July 30, 2026 • 23 mins
Investors have poured money into youth sports in recent years, with some reports saying the industry is worth as much as $40 billion. It’s no surprise, then, that renowned investors David Blitzer and Josh Harris partnered with The Chernin Group in 2024 to start Unrivaled Sports, a growing portfolio of youth sports investments across baseball, softball, flag football, and more. Unrivaled’s chairman and CEO Andy Campion says they’re only just getting started.
In this episode of The Deal, Andy tells Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly why he left Nike to go all in on youth sports. From the sidelines of a youth baseball tournament at Cooperstown All-Star Village, he explains the business model making youth sports more accessible while also offering premier experiences.
You can also watch this interview on the Bloomberg Podcasts YouTube page.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to the d L. I'm Jason Kelly alongside
Alex Rodriguez. Coming up on the show, Andy Campion. He's
the chairman and CEO of Unrivaled Sports. And of course
this is not to be confused with Unrivaled, the women's
basketball league that we know well, Alex. This is all
about youth sports, something you and I feel very passionately about,
something we've been engaged in at various parts of our lives.
(00:37):
As a player, you and I guess I was a
player in youth sports at some point, not at your level,
but I've experienced that it as a parent.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
What's your take on youth sports at this moment.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, I think you said it unlike golf, that we
can't all be pros. I think all my friends, almost unanimous,
all of them played litle league sports, and especially baseball,
right as a sport that has no prejudice, It doesn't
worry of your all short everyone can play little league baseball,
which is really great. What that said is an enormous
business and a huge tam and of course you know
(01:08):
it's a big tam if you have two of the
greatest investors in David Blitzer and Josh Harris entering years ago.
So I'm very interested to see from Andy how he
talks about leaving Nike for so many years and joining them.
What was to pitch? Why, why do you get in?
How's the business going? I have so many questions. I
cannot wait to hear what he has to say.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, and this is an area where, as you say,
investment has poured in some of the smartest money in
the world, and there's obviously a huge growth trajectory that
they see. There are also real questions around accessibility. There
are real questions about specialization. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Again, as someone who spent.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Untold amounts of money bringing one kid along into the
college ranks of sports and specifically lacrosse, you know, this
is an area that I'm literally and figuratively invested in.
But I also do you know, know, and I think
you're a great example of the power of sports, not
(02:08):
just because you went on to make a living at it,
but also how it shaped you as a person. You know,
it certainly shaped me as a kid and influenced me
coming along. So super interested to hear what Andy has
to say about the business of Unrivaled coming out Andy Campion,
the chairman and CEO of Unrivaled Sports.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And Alex.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You may hear some very familiar ambient noise because we
understand that Andy's going to be joining us from Cooperstown
All Star Village where there's a big tournament going on,
so bats and balls flying behind him.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For this upcoming conversation. Welcome back to the DAL.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. So happy to have
with us Andy Campion. He is the CEO and chairman
of Unrivaled Sports. Andy, great to have you with us.
We have both been chomping at the bit for this conversation,
so I'm going to defer my partner for the first question.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, thank you Jason. Andy. Great to have you. And
you've had an extraordinary career. I mean going back to
UCLA days when you got an undergrad degree and then
you got your law degree, and of course spend over
ten years at Disney before you joined our company, Nike.
My question is I'm going to start in the now
and then we can work backwards. David Blitzer and Josh
Harre as they come to you, take us in the room.
(03:31):
How do they make the pitch for get a talent
like you to say, hey, we have this idea, take
us in that room, and why did you make that move?
Speaker 5 (03:39):
So I will rewind a little bit from that David
Blitzer conversation, and David, I will say, is why I'm
here at Unrivaled Sports? From how did it start? Now
why did I do?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It?
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Is a much broader story. You started with our company, Nike.
I'm not there. I left Nike in twenty twenty three,
but I still love it. We had this amazing Unrivaled
team there was inspired to change the world through sport.
And you know, from two thousand and seven when I
was there to twenty twenty three, that team that I
was just a part of did some pretty epic things
and the company twelve ACKs, et cetera. So I still
(04:12):
rep it. I know you can see the under armour
loger here. They're an amazing partner of ours with Unrivaled Sports,
and we'll talk about that. But I still do have
some Nike footwear on and I'm always gonna love it
and I'm rooting for my buddies up there. What happened
is in twenty twenty my family left Portland before I
left Nike, and I continued to commute to Nike for
about two and a half years, and I still loved it.
(04:33):
But what I realized was like my family was moving
forward and I was.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Going backwards every week.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
And somebody earlier in my life said to me, it's
one of the best pieces of advice I got, was
treat every one of your kids' games is more important
than a meeting with the CEO or your boss or
the board or whoever whatever stakeholder you come a client.
And that was hard to do commuting to Portland five
days a week, and I was a chief operating officer,
and so at some point you realize, like that that's
(05:00):
not right for anybody. I can't be the Zoom chief
operating officer, but family and friends over everything, ever institution,
and so I decided.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
There was a day where we had a three day
strategy session.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I was a chief operating officer, but I left at lunch,
flew to La watched my son Lou play in a
water polo game. Fortunately I did that. He scored four goals.
It was his last game of that season. It was
in playoffs, but one of his best games ever. I
flew back that night and went to the session, and
friends of mine, our chief marketing officer, were like, that's
when we knew it was inevitable you were going to leave.
You know, my son, Miles and Lou play waterpolo in
(05:34):
college together at Penn. My daughter's about to go to
UCLA and play water polo. I've been to a ton
of awesome sporting events three World Cup games already, but
those are the best sporting events in my life. And frankly,
there's what bonded my family personally when I was young
and we didn't have much, but that was the inspiration
for us as a family of sports and it bonds
my family to this day. So privately, some friends started
(05:58):
to realize, like, I know, he loves his kids, he
loves sports, he loves La and Utah and otherwise, and
he's not going to.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Be there forever. It's inevitable.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
There's a saying like what must be done inevitably should
probably be done immediately. I did not adhere to that.
Maybe I should have. It's all worked out just fine,
but I kept thinking, Okay, what could we do? And
at one point I locked onto this strategic idea, which
was Nike, you'll get this alex Nike was the leading
brand in sports, but it just made shoes and clothes,
(06:29):
and all of a sudden, athletes were looking at their
like shoe deals as like a four oh one K match.
It just didn't matter to them. They might have liked
the brand, but it was a tiny amount of compensation
and they were just getting put in ads.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Maybe.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I mean, we had so many athletes, some of them
weren't even gonna putting ads. But all of a sudden,
they're building their own audience. They're getting paid a lot
to play like they should because they're sharing in the
economics in ways they hadn't in the past. They're smart,
they're dedicated to sports. It's why I started the Sports
Leadership and Management program at UCLA. I had this notion that, like,
you know, who knows sports better than anyone, athletes, and
(07:03):
they're getting an education, we should give them more of
an education in sports business. So I agreed to stay
on at Nike and start looking into how we could
get into the broader ecosystem of sport business wise, and
that led to some really fascinating conversations think video games, content,
you know, other products, and some conversations with friends and
one of them was Blizzer, and he was like, you know,
(07:25):
we're thinking about kind of building on this little thing
we've started to use sports. Meanwhile, that little thing, if
you can see it, is behind me. They had acquired
Cooperstown All Star Village, and he said, would you want
to help out in some way?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I know you're going to leave Nike at some point.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
And this sounds cheesy, but you know, I love the
sports references. I was like, you said you sports. You
had me at Hello. Kobe once said to me, do
epic things always, and I was like, do epic things
with people you love and for people you care about.
So let's figure this out. And so that and the
program at UCLA became the two things where I.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Went, that's the epic next air.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
So I do miss my friends at Nike and I'm
rooting for them, But this U Sports thing has been
I mean, you may know I'm also on some boards, Paramount, Starbucks, there,
La twenty, There's other stuff. But the thing that's been
just really fulfilling because of the impact you can have
has been UTH Sports, and I attributed to Blitzer they've
been investing in sports for a couple decades. Long term
(08:20):
permanent capital and sports, and then I met Josh and
Josh also you know, had the same passion.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And so andy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
At that point, it's a fairly nascent idea and these
are personal investments that I believe. Keep me honest here
that Josh Harrison David Blitzer did almost like a venture
investment into youth sports. What was the state of it
then and what was the vision and where does that
sit now in terms of the growth of the unrivaled platform.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
So at that time David and Josh had acquired Cooperstown
All Star Village. Someone had brought the idea to them.
They explored it with their team and just to buy it.
And then they said, well this is pretty fascinating and.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Storry to interrupt you, but so Cooperstown All Star Village
it's a host for youth baseball tournaments, right, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
You know, Bob Iyer at one point in a meeting
to me when I was at Disney, said something like,
you know, Disneyland is where the Disney brand exists in
it's most sublime state. Cooper's Down All Star Village is
where unrivaled sports exists in it's most sublime state. For sure,
and I might go so far as to say where
youth sports exists in it's most sublime state. So I'm
sitting here right now. You see all the fields behind me.
(09:33):
The fields are themed and inspired by Big League fields.
We're hosting a new event and experience we just launched
called the Ripken Nationals. Think there's the Little League World
Series for Little League for club travel baseball. At twelve
of you, there wasn't anything like that, and we've now
created it with tournaments around the country where you qualify
to come here this week and compete for a national championship.
(09:56):
Now every week during the summer, roughly one hundred teams
come here. They stay in the players village and bunks
with their teammates and their coaches.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
No parents.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I can't even get in there unless somebody sneaks me
a wristband. Three meals a day. They're playing a couple
games a week. It's basically camp meets baseball and baseball tournament.
And we look at it as if we can inspire
the kids and make it amazing. It's also memory making
for the families that are here watching. That's Coopertown, Alster Village.
(10:27):
So David and Josh bought that when I joined. Basically
what David and you know, Josh was so good at
as private equity investors. But this isn't private equity to
your point, this is their personal passion and investment is sports.
So it's in their family offices. But they're still good
at Hey. We identify good ideas and good opportunities, and
(10:47):
then we need people. You know, experience can be underrated.
We need people with experience, building experiences and brands, et cetera.
And so when they talk to me, the idea was
we'll name it. We named it on rivaled sports. Time
is just a word, but the inspiration was, create these
experiences that are inclusive and premium, competitive and developmental, unrivaled
(11:09):
experiences that we can bring to young athletes everywhere and
do it across sports. So we've done it across the country.
Now in baseball we have over fifteen destinations, and the
destinations plus controlling the programming makes it an experience. So
that's kind of a little bit of how it started
and where we are. We've expanded into flag football. We
just had the unrivaled Flag high School girls national championship
(11:31):
at our property in Campton, Ohio. Not coincidentally next to
the Hall of Fame there. We thought that's kind of
a cool way to bring the inspiration of what everyone
before them has done to them. We're in fast pitch softball,
We're a little bit in soccer and lacrosse. You know,
we know some basketball people having been a Nike guy
and Josh and David, so you know, dot dot dot
(11:52):
it's inevitable. But we'll be in basketball as well.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
All right.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So so Alex, question for you, like using the player
lens and also the investor lens, like, how do you
look at youth sports?
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, it's it's Andy. Jason and I were talking a
little bit offline before you got on, and the one
common denominators all my friends, almost one hundred percent played
little league baseball. Maybe they didn't play football or basketball.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's amazing, isn't it. I mean it is America's sport.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
The family sport right where everybody comes on Saturday or
the lawnchair, and you can you know all that. I
always put myself in the position of Alex, myself the
kid when I was ten, where my mother had two jobs,
my father left us. And if they said you got
to pay one hundred dollars to play this tournament. I'm out.
I gotta go play basketball or football. So that's the prison.
I look at it from, how do you solve for
(12:56):
an investment in the space where possibly you can discriminate
against someone like me versus the social duty and also
trying to run the responsibility of a profit business. How
do you put your head around that.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
So awesome question?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And to be honest, like where you start, because you
lived it, You start with like, I have empathy and
I wanted I want to have positive impact. You know,
I was born in Englewood, raised in Whittier, So East LA.
We were broke a couple times over, but sports was
the thing that bonded us. So for me, you know,
I looked at it as when David talked to it, I
was like, listen, I if I'm going to get into
(13:33):
you sports. People like to deal in absolutes, right. They
like to go, well, shouldn't it all be free? Or
why is it all so expensive? Or you know, people
like to go like, well, are you guys just focused
on recruiting and talent scouting and pipelines and this, that
and the other, or are you about access? And you
know you don't build sustainable brands like Disney or Nike.
(13:54):
By there's no like You're often not making a choice
between A or B. You're saying, I need to do
AA and I need to create something that doesn't exist.
Just like you, Alex, not every kid on the team
is rich. In fact, almost every kid on the team
is not. And so what we always pushed ourselves to
be was, let's be premium at every price point. Let's
(14:15):
get more people playing sports and more people having the
product they need to play it or the inspiration they need.
So that's what we're pushing for it Unrivaled. We have
some leagues like Unrivaled Flag has leagues that are literally
like league programs. You're signing up for your Friday night
flag football league. We have Cooperstown All Star Village, which
to me, some people may say, well that seems like
(14:35):
very premium. I look at it as compared to what
compared to Disneyland for a week, or compared to sending
your kid off to camp. Like Alex, if you happened
to you, did you come through Cooperstown as a kid
or have you been up to these experiences.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I have as an adult, but not as a kid.
But I went to similar experiences like Cooper's.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah, so our hope is that we're making it like
so so amazing that you go, that's the best deal.
One of the concepts we have is a spring break concept.
We own this thing, rockerbe Ranch in Texas. I know
you're with the Rangers for a while too, right, So
Texas likes baseball. It's three hundred and twenty five acres
we've built out eighty It's baseball meets country with lodging,
(15:17):
and it's actually really low cost of participation to play there.
And the way we sustain the business is we have
all of these other things that you.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Can choose you're not forced into.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
There's philanthropy too, and I think we all like to
those who much is given much to expect it. So
that's another dimension, but that's more personal than a company objective.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Andy, I just want to make sure that I understand
it because I approach this as Alex knows, from the parents' perspective.
I was, this is make cup is surprise to you
is not a professional athlete. But you know, I did
raise a kid who played college sports. He played lacrosse
in college, and so like I wrote those checks. You know,
I did all that stuff and it costs a lot
of money. So I do wonder like walk us through
(16:01):
if you can't just a little bit more of the
mechanics of how it can be like truly affordable to
a to an Alex Rodriguez, I.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Love the question. So let me put this out there.
Which is the other thing we're doing at Unrivaled Sports.
We start with the main thing, the experience for the kid.
So here's the business model vision I have for us,
and I think hopefully if we lead it can be
for you sports. The pressure on kids in terms of
cost to participate is a challenge, and it's a challenge
(16:34):
we should try to like beat because the more kids
playing sports the better. I mean, you can almost extrapolate
that to like in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
So we need to be.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Focused on, like, how can we, you know, manage that
cost down? Well, just like in business, you go, well,
it's an ecosystem. Are there things we can do to
take pressure off of that? So here are our sponsors
this week under Armor, Dick Sporting Goods. Dick Sporting Goods
invested in Arrival Sports by the Way too, Game Changer Fanatics,
(17:06):
Yetti Fanatics, basically is giving cardbooks. All these kids trade
pins here, cardbooks and cards for free to the kids.
Rawlings is here with an amazing tent with colored gloves,
et cetera. They're a sponsor, And what I realized was, Yeah, Nike,
we wanted to connect with these kids authentically, not just
kind of market to them, but be part of the
(17:28):
culture of sports.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
But youth sports is so fragment it's really hard to
do that.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
As we create this platform, think about you, guys are
in media now broadcast TV.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Nobody pays for it.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Everyone gets to watch this amazing content for free because
the sponsors and the advertisers go, you have an audience
and I'd like to connect with that audience. What we're
focused on on Arrivaled is get those sponsors who want
endemic to sport, who share our mission, like Dix and
so that's one aspect.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Food and beverage, lodging, the amenities, those.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Things allow people to kind of opt into things that
can fund the economics of youth sports. And then our
job is not to be greedy about it, is to
basically look at those economics and say, can we put
them back into the fields, Like we've got these amazing
turf fields.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Can we put an athlete's lounge together?
Speaker 5 (18:17):
We are actually working with CBS Sports because they are
broadcasting the Ripken Nationals this week. That's a joint venture
with us. We're putting economics and skin into the game
for that. And if we think about it dynamically, you
can create a business model where all the weight isn't
on cost to participate.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Right right, What I hear you saying is that the
sponsorship and maybe some of the ancillary revenue effectively, either
directly or indirectly allows you to in some wady's offset
or subsidize the cost to participate. Is that a fair
way of saying it.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, And so those folks that are saying like, we
think we can do it in a way where you know,
we're not just marketing to keep I was at Disney.
There are plenty of rules and regulations and laws around
marketing to kids. Sure, My hope is that's never even
a consideration because these are folks that actually want to
connect with the kids and inspire them and provide them
the opportunity to have great products.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So, Alex, we're gonna wrap in a second, but I
sort of want to put you on the spot a
little bit because you're both a product of of youth sports,
but you also have a very vested interest in the
development of talent.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You know, you're the owner.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Of two very high profile sports teams and obviously care
a lot about baseball as well. And also you've been
involved in youth sports and very recently, in the last
month or so, have have hosted your own tournament in Texas. Like,
what's your prediction slash advice about what needs to happen
in youth sports for Andy's benefit and for the benefit
(20:09):
of our listeners.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Yeah, it's a great question. That's a hell of a
spot to put me in. But I just I'm fresh
off our tournament and when we had forty teams Andy,
we only had like three months to prep for it.
So we had a great attendance. The energy was incredible.
I ended up giving one to one lessons to about
a dozen kids and we had I don't know, eight
hundred one thousand people there and every parent was like,
(20:31):
are you gonna spend fifteen minutes with my kid too?
I'm like, what, there's a thousand of you guys that
can do all of them. But I think it's a
few things. Number one is you got to have fun,
and you got to remember if the main thing is
the main thing, to keep it the main thing, it
has to be fun. There has to be an educational process,
and my fear is there's a big disconnect between like
I'm not going to go into the Disney boardroom and
(20:53):
tell Andy and Bob Iger how to run their team.
And at the same time, you shouldn't have like Hedge
Funk people or just business people teaching the true fundamentals
of baseball to our kids in the next generation of kids.
So there's a big gap. I wish it was almost
like a certification of coaches that can you can rank
them right, just like you went to Equinox or if
you go to twenty four hour fit in is a gym.
(21:14):
And then I would say the third part is make
sure that they can play as many sports as possible
and you don't over specialize where they're feeling pressure at
the age of twelve that if they don't play baseball,
they're going to miss the train. So I would say
those three things fun, education, and play as many sports
as possible. And of course the fourth component is like
we had about three dozen kids that went to the
(21:34):
clinic for free. I'm sure Andy does that too with
his unrivaled but also to keep up there's a social
responsibility and a fiduciary to the sport and to use
sports and to parents to make it, you know, applicable
and for everybody totally.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
I should say there's a league in baseball you may
be familiar with that's called the Miracle League. It's a
league for kids that have some ability challenges. And so
we've created the Miracle Game and invited those kids, hosted
them to come and play. And it's interesting that accessibility
part you're talking about and inclusivity.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I we asked.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Of the other kids who are here, who wants to
volunteer to work at that game, and it was like
there were no spots left for volunteers.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Within minutes, it was like sold out.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So I love that I wrote them down, have fun
the educational process, and play as many sports as possible.
But no, I appreciate Alex, and I do think that
story is awesome because to the point of to those
who much is given, much as expected. You you both
and you in particular Alex, have reinvented yourself in a
(22:41):
lot of ways, right but thanks you guys for having us.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I well, thank you. I love what we're doing.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And again I credit my buddy Blitzer for coming up
with the initial idea and then you know for supporting
us building it for there. And I know he's a
friend of your guys and was on your show as well.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, great guy, and yeah we watch what he does
very closely. Andy, can't be in. Really good to spend
some time with you. Best of luck out there with
some high quality baseball.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It sounds like.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
Shows produced by Stacy Wong. Our senior producers are Alexis
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(23:34):
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to the d L. I'm Jason Kelly alongside
Alex Rodriguez. Coming up on the show, Andy Campion. He's
the chairman and CEO of Unrivaled Sports. And of course
this is not to be confused with Unrivaled, the women's
basketball league that we know well, Alex. This is all
about youth sports, something you and I feel very passionately about,
something we've been engaged in at various parts of our lives.
(00:37):
As a player, you and I guess I was a
player in youth sports at some point, not at your level,
but I've experienced that it as a parent.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
What's your take on youth sports at this moment.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, I think you said it unlike golf, that we
can't all be pros. I think all my friends, almost unanimous,
all of them played litle league sports, and especially baseball,
right as a sport that has no prejudice, It doesn't
worry of your all short everyone can play little league baseball,
which is really great. What that said is an enormous
business and a huge tam and of course you know
(01:08):
it's a big tam if you have two of the
greatest investors in David Blitzer and Josh Harris entering years ago.
So I'm very interested to see from Andy how he
talks about leaving Nike for so many years and joining them.
What was to pitch? Why, why do you get in?
How's the business going? I have so many questions. I
cannot wait to hear what he has to say.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, and this is an area where, as you say,
investment has poured in some of the smartest money in
the world, and there's obviously a huge growth trajectory that
they see. There are also real questions around accessibility. There
are real questions about specialization. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Again, as someone who spent.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Untold amounts of money bringing one kid along into the
college ranks of sports and specifically lacrosse, you know, this
is an area that I'm literally and figuratively invested in.
But I also do you know, know, and I think
you're a great example of the power of sports, not
(02:08):
just because you went on to make a living at it,
but also how it shaped you as a person. You know,
it certainly shaped me as a kid and influenced me
coming along. So super interested to hear what Andy has
to say about the business of Unrivaled coming out Andy Campion,
the chairman and CEO of Unrivaled Sports.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And Alex.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
You may hear some very familiar ambient noise because we
understand that Andy's going to be joining us from Cooperstown
All Star Village where there's a big tournament going on,
so bats and balls flying behind him.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For this upcoming conversation. Welcome back to the DAL.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. So happy to have
with us Andy Campion. He is the CEO and chairman
of Unrivaled Sports. Andy, great to have you with us.
We have both been chomping at the bit for this conversation,
so I'm going to defer my partner for the first question.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Well, thank you Jason. Andy. Great to have you. And
you've had an extraordinary career. I mean going back to
UCLA days when you got an undergrad degree and then
you got your law degree, and of course spend over
ten years at Disney before you joined our company, Nike.
My question is I'm going to start in the now
and then we can work backwards. David Blitzer and Josh
Harre as they come to you, take us in the room.
(03:31):
How do they make the pitch for get a talent
like you to say, hey, we have this idea, take
us in that room, and why did you make that move?
Speaker 5 (03:39):
So I will rewind a little bit from that David
Blitzer conversation, and David, I will say, is why I'm
here at Unrivaled Sports? From how did it start? Now
why did I do?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It?
Speaker 5 (03:50):
Is a much broader story. You started with our company, Nike.
I'm not there. I left Nike in twenty twenty three,
but I still love it. We had this amazing Unrivaled
team there was inspired to change the world through sport.
And you know, from two thousand and seven when I
was there to twenty twenty three, that team that I
was just a part of did some pretty epic things
and the company twelve ACKs, et cetera. So I still
(04:12):
rep it. I know you can see the under armour
loger here. They're an amazing partner of ours with Unrivaled Sports,
and we'll talk about that. But I still do have
some Nike footwear on and I'm always gonna love it
and I'm rooting for my buddies up there. What happened
is in twenty twenty my family left Portland before I
left Nike, and I continued to commute to Nike for
about two and a half years, and I still loved it.
(04:33):
But what I realized was like my family was moving
forward and I was.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Going backwards every week.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
And somebody earlier in my life said to me, it's
one of the best pieces of advice I got, was
treat every one of your kids' games is more important
than a meeting with the CEO or your boss or
the board or whoever whatever stakeholder you come a client.
And that was hard to do commuting to Portland five
days a week, and I was a chief operating officer,
and so at some point you realize, like that that's
(05:00):
not right for anybody. I can't be the Zoom chief
operating officer, but family and friends over everything, ever institution,
and so I decided.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
There was a day where we had a three day
strategy session.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
I was a chief operating officer, but I left at lunch,
flew to La watched my son Lou play in a
water polo game. Fortunately I did that. He scored four goals.
It was his last game of that season. It was
in playoffs, but one of his best games ever. I
flew back that night and went to the session, and
friends of mine, our chief marketing officer, were like, that's
when we knew it was inevitable you were going to leave.
You know, my son, Miles and Lou play waterpolo in
(05:34):
college together at Penn. My daughter's about to go to
UCLA and play water polo. I've been to a ton
of awesome sporting events three World Cup games already, but
those are the best sporting events in my life. And frankly,
there's what bonded my family personally when I was young
and we didn't have much, but that was the inspiration
for us as a family of sports and it bonds
my family to this day. So privately, some friends started
(05:58):
to realize, like, I know, he loves his kids, he
loves sports, he loves La and Utah and otherwise, and
he's not going to.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Be there forever. It's inevitable.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
There's a saying like what must be done inevitably should
probably be done immediately. I did not adhere to that.
Maybe I should have. It's all worked out just fine,
but I kept thinking, Okay, what could we do? And
at one point I locked onto this strategic idea, which
was Nike, you'll get this alex Nike was the leading
brand in sports, but it just made shoes and clothes,
(06:29):
and all of a sudden, athletes were looking at their
like shoe deals as like a four oh one K match.
It just didn't matter to them. They might have liked
the brand, but it was a tiny amount of compensation
and they were just getting put in ads.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Maybe.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I mean, we had so many athletes, some of them
weren't even gonna putting ads. But all of a sudden,
they're building their own audience. They're getting paid a lot
to play like they should because they're sharing in the
economics in ways they hadn't in the past. They're smart,
they're dedicated to sports. It's why I started the Sports
Leadership and Management program at UCLA. I had this notion that, like,
you know, who knows sports better than anyone, athletes, and
(07:03):
they're getting an education, we should give them more of
an education in sports business. So I agreed to stay
on at Nike and start looking into how we could
get into the broader ecosystem of sport business wise, and
that led to some really fascinating conversations think video games, content,
you know, other products, and some conversations with friends and
one of them was Blizzer, and he was like, you know,
(07:25):
we're thinking about kind of building on this little thing
we've started to use sports. Meanwhile, that little thing, if
you can see it, is behind me. They had acquired
Cooperstown All Star Village, and he said, would you want
to help out in some way?
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I know you're going to leave Nike at some point.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
And this sounds cheesy, but you know, I love the
sports references. I was like, you said you sports. You
had me at Hello. Kobe once said to me, do
epic things always, and I was like, do epic things
with people you love and for people you care about.
So let's figure this out. And so that and the
program at UCLA became the two things where I.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Went, that's the epic next air.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
So I do miss my friends at Nike and I'm
rooting for them, But this U Sports thing has been
I mean, you may know I'm also on some boards, Paramount, Starbucks, there,
La twenty, There's other stuff. But the thing that's been
just really fulfilling because of the impact you can have
has been UTH Sports, and I attributed to Blitzer they've
been investing in sports for a couple decades. Long term
(08:20):
permanent capital and sports, and then I met Josh and
Josh also you know, had the same passion.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
And so andy.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
At that point, it's a fairly nascent idea and these
are personal investments that I believe. Keep me honest here
that Josh Harrison David Blitzer did almost like a venture
investment into youth sports. What was the state of it
then and what was the vision and where does that
sit now in terms of the growth of the unrivaled platform.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
So at that time David and Josh had acquired Cooperstown
All Star Village. Someone had brought the idea to them.
They explored it with their team and just to buy it.
And then they said, well this is pretty fascinating and.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Storry to interrupt you, but so Cooperstown All Star Village
it's a host for youth baseball tournaments, right, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
You know, Bob Iyer at one point in a meeting
to me when I was at Disney, said something like,
you know, Disneyland is where the Disney brand exists in
it's most sublime state. Cooper's Down All Star Village is
where unrivaled sports exists in it's most sublime state. For sure,
and I might go so far as to say where
youth sports exists in it's most sublime state. So I'm
sitting here right now. You see all the fields behind me.
(09:33):
The fields are themed and inspired by Big League fields.
We're hosting a new event and experience we just launched
called the Ripken Nationals. Think there's the Little League World
Series for Little League for club travel baseball. At twelve
of you, there wasn't anything like that, and we've now
created it with tournaments around the country where you qualify
to come here this week and compete for a national championship.
(09:56):
Now every week during the summer, roughly one hundred teams
come here. They stay in the players village and bunks
with their teammates and their coaches.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
No parents.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I can't even get in there unless somebody sneaks me
a wristband. Three meals a day. They're playing a couple
games a week. It's basically camp meets baseball and baseball tournament.
And we look at it as if we can inspire
the kids and make it amazing. It's also memory making
for the families that are here watching. That's Coopertown, Alster Village.
(10:27):
So David and Josh bought that when I joined. Basically
what David and you know, Josh was so good at
as private equity investors. But this isn't private equity to
your point, this is their personal passion and investment is sports.
So it's in their family offices. But they're still good
at Hey. We identify good ideas and good opportunities, and
(10:47):
then we need people. You know, experience can be underrated.
We need people with experience, building experiences and brands, et cetera.
And so when they talk to me, the idea was
we'll name it. We named it on rivaled sports. Time
is just a word, but the inspiration was, create these
experiences that are inclusive and premium, competitive and developmental, unrivaled
(11:09):
experiences that we can bring to young athletes everywhere and
do it across sports. So we've done it across the country.
Now in baseball we have over fifteen destinations, and the
destinations plus controlling the programming makes it an experience. So
that's kind of a little bit of how it started
and where we are. We've expanded into flag football. We
just had the unrivaled Flag high School girls national championship
(11:31):
at our property in Campton, Ohio. Not coincidentally next to
the Hall of Fame there. We thought that's kind of
a cool way to bring the inspiration of what everyone
before them has done to them. We're in fast pitch softball,
We're a little bit in soccer and lacrosse. You know,
we know some basketball people having been a Nike guy
and Josh and David, so you know, dot dot dot
(11:52):
it's inevitable. But we'll be in basketball as well.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
All right.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So so Alex, question for you, like using the player
lens and also the investor lens, like, how do you
look at youth sports?
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Yeah, it's it's Andy. Jason and I were talking a
little bit offline before you got on, and the one
common denominators all my friends, almost one hundred percent played
little league baseball. Maybe they didn't play football or basketball.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's amazing, isn't it. I mean it is America's sport.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
The family sport right where everybody comes on Saturday or
the lawnchair, and you can you know all that. I
always put myself in the position of Alex, myself the
kid when I was ten, where my mother had two jobs,
my father left us. And if they said you got
to pay one hundred dollars to play this tournament. I'm out.
I gotta go play basketball or football. So that's the prison.
I look at it from, how do you solve for
(12:56):
an investment in the space where possibly you can discriminate
against someone like me versus the social duty and also
trying to run the responsibility of a profit business. How
do you put your head around that.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
So awesome question?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
And to be honest, like where you start, because you
lived it, You start with like, I have empathy and
I wanted I want to have positive impact. You know,
I was born in Englewood, raised in Whittier, So East LA.
We were broke a couple times over, but sports was
the thing that bonded us. So for me, you know,
I looked at it as when David talked to it, I
was like, listen, I if I'm going to get into
(13:33):
you sports. People like to deal in absolutes, right. They
like to go, well, shouldn't it all be free? Or
why is it all so expensive? Or you know, people
like to go like, well, are you guys just focused
on recruiting and talent scouting and pipelines and this, that
and the other, or are you about access? And you
know you don't build sustainable brands like Disney or Nike.
(13:54):
By there's no like You're often not making a choice
between A or B. You're saying, I need to do
AA and I need to create something that doesn't exist.
Just like you, Alex, not every kid on the team
is rich. In fact, almost every kid on the team
is not. And so what we always pushed ourselves to
be was, let's be premium at every price point. Let's
(14:15):
get more people playing sports and more people having the
product they need to play it or the inspiration they need.
So that's what we're pushing for it Unrivaled. We have
some leagues like Unrivaled Flag has leagues that are literally
like league programs. You're signing up for your Friday night
flag football league. We have Cooperstown All Star Village, which
to me, some people may say, well that seems like
(14:35):
very premium. I look at it as compared to what
compared to Disneyland for a week, or compared to sending
your kid off to camp. Like Alex, if you happened
to you, did you come through Cooperstown as a kid
or have you been up to these experiences.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I have as an adult, but not as a kid.
But I went to similar experiences like Cooper's.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yeah, so our hope is that we're making it like
so so amazing that you go, that's the best deal.
One of the concepts we have is a spring break concept.
We own this thing, rockerbe Ranch in Texas. I know
you're with the Rangers for a while too, right, So
Texas likes baseball. It's three hundred and twenty five acres
we've built out eighty It's baseball meets country with lodging,
(15:17):
and it's actually really low cost of participation to play there.
And the way we sustain the business is we have
all of these other things that you.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Can choose you're not forced into.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
There's philanthropy too, and I think we all like to
those who much is given much to expect it. So
that's another dimension, but that's more personal than a company objective.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Andy, I just want to make sure that I understand
it because I approach this as Alex knows, from the parents' perspective.
I was, this is make cup is surprise to you
is not a professional athlete. But you know, I did
raise a kid who played college sports. He played lacrosse
in college, and so like I wrote those checks. You know,
I did all that stuff and it costs a lot
of money. So I do wonder like walk us through
(16:01):
if you can't just a little bit more of the
mechanics of how it can be like truly affordable to
a to an Alex Rodriguez, I.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Love the question. So let me put this out there.
Which is the other thing we're doing at Unrivaled Sports.
We start with the main thing, the experience for the kid.
So here's the business model vision I have for us,
and I think hopefully if we lead it can be
for you sports. The pressure on kids in terms of
cost to participate is a challenge, and it's a challenge
(16:34):
we should try to like beat because the more kids
playing sports the better. I mean, you can almost extrapolate
that to like in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
So we need to be.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Focused on, like, how can we, you know, manage that
cost down? Well, just like in business, you go, well,
it's an ecosystem. Are there things we can do to
take pressure off of that? So here are our sponsors
this week under Armor, Dick Sporting Goods. Dick Sporting Goods
invested in Arrival Sports by the Way too, Game Changer Fanatics,
(17:06):
Yetti Fanatics, basically is giving cardbooks. All these kids trade
pins here, cardbooks and cards for free to the kids.
Rawlings is here with an amazing tent with colored gloves,
et cetera. They're a sponsor, And what I realized was, Yeah, Nike,
we wanted to connect with these kids authentically, not just
kind of market to them, but be part of the
(17:28):
culture of sports.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
But youth sports is so fragment it's really hard to
do that.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
As we create this platform, think about you, guys are
in media now broadcast TV.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Nobody pays for it.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Everyone gets to watch this amazing content for free because
the sponsors and the advertisers go, you have an audience
and I'd like to connect with that audience. What we're
focused on on Arrivaled is get those sponsors who want
endemic to sport, who share our mission, like Dix and
so that's one aspect.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Food and beverage, lodging, the amenities, those.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Things allow people to kind of opt into things that
can fund the economics of youth sports. And then our
job is not to be greedy about it, is to
basically look at those economics and say, can we put
them back into the fields, Like we've got these amazing
turf fields.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Can we put an athlete's lounge together?
Speaker 5 (18:17):
We are actually working with CBS Sports because they are
broadcasting the Ripken Nationals this week. That's a joint venture
with us. We're putting economics and skin into the game
for that. And if we think about it dynamically, you
can create a business model where all the weight isn't
on cost to participate.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Right right, What I hear you saying is that the
sponsorship and maybe some of the ancillary revenue effectively, either
directly or indirectly allows you to in some wady's offset
or subsidize the cost to participate. Is that a fair
way of saying it.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, And so those folks that are saying like, we
think we can do it in a way where you know,
we're not just marketing to keep I was at Disney.
There are plenty of rules and regulations and laws around
marketing to kids. Sure, My hope is that's never even
a consideration because these are folks that actually want to
connect with the kids and inspire them and provide them
the opportunity to have great products.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So, Alex, we're gonna wrap in a second, but I
sort of want to put you on the spot a
little bit because you're both a product of of youth sports,
but you also have a very vested interest in the
development of talent.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You know, you're the owner.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Of two very high profile sports teams and obviously care
a lot about baseball as well. And also you've been
involved in youth sports and very recently, in the last
month or so, have have hosted your own tournament in Texas. Like,
what's your prediction slash advice about what needs to happen
in youth sports for Andy's benefit and for the benefit
(20:09):
of our listeners.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Yeah, it's a great question. That's a hell of a
spot to put me in. But I just I'm fresh
off our tournament and when we had forty teams Andy,
we only had like three months to prep for it.
So we had a great attendance. The energy was incredible.
I ended up giving one to one lessons to about
a dozen kids and we had I don't know, eight
hundred one thousand people there and every parent was like,
(20:31):
are you gonna spend fifteen minutes with my kid too?
I'm like, what, there's a thousand of you guys that
can do all of them. But I think it's a
few things. Number one is you got to have fun,
and you got to remember if the main thing is
the main thing, to keep it the main thing, it
has to be fun. There has to be an educational process,
and my fear is there's a big disconnect between like
I'm not going to go into the Disney boardroom and
(20:53):
tell Andy and Bob Iger how to run their team.
And at the same time, you shouldn't have like Hedge
Funk people or just business people teaching the true fundamentals
of baseball to our kids in the next generation of kids.
So there's a big gap. I wish it was almost
like a certification of coaches that can you can rank
them right, just like you went to Equinox or if
you go to twenty four hour fit in is a gym.
(21:14):
And then I would say the third part is make
sure that they can play as many sports as possible
and you don't over specialize where they're feeling pressure at
the age of twelve that if they don't play baseball,
they're going to miss the train. So I would say
those three things fun, education, and play as many sports
as possible. And of course the fourth component is like
we had about three dozen kids that went to the
(21:34):
clinic for free. I'm sure Andy does that too with
his unrivaled but also to keep up there's a social
responsibility and a fiduciary to the sport and to use
sports and to parents to make it, you know, applicable
and for everybody totally.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
I should say there's a league in baseball you may
be familiar with that's called the Miracle League. It's a
league for kids that have some ability challenges. And so
we've created the Miracle Game and invited those kids, hosted
them to come and play. And it's interesting that accessibility
part you're talking about and inclusivity.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I we asked.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Of the other kids who are here, who wants to
volunteer to work at that game, and it was like
there were no spots left for volunteers.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Within minutes, it was like sold out.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
So I love that I wrote them down, have fun
the educational process, and play as many sports as possible.
But no, I appreciate Alex, and I do think that
story is awesome because to the point of to those
who much is given, much as expected. You you both
and you in particular Alex, have reinvented yourself in a
(22:41):
lot of ways, right but thanks you guys for having us.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I well, thank you. I love what we're doing.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And again I credit my buddy Blitzer for coming up
with the initial idea and then you know for supporting
us building it for there. And I know he's a
friend of your guys and was on your show as well.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, great guy, and yeah we watch what he does
very closely. Andy, can't be in. Really good to spend
some time with you. Best of luck out there with
some high quality baseball.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It sounds like.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
Shows produced by Stacy Wong. Our senior producers are Alexis
HoTT and Anamazarakis. Original music by Blake Maples. Our booker
is Page Keffer. Our executive producers are Amy Keene, Kelly Leferrier,
(23:34):
and Ashley Zingaro. Special thanks to Rachel Carnivale, Elena sos Angeles,
and Nick Silva. You can also watch this episode on
the Deal on YouTube. Subscribe to the Deal and leave
us a review wherever you get your podcasts. It helps
other people find the show. Thanks for listening,
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