5: you think for the Federal Reserve? How do you think
- 1:29Speaker 5: the Federal Reserve will look at an ISM index that's
- 1:33Speaker 5: still showing some positive growth there fifty one point five.
- 1:36Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's very consistent with going forward with
- 1:39Speaker 4: the rate cuts. It's the lowest rate of increase that
- 1:43Speaker 4: we've had historically. There were only three ratings or three
- 1:48Speaker 4: readings last year that were lower than this month's reading,
- 1:53Speaker 4: and then going back to twenty twenty two, only December's
- 1:56Speaker 4: reading was lower than this. So we're seeing growth, which
- 1:59Speaker 4: is positive, but all the indicators in the data are
- 2:02Speaker 4: showing very slow growth and some of the indicators and
- 2:08Speaker 4: far as costs and cost continuing to impact as well
- 2:12Speaker 4: as interest rates continuing to impact investment.
- 2:15Speaker 6: Seems like now's the right time, all right, Steve, We
- 2:19Speaker 6: appreciate it.
- 2:20Speaker 3: Thank you so much for that incident analysie. Steve Miller,
- 2:23Speaker 3: ISM Chair for Services.
- 2:26Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 2:38Speaker 1: flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 2:44Speaker 5: Alex Deel, Paul Sweeney. We are live here at the
- 2:47Speaker 5: Bloomberg conference here in New York. It is called the
- 2:50Speaker 5: Power Players, talking about the convergence of sport business, you know, atternowledgement, technology,
- 2:58Speaker 5: all that kind of stuff all coming together other and
- 3:00Speaker 5: so they've got a great lineup of folks here today
- 3:02Speaker 5: talking about that, and we're going to interview a handful
- 3:05Speaker 5: of some really smart people coming up over the next
- 3:07Speaker 5: couple hours that are gonna be participating in this conference.
- 3:10Speaker 5: We'll talk about that coming up. But it talks about
- 3:12Speaker 5: the big business of sports. And the most recent news
- 3:16Speaker 5: is private equity is now going to be allowed to
- 3:20Speaker 5: invest in part in the NFL. So you think about
- 3:23Speaker 5: the here, this is a big deal. This is a
- 3:25Speaker 5: big deal because the other the private ecutris got tremendous
- 3:28Speaker 5: amounts of capital, and the NFL valuations have been just
- 3:31Speaker 5: going so high that individuals anymore almost are priced out
- 3:35Speaker 5: of the market that when families used to own these
- 3:37Speaker 5: NFL franchise that's becoming less and less of an instance.
- 3:40Speaker 5: You need big institutional capital and that's kind of one
- 3:43Speaker 5: of the stories that they'll be talking about yes today and.
- 3:45Speaker 6: An alternative energy.
- 3:46Speaker 3: I mean, I'll turnm of investments go right to where
- 3:49Speaker 3: I want to talk about is definitely the thing right
- 3:51Speaker 3: is you have more money and it needs to find
- 3:52Speaker 3: more opportunities. And luckily the Bloomberg Big Take Today sort
- 3:55Speaker 3: of helps set all of this up for us. Random
- 3:58Speaker 3: Williams and one of the authors on it, and the
- 4:00Speaker 3: title is the Billionaire NFL Family Eyes Windfall from Wall
- 4:03Speaker 3: Street and the Swifties, and this really focuses on Dan
- 4:06Speaker 3: and Clark Hunt controlling a six and a half billion
- 4:08Speaker 3: dollar empire with a portfolio of teams across the nation
- 4:12Speaker 3: from the NFL, Major League Soccer, and the National Basketball Association.
- 4:16Speaker 3: I read it, I read the sports and it was
- 4:18Speaker 3: a great, great I learned a lot. Actually, Randall Williams
- 4:21Speaker 3: joins us here at Bloomberg headquarters. Hey, Randall, walk me
- 4:24Speaker 3: through what you learned about this family and how it
- 4:26Speaker 3: runs itself and sort of all the different branches they
- 4:29Speaker 3: have in sports.
- 4:30Speaker 7: Yeah you said it or you mapped it out out
- 4:32Speaker 7: there going my glasses, it happens, but yes, you mapped
- 4:34Speaker 7: it out. They have a majority ownership of the Chiefs
- 4:37Speaker 7: of FC Dallas and then an eleven percent stake in
- 4:40Speaker 7: the Bulls. So they are one of the premier sports
- 4:43Speaker 7: families across the country and I'd say across the world too.
- 4:46Speaker 5: What are their ambitions here just sports in general going forward?
- 4:50Speaker 5: As you mentioned, they have diversified ownership. Obviously, the biggest
- 4:53Speaker 5: asset is the Chiefs, which they've owned forever. It seems
- 4:56Speaker 5: like where do they want to grow going forward?
- 4:59Speaker 7: Well, it's all in sports.
- 5:00Speaker 5: I mean.
- 5:01Speaker 7: One of the things that Clark and Dan Hunt have
- 5:03Speaker 7: talked about is the opportunity to grow in soccer. I mean,
- 5:06Speaker 7: the World Cup will be here in twenty twenty six,
- 5:08Speaker 7: the Olympics in twenty twenty eight. That's a tremendous opportunity
- 5:10Speaker 7: to grow soccer domestically. Anyone who knows and I should
- 5:13Speaker 7: say football, but you know, I know this is.
- 5:16Speaker 6: Going to get confusing, right because like soccer play with
- 5:18Speaker 6: your feets, right, should be football.
- 5:19Speaker 7: I'll say soccer to stay American. But anyone who knows
- 5:22Speaker 7: soccer knows that it is the giant internationally, it isn't
- 5:26Speaker 7: here the same way domestically. The World Cup provides an
- 5:29Speaker 7: opportunity for that. At the same time, the NFL has
- 5:32Speaker 7: an opportunity internationally because that's the giant domestically. So the
- 5:36Speaker 7: NFL is trying to play more games internationally. They're trying
- 5:38Speaker 7: to grow their business internationally. So those are the two
- 5:41Speaker 7: opportunities that both of them see, and I think they're
- 5:43Speaker 7: doing a pretty good job of managing it.
- 5:45Speaker 3: I have an actual, like legitimate but silly question, Sure,
- 5:48Speaker 3: how do they deal with the name problem, the soccer
- 5:50Speaker 3: versus football versus actual football, like, especially if they try
- 5:53Speaker 3: and grow abroad.
- 5:53Speaker 7: For the NFL, well, I think that when you go abroad,
- 5:56Speaker 7: you adjust, you ad justin. It's a question for the
- 5:59Speaker 7: committioners and how they want to market it.
- 6:01Speaker 6: Do we know what the answer is that going to be.
- 6:03Speaker 7: I think football is going to stay football, and you
- 6:06Speaker 7: know there'll be a budding rivalry between the two quiet one.
- 6:08Speaker 7: But as long as everybody's making money, then you know
- 6:10Speaker 7: it keeps everybody happy.
- 6:11Speaker 5: Fair enough, all right, So talk to us about private equity.
- 6:14Speaker 5: That was kind of for me being a Wall Street guy.
- 6:16Speaker 5: The big news in sport over the past couple weeks,
- 6:18Speaker 5: and Clark Hunt himself led the committee in the NFL
- 6:22Speaker 5: to kind of address this issue. What is they're thinking
- 6:25Speaker 5: about private equity? Why did they go down that road?
- 6:27Speaker 7: Well, I heard you talking about this a little earlier.
- 6:29Speaker 7: But the reality is, if you're selling a five to
- 6:32Speaker 7: ten percent stake in a franchise that's worth six billion dollars,
- 6:35Speaker 7: that's three hundred million dollars or six hundred million dollars
- 6:37Speaker 7: in cash, and the evaluations are only going higher. How many
- 6:40Speaker 7: people can write a three hundred to six million million
- 6:42Speaker 7: dollar check, even if it's discounted.
- 6:44Speaker 5: Let's say you take fifty million off.
- 6:45Speaker 7: That's still a lot of money. Even the richest athletes
- 6:47Speaker 7: in the world don't have two hundred million dollars in
- 6:50Speaker 7: cash to just send to a team. And this is
- 6:52Speaker 7: a long term investment. You're not getting that money back tomorrow.
- 6:54Speaker 7: You have to be in this for the long run.
- 6:56Speaker 7: And so with that, if you're selling to an individual
- 6:59Speaker 7: that individ isn't going to come in and just want
- 7:01Speaker 7: to sit on the sidelines and say, oh, yeah, I
- 7:04Speaker 7: have a piece of a team. No they might want
- 7:05Speaker 7: to ride on the team plane, they might want an
- 7:07Speaker 7: ownership suite. These owners and a lot across sports period,
- 7:11Speaker 7: have inherited these teams over time. They are very very
- 7:15Speaker 7: very close in prized possessions. That means that they don't
- 7:18Speaker 7: want to let an individual who they may not know.
- 7:19Speaker 7: In private equity is a solution to that. They want
- 7:22Speaker 7: returns on their investment, they're not going to look to
- 7:24Speaker 7: be riding on a team plane, maybe own the exactly
- 7:28Speaker 7: exactly so they'll be willing to be quiet investors as
- 7:31Speaker 7: what I'd called them, and so it's a solution. But
- 7:33Speaker 7: the most important detail that I think I'll be saying
- 7:36Speaker 7: for years to come is that both Jerry Jones and
- 7:39Speaker 7: Clark Hunt said that this was a positive day, not
- 7:41Speaker 7: a happy one. It's not something that the owners want
- 7:44Speaker 7: to do. Quite frankly, I think if they were making
- 7:47Speaker 7: more money. That doesn't mean that they're not making money,
- 7:50Speaker 7: but if they were making more money, they wouldn't be
- 7:51Speaker 7: allowing this. But these are providing solutions to secession issues,
- 7:55Speaker 7: to stadium deals, to giving liquidity to owners who might
- 7:58Speaker 7: not have the cash that they want. So that's setting
- 8:00Speaker 7: a landscape for private equity and.
- 8:02Speaker 5: I noticed that, you know, the Hunts, they had a
- 8:05Speaker 5: defeat recently in that they weren't able to get I
- 8:08Speaker 5: guess the municipalities surrounding their stadium in Kansas City to
- 8:11Speaker 5: help them renovate the stadium or maybe even a new stadium.
- 8:14Speaker 5: What's the future there? Because I look a lot of
- 8:16Speaker 5: people look at the Kansas City as maybe over the
- 8:18Speaker 5: last five years, the most successful franchise or the RFL,
- 8:21Speaker 5: and our people tell you the stadium's terrible. Yeah, relative
- 8:26Speaker 5: relative to the new stadiums being built that are just
- 8:28Speaker 5: it's an older stadium.
- 8:29Speaker 7: I'd say that I think that there's a nostalgia feeling
- 8:32Speaker 7: around older stadiums. However, there's a reason they're looking for
- 8:34Speaker 7: this money to renovate because it needs renovation. So what's
- 8:38Speaker 7: going to happen next. They've tried at the local level.
- 8:40Speaker 7: I think they'll go to the state, but they've also
- 8:42Speaker 7: opened a door to going across state lines to the
- 8:45Speaker 7: state of Kansas. So all options are.
- 8:47Speaker 5: On the table.
- 8:48Speaker 7: Do they want to leave Arrowhead Stadium? No, absolutely not.
- 8:51Speaker 7: Clark will tell you that. The team president, Mark will
- 8:53Speaker 7: tell you that they don't want to leave Kansas City.
- 8:55Speaker 7: But the reality is this is a business, and this
- 8:57Speaker 7: is a money making business. If it's going to cost
- 8:59Speaker 7: them more money to stay in Kansas City as opposed
- 9:01Speaker 7: to going to Kansas where they might be able to
- 9:03Speaker 7: build a stadium, they're going to do that.
- 9:05Speaker 6: Okay, talk to you about today, power players.
- 9:07Speaker 5: The fun day. Okay, party day.
- 9:09Speaker 3: It's a party yer for you and I get to
- 9:10Speaker 3: learn about sports. So together we are united. What a
- 9:14Speaker 3: panels are you going to be moderating? What are you
- 9:15Speaker 3: excited about?
- 9:16Speaker 7: Among two college sports panels, we have Dajah Kelly, Brittany Whiteside,
- 9:20Speaker 7: Tim Prinetti, all prominent people in college sports who are
- 9:24Speaker 7: in the business of it. We also have open Door
- 9:26Speaker 7: CEO Blake Lawrence. They'll be speaking at Blake Lawrence and
- 9:30Speaker 7: Britney Whiteside will be speaking at a lunch panel. And
- 9:32Speaker 7: then Dejah Kelly, Tim Prinetti and again Brittany will be
- 9:35Speaker 7: speaking on another college sports panel.
- 9:37Speaker 5: So those are my two today. We have many Yeah,
- 9:39Speaker 5: formula of Rutgers, great name in the Big East. The
- 9:43Speaker 5: big thing college sports is. I think it's a wild
- 9:45Speaker 5: West here in terms of oh of the dollars going around,
- 9:48Speaker 5: nil name, image and likeness. Right, you got twenty million
- 9:52Speaker 5: dollars rosters out there, and it's only going to go hire.
- 9:56Speaker 5: Somebody's got to step in and regulate this thing. Who's
- 9:58Speaker 5: going to do it? They will find out today. We'll
- 10:03Speaker 5: find out today.
- 10:04Speaker 7: I mean, listen, if there was an easy solution to this,
- 10:07Speaker 7: I think we'd have it by now. The NCAA is
- 10:09Speaker 7: going back and forth to the Supreme Court. It feels
- 10:11Speaker 7: like every other week on what it can regulate and
- 10:13Speaker 7: what it can't regulate. What that means for the athletes,
- 10:17Speaker 7: it's a great time. It's a great time. You can
- 10:19Speaker 7: get money just about everywhere legally. I mean there's, yes,
- 10:21Speaker 7: there's some infractions here and there. But if you want
- 10:23Speaker 7: to go into sports as a college athlete right now,
- 10:25Speaker 7: the reality is you can go to Wretgers get one
- 10:27Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars, you can go to Texas get five
- 10:29Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars, and then you can go to Florida
- 10:31Speaker 7: and get one point five million and never touch the
- 10:33Speaker 7: NFL YE nineteen.
- 10:35Speaker 6: And having that, I mean like, no way would I
- 10:36Speaker 6: know what to.
- 10:37Speaker 5: Do going back to school. Yes, I'm going back to school.
- 10:39Speaker 3: Definitely, sports them up me and soccer and we'll talk
- 10:42Speaker 3: to Britney Whiteside actually just right after this break, so
- 10:45Speaker 3: great stuff.
- 10:46Speaker 6: Thank you so much, Randall, really appreciate it.
- 10:47Speaker 3: Good luck today, enjoy yourself, looking forward to the rest
- 10:50Speaker 3: of the panels from Bloomberg.
- 10:54Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 10:58Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern car Playing and broud Otto
- 11:01Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
- 11:04Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 11:09Speaker 3: Alex Steel here alongside Paul Sweeney. We are live at
- 11:13Speaker 3: the Bloomberg Power Players at Bloomberg Global Headquarters right here
- 11:16Speaker 3: in New York. The some is bringing together industry leaders
- 11:18Speaker 3: at the intersection of sports, business and technology.
- 11:21Speaker 6: AKA.
- 11:22Speaker 3: This is the day where Alex learns more things about sports. Yes,
- 11:25Speaker 3: I think everyone will be very helpful to hear about.
- 11:27Speaker 3: Joining us now is Brittany Whiteside. She is vice president
- 11:30Speaker 3: of All Sports Partners and she has a long career
- 11:34Speaker 3: in this area. Before this, she was at trustee of
- 11:37Speaker 3: Whiteside served as an executive Associate Athletes Director at the
- 11:40Speaker 3: University of Virginia and Charlesville. She was also a member
- 11:44Speaker 3: of the department's executive Leadership team and has been deeply
- 11:47Speaker 3: involved in college sports for quite a long time.
- 11:49Speaker 6: Brittany, thank you so much for joining us.
- 11:51Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.
- 11:52Speaker 3: Okay, this is where you get dumb stuff down for me. So,
- 11:54Speaker 3: college sports, I know is definitely changing. How is it
- 11:57Speaker 3: changing and how quickly is it changing?
- 12:00Speaker 8: You know, it is changing rapidly.
- 12:02Speaker 9: Probably in the last three years we've seen some of
- 12:04Speaker 9: the most change in college sports, but also in an
- 12:07Speaker 9: industry at large, we have the implementation of nil I'm
- 12:10Speaker 9: sure you've heard of that.
- 12:11Speaker 8: That's a buzzword right now.
- 12:13Speaker 9: Athletes can earn money off of their name, image and likeness.
- 12:16Speaker 9: And so when you talk about college athletics and change
- 12:19Speaker 9: and you think about that in the last year, in
- 12:21Speaker 9: the last three years, that's the biggest change. And now
- 12:24Speaker 9: we're at a point where we continue to see the
- 12:26Speaker 9: change and you have the House settlement where schools may
- 12:29Speaker 9: be able to now pay athletes directly, and so as
- 12:33Speaker 9: you think about college athletics and the business model, it
- 12:36Speaker 9: is completely shifted and leaders across the country are preparing
- 12:38Speaker 9: for that all right.
- 12:39Speaker 5: To me, it's all about the economics, and I think
- 12:42Speaker 5: most people agree that given the money behind big time
- 12:45Speaker 5: college sports, that in fact, the athletes should be compensated
- 12:48Speaker 5: for that. The question is, is nil the way it
- 12:52Speaker 5: doesn't seem like it. It seems like rudimentary at best.
- 12:56Speaker 5: You've got there's no regulation, there's no way to ensure
- 13:00Speaker 5: and even playing field. Where do we go from here?
- 13:02Speaker 5: It seems like we opened up Pandora's box and we
- 13:04Speaker 5: have no idea.
- 13:05Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I agree with you.
- 13:07Speaker 9: It is the right thing for athletes to be able
- 13:09Speaker 9: to earn money off of their name, image and likeness.
- 13:11Speaker 9: So but to be able to monetize that right nil
- 13:14Speaker 9: was the first step in that the ability for athletes
- 13:17Speaker 9: to go out and to earn income, whether that is
- 13:19Speaker 9: through working with brands or in some spaces you probably
- 13:22Speaker 9: heard of collectives in this space as well, you know,
- 13:25Speaker 9: helping athletes generate money off their name, image and likeness.
- 13:28Speaker 8: Where do we go from here?
- 13:30Speaker 9: You know, we have the pending House settlement, which as
- 13:32Speaker 9: we sit today, the judge will hear arguments against the
- 13:37Speaker 9: fairness of that House settlement. Right, House settlement is really
- 13:40Speaker 9: the next step in the framework for college athletes and
- 13:43Speaker 9: athletic departments to be able to share in that revenue.
- 13:47Speaker 9: Right it's a revenue sharing proposal and so in terms
- 13:50Speaker 9: of next steps, right now it is depending house settlement
- 13:53Speaker 9: and next steps for athletes to be able to be
- 13:55Speaker 9: paid directly from institutions versus brands and collectives and all
- 13:59Speaker 9: of the other areas, and then there will be some
- 14:02Speaker 9: upcoming regulation to that as well.
- 14:06Speaker 3: What about I mean that this is tied to a
- 14:08Speaker 3: college or university is also just so odd, Like this
- 14:11Speaker 3: is like a professional business that one can be a
- 14:13Speaker 3: part of, but yet you're going to be nineteen years
- 14:15Speaker 3: old also expecting to like go get your GPA and
- 14:17Speaker 3: do well in school. How does all of this going
- 14:20Speaker 3: to coexist?
- 14:21Speaker 9: You know it has coexisted now for a while, and
- 14:23Speaker 9: you know that was a major concern of mine early on.
- 14:26Speaker 8: Is how are athletes?
- 14:27Speaker 9: How are college students going to be able to navigate this?
- 14:30Speaker 9: And what we've seen is they've been don't handle it well.
- 14:32Speaker 9: Some of them engage in the NIL space and do
- 14:35Speaker 9: so in a way and meaningful ways where they're getting
- 14:37Speaker 9: internships and opportunities and skill sets that they did not
- 14:40Speaker 9: have the.
- 14:40Speaker 8: Opportunity to get before.
- 14:42Speaker 9: So when you think about NIL, you think about managing
- 14:44Speaker 9: your brand, you think about negotiating all of those skills
- 14:47Speaker 9: are skills that you need for life, and so as
- 14:49Speaker 9: part of being a student, part of that is preparing
- 14:52Speaker 9: for life after you know, your time on campus for
- 14:55Speaker 9: four or five years, and so NIL in many ways
- 14:58Speaker 9: has been handled for student has a great opportunity for
- 15:01Speaker 9: them to leverage their their brand and be able to
- 15:04Speaker 9: generate money and help prepare them for a future.
- 15:07Speaker 5: What's the I guess the other big issue in college
- 15:09Speaker 5: athletics has been the realignment of conferences. And now we've
- 15:12Speaker 5: got my poor you know, Rutgers field hockey team sleeping
- 15:16Speaker 5: on the floor of Newark Airport because they're taking a
- 15:18Speaker 5: flight out to Stanford Stanford in Palo Alto. What's going
- 15:22Speaker 5: on there? Where? How is this going to evolve? Do
- 15:24Speaker 5: you think?
- 15:25Speaker 10: Wait?
- 15:25Speaker 6: Wait, why is that bad?
- 15:26Speaker 5: Because now Stanford on the West Coast is now part
- 15:29Speaker 5: of the ACC for so they got to go fly
- 15:34Speaker 5: from Palo Alto to Durham, North Carolina. And I can
- 15:37Speaker 5: understand that for the football team they're on a charter
- 15:39Speaker 5: jet all kind of same thing for basketball. But I thought,
- 15:41Speaker 5: for like the smaller sports, how is this impacting?
- 15:44Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting dynamic when you think
- 15:47Speaker 9: about some of the Olympic sports, right, yeah, and you
- 15:49Speaker 9: talked about what are some of the things that we
- 15:51Speaker 9: still need to figure out in college sports. I think
- 15:53Speaker 9: that's part of it. Conference realignment as a whole, you know,
- 15:55Speaker 9: mostly driven by football schools that are competing out the
- 15:59Speaker 9: highest level, schools that want to compete at the highest level.
- 16:02Speaker 9: With that comes other Olympic sports that it may not
- 16:05Speaker 9: make as much sense economically for them to travel or
- 16:08Speaker 9: for student athlete experience for them to travel. But when
- 16:11Speaker 9: schools and institutions want to compete at the highest level,
- 16:13Speaker 9: that is part of it. And so right now many
- 16:15Speaker 9: schools are having those conversations on where do we want
- 16:18Speaker 9: to be in this landscape? Do we want to compete
- 16:20Speaker 9: at the highest level? And if we do, that may
- 16:22Speaker 9: come with your field hockey team traveling across the country
- 16:25Speaker 9: to compete against the best in the country.
- 16:27Speaker 3: But then they still have to go like take a
- 16:28Speaker 3: test and do grades. I mean, that's that's something else
- 16:31Speaker 3: you have wi FI Now, fair enough, what do you
- 16:35Speaker 3: think that athletes could be doing better though?
- 16:36Speaker 8: Right now?
- 16:37Speaker 7: Oh?
- 16:38Speaker 9: You know, it's such a key time for athletes to
- 16:40Speaker 9: hone in on who they are, their their identity, how
- 16:43Speaker 9: they can manage themselves because we all knew that grand teams,
- 16:46Speaker 9: I know, right, But also they are also engaging responsibly
- 16:50Speaker 9: and thinking about like, what are some of the brands
- 16:52Speaker 9: that I work with on or you know a coffee
- 16:54Speaker 9: shop that I always go to, a local coffee shop,
- 16:56Speaker 9: how can I utilize my NIL with that local coffee
- 16:59Speaker 9: shop to create a partnership, right, And so you know
- 17:03Speaker 9: that's how athletes are navigating it now.
- 17:05Speaker 8: They're navigating at the local level.
- 17:06Speaker 9: And then also they have schools that are putting resources
- 17:09Speaker 9: together to help educate them on how to really navigate
- 17:12Speaker 9: it in a way that is best for them.
- 17:14Speaker 5: What do you advise schools to do as they think
- 17:17Speaker 5: about how to really implement an NIL and take care
- 17:20Speaker 5: of their student athletes? What are you recommending? Is that
- 17:22Speaker 5: kind of an overaarching view.
- 17:23Speaker 9: Yeah, absolutely, it always starts with education, and so early on,
- 17:27Speaker 9: it's educating the athletes on what NIO is, what it isn't,
- 17:31Speaker 9: how to build their brand, how social media plays into this,
- 17:34Speaker 9: how this entire ecosystem works. The second part of that
- 17:37Speaker 9: is as a department, to really hone in on your strategy,
- 17:41Speaker 9: how are you going to invest in the resources for
- 17:43Speaker 9: your athletes to be successful in this space like you
- 17:46Speaker 9: would in strength and conditioning, like you would in nutrition.
- 17:48Speaker 9: This is another part of the student and athlete experience
- 17:51Speaker 9: that as an institution, it's your responsibility to invest in
- 17:54Speaker 9: in resources so athletes can really optimize their nil while they're.
- 17:58Speaker 8: On their campus.
- 17:59Speaker 9: And for some of that athletes, this is their you know,
- 18:01Speaker 9: this is their time to earn their prime time.
- 18:03Speaker 8: This isn't their prime time. Some are competing at a.
- 18:05Speaker 9: National level on TV, and so as an institution, it's like,
- 18:09Speaker 9: how can we utilize our network, our resources, our institution
- 18:13Speaker 9: ip to help athletes generate revenue and generate income for themselves.
- 18:16Speaker 3: Well, because that's why we see a lot of like
- 18:18Speaker 3: former pro athletes now investing because they they were able
- 18:22Speaker 3: to take control of their money and they have so
- 18:24Speaker 3: many stories Like when we talk to a Rod like
- 18:26Speaker 3: a few months ago, they have so many stories of
- 18:28Speaker 3: their peers that were you know, given all this money
- 18:30Speaker 3: in a really short amount of time and your earning
- 18:31Speaker 3: power so limited when you're so young, and then it's
- 18:34Speaker 3: like gone, Like it's it's not a sustainable business model.
- 18:36Speaker 3: Like Paul and I might have, what do you think
- 18:39Speaker 3: that the media rights world, like as we change from
- 18:43Speaker 3: traditional TV to streaming all that. How is that impacting
- 18:47Speaker 3: college sports?
- 18:48Speaker 9: I think it will continue to evolve, and that's happening
- 18:50Speaker 9: in college sports at the conference level as the conferences
- 18:53Speaker 9: really hold the media rights to to the to those
- 18:57Speaker 9: to those sports in that entertainment space, right, and so
- 19:00Speaker 9: I think it will continue to evolve. I think it's
- 19:02Speaker 9: going to continue to be a big money area in
- 19:04Speaker 9: college athletics is the media rights.
- 19:07Speaker 8: And I think it's to be determined.
- 19:09Speaker 9: On what the future structure of FBS football looks like,
- 19:13Speaker 9: and some in college basketball and those other things that
- 19:16Speaker 9: really may take form as some of these media contracts
- 19:18Speaker 9: are coming up from renegotiation in the coming years.
- 19:21Speaker 5: How about thee We all think about football and basketball
- 19:25Speaker 5: driving it. How about the nil and the money? Is
- 19:28Speaker 5: it there for women's sports? Is it there for the
- 19:31Speaker 5: Olympic sports as you refer to them. Is it Is
- 19:33Speaker 5: it trickling down to the non football bat basketball team?
- 19:36Speaker 11: Yeah?
- 19:37Speaker 9: Yes, with the institutions we work with, we are seeing
- 19:40Speaker 9: it trickle down now, not at the same level as
- 19:43Speaker 9: football and men's basketball, but we are seeing athletes in
- 19:47Speaker 9: Olympic sports, primarily women's sports. We just had a school
- 19:50Speaker 9: that announced that they had a women's sports sponsorship that
- 19:53Speaker 9: included nil, right, And so you are seeing more brands.
- 19:58Speaker 9: And I also believe that women's sport are doing a
- 20:00Speaker 9: really good job of leveraging their their their personal brands
- 20:03Speaker 9: and they're really figuring that out earlier, right, And it's
- 20:06Speaker 9: a time for women's sports right now. So there's definitely
- 20:08Speaker 9: more attention and support and that is trickling down to
- 20:11Speaker 9: two women athletes on campuses as well.
- 20:14Speaker 3: So how does that how does the partnership wind up starting?
- 20:17Speaker 3: Like is it the athlete taking control and going, like
- 20:19Speaker 3: you said, the local coffee shop, et cetera, being like, hey,
- 20:21Speaker 3: here's what I got for you? Or is it you know,
- 20:24Speaker 3: someone goes to watch a game and they're like that
- 20:26Speaker 3: athlete's awesome.
- 20:27Speaker 6: Are they like their personality?
- 20:28Speaker 11: Like?
- 20:28Speaker 6: How does that evolve? So it is both.
- 20:31Speaker 9: So part of it is on the athlete, and athletes
- 20:33Speaker 9: that do well are are are reaching out the brand means.
- 20:36Speaker 9: Some of them have representations, some of them have agents
- 20:39Speaker 9: that are negotiating partnerships with them. And then you have
- 20:42Speaker 9: the school and you have donors and supporters that have
- 20:44Speaker 9: created these these businesses, these enterprises called collectives that if
- 20:49Speaker 9: they have a donor that wants to support that athlete
- 20:52Speaker 9: or that sport, that donor would give to that collective
- 20:54Speaker 9: and then they would you know, find opportunities for the
- 20:56Speaker 9: athlete to get that money.
- 20:58Speaker 5: And it seems like the collectives I'm seeing it, I'm
- 21:02Speaker 5: hearing it and reading about it. There's definitely the haves
- 21:04Speaker 5: and have nots.
- 21:04Speaker 8: For sure.
- 21:06Speaker 5: A certain school that I'm familiar with, their collective in
- 21:09Speaker 5: their first year just dwarfed everybody else and it's it's
- 21:12Speaker 5: a handful of phone calls. That doesn't feel right.
- 21:16Speaker 6: Yeah, how does that change? How does that Well, it.
- 21:19Speaker 5: Goes come directly from the university. Yeah, so you'll take
- 21:22Speaker 5: out the collective as a mini.
- 21:24Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, there there are certain things that may
- 21:28Speaker 9: regulate that collective space a little bit more. But right now,
- 21:31Speaker 9: you know, as you have the pending House settlement, schools
- 21:33Speaker 9: will be able to share in that revenue directly with athletes.
- 21:36Speaker 9: So you still will have collectives in the space, right
- 21:39Speaker 9: that will have play some role. But long term, you know,
- 21:42Speaker 9: it's really to be determined on what that looks like,
- 21:44Speaker 9: as there may be more regulation coming in that space.
- 21:47Speaker 5: You're absolutely right that change in college sports is just
- 21:51Speaker 5: meaning so, I mean, it just seems like how how
- 21:55Speaker 5: these universities are going to deal with it.
- 21:56Speaker 6: You know, I should have put my daughter in something.
- 21:59Speaker 6: She was three.
- 22:00Speaker 8: Darn it.
- 22:00Speaker 3: Hey, Brittany really appreciated. Thanks very much, Brittany Whiteside, Vice President.
- 22:03Speaker 8: Thank you.
- 22:04Speaker 3: Altia's sports partners are really great conversation.
- 22:07Speaker 1: There, you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us
- 22:12Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecard Play and
- 22:15Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also
- 22:18Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York
- 22:22Speaker 1: station just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 22:26Speaker 5: We are broadcasting live from the Bloomberg Power Players Conference
- 22:30Speaker 5: at Bloomberg Global Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, bringing together a
- 22:33Speaker 5: lot of the smart folks in the business of sports,
- 22:36Speaker 5: the technology of sports, and the competitiveness and the economics
- 22:39Speaker 5: of sport. I'll tell you what, in the last three
- 22:42Speaker 5: or four years, women's sports in terms of popularity, audience
- 22:46Speaker 5: ratings just I'm not going to say exploded, but really
- 22:49Speaker 5: had a noticeable surge. In my opinion, thank for example,
- 22:52Speaker 5: Caitlin Clark with the basketball but I think it all
- 22:55Speaker 5: started with women's soccer, the success of the US women's
- 22:58Speaker 5: soccer programs team in the Olympics, in a World Cup
- 23:01Speaker 5: and all that kind of stuff, and now the National
- 23:03Speaker 5: Women's Soccer League. Jessica Berman joins us. She is the
- 23:05Speaker 5: commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League. She joins us
- 23:08Speaker 5: here at our Bloomberg conference. Jessica, talk to us about
- 23:12Speaker 5: the state of the National Women's Soccer League here in US.
- 23:15Speaker 5: It seems like it's just growing dramatically. And I know
- 23:19Speaker 5: you've got some news about some ownership out on the
- 23:21Speaker 5: West Coast which really caught my attention being a former
- 23:23Speaker 5: analyst covering the Walt Disney company. But talk to us
- 23:26Speaker 5: about the league right now. In women's soccer.
- 23:28Speaker 11: In the last two and a half years, it is true.
- 23:32Speaker 11: I think women's sports and the National Women's Soccer League
- 23:34Speaker 11: in particular, has exploded. We've reached this inflection point where
- 23:38Speaker 11: it is no longer a question whether investing in women's
- 23:40Speaker 11: sports is a good business investment. And because of that,
- 23:45Speaker 11: the money has followed. And we're looking at our ownership
- 23:48Speaker 11: group across all of our teams, fourteen teams across the country,
- 23:52Speaker 11: and we have the right capital and strategic investors around
- 23:57Speaker 11: the table to really build for the future. About our
- 24:01Speaker 11: recent announcement this morning, Bob Iger and will Obey are
- 24:04Speaker 11: now the control owners.
- 24:06Speaker 12: It is a boom, it is a mic drop.
- 24:09Speaker 11: Are now the controlling owners of Angel City, which are
- 24:11Speaker 11: the highest enterprise value women's sports team in the world,
- 24:16Speaker 11: traded for two hundred and fifty million dollars. And you know,
- 24:21Speaker 11: this is a league that launched twelve years ago.
- 24:25Speaker 12: Angel City is only.
- 24:26Speaker 11: Three years old, So jealousy if you put that side
- 24:30Speaker 11: by side with the men's leagues that have been around
- 24:31Speaker 11: for decades, some more than one hundred years, it's really
- 24:34Speaker 11: incredible to see the amount of growth. We also announced
- 24:37Speaker 11: this morning that Magic Johnson is an investor in the
- 24:40Speaker 11: Washington Spirit with Michelle Kang. So the type of owners
- 24:43Speaker 11: who are coming to the table to really invest in
- 24:46Speaker 11: this is really driven by the future vision of you
- 24:50Speaker 11: that we really can be the best league in the world,
- 24:52Speaker 11: and because of the backdrop, as you mentioned of women's soccer,
- 24:56Speaker 11: it's just an incredible moment to be part of witnessing
- 24:59Speaker 11: this growth.
- 25:00Speaker 6: Well, I was going to ask as to the why
- 25:02Speaker 6: now part of it? Is it because you've.
- 25:04Speaker 3: Had, you know, super good success with some amazing players
- 25:08Speaker 3: in the game. I also, as a finance nerd am
- 25:10Speaker 3: going to go back to like the FED had zero
- 25:12Speaker 3: interest rates for a really long time. There's a lot
- 25:14Speaker 3: of money that need to be put to work that
- 25:15Speaker 3: needed a good return because you couldn't put it in
- 25:17Speaker 3: the bond market like that kind of stuff. Like what
- 25:19Speaker 3: are you hearing as to why people with money think
- 25:21Speaker 3: this is a good investment now?
- 25:23Speaker 11: I think if you look on a longitudinal basis, particularly
- 25:27Speaker 11: at men's sports as a parallel over the course of decades,
- 25:31Speaker 11: it outperforms every other asset class on a long term basis,
- 25:36Speaker 11: and so you've often seen investors who are long range
- 25:41Speaker 11: in their thinking around putting capital to work invest in
- 25:44Speaker 11: sports and see incredible returns. If you look at that
- 25:47Speaker 11: compared to the product of women's soccer, there really is
- 25:50Speaker 11: no reason why we should not be as successful as
- 25:54Speaker 11: men's sports, particularly in a sport that has the backdrop
- 25:57Speaker 11: of when you think of success and soccer in the US,
- 26:02Speaker 11: you actually think of women first, and that really creates
- 26:06Speaker 11: a unique value proposition that has really woken up the
- 26:09Speaker 11: investment community to say, if we look at men's sports
- 26:12Speaker 11: and the way that they've grown in enterprise value on
- 26:15Speaker 11: an exponential basis over decades, and we are at the
- 26:18Speaker 11: inception of our growth. There's very few things in the
- 26:21Speaker 11: world that you can get in at the ground level.
- 26:24Speaker 11: I think we're definitely beyond the ground level, but we're
- 26:26Speaker 11: certainly nowhere near the top of our hockey stick growth.
- 26:30Speaker 5: Media rights, it's the big driver of global sports valuations globally.
- 26:35Speaker 5: What's the media strategy for US women's the soccer League.
- 26:38Speaker 11: Yeah, we signed a landmark media deal and announced it
- 26:42Speaker 11: in November of twenty twenty three. We got a collective
- 26:46Speaker 11: quarter of a billion dollars invested into our league from
- 26:50Speaker 11: the combination of CBS, ESPN, Amazon and Script's Ion. And
- 26:57Speaker 11: in addition to that incredible investment in our league, which
- 27:01Speaker 11: allow us to put those resources to work to grow
- 27:04Speaker 11: the league, we've also made the very important strategic decision
- 27:07Speaker 11: to also invest in ourselves and ensure that our games
- 27:10Speaker 11: are viewable and discoverable on platforms that are national in
- 27:14Speaker 11: scope and scale. And so from last year to this year,
- 27:18Speaker 11: we went from six games being available on national broadcast
- 27:22Speaker 11: to over one hundred and twenty.
- 27:24Speaker 8: God.
- 27:25Speaker 11: So now when you are sitting on your couch, which
- 27:27Speaker 11: some people still do, and channel surf, which some people
- 27:30Speaker 11: still do, you.
- 27:32Speaker 12: Will find our games.
- 27:33Speaker 11: And if you were watching the US Open the other night,
- 27:35Speaker 11: which I was, and there was a promo ad to
- 27:38Speaker 11: tell everyone that you can watch this weekend on ESPN.
- 27:41Speaker 11: If you were watching CBS Mornings this morning, you saw
- 27:44Speaker 11: a promo ad that you can watch the NWSL on
- 27:46Speaker 11: Saturday on CBS. And so we are in the places
- 27:49Speaker 11: and spaces where people consume live content, and that will
- 27:53Speaker 11: help us to catalyze the growth of our audience.
- 27:55Speaker 3: So I don't have cable, So what about streaming? Like,
- 27:58Speaker 3: how can I find it on my Apple TV?
- 28:00Speaker 11: Yeah, so all of our CBS games are also on
- 28:02Speaker 11: Paramount plus. All of our ABC and ESPN games are
- 28:06Speaker 11: also on ESPN plus all of our games on scripts Ion.
- 28:10Speaker 11: You can also walk through like a Pluto TV or
- 28:12Speaker 11: other all their streaming apps that provide access to over
- 28:16Speaker 11: the air platforms. And obviously Amazon Prime is basically ubiquitous
- 28:21Speaker 11: with national distribution both streaming and you know anywhere else
- 28:25Speaker 11: that you would want to watch.
- 28:26Speaker 5: Jessica, how about talent here at the players? I mean,
- 28:29Speaker 5: how you could do a whole league with the University
- 28:31Speaker 5: of North Carolina. That's set such a great program for
- 28:33Speaker 5: so long, and as a dupe person, I hate to
- 28:35Speaker 5: admit that, but it's an international game, it's a global game.
- 28:39Speaker 5: Can international players come here? Because I know that's a
- 28:41Speaker 5: problem for the men's US Men's League. The US players,
- 28:44Speaker 5: the great international players don't want to come to the
- 28:46Speaker 5: US league relative to Europe. What's it like in the
- 28:49Speaker 5: women's side, Yes, there's that. Well, unless you're at the
- 28:52Speaker 5: end of your career, you're looking at them.
- 28:53Speaker 11: Yeah, No, I think that is And I appreciate the
- 28:56Speaker 11: question because maybe I should have led with that and
- 28:58Speaker 11: the answer to why now, why invest in the NWSL.
- 29:01Speaker 11: We are the best league in the world and we
- 29:03Speaker 11: are at the top of the pyramid as it relates
- 29:06Speaker 11: to attracting talent, and we have a lot of the
- 29:09Speaker 11: best players playing here, not just the US one's national team,
- 29:12Speaker 11: but we look at, for example, the Olympics this summer,
- 29:15Speaker 11: where we as a league had fifty seven players competing
- 29:19Speaker 11: for eleven of twelve teams in the Olympics. If you
- 29:21Speaker 11: looked at the gold medal match, we had the majority
- 29:24Speaker 11: of the players on the pitch both for Brazil and
- 29:27Speaker 11: for the US team, we had twenty seven players competing
- 29:29Speaker 11: between both of those teams, and.
- 29:32Speaker 12: So we are a global league.
- 29:33Speaker 11: We've actually recently changed our rules to allow nine players
- 29:37Speaker 11: on the roster be international players, because we really want
- 29:41Speaker 11: to be a league that is a destination for the
- 29:43Speaker 11: top talent in the world, which now is not just
- 29:46Speaker 11: in the US.
- 29:47Speaker 12: There there's top talent everywhere.
- 29:49Speaker 11: This is truly is a global game, and we're excited
- 29:51Speaker 11: to be a destination for the best players.
- 29:53Speaker 5: All right, Jessica, thank you so much for joining us.
- 29:54Speaker 5: Really appreciate it. Jessica Berman. She's a commissioner of the
- 29:56Speaker 5: National Women's Soccer League. You talk about the gro again
- 30:01Speaker 5: in my opinion, kind of led by the Women's Soccer
- 30:05Speaker 5: League and it's just been extraordinary, continues to grow, and
- 30:08Speaker 5: you know, as a media person, we see the money,
- 30:10Speaker 5: the rights start to go to a particular sport, that's
- 30:13Speaker 5: where you know that the growth is and the opportunities,
- 30:15Speaker 5: and that's certainly the case with the US Women's Soccer League.
- 30:19Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 30:23Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android
- 30:27Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen
- 30:30Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station.
- 30:33Speaker 1: Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 30:37Speaker 3: All right, Happy Thursday, everybody. I'm Alex Steel alongside Paul Sweeney.
- 30:41Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio and we are broadcasting too
- 30:44Speaker 3: live from our headquarters right here in New York City
- 30:47Speaker 3: at the Power Players Conference where we're talking about sports, money, media,
- 30:51Speaker 3: business and the combination between all of those things. And
- 30:55Speaker 3: we just spoke to the commissioner of the US Women's
- 30:58Speaker 3: Soccer League. That was quite interesting in terms of the
- 31:00Speaker 3: big money coming in in terms like you definitely missed
- 31:02Speaker 3: the bottom, Like there's money already in there, but if
- 31:04Speaker 3: you get in now, there's just so much more exponential
- 31:07Speaker 3: growth that you could see.
- 31:09Speaker 5: Yeah, and big news coming out of you know, the
- 31:10Speaker 5: second biggest market in the country, Los Angeles. Bob Iger,
- 31:13Speaker 5: the chairman CEO of Walt Disney Company, and his wife
- 31:15Speaker 5: will Obey buying a controlling stake or I think a
- 31:18Speaker 5: full stick, a complete steak of the Los Angeles franchise.
- 31:21Speaker 5: So yeah, that is a huge vote of confidence.
- 31:23Speaker 6: All right, Well, we just talked to the commissioner so
- 31:25Speaker 6: let's talk to someone who actually.
- 31:26Speaker 12: Kicks the ball.
- 31:27Speaker 5: Right, Oh okay, because I think.
- 31:28Speaker 6: That that's probably a great idea.
- 31:29Speaker 3: Joining us now is Midge Purse is forward New Jersey,
- 31:32Speaker 3: New York Gotham FC. She alsos United States women's national
- 31:37Speaker 3: soccer team. Wow, okay, this is really awesome. Thank you
- 31:40Speaker 3: so much for joining us.
- 31:41Speaker 6: Oh no, thank you for having me.
- 31:42Speaker 3: So can I ask a really dumb soccer question. This
- 31:46Speaker 3: seems to me to be the hardest sport to play
- 31:48Speaker 3: because everyone is running all the time. Like it's not
- 31:52Speaker 3: like when you're in football and you kind of stay
- 31:53Speaker 3: in a range or like tennis, it's a small area, Like.
- 31:56Speaker 6: How do you do it? While our coaches make us
- 32:00Speaker 6: run a lot, right all the time?
- 32:02Speaker 8: Yes, all the time.
- 32:03Speaker 13: But I actually what I think is makes it the
- 32:06Speaker 13: hardest sport is that any other athlete who tries to
- 32:09Speaker 13: play soccer looks extremely unathletic. Where you can kind of
- 32:12Speaker 13: fake it if you're playing football or basketball or even
- 32:15Speaker 13: running track, but you look really anathletic playing soccer unless
- 32:18Speaker 13: you know it.
- 32:19Speaker 6: I think that's a good point.
- 32:20Speaker 5: Mitch, talk to us. We were talking to your commissioner
- 32:21Speaker 5: about the state of the sport in the league and everything.
- 32:24Speaker 5: I don't want to talk to you about what it's
- 32:25Speaker 5: like on the field. Talk to us about the competition,
- 32:28Speaker 5: the level of competition, where the players come from. What's
- 32:31Speaker 5: the level of competition on the field. Now you played
- 32:33Speaker 5: your college soccer at Harvard. What's it like for that
- 32:36Speaker 5: jump to the pros?
- 32:37Speaker 13: Oh, the jump is getting bigger and bigger. I think
- 32:41Speaker 13: the gap between the collegiate game and the professional game
- 32:44Speaker 13: has only grown over the past couple of years. I
- 32:46Speaker 13: think when I was coming from college and going to
- 32:48Speaker 13: pro that jump wasn't as big for me.
- 32:50Speaker 8: I had a good time my rookie year.
- 32:53Speaker 13: But now you see people not struggling more, but really
- 32:56Speaker 13: having to take a little bit more time to get
- 32:59Speaker 13: to that level and meshin with the rest of the players.
- 33:03Speaker 3: Do you feel like if I say women's soccer is
- 33:05Speaker 3: finally having its moment, is it actually finally having its
- 33:08Speaker 3: moment that's durable in here to day.
- 33:11Speaker 13: I don't know if I can subscribe to that.
- 33:13Speaker 6: And I'll tell you why.
- 33:14Speaker 13: It's because every four years we have the Olympics and
- 33:17Speaker 13: we have the World Cup, and everyone gets really really
- 33:19Speaker 13: excited about women's soccer and then it usually dissipates at
- 33:24Speaker 13: some point. I do think women's sports in general are
- 33:27Speaker 13: having an incredible moment. I mean you can see it
- 33:29Speaker 13: with the WNBA, you can see it with like rugby
- 33:32Speaker 13: and track. I'm with you, I believe in it, but
- 33:36Speaker 13: I want to wait to see it before I subscribe.
- 33:38Speaker 5: You've been on the national teams, the US national teams
- 33:41Speaker 5: for years, so you've seen the global competition and how
- 33:45Speaker 5: but the US team is, in my opinion, I don't
- 33:47Speaker 5: know that. I'm not that into it the best team
- 33:50Speaker 5: for a long time globally in terms of looking at
- 33:52Speaker 5: the World Cups and so on. Talk to us about
- 33:54Speaker 5: the growth of soccer internationally outside the US. What are
- 33:56Speaker 5: you seeing in terms of competitiveness, because I know there
- 33:59Speaker 5: are a lot of international players in the US league.
- 34:01Speaker 13: Oh absolutely, And I mean I think you can see
- 34:04Speaker 13: it even with the last World Cup we had. We
- 34:06Speaker 13: won this Olympic gold, which is absolutely fantastic, and I
- 34:10Speaker 13: think anyone who watched the games could see that they
- 34:12Speaker 13: were difficult games. It wasn't six zero, wasn't five zero,
- 34:16Speaker 13: wasn't three zero. A couple of Germany games where we
- 34:19Speaker 13: were in our favor, But in general, it's the competition
- 34:23Speaker 13: is leveling out, and you know, the global stage is
- 34:27Speaker 13: getting a lot more Even so, I think even seeing
- 34:29Speaker 13: a lot of those players come over to our league
- 34:31Speaker 13: and increase the competitiveness that we have here at home,
- 34:34Speaker 13: it's really amazing to see the progression of women's sports globally.
- 34:38Speaker 3: What do you think of the way what do you
- 34:40Speaker 3: think of the how to monetize that? Like as a player?
- 34:43Speaker 3: Like we talked to the commissioner, We talked to a
- 34:46Speaker 3: partner that sort of helps collegiate athletes monetize themselves and
- 34:49Speaker 3: understand how to do that and works with them, work
- 34:51Speaker 3: with colleges.
- 34:52Speaker 6: Do you think this is all being done the right way?
- 34:55Speaker 13: No, this is great.
- 34:58Speaker 6: This is why I want to talk to someone who
- 34:59Speaker 6: actually does this. In short, No, I don't.
- 35:02Speaker 13: I think that we're still behind in terms of the
- 35:05Speaker 13: industry approach on how we support players, help players, and
- 35:10Speaker 13: promote players. I think one of the biggest issues I've
- 35:13Speaker 13: had with women's sports in general is that the landscape
- 35:16Speaker 13: for how we market women's sports has always been extremely
- 35:18Speaker 13: derivative with the landscape of how we market men's sports.
- 35:20Speaker 13: And shocking, yeah, they say shrink it and pink it
- 35:24Speaker 13: is something that Michelle King likes to say, and I'll
- 35:27Speaker 13: take that from her. But it's not even just derivative
- 35:30Speaker 13: of the men's game, but we're derivative of the European
- 35:33Speaker 13: format as well. And you know, the American population, this demographic,
- 35:37Speaker 13: it's a different audience that you need to cater to,
- 35:39Speaker 13: and I think we need to be just a little
- 35:41Speaker 13: bit more specific industry wide.
- 35:43Speaker 8: With how we do that.
- 35:44Speaker 5: How do you expect the growth of the league to
- 35:46Speaker 5: be over the next several years, to expect it to
- 35:48Speaker 5: get more competitive, maybe more teams. What do the players
- 35:51Speaker 5: feel like?
- 35:52Speaker 13: Oh, I don't think anything's going to stop this league,
- 35:55Speaker 13: to be completely honest, I think we will be huge
- 35:58Speaker 13: competitors with the MLS.
- 36:00Speaker 6: Do see a lot more teams coming in.
- 36:02Speaker 13: I think more international players will want to come play here,
- 36:04Speaker 13: and I think it's going to be even harder to
- 36:06Speaker 13: play here domestically.
- 36:07Speaker 3: Right, What about like, do you think we're gonna have
- 36:10Speaker 3: like competitions not like the Olympics or whatever World Cup
- 36:13Speaker 3: where like you can play more internationally and make it
- 36:16Speaker 3: not just like a US soccer sport.
- 36:18Speaker 13: Absolutely, I think, I mean we already have a CONCACAF
- 36:20Speaker 13: tournament happening right now. My team plays tonight. Good luck
- 36:23Speaker 13: at the MFC. You guys are going to be fantassic,
- 36:25Speaker 13: and we have the Club World Cup that's happening. So
- 36:28Speaker 13: it's definitely we are integrating with other leagues and making
- 36:32Speaker 13: that global community for women's soccer.
- 36:35Speaker 5: All right, Mitch, that's great. Really appreciate getting a few
- 36:37Speaker 5: midges minutes of your time. Mitch Purse forward for the
- 36:39Speaker 5: nj NY Gotham Football Club and also the United States
- 36:43Speaker 5: women's national soccer team. She played at collegiate soccer at Harvard.
- 36:47Speaker 5: Talk about the growth of this, the women's professional league
- 36:49Speaker 5: here in the US certainly, as Midge was suggesting, kind
- 36:53Speaker 5: of hitting an inflection point, and that's consistent with what
- 36:55Speaker 5: we've seen from women's sports just over the last three
- 36:58Speaker 5: or four years. And again I kind of just go
- 36:59Speaker 5: back to the WNBA, which they're playing their season right
- 37:02Speaker 5: now in Kaitlyn Clark and Angel Reese. That just kind
- 37:05Speaker 5: of really taken over the zeitgeist and so women's sports
- 37:08Speaker 5: big time here and that's certainly a focus at this
- 37:10Speaker 5: conference here.
- 37:11Speaker 1: Yes, sir ee, you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast.
- 37:16Speaker 1: Catch us Live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple.
- 37:19Speaker 2: Car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Act.
- 37:22Speaker 1: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 37:25Speaker 1: flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 37:31Speaker 5: Alex Steele, Paul Sweeney, We're live here at the Bloomberg
- 37:35Speaker 5: Power Players Conference at the Bloomberg A Global Headquarters, seven
- 37:37Speaker 5: to thirty one Lexington Avenue, fifty eighth Street. Man, You've
- 37:40Speaker 5: got a lot of smart people running around here, a
- 37:42Speaker 5: lot of interesting conversation about the world of global sport.
- 37:46Speaker 5: This one you don't want to miss. David Rubenstein joins
- 37:48Speaker 5: us here. He is a co founder and co chairman
- 37:50Speaker 5: of the Carlisle Group and owner of the Baltimore Orioles
- 37:54Speaker 5: as well as Cal Ripkin Junior, talking about those O's
- 37:57Speaker 5: Baseball Hall of Famer, founder and partner of Ripkin Baseball. Gentlemen,
- 38:01Speaker 5: thanks so much for joining us here. We got a
- 38:02Speaker 5: lot of sports people running around. We're talking about women's basketball,
- 38:05Speaker 5: women's soccer. Let's talk a little bit of Major League baseball.
- 38:08Speaker 5: You guys are up a game in the win, Colm
- 38:10Speaker 5: on my Yankees. It's going to be a great last
- 38:12Speaker 5: few weeks. Of the Year. David, I want to start
- 38:15Speaker 5: with you here. You own the Orioles. Here, What are
- 38:18Speaker 5: you doing? Why are you buying a sports franchise?
- 38:21Speaker 10: Well, in this case, I grew up in Baltimore and
- 38:23Speaker 10: I wanted to give back to Baltimore a bit, and
- 38:25Speaker 10: I thought the team could maybe use rejuvenation in some way.
- 38:29Speaker 10: And it's part of rebirth of Baltimore. Baltimore is trying
- 38:32Speaker 10: to rebuild itself in many ways from some of the
- 38:34Speaker 10: struggles it's had. I thought a new ownership group would
- 38:36Speaker 10: probably be helpful, so I did it for that reason.
- 38:39Speaker 10: And obviously I hope to make money as well for
- 38:41Speaker 10: myself and my investors, but it's more of a philanthropic
- 38:44Speaker 10: thing on my part than anything else.
- 38:45Speaker 5: And Alex, he's got a few partners there, including mister Bloomberg,
- 38:50Speaker 5: who owns this radio program. Ah, how about that?
- 38:53Speaker 6: How about that?
- 38:54Speaker 5: Secular forces exactly all comes back together. Cal talked to
- 38:57Speaker 5: us about the Orioles. Boy, man, I'm so I'm looking
- 39:01Speaker 5: at them every day. Man, they look good. Tell us
- 39:03Speaker 5: about this team.
- 39:04Speaker 14: It's an exciting young team to watch, talent all over
- 39:08Speaker 14: the place. We've had little problems with injuries and our
- 39:10Speaker 14: pitching staff. But when you have a deeper minor league system,
- 39:14Speaker 14: sometimes when somebody gets hurt, you can it's an opportunity
- 39:17Speaker 14: for someone else. So they're playing really well. And it's
- 39:20Speaker 14: interesting when many owners come in to buy a team,
- 39:24Speaker 14: the thing they have to fix is what's happening on
- 39:25Speaker 14: the field. In our particular case, that's the best part
- 39:29Speaker 14: about the investment is that Michaelias has done a really
- 39:32Speaker 14: good job of creating an environment of culture that knows
- 39:37Speaker 14: how to win, knows how to play, and he's put
- 39:39Speaker 14: talent in the system. So the good part is you
- 39:41Speaker 14: just take your hands off of and say just keep
- 39:43Speaker 14: going and hopefully the luck factor with David will in
- 39:47Speaker 14: the very first year will take that all the way
- 39:49Speaker 14: to the World Series.
- 39:50Speaker 6: That's a really dumb question.
- 39:51Speaker 3: Yes, why is investing in sports like a good business?
- 39:55Speaker 3: And I say that because at some point we're going
- 39:56Speaker 3: to reach the top, right, Like, there's so much money
- 39:58Speaker 3: coming in.
- 39:59Speaker 10: How do you know, Well, over the last ten or
- 40:02Speaker 10: fifteen years, it's been very difficult for somebody to buy
- 40:04Speaker 10: a major league professional sport operation and lose money. People
- 40:10Speaker 10: have made staggering sums. Now, of course that tends to
- 40:12Speaker 10: tract more money, and as you suggest, at some point
- 40:15Speaker 10: there's always a peak. But right now the interest in
- 40:18Speaker 10: sports is so dynamic that the live television despite your
- 40:24Speaker 10: view in my view that live television should focus on
- 40:26Speaker 10: interview shows, actually it focuses on live sports, and live
- 40:30Speaker 10: sports is what's keeping television alive really. So if you
- 40:33Speaker 10: take a look at the NFL, for example, I think
- 40:35Speaker 10: of the the fifty most watched television shows last year,
- 40:40Speaker 10: forty five of them were NFL games. And now baseball
- 40:45Speaker 10: sees a lot of people as a lot of people
- 40:47Speaker 10: watching as well, so there's a view that the population
- 40:49Speaker 10: increases and as other things seem to be less attractive,
- 40:52Speaker 10: sports is still very, very attractive, and so the TV
- 40:55Speaker 10: contracts are going up and as a result, for example,
- 40:58Speaker 10: the NBA just negotiated seventy seven billion dollars worth of contracts.
- 41:02Speaker 10: It's expected in two years that the NFL will top
- 41:05Speaker 10: that number. So that's what it is driving. And also
- 41:08Speaker 10: it's a global phenomenon that people now are buying sports
- 41:11Speaker 10: teams not only in their own country, but everywhere in
- 41:14Speaker 10: the world, and so it's really not just the US phenomenon.
- 41:17Speaker 14: So can I have a simple all you have to
- 41:20Speaker 14: do is to look at the health of sports, is
- 41:22Speaker 14: to look at the salaries of the players. Yeah, and
- 41:25Speaker 14: I guess I'd become one of those players saying, man,
- 41:27Speaker 14: I wish i'd played in.
- 41:28Speaker 5: This era always goes up. I mean, I'm like everybody else.
- 41:33Speaker 5: It's got a top out somewhere, yet it just keeps
- 41:35Speaker 5: going higher. Cal how is the game on the field changed?
- 41:39Speaker 5: The kids today that you watch at Canbin Yards still,
- 41:42Speaker 5: by the way, I would argue one of the best
- 41:44Speaker 5: parks in Major League Baseball twenty five years on. But
- 41:47Speaker 5: how's the game changed today versus women? You played well?
- 41:50Speaker 14: I mean the analytics have taken over and all the
- 41:52Speaker 14: data and all the information. And I was an analytical
- 41:55Speaker 14: player and I took the data from but there was
- 41:58Speaker 14: no way that I was getting all the sort of
- 41:59Speaker 14: data that you can get now. And the trick is,
- 42:02Speaker 14: and this is the fun part about learning the game
- 42:05Speaker 14: hasn't changed much because the diamonds the same, the bases
- 42:08Speaker 14: are the same, the mounds the same, The game is
- 42:10Speaker 14: played the same way. But with all this influx of
- 42:13Speaker 14: new data, teams feel that they have an advantage when
- 42:17Speaker 14: they extract some of the data and then use that
- 42:19Speaker 14: to help them play in the game. But the secret
- 42:21Speaker 14: is how do you give the data to a player
- 42:23Speaker 14: to make him a better player. And that's the part
- 42:25Speaker 14: that I'm having fun with is learning what the data affects.
- 42:30Speaker 14: The philosophy of how you play the game, and that's
- 42:33Speaker 14: changed and positioning on the field. You know, different old
- 42:37Speaker 14: philosophies have kind of gone out the window because they've
- 42:39Speaker 14: been proven not to be effective. So it's interesting to
- 42:42Speaker 14: watch the game from that perspective. But it is all
- 42:44Speaker 14: about the data. The numbers they track everything that moves
- 42:47Speaker 14: on that field.
- 42:48Speaker 5: It's amazing and that's AI. That's big data coming into
- 42:51Speaker 5: sports and ouse. I'm sure you know this, but I mean,
- 42:53Speaker 5: just cal has he has a little record out there.
- 42:56Speaker 5: He played a lot of games in a row. He
- 42:57Speaker 5: never took a day off. That is something that just
- 43:02Speaker 5: it'll never be broken down.
- 43:04Speaker 14: I wish I was wearing probes or something that could
- 43:06Speaker 14: figure out how I could do that, because I'm asking
- 43:08Speaker 14: all the time, how in the world you play all
- 43:09Speaker 14: those games in a row, and I don't know.
- 43:11Speaker 5: Well, I guess my question would be with the analytics,
- 43:14Speaker 5: that's never going to happen again, not even close.
- 43:17Speaker 14: Well, I think they're predicting now, at least in a
- 43:19Speaker 14: medical sort of way, when that you might be inclined
- 43:23Speaker 14: to have an injury, you know, And so if they
- 43:25Speaker 14: start to think that you might have an injury, then
- 43:26Speaker 14: they put you on the list a little early, the
- 43:29Speaker 14: injury list a little early, and they're they're looking at
- 43:32Speaker 14: the long term as the short term.
- 43:34Speaker 6: But I don't know if that's a good thing or
- 43:35Speaker 6: a bad thing.
- 43:37Speaker 14: There's the one thing that's hard to measure is what's
- 43:40Speaker 14: inside your heart, I mean, your guts and how you
- 43:42Speaker 14: go out about playing the game, how you compete. That's
- 43:45Speaker 14: not measurable right now. And I think that's what drove
- 43:48Speaker 14: me is when you're an everyday player. The definition of
- 43:50Speaker 14: an everyday player when I played was every day. I
- 43:53Speaker 14: had the body type in which to do it. I
- 43:56Speaker 14: healed really well, and I could play through pain. And
- 44:00Speaker 14: when you find out that you can play through being
- 44:02Speaker 14: less than one hundred percent, because I would argue that
- 44:05Speaker 14: even if you play one hundred and forty games, you're
- 44:07Speaker 14: still playing at less than one hundred percent. Maybe the
- 44:09Speaker 14: only time you're one hundred percent is the first day
- 44:11Speaker 14: of spring training, right and then you end up moving
- 44:14Speaker 14: towards the year. So that's the hard part where that's
- 44:17Speaker 14: not measurable.
- 44:18Speaker 5: Yep.
- 44:19Speaker 14: And I like to see players that push through and
- 44:21Speaker 14: force themselves to play every game to.
- 44:23Speaker 5: See too that you don't see that too much anymore, Hey, David,
- 44:27Speaker 5: And aside from the Orioles, you've got a day job
- 44:29Speaker 5: here co founder, co chairman of the Carlisle Group. Perfect
- 44:32Speaker 5: time to ask you this question. I know you bought
- 44:35Speaker 5: the Orioles as an individual's part of a partnership. Right
- 44:38Speaker 5: now private equity. The NFL has allowed private equity crime
- 44:41Speaker 5: in as part ownership. What do you think about that?
- 44:44Speaker 10: Well, Carlisle is one of the groups that's permitted, so
- 44:47Speaker 10: for it. Yes, I think that it was inevitable because
- 44:50Speaker 10: the prices of NFL teams are going up so much
- 44:52Speaker 10: that it's very difficult to find somebody by himself or
- 44:55Speaker 10: herself who can buy a team anymore longer. The last
- 44:58Speaker 10: team that was sold they can, Washington Commander went for
- 45:00Speaker 10: six billion dollars. It's a large an amount of money.
- 45:03Speaker 10: Very few people can buy that by themselves. You need
- 45:05Speaker 10: to have consortium of people to do this, and private
- 45:08Speaker 10: equity is a big pot of capital. Sitting there. But
- 45:11Speaker 10: the deals are ones where you have to be ten
- 45:13Speaker 10: percent no involvement in the day to day management, and
- 45:16Speaker 10: you have to hold for at least six years. So
- 45:19Speaker 10: NFL's experimenting. We'll see how it goes.
- 45:21Speaker 3: So Kel, you have had minor league investments, but this
- 45:25Speaker 3: is the first time that both of you have had
- 45:27Speaker 3: major league investments.
- 45:28Speaker 6: How did this come about? Like how did the partnership
- 45:30Speaker 6: come about?
- 45:31Speaker 5: Haws it going well.
- 45:33Speaker 10: The owner of the team for the last thirty years
- 45:36Speaker 10: was the Angelo's family. I had talked to them over
- 45:39Speaker 10: last summer about a possible sale and it came to be.
- 45:43Speaker 10: But I wanted to have people in the consortium that
- 45:46Speaker 10: were more connected to Baltimore and baseball than maybe I was,
- 45:50Speaker 10: because I have grown up in Baltimore, but I haven't
- 45:52Speaker 10: lived there for a while. So I talked to a
- 45:54Speaker 10: number of people in Baltimore and some of the people
- 45:57Speaker 10: who are also connected with the Oils, and obviously the
- 45:59Speaker 10: first call was a cal Ripken. They said he would
- 46:01Speaker 10: like to invest and also help us in other ways
- 46:03Speaker 10: what she's doing. So I think it's worked out quite
- 46:05Speaker 10: well and win win for Baltimore and for for that.
- 46:09Speaker 6: Was like a no brainer for you.
- 46:10Speaker 14: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no brainer. I felt like I've been
- 46:14Speaker 14: an Oriole through and through my whole life. I mean,
- 46:16Speaker 14: I grew up in and around the Baltimore area. My
- 46:18Speaker 14: dad was in, uh with the Orioles in the first
- 46:21Speaker 14: fourteen years of my life. He was a minor league manager.
- 46:24Speaker 14: And then you have a dream you'd be a player,
- 46:25Speaker 14: You get drafted by the team you want to get
- 46:27Speaker 14: drafted by, you play your whole career with that team.
- 46:30Speaker 14: So I know that I went off for a little while,
- 46:33Speaker 14: and uh, you know, you buy minor league teams, you
- 46:36Speaker 14: learn about business in other ways. You put your head down.
- 46:39Speaker 14: You don't pay much attention to what's happening at the Oriols.
- 46:42Speaker 14: But when David called, it was an opportunity to get
- 46:45Speaker 14: back in to look at it from the inside looking out,
- 46:48Speaker 14: and I'm I'm really surprised that I'm way into it now.
- 46:51Speaker 14: I used to think the whole world revolved around baseball,
- 46:54Speaker 14: and then you get out and you realize it doesn't.
- 46:56Speaker 14: But then now it seems like the world revolves around
- 46:58Speaker 14: baseball again.
- 46:59Speaker 10: Of course, not to put it in context for those
- 47:01Speaker 10: who don't know the record, lou Garrick played in thirty
- 47:05Speaker 10: consecutive games. People thought that was the unbreakable record. Cal
- 47:09Speaker 10: Ripkin did six hundred and thirty two games over seventeen years,
- 47:13Speaker 10: not missing one day. And all of us who worked
- 47:16Speaker 10: day to day for living in non athletic things. Can
- 47:19Speaker 10: you imagine going to work seventeen days in or seventeen
- 47:21Speaker 10: years in a row without missing totally?
- 47:23Speaker 5: Exactly, Cal, What do you think the Oils need to
- 47:27Speaker 5: work on over the next couple of years? Here again,
- 47:29Speaker 5: I'm looking at the record. Your record is great. What
- 47:32Speaker 5: do you think they need to work on? Is it
- 47:33Speaker 5: minor league? Is it No?
- 47:35Speaker 14: No, We have a minor league that's stocked with talent
- 47:38Speaker 14: and you can only I mean, if you developed three
- 47:42Speaker 14: shortstops in the minor leagues, you can only play one
- 47:44Speaker 14: of them.
- 47:44Speaker 5: Yep.
- 47:45Speaker 14: So many times the talent that you have in the
- 47:47Speaker 14: minor leagues is used to trade to get to get
- 47:50Speaker 14: the pieces that you need at the big league level.
- 47:52Speaker 14: And the Ools are in good position for that. They
- 47:54Speaker 14: have young players that are going to be superstars, that
- 47:57Speaker 14: are already superstars, and maybe the biggest challenge in the
- 48:00Speaker 14: future is how do you keep them?
- 48:01Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, exactly, I mean, no salary cap here, so
- 48:06Speaker 5: tough to keep the star players.
- 48:07Speaker 15: Right.
- 48:08Speaker 10: Yes, Unlike football or basketball, there's no salary cap in
- 48:12Speaker 10: professional baseball, so you can get contracts at ores high
- 48:15Speaker 10: ast seven hundred million dollars, and so it's hard for
- 48:18Speaker 10: smaller cities to compete in that domain.
- 48:20Speaker 2: Somewhat.
- 48:21Speaker 5: All right, we have to see how that plays. Really.
- 48:22Speaker 5: Appreciate you too, gentlemen. Stopping by David Rubinstein. He's a
- 48:25Speaker 5: co founder and co chairman of the Carlisle Group. He's
- 48:28Speaker 5: now the owner of the Baltimore Oils and cal Ripken
- 48:31Speaker 5: Junior d cal Riton Junior Baseball Hall of Famer, founder
- 48:34Speaker 5: and partner of Ripken Baseball. Appreciate you too, general. Taking
- 48:36Speaker 5: a couple of minutes, you're trying to stop by here
- 48:38Speaker 5: at our Bloomberg Sports Power Conference.
- 48:42Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 48:46Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android
- 48:50Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen
- 48:53Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station,
- 48:56Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 49:01Speaker 5: Alex Deel, Paul Sweeney. We were broadcasting live from the
- 49:03Speaker 5: Bloomberg Power Players Conference here at the Bloomberg Global headquarters
- 49:07Speaker 5: in Midtown Manhattan. Let's switch gears to the NASCAR, the
- 49:12Speaker 5: business of NASCAR. I have a lot of experience with NASCAR.
- 49:14Speaker 5: We took some of those track owners public back in
- 49:17Speaker 5: the early nineties, and I got to really understand the business,
- 49:20Speaker 5: the sport and the heritage of NASCAR Racing is just
- 49:23Speaker 5: extraordinary education. There, Steve Phelps joins us. He's a president
- 49:26Speaker 5: of NASCAR. Steve, thanks so much for joining us here.
- 49:29Speaker 5: You know, I got to know NASCAR in the early
- 49:31Speaker 5: nineties when I think it was really on an ascendency
- 49:33Speaker 5: in terms of television ratings and then attendance, and it
- 49:36Speaker 5: was just crazy and it rad that it rode that
- 49:38Speaker 5: way for a while. Then it kind of crested. Where
- 49:40Speaker 5: are we now with NASCAR in the global sports scene here?
- 49:44Speaker 10: Sure?
- 49:44Speaker 15: Well, I think you're exactly right, Paul, So had this.
- 49:48Speaker 16: I would say until two thousand and nine, the growth
- 49:51Speaker 16: of the sport just continued. You know, the recession hit,
- 49:55Speaker 16: and I think sponsorship started to go away because not
- 50:00Speaker 16: necessarily the sport, just because of where things were with
- 50:03Speaker 16: the economy. And then we had a slow, steady decline.
- 50:07Speaker 16: If We're going to be completely honest until twenty eighteen.
- 50:10Speaker 16: But since twenty nineteen, attendance is up, ratings are up.
- 50:14Speaker 16: We did a almost a one point one billion dollar
- 50:17Speaker 16: per year media deal last year for seven years, so
- 50:21Speaker 16: almost eight billion dollars.
- 50:23Speaker 15: And so I'm very.
- 50:25Speaker 16: Bullish on where the sport is today, but importantly where
- 50:28Speaker 16: it's going.
- 50:29Speaker 3: Where do you think it's going to go? Like, has
- 50:31Speaker 3: it broad an appeal? How do you get someone like
- 50:32Speaker 3: me to watch it?
- 50:33Speaker 14: Sure?
- 50:33Speaker 15: I think you know it? Yeah, that's a and there's
- 50:37Speaker 15: the trick, right, so's.
- 50:38Speaker 6: Like me just I don't know. I don't do sports
- 50:40Speaker 6: at all. I like the Olympics, I like the US Open.
- 50:43Speaker 16: So I think you know, we're trying to appeal to
- 50:45Speaker 16: both obviously our existing audience and serve that audience and
- 50:48Speaker 16: then bring a new audience in. We're doing that through
- 50:51Speaker 16: a number of different things. So for example, we did
- 50:53Speaker 16: a Netflix show earlier in the year, and that audience
- 50:57Speaker 16: for US has been more female, it has been young,
- 51:01Speaker 16: and I think if you look overall in NASCAR in
- 51:04Speaker 16: the last three years, our growth has come from women,
- 51:08Speaker 16: people of color, and younger people.
- 51:10Speaker 15: And so it's working. But we've got to continue to
- 51:14Speaker 15: do that.
- 51:15Speaker 16: The key for me is what content opportunities we have
- 51:19Speaker 16: that will capture you Alex right, and what are the
- 51:21Speaker 16: storylines we have that will capture you? And I think
- 51:24Speaker 16: that's important because and it's I think people think of
- 51:28Speaker 16: it in a way that is not right, which is
- 51:31Speaker 16: you're either going to serve yours existing fans or you're
- 51:34Speaker 16: going to go after new fans. I don't think that's true.
- 51:37Speaker 16: It's an and it's not an or. These fans, the
- 51:41Speaker 16: existing fans, they want great racing, they want great storylines,
- 51:43Speaker 16: they want their drivers to win, they want to see
- 51:45Speaker 16: exciting racing.
- 51:48Speaker 15: These people want the same thing. It's how do you
- 51:51Speaker 15: how do you capture them?
- 51:52Speaker 2: Right?
- 51:52Speaker 16: And so I don't think that two things are all
- 51:54Speaker 16: that different. It's just where we investing our money. So
- 51:57Speaker 16: for example, we just built a sixty million dollar our
- 52:00Speaker 16: productions facility ran outside of Charlotte next to our R
- 52:03Speaker 16: and D facility, and it's really two components to it.
- 52:06Speaker 15: It's live event production.
- 52:09Speaker 16: So how are we going to put our own events
- 52:11Speaker 16: on for our five media partners going forward in twenty five?
- 52:16Speaker 16: And then how do we create a you know, creative
- 52:20Speaker 16: content and really compelling content either be distributed through our
- 52:23Speaker 16: own channels of distribution or someone else's. So and we've
- 52:28Speaker 16: got you know, the three new media partners as part
- 52:31Speaker 16: of it. So Fox and NBC came back, who are
- 52:33Speaker 16: existing partners, but we had an Amazon, Warner Brothers, Discovery
- 52:37Speaker 16: and the CW and the CW is for our second series,
- 52:41Speaker 16: which is called the Xfinity Series. So five media partners,
- 52:45Speaker 16: five opportunities for us to have, you know, kind of
- 52:47Speaker 16: a megaphone of where things are going.
- 52:49Speaker 5: It used to be alex you know, Ford Cars, Chevy
- 52:52Speaker 5: Cars in the race. If you went on Sunday, you
- 52:54Speaker 5: sell on Monday. That's how important it was. Talk to
- 52:57Speaker 5: us about the economics of just the teams out there.
- 53:00Speaker 5: How many teams are there? Do they make money?
- 53:02Speaker 8: Sure?
- 53:03Speaker 5: How does that work?
- 53:04Speaker 16: So I would look at it in three kind of
- 53:06Speaker 16: three buckets, right, So we have three national series. The
- 53:10Speaker 16: one that most people think about is our Cup series,
- 53:12Speaker 16: which is our top series. So we're coming to a close,
- 53:16Speaker 16: I think, you know, pretty quickly on something called charter extensions.
- 53:20Speaker 16: So I would think of it as franchise light, so
- 53:23Speaker 16: it's not franchise, but it creates enterprise value for our
- 53:26Speaker 16: race teams, and so we're in the final throws of
- 53:29Speaker 16: getting those extended. Right now, race teams, if you probably
- 53:35Speaker 16: are collectively losing money. So in the charter agreement that
- 53:39Speaker 16: we have, based on our media deals and some other
- 53:42Speaker 16: things that we're doing, we're going to provide the race
- 53:44Speaker 16: teams with more revenue, so two pieces of revenue, guaranteed
- 53:48Speaker 16: revenue and then what they race for.
- 53:51Speaker 15: And so to me, starting in.
- 53:53Speaker 16: Twenty twenty five, we should have cash flow positive race teams,
- 53:57Speaker 16: which is what we want. And I've heard lots of
- 54:00Speaker 16: fans say, well, I don't really care about that. My
- 54:02Speaker 16: whole point is bankru Yeah, that's exactly Well, not only that,
- 54:05Speaker 16: but it creates more compelling racing, right, and that's what
- 54:08Speaker 16: we want.
- 54:08Speaker 15: We have competitive racing. So we have of our twenty six.
- 54:12Speaker 16: Races, we've had this year, fifteen different winners, nine different
- 54:17Speaker 16: organizations of the fifteen charter organizations that we have.
- 54:21Speaker 15: So it's it, and the racing is terrific.
- 54:25Speaker 16: It's just it's the best style of racing I believe
- 54:27Speaker 16: on the planet, and I think our race fans are
- 54:30Speaker 16: telling us that. So again, ratings are up despite significant
- 54:34Speaker 16: rain issues we've had all year, long raining. So Daytona
- 54:38Speaker 16: five hundred were down twenty seven percent because we raced
- 54:40Speaker 16: on Monday. YEP, Coke six hundred rain event down fifteen percent.
- 54:44Speaker 16: We had a race in the streets of Chicago rain again,
- 54:48Speaker 16: down fifteen percent. So there are three largest rated events
- 54:52Speaker 16: of the year, all down double digit and yet we're
- 54:55Speaker 16: still positive right of rating.
- 54:57Speaker 15: So it's it's.
- 54:58Speaker 5: Working just real quick. Any new markets go about thirty
- 55:02Speaker 5: seconds left?
- 55:03Speaker 16: Sure, yeah, so yeah, so I think so we're going
- 55:06Speaker 16: to race next year for the first time outside of
- 55:08Speaker 16: our borders in the Cup Series in Mexico City. Okay,
- 55:11Speaker 16: So we have some other discussions that are going so
- 55:13Speaker 16: we're again we're excited about the broadening of our sport.
- 55:17Speaker 5: YEP. Absolutely. I like Charlotte Motor Speedway, like Richmond, and
- 55:20Speaker 5: I like Bristol, the smallest track, but it's just people
- 55:23Speaker 5: down there are nuts for racing. It's kind of like Bristol, Tennessee, Bristol, Virginia,
- 55:27Speaker 5: Span Toosday. It's really cool anyway. Steve Phillipstone joined US
- 55:30Speaker 5: President of NASCAR here at the Bloomberg Sports Conference here
- 55:34Speaker 5: in New York City talking to us about the business
- 55:37Speaker 5: of NASCAR Racing car.
- 55:40Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 55:44Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Car Play and
- 55:47Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also
- 55:50Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station,
- 55:54Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 55:58Speaker 5: All right, Alex Seal, Paul Sweeney, your life here in
- 56:00Speaker 5: the sixth floor of the Bloomberg Headquarters. We're here for
- 56:02Speaker 5: the Bloomberg power players here at are headquarters. Let's talk
- 56:06Speaker 5: a little hoops here Team USA Basketball. I'm gonna introduce
- 56:09Speaker 5: my second favorite duke player of all time, Grant Hill.
- 56:13Speaker 5: Just phenomenal. Of course, Bobby Hurley, his point guard back
- 56:17Speaker 5: in the day, is my number one choice from Jersey City. Grant,
- 56:20Speaker 5: thanks so much for joining us here Team USA. I mean,
- 56:25Speaker 5: you guys are hitting it. I mean, talk to us
- 56:27Speaker 5: about the status of Team USA. I mean, you know,
- 56:29Speaker 5: obviously Coach k stepped it back, A new regime kind
- 56:32Speaker 5: of came in. You're there just about Team USA. Both
- 56:35Speaker 5: men and women are just wow.
- 56:37Speaker 17: Well, well, first of all, Bobby Hurley was my favorite
- 56:39Speaker 17: dup player of all time because he passed the ball
- 56:41Speaker 17: to me right, Bobby was great. No, It's an exciting time.
- 56:46Speaker 17: And obviously I succeeded Jerry Colangelo, who along with coach
- 56:51Speaker 17: K had an incredible run together starting in two thousand
- 56:55Speaker 17: and six, and I came in during this sort of
- 56:58Speaker 17: Olympic quad. We had our World Cup last summer. We
- 57:02Speaker 17: didn't fare as well in the World Cup. The women
- 57:05Speaker 17: won the gold medal in their World Cup, but the
- 57:08Speaker 17: Olympics were absolutely incredible and both teams were pushed, they
- 57:13Speaker 17: were tested. Uh, there was just excellence on the court
- 57:17Speaker 17: all over the world. We saw Serbia and our semi
- 57:20Speaker 17: final games, they were so worthy and deserving of winning.
- 57:23Speaker 17: Came up short. Yeah, but it was It was just phenomenal.
- 57:28Speaker 17: I mean the fact that we had, we got tested,
- 57:30Speaker 17: we got pushed, We had to show some fight and
- 57:33Speaker 17: some toughness collectively, uh, to win that game, but also
- 57:36Speaker 17: win the gold medal against France. The women's team got
- 57:39Speaker 17: pushed and a very close tough matchup they had in
- 57:44Speaker 17: the gold medal game with France as well. So I
- 57:46Speaker 17: think it was just a win win, not just for
- 57:48Speaker 17: USA basketball and our continued excellence, there was a win
- 57:51Speaker 17: win for basketball universally. Like I think all across the globe.
- 57:55Speaker 17: If you're a fan of the game. Uh, the Olympic
- 57:58Speaker 17: basketball scene was spectacular.
- 58:01Speaker 3: And even if you don't know the game or watch
- 58:02Speaker 3: the game normally, like I was totally into it.
- 58:04Speaker 6: It was amazing.
- 58:05Speaker 3: It was really great talking about investing and where do
- 58:09Speaker 3: you see opportunities. I know that you and your wife
- 58:11Speaker 3: are also investors in the Orlando Pro women's soccer team,
- 58:13Speaker 3: and we were talking about that over the last couple
- 58:15Speaker 3: hours as well as to where the opportunity set is
- 58:18Speaker 3: sort of where women's soccer is going to go.
- 58:21Speaker 17: You know, Look, so I have two daughters who are
- 58:24Speaker 17: who are jocks, who are athletes, and and so yes,
- 58:28Speaker 17: and you know, I think sort of through them really
- 58:33Speaker 17: getting exposed to women's sports and really wanting them to
- 58:36Speaker 17: see women professional athletes. So, whether it was the WNBA
- 58:40Speaker 17: or the NWSL. We live in Orlando, we were fans
- 58:44Speaker 17: and consumers at first, and we got so caught into
- 58:48Speaker 17: it and just loving it and having a passion for
- 58:51Speaker 17: these teams. We also saw the potential and the upside
- 58:54Speaker 17: for growth and u and so the opportunity to invest
- 58:58Speaker 17: in the NWSL, the Orlando Pride in first place right now,
- 59:02Speaker 17: we have not lost the game, had a few ties
- 59:04Speaker 17: and all wins. But I just feel the momentum is
- 59:08Speaker 17: really growing. And now you have superior leadership. Jessica Berman
- 59:13Speaker 17: is a fantastic commissioner, has great vision, can execute that vision,
- 59:19Speaker 17: has surrounded herself with a solid team. But also we
- 59:24Speaker 17: have professional ownership. Now, we have owners now who own
- 59:27Speaker 17: other sports, who've been in this, who understand it, see
- 59:30Speaker 17: the long term trajectory of the business, and so I
- 59:34Speaker 17: wouldn't say we're at an inflection point right now, but
- 59:37Speaker 17: I think we have long term positioned ourselves nicely for
- 59:43Speaker 17: great success. And I think of all the sports leagues,
- 59:45Speaker 17: I really believe this. I think the NWSL has the
- 59:47Speaker 17: greatest subside. So really excited. I was excited to see
- 59:51Speaker 17: Jessica and Midge person one of the stars in the league,
- 59:55Speaker 17: and yeah, we're thrilled to be involved.
- 59:58Speaker 5: Where do you see basketball is a global sport. We
- 1:00:02Speaker 5: saw it on on at Paris. I mean, the limits
- 1:00:04Speaker 5: all over, great competitiveness. How does the NBA, you know,
- 1:00:08Speaker 5: how do you think then they taps into that? I
- 1:00:10Speaker 5: mean there's so many international players playing in the NBA now,
- 1:00:13Speaker 5: but what do you think they should be doing there well.
- 1:00:15Speaker 17: The game has become a global sport. You figured out
- 1:00:17Speaker 17: the ninety two Dream Team and sort of what they did,
- 1:00:20Speaker 17: they inspired a world a whole, multiple generations of basketball players.
- 1:00:25Speaker 17: Now that the NBA is thirty percent international, Wow, And
- 1:00:29Speaker 17: you know, I can go all over the world and
- 1:00:30Speaker 17: people recognize me and they identify me with the NBA brand.
- 1:00:35Speaker 17: The NBA is a global marketing and public relations firm.
- 1:00:38Speaker 17: The players, you know, they may come in, they may leave,
- 1:00:42Speaker 17: they may you know, replenishes itself, but the ability to
- 1:00:45Speaker 17: market and promote is what they've mastered and done a
- 1:00:48Speaker 17: great job of that in the last thirty two years
- 1:00:51Speaker 17: since the Dream Team. I think though, where we can
- 1:00:54Speaker 17: you know, can continue to improve. Obviously domestically with our development,
- 1:00:58Speaker 17: I think national basketball community has kind of caught us
- 1:01:03Speaker 17: or maybe even surpassed us in some ways with how
- 1:01:05Speaker 17: they develop young talent. I also see expansion not just
- 1:01:09Speaker 17: here and possibly Las Vegas or Seattle, but I you know,
- 1:01:13Speaker 17: talk about going over to Europe, talk about partnering with
- 1:01:16Speaker 17: the EuroLeague. I'm an investor in NBA Africa and the
- 1:01:20Speaker 17: opportunity there and the potential as a lot of the
- 1:01:24Speaker 17: nations in that kind on that continent are still developing,
- 1:01:27Speaker 17: but they consume the game. And uh and so the
- 1:01:31Speaker 17: league is is is doing a number of efforts, a
- 1:01:34Speaker 17: number a number of initiatives and just sees the continued
- 1:01:38Speaker 17: sort of growth opportunities that their global media markets.
- 1:01:42Speaker 5: Yep, you know.
- 1:01:42Speaker 17: And the game is is isn't a good place and
- 1:01:46Speaker 17: I think has even greater potential as we move forward.
- 1:01:50Speaker 5: Ten seconds. How good is this Cooper flag kid?
- 1:01:54Speaker 17: He's really good. He I brought him in on the
- 1:01:55Speaker 17: select team to prepare with the prepares for the Olympic team,
- 1:01:59Speaker 17: and he played very well, had a really good day.
- 1:02:01Speaker 17: You know, he might have been one of the top
- 1:02:03Speaker 17: five players. I might embellish a bit, but he might
- 1:02:05Speaker 17: have been one of the top five players on the
- 1:02:07Speaker 17: court that one day. And so big expectations for my
- 1:02:10Speaker 17: Blue Devils this year.
- 1:02:12Speaker 5: With zachfi exactly right, all right, Grant, thanks so much
- 1:02:14Speaker 5: for joining us. Grant Hill, he's a managing director of
- 1:02:16Speaker 5: USA Basketball. He's a co owner of the Atlanta Hawk's
- 1:02:19Speaker 5: life from the Bloomberg Power Players. He's here at our
- 1:02:21Speaker 5: Bloomberg Global headquarters along with the letter other sports folks.
- 1:02:25Speaker 5: So it's business, it's technology, it's sport, it's entertainment, it's
- 1:02:28Speaker 5: only intersecting.
- 1:02:29Speaker 6: I'm so impressed with your ability to have this muscle.
- 1:02:33Speaker 2: Here.
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on apples, Spotify,
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