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May 22, 2025 46 mins

In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk with Mellody Hobson, co-CEO and president of Ariel Investments, about her firm’s newly launched fund, “Project Level,” devoted to investing in women’s sports. In this conversation, which was taped in front of an audience at Bloomberg’s Invest conference, Hobson tells the hosts why she decided to personally invest in the Chicago White Sox and the Denver Broncos, how F1 racer Lewis Hamilton taught her to speak more positively to herself and what she learned from a specific seat at the table of the Starbucks Board of Directors.

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right, so here we are Bloomberg invest Downtown Manhattan.
You're back in the heart of the city. Man Melody Hobson.
She has quickly become one of the most influential people
across the sports world.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
She's got a new fund.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
There's no surprise to me that she now has entered
the world of sports, and she's building a world class team.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
So Denver Broncos and the Denver NWSL team. She's in
League One volleyball Chicago White Sox. She's all in on
sports like we are. Let's go talk to Melody Hobson.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Let's do it cool.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right, thanks everyone. I should point out I think
we're getting people post cocktails.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
So let's let it rip. Okay, it's good time.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, welcome everyone to this very special edition of The
Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, featuring the incomparable
Melody Hodson. First of all, I should say you race
down town because you do so much for the Bloomberg Empire.
You're part of the Bloomberg philanthropy sports. So thank you
for your service and we're happy to have you here
in this platform as well.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
One of the really fun things about prepping for this,
and this happens with a lot of our shows, is
one of us. Usually this guy knows the guests previously.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
Yes, we know each other.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Tell us this story.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Well, it was really interesting. Hi, Melody and High it
was I don't know, maybe fifteen years ago. I was
still playing with the Yankees and we're playing the White
Sox and mutual friend introduced Melody and I and I
emailed her and I said, may I come see you
for an hour? Have an hour right before the game,
and I especially maybe be out of town or busy.
She's running a big firm, and she said, of course,

(02:01):
how's you know one o'clock on Friday. And I show
up to the meeting and as her and John Rogers
her partner, and I was just fascinated by this partnership.
And one of the key takeaways for me and I
still think about it today, is a your chemistry, your
mutual respect, your competitive advantage that you both have as

(02:22):
far as complimentary set of skills. What is it about
that relationship? And thank you for taking that meeting because
it really impacted me. What was it about this partnership
has worked so well for you and John.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Okay, let's first of all start off there. Alex Rodriguez
calls you at a war and says, can I come
and see you?

Speaker 5 (02:41):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right, everyone excited in the office, of course, and he
does show up and he's like, you know, the Adonis
there walks in is like, oh, nice to.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Meet you, Melanie. We don't need any live with this.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
They were excited.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
I was excited, but we ended up having this phenomenal
conversation about investing and the stock market and a whole
host of things, and of course he was very, very impressive.

Speaker 5 (03:12):
So I'll stop there.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
John Rogers started our firm, Aerial Investments, and we are
one of the oldest minority own firms in the country.
And he's one of the longest running stock pickers in
our category, which is small cap value. And he started
the firm, but it became mine along the way. I mean,
I have to tell you it's a unique thing in

(03:35):
terms of how much I loved it and how much
I loved working with him, and how much I wanted
to be there.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
I've only had one job in my.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Entire life, which is at Ariel, and I've worked there
since I graduated from Princeton. And supposedly you have eleven
jobs in your lifetime, I've only had one. And I'm
the only person in my graduating class of eleven hundred
people who's had the same work phone number since I
graduated from college.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
So obviously I like it there. I'm very loyal.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
But what I would say is that John and I
I knew very early on that he was extremely special,
that I had found a person who was going to
bring out the best in me without changing who I was,
and who was a sharer. He played team sports and
he shares. And so we are co leaders of a

(04:27):
real which is very rare. I don't understand why there
aren't more co CEOs, but we are co leaders, and
I think it works because we are complimentary and our
skills were very different. We have different parts of the
firm that we run. We are deferential to each other,
and yet at the same time we hold our ground
and last but not least, And it's a rare thing

(04:50):
to say in business.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
We love each other. We really do.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
He's like my brother. Jamie Diamond calls me his work wife.
I'm like, hmm, brother, But we do share you know
our lives are sort of back and forth. If he
asked me for something, it's a done deal, and if
I ask him for something. And even in our worst moments,
John said something to me once when we had a

(05:15):
tough conversation and kind of a fight. He was like, Melody,
remember one thing. I know you want the best for Ariel,
and you know I want the best for Ariel. If
we always remember that, we can solve whatever differences we have.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (05:30):
Love that.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I always want the best for the deal too.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
So you mentioned something really interesting which gives us a
nice segue into a lot of what we want to
talk about, which is the team sport. Now, I'm not
sure anybody predicted that not only would you go into sports,
you would pretty quickly become one of the most influential investors,

(05:55):
like straight out of the gate in professional sports.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
How did that happen?

Speaker 5 (05:59):
A long and winding roads.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Okay, what I we're here for. We're here for the journey.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
We've had investments in sports over the years. We've owned
Medicine Square Garden as it evolved into various versions of itself.
But that investment goes back to twenty eleven We bought
that stock during the basketball lockout when there was right
before Lynn Sanity, remember Jeremy Lynn. When they were doing
this retrofit of the garden. It was way over budget

(06:26):
and people were very skeptical of the name. And we're
value investors. John went and visited the garden and he said,
you can't rebuild this anywhere in New York. This is
a great investment and it ended up being a wonderful
investment for us. We own Manchester United, the European soccer team,
so we've been in the publicly traded sports area that

(06:47):
we think of.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
A media a media business interesting.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
And then personally I crept into sports so secretly, and
Alex knew this. I bought into the Chicago White Sox
years ago, but I swore all the owners to secrecy.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
I said, you can never talk about it.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I told the commissioner because I didn't want anyone to
confuse it with Aeriel. And then John Rogers had been
a longtime owner of the Chicago Sky from two thousand
and five when they came to Chicago. And then for me,
the news around me in sports was when I bought
into the Broncos.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
Why they're great businesses.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
You realize the uniqueness of these assets and the value
that is being created in these businesses, and the fandom
and the sponsorships and the media rights. All of it
very quickly became clear to me.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
And I then realized and had someone say to me
about a year you're in fifteen months ago women's sports.
And I'd been doing a little bit in women's sports
as well, quietly WNBA investment and then also League One
volleyball and that on my own, just dabbling. And when
they said women's sports, I started to study women's sports

(08:04):
like an eleven year old studies baseball statistics, and I
got dangerous and seeing up arrows, up arrows, up arrows
on what was happening in attendance, in sponsorships, in media rights,
in girls playing starting at young ages. Everything was pointing
in the direction. Eight point four million kids in high

(08:27):
school play sports, forty one percent of them are girls now,
which most people don't realize.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
How that gap is narrowed.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Affordability of women's sports very expensive to go to some
of the games that are out there, especially in the
big cities. The women's attendance and the women's games often
are more affordable for families, and it's unbelievable and an
unbelievable experience because the women are so talented. And then,
of course you saw this inflection point. You saw the

(08:55):
NCAA Finals last year with Caitlin Clark five million more
viewers for the women's finals than the men.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
And then we've seen it in so many other areas.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Think about the Olympics and the big names, no disrespect,
lots of amazing athletes, but some of the women were
the biggest names.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
And I just said, we're going to drill.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Down on this and ultimately saw a real opportunity and
I said, go big or go home.

Speaker 5 (09:22):
Always let's do a big fund in this area.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I do have a follow up on that melody because
I've been studying you and John Rodgers for years and
you have your turtle, which means you guys are patient
and you're selective and when you see a big pitch,
you go for the fences. But you've made a lot
of money in your firm over the years and being
a contrarian, and I believe you've taken that from Warren
Buffett right in sports right now, you're not necessarily being

(09:45):
a contrarian, how do you apply that philosophy into sports
because there's so much capital flowing through it.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
I love this question so much.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
So, first of all, I talked about our early beginnings.
We're investing in undervalued, small and medium sized companies that
showed a strong potential for growth. That is women's sports.
I call it the small caps of sports. The most
valuable women's sports team today is worth two hundred and
fifty million dollars and that's Angel City.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
That was bought by Bob Eiger and Willow Bay.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
The most valuable men's sports team is the Dallas Cowboys
that's worth eleven billion dollars. There is a dramatic difference
between two hundred and fifty million dollars and eleven billion,
which is why I'm calling them the small caps small
caps because smaller companies tend to grow faster, and we
say the big guys it's going to be harder to
grow the way they've grown in the past. But the

(10:36):
women have a big trajectory of growth in front of them.

Speaker 5 (10:40):
So this is where value meets growth.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
And so the first big deal that you do, I believe,
is expansion in the NWSL. The Denver team, a market
obviously you're familiar with, walk us through that deal. I mean,
we've interviewed several NWSL owners, including in Chestin over the
at BFC. We both know will Obey very well and

(11:06):
her investment thesis and Bob's on Angel City. What was
the case here because those expansion fees, while yes, on
a dollar per dollar basis low, those expansion fees have
grown very fast. I mean, we've seen it over the years.
So walk us through that case.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
So this came to us in a very unusual way.
So after the Broncos deal, a lot of people have
just come to me on sports just personally thinking, you know,
maybe you would look at this. Lots of teams, lots
of opportunities. So I'm giving a speech in Florida at
a conference. Two people come up to me. At the

(11:46):
end of the speech. We have not announced what we're
doing in sports, and we just have this skunkworks group
working on this sid side of aerial.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
We hadn't even told our firm.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
So there were only two or three of us working
at maybe three working on this.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
So two people came up to me.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
One said, I'm trying to do a WNBA expansion team
and the other said I'm working on an NWSL soccer team.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
It was just fortuitous because I.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Knew what we were working on, right. I followed up
with both of them and Denver. We started to do
the research.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
On Denver.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
We looked at, first of all, the market, and we
looked at the demographics of the market, which seemed to
be very, very favorable to women, think outdoor. We also
looked at the socioeconomic you know, the average income in
the city that was favorable to season ticket sales. We

(12:39):
learned of the locations of a potential stadium. We did
a lot of work on why do we need a stadium,
why wouldn't we And then we saw the stadium made sense.
We got excited about stadium rights. So I always knew
stadium rights made the ownership more valuable because of the
other events and the like, and so there was a
lot there that was just adding up. And then we
said we need to come and big and they were

(13:01):
willing to move the cap table around for us, and
ultimately I will say we saw the lead investor, Rob Cohen,
and thought, this is a good guy. He's been able
to demonstrate success in the building of his own business.
And we just when we did the work on the opportunity.
We said, the math looks good, and I always say

(13:21):
math has no opinion. You follow the math. Now, just
to give you a sense of why we think we're right,
in three days of publicly announcing, we sold five two
hundred season tickets. Now since then that number has gone
up a lot more, and I have to tell you
that was way past our best case scenarios in even

(13:43):
our own modeling. We also are launching a team with
sponsorships in hand. There are a number of things that
we're doing that just are were unprecedented. Why were we
okay with the expansion fee which has gone up. We're turtles.
We're thinking long term. As I've gone out to people,
I said, my strong belief is you want to own
these teams in a decade or two, they will be

(14:07):
very valuable businesses. The other reason that we were comfortable
we were the sixteenth team to expand, I call it
sweet sixteen. We looked at the expansion fee and realized
the owners of the teams share the future expansion fees,
so that puts a floor on even your valuation. If
you think out how those teams will expand over time,

(14:28):
then you get the upside from the media rights and
things like that. And even though the media rights they
will be renegotiated soon, they don't get locked into the
same kind of ten year contracts that other sports do
because many of the women's leagues have been able to
negotiate deals where they can reopen negotiations with viewership milestones.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
So you're in soccer when it comes to this fund
Where else are you looking? Is this slee team stakes?
Is that the ecosystem? Like, what's the what what sort
of the window of the three buckets?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
We start off with major League Sports, so owning teams.
Then we've you know, obviously accomplished that first with Denver,
and we're looking in other areas. We'd like to also
be in Europe, by the way, not just in America.
The next bucket we have is we call it emerging
leagues and junior sports.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Okay, the junior sports.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Is a powerful business because of the you know, the
number of young people and the family's commitments to sports
is huge, huge. And then the last areas we see
is related or ancillary businesses that benefit or grow through
the growth of women's sports.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Aerial is one of the top tier firms in the
country around the world. Right, and John and you are
both world class investors. But if I'm an institution and
I'm coming to Area and saying, Okay, what do you
guys know about sports? One? I know you're building a
world class team, but how do you source deals? And
are you confident that you can get enough deals for
area and for your investors?

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well, first of all, I have to tell you what
we're saying right now, is Jason Wright, who's running this
for us, who's a super strang, huge superstar. Everyone's asking me,
how did you get Jason? Jason, if he were here,
he would tell you the fish are jumping in the boat.
Sourcing deals is not our problem. One of the reasons
that I think we have a distinct advantage is that

(16:35):
the leagues want gender and racial diversity and ownership.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
Notwithstanding the mood of.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Some of the conversation that is going on in our country,
if you're starting women's teams and leagues, it would be
great to have some women and people of color involved,
And I think they see that that's a priority.

Speaker 5 (16:55):
It's really important.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
And then to be able to go in with the
resources and at scale, I think is very very helpful.
And I think they see a couple of things with us,
which is different if you're starting a team from scratch
like Denver Jason Ran the Commanders has that experience. We
bring operating expertise to the conversation where you don't have

(17:20):
to learn trial by error. So everything from recruiting the leadership,
it's this recruiter and it's this person at this firm.
That's the way the conversation goes, as opposed to there
are five firms in front of us, what should we do?

Speaker 5 (17:34):
Or you're building a stadium and you've Jason has had
that experience.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
So this operational excellence is highly valued and that I
think is that is being sought after. I also think
our brand and reputation is helping people to come to
us where they say they have access to lots of people,
relationships that might mean sponsorships, that might be a whole

(17:59):
host of things that we can lean into and help
in the growth because it will be in our best interest.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
And so let's talk about Jason Wright for a second.
You know, this is a name, just to give the
audience who doesn't know who he is, a little bit
of backstory played in the NFL seven years worked at McKenzie.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
Partner youngest partner at mackenzie.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Exactly, then goes to run the Washington Commanders.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
No slouch, first black president of an NFL team in
one hundred and five years, right, And.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
If you can run the Commanders in that era, are
you doing something.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
You can There's there's nothing that can surprissfully?

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, very successfully.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
So what are the conversations? How do you get to him?
How does he get to you? Like, how does that
come together?

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, He's on a panel at a conference that I'm
hosting and we have presidents and CEOs of teams Set Marshall,
Kevin Warren.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Dallas, Maverick, Chicago Bears like these are.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
So and Jason is there and all of a sudden,
I am listening to him and I am I've been
working on this project. It's September, and I was like,
I got to get to him. So I go up
to him at just an event like this, and I said,
I need to spend time with you. And he's looking
me like I have three heads and I'm very aggressive

(19:13):
at it.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
And by the next.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Week we are meeting in New York and I said,
I have this idea and I know you are very
much in demand, and I had heard he was leaving
that was public, and I said, I think we're going
to do something that is literally a game changer, and
I think you would be great working with us. And

(19:37):
so we spent a little bit of time going back
and forth, not a lot.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
Actually, you'd be shocked.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
And within a few weeks he hadn't totally committed, but
I kept tossing him things.

Speaker 5 (19:47):
I'm like, what do you think about this? What do
you think about this?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
So he just was working.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
I'm not sure how Josh here feel, but occasionally I'm like,
look at this, what do you think? And within just
a very short amount of time, he signed on. And
I told him, I said, I can't tell you how
committed I am to this, and I can't tell you
how hard I'm going to work. You're going to You're
going to look through and find the best opportunities, and

(20:13):
I will find the money. That is the deal that
we have. So I'm our chief cheerleader and fundraiser. I
like that, and he's our quarterback.

Speaker 4 (20:23):
So mentally, one of the things that our audience has
probably not been able to see a pitch. I recently
had a drink with Rob Walton, your partner, and he's
thrilled to have you. Obviously you make a great partnership
by the Denver Broncos. I'm sorry, Denver Broncers. My question
is what was it about the pitch when you heard
it that you said, I must Was it the p

(20:44):
and L was forecast? Yes, the Broncos? Was it the forecast?

Speaker 5 (20:49):
Was the growing math on again?

Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (20:51):
Tell us a little bit about what got you excited.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
The initial call came through and it said, would you
ever consider investing in the Broncos?

Speaker 5 (20:59):
Honest answer, I said no. I said no.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
I was like, why no, I'm not going to do that,
you know, I'm so busy and no. And then my
friend Kasey Wasserman and Jeffrey Katzenberg cornered me at a
breakfast and sat down at a table because both were
very close to Greg Penner, who I knew very well.
We run a board together, and they said, Melody, you're

(21:23):
actually you are the person to do this. And so
you know, I'm sitting there and I'm being very open
and I'm like, maybe I don't see something, and it wasn't.
The no wasn't out of but this is a bad idea,
the no was out of capacity and a whole host
of things. And Casey got me and he's like, Melody,

(21:44):
you know how you feel about financial literacy. What if
you have like this model for a team on financial literacy.
And he's like, it's been your mission And I was like, oh,
that's good.

Speaker 5 (22:00):
So that became the hook. I was like, wow, that
would be so great.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
And wait, explain that how the idea.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
That the athletes could be helped and that there could
be a conversation about a financial literacy in a different way.

Speaker 5 (22:16):
That was something that was really really appealing to me.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
And then we started to do the work on the
opportunity and the financial aspects of it, and I saw
how compelling it was. Now at the time, the Waltons
made it clear, sorry, Penner Walton's we're buying the team.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
I mean they were like, we're buying the team, and
it was like, no.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Matter what, and they kind of cleared the debt right.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
Like the team.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
So you know, you're sitting, you know, writing sidecar with
someone who's like, we're buying the team.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
And you're like, okay, we're buying.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
And first of all, I knew Greg and I knew
how talented he was, and I knew Carrie.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
I'd gotten a no Carrie.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
I met Rob first over Zoom and this is such
a great story. So Rob and I in the phone,
and you know, they have to like me and I
have to like them because this is real money and
we're in business together and and hopefully it'll be a
multi generational asset. I'm on the phone with Rob and
I said, you know, Rob, he explaining to me how
much he loves cars, and I was like, my husband

(23:16):
loves cars, and you know, he loves cars more than anything.
And he said, you know he has this Rob's talking
about his car collection and I said, oh, my husband's
favorite car is this bird cage Maserati.

Speaker 5 (23:28):
And he was like, I have two of them.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Quick flex.

Speaker 6 (23:33):
So George I go to.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I say, George, Rob Walton has two bird Cage Maseratis
and George is like, well they throw one in with
the investment.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
That would be that would be a never before seen
you know, little sweetener for a deal.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
We had so much in common, and that also I
felt like I was working with people of high integrity,
which was really important to me. You don't spend your
whole life building your reputation and your brand to go
down the drain because of an affiliation. And that affiliation,
I was like, these are best in class business people, philanthropists.

(24:14):
They are low key, you know, extremely low key, and
as a result of that, it fit. And I said
to them, and I wasn't joking. I said, you know,
we don't need Super Bowl tickets.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
This isn't why we're doing this. We're doing this.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
You know, I'm going to be an investor and I'm
excited to do this. And we have our ownership meetings
with Lewis who I brought in.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
With us, Lewis Hamilton.

Speaker 5 (24:37):
Yes, Lewis is like a little brother.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
And I said, you know, you should consider bringing Lewis,
and you know, considering the number of followers that he
has and he loves sports and.

Speaker 5 (24:48):
He's global sporting legends.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
And then Condy Rice obviously is a legend in a
different way as the first black woman Secretary of State,
a football nuts, her.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
Father was a coach.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
You know, there was so much there that you glued
us all together. And it's been just it succeeded my
expectations and financially it's been a great investment.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I'm glad you mentioned Lewis because, first of all, and
I hope I have this right. I read something a
couple of years ago about how you were one of
the first calls that he made or he took after
that fateful race and Abu Dhabi. You and I say this,
You know, sitting alongside this guy, you have had access

(25:34):
and relationships with some of the most interesting and influential
athletes in the world.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
What have you learned from them?

Speaker 5 (25:44):
So, first of all, it wasn't a call. We were
in Abu Dha.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Oh you were there.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
So this was a debate George and I had back
and forth. Lewis and I are very very close, and
I met him in his rookie season and we really
He calls me sis, and I call him sir little brother,
and so literally even in our emails, sir little brother,
he calls me, says, we.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
Debated going to Abu Dabi. It's the last race. It's
they're tied, remember.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Exactly, Lewis and Max Vers, they're tied.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
It's you know, this is the potential eighth championship never
been done before. The seventh was Lewis's tide with Michael
Schumacher and George's like, I'm.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
Like, should we go or should we not go?

Speaker 1 (26:26):
He's like, there's nothing worse than your family showing up
when you have to work.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
No, we should not go. I hate that idea.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
And I was like, maybe we should go, And so
we came up with a decision that we would go,
but not.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Tell him that we were there.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
And so the reason that I wanted to go is,
I said, it's not if he wins, it's if he loses.
I said, we're only going that we're going in case
he loses, but we're not telling him we were there.
So the team put us in a special spot. He
never knew we were there the whole weekend, and it
was only when he lost that we thought he had won.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
Remember it's the last half of the last lap.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
We're like, you know, and he loses, and we go
to his room, you know, and he's devastated as you
would be, and doesn't quite understand what has happened. It
was a very important moment because that was when he
went and shook Max's hand. And George had this famous
quote that I've told people where he said heroes are

(27:28):
bigger than champions. He's like Lewis went to hero status
in that moment, because that is hard for anyone to
do with that level of disappointment. And what I've learned
from Lewis, who I tell him all the time, I'm
so fortunate that I have these good guys in my life,
like John Rogers and Louis George. When I tell Louis,

(27:52):
I say, you are my mind's friend. When I am
really struggling, I conjure up Lewis. And what I say
about Louis, he never ever ever gives up ever, and
he has taught me things where he hits me right
between the eye with his lesson, one of which he

(28:13):
came and spent some time with us. We were in
the Caribbean and he said, you know, Melody, let's go
jet Skang. And I said I can't. I can't go
jet Skang. And he looks at me and he said,
I've been here for three days and you've said can't
four times.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
He said, you choose not to. Wow, And He's like,
can't is not a word you use. You choose not to.
He said, your.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Language is very important, Melody, and you have a young child.
You choose not to. So I looked at him, and
I said, well, I choose not to you. But it
was a moment. And then the second thing he taught me,
he said, I only talked. He only speaks positively to
himself in his head, and that was something that's a

(28:56):
hard thing to do. He's like, melody, only speaks positive
to yourself and your head. Never give up, you don't use, can't,
and you only speak positively. So in the worst of moments,
he believes anything as possible. And you've never seen the
discipline ever. I mean, this discipline is insane. And that

(29:19):
discipline is where it's like four in the morning and
I'm getting up to run and I'm like, I don't
want to do it, I want to stop.

Speaker 5 (29:24):
I'm like Lewis would get up.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
We give us an example of his discipline.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Lewis's discipline I mean from every morsel of food that
goes into his mouth. But not in a way that
like it's about him. It's just something I have noticed.
I know it from being with him, how specific he
is about everything, certainly his workouts, his intensity around things
that he do. Like play a game with him, you

(29:49):
know he's going to kill you. But the discipline of
just there is no settling and there are no excuses ever.
You know, it's like if he lands at a really
late hour, you are shocked that he is running at
five am and he's you know, and you're like, well,

(30:11):
how many how long did you go?

Speaker 5 (30:13):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
I went nine miles And you're like, you know, you've
had three hours of sleep or whatever it is. And
so he's, you know, just he's so he has to
because he has to be in such good.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
Form to win.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
So in starting with Ferrari this season, he's like, sis,
I want to be in the best shape of my life.
So he's been running all these mountains in Colorado, I
mean hard, hard, and he's just you know, he's committed
to being his best self.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Yeah. I mean it's interesting too.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Just sticking with Lewis and that sport for a second,
it must be such an interesting window for you, not
just into him as an athlete, but into watching that
sporting business just explode as a me America. In America,
it obviously was a global sport. It is really like
leveled up because of what in America. Change everything in

(31:08):
America when you look at something like that, what needs
to happen in women's sports, Well, I.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
Think that's part of it, the media piece.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
But what Drive to Survive did, which was so brilliant,
It personalized all the athletes, and once people got to
know them, they loved them. I mean they already loved
baseball players, and but the America especially didn't know those athletes,
and they went deep on the personalities and the experience
and for a sport that is far away, middle of

(31:38):
the night, all of those things they bonded the audience.
And I think that is coming for women's sports in
a big way.

Speaker 5 (31:46):
Besides the fact.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
That the women are excellent in social media and so
they can curry that kind of influence and use that
to the benefit of the sport in a very different way.

Speaker 5 (31:58):
It's coming and you can just see it.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
I mean you've seen that with the Link.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
I mean, the Links are an incredible brand, in part
because the players are so engaged and they're really good
to I mean, you know they were in the final
there really are.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
I mean we've won four titles, we almost won a fifth.
We lost to the Liberty here in New York. But
everything Melody is saying is exactly right. They're more engaged
in social media. We have a huge following.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
And you can see the interest in the athletes, the
waiting at the locker room, right, you know, the outfits,
the whole thing. The personalities have come through, and I
think that they were always there, but they've broken through
with the media interest in a different way in the
last few years, and that votes very, very well for
all of the sports.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
I do have a question if you don't mind how
transition to place you sit on the show. You sit
on many boards, you know, JP, Morgan, Star, others. I
love the story how you always sit next to Howard Schultz,
who's one of my favorites, and you thought that made
you a better investor. But what makes you or what
makes anybody in the room a good director?

Speaker 5 (33:12):
They ask questions.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I feel very strongly about that great directors and I
worked really hard on this. I always say I want
to go to every board meeting with two original questions,
not rhetorical original, and the questions lead to hopefully breakthrough ideas.
In a boardroom, making statements puts people on the defensive,
especially if they feel somehow you're you know, finger wagging

(33:36):
or suggesting you know better. You're dropping in maybe four
or five times a year, and the people there are
there every single day, so there's nothing worse than they
know it all. And I remember sach an Adella who
said on the Starbucks board saying he wanted to be
a learned at all. So the learn it all asks
a question. You don't presume that you know better and

(33:57):
then asking the question. Oftentimes, first of all, it's not
the first question that matters.

Speaker 5 (34:01):
It's the follow up.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
I always say it's the secondary, intertiary questions that come
from that first question. I think it leads to breakthroughs
in boardrooms. And I've worked with the boardrooms i've been in.
The people are extremely collegial, and the teams that are
the management teams certainly want to win.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
So I have a secondary question, you have a tertiary.
The secondary question is and I love this because I
was never the best student, but I always tried really hard,
and I always thought about how do you hack the system?
While you do your homework, you stay in the front row.
I mean, when you don't have it, you have to
kind of figure it out. My question to you is
why was it so important to sit next to Howard?

(34:43):
And what lessons did you learn from that?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yes, I've told this story that I've been on the
board for twenty years.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
And what are twenty years for?

Speaker 2 (34:51):
That?

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I know, right, it's unbelievable, the stock performance, everything, even
with the bumps along the way, tremendous lesson, great lessons
in both vision and humility. Really amazing, amazing, amazing experience
where I learned so much. But one of the things
I did from the very first board meeting is I
sat to Howard's right in a boardroom.

Speaker 5 (35:14):
Where everyone changes seats all the time. I made it like,
you know at home, you have your chair.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Sure, well that was my chair, even though the board members,
the other board members sat in different seats. So there's
a funny story. Mary Dylan joined our board. She was
running Alta at the time now she runs Footlocker. Great
great person. Her first board.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Meeting, I walk into the boardroom, She's in my chair.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Oh boy, oh.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
And I'm like, and I know Mary from Chicago, Like,
she's in my chair. And so I literally took a chair.
I put it next to Howard and I said, everyone
moved down. Now. Everyone said like why Because one of
the things about sitting next to him that I wanted
to absorb was what did he react to in a
board meeting, and so if someone spoke and said something,

(36:01):
I would note like why is he writing now? Like
what was said that he thought was important? Or how
was he sort of running the meeting? And I literally
felt the closer I could sit to him, the more
I could learn. And it sounds a little creepy, but
I don't. I really For twenty years I sat in
the same seat. Everyone else sat in a different seat. Now,

(36:23):
Howard never knew that until I was giving a speech
introducing him and I said out loud, I said, you know,
I've sat next to him in this board meeting every
single quarter.

Speaker 5 (36:32):
And he suddenly looked at me and he was.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Like, I said, I wanted to be next to the power,
and I wanted to be next to the vision, and
I wanted to learn from it in every conceivable way.

Speaker 5 (36:42):
That I could.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Wow, that is awesome.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know you said something a little while ago about
Jason Wright, and you know that sort of he had
a lot of opportunities, I would imagine, and the Broncos
story that he told is an interesting example of this too.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
A lot comes your way.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
You've been incredibly successful as an investor, as a director,
as an executive.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
When do you say no a lot.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
I've had to get better at that, Okay, Warren Buffett,
we idolize. I know you are very close to him,
and we're Warren Buffett disciples at Ariel and I remember
once reading a story where he talked about what real
wealth is and he said, real wealth is a blank calendar.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Whoa.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
And then my husband, I think some people know I
married Yoda's dad. My husband, Yoda's dad, George does not
take meetings, and any meeting that he wants, it's on
his terms. He doesn't and he's like, you fly around
the world, You're doing all this stuff. Why do you
do that? It's so foreign to him. And he was

(37:46):
the one who taught me, like, the most valuable thing
you have is time.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
That is the most valuable thing.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
And he has a thing on his desk that says
an ounce of gold.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
Won't buy a minute of time. You know it, just it.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
You know, time is the most valuable thing. I think
people I've come to believe people overvalue money and undervalue time.
And so as a result of that, while there are
tremendous opportunities that have come to me. And remember I
grew up with nothing, nothing, youngest of six evicted, phone
could disconnected, lights turned off. I mean, everything you can

(38:22):
imagine happened to me as a child, and that probably
led to the hunger and drive that I have in
a major, major way. So I wouldn't be me if
the bad things hadn't happened. But one of the things
about that is I don't take any of these opportunities
for granted. I have never been one of these people
with swagger. I really I am. I have sat in

(38:44):
a Starbucks board meeting for twenty years and still felt
such gratitude to be there. Not that I didn't belong there,
that's a different thing, but such appreciation for the opportunity
that I was given. And I think when it goes
to saying no, then I know how much I lean
into things. And because I am an all or nothing

(39:07):
kind of person, as I said earlier, go big or
go home, I can't say yes to everything because I
can't do it that way. You know in the spinal
tap they have that line the dial goes to eleven.
I kind of live at eleven, and so if you
live at eleven, you could burn yourself out really badly
and really fast if you don't control so I had

(39:29):
to learn no. And I love this quote. If you
can't decide, the answer is no. Anything I keep pondering,
I'm like, it's no. If I can't make it should
be an instant decision or I know in my heart
I shouldn't be doing it.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
So, Melie, you mentioned Warren Buffett, I've been such an
enormous beneficiary of great mentorship and friends. My father wasn't around.
He left us when I was ten, left my siblings.
Similar story too. As I resonate with your story as
being evicted and food stamps and all of that, and
I think it's helped me with my grit and my
determination threw my ups and downs. You mentioned in an

(40:06):
interview that I saw a while ago about one of
your mentors, Bill Bradley, the NBA Hall of Famer, and
he mentioned to you as tough advice. I thought it
was real advice is you don't want to be a
ball hog. Can you explain to our audience what that
means and why he said that?

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yes, so Bill is very important to me. He's really
become a surrogate father. He walked me down the aisle
when I got married. There's that's a whole another story.
I met him when I was seventeen years old and
trying to decide between going to Princeton and Harvard, and
because of Bill, I went to Princeton. Wow, and how
he took an interest in me. And John Rogers went

(40:42):
to Princeton as well, of course, And I've graduated from
college and I would go and visit Bill at his office.
And I'm in his office one day and he says,
you know, Melody, if you're not careful, you're going to
be a ballhog. And it's just like he just says
this to me straight. And I remember sitting there and
I'm maybe twenty three years old, and I'm saying to

(41:03):
myself in my head, don't cry, because I wanted to cry.
And I was like, if you cry, he's never going
to say anything about like this to you again. Don't cry.
So I'm telling myself not to cry. I'm trying to
be very curious. I'm having a conversation in my head
saying he loves you, do not be offended.

Speaker 5 (41:23):
What is he trying to tell you?

Speaker 1 (41:24):
And he says, you know, you could suck the oxygen
out of a room if you're not careful, And I
was like okay, He's like, and so we want to,
you know, you want to think about how you can
you be a you know, whole and thoughtful person. I said, well,
how do I do that? He says, I don't know,
So he just throws it back at me. And so

(41:46):
I'm sitting there thinking, what is he seeing me? Why
is he saying this? You know that corner of thing.
I know he loves me, what is he thinking? So
I get to the street, falling.

Speaker 5 (41:56):
On the street crying. Don't cry yet, No, I don't
cry in front of him.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I've cried in front of him plenty of times, but
not in that one. Go down to the bottom of
the street, I'm crying, and I'm like, okay, what is
he telling me?

Speaker 5 (42:10):
And what could I do to not be what he's
saying I could be?

Speaker 1 (42:16):
And so I decided at that moment that I would always,
in every encounter take an interest in the other person first,
to take all of the energy off of myself. So
if you have spent any time with me, and you have,
I will ask you so many questions about your two.

Speaker 5 (42:33):
Girls, or about your life.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Or anything like that, so I can invest in the
other in person and they don't feel that I am
sucking up the oxygen in the room. People appreciate you
taking an interest in them. So it is it is authentic.
It is not some tactic and is not a manipulation.
For me, I learned so much from I mean, it
could be the person who picks me up in the lobby,

(42:55):
going to someone's office.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
How long have you worked here? Where do you live?
Out of school?

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Where did you go? I mean lots of things like that.
People really do like you taking an interest in them,
and you learn stuff. And so that pushing me in
that moment really changed how I show up for people,
and it led to my whole belief about asking questions
instead of making statements.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
All right, so we're going to end up by asking
you some questions rapid fire, so we'll bounce it back
and forth.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
What's one word to describe your deal making.

Speaker 5 (43:40):
Stuff long term?

Speaker 3 (43:43):
What's more important? Your gut or data?

Speaker 5 (43:46):
Gut?

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Who's your dream deal making partner?

Speaker 5 (43:49):
Jason?

Speaker 4 (43:51):
Jason? Who?

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Right?

Speaker 3 (43:54):
We have?

Speaker 5 (43:59):
He said deal?

Speaker 3 (44:01):
I mean maybe i'd made deal.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
The besting is John on tops of public Companies?

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Okay, melody.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
Question number four, What is the best piece of advice
you've ever received? On deal making or business.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Don't ever make an important decision based upon money.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
What's the worst advice you've ever been given?

Speaker 5 (44:18):
Make yourself seen or heard.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
There's a good one. You're ready for this one. What's
your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?

Speaker 5 (44:25):
I will survive.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
What's the most important trait you look for in a
board member?

Speaker 5 (44:32):
Ethics, smarts and.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Team player? Timplayer They can get along with the other
people in the room.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
You can only watch one sport for the rest of
your life. Which one is it?

Speaker 5 (44:44):
F one?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Whoa Okay, that's the first time we've gotten that.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
What team do you want to see win a championship
more than any mine? Whichever one that may be. Because
now you've got a few.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
This has been incre Thank you for having me a.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (45:15):
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 Mazarakis, Lizzie Phillip, and
Stacey Wong. Original music and engineering by Blake Maples. David E.
Ravella is our managing editor. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,

(45:37):
Brendan Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Andrew Barden, Kelly Leferrier,
and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head of Podcasts.
Special thanks to Rachel Carnivali, Elena Los Angeles, Nick Silva,
Adrian Descano, Stephen Craig, Mark Dawson, Jennifer Yelverton, Micah Rondo,

(45:58):
Stephen Fossberg, Patrick Karn's, Billy Church and Blackhouse. Rubob Shakir
is our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler.
Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Camera Operation by
Crystal Jefferson and Holly Fisher. Listen to The Deal on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You

(46:22):
can also tune into the Video Companion on Bloomberg Originals
and on Bloomberg TV. Thanks for listening.
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