August 7, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk about Stanford’s surprising pick for its new athletic director, and the drama taking place at the NFL Players Association. Then, they speak with DeMaurice Smith about his time as the Executive Director of the NFLPA and his new book, "Turf Wars: The Fight for the Soul of America's Game," which gives an inside look at the league. Smith dishes on the NFL’s 2011 lockout, lessons learned about leadership and negotiation from other union bosses, and what it was like sitting across the negotiating table from giants like NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
You can also watch this interview on the Bloomberg Podcasts YouTube page.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Deal. I'm your host,
Jason Kelly alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez. All right, man,
welcome back. You're fifty, you had a big birthday, you
had a nice vacation. How are you feeling? I feel old.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh come on, there's something about the five oh that
kind of like the five hand of versus four handle.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But I'll get over it. Now. You're looking great. Seems
like you had a great time, surrounded by your family,
beautiful vistas, well celebrated, I mean well celebrated by all accounts.
It was really very special to see. So congratulations, thank you,
you're back. So one thing that happened while you were gone. Stanford,
where you do some teaching and you're obviously very familiar
(00:50):
with the institution, named a new athletic director, former CEO
of Nike, John Donaho. I could have knocked you over
with a feather on that one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's a really big news because it tells you that
it's a blue stamp on the narrative how big college
sports has gotten, and more even more importantly, how complex
it is. I mean, this is a big job which
I think can change the whole idea of how these
universities look at. Okay, how high can we think? There's
no one that's too big or too high. Someone's run
a humongous you know, fortune five hundred company, and now
(01:19):
he's coming to Stanford. I think you'll see other moves
that will follow Stamford.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I have to think you're right. I mean, I would
imagine that every college president saw that news immediately started
in their mind going through who's our most prominent alum
who we can tap and sort of appeal to his
or her, be true to your school, all their nostalgia,
and really tap them in. You're seeing just big business
(01:45):
people come in and say, we know sports. We've got
a lot of people who know a lot about sports,
but we really need to up our business games. So
interesting to see what happens and how John donnadhoe does there. Meanwhile,
you got back for your birthday. I was back in
New York and we found ourselves because we were texting
over the weekend. You were watching the Yankees play in Miami.
(02:06):
I was watching the Triple A Yankees the Scranton Wilkesbury
rail Riders play, And so, first of all, some you know,
nice family time for each of us watching baseball games.
But I got to tell you, I was blown away
by this Scranton team, a really good team and a
tribute to the Yankees organization. And I asked you and
you told me it was true. You did rehab there
(02:27):
at some point.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Right, I did, And I believe Jason. If I'm not,
you may want to fact check me here, but I
think they bought that franchise from the Phillies and then
they poured a bunch of money into it. Yes, and
it looks beautiful. I'm sure you had an incredible time.
Is a great baseball market, tons of Yankee fans down there.
And I got to tell you one thing about the Yankees,
and this goes back to George Steinbruner. They do everything
first class and Scranton is no exception.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, it was a really cool experience. And so it
just feels great. And you saw the Yankees play down
in your hometown.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, talking about you know, feeling great. It was such
a nice experience this weekend. On Sunday, I went to
watch the one o'clock game Yankees against the Marlins. Marlins
swept us, which was painful to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But woo.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
My daughters were like, this is such a cool experience. Dad,
We've done this our whole life. Come watch you play.
And now we're going in like no special parking, no security,
and yeah, we sat there for about seven eight innings,
watched the game and had a great time.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, I will tell you, and I texted you a
picture of this. As we're walking in to PNC Park
where the rail Riders played, there was a kid in
front of me couldn't have been more than nine or
ten years old, a Rod number thirteen wearing a T shirt.
So I got a love it. You're still big in Scranton.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Dude, I love it big somewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah. All right, So coming up on the show, we
have Deamorris Smith. He's the former executive director of the
NFL Players Association. And also, while you were gone, a
lot of controversy happening with the NFLPA. The successor to
d Guy named Lloyd Howell, actually resigned under some amount
of pressure, some controversy over a job that he continued
(04:04):
to have at the Carlisle Group, which is an investor
or potential investor in the NFL. They did name this
week in interim executive director, a guy named David White,
who by all accounts was the runner up when Lloyd
Hall got the job a few years ago. I think
all we really need to say about this is it
is a reminder how critical the pas are. And you
(04:27):
know that from multiple angles.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Oh yeah, I mean I come from the history of
Major League Baseball and Marvin Miller, who started the players
Union that forever has been known as the strongest union
in sports. Then he handed a baton to Don Fear,
then Michael Wiener. Unfortunately Michael Wiener passed from cancer, and
then the baton has been passed to Tony Clark, my
former teammate. But these jobs are so vital, Jason. And
(04:50):
if you think about the NFL, the most powerful league
in the world with the largest amount of revenue, is
you have an opt out with the media contract coming
up so per soon. Is the person that deals with
you know, Roger Goodell and the thirty two owners, the
thirty two partners, and someone that can be a great
leader for all the players. So this is a humongous
opportunity and a very important job for not only the players,
(05:13):
but I would say the state of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Totally and you're seeing it now as an owner in
the NBA and the WNBA, how critical they have to
be as partners. As you're building the value of the franchisees,
as you're building your fan base, as you're, as you say,
like negotiating media contracts. I mean, you're seeing how important
they are from a different perspective. I will say, so
as all this was going on with Lloyd Howell, and
(05:37):
this is as people will hear in a few minutes
when d comes onto the show, this is classic D.
So I text him and basically say, you know, obviously
this has happened since we taped with you. Anything you
want to say, And he said, because we're talking about
his book Turf Wars on the show. He says, if
you want the real story of what's going on to
the NFLPA, the history and its future, get Turf Wars.
(05:59):
So he's always selling it. And I will say, there
are some incredible stories in this book you're going to
hear in just a few minutes, some incredible stories that
he has. One of the things that I really took
away from this conversation and really echoes something you just
said a minute ago, is these jobs are important and
they're really really hard. I mean that came through loud
(06:20):
and clear in this conversation with day Yeah, and he
talked about it.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean he said that it probably took some years
away from his life, some of the most stressful times.
I mean he said sometimes he couldn't sleep without his
phone going off, especially through labor negotiations. Jas I got
a little pitch for you. My pitch for you is,
I thought about a decade ago or so, you had
this incredible book that really kind of dissected and unpacked
(06:43):
the private equity world, and I loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I loved your book The New Tycoons available wherever you
get your books go.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's so good, shameless plug. But I think there's an
opportunity for you to do the same for ownership around.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Sports, because when you think about the.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Jerry Joneses, the Jerry reinsdorf Is, going back to George
Steinbrunner's there's such a change between the old Titans to
a lot of these new, younger owners that could be
really interesting, and there's such a large appetite for it.
I think fan base can't get enough of this kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
All right, So I love the idea, so I'll pitch
you back. Do you think the new owners of the
Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Leaks would be willing to
cooperate on such a book and give me key interviews?
Of course? Of course? Great, yeah, all right, good, all right.
Coming up on the show, Jamorris Smith, the former executive
director of the NFLPA and the author of the new
(07:35):
book Turf for Us, Welcome back to the Deal. We
are so excited to have with us. You can hear
him laughing at the background already. Toamorris Smith. He's the
former executive director of the National Football League Players Association,
(07:59):
also the author of a new book, Turf Wars, The
Fight for the Soul of America's Game. We're so happy
to have you here with us. Welcome to the deal man.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It is a pleasure to be with you guys. Good
to see you, Jason. Always great to see Alex.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We have so much to talk about. We want to
talk about football, we want to talk about the book.
Let's start with the book. You tell it like it is,
and I would imagine that was the approach you took
to the book too. What inspired you to do this
and how'd you go about it?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, first of all, it's great to be here. Thanks
for saying what I think most people hate that I
just tell it like it is. But you know, I
only knew one way to do the job, and that
was just simply take it on for what it is.
You know, there's no mystery that there's management and labor.
There's no mystery that the thirty one owners of the
National Football League are just you know, warm, fuzzy, huggy
(08:47):
people who get along with everybody. That's a joke. And
so you know, I wanted to write a book that
was not only a real story of the fifteen years
or nearly fifteen years I had the job, but also
this story of even though you have those kind of
battles on both sides of the aisle, there is room
for business. There is room for compromise. But sometimes those compromises,
(09:12):
as somebody like Alex knows, your first year in the
league was the strike, right, and so you end up
resolving or coming to some sort of compromise on these
business deals. But I think every now and then people
forget that sometimes there's a preceding war, and it's full
of personalities, it's full of intricate business decisions, but also
(09:34):
this idea that a group of people on one side
can have a good war with the people on the
other side and sometimes good things come out of it.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So, Dia, I'm so interested about your career. You've been
an incredibly successful lawyer. In your career, you work for
one of some of the top law firms in the country.
You work for the US government, representing all of us
as Americans.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
But I'm interested.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
How does someone end up getting that job, which is
the ultimate missionary job.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Oh yeah, well, it might be a missionary job. It
might be an l sid job where you just ride
out one way and then you and you never make
it back. But yeah, you know, interesting story. I was
headed back to government. I mean really, the only job
I really wanted after I moved into private practice was
to go back to the US Attorney's office and be
the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. And I
(10:24):
was lucky enough to sort of get tapped on. That
was the way that the road was going to take me.
I was working on the transition team for then Senator Obama,
President elect Obama, working for the Justice Department and Alex
dead story. I got a call one night on my
phone from a search firm that said, would you be
interested in being a candidate for the executive director job?
(10:46):
And I ignored the call for almost three weeks because
I thought I've already got a plan. And then literally
they finally caught me one day in the office and
I talked to the person and he said, look, you
know you've identified you as a POTENTI candidate. The players
are going to go through this lockout. They're looking for
sort of a guy who can combine wartime theory with
(11:07):
business strategy with sort of legal plays. And I said,
this has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever
heard of in my life. Well, you know, I mean,
you grew up in this world and you know it
in many ways better than I. You know, I was
never an agent. I never represented a team, never worked
for a team. I wasn't really a labor lawyer. I
(11:29):
wasn't a sports lawyer. To much of my law school
professor's chagrin, I didn't even take sports law in law school.
But it just didn't seem like a fit until I
sat down with the players. And once I sat down
with that executive committee, and by the way, a group of.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Killers you know, yeah, who was on that that year.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
The president was Kevin Malay, you know, a great president,
but also had the distinction of I think he climbed
to the top three dirtiest players in the National Football League.
I'm pretty sure that's true. Ryan Dawkins, Drew Brees, Tony Richardson,
Jeff Saturday, Mike Rabel, Kevin Carter, you know, all of
those guys were And I think Alex you get this.
(12:10):
Sometimes in a locker room you just have old souls,
and those guys were just old, mature souls who were
good or for bad. Woke up one day and Gene
Upshaw had gone into the hospital on a Wednesday, and
Jean died on a Sunday. And I think that moment
sort of led them to take on sort of an
(12:33):
air of more responsibility and maturity than perhaps they would
have otherwise done.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And so d you talked about how that was not
your background. I wonder, and you obviously know the edswer
to this in the association's mind, was that a feature,
not a bug, that you didn't have the background where
you might have some of the biases of an agent
or from working for a team or working for the League, like,
(12:59):
was the fact that you would and successful essentially in
something that was very relevant but not direct experience. Did
that actually make you a better candidate and better at
the job?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
One hundred percent? You know, I remember my first second
meeting with the Executive Committee, believe it or not, was
on the day of Obama's inauguration, and I nearly didn't
take the trip, honestly because I you know, that was
one of those places where you just had to be.
But I thought better of it, or just in pure honesty,
my wife thought better of it and made me go.
(13:31):
But in that meeting, I was just blunt with them
about game strategy, and it didn't appear to me that
they had a sufficient congressional strategy. They really didn't have
a sufficient public relations strategy. They had two hundred million
dollars in the bank, the league had four billion dollars
in order to lock the players out. And so, you know, initially, Jason,
(13:53):
it was really the same type of work I had
done for clients like Ford and Halliburton and Shell and
other people over the years. How do you come up
with a comprehensive game strategy for the situation that you're facing? Right,
And sometimes that's asymmetrical, right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Say more about that. What do you mean? Sometimes it's asymmetrical.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Sometimes it's asymmetrical, you know, in the sense that you
know a lot of business deals are linear, in the
sense that you know, I did the first business deal
for fanatics, the first supports deal. Michael Rubens on the
other side of the table. He has a vision for
growing the sports apparel in fanatics. I'm on the other
side of the table. If you want to do a
deal that has the names of the players on the back,
(14:33):
you have to pass. You know, in some respects, that's
a linear deal. You know, the upside for me, what's
the upside for him? There's a joint win when and
you figure out just the details of the of the
win win. An asymmetrical deal is one where like the lockout,
you know, the owners want the players to give back
their pensions. They want the players to give back twenty
(14:55):
percent of their salary, and they want the players to
play it. You know, two extra games, eighteen games free,
and they have a war chest of four billion. You
have a war chest of two hundred million. If you
play a linear deal, you're going to lose. So instead,
it was well, look I mean, the league had had
not done a great job looking after players with respect
(15:17):
to concussions. So the first strategy that my boss, Tom
Boggs kind of came up with was we should take
the league up on Capitol Hill and have a hearing
about concussions, and if we can figure out a legal
strategy to nullify their four billion dollars, you know, that
helps us win. So we did. We convinced a judge
(15:38):
that the league's use of the TV money ultimately harmed
the players. And then the last thing, you know, which
I know you guys know, we purchased a secret insurance
policy and so that you know, the game strategy for
us was that the owners think the players will capitulate
after week whatever, four, five, or six. They've certainly told
the bankers who hold the notes in their stadiums that
(16:00):
football will come back by week seven at the latest.
What the secret insurance policy gave us, and we played
it at the last minute, was this thing is going
to go on for an entire year. So by an
asymmetrical strategy, you've now turned the negotiation into a linear
strategy of if you don't get a deal done, this
(16:21):
thing's going to last a whole year and there's just
as much pain on you as there is on me.
And so sometimes, you know, deal strategy, you have to
be sort of ruthlessly asymmetrical.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So speaking about that, you mentioned the Fanatics. We have
a mutual friend in Michael Rubin, who's one of the
great deal makers of his generation, right, aggressive, visionary around
corners everything you name it, you name it, he is
and then some and.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
We love him.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
But man, he is, he is, and he is relentless,
and he's a great So you've done deals like whoop
ea sports trading card deals, but I want to own
in Fanatics deal because in many ways you're synonymous with
being ahead of the curve and a risk taker.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Get a calculated risk taker.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Walk us through a conversation how you were the first
not only to get a deal done, but to say
I'm in. But instead of cash you took equity. Yeah,
walk us through that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'll never forget it. Michael and I met for the
first time at the Palm Restaurant in Washington, DC. You know,
my side had briefed me on this idea of his,
but you know, in a nutshell, you know we had
already had a deal with Nike, and that was a
linear relationship that was good but not great for us
just to be dead hon Us. Nike would always do
(17:41):
a deal with the league first to do the front
of the jerseys, and then they would come and do
a deal, you know, with us for the players' names
on the back of the jersey second. And the problem
with that structure is in the winter Loser department, the
person who does the first deal always makes out better
than the person who does the second. Right. So I
met with Michael after both sides it briefed with this
(18:02):
idea that we were going to talk about this new venture.
I sit down with him and first thing out of
my mouth is, Okay, what's Fanatics? I mean, it's a
small company based out of Philadelphia. Certainly learned everything I
knew about Michael about how he had transitioned from selling
part of his company to eBay buying part of that
company back creating Fanatics along with a couple of other companies.
(18:25):
But the thing that had me at literally the tagline
you had me at hello was he said, I'm going
to do a deal with the players first because I
believe in the value of their IP and to be
dead honest, whether it was a deal with EA Sports
or a deal with any of the other people, Panini
or Tops. At the time, almost no one had approached
(18:49):
us with this idea of capitalizing the value of player
group licensing rights. And so the idea was, we would
do this deal with him first for the player side
of the deal, and then he would do the deal
with the league for the front of the jersey. And
the other idea was, hey, if this works, the equity
(19:09):
position was really important to us. So we did a
cash plus equity deal. And the idea was pretty simple.
You know, at that point, it's a linear deal of
if this vision works, this is truly a win win
for everybody. And Michael is a visionary. I would be
lying to say that he was an easy negotiation. You know,
we are really really good friends, but every now and
(19:30):
then those deal points go literally to the death. But
I appreciated his vision about doing something that broke the paradigm,
and literally that idea leads to whatever it is ten
years later, this idea to create one team partners. We
would have never been there but for this concept that
(19:52):
there was an underappreciated value in group player rights. And look,
you know, Alex all due credit. You know, first of all,
it goes to Michael for that idea. But man if
I had to go back and thank a person who
meant a lot to me and you, Marvin Miller. Marvin
did the first trading card deal. And I had the
(20:14):
pleasure or sometimes not the pleasure of learning from Marvin
over a period of kind of the last year of
his life. He really got my head on straight about
how to be a union leader. But Marvin, I think
has to be credited with that idea that players have
a value both on and off the field, and this
idea that your IP, you know, your group licensing rights
(20:37):
has an independent value, separate, in apart from league value,
and when those two parties come together, great things happen.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah. Marvin Miller, of course, the legendary former head of
the Major League Baseball Players Association. Correct. Yeah, And so
Alex pick up there, because you know, I do think
this is this is one of those moments where I'm
going to lean in hard to your expertise, having you know,
been I was gonna say on the other side, but
not on the other side, on the side of d
(21:06):
in terms of being a player, because you're a uniquely
positioned to sort of talk about what it feels like
to be, you know, one of the flock as it was,
and to have someone like D as your leader. What
was your experience there?
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've always said that our president
is shaped by our past, and you know D mentioned
nineteen ninety four, I was an eighteen year old rookie
playing for Loopanela and in front of King Griffy Junior,
I mean, one of my great mentors and great friends.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
To this day.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And August twelfth, we walked off the field and I
was eighteen years old and I called my mom, I said,
what do I do now?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And then I called Don Fear and the great gene Orza,
who were both they followed Marvin Miller for twenty six
years as leaders and they're great role models of mine.
And the reasons why I'm where I am today, A
lot of it is because Marvin Miller, Don Fear and
gene Orza, because they devoted their life their a don't
life to players like me. And it was so stressful
(22:02):
in nineteen ninety four when I saw teammates who had
mortgages and houses, who maybe had won too many cars,
and said when is my next paycheck going to be?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And it was a scary time.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And I'll tell you never think about leadership until you
need leadership. And in nineteen ninety four that started me thinking, boy,
I better have a plan for life after baseball, especially
when the average career is five and a half years
and you make ninety percent of your money income from
age twenty to thirty and less than five percent of
us have a college degree. So that's when people like
(22:34):
the Smith are giants because they really impact your entire life.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Do you feel the weight of that d when you
take that job? Because you're a very successful lawyer and
also a public servant up until that point. But this
is a different assignment. I mean, you have like men's
lives in your hands, their families, the potential, as Alex knows,
for either abject failure or generational wealth ahead of them.
(23:06):
So how do you approach that? What's the mentality that
you take to sort of take that on? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You know, look, I was never a great athlete, but
you know, I ran track in college and for me,
it was the most important thing about preparing for a
meet or an individual race was everything you did before
it started and you know, to a certain extent, you know,
everything that happens after the gun fires is for the
most part, the cards have already been dealt, right, And
(23:33):
so for me, it was all about engaging in this
kind of relentless game strategy. But to your point, what
comes from it is the gravity of it. And I'll
be the first person to admit I think I handled
the stress. You know, thirty percent in a good way,
probably seventy percent in in a not so great way.
But these jobs take a lot out of you, and
I think I think they should if that makes sense.
(23:57):
I think that if you don't approach these jobs in
light of a young eighteen year old who has a
short window of earning capacity, and if you don't appreciate
the level of pressure that that young person is under
each and every day just to stay on the team.
(24:17):
I mean, forget, forget the at bats right, or the snaps,
or whether you catch the first down. The relentless life
of a professional athlete is so stressful just to stay
on the team. And I think one of their strengths
is the power of singular thought, and so that just
(24:37):
simply means that when it comes to you know, a
collective bargaining agreement that you know, for US, I did
two ten year deals. You know, those deals are two
hundred billion dollar deals, and they impact the healthcare of
young men. They impact the pensions of young men. I
mean a quick story when the league locked us out
(24:59):
in March of twenty eleven. You know, yes, they cut
off the salaries, but they also cut off the healthcare.
So I mean we had around thirty women expecting birth
who lost their healthcare coverage. So, you know, Jason, when
everybody is talking about the lockout and millionaires versus billionaires,
and it's the you know the frame in the public.
(25:22):
You know, it's place of well, there's plenty of money
to go around, and players just need to figure out
blah blah blah. It's tougher when you're sitting in a
chair and a young person comes to you and says,
what are we going to do for insurance coverage to
cover my special needs child? Or the fact that I'm
providing insurance to my parents, my elderly parents, or my
(25:42):
wife or partner is about to give birth. Those become weighty,
meaningful moments that I think it should take a lot
out of you, because it shouldn't just be you know,
whether or not I get a certain you know, item
on the ACEL spreadsheet the right way way or not.
It has to be will this deal and all my
(26:04):
actions leading to a conclusion that hopefully are gonna make
our players better off than they were the day before.
And by the way, you and I work with one guy,
Mike Wiener, who Mike was really other than Marvin. Mike
was the person who really taught me the humanity of
(26:24):
the job.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And remind us who he is.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Michael Wiener was the head of our union and he passed,
you know, not many years ago, and he left a
giant hole in our union. And look, it's interesting you
say that, d because Marvin Miller gin Or's don don
fear are ten out of ten when it comes to
IQ Intelligence deal communicators. And they said, actually, Michael Wiener
(26:48):
could have been the smartest of all of them. And
he was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
He died of a brain tumor, I mean, just at
an incredibly young age. And you know we've shared the
story before, Alex, you talk about the emotional humanity part.
I think that was the first time you and I
met was at Mike Waiter's funeral. At the funeral, yeah,
and Jason, he was the only player there.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I never forgot that for what it said about Alex.
But I also never forgot it for what these jobs
sometimes mean, right, I mean, you serve a role, but
sometimes I think a lot of people view it as
purely transactional. But I was like stunned at how few
(27:33):
players were at Mike's funeral. And there is probably you know,
I agree with you on his intelligence and his IQ.
He was brilliant, but his emotional level of EQ was unmatched,
And really no one taught me just sort of that
emotional investment that you have to make in this job.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And so taking all that into account, d the stress
of it, the weight of it, how do you take
that experience and your previous experience and apply it in
a way that is meaningful to you? And I say
that in part because while it was difficult, and you've
talked about that, it was very meaningful. You had a
(28:30):
very direct impact on thousands of people's lives, tens of thousands,
you know, potentially, especially when you think about the families
and whatnot. A lot of people stay in jobs like
that because they do come with a lot of emotional
and psychic reward even though they have an emotional toll.
So in the same way that I know that Alex
(28:52):
has thought about how do you recapture some element of
what it's like to win a World Series? And he's
got a pretty good answer to that. Now, being an
owner of a couple professional franchises, what do you do next, Like,
what is going to give you that level of satisfaction?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
For me, probably the thing I love the most is teaching.
I think the two things that it does for me
is in one sense, it replicates the idea that I'm
a part of a team. And you know, the one
thing I kind of miss at the PA was this
this camaraderie of it's a merry band of misfits in
(29:28):
some way, you know, fighting for a just cause, and
that part is very cool. And the other part of
it is teaching players about what this system is and
what it means and sort of vesting them, you know,
with being in control of their own destiny. And I
think that was a great part of being at the PA.
Teaching in a lot of ways does the same thing.
(29:50):
It allows me to lead, you know, a much smaller team.
But this idea of looking at sports and the business
of sport and the law of sports, along with the
ethics and the morality that goes into it. It's another
chance to take another group of extremely young people who
might think about baseball, football, basketball in one way, but
(30:12):
introduce them to the Marvin Millers of the world and
the Don Fears of the world, and the Alex Rodriguez
of the world, and the guys who went on strike
in ninety four and the guys who went on strike
for football, and the guys who survived the lockout in
twenty eleven, and giving them a perspective in both law
and business about what does this mean and what does
(30:34):
your role in it mean? And in a way, I
just hope that everybody learns that they just don't have
to be a mercenary, right. I Mean, there's just a
lot more ways to get meaningfulness and sort of a
thorough vitality of it out of your day to day job.
And it should be something more than just coming in
(30:54):
and punching a punch clock and says, Okay, I'm just
going to take on this role and I'm going to
do this thing. I mean, I think if if you're
able to grab that sense of where your role is
and how it fits in a larger continuum. I mean,
for example, man, I loved being the executive director because
I thought I was in that Marvin Miller continuum and
(31:17):
that Gene Upshaw continuum. And I love teaching now because
the best thing that Marvin gave to me and the
best thing Mike Wider gave to me, they were just
fantastic teachers. And this idea of paying it forward, right,
I'm sure you had guys in ninety four who really
put their arm around you and the young guy, man,
(31:38):
this is what this is about. And without that person
framing it for you, you think, okay, man, we're out of work.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But you know, the Baseball Players Union became the strongest
union in sports after nineteen ninety four because people understood
the meaningfulness of it and what was at stake and
that obligation to pay it forward.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, and it's so true to I mean, it was unbreakable,
and the shadows of Marvin Miller lived in our locker
room and those meetings in New York and you know,
all locker rooms all around, all thirty stadiums, and it
was unbreakable. And they tried, and having leadership in times
like nineteen ninety four was one of the greatest learning
(32:22):
experiences of my life.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You know, you mentioned the word mercenary.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
The opposite of mercenary is missionary, which I think is
the ultimate description for your job of heading of you know,
thousands of men that sometimes don't know where to look.
They can't look at their agents or their parents or
single parents, you know, like like mine. So we looked
at folks like you and Marvin Miller and Don Fear
and so on and so forth. I am fascinated by
(32:48):
different type of negotiating styles. Now you're going up against
a titan in Roger Goodell, for you know, over ten
years and two different.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Cbas and all of that.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You're also going up against thirty two bosses that are
thirty two of the most prolific negotiators in the world. Ye,
what is your negotiated style when you have a hand
versus when you don't have a hand? Walk me through it?
And how important are relationships in that?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, first of all, I mean it's probably easiest to
talk about what's that style when you don't have a hand, right,
And sometimes not having a hand is an easier negotiation
than having one because you have a limited number of options,
right just to be dead honest. I mean, if you
juxtapose the deal in twenty eleven, you know, we're trying
not to play two games for free. We're trying not
(33:37):
to give up twenty percent of our salaries, and we're
trying not to lose our pensions. You know, twenty twenty,
it's okay, the league wants at seventeenth game. What's the
price of the seventeenth game? So in a way, the
twenty twenty deal was harder from a deal point because
you're trying to balance a number of things you want
on your side and a number of things they want
(33:59):
on their side. Twenty eleven, you know we had a
tough hand. You just are trying to avoid sort of
an existential destruction, if that makes sense. So, you know,
not having a great hand. The negotiation strategy was how
do we get a better hand? And again, you know,
(34:19):
much like the analogy of you know, once I put
my hands down on that, you know that one hundred
meter line, you know, once the gun sounds, you know,
whatever happens happens. The strategy in twenty eleven was we
have a terribly bad hand. So how do we convince
these guys that we have a better hand? And literally
it was, hey, look, if we have two hundred million
(34:41):
dollars to hold out and they have four billion, I
don't care what kind of negotiator you are. I mean, Jason,
you're gonna put me in the ground. Alex, You're gonna
put me in the ground. There's nothing I can do
if I figure out a way to demonstrate that your
four billion was a violation of our collective bargaining agreement,
and I can freeze that or get a judge to
nullify that. Well, now what happens. You know that seesaw
(35:03):
now goes from here to here? Right? If I can
negotiate a secret insurance policy and keep it secret, right,
and then negotiate the deal as hard as we can,
and then at the last minute throw down that card.
Now you may not have a great hand, but you
don't have an existential bad hand. And again, going back
(35:23):
to leadership, thank you for all the lovely things you
said about me, But that Drew Brees, Brian Dawkins, Kevin Maway,
Jeff Saturday group, think about what they did. You know,
not only you know, they made an okay decision kind
of finding me, thank goodness. But I went to them
in early twenty eleven and said, we have this ability
(35:45):
of constructing this first ever lockout insurance policy, and it's
going to cost us fifty million dollars. But if we
get fifty million dollars, it's going to give the players
close to nine hundred million dollars and that'll take care
of our men throughout this lockout. And sort of in
the same way, Alex, that you know you talk about
(36:06):
that unbreakable. The reason it was unbreakable is you guys
had solidarity for us. We didn't have that history of solidarity.
I needed to replace that lack of history of solidarity
with we're gonna be able to tell every one of
our guys that you and your family are okay. And
(36:26):
it's not going to replace your entire salary, but for
an entire year, you can afford groceries, you can afford
your rent, you can make your car payments, and you
can afford insurance. But what I told those guys was,
here's the deal. If we get the insurance policy placed,
and we're gonna have to do things that have never
been done before in Europe and in Saudi Arabia and
(36:49):
other places that I can't mention. If this thing really
goes well, we'll never have to use it. So think
about a group of guys who literally not only agreed
to spend fifty minus onion dollars of the union's money,
but knowing that if everything works out, we're never going
to use the insurance policy. In that level of leadership,
(37:10):
I mean, we had that insurance policy for months and
no one leaked it.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
No wow.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And then you get to you get to a day
and you get to throw that thing down on the
table in front of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft and
Roger Goodell, and you know that's a good day for
you know, it's just a little bit of it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Jason.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I have a question for you, Jason, Okay, now, how
much would you have paid or we have paid to
be in the room there would and mister Jones, Roger Goodell,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
The faces because those I mean to Alex's to the
way he framed the question. D It's like these guys
are not used to getting one put over on them,
No at all.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
No, and they were You talk about the last thing,
the relationships one owner. I won't tell you who it is,
but one owner knew about that beforehand.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I made a tactical decision that while it's fun to
kind of throw down that card, you know, one of
two things can happen, right, Well, I guess to be
dead honest, only one good thing can happen. About twenty
bad things can happen. And so the strategy, you know,
(38:27):
really became, we need to have someone react to that
in a positive way to now champion us staying as partners.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Right, And I guess you know one of the things
I think that you know, people sort of missing sort
of these sort of multi tiered, you know, incredibly complex
business transactions. Someone on both sides of the deal needs
to be a champion of the deal. Yeah, you know right.
I think that you know, tell vision and the media
kind of always posits this thing. As you know, there's
(39:04):
a strong armed person who's like, this is the way
we're doing it, and the other person is this the
way we're going to do it, and then somehow they
just begrudgingly shake hands at the end of the day.
It doesn't work like that. If you don't have a champion,
you can spin in the work. It doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
You speak about owners, and owners I think sometimes don't
get enough credit for some of the things they do.
Some of the things they do are very missionary. They
give back to the community. They're great role models. Who
are maybe two or three that you looked at that
maybe you admired. There were great colleagues, great business partners,
and maybe something you learned from one or two of those.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Any you can mention, sure, you know, I would be remiss.
Robert Kraft taught me more about this business than a
he needed to, and gave me more guidance than I
probably was entitled to. Wow, And he's a friend. We
have certainly had our dust ups. When he wants to
go to war, he can go to war, and when
I can go to war, go to war. But of
(40:02):
all of the owners, and there were several, I mean,
you know Charles Johnson, actually you know who who took
over running the jets. You know when Woody was overseas,
was you know, a wonderful person to learn from. Jed York.
I would even be lying to you if I didn't
learn things from Jerry Jones, you know, quick aside on Jerry.
I think one of the things that people don't realize
(40:24):
in twenty eleven was while there was certainly a battle
between the owners and the players, you get this. Sometimes
there's battles between owners. Yeah, And there was a battle
between the small market teams and the large market teams.
And there were battles between teams that did a great
job of generating revenue and some teams that didn't do
(40:44):
a great job generating revenue. And I would have never
understood that nuance but for Jerry, and I would have
never understood the complexity of the owner's side of the
table if I didn't have the friendship of Robert. You know,
we could do an entire show on the the inter
(41:05):
plays between owners. I mean, that's its own. It's hard,
you know, And I think Roger did a great job,
you know, especially getting to twenty I think, look both
of us in twenty eleven, that was our first deal,
you know, and we have a certain constituency that we
have to serve, and he has a constituency that he
has to serve. And for whatever reason, the powers that
(41:26):
be proclaimed that we were to have a war, and
we did. But you know, at the same time, did
we do some great things. Yeah, we changed the health
and safety paradigm in football, you know, getting rid of
two A days and cutting back on practices and sideline
concussion experts and frankly, just to be dead honest and blunt,
I know that DeMar Hamlin is alive because of the
(41:50):
safety protocols that we put in after twenty eleven. And
so I think a lot of people like to, you know,
talk about sort of the warfare side of this job.
But sometimes you have to have big wars in order
to lead to even greater things. Yeah, but it always
comes down to, I think, to the character and the
willingness of the people who poor pulling strings.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
All right, So we're gonna wrap this up with our
lightning round. It's five questions. Yep, we'll bounce it back
and forth. So just the first thing that pops to
your mind. Okay, what's the best piece of advice you've
ever received on deal making or business.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
From Robert Kraft? This is not a straight line business.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
What's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I mean, can I just fan boy just for a second.
It really doesn't have anything to do with a deal man.
I'm just such a Bo Jackson fan. So I mean,
if I could be at the table when you know
that transition from him from college to football, from football
to baseball. I'd want to be in the room with
him as a partner talking about that.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Which team do you want to see win a championship
more than any?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Oh? I mean I grew up a Washington football team.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Guy.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You kind of come out of the womb and it's
you know, Darryl Green and Sonny Jurgensen and all those guys.
I mean that was if I still have a team,
that's a team.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
What's your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Oh goodness, I always go back to either jay Z
Big Pimpin or Beastie Boys. No sleep till.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Brooklyn Love It. Okay. What's your advice for someone listening
who wants a career like yours?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Pepto bismoal I was always a Tombs guy. You know
Tom's with a blacka chaser. I think Alex kind of
hate on it. There is no straight line path, right,
you know the lessons you learned out of the lockout
of Okay, I've got this short earning capacity. You know
you talk about players of retiring. Nobody retires. You're thirty
(44:01):
years old, right, I mean, it's what's your next play?
And so my advice to anybody who who wants this
career or you know, for some crazy reason or a
career in sports is man learn how to master your game.
And so for me, I knew I wanted to be
one of the best trial lawyers you know on the planet,
(44:22):
and that transitioned me and put me in this sort
of batter's box to go to a great firm and
learn from a guy like Tom Boggs, and then that
allowed me to transition into an executive director job, and
then that allowed me to do a deal with Michael Rubin,
and then that allowed me to do the one team deal.
I think young people tend to look at the end
(44:43):
instead of looking at okay, what are the individual you
know at bats you know that I have to have
in order to be in the position to do things
that are meaningful for me. So that's kind of my
own advice.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
D Smith, you are the best. Thank you, Thank you,
guys than we were really really looking for to this one.
The book is Turf War is the Fight for the
Soul of America's Game, and it is out now, so
pick it up.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Thanks, good to see you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
That was fun, Buddy. The Deal is hosted by Alex
Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was made by Anamazarakus,
Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Amy Keen is our editor
and Will Connelly is our video editor. Our theme music
is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier,
(45:33):
Ashley Hoenig, and Brenda Nenham. Sage Bauman is the head
of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel Carnivale and Elena
Los Angeles. Thanks so much for listening to the Deal.
If you have a minute, subscribe, rate and review our show.
It'll help other listeners find us. I'm Jason Kelly. See
you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Deal. I'm your host,
Jason Kelly alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez. All right, man,
welcome back. You're fifty, you had a big birthday, you
had a nice vacation. How are you feeling? I feel old.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh come on, there's something about the five oh that
kind of like the five hand of versus four handle.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But I'll get over it. Now. You're looking great. Seems
like you had a great time, surrounded by your family,
beautiful vistas, well celebrated, I mean well celebrated by all accounts.
It was really very special to see. So congratulations, thank you,
you're back. So one thing that happened while you were gone. Stanford,
where you do some teaching and you're obviously very familiar
(00:50):
with the institution, named a new athletic director, former CEO
of Nike, John Donaho. I could have knocked you over
with a feather on that one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
That's a really big news because it tells you that
it's a blue stamp on the narrative how big college
sports has gotten, and more even more importantly, how complex
it is. I mean, this is a big job which
I think can change the whole idea of how these
universities look at. Okay, how high can we think? There's
no one that's too big or too high. Someone's run
a humongous you know, fortune five hundred company, and now
(01:19):
he's coming to Stanford. I think you'll see other moves
that will follow Stamford.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I have to think you're right. I mean, I would
imagine that every college president saw that news immediately started
in their mind going through who's our most prominent alum
who we can tap and sort of appeal to his
or her, be true to your school, all their nostalgia,
and really tap them in. You're seeing just big business
(01:45):
people come in and say, we know sports. We've got
a lot of people who know a lot about sports,
but we really need to up our business games. So
interesting to see what happens and how John donnadhoe does there. Meanwhile,
you got back for your birthday. I was back in
New York and we found ourselves because we were texting
over the weekend. You were watching the Yankees play in Miami.
(02:06):
I was watching the Triple A Yankees the Scranton Wilkesbury
rail Riders play, And so, first of all, some you know,
nice family time for each of us watching baseball games.
But I got to tell you, I was blown away
by this Scranton team, a really good team and a
tribute to the Yankees organization. And I asked you and
you told me it was true. You did rehab there
(02:27):
at some point.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Right, I did, And I believe Jason. If I'm not,
you may want to fact check me here, but I
think they bought that franchise from the Phillies and then
they poured a bunch of money into it. Yes, and
it looks beautiful. I'm sure you had an incredible time.
Is a great baseball market, tons of Yankee fans down there.
And I got to tell you one thing about the Yankees,
and this goes back to George Steinbruner. They do everything
first class and Scranton is no exception.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, it was a really cool experience. And so it
just feels great. And you saw the Yankees play down
in your hometown.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, talking about you know, feeling great. It was such
a nice experience this weekend. On Sunday, I went to
watch the one o'clock game Yankees against the Marlins. Marlins
swept us, which was painful to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But woo.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
My daughters were like, this is such a cool experience. Dad,
We've done this our whole life. Come watch you play.
And now we're going in like no special parking, no security,
and yeah, we sat there for about seven eight innings,
watched the game and had a great time.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, I will tell you, and I texted you a
picture of this. As we're walking in to PNC Park
where the rail Riders played, there was a kid in
front of me couldn't have been more than nine or
ten years old, a Rod number thirteen wearing a T shirt.
So I got a love it. You're still big in Scranton.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Dude, I love it big somewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah. All right, So coming up on the show, we
have Deamorris Smith. He's the former executive director of the
NFL Players Association. And also, while you were gone, a
lot of controversy happening with the NFLPA. The successor to
d Guy named Lloyd Howell, actually resigned under some amount
of pressure, some controversy over a job that he continued
(04:04):
to have at the Carlisle Group, which is an investor
or potential investor in the NFL. They did name this
week in interim executive director, a guy named David White,
who by all accounts was the runner up when Lloyd
Hall got the job a few years ago. I think
all we really need to say about this is it
is a reminder how critical the pas are. And you
(04:27):
know that from multiple angles.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Oh yeah, I mean I come from the history of
Major League Baseball and Marvin Miller, who started the players
Union that forever has been known as the strongest union
in sports. Then he handed a baton to Don Fear,
then Michael Wiener. Unfortunately Michael Wiener passed from cancer, and
then the baton has been passed to Tony Clark, my
former teammate. But these jobs are so vital, Jason. And
(04:50):
if you think about the NFL, the most powerful league
in the world with the largest amount of revenue, is
you have an opt out with the media contract coming
up so per soon. Is the person that deals with
you know, Roger Goodell and the thirty two owners, the
thirty two partners, and someone that can be a great
leader for all the players. So this is a humongous
opportunity and a very important job for not only the players,
(05:13):
but I would say the state of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Totally and you're seeing it now as an owner in
the NBA and the WNBA, how critical they have to
be as partners. As you're building the value of the franchisees,
as you're building your fan base, as you're, as you say,
like negotiating media contracts. I mean, you're seeing how important
they are from a different perspective. I will say, so
as all this was going on with Lloyd Howell, and
(05:37):
this is as people will hear in a few minutes
when d comes onto the show, this is classic D.
So I text him and basically say, you know, obviously
this has happened since we taped with you. Anything you
want to say, And he said, because we're talking about
his book Turf Wars on the show. He says, if
you want the real story of what's going on to
the NFLPA, the history and its future, get Turf Wars.
(05:59):
So he's always selling it. And I will say, there
are some incredible stories in this book you're going to
hear in just a few minutes, some incredible stories that
he has. One of the things that I really took
away from this conversation and really echoes something you just
said a minute ago, is these jobs are important and
they're really really hard. I mean that came through loud
(06:20):
and clear in this conversation with day Yeah, and he
talked about it.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean he said that it probably took some years
away from his life, some of the most stressful times.
I mean he said sometimes he couldn't sleep without his
phone going off, especially through labor negotiations. Jas I got
a little pitch for you. My pitch for you is,
I thought about a decade ago or so, you had
this incredible book that really kind of dissected and unpacked
(06:43):
the private equity world, and I loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I loved your book The New Tycoons available wherever you
get your books go.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It's so good, shameless plug. But I think there's an
opportunity for you to do the same for ownership around.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Sports, because when you think about the.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Jerry Joneses, the Jerry reinsdorf Is, going back to George
Steinbrunner's there's such a change between the old Titans to
a lot of these new, younger owners that could be
really interesting, and there's such a large appetite for it.
I think fan base can't get enough of this kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
All right, So I love the idea, so I'll pitch
you back. Do you think the new owners of the
Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Leaks would be willing to
cooperate on such a book and give me key interviews?
Of course? Of course? Great, yeah, all right, good, all right.
Coming up on the show, Jamorris Smith, the former executive
director of the NFLPA and the author of the new
(07:35):
book Turf for Us, Welcome back to the Deal. We
are so excited to have with us. You can hear
him laughing at the background already. Toamorris Smith. He's the
former executive director of the National Football League Players Association,
(07:59):
also the author of a new book, Turf Wars, The
Fight for the Soul of America's Game. We're so happy
to have you here with us. Welcome to the deal man.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It is a pleasure to be with you guys. Good
to see you, Jason. Always great to see Alex.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We have so much to talk about. We want to
talk about football, we want to talk about the book.
Let's start with the book. You tell it like it is,
and I would imagine that was the approach you took
to the book too. What inspired you to do this
and how'd you go about it?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Well, first of all, it's great to be here. Thanks
for saying what I think most people hate that I
just tell it like it is. But you know, I
only knew one way to do the job, and that
was just simply take it on for what it is.
You know, there's no mystery that there's management and labor.
There's no mystery that the thirty one owners of the
National Football League are just you know, warm, fuzzy, huggy
(08:47):
people who get along with everybody. That's a joke. And
so you know, I wanted to write a book that
was not only a real story of the fifteen years
or nearly fifteen years I had the job, but also
this story of even though you have those kind of
battles on both sides of the aisle, there is room
for business. There is room for compromise. But sometimes those compromises,
(09:12):
as somebody like Alex knows, your first year in the
league was the strike, right, and so you end up
resolving or coming to some sort of compromise on these
business deals. But I think every now and then people
forget that sometimes there's a preceding war, and it's full
of personalities, it's full of intricate business decisions, but also
(09:34):
this idea that a group of people on one side
can have a good war with the people on the
other side and sometimes good things come out of it.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So, Dia, I'm so interested about your career. You've been
an incredibly successful lawyer. In your career, you work for
one of some of the top law firms in the country.
You work for the US government, representing all of us
as Americans.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
But I'm interested.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
How does someone end up getting that job, which is
the ultimate missionary job.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Oh yeah, well, it might be a missionary job. It
might be an l sid job where you just ride
out one way and then you and you never make
it back. But yeah, you know, interesting story. I was
headed back to government. I mean really, the only job
I really wanted after I moved into private practice was
to go back to the US Attorney's office and be
the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. And I
(10:24):
was lucky enough to sort of get tapped on. That
was the way that the road was going to take me.
I was working on the transition team for then Senator Obama,
President elect Obama, working for the Justice Department and Alex
dead story. I got a call one night on my
phone from a search firm that said, would you be
interested in being a candidate for the executive director job?
(10:46):
And I ignored the call for almost three weeks because
I thought I've already got a plan. And then literally
they finally caught me one day in the office and
I talked to the person and he said, look, you
know you've identified you as a POTENTI candidate. The players
are going to go through this lockout. They're looking for
sort of a guy who can combine wartime theory with
(11:07):
business strategy with sort of legal plays. And I said,
this has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever
heard of in my life. Well, you know, I mean,
you grew up in this world and you know it
in many ways better than I. You know, I was
never an agent. I never represented a team, never worked
for a team. I wasn't really a labor lawyer. I
(11:29):
wasn't a sports lawyer. To much of my law school
professor's chagrin, I didn't even take sports law in law school.
But it just didn't seem like a fit until I
sat down with the players. And once I sat down
with that executive committee, and by the way, a group of.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Killers you know, yeah, who was on that that year.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
The president was Kevin Malay, you know, a great president,
but also had the distinction of I think he climbed
to the top three dirtiest players in the National Football League.
I'm pretty sure that's true. Ryan Dawkins, Drew Brees, Tony Richardson,
Jeff Saturday, Mike Rabel, Kevin Carter, you know, all of
those guys were And I think Alex you get this.
(12:10):
Sometimes in a locker room you just have old souls,
and those guys were just old, mature souls who were
good or for bad. Woke up one day and Gene
Upshaw had gone into the hospital on a Wednesday, and
Jean died on a Sunday. And I think that moment
sort of led them to take on sort of an
(12:33):
air of more responsibility and maturity than perhaps they would
have otherwise done.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And so d you talked about how that was not
your background. I wonder, and you obviously know the edswer
to this in the association's mind, was that a feature,
not a bug, that you didn't have the background where
you might have some of the biases of an agent
or from working for a team or working for the League, like,
(12:59):
was the fact that you would and successful essentially in
something that was very relevant but not direct experience. Did
that actually make you a better candidate and better at
the job?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
One hundred percent? You know, I remember my first second
meeting with the Executive Committee, believe it or not, was
on the day of Obama's inauguration, and I nearly didn't
take the trip, honestly because I you know, that was
one of those places where you just had to be.
But I thought better of it, or just in pure honesty,
my wife thought better of it and made me go.
(13:31):
But in that meeting, I was just blunt with them
about game strategy, and it didn't appear to me that
they had a sufficient congressional strategy. They really didn't have
a sufficient public relations strategy. They had two hundred million
dollars in the bank, the league had four billion dollars
in order to lock the players out. And so, you know, initially, Jason,
(13:53):
it was really the same type of work I had
done for clients like Ford and Halliburton and Shell and
other people over the years. How do you come up
with a comprehensive game strategy for the situation that you're facing? Right,
And sometimes that's asymmetrical, right.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Say more about that. What do you mean? Sometimes it's asymmetrical.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Sometimes it's asymmetrical, you know, in the sense that you
know a lot of business deals are linear, in the
sense that you know, I did the first business deal
for fanatics, the first supports deal. Michael Rubens on the
other side of the table. He has a vision for
growing the sports apparel in fanatics. I'm on the other
side of the table. If you want to do a
deal that has the names of the players on the back,
(14:33):
you have to pass. You know, in some respects, that's
a linear deal. You know, the upside for me, what's
the upside for him? There's a joint win when and
you figure out just the details of the of the
win win. An asymmetrical deal is one where like the lockout,
you know, the owners want the players to give back
their pensions. They want the players to give back twenty
(14:55):
percent of their salary, and they want the players to
play it. You know, two extra games, eighteen games free,
and they have a war chest of four billion. You
have a war chest of two hundred million. If you
play a linear deal, you're going to lose. So instead,
it was well, look I mean, the league had had
not done a great job looking after players with respect
(15:17):
to concussions. So the first strategy that my boss, Tom
Boggs kind of came up with was we should take
the league up on Capitol Hill and have a hearing
about concussions, and if we can figure out a legal
strategy to nullify their four billion dollars, you know, that
helps us win. So we did. We convinced a judge
(15:38):
that the league's use of the TV money ultimately harmed
the players. And then the last thing, you know, which
I know you guys know, we purchased a secret insurance
policy and so that you know, the game strategy for
us was that the owners think the players will capitulate
after week whatever, four, five, or six. They've certainly told
the bankers who hold the notes in their stadiums that
(16:00):
football will come back by week seven at the latest.
What the secret insurance policy gave us, and we played
it at the last minute, was this thing is going
to go on for an entire year. So by an
asymmetrical strategy, you've now turned the negotiation into a linear
strategy of if you don't get a deal done, this
(16:21):
thing's going to last a whole year and there's just
as much pain on you as there is on me.
And so sometimes, you know, deal strategy, you have to
be sort of ruthlessly asymmetrical.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
So speaking about that, you mentioned the Fanatics. We have
a mutual friend in Michael Rubin, who's one of the
great deal makers of his generation, right, aggressive, visionary around
corners everything you name it, you name it, he is
and then some and.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
We love him.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
But man, he is, he is, and he is relentless,
and he's a great So you've done deals like whoop
ea sports trading card deals, but I want to own
in Fanatics deal because in many ways you're synonymous with
being ahead of the curve and a risk taker.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Get a calculated risk taker.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Walk us through a conversation how you were the first
not only to get a deal done, but to say
I'm in. But instead of cash you took equity. Yeah,
walk us through that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I'll never forget it. Michael and I met for the
first time at the Palm Restaurant in Washington, DC. You know,
my side had briefed me on this idea of his,
but you know, in a nutshell, you know we had
already had a deal with Nike, and that was a
linear relationship that was good but not great for us
just to be dead hon Us. Nike would always do
(17:41):
a deal with the league first to do the front
of the jerseys, and then they would come and do
a deal, you know, with us for the players' names
on the back of the jersey second. And the problem
with that structure is in the winter Loser department, the
person who does the first deal always makes out better
than the person who does the second. Right. So I
met with Michael after both sides it briefed with this
(18:02):
idea that we were going to talk about this new venture.
I sit down with him and first thing out of
my mouth is, Okay, what's Fanatics? I mean, it's a
small company based out of Philadelphia. Certainly learned everything I
knew about Michael about how he had transitioned from selling
part of his company to eBay buying part of that
company back creating Fanatics along with a couple of other companies.
(18:25):
But the thing that had me at literally the tagline
you had me at hello was he said, I'm going
to do a deal with the players first because I
believe in the value of their IP and to be
dead honest, whether it was a deal with EA Sports
or a deal with any of the other people, Panini
or Tops. At the time, almost no one had approached
(18:49):
us with this idea of capitalizing the value of player
group licensing rights. And so the idea was, we would
do this deal with him first for the player side
of the deal, and then he would do the deal
with the league for the front of the jersey. And
the other idea was, hey, if this works, the equity
(19:09):
position was really important to us. So we did a
cash plus equity deal. And the idea was pretty simple.
You know, at that point, it's a linear deal of
if this vision works, this is truly a win win
for everybody. And Michael is a visionary. I would be
lying to say that he was an easy negotiation. You know,
we are really really good friends, but every now and
(19:30):
then those deal points go literally to the death. But
I appreciated his vision about doing something that broke the paradigm,
and literally that idea leads to whatever it is ten
years later, this idea to create one team partners. We
would have never been there but for this concept that
(19:52):
there was an underappreciated value in group player rights. And look,
you know, Alex all due credit. You know, first of all,
it goes to Michael for that idea. But man if
I had to go back and thank a person who
meant a lot to me and you, Marvin Miller. Marvin
did the first trading card deal. And I had the
(20:14):
pleasure or sometimes not the pleasure of learning from Marvin
over a period of kind of the last year of
his life. He really got my head on straight about
how to be a union leader. But Marvin, I think
has to be credited with that idea that players have
a value both on and off the field, and this
idea that your IP, you know, your group licensing rights
(20:37):
has an independent value, separate, in apart from league value,
and when those two parties come together, great things happen.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah. Marvin Miller, of course, the legendary former head of
the Major League Baseball Players Association. Correct. Yeah, And so
Alex pick up there, because you know, I do think
this is this is one of those moments where I'm
going to lean in hard to your expertise, having you know,
been I was gonna say on the other side, but
not on the other side, on the side of d
(21:06):
in terms of being a player, because you're a uniquely
positioned to sort of talk about what it feels like
to be, you know, one of the flock as it was,
and to have someone like D as your leader. What
was your experience there?
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've always said that our president
is shaped by our past, and you know D mentioned
nineteen ninety four, I was an eighteen year old rookie
playing for Loopanela and in front of King Griffy Junior,
I mean, one of my great mentors and great friends.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
To this day.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And August twelfth, we walked off the field and I
was eighteen years old and I called my mom, I said,
what do I do now?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And then I called Don Fear and the great gene Orza,
who were both they followed Marvin Miller for twenty six
years as leaders and they're great role models of mine.
And the reasons why I'm where I am today, A
lot of it is because Marvin Miller, Don Fear and
gene Orza, because they devoted their life their a don't
life to players like me. And it was so stressful
(22:02):
in nineteen ninety four when I saw teammates who had
mortgages and houses, who maybe had won too many cars,
and said when is my next paycheck going to be?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
And it was a scary time.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And I'll tell you never think about leadership until you
need leadership. And in nineteen ninety four that started me thinking, boy,
I better have a plan for life after baseball, especially
when the average career is five and a half years
and you make ninety percent of your money income from
age twenty to thirty and less than five percent of
us have a college degree. So that's when people like
(22:34):
the Smith are giants because they really impact your entire life.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Do you feel the weight of that d when you
take that job? Because you're a very successful lawyer and
also a public servant up until that point. But this
is a different assignment. I mean, you have like men's
lives in your hands, their families, the potential, as Alex knows,
for either abject failure or generational wealth ahead of them.
(23:06):
So how do you approach that? What's the mentality that
you take to sort of take that on? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You know, look, I was never a great athlete, but
you know, I ran track in college and for me,
it was the most important thing about preparing for a
meet or an individual race was everything you did before
it started and you know, to a certain extent, you know,
everything that happens after the gun fires is for the
most part, the cards have already been dealt, right, And
(23:33):
so for me, it was all about engaging in this
kind of relentless game strategy. But to your point, what
comes from it is the gravity of it. And I'll
be the first person to admit I think I handled
the stress. You know, thirty percent in a good way,
probably seventy percent in in a not so great way.
But these jobs take a lot out of you, and
I think I think they should if that makes sense.
(23:57):
I think that if you don't approach these jobs in
light of a young eighteen year old who has a
short window of earning capacity, and if you don't appreciate
the level of pressure that that young person is under
each and every day just to stay on the team.
(24:17):
I mean, forget, forget the at bats right, or the snaps,
or whether you catch the first down. The relentless life
of a professional athlete is so stressful just to stay
on the team. And I think one of their strengths
is the power of singular thought, and so that just
(24:37):
simply means that when it comes to you know, a
collective bargaining agreement that you know, for US, I did
two ten year deals. You know, those deals are two
hundred billion dollar deals, and they impact the healthcare of
young men. They impact the pensions of young men. I
mean a quick story when the league locked us out
(24:59):
in March of twenty eleven. You know, yes, they cut
off the salaries, but they also cut off the healthcare.
So I mean we had around thirty women expecting birth
who lost their healthcare coverage. So, you know, Jason, when
everybody is talking about the lockout and millionaires versus billionaires,
and it's the you know the frame in the public.
(25:22):
You know, it's place of well, there's plenty of money
to go around, and players just need to figure out
blah blah blah. It's tougher when you're sitting in a
chair and a young person comes to you and says,
what are we going to do for insurance coverage to
cover my special needs child? Or the fact that I'm
providing insurance to my parents, my elderly parents, or my
(25:42):
wife or partner is about to give birth. Those become weighty,
meaningful moments that I think it should take a lot
out of you, because it shouldn't just be you know,
whether or not I get a certain you know, item
on the ACEL spreadsheet the right way way or not.
It has to be will this deal and all my
(26:04):
actions leading to a conclusion that hopefully are gonna make
our players better off than they were the day before.
And by the way, you and I work with one guy,
Mike Wiener, who Mike was really other than Marvin. Mike
was the person who really taught me the humanity of
(26:24):
the job.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And remind us who he is.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Michael Wiener was the head of our union and he passed,
you know, not many years ago, and he left a
giant hole in our union. And look, it's interesting you
say that, d because Marvin Miller gin Or's don don
fear are ten out of ten when it comes to
IQ Intelligence deal communicators. And they said, actually, Michael Wiener
(26:48):
could have been the smartest of all of them. And
he was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
He died of a brain tumor, I mean, just at
an incredibly young age. And you know we've shared the
story before, Alex, you talk about the emotional humanity part.
I think that was the first time you and I
met was at Mike Waiter's funeral. At the funeral, yeah,
and Jason, he was the only player there.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I never forgot that for what it said about Alex.
But I also never forgot it for what these jobs
sometimes mean, right, I mean, you serve a role, but
sometimes I think a lot of people view it as
purely transactional. But I was like stunned at how few
(27:33):
players were at Mike's funeral. And there is probably you know,
I agree with you on his intelligence and his IQ.
He was brilliant, but his emotional level of EQ was unmatched,
And really no one taught me just sort of that
emotional investment that you have to make in this job.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And so taking all that into account, d the stress
of it, the weight of it, how do you take
that experience and your previous experience and apply it in
a way that is meaningful to you? And I say
that in part because while it was difficult, and you've
talked about that, it was very meaningful. You had a
(28:30):
very direct impact on thousands of people's lives, tens of thousands,
you know, potentially, especially when you think about the families
and whatnot. A lot of people stay in jobs like
that because they do come with a lot of emotional
and psychic reward even though they have an emotional toll.
So in the same way that I know that Alex
(28:52):
has thought about how do you recapture some element of
what it's like to win a World Series? And he's
got a pretty good answer to that. Now, being an
owner of a couple professional franchises, what do you do next, Like,
what is going to give you that level of satisfaction?
Speaker 1 (29:07):
For me, probably the thing I love the most is teaching.
I think the two things that it does for me
is in one sense, it replicates the idea that I'm
a part of a team. And you know, the one
thing I kind of miss at the PA was this
this camaraderie of it's a merry band of misfits in
(29:28):
some way, you know, fighting for a just cause, and
that part is very cool. And the other part of
it is teaching players about what this system is and
what it means and sort of vesting them, you know,
with being in control of their own destiny. And I
think that was a great part of being at the PA.
Teaching in a lot of ways does the same thing.
(29:50):
It allows me to lead, you know, a much smaller team.
But this idea of looking at sports and the business
of sport and the law of sports, along with the
ethics and the morality that goes into it. It's another
chance to take another group of extremely young people who
might think about baseball, football, basketball in one way, but
(30:12):
introduce them to the Marvin Millers of the world and
the Don Fears of the world, and the Alex Rodriguez
of the world, and the guys who went on strike
in ninety four and the guys who went on strike
for football, and the guys who survived the lockout in
twenty eleven, and giving them a perspective in both law
and business about what does this mean and what does
(30:34):
your role in it mean? And in a way, I
just hope that everybody learns that they just don't have
to be a mercenary, right. I Mean, there's just a
lot more ways to get meaningfulness and sort of a
thorough vitality of it out of your day to day job.
And it should be something more than just coming in
(30:54):
and punching a punch clock and says, Okay, I'm just
going to take on this role and I'm going to
do this thing. I mean, I think if if you're
able to grab that sense of where your role is
and how it fits in a larger continuum. I mean,
for example, man, I loved being the executive director because
I thought I was in that Marvin Miller continuum and
(31:17):
that Gene Upshaw continuum. And I love teaching now because
the best thing that Marvin gave to me and the
best thing Mike Wider gave to me, they were just
fantastic teachers. And this idea of paying it forward, right,
I'm sure you had guys in ninety four who really
put their arm around you and the young guy, man,
(31:38):
this is what this is about. And without that person
framing it for you, you think, okay, man, we're out of work.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But you know, the Baseball Players Union became the strongest
union in sports after nineteen ninety four because people understood
the meaningfulness of it and what was at stake and
that obligation to pay it forward.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, and it's so true to I mean, it was unbreakable,
and the shadows of Marvin Miller lived in our locker
room and those meetings in New York and you know,
all locker rooms all around, all thirty stadiums, and it
was unbreakable. And they tried, and having leadership in times
like nineteen ninety four was one of the greatest learning
(32:22):
experiences of my life.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You know, you mentioned the word mercenary.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
The opposite of mercenary is missionary, which I think is
the ultimate description for your job of heading of you know,
thousands of men that sometimes don't know where to look.
They can't look at their agents or their parents or
single parents, you know, like like mine. So we looked
at folks like you and Marvin Miller and Don Fear
and so on and so forth. I am fascinated by
(32:48):
different type of negotiating styles. Now you're going up against
a titan in Roger Goodell, for you know, over ten
years and two different.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Cbas and all of that.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
You're also going up against thirty two bosses that are
thirty two of the most prolific negotiators in the world. Ye,
what is your negotiated style when you have a hand
versus when you don't have a hand? Walk me through it?
And how important are relationships in that?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Well, first of all, I mean it's probably easiest to
talk about what's that style when you don't have a hand, right,
And sometimes not having a hand is an easier negotiation
than having one because you have a limited number of options,
right just to be dead honest. I mean, if you
juxtapose the deal in twenty eleven, you know, we're trying
not to play two games for free. We're trying not
(33:37):
to give up twenty percent of our salaries, and we're
trying not to lose our pensions. You know, twenty twenty,
it's okay, the league wants at seventeenth game. What's the
price of the seventeenth game? So in a way, the
twenty twenty deal was harder from a deal point because
you're trying to balance a number of things you want
on your side and a number of things they want
(33:59):
on their side. Twenty eleven, you know we had a
tough hand. You just are trying to avoid sort of
an existential destruction, if that makes sense. So, you know,
not having a great hand. The negotiation strategy was how
do we get a better hand? And again, you know,
(34:19):
much like the analogy of you know, once I put
my hands down on that, you know that one hundred
meter line, you know, once the gun sounds, you know,
whatever happens happens. The strategy in twenty eleven was we
have a terribly bad hand. So how do we convince
these guys that we have a better hand? And literally
it was, hey, look, if we have two hundred million
(34:41):
dollars to hold out and they have four billion, I
don't care what kind of negotiator you are. I mean, Jason,
you're gonna put me in the ground. Alex, You're gonna
put me in the ground. There's nothing I can do
if I figure out a way to demonstrate that your
four billion was a violation of our collective bargaining agreement,
and I can freeze that or get a judge to
nullify that. Well, now what happens. You know that seesaw
(35:03):
now goes from here to here? Right? If I can
negotiate a secret insurance policy and keep it secret, right,
and then negotiate the deal as hard as we can,
and then at the last minute throw down that card.
Now you may not have a great hand, but you
don't have an existential bad hand. And again, going back
(35:23):
to leadership, thank you for all the lovely things you
said about me, But that Drew Brees, Brian Dawkins, Kevin Maway,
Jeff Saturday group, think about what they did. You know,
not only you know, they made an okay decision kind
of finding me, thank goodness. But I went to them
in early twenty eleven and said, we have this ability
(35:45):
of constructing this first ever lockout insurance policy, and it's
going to cost us fifty million dollars. But if we
get fifty million dollars, it's going to give the players
close to nine hundred million dollars and that'll take care
of our men throughout this lockout. And sort of in
the same way, Alex, that you know you talk about
(36:06):
that unbreakable. The reason it was unbreakable is you guys
had solidarity for us. We didn't have that history of solidarity.
I needed to replace that lack of history of solidarity
with we're gonna be able to tell every one of
our guys that you and your family are okay. And
(36:26):
it's not going to replace your entire salary, but for
an entire year, you can afford groceries, you can afford
your rent, you can make your car payments, and you
can afford insurance. But what I told those guys was,
here's the deal. If we get the insurance policy placed,
and we're gonna have to do things that have never
been done before in Europe and in Saudi Arabia and
(36:49):
other places that I can't mention. If this thing really
goes well, we'll never have to use it. So think
about a group of guys who literally not only agreed
to spend fifty minus onion dollars of the union's money,
but knowing that if everything works out, we're never going
to use the insurance policy. In that level of leadership,
(37:10):
I mean, we had that insurance policy for months and
no one leaked it.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
No wow.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And then you get to you get to a day
and you get to throw that thing down on the
table in front of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft and
Roger Goodell, and you know that's a good day for
you know, it's just a little bit of it.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Jason.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
I have a question for you, Jason, Okay, now, how
much would you have paid or we have paid to
be in the room there would and mister Jones, Roger Goodell,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
The faces because those I mean to Alex's to the
way he framed the question. D It's like these guys
are not used to getting one put over on them,
No at all.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
No, and they were You talk about the last thing,
the relationships one owner. I won't tell you who it is,
but one owner knew about that beforehand.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
I made a tactical decision that while it's fun to
kind of throw down that card, you know, one of
two things can happen, right, Well, I guess to be
dead honest, only one good thing can happen. About twenty
bad things can happen. And so the strategy, you know,
(38:27):
really became, we need to have someone react to that
in a positive way to now champion us staying as partners.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Right, And I guess you know one of the things
I think that you know, people sort of missing sort
of these sort of multi tiered, you know, incredibly complex
business transactions. Someone on both sides of the deal needs
to be a champion of the deal. Yeah, you know right.
I think that you know, tell vision and the media
kind of always posits this thing. As you know, there's
(39:04):
a strong armed person who's like, this is the way
we're doing it, and the other person is this the
way we're going to do it, and then somehow they
just begrudgingly shake hands at the end of the day.
It doesn't work like that. If you don't have a champion,
you can spin in the work. It doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
You speak about owners, and owners I think sometimes don't
get enough credit for some of the things they do.
Some of the things they do are very missionary. They
give back to the community. They're great role models. Who
are maybe two or three that you looked at that
maybe you admired. There were great colleagues, great business partners,
and maybe something you learned from one or two of those.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Any you can mention, sure, you know, I would be remiss.
Robert Kraft taught me more about this business than a
he needed to, and gave me more guidance than I
probably was entitled to. Wow, And he's a friend. We
have certainly had our dust ups. When he wants to
go to war, he can go to war, and when
I can go to war, go to war. But of
(40:02):
all of the owners, and there were several, I mean,
you know Charles Johnson, actually you know who who took
over running the jets. You know when Woody was overseas,
was you know, a wonderful person to learn from. Jed York.
I would even be lying to you if I didn't
learn things from Jerry Jones, you know, quick aside on Jerry.
I think one of the things that people don't realize
(40:24):
in twenty eleven was while there was certainly a battle
between the owners and the players, you get this. Sometimes
there's battles between owners. Yeah, And there was a battle
between the small market teams and the large market teams.
And there were battles between teams that did a great
job of generating revenue and some teams that didn't do
(40:44):
a great job generating revenue. And I would have never
understood that nuance but for Jerry, and I would have
never understood the complexity of the owner's side of the
table if I didn't have the friendship of Robert. You know,
we could do an entire show on the the inter
(41:05):
plays between owners. I mean, that's its own. It's hard,
you know, And I think Roger did a great job,
you know, especially getting to twenty I think, look both
of us in twenty eleven, that was our first deal,
you know, and we have a certain constituency that we
have to serve, and he has a constituency that he
has to serve. And for whatever reason, the powers that
(41:26):
be proclaimed that we were to have a war, and
we did. But you know, at the same time, did
we do some great things. Yeah, we changed the health
and safety paradigm in football, you know, getting rid of
two A days and cutting back on practices and sideline
concussion experts and frankly, just to be dead honest and blunt,
I know that DeMar Hamlin is alive because of the
(41:50):
safety protocols that we put in after twenty eleven. And
so I think a lot of people like to, you know,
talk about sort of the warfare side of this job.
But sometimes you have to have big wars in order
to lead to even greater things. Yeah, but it always
comes down to, I think, to the character and the
willingness of the people who poor pulling strings.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
All right, So we're gonna wrap this up with our
lightning round. It's five questions. Yep, we'll bounce it back
and forth. So just the first thing that pops to
your mind. Okay, what's the best piece of advice you've
ever received on deal making or business.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
From Robert Kraft? This is not a straight line business.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
What's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 1 (42:46):
I mean, can I just fan boy just for a second.
It really doesn't have anything to do with a deal man.
I'm just such a Bo Jackson fan. So I mean,
if I could be at the table when you know
that transition from him from college to football, from football
to baseball. I'd want to be in the room with
him as a partner talking about that.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Which team do you want to see win a championship
more than any?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Oh? I mean I grew up a Washington football team.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Guy.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You kind of come out of the womb and it's
you know, Darryl Green and Sonny Jurgensen and all those guys.
I mean that was if I still have a team,
that's a team.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
What's your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Oh goodness, I always go back to either jay Z
Big Pimpin or Beastie Boys. No sleep till.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Brooklyn Love It. Okay. What's your advice for someone listening
who wants a career like yours?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Pepto bismoal I was always a Tombs guy. You know
Tom's with a blacka chaser. I think Alex kind of
hate on it. There is no straight line path, right,
you know the lessons you learned out of the lockout
of Okay, I've got this short earning capacity. You know
you talk about players of retiring. Nobody retires. You're thirty
(44:01):
years old, right, I mean, it's what's your next play?
And so my advice to anybody who who wants this
career or you know, for some crazy reason or a
career in sports is man learn how to master your game.
And so for me, I knew I wanted to be
one of the best trial lawyers you know on the planet,
(44:22):
and that transitioned me and put me in this sort
of batter's box to go to a great firm and
learn from a guy like Tom Boggs, and then that
allowed me to transition into an executive director job, and
then that allowed me to do a deal with Michael Rubin,
and then that allowed me to do the one team deal.
I think young people tend to look at the end
(44:43):
instead of looking at okay, what are the individual you
know at bats you know that I have to have
in order to be in the position to do things
that are meaningful for me. So that's kind of my
own advice.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
D Smith, you are the best. Thank you, Thank you,
guys than we were really really looking for to this one.
The book is Turf War is the Fight for the
Soul of America's Game, and it is out now, so
pick it up.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Thanks, good to see you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
That was fun, Buddy. The Deal is hosted by Alex
Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was made by Anamazarakus,
Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Amy Keen is our editor
and Will Connelly is our video editor. Our theme music
is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier,
(45:33):
Ashley Hoenig, and Brenda Nenham. Sage Bauman is the head
of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel Carnivale and Elena
Los Angeles. Thanks so much for listening to the Deal.
If you have a minute, subscribe, rate and review our show.
It'll help other listeners find us. I'm Jason Kelly. See
you next week.
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