June 19, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk with David Blitzer, Blackstone’s chairman and the co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, about how his teams use data and analytics to improve fan experience. In this conversation, which was taped in front of an audience at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Blitzer tells the hosts how a “failed athlete” came to be the first person to own teams in all five major American sports leagues, what he’s doing to invest in the “massively fragmented” world of youth sports and why having a favorite sports team is like having a favorite child.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All Right, we're headed to Boston the MIT Sloan Sports
Analytics Conference. The guest this time is going to be
none other than David Blitzer.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I'm so excited about David.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
First of all, he's been at Blastow since nineteen ninety one,
and on top of that, he probably owns equity on
more teams and more leagues than any human alive.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are some big questions that come out of that,
which is, what do you learn from all of that?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
How do you apply it?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because he's backing some of the most important sports franchises
across the world.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
How do you feel about being back in Boston? A
not so good. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, Thank you so much. Thank you guys for
having us. It's good to be in Boston.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It was funny.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We were reminiscing, you know, on the on the way in,
and Alex was giving me what it's like to play
at Fenway. You and I probably watched games at Fenway,
but a little bit of a different experience.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It's my probably my favorite park to play other than
Old Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's it's classic.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yeah, it's not the easiest place to be a visiting fan.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
I've had some tough moments.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's safe to be Yeah, yeah, TD gardened. Yeah, exactly exactly.
I mean, this is going to be hopefully a very
fun conversation. You know, Alex and I host this podcast
called The Deal, where you know, we talked to folks
at this intersection of business, sports and culture, and there
are very few people who are in it as deep
(01:45):
as our guest today, David Blitzer. Blitz is someone who
when we created this show was at the top of
our list as someone that we really wanted to chop
it up with.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So we're really excited Blitz that you're here with us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I guess I would start by asking you, and I'm
going to go back to my own roots a little bit.
You and I met when I covered private equity at Bloomberg,
and you are a very successful guy at a little
firm called Blackstone, and somewhere along the way you became
one of the most influential investors in sports.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
How did that happen?
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Well, A thank you for having me. I've known Jason
for a long time. I've known Alex for a long time,
so it's really nice to be all here together. And
I do think we also need to do a shout
out for Jessica Gellman, so we don't have the jersey,
we blew that with Jessica, Happy, Happy fiftieth birthday. Yeh,
you do an amazing job with this conference, and we're
all really happy to be here and.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
To celebrate with you.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
So yeah, Private Equity for you know, now, at this
point in time is my thirty fourth year in the business.
In about I guess it was twenty and ten was
when my journey started on the sports side of the equation.
So unlike Alex one of the greatest athletes of all time,
I was, like many probably in this room, a failed athlete, which,
(03:09):
like I thought I was good when I was, you know,
like a teenager. Then I realized by high school that
I was adequate at best and certainly was not playing
past high school. So instead of failed, maybe we say
always aspire, always aspire. I'm still aspiring just new sports.
But I basically I'm clearly a massive fan of sports
in general, and obviously I think a lot about business
(03:32):
and investing in companies and and you know, what are
trends that are out there that you can get behind.
Really like we talk about good neighborhoods or mega trends.
But I hadn't really thought about investing in a sports
team until somebody came to see me. I was living
in London for about a decade, and towards the end
of that decade in London, a friend of mine came
to see me and basically said he was involved in
(03:53):
the NBA. He was like an assistant GM somewhere and
he basically said, Hey, I think you sho should really
think about investing in a basketball franchise. There's like six
or seven that are for sale right now, are looking
for capital. And it was a very it was a
real inflection point for the NBA for those who want
to go back and remember this was twenty ten when
(04:16):
this conversation first took place, and it was pretty clear
that there was going to be a lock app okay,
there was going to be a new media rights agreement
and basically something like twenty three, twenty four, twenty five
of the teams are actually losing losing money at the time,
which is why you were seeing a lot of things potentially,
(04:37):
you know, go up for sale leading into that change. Anyway,
long story short, I was really interested in the concept,
but I was living in London. When I was home
over that December break of twenty ten, I went to
see a friend of mine who I'd gotten to know
quite well when he lived in London as well a
couple of years earlier.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
It was this a guy named.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
Josh Harris at Apollo, and I said, hey, Josh, he
and I had gone to a pub one night when
we were both living in London, and I don't know
how this subject came up, but I just it's stuck
in the back of my head that he was interested
in investing in sports. And so when this call came
and I thought it was really interesting and wanted to
like really dig in. Sitting there in London, and I
went to see Josh and said, hey, why don't we
(05:14):
look at the Philadelphia seventy six ers, Because amongst the
teams that were saled, they were actually officially for sale,
you know, with a banker and the process, and you know,
some of the others were more you know, sort of
whisper campaigns. And you guys had both we had both
gone to school at University of Pennsylvania. We both had
other roots from family members in Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia,
and it's an iconic brand, and our view was, yeah,
(05:36):
let's go try to do that. So we agreed to
sort of partner together and try to ultimately go by
or invest in the Philadelphia seventy six ers, which was
a transaction that signed in the summer of twenty eleven,
and sure enough, there was a lockout that fall. Because
I still remember my first ever NBA board meeting was
not the easiest meeting in the world because it was
in the middle of the lockout trying to figure out
(05:58):
both the dynamics between obviously players in the league and
the CBA, but also even amongst the various owners in
the group. And you know, I will just say again
for those fans out there, it was kind of wild.
I went into my first ever NBA board meeting and
I've got literally Larry Bird sitting on one side of me,
Michael Jordan sitting about four seats down, and again the fan.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Part like kicked in a little bit. I was like,
oh my god, this is kind of wild. But that
was the start of the journey.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
The reality was we treated it very much like a
very business oriented investment, like does this make sense not
just from an emotional standpoint, but you know, from a
business standpoint. And I think you know, given what Josh
and I had done for our careers in terms of
investing in business and buying you know, divisions out of
you know, larger corporations, et cetera, this was a purchase
of a small business inside of a large corporation, being
(06:48):
Comcast Corporation, And we had a lot of experience in
corporate carve outs. We had a lot of experience in
bringing in new management teams and thinking about incentive structures
in ways that I don't really think sports had had
really done. Franchise had done that in the past. So
any case, all that said, it's still isn't easy, as
we all know, and Alex is on all sides of
this equation. But being an investor in any of these
(07:11):
teams and leagues is fun, it's rewarding, it's challenging, it's
really difficult. Everybody always thinks about it as like the
fun part, but it's tough.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
So in twenty ten, that's a long time ago. What
do you know now that you didn't know then? And
how accurate was your thesis on investing in sports?
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Yeah, well I put that in two buckets.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
The first thing is I get a lot of people
who come to me over the last whatever number of
years that are thinking of investing in a sports franchise
or a league, etc. And they always ask me, you know,
for lots of advice, and I kind of bloil it
down to like one piece of advice that hopefully they
will listen to me on, which is, don't do anything
in your first season, like literally, don't just learn. Just
(07:54):
go around and meet everyone in the organization, watch what
they do, how they do it. Do not come in
and do big things in your first season. By the way,
no one has taking that advice. I was gonna say,
I don't think so for those of you know, no
one listens toiece advice, and it is the best piece
of advice. Take your time to really learn what's going on,
and don't just jump in and want to make a splash.
(08:15):
You know, this isn't fantasy sports, right, And so what
I've learned number one is take your time, really know
what you don't know. Okay, even though we've been investing
in businesses our whole careers, the reality is, you know,
sports team investments are very different than owning a consumer
products company or investing in a data center or a
(08:37):
you know, metal bender, et cetera, and the nature of
those businesses and the fact that what you really are
is you really are a steward of a community business like,
let's not kid ourselves, that's what we are, and getting
used to that, versus just investing in a kind of
more normal industry. I guess I would say, I don't
know if normal it's the right word, but.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
You know, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Traditional, traditional is something I think it takes a lot
to learn. But the thesis Alex at the time, to
be honest with you, wasn't that complicated. And it's still
to me a thesis that I have today on this sector,
which is fundamental laws of supply and demand. It's the
easiest thing I ever learned in school, which is just
the basic, you know, law of supply and demand. And
(09:19):
they're not making any more of these major teams, and
the demand for them is going up dramatically. The demand
is going up partly because you know, you have I
think there's something like five times the number of billionaires
in the world today that there was, you know, less
than twenty years ago. Frankly, if you took that threshold
up even more to like ten billion or more, it's
(09:42):
even more stark in terms of the growth. So you've
got this massive demand side on high net worth. And
then obviously, as I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about,
but you now have institutional investors coming into the space.
And having kind of watched that movie with my Blackstone
lens over the years, when institutional money starts to come
into a new area, set class, et cetera, obviously capital
(10:02):
formation is can be quite dramatic, and prices tend to
move in an.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Upward sloping direction.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
So you've got the ultra high network dynamics, you've got
the institutional capital dynamics, and you don't have more supplying Okay,
So that curve is unbelievable when you just think about
that supply demand curve. And then secondly, and I know
everybody here knows this, but these are just these are
content and media businesses and they have some of the
(10:33):
best ip in the world. And frankly, in today's world,
when you think about live content, there's probably nothing more valuable.
There is nothing more valuable than sports content because other
streamers and broadcasters and media companies have done amazing job
of basically delivering us whatever we want, literally whenever we.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Want other than sports.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
Yeah, okay, So the combination of the growth in the
value of the IP and the broadcast rights, and I
would say, what do you say, broadcast I'd say METI
rights more broadly coupled with this supply and demand was
our thesis back in twenty ten and would still be
my thesis to the.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And so you go.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
From being one of a few.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You know, as Alex knows very well, these are pretty
small clubs in terms of ownership across the major leagues.
But now, and I think Alex you would agree with this.
Now you're one of one because you have equity stakes,
some majority, some minority across literally every major sports league
in North America. Then you tack on the EPL and
(11:51):
other European soccer leagues, plus things like League One volleyball.
I had a press release come across my desk just
this week. There was like Table Tennis League David Blitzer,
and I was like, this guy, help us understand that
like broad portfolio approach that you have taken.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
All right, let me try to put it into two
different buckets. The first is on the major sports. Okay,
so let's call it soccer. I'm sitting here in America.
If I was in London, day would be very angry
at me. So soccer slash football, American Football, NBA, NHL, and
MLBA in those sort of areas. To me, the real
(12:33):
value in the equation of being across that piece is
both from the business side of the equation. Okay, what
we can get as a synergy across having all those
multiple sports is amazing. So both on the efficiency side
of the equation, we can have sales reps and branding
partners and sponsorship folks that go across the teams. Not
(12:54):
everyone goes across the entire organization, right, but significant numbers do.
So we can do a deal that we did earlier
this year that I thought was really innovative is we
did a deal with Campbell's across a number of their
consumer products and across four of our properties. It was
across the Commanders, the Sixers, the Devils, and Joe Gibbs Racing.
If you only had one team, you have whatever your
(13:15):
inventory is, that's what you can offer a sponsor, particularly
in today's kind of global world that we have our
ability to look at some of the you know, the
greatest companies in the world that are looking for those
kinds of exposures and being able to offer to them
both across geographies and of course across US markets and
different sports I think is quite compelling. So that's sort
of on that synergy side of the equation. And then
(13:36):
if you just think about also where the world is
going from a sports science perspective, from a technology perspective,
from an AI and data analytics perspective, et cetera, our
ability to invest in these areas and amortize that across
four or five or more different organizations allows us to
make investments that you just wouldn't make necessarily or couldn't
(13:58):
make of that scale if you just had one particular
little property, you know. And I think about the lot
with my Blackstone hat on, which is our ability to
invest in many things that are going to drive you know,
significant growth in the future. We can do because we're
across all of these alternative investment products, whereas if we
were just a private equity firm or just a private
credit firm, you wouldn't be able to make those types
(14:19):
of investments.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
So, speaking of Blackstone, you were into pen and then
nineteen ninety one you land as a young lad in Blackstone.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
What lessons virtues.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Have you taken from there in your thirty three years
and applied it to your sports portfolio?
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Well, I think, you know, the first part of that
would have been the sort of the art of the deal.
You know, basically there's a level of pattern recognition when
one is investing in something, just from the standpoint of
dealing with the counter parties, understanding the key items on
our due diligence in order to be able to, you know,
decide what we think something is worth. Being able to
(14:56):
actually execute these deals are immensely complicated.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
I know that's that's obvious, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
But again, having done that your whole career, those types
of financings, both equity and debt, and those carve outs
of corporations and incentivizing the management teams in very different
ways and really aligning interests across the organizations. I think
a lot of that, you know, clearly came from my
background at Blackstone. But the other thing I would say
(15:21):
again is is this mega trend question. You know, why
am I still doing this? Meaning in this sports media
and entertainment space. It really stems from a mega trend.
And you know what, I and many others at Blackstone
spend a ton of time on are thinking about what
those longer term trends are and let's get behind them early, okay.
And so if you take like digital infrastructure as an example,
(15:42):
everybody in the world wants to invest in digital infrastructure
right now, right, but we've been doing it for fifteen
plus years, all along the way, different journeys, okay, and
different ways, and we Blackstone, okay, many wes data.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
We have to define our wis.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
So when you think about constantly looking for those mega trends,
powered recognition, being able to bring that to this what
I call my night job in sports media entertainment sector,
I think has been really important.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And so in terms of the data of it all,
that is very of keen interest to this audience, especially
how do you approach the data side. You know, you
talked about sponsorship opportunities and things like that. I would
imagine there's also a massive amount of data and analytics
(16:29):
possibilities when you look across both the professional portfolio, the
sort of big cap as you were talking about, as
well as more of the startup level as well. How
do you pick and choose and distill down the data
side of it.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Yeah, Well, the good news again for somebody in my
seat is I get to just ask a lot of
questions and hire amazing people like I am, by no
means any expert in data and analytics. However, I've been
dealing in data analytics my whole career, both you know,
from a Blackstone perspective and a sports perspective. So that
allows me to go in and a higher amazing people
(17:04):
both on the sporting side of the equation and on
the business analytics side of the equation. Because as you mentioned,
like these are in many cases two totally different worlds, right,
and so obviously I think many of you in this
room would obviously be familiar with you know, Darryl moriy Right.
So of course the Philadelphia seventy six ers are going
to have an amazing data and analytics department and where
(17:24):
we're getting a ton of help on the business analytics
side of the equation as well as a course who
we have on our existing teams and staffs right now.
But again, the multi property aspect of it allows us
to really invest behind it, and I would say, what
really is AI? I always ask people now because I
don't know the answer. Like, we've all been using data
(17:44):
analytics our whole careers to some degree, but obviously it's
gone exponential, particularly in the last couple of years, right,
And we're still on this large language model frontier, and
we're going to hit another frontier pretty soon, which is
really going to be all the application layer side of
the equation. But at its core, you need good data.
All these tools in the world are sort of, you know,
not that relevant if you don't actually have great underlying data.
(18:07):
And each one of these sports and teams to some
degree have different data sets, right okay, And so like
the baseball data is incredible because it's single event. There's
a pitch and a swaying over and over again, and
these games have been filmed at that level for a
really long time. Basketball then got cameras into the arenas
pretty early. Okay, So basketball data excellent.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
In the pros.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
College is you know, moving but certainly behind where the
NBA is. Hockey doing a great job right now, but again,
day didn't get cameras, and we're able to capture certain
types of data sets that we all captured today. I
can't go back twenty years. I can't look at some
of the things Wayne Gretzky was doing and what that
means in today's NHL and then soccer, and you know,
motion based also is quite different than single event based.
(18:51):
And so it's a long way of saying, the data
is getting better and better, the models are obviously getting
better and better, and ultimately the insights will get better
and better, both on the sporting side of the equation
and on the business side. And I think that we're
testing a lot of different things. You know, I was
literally talking to Diryl about it earlier today and talking
with our teams about it, and you know, we're trialing
(19:14):
lots of stuff. So on the ones hand, sure we
can get coding done much more efficiently, okay, But in
terms of outcomes, okay, like will we be able to
scout better, will we be able to automate player tagging
or or pick and roll tagging as an example, versus
just having somebody sit there and watch one hundred hours
of film, right you just crank it into the computer, Okay,
(19:36):
So those types of efficiencies and then ultimately, again as
all of this is getting smarter and the data sets
are getting better, et cetera. How far will it go
in terms of will you still where will your scouting department?
It's sort of an interest question. I have no idea
what the answer to that is other than we try
a lot of different things and we see and we're
in the super early innings. Similarly, on the business side,
(19:57):
you know where everybody wants to get to is they
want to actually know their fan base incredibly well. And
most teams think they know their fan base as well,
they don't actually number one, they're getting better at it,
and number two, they don't really know what they're doing
very often outside of the arena. So yes, we're all
capturing concession data, and you know there's plenty of good
(20:18):
ticketing type data out there these days. But when you
start going further and further and wanting a more and
more personal experience again between a brand and the consumer,
we're like in the first or second inning of that
entire game, and AI is going to pay a huge
role in that equation to where you know you're going
to be getting offers from your team, okay to a
(20:40):
fan that's literally personalized to that one individual.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And so all of that is super early in things,
But I would basically just say, while we all are
doing plenty on the data and analytics side, I think
we're really really early, both sporting wise and business wise
in terms of how we can get closer to that
customer and fan and monetize it over time in very
very different ways.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So when you say person line splitz, are you you're
talking about, I'm going to get I'm going to get
an email or a text message it says, Hey, come
to this game. We know you like to sit in
this particular spot, this is what you like to eat,
this is I'm going to know where you go.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
On your way home from the game. I'm going to
know that your favorite player is Tyree s Maxi, and
I'm going to send you a personalized Tyree Maxi X
Y or Z. I might then, depending on your level
of spend with the organization, serve you up for an
experience with Tyree s Maxey after the game on Thursday night.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
If you can make it. I mean it's going to
be that level wow of detail and more.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
You talked about baseball a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
You have your investment with the Cleveland Guardians, your paths
control Baseball's had extraordinary a couple of years with the
rout changes. Rob Manford's really on top of it. Our
numbers at Fox were amazing. We did over twenty million
people because we had the great matchups of the Dodgers
versus the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
My question, you're making a lot of friends here.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well we lost, so it did really
work out for us since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But my question to you is, David.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
But we're not talking about two thousand and four.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
No, no, no, definitely not, definitely not if you were
whispering in Rob Manford, the commissioner Baseball's ear, or if
you're the commissioner for a day or a week, what
are some of the things you would continue to improve
in the game to make the game a little bit
more dynamic and more really popular for the younger friend.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
You know, it's really interesting question.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
I mean, what baseball did two years ago in terms
of the size of the bases and what that did
on a stolen base, that what they did on the
you know, on the shift and you know you can't
have two guys on the other side of second base.
What they did on the pitch clock, and a few
other smaller things. I mean, that's pretty dramatic in general
for any league, Okay, and Baseball I find to be
(22:46):
the one that more than any other sport, everyone says, well,
we can't do that, because that's the way it's always
been done. In baseball, there's just more pureists, I guess,
I would say, in the overall fan base and the ecosystem.
So the fact that Commissioner Manfred, working with you know,
some wonderful executives, were able to come up with things that,
by the way, the players didn't want to do that first,
(23:06):
and there were plenty of folks out in the analyst
community and media, etc.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Who thought this was just.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Like crazy baseball camp do this, and again you're not
gonna have one hundred zero type you know, approval for it.
But I think massive positive reaction to the fan base.
So as a couple examples, you know, number one, as
you well know, the games are about twenty four to
twenty five minutes faster, and that is a huge difference
to the fan base out there. You've had the average
(23:32):
age of a viewer of Major League Baseball go down
about four years over the last couple of years. You've
had the average age of a new account on MLB
dot com is down something like six years, okay in age.
And if you looked at the viewership numbers and both
the attendance people in a seat and people watching on TV,
the average as again has come down in and around
(23:54):
five years. So from a demographic perspective, if you're Fox
and some of the other you know, kind of broadcasters,
that's that's amazing. Let alone, the interest is up. You
pointed out the numbers on you know, kind of the
World series. But the reality is also if you think
about it from a global perspective, the interest going on
right now more globally, and obviously a lot of that
is Otani all right, and so what else? You know, Look,
(24:15):
it's kind of funny. I don't really have the answers.
I think Rob is continuing with his team. Commissioner Manfred
is continue with his team to look at ways that
we can increase the attractiveness and continue that push from
a demographic perspective to lower the average age. I will
say one other thing, having been involved in the youth
sports business, and particularly in baseball, you know people all
(24:36):
say kids aren't.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
Playing baseball anymore, not like they used to. It's just wrong.
It's just not true more than ever.
Speaker 6 (24:42):
So first off, little League World Series, go take a
look at the ratings on a Little League World Series.
But going to participation once, I think is more relevant.
Youth participation was at a ten year high this past
year and has been growing at a keger of about
seven percent okay on youth baseball participation, So depending how
you define and cause you to find it, grassroots is
about nine million, okay, And that's baseball, by the way, softball,
(25:05):
which is amazing and finally getting more exposure like many
of the women's sports. You know, I think youth participation
in softball is like eight million kids across the country.
And again both those numbers are significantly up over the
last decade, not down, So we are getting people in
the ecosystem. One of the problems with baseball is a
lot of kids play baseball and they stop after that
you thirteen year unless they're on a track for a
(25:26):
scholarship or they're you know, a complete and utter unicorn
like my friend over here. But the reality is is
so a lot of kids age out at you thirteen.
So what I've talked to Major League Baseball a lot
about is like, how do we open that funnel further
from a participation perspective, But how do we not have
that funnel close so much at that you thirteen level?
How do we create more and more pathways for kids
(25:47):
continuing to play that aren't necessarily looking for that scholarship
or that you know, minor a major league baseball career.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
What would you do?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Well, that's a great question. I've thought a lot about this.
I think I would open up the floodgates. I mean,
in a world where content is king, then certainly baseball
should be king. Right. You have two hundred games and
about two hundred and thirty two days including spring training playoffs.
You guys went really deep into the playoffs last year. Blitz,
congrats on that. But look, if we're all at a
desk when you're at Blackstone, when you're in Bloomberg, there
(26:16):
should be your phone or your iPad where you just
should be able to see all thirty teams in real time.
Batting cage is open. I want to see Aaron Judge.
I want to see Otani, but not in uniform. I
want to see him in shorts. Behind the scenes, what
is he working on? What can I share with my
son or daughter? Of Otani's mechanic because I'm also hearing them.
I'm also seeing weight rooms and bullpens. That's one thing
(26:36):
I would do a lot more microphone, I think one
of the greatest things. We have some of the best
athletes in our game today, but we have no idea
who the hell they are. I mean, I barely know
enough about Aaron Judge. I know him because I've known
him since he was a kid. But Aaron Judge is
an incredible story. We stole him from football and he
decided to go to smaller college and play baseball. Well
that's a benefit to us. So Blitz to your point,
(26:58):
at the age of thirteen, how do we gap at
thirteen to age seventeen when I got drafted, and we
hopefully can create a lot more Aaron Judges. So I
will say I think entertainment first. Baseball's just your mote,
but I think media entertainment. And you have to take
the straight jacket of a history away and be able
to try new things. Not everything's gonna work, but the
(27:19):
more chance you try, the more you fail, the better
it is.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
You're totally right.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
And interestingly, again, maybe it goes back to a little
bit of this purest concept. Maybe it doesn't, but the
superstars haven't been marketed as clearly as they have in
other sports. The teams have been. But that's different than
the total superstars, right. And when you talk about like
having the ability to watch Aaron Judge at batting cage,
or watch schemes throw one hundred and whatever miles an
(27:45):
how or however many times in a row, like back
to that's amazing content. And the next generation is consuming
content and completely different ways. We could spend hours talking
about that, but that's the type of content that that
next generation and that younger demographic wants versus you know,
watching an entire game of anything, for you, just baseball.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
My kids are huge sports fans. It is rare for a.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Regular season game for them to watch any of the
major sports all the way through.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Blitz.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
When you were nineteen ninety one, when you entered Blackstone,
I was drafted in ninety three.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean that's not that long ago. That's three decades ago.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Baseball was number one by far, and I think the
way to get back there is we've given the other
league's almost ten strokes on a golf course, and we
can't do that anymore. And you can't play with one
hand tie behind your back. The greatest content in the
world is like we have it hidden in the library.
I mean to watch Aaron Judge and o'tani and some
of these guys through their side work, Kershaw talk about
(28:51):
what is he working on with a technique if you're
a lefty pitcher or your lefty pitcher who's a softball.
There's so much content out there, there's so much value
saying if we unlock that, it could be really.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Agree and so blitz building on that.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean with a lot of the investments you have
in some of these you know, not really challenging league,
sort of startup leagues. You know, even I know you
are deeply engaged in the NWSL for instance, which is
I think by definition less purest because it's a new league,
it's only been around for about a decade. It's the
third try at you know, professional women's soccer in this country.
(29:30):
What are you learning there that you sort of apply
or vice versa.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
Well, look again, I put these in some slightly different buckets.
I go back to this sort of thematic view that
I have around a variety of things. So let's hit
women's sports really quickly. So women's sports is, from my perspective,
a mega trend, a mega theme that one should get
behind from an either a well from every perspective, from
(29:57):
a fan perspective, from an engagement perspective, from an invent perspective,
it's probably.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
For this audience like a great place to go.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
And by the way, aside from the fact that these
athletes are absolutely incredible and in my opinion, haven't been
marketed particularly well over the years. So I look at
even you know, Caitlin Clark and Angel Race, okay, absolutely
amazing Okay, and when they started getting marketed differently in college,
take a look at those college ratings.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
So the NCAA Women's.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Final last year had I believe, eighteen million eighteen point
something million people watch the women's final. The men's final
got something like high fourteens.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
And I remember sitting with Jimmy Pataro when he was like,
the women out drew the men of ESPN, okay, and
he was following it all the way through because it
wasn't just that one game. By the way, as well,
my point is there have been amazing women basketball players
for pick your period, fifty years, eighty years, whatever, since
they invented the game, Okay, why now? Why did it
(30:57):
suddenly explode from immediate perspect in popularity? And some of
that was the same storytelling, okay, and content delivery that
you described. Some of it was just plain marketing. I
feel like ZBS and ESPN really got behind women's basketball
and did an amazing job and once people watched. Because
I always talk about the funnel when I talk about fans.
(31:18):
What you want to get is somebody who's not a
fan to be a casual fan of a sport, and
then you want to drive a journey of the casual
fan to become an avid fan of the sport. Okay,
So we have to start with the funnel, and I
find when people watched. I remember taking my own daughters
to a WNBA game and to a women's hockey game
(31:39):
and said like, let's just watch this game for what
it is, meaning amazing athletes and performance, and they were hooked.
But they had to be taken right in a sense,
or at least in my case. And that's why I
always say to people, like about hockey. So many of
my friends have never been to a live hockey game,
and I'm like, why don't you come to a hockey
game and they all go to a live hockey and
(32:00):
they were like, oh my god, that was absolutely incredible.
So now I have a casual fan. So back to
women's sports. I think the trends are there. I mean
just really big picture. I mean, if you think about
the WNBA right now, aside from where the prices of
these franchises seem to be going.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Look at the viewership numbers. They're absolutely incredible.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
So it's not like it's just I mean, I think
it's something like thirty percent of when an NBA game
on average about is the WNBA. But they're getting two
percent of the media rights money. So what do you
think is going to happen the WNBA media writes overtime
like they're going to go up back to my sort
of content.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Ip, etc. So I'm bullish on all of the women's sports.
You're right.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
I spent a ton of time on soccer. I'm extremely
bullish on volleyball. I think hockey's doing an amazing job,
which was a reboot because you used to have separate
American and Canadian leagues and they finally merged. You can
actually have the best players in the world all playing together.
And then you mentioned startup leagues, which, to be honest,
you know there's there's startup leagues in the sense of
(32:58):
like venture capital, right, and then there's some others that
are maybe a different format. Okay, So like if you
think about TGL, which I think is getting an Innovation
Award today, that was a different format that you know,
Mike McCauley and some colleagues realize that, you know, hey,
we should think about golf competitive golf in a different way, right,
(33:19):
And again, I'm sure some of you have seen it,
others might not have. I think TGL has done an
amazing job.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Huge content play too, I mean, that's what that's.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
And again, demographic very very different from who's watching on
Saturday or Sunday afternoon on a PGA tour, and of
course there's crossover, but they're bringing a new demographic into
the sport. So that's kind of like, hey, let's go
try to do something different. Then, like you said, you've
got you know, major League table tennis, right, you know,
we'll see. But on these I'm bullish because again, on
these niche sports, we all underestimate the audience numbers and
(33:50):
we're all used to hearing these broadcast numbers. But what
we're not probably is it tuned too or that some
of the people in this room might be is the
YouTube numbers right, is the Instagram numbers? Is that you know,
all of these different ways that younger folks are consuming
and not just younger folks. But I just point to,
(34:10):
I don't know again in the habit of like looking
at what my kids are doing and why and their
friends and so as an example.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
You know, you've got the you've got the slaps, Dana White, genius.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Okay, if I told you five years ago there was
going to be this situation when we sat across the
table for you as I was going to slap you
as hard as humanly possible, okay, and then if you
were able to get up, you were able to do
it back to me. And that was going to be
a sport that people were watching and turning into a league.
I don't know that you would have thought that that
was a very good idea, and they're unbelievable, but I
(34:44):
mean you're just using like an example of people are
consuming that content in incredibly different ways. The number of
views on YouTube for some of these slap matches is,
like you know, sort of stunning. So again it comes
a little bit back to Alex you mentioned it before,
like where do I think there can be great storytelling?
And maybe it's in places that you didn't even think about.
I mean, we all know about Drive to Survive, Okay,
(35:05):
Like what Netflix did to Drive to Survive and what
that did for Formula one is you know, unbelievable. But
like I think about some others too. I think about
like Queen's Gambit, yeah, okay, and what Queen's Gambit did
the chess. I mean, it's beyond dramatic in terms of there.
And if you look at Welcome the Rexham or Ted
Lasso okay, or you look at you know, quarterbacks, So
(35:27):
that storytelling goes back a lot to what you're saying.
Let's bring these amazing athletes and sports closer to us
in ways that we didn't consume it before, and let's
watch that continued growth out there in the marketplace.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
All Right, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk a
little bit about youth sports. And one of the ways
that I would love for you to get into it,
Blitz is you mentioned volleyball and Caitlin galhoo Ce Young
co founder of League one Volleyball, was on this stage earlier.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
You're an investor there.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I remember you and I talking about this years ago,
and you were talking about how compelling it was, mostly
because it's youth to pro which we don't see a
lot of talk to us about the opportunity in youth sports.
Let's the through line for youth sports from an investment perspective.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
So from an investment perspective, it goes back to something
we were talking a little bit about before. It's massively fragmented, right,
so the demand is there. I think the people again
calculated differently. I calculate the youth sports business at about
forty billion dollars growing it, you know, high single digits
a year. Our own business is growing much faster than that.
But it's if you think about it, most people who
(36:35):
run a youth sports business is a relatively small, mom
and pop oriented business. Where they got into that business,
I'd like to think in the vast, vast majority of
cases for the right reasons. Okay, they wanted to help kids,
they wanted to get them active on fields. Okay, that's
even become more prevalent in today's world, where the kids
are on screens way more than like when.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
We grew up.
Speaker 6 (36:57):
So I think people got into these businesses to do
really good things with kids with youth, but they don't
want to deal with accounts, payable and insurance and you know,
legal and complain. You know, they just want to program,
whether it's leagues or tournaments or I don't know, Alex,
if you ever went through baseball factory, but as an example,
(37:18):
Baseball Factory, you know, takes kids through their baseball journeys
in terms of instruction at higher and higher levels along
the way. So you have all these different areas of
youth sports, but at its core a I think, just
again big picture, it's great to have kids enrolled and
engaged in as many sports as possible, and actually they
spread it across. I think there's too much specialization. As
(37:39):
one of my other big things, kids are specializing way
too early. You talk to any professional athlete, they will
tell you that they either did or wish they had
played more sports for long enew okay, So the ability
to actually show up with capital now okay, then show
up with great brands. So as an example, cal Ripkin
(37:59):
was somebody who is like my idol as a player,
but more relevantly post his playing career. Cal basically wanted
to help kids. He wanted to teach them to play
baseball the right way in a safe environment, and he
and his brother Bill started Ripkin Baseball and they have
the best youth baseball business in the country in my opinion.
And once we got into youth sports, I had been
(38:20):
talking to Cal for years about trying to partner with
him in some way, shape or form, And once our
business started to grow, etc. Went back to Cal and said, hey,
maybe we should merge our businesses.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Here.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
You've got the best brand in the world and you
and Bill are still involved, which is amazing, and we'd
love to keep all of that the same way.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
We're just going to give you.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
A bigger platform, so you're gonna be able to help
more kids in more markets, etc. So again that ability
to bring capital the equations, so we have better fields,
we have safer environments, we have better instructors, we have
better facilities overall, because a lot of them are now
starting to turn into these sports vacations right where you're
going with your parents and your siblings, and maybe it's
(39:00):
three days, it's a long weekend. In some cases, we
have one of our baseball facilities in Cooperstown, New York,
is basically a week, So you go with your whole
family for an entire week. And we keep upgrading all
of these facilities, and so it's sort of this fragmented
industry that we think we're both doing something that's really
good for society, for lack of a better term, for
(39:20):
the kids and their families. But we also think that
they're good business in us.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
All right, So we like to end every episode with
little rapid fire, So good luck to you. We'll bounce
it back and forth a little bit, you know, keep
it tight, and we're excited to hear what you bring
to the table here. But let's all right, what's one
word to describe your deal making style?
Speaker 5 (39:54):
One word to describe my deal making style? Direct?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
What's more important to you your gut or data?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Keep in mind you are at the MIT Sloan Sports
Analytics Conference.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Blackstone Data Sports Gut.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Okay ooh okay, split the metal. Who is your dream
deal making partner?
Speaker 5 (40:16):
My dream deal making partner? Well, I hope one day
it's my kids.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Oh okay, good answer.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
What's the best piece of advice you received on deal
making or business.
Speaker 6 (40:27):
Well, I think it was somebody told me early on
in my career, clearly because I wasn't doing it very well.
But it's actually it sounds simple, but it's the best
advice I ever got, which is, David, you talk too much,
listen a lot more. So you don't need to be
the loudest voice in the room. You don't need to
be the person who spent the most time talking in
(40:48):
the middle of a meeting. Doesn't mean don't say anything,
just means listen a lot more. Why it might not
feel that way. I'm actually a pretty good listener.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
What's the worst advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 5 (41:00):
The worst off given, worst advice I've ever been given.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Don't buy the Sixers.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Yeah, it was actually not the Sixers. It was don't
invest in hockey. Really it was terrible advice, meaning because
I didn't take the advice. Yeah, but I had people
warning me that, you know, they didn't have national TV
deals that were great and it was really a local
business and don't do that.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
And I didn't listen.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
All right, So what's your hype song before a big
meeting or big negotiation?
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Hype songs?
Speaker 6 (41:31):
It's on my phone, I think it's like Bob Marley,
it's not so hyped up.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Three little birds.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
If you have to pick the top three teams from
your portfolio, what are they?
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I can't answer it.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
My answer anytime any of that body asked me about
your my favorite team is, let's be clear, it's who's
your favorite kid, which, by the way, so I'll answer
it differently.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
I do have a favorite kid sometimes.
Speaker 6 (41:57):
But it's a different favorite kid depending on what's going
going on that week or that year or whatever. So
I definitely don't have a favorite team over a long
period of time, but like right now, it's probably the command.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, that's that's a pretty good answer, David, No favorite blitz.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
You can only watch one sport for the rest of
your life. Which one is it?
Speaker 6 (42:21):
That's really brutal? One sport for the rest of my life?
Hockey if it's live. Okay, okay, so live. My answer
is hockey.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
This is funny because it's sort of it's sort of
a retread of the earlier, earlier question, but I'm gonna
ask it anyway.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
What team do you want to see win a championship more.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Than any that's your favorite kid question? So can I
give you a cheat on this one. We asked the
same question of Melody Hobson, and you know what her
answer was?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
What mine?
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yeah, so that's that's that's a pretty good answer for sure.
It'd be nice to have one. We don't have it.
We don't have a championship yet.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Blitzer, you have a fun fact about yourself that will
surprise all of us, but mainly your colleagues.
Speaker 6 (43:09):
Maybe that I we talk about Jusic a lot, and
maybe it's how much I absolutely love a lot us
more set. They would look at me like, really a
lot of more set because everyone thinks I'm just like
a big Springstea fan.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
But all right, Blitzer being a big a lotus more
set fan. I mean, that's my takeaway from from this entime.
From the brilliant insights you've given us about business, that's
something I'm not gonna soon forget.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
That was a curveball. That was a curveball.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have something better
for you. No, that's pretty good. I think I think
we got ended there. Uh David Blitzer, what a treat
to spend some time with you. Alex always fun. Uh m,
I t sloan you guys are the best. Thank you
so much for having us really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
This show was produced by Anna Maazarakis, Lizzie Phillip, and
Stacy Wong. Original music and engineering by Blake Maples.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
David E.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Ravella is our managing editor. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,
Brendan Francis, Neonham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Andrew Barden, Kelly Leferrier,
and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our Head of Podcasts.
Special thanks to Rachel Carnivali, Elena sos Angeles, Nick Silva,
(44:36):
and the team at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Rubob Shakir is our creative director. Art direction is from
Jacqueline Kessler. Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Camera
operation by David Degner. Listen to The Deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also tune
(44:58):
into the video Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.
Thanks for listening,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All Right, we're headed to Boston the MIT Sloan Sports
Analytics Conference. The guest this time is going to be
none other than David Blitzer.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I'm so excited about David.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
First of all, he's been at Blastow since nineteen ninety one,
and on top of that, he probably owns equity on
more teams and more leagues than any human alive.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
There are some big questions that come out of that,
which is, what do you learn from all of that?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
How do you apply it?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because he's backing some of the most important sports franchises
across the world.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
How do you feel about being back in Boston? A
not so good. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, Thank you so much. Thank you guys for
having us. It's good to be in Boston.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It was funny.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
We were reminiscing, you know, on the on the way in,
and Alex was giving me what it's like to play
at Fenway. You and I probably watched games at Fenway,
but a little bit of a different experience.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It's my probably my favorite park to play other than
Old Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
It's it's classic.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yeah, it's not the easiest place to be a visiting fan.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
That's true.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
I've had some tough moments.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's safe to be Yeah, yeah, TD gardened. Yeah, exactly exactly.
I mean, this is going to be hopefully a very
fun conversation. You know, Alex and I host this podcast
called The Deal, where you know, we talked to folks
at this intersection of business, sports and culture, and there
are very few people who are in it as deep
(01:45):
as our guest today, David Blitzer. Blitz is someone who
when we created this show was at the top of
our list as someone that we really wanted to chop
it up with.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So we're really excited Blitz that you're here with us.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I guess I would start by asking you, and I'm
going to go back to my own roots a little bit.
You and I met when I covered private equity at Bloomberg,
and you are a very successful guy at a little
firm called Blackstone, and somewhere along the way you became
one of the most influential investors in sports.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
How did that happen?
Speaker 6 (02:22):
Well, A thank you for having me. I've known Jason
for a long time. I've known Alex for a long time,
so it's really nice to be all here together. And
I do think we also need to do a shout
out for Jessica Gellman, so we don't have the jersey,
we blew that with Jessica, Happy, Happy fiftieth birthday. Yeh,
you do an amazing job with this conference, and we're
all really happy to be here and.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
To celebrate with you.
Speaker 6 (02:47):
So yeah, Private Equity for you know, now, at this
point in time is my thirty fourth year in the business.
In about I guess it was twenty and ten was
when my journey started on the sports side of the equation.
So unlike Alex one of the greatest athletes of all time,
I was, like many probably in this room, a failed athlete, which,
(03:09):
like I thought I was good when I was, you know,
like a teenager. Then I realized by high school that
I was adequate at best and certainly was not playing
past high school. So instead of failed, maybe we say
always aspire, always aspire. I'm still aspiring just new sports.
But I basically I'm clearly a massive fan of sports
in general, and obviously I think a lot about business
(03:32):
and investing in companies and and you know, what are
trends that are out there that you can get behind.
Really like we talk about good neighborhoods or mega trends.
But I hadn't really thought about investing in a sports
team until somebody came to see me. I was living
in London for about a decade, and towards the end
of that decade in London, a friend of mine came
to see me and basically said he was involved in
(03:53):
the NBA. He was like an assistant GM somewhere and
he basically said, Hey, I think you sho should really
think about investing in a basketball franchise. There's like six
or seven that are for sale right now, are looking
for capital. And it was a very it was a
real inflection point for the NBA for those who want
to go back and remember this was twenty ten when
(04:16):
this conversation first took place, and it was pretty clear
that there was going to be a lock app okay,
there was going to be a new media rights agreement
and basically something like twenty three, twenty four, twenty five
of the teams are actually losing losing money at the time,
which is why you were seeing a lot of things potentially,
(04:37):
you know, go up for sale leading into that change. Anyway,
long story short, I was really interested in the concept,
but I was living in London. When I was home
over that December break of twenty ten, I went to
see a friend of mine who I'd gotten to know
quite well when he lived in London as well a
couple of years earlier.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
It was this a guy named.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
Josh Harris at Apollo, and I said, hey, Josh, he
and I had gone to a pub one night when
we were both living in London, and I don't know
how this subject came up, but I just it's stuck
in the back of my head that he was interested
in investing in sports. And so when this call came
and I thought it was really interesting and wanted to
like really dig in. Sitting there in London, and I
went to see Josh and said, hey, why don't we
(05:14):
look at the Philadelphia seventy six ers, Because amongst the
teams that were saled, they were actually officially for sale,
you know, with a banker and the process, and you know,
some of the others were more you know, sort of
whisper campaigns. And you guys had both we had both
gone to school at University of Pennsylvania. We both had
other roots from family members in Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia,
and it's an iconic brand, and our view was, yeah,
(05:36):
let's go try to do that. So we agreed to
sort of partner together and try to ultimately go by
or invest in the Philadelphia seventy six ers, which was
a transaction that signed in the summer of twenty eleven,
and sure enough, there was a lockout that fall. Because
I still remember my first ever NBA board meeting was
not the easiest meeting in the world because it was
in the middle of the lockout trying to figure out
(05:58):
both the dynamics between obviously players in the league and
the CBA, but also even amongst the various owners in
the group. And you know, I will just say again
for those fans out there, it was kind of wild.
I went into my first ever NBA board meeting and
I've got literally Larry Bird sitting on one side of me,
Michael Jordan sitting about four seats down, and again the fan.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Part like kicked in a little bit. I was like,
oh my god, this is kind of wild. But that
was the start of the journey.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
The reality was we treated it very much like a
very business oriented investment, like does this make sense not
just from an emotional standpoint, but you know, from a
business standpoint. And I think you know, given what Josh
and I had done for our careers in terms of
investing in business and buying you know, divisions out of
you know, larger corporations, et cetera, this was a purchase
of a small business inside of a large corporation, being
(06:48):
Comcast Corporation, And we had a lot of experience in
corporate carve outs. We had a lot of experience in
bringing in new management teams and thinking about incentive structures
in ways that I don't really think sports had had
really done. Franchise had done that in the past. So
any case, all that said, it's still isn't easy, as
we all know, and Alex is on all sides of
this equation. But being an investor in any of these
(07:11):
teams and leagues is fun, it's rewarding, it's challenging, it's
really difficult. Everybody always thinks about it as like the
fun part, but it's tough.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
So in twenty ten, that's a long time ago. What
do you know now that you didn't know then? And
how accurate was your thesis on investing in sports?
Speaker 5 (07:31):
Yeah, well I put that in two buckets.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
The first thing is I get a lot of people
who come to me over the last whatever number of
years that are thinking of investing in a sports franchise
or a league, etc. And they always ask me, you know,
for lots of advice, and I kind of bloil it
down to like one piece of advice that hopefully they
will listen to me on, which is, don't do anything
in your first season, like literally, don't just learn. Just
(07:54):
go around and meet everyone in the organization, watch what
they do, how they do it. Do not come in
and do big things in your first season. By the way,
no one has taking that advice. I was gonna say,
I don't think so for those of you know, no
one listens toiece advice, and it is the best piece
of advice. Take your time to really learn what's going on,
and don't just jump in and want to make a splash.
(08:15):
You know, this isn't fantasy sports, right, And so what
I've learned number one is take your time, really know
what you don't know. Okay, even though we've been investing
in businesses our whole careers, the reality is, you know,
sports team investments are very different than owning a consumer
products company or investing in a data center or a
(08:37):
you know, metal bender, et cetera, and the nature of
those businesses and the fact that what you really are
is you really are a steward of a community business like,
let's not kid ourselves, that's what we are, and getting
used to that, versus just investing in a kind of
more normal industry. I guess I would say, I don't
know if normal it's the right word, but.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
You know, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Traditional, traditional is something I think it takes a lot
to learn. But the thesis Alex at the time, to
be honest with you, wasn't that complicated. And it's still
to me a thesis that I have today on this sector,
which is fundamental laws of supply and demand. It's the
easiest thing I ever learned in school, which is just
the basic, you know, law of supply and demand. And
(09:19):
they're not making any more of these major teams, and
the demand for them is going up dramatically. The demand
is going up partly because you know, you have I
think there's something like five times the number of billionaires
in the world today that there was, you know, less
than twenty years ago. Frankly, if you took that threshold
up even more to like ten billion or more, it's
(09:42):
even more stark in terms of the growth. So you've
got this massive demand side on high net worth. And
then obviously, as I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about,
but you now have institutional investors coming into the space.
And having kind of watched that movie with my Blackstone
lens over the years, when institutional money starts to come
into a new area, set class, et cetera, obviously capital
(10:02):
formation is can be quite dramatic, and prices tend to
move in an.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Upward sloping direction.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
So you've got the ultra high network dynamics, you've got
the institutional capital dynamics, and you don't have more supplying Okay,
So that curve is unbelievable when you just think about
that supply demand curve. And then secondly, and I know
everybody here knows this, but these are just these are
content and media businesses and they have some of the
(10:33):
best ip in the world. And frankly, in today's world,
when you think about live content, there's probably nothing more valuable.
There is nothing more valuable than sports content because other
streamers and broadcasters and media companies have done amazing job
of basically delivering us whatever we want, literally whenever we.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Want other than sports.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
Yeah, okay, So the combination of the growth in the
value of the IP and the broadcast rights, and I
would say, what do you say, broadcast I'd say METI
rights more broadly coupled with this supply and demand was
our thesis back in twenty ten and would still be
my thesis to the.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And so you go.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
From being one of a few.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You know, as Alex knows very well, these are pretty
small clubs in terms of ownership across the major leagues.
But now, and I think Alex you would agree with this.
Now you're one of one because you have equity stakes,
some majority, some minority across literally every major sports league
in North America. Then you tack on the EPL and
(11:51):
other European soccer leagues, plus things like League One volleyball.
I had a press release come across my desk just
this week. There was like Table Tennis League David Blitzer,
and I was like, this guy, help us understand that
like broad portfolio approach that you have taken.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
All right, let me try to put it into two
different buckets. The first is on the major sports. Okay,
so let's call it soccer. I'm sitting here in America.
If I was in London, day would be very angry
at me. So soccer slash football, American Football, NBA, NHL, and
MLBA in those sort of areas. To me, the real
(12:33):
value in the equation of being across that piece is
both from the business side of the equation. Okay, what
we can get as a synergy across having all those
multiple sports is amazing. So both on the efficiency side
of the equation, we can have sales reps and branding
partners and sponsorship folks that go across the teams. Not
(12:54):
everyone goes across the entire organization, right, but significant numbers do.
So we can do a deal that we did earlier
this year that I thought was really innovative is we
did a deal with Campbell's across a number of their
consumer products and across four of our properties. It was
across the Commanders, the Sixers, the Devils, and Joe Gibbs Racing.
If you only had one team, you have whatever your
(13:15):
inventory is, that's what you can offer a sponsor, particularly
in today's kind of global world that we have our
ability to look at some of the you know, the
greatest companies in the world that are looking for those
kinds of exposures and being able to offer to them
both across geographies and of course across US markets and
different sports I think is quite compelling. So that's sort
of on that synergy side of the equation. And then
(13:36):
if you just think about also where the world is
going from a sports science perspective, from a technology perspective,
from an AI and data analytics perspective, et cetera, our
ability to invest in these areas and amortize that across
four or five or more different organizations allows us to
make investments that you just wouldn't make necessarily or couldn't
(13:58):
make of that scale if you just had one particular
little property, you know. And I think about the lot
with my Blackstone hat on, which is our ability to
invest in many things that are going to drive you know,
significant growth in the future. We can do because we're
across all of these alternative investment products, whereas if we
were just a private equity firm or just a private
credit firm, you wouldn't be able to make those types
(14:19):
of investments.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
So, speaking of Blackstone, you were into pen and then
nineteen ninety one you land as a young lad in Blackstone.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
What lessons virtues.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Have you taken from there in your thirty three years
and applied it to your sports portfolio?
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Well, I think, you know, the first part of that
would have been the sort of the art of the deal.
You know, basically there's a level of pattern recognition when
one is investing in something, just from the standpoint of
dealing with the counter parties, understanding the key items on
our due diligence in order to be able to, you know,
decide what we think something is worth. Being able to
(14:56):
actually execute these deals are immensely complicated.
Speaker 5 (14:59):
I know that's that's obvious, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
But again, having done that your whole career, those types
of financings, both equity and debt, and those carve outs
of corporations and incentivizing the management teams in very different
ways and really aligning interests across the organizations. I think
a lot of that, you know, clearly came from my
background at Blackstone. But the other thing I would say
(15:21):
again is is this mega trend question. You know, why
am I still doing this? Meaning in this sports media
and entertainment space. It really stems from a mega trend.
And you know what, I and many others at Blackstone
spend a ton of time on are thinking about what
those longer term trends are and let's get behind them early, okay.
And so if you take like digital infrastructure as an example,
(15:42):
everybody in the world wants to invest in digital infrastructure
right now, right, but we've been doing it for fifteen
plus years, all along the way, different journeys, okay, and
different ways, and we Blackstone, okay, many wes data.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
We have to define our wis.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
So when you think about constantly looking for those mega trends,
powered recognition, being able to bring that to this what
I call my night job in sports media entertainment sector,
I think has been really important.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
And so in terms of the data of it all,
that is very of keen interest to this audience, especially
how do you approach the data side. You know, you
talked about sponsorship opportunities and things like that. I would
imagine there's also a massive amount of data and analytics
(16:29):
possibilities when you look across both the professional portfolio, the
sort of big cap as you were talking about, as
well as more of the startup level as well. How
do you pick and choose and distill down the data
side of it.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Yeah, Well, the good news again for somebody in my
seat is I get to just ask a lot of
questions and hire amazing people like I am, by no
means any expert in data and analytics. However, I've been
dealing in data analytics my whole career, both you know,
from a Blackstone perspective and a sports perspective. So that
allows me to go in and a higher amazing people
(17:04):
both on the sporting side of the equation and on
the business analytics side of the equation. Because as you mentioned,
like these are in many cases two totally different worlds, right,
and so obviously I think many of you in this
room would obviously be familiar with you know, Darryl moriy Right.
So of course the Philadelphia seventy six ers are going
to have an amazing data and analytics department and where
(17:24):
we're getting a ton of help on the business analytics
side of the equation as well as a course who
we have on our existing teams and staffs right now.
But again, the multi property aspect of it allows us
to really invest behind it, and I would say, what
really is AI? I always ask people now because I
don't know the answer. Like, we've all been using data
(17:44):
analytics our whole careers to some degree, but obviously it's
gone exponential, particularly in the last couple of years, right,
And we're still on this large language model frontier, and
we're going to hit another frontier pretty soon, which is
really going to be all the application layer side of
the equation. But at its core, you need good data.
All these tools in the world are sort of, you know,
not that relevant if you don't actually have great underlying data.
(18:07):
And each one of these sports and teams to some
degree have different data sets, right okay, And so like
the baseball data is incredible because it's single event. There's
a pitch and a swaying over and over again, and
these games have been filmed at that level for a
really long time. Basketball then got cameras into the arenas
pretty early. Okay, So basketball data excellent.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
In the pros.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
College is you know, moving but certainly behind where the
NBA is. Hockey doing a great job right now, but again,
day didn't get cameras, and we're able to capture certain
types of data sets that we all captured today. I
can't go back twenty years. I can't look at some
of the things Wayne Gretzky was doing and what that
means in today's NHL and then soccer, and you know,
motion based also is quite different than single event based.
(18:51):
And so it's a long way of saying, the data
is getting better and better, the models are obviously getting
better and better, and ultimately the insights will get better
and better, both on the sporting side of the equation
and on the business side. And I think that we're
testing a lot of different things. You know, I was
literally talking to Diryl about it earlier today and talking
with our teams about it, and you know, we're trialing
(19:14):
lots of stuff. So on the ones hand, sure we
can get coding done much more efficiently, okay, But in
terms of outcomes, okay, like will we be able to
scout better, will we be able to automate player tagging
or or pick and roll tagging as an example, versus
just having somebody sit there and watch one hundred hours
of film, right you just crank it into the computer, Okay,
(19:36):
So those types of efficiencies and then ultimately, again as
all of this is getting smarter and the data sets
are getting better, et cetera. How far will it go
in terms of will you still where will your scouting department?
It's sort of an interest question. I have no idea
what the answer to that is other than we try
a lot of different things and we see and we're
in the super early innings. Similarly, on the business side,
(19:57):
you know where everybody wants to get to is they
want to actually know their fan base incredibly well. And
most teams think they know their fan base as well,
they don't actually number one, they're getting better at it,
and number two, they don't really know what they're doing
very often outside of the arena. So yes, we're all
capturing concession data, and you know there's plenty of good
(20:18):
ticketing type data out there these days. But when you
start going further and further and wanting a more and
more personal experience again between a brand and the consumer,
we're like in the first or second inning of that
entire game, and AI is going to pay a huge
role in that equation to where you know you're going
to be getting offers from your team, okay to a
(20:40):
fan that's literally personalized to that one individual.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
And so all of that is super early in things,
But I would basically just say, while we all are
doing plenty on the data and analytics side, I think
we're really really early, both sporting wise and business wise
in terms of how we can get closer to that
customer and fan and monetize it over time in very
very different ways.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So when you say person line splitz, are you you're
talking about, I'm going to get I'm going to get
an email or a text message it says, Hey, come
to this game. We know you like to sit in
this particular spot, this is what you like to eat,
this is I'm going to know where you go.
Speaker 6 (21:17):
On your way home from the game. I'm going to
know that your favorite player is Tyree s Maxi, and
I'm going to send you a personalized Tyree Maxi X
Y or Z. I might then, depending on your level
of spend with the organization, serve you up for an
experience with Tyree s Maxey after the game on Thursday night.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
If you can make it. I mean it's going to
be that level wow of detail and more.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
You talked about baseball a little bit.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
You have your investment with the Cleveland Guardians, your paths
control Baseball's had extraordinary a couple of years with the
rout changes. Rob Manford's really on top of it. Our
numbers at Fox were amazing. We did over twenty million
people because we had the great matchups of the Dodgers
versus the Yankees.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
My question, you're making a lot of friends here.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well we lost, so it did really
work out for us since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But my question to you is, David.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
But we're not talking about two thousand and four.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
No, no, no, definitely not, definitely not if you were
whispering in Rob Manford, the commissioner Baseball's ear, or if
you're the commissioner for a day or a week, what
are some of the things you would continue to improve
in the game to make the game a little bit
more dynamic and more really popular for the younger friend.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
You know, it's really interesting question.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
I mean, what baseball did two years ago in terms
of the size of the bases and what that did
on a stolen base, that what they did on the
you know, on the shift and you know you can't
have two guys on the other side of second base.
What they did on the pitch clock, and a few
other smaller things. I mean, that's pretty dramatic in general
for any league, Okay, and Baseball I find to be
(22:46):
the one that more than any other sport, everyone says, well,
we can't do that, because that's the way it's always
been done. In baseball, there's just more pureists, I guess,
I would say, in the overall fan base and the ecosystem.
So the fact that Commissioner Manfred, working with you know,
some wonderful executives, were able to come up with things that,
by the way, the players didn't want to do that first,
(23:06):
and there were plenty of folks out in the analyst
community and media, etc.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Who thought this was just.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
Like crazy baseball camp do this, and again you're not
gonna have one hundred zero type you know, approval for it.
But I think massive positive reaction to the fan base.
So as a couple examples, you know, number one, as
you well know, the games are about twenty four to
twenty five minutes faster, and that is a huge difference
to the fan base out there. You've had the average
(23:32):
age of a viewer of Major League Baseball go down
about four years over the last couple of years. You've
had the average age of a new account on MLB
dot com is down something like six years, okay in age.
And if you looked at the viewership numbers and both
the attendance people in a seat and people watching on TV,
the average as again has come down in and around
(23:54):
five years. So from a demographic perspective, if you're Fox
and some of the other you know, kind of broadcasters,
that's that's amazing. Let alone, the interest is up. You
pointed out the numbers on you know, kind of the
World series. But the reality is also if you think
about it from a global perspective, the interest going on
right now more globally, and obviously a lot of that
is Otani all right, and so what else? You know, Look,
(24:15):
it's kind of funny. I don't really have the answers.
I think Rob is continuing with his team. Commissioner Manfred
is continue with his team to look at ways that
we can increase the attractiveness and continue that push from
a demographic perspective to lower the average age. I will
say one other thing, having been involved in the youth
sports business, and particularly in baseball, you know people all
(24:36):
say kids aren't.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
Playing baseball anymore, not like they used to. It's just wrong.
It's just not true more than ever.
Speaker 6 (24:42):
So first off, little League World Series, go take a
look at the ratings on a Little League World Series.
But going to participation once, I think is more relevant.
Youth participation was at a ten year high this past
year and has been growing at a keger of about
seven percent okay on youth baseball participation, So depending how
you define and cause you to find it, grassroots is
about nine million, okay, And that's baseball, by the way, softball,
(25:05):
which is amazing and finally getting more exposure like many
of the women's sports. You know, I think youth participation
in softball is like eight million kids across the country.
And again both those numbers are significantly up over the
last decade, not down, So we are getting people in
the ecosystem. One of the problems with baseball is a
lot of kids play baseball and they stop after that
you thirteen year unless they're on a track for a
(25:26):
scholarship or they're you know, a complete and utter unicorn
like my friend over here. But the reality is is
so a lot of kids age out at you thirteen.
So what I've talked to Major League Baseball a lot
about is like, how do we open that funnel further
from a participation perspective, But how do we not have
that funnel close so much at that you thirteen level?
How do we create more and more pathways for kids
(25:47):
continuing to play that aren't necessarily looking for that scholarship
or that you know, minor a major league baseball career.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
What would you do?
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Well, that's a great question. I've thought a lot about this.
I think I would open up the floodgates. I mean,
in a world where content is king, then certainly baseball
should be king. Right. You have two hundred games and
about two hundred and thirty two days including spring training playoffs.
You guys went really deep into the playoffs last year. Blitz,
congrats on that. But look, if we're all at a
desk when you're at Blackstone, when you're in Bloomberg, there
(26:16):
should be your phone or your iPad where you just
should be able to see all thirty teams in real time.
Batting cage is open. I want to see Aaron Judge.
I want to see Otani, but not in uniform. I
want to see him in shorts. Behind the scenes, what
is he working on? What can I share with my
son or daughter? Of Otani's mechanic because I'm also hearing them.
I'm also seeing weight rooms and bullpens. That's one thing
(26:36):
I would do a lot more microphone, I think one
of the greatest things. We have some of the best
athletes in our game today, but we have no idea
who the hell they are. I mean, I barely know
enough about Aaron Judge. I know him because I've known
him since he was a kid. But Aaron Judge is
an incredible story. We stole him from football and he
decided to go to smaller college and play baseball. Well
that's a benefit to us. So Blitz to your point,
(26:58):
at the age of thirteen, how do we gap at
thirteen to age seventeen when I got drafted, and we
hopefully can create a lot more Aaron Judges. So I
will say I think entertainment first. Baseball's just your mote,
but I think media entertainment. And you have to take
the straight jacket of a history away and be able
to try new things. Not everything's gonna work, but the
(27:19):
more chance you try, the more you fail, the better
it is.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
You're totally right.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
And interestingly, again, maybe it goes back to a little
bit of this purest concept. Maybe it doesn't, but the
superstars haven't been marketed as clearly as they have in
other sports. The teams have been. But that's different than
the total superstars, right. And when you talk about like
having the ability to watch Aaron Judge at batting cage,
or watch schemes throw one hundred and whatever miles an
(27:45):
how or however many times in a row, like back
to that's amazing content. And the next generation is consuming
content and completely different ways. We could spend hours talking
about that, but that's the type of content that that
next generation and that younger demographic wants versus you know,
watching an entire game of anything, for you, just baseball.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
My kids are huge sports fans. It is rare for a.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Regular season game for them to watch any of the
major sports all the way through.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Blitz.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
When you were nineteen ninety one, when you entered Blackstone,
I was drafted in ninety three.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
I mean that's not that long ago. That's three decades ago.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Baseball was number one by far, and I think the
way to get back there is we've given the other
league's almost ten strokes on a golf course, and we
can't do that anymore. And you can't play with one
hand tie behind your back. The greatest content in the
world is like we have it hidden in the library.
I mean to watch Aaron Judge and o'tani and some
of these guys through their side work, Kershaw talk about
(28:51):
what is he working on with a technique if you're
a lefty pitcher or your lefty pitcher who's a softball.
There's so much content out there, there's so much value
saying if we unlock that, it could be really.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Agree and so blitz building on that.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean with a lot of the investments you have
in some of these you know, not really challenging league,
sort of startup leagues. You know, even I know you
are deeply engaged in the NWSL for instance, which is
I think by definition less purest because it's a new league,
it's only been around for about a decade. It's the
third try at you know, professional women's soccer in this country.
(29:30):
What are you learning there that you sort of apply
or vice versa.
Speaker 6 (29:35):
Well, look again, I put these in some slightly different buckets.
I go back to this sort of thematic view that
I have around a variety of things. So let's hit
women's sports really quickly. So women's sports is, from my perspective,
a mega trend, a mega theme that one should get
behind from an either a well from every perspective, from
(29:57):
a fan perspective, from an engagement perspective, from an invent perspective,
it's probably.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
For this audience like a great place to go.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:04):
And by the way, aside from the fact that these
athletes are absolutely incredible and in my opinion, haven't been
marketed particularly well over the years. So I look at
even you know, Caitlin Clark and Angel Race, okay, absolutely
amazing Okay, and when they started getting marketed differently in college,
take a look at those college ratings.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
So the NCAA Women's.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Final last year had I believe, eighteen million eighteen point
something million people watch the women's final. The men's final
got something like high fourteens.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
And I remember sitting with Jimmy Pataro when he was like,
the women out drew the men of ESPN, okay, and
he was following it all the way through because it
wasn't just that one game. By the way, as well,
my point is there have been amazing women basketball players
for pick your period, fifty years, eighty years, whatever, since
they invented the game, Okay, why now? Why did it
(30:57):
suddenly explode from immediate perspect in popularity? And some of
that was the same storytelling, okay, and content delivery that
you described. Some of it was just plain marketing. I
feel like ZBS and ESPN really got behind women's basketball
and did an amazing job and once people watched. Because
I always talk about the funnel when I talk about fans.
(31:18):
What you want to get is somebody who's not a
fan to be a casual fan of a sport, and
then you want to drive a journey of the casual
fan to become an avid fan of the sport. Okay,
So we have to start with the funnel, and I
find when people watched. I remember taking my own daughters
to a WNBA game and to a women's hockey game
(31:39):
and said like, let's just watch this game for what
it is, meaning amazing athletes and performance, and they were hooked.
But they had to be taken right in a sense,
or at least in my case. And that's why I
always say to people, like about hockey. So many of
my friends have never been to a live hockey game,
and I'm like, why don't you come to a hockey
game and they all go to a live hockey and
(32:00):
they were like, oh my god, that was absolutely incredible.
So now I have a casual fan. So back to
women's sports. I think the trends are there. I mean
just really big picture. I mean, if you think about
the WNBA right now, aside from where the prices of
these franchises seem to be going.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
Look at the viewership numbers. They're absolutely incredible.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
So it's not like it's just I mean, I think
it's something like thirty percent of when an NBA game
on average about is the WNBA. But they're getting two
percent of the media rights money. So what do you
think is going to happen the WNBA media writes overtime
like they're going to go up back to my sort
of content.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
Ip, etc. So I'm bullish on all of the women's sports.
You're right.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
I spent a ton of time on soccer. I'm extremely
bullish on volleyball. I think hockey's doing an amazing job,
which was a reboot because you used to have separate
American and Canadian leagues and they finally merged. You can
actually have the best players in the world all playing together.
And then you mentioned startup leagues, which, to be honest,
you know there's there's startup leagues in the sense of
(32:58):
like venture capital, right, and then there's some others that
are maybe a different format. Okay, So like if you
think about TGL, which I think is getting an Innovation
Award today, that was a different format that you know,
Mike McCauley and some colleagues realize that, you know, hey,
we should think about golf competitive golf in a different way, right,
(33:19):
And again, I'm sure some of you have seen it,
others might not have. I think TGL has done an
amazing job.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Huge content play too, I mean, that's what that's.
Speaker 6 (33:27):
And again, demographic very very different from who's watching on
Saturday or Sunday afternoon on a PGA tour, and of
course there's crossover, but they're bringing a new demographic into
the sport. So that's kind of like, hey, let's go
try to do something different. Then, like you said, you've
got you know, major League table tennis, right, you know,
we'll see. But on these I'm bullish because again, on
these niche sports, we all underestimate the audience numbers and
(33:50):
we're all used to hearing these broadcast numbers. But what
we're not probably is it tuned too or that some
of the people in this room might be is the
YouTube numbers right, is the Instagram numbers? Is that you know,
all of these different ways that younger folks are consuming
and not just younger folks. But I just point to,
(34:10):
I don't know again in the habit of like looking
at what my kids are doing and why and their
friends and so as an example.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
You know, you've got the you've got the slaps, Dana White, genius.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Okay, if I told you five years ago there was
going to be this situation when we sat across the
table for you as I was going to slap you
as hard as humanly possible, okay, and then if you
were able to get up, you were able to do
it back to me. And that was going to be
a sport that people were watching and turning into a league.
I don't know that you would have thought that that
was a very good idea, and they're unbelievable, but I
(34:44):
mean you're just using like an example of people are
consuming that content in incredibly different ways. The number of
views on YouTube for some of these slap matches is,
like you know, sort of stunning. So again it comes
a little bit back to Alex you mentioned it before,
like where do I think there can be great storytelling?
And maybe it's in places that you didn't even think about.
I mean, we all know about Drive to Survive, Okay,
(35:05):
Like what Netflix did to Drive to Survive and what
that did for Formula one is you know, unbelievable. But
like I think about some others too. I think about
like Queen's Gambit, yeah, okay, and what Queen's Gambit did
the chess. I mean, it's beyond dramatic in terms of there.
And if you look at Welcome the Rexham or Ted
Lasso okay, or you look at you know, quarterbacks, So
(35:27):
that storytelling goes back a lot to what you're saying.
Let's bring these amazing athletes and sports closer to us
in ways that we didn't consume it before, and let's
watch that continued growth out there in the marketplace.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
All Right, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk a
little bit about youth sports. And one of the ways
that I would love for you to get into it,
Blitz is you mentioned volleyball and Caitlin galhoo Ce Young
co founder of League one Volleyball, was on this stage earlier.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
You're an investor there.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I remember you and I talking about this years ago,
and you were talking about how compelling it was, mostly
because it's youth to pro which we don't see a
lot of talk to us about the opportunity in youth sports.
Let's the through line for youth sports from an investment perspective.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
So from an investment perspective, it goes back to something
we were talking a little bit about before. It's massively fragmented, right,
so the demand is there. I think the people again
calculated differently. I calculate the youth sports business at about
forty billion dollars growing it, you know, high single digits
a year. Our own business is growing much faster than that.
But it's if you think about it, most people who
(36:35):
run a youth sports business is a relatively small, mom
and pop oriented business. Where they got into that business,
I'd like to think in the vast, vast majority of
cases for the right reasons. Okay, they wanted to help kids,
they wanted to get them active on fields. Okay, that's
even become more prevalent in today's world, where the kids
are on screens way more than like when.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
We grew up.
Speaker 6 (36:57):
So I think people got into these businesses to do
really good things with kids with youth, but they don't
want to deal with accounts, payable and insurance and you know,
legal and complain. You know, they just want to program,
whether it's leagues or tournaments or I don't know, Alex,
if you ever went through baseball factory, but as an example,
(37:18):
Baseball Factory, you know, takes kids through their baseball journeys
in terms of instruction at higher and higher levels along
the way. So you have all these different areas of
youth sports, but at its core a I think, just
again big picture, it's great to have kids enrolled and
engaged in as many sports as possible, and actually they
spread it across. I think there's too much specialization. As
(37:39):
one of my other big things, kids are specializing way
too early. You talk to any professional athlete, they will
tell you that they either did or wish they had
played more sports for long enew okay, So the ability
to actually show up with capital now okay, then show
up with great brands. So as an example, cal Ripkin
(37:59):
was somebody who is like my idol as a player,
but more relevantly post his playing career. Cal basically wanted
to help kids. He wanted to teach them to play
baseball the right way in a safe environment, and he
and his brother Bill started Ripkin Baseball and they have
the best youth baseball business in the country in my opinion.
And once we got into youth sports, I had been
(38:20):
talking to Cal for years about trying to partner with
him in some way, shape or form, And once our
business started to grow, etc. Went back to Cal and said, hey,
maybe we should merge our businesses.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Here.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
You've got the best brand in the world and you
and Bill are still involved, which is amazing, and we'd
love to keep all of that the same way.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
We're just going to give you.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
A bigger platform, so you're gonna be able to help
more kids in more markets, etc. So again that ability
to bring capital the equations, so we have better fields,
we have safer environments, we have better instructors, we have
better facilities overall, because a lot of them are now
starting to turn into these sports vacations right where you're
going with your parents and your siblings, and maybe it's
(39:00):
three days, it's a long weekend. In some cases, we
have one of our baseball facilities in Cooperstown, New York,
is basically a week, So you go with your whole
family for an entire week. And we keep upgrading all
of these facilities, and so it's sort of this fragmented
industry that we think we're both doing something that's really
good for society, for lack of a better term, for
(39:20):
the kids and their families. But we also think that
they're good business in us.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
All right, So we like to end every episode with
little rapid fire, So good luck to you. We'll bounce
it back and forth a little bit, you know, keep
it tight, and we're excited to hear what you bring
to the table here. But let's all right, what's one
word to describe your deal making style?
Speaker 5 (39:54):
One word to describe my deal making style? Direct?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
What's more important to you your gut or data?
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Keep in mind you are at the MIT Sloan Sports
Analytics Conference.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Blackstone Data Sports Gut.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Okay ooh okay, split the metal. Who is your dream
deal making partner?
Speaker 5 (40:16):
My dream deal making partner? Well, I hope one day
it's my kids.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Oh okay, good answer.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
What's the best piece of advice you received on deal
making or business.
Speaker 6 (40:27):
Well, I think it was somebody told me early on
in my career, clearly because I wasn't doing it very well.
But it's actually it sounds simple, but it's the best
advice I ever got, which is, David, you talk too much,
listen a lot more. So you don't need to be
the loudest voice in the room. You don't need to
be the person who spent the most time talking in
(40:48):
the middle of a meeting. Doesn't mean don't say anything,
just means listen a lot more. Why it might not
feel that way. I'm actually a pretty good listener.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
What's the worst advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 5 (41:00):
The worst off given, worst advice I've ever been given.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Don't buy the Sixers.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
Yeah, it was actually not the Sixers. It was don't
invest in hockey. Really it was terrible advice, meaning because
I didn't take the advice. Yeah, but I had people
warning me that, you know, they didn't have national TV
deals that were great and it was really a local
business and don't do that.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
And I didn't listen.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
All right, So what's your hype song before a big
meeting or big negotiation?
Speaker 5 (41:31):
Hype songs?
Speaker 6 (41:31):
It's on my phone, I think it's like Bob Marley,
it's not so hyped up.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Three little birds.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
If you have to pick the top three teams from
your portfolio, what are they?
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I can't answer it.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
My answer anytime any of that body asked me about
your my favorite team is, let's be clear, it's who's
your favorite kid, which, by the way, so I'll answer
it differently.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
I do have a favorite kid sometimes.
Speaker 6 (41:57):
But it's a different favorite kid depending on what's going
going on that week or that year or whatever. So
I definitely don't have a favorite team over a long
period of time, but like right now, it's probably the command.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, that's that's a pretty good answer, David, No favorite blitz.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
You can only watch one sport for the rest of
your life. Which one is it?
Speaker 6 (42:21):
That's really brutal? One sport for the rest of my life?
Hockey if it's live. Okay, okay, so live. My answer
is hockey.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
This is funny because it's sort of it's sort of
a retread of the earlier, earlier question, but I'm gonna
ask it anyway.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
What team do you want to see win a championship more.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Than any that's your favorite kid question? So can I
give you a cheat on this one. We asked the
same question of Melody Hobson, and you know what her
answer was?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
What mine?
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yeah, so that's that's that's a pretty good answer for sure.
It'd be nice to have one. We don't have it.
We don't have a championship yet.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
Blitzer, you have a fun fact about yourself that will
surprise all of us, but mainly your colleagues.
Speaker 6 (43:09):
Maybe that I we talk about Jusic a lot, and
maybe it's how much I absolutely love a lot us
more set. They would look at me like, really a
lot of more set because everyone thinks I'm just like
a big Springstea fan.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
But all right, Blitzer being a big a lotus more
set fan. I mean, that's my takeaway from from this entime.
From the brilliant insights you've given us about business, that's
something I'm not gonna soon forget.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
That was a curveball. That was a curveball.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have something better
for you. No, that's pretty good. I think I think
we got ended there. Uh David Blitzer, what a treat
to spend some time with you. Alex always fun. Uh m,
I t sloan you guys are the best. Thank you
so much for having us really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (43:51):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
This show was produced by Anna Maazarakis, Lizzie Phillip, and
Stacy Wong. Original music and engineering by Blake Maples.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
David E.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Ravella is our managing editor. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,
Brendan Francis, Neonham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Andrew Barden, Kelly Leferrier,
and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our Head of Podcasts.
Special thanks to Rachel Carnivali, Elena sos Angeles, Nick Silva,
(44:36):
and the team at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Rubob Shakir is our creative director. Art direction is from
Jacqueline Kessler. Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Camera
operation by David Degner. Listen to The Deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also tune
(44:58):
into the video Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.
Thanks for listening,
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