November 4, 2025 • 21 mins
In this special bonus episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly hop on the mic to talk about the thrilling seven-game World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. They discuss why it was the best World Series Rodriguez has ever seen, how Dodgers owner Mark Walter's vision and checkbook have fueled the team, and why they see potential for a Dodgers three-peat next year. The hosts also talk about the premiere of the new HBO documentary series, "Alex vs. A-Rod," and the lessons Rodriguez hopes younger athletes learn from his mistakes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi everyone, welcome back to the DAL. I'm Jason Kelly
alongside Alex Rodriguez. This is a special edition, not your
scheduled programming here, but we had to get together Alex
to talk about the World Series. You were there, You
saw it all unfold. I was watching on TV and candidly,
there were a lot of people watching this. I want
to break it down with you. Get the perspective from you,
(00:36):
know you as a broadcaster, you was obviously a former
All Star and also as a team owner because this
is a juggernaut of a business in the back to
back champion Los Angeles Dodgers, and also a really great
moment it feels like for baseball.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So give me your top line thoughts.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, what did it feel like to watch this
end up in the two best words in sports?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Game seven? You were there? What did it feel like?
Speaker 4 (01:02):
And even better than Game seven? Game seven of a
World series? Right, yeah, which is incredible. First of all,
it was the most incredible event. It was the best
World Series I've ever seen in my fifty years. You
had three countries heavily viewing, heavily involved with the US
Canada and Japan.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, you can.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Make an argument that the Jays outplayed them in every
facet of the game. But somehow, in order to be
a champion, you got to know, knock out the champion.
And the Dodgers just simply don't make mistakes. Yeah, and
they don't make it in a three dimensional level, right,
They don't make it at the Mark Walter level with
the ownership. They don't make it at the Andrew Friedman
who runs you know, baseball operations for them. And Dave
(01:41):
Roberts just had one of the most magnificent I told
him on air and then off air again, is there
is the third Championship as a manager. This is by
far the best master Classes ever put on. It was
the most anti script world series we've seen in over
ten years, meaning he did things that were unconventional. It
was an old school style. Let pitchers pitch up to
one hundred and twenty pitchers. Obviously Yama Moto pitchers Game two,
(02:04):
six and seven, you've never seen. You had four starters
pitch for the Dodgers. They made a combined one point
four billion dollars in contracts, and ironically is the guy
that's basically making the minimum in Rojas who hits the
home run, and then you have you Savage on the
other side, the young pitchers twenty two years old, also
making the minimum. He started his season in Dunedin. So
(02:26):
what makes it great about baseball?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Jason? Sorry to geek out here, but you know how
much I love baseball is that I like basketball.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Unlike basketball and football, where you know the ball is
going to be in Tom Brady's hand throwing to his
favorite receiver or in basketball as Michael Jordan or Steph Curry,
in baseball, you have no idea who the next hero
is going to be, and we saw exactly that in
this series.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, and it's interesting too because you know, you came
up in an age of baseball where it was a
star driven league.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You were one of those stars.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It feels like baseball has been lacking some of that
up until the last couple of years. And this series
was really a showcase. I mean a showcase. Pun intended
was sho hey O Tani obviously doing things on the
baseball field that literally have never been done before, and
yet he doesn't even end up as the MVP.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yamamoto does.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think it's fair to say that had the Blue
Jays one Vladimir Guerrero Junior, which obviously would have been
the MVP. So the starmaking aspect, which ultimately is very
important to the bottom line of this sport, I think
you would agree, was really on display in a way
that we haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Does that track with you?
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You're one hundred percent right, Jason. The other thing is
like covering this with Fox in the pre and posts,
with Kevin Burkhard and Derek Jeter and Big Poppy. It
was like the most delicious, most tasty, five star dinner
you can have. There was so much to talk about.
I have a longtime producer who's a dear friend of
mine who always said, the key to a big world
series or big you know sports is the three s's, superstars,
(03:59):
strategy and storylines. And just had it in abundance all three.
You had the biggest stars in the world, right, You
had incredible strategy, the stuff that was going on it
was like chess, three dimensional, and then the storylines.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Was just incredible. And what makes baseball so unique unlike
a Super Bowl.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
It's like a movie and it's a big time movie
with Tom Cruise or you name your star. What's great
about baseball in a seven game series? It's like a
seven episode docu series where you're investing in the characters
and the storylines and the injuries, and so you must
watch that Game of Thrones. Game seven is the final,
the finality. Yeah, And it's everything that leads up to
(04:38):
that that makes it so like romantic and like I
just walked out from our practice the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Timberwolves here in New York, and I.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Had every guy come up to me, goes, I've never
watched a down of baseball, but I got to tell you,
I couldn't take my eyes off the thing. And when
we were flying, we had like the whole team in
this little TV just watching the games. It was a transformational, great, great,
great moment for baseball.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know, obviously you look at this through the lens
of being a broadcaster. Now twenty six million people tune
into Fox peak of thirty one million, I believe, give
or take. In Game seven, I have to think that
the bosses at Fox had big smiles on their faces
as you were walking around and traveling with them, because
(05:23):
it wasn't a given. Fox doesn't show in Canada, and
so the Blue Jays that at least coming into it
is not an optimal situation, and yet the numbers still delivered.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What do you make of that?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, you could make an argument, and I'm not sure
how the Fox executives felt, but any TV executive will say, boy,
I wish it's two American teams.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So we can get both markets. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
For example, you mentioned that thirty one point five at
the peak for Game seven, which was about eleven forty
when things got a little dicey there. If that was
the Yankees, for example, that thirty one will probably jump
to like forty five, right, because all of New York.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
So the fact that you got thirty one to five
is the highest rating since twenty seventeen when the Dodgers
played the Astros. And that doesn't include you know, Canada,
that include Japan. It's just a magnificent number. They were thrilled.
They were thrilled, to say the least. And you had
the best two teams playing the best style of baseball.
And in many ways, Jason, the last ten years, the
(06:20):
game of baseball that we all fell in love with
had been taken away from us. And what I mean
by that is they were scripting these scripts at ten
o'clock in the morning to do something at ten o'clock.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
At night, and it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah, when you saw Dave Roberts and John Schneider, both
managers were brilliant here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
They were brilliant.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
They were doing things unconventional in real time, whether it's
starting Rojas or whether it's you know, Benching their center fielder.
And then he comes in and makes the catch of
the century as he runs over Keika Hernandez Pahes and
it was just incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Stuff you saw is just you fell.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
In love with just staying on the numbers for a second.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So you have that that twenty six million were for
the US, you have another you know, ten or eleven
in Canada, which, by the way, based on the population
of Canada, essentially one in four Canadians were watching this,
which is wild. We haven't seen numbers around any event
in television maybe bar the Super Bowl in forever. I mean,
(07:18):
that's insane. And then the Japan of it all. We
all have sort of friends and colleagues who've been to Japan.
It's Dodger Mania over there, obviously, between Otani, Yamamoto and
other players who are sort of coming through the American system.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It was an actual World Series.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It really was.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
And again it had a little bit of an Olympics
feel because when you know the Canadians, there's such a
fantastic job of the pregame ceremonies was just wild. They
would pull out the beautiful red Canadian flag and it
would start all the way in center field and it
would end up at home played, and it was I
get goosebumps talking about it now, Like you first go
with the national anthem and that was beautiful, and then
(07:59):
that stops. And then and I'm telling you, you had
fifty thousand people singing every word of the Canadian It
felt more than baseball.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And look, we're in the world today.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
That's kind of very spicy between political stuff arrosts, which
I'm not going to get into, but you certainly felt.
And you think about this, Jason, if you're the Canadians
and you're you have one team, one country, first time
in the history of Canada as far as Major League
Baseball that even in ninety two when the Blue Jays
won ninety two and ninety three, you still had the
(08:29):
Montreal Expos that were really really good at that time.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
This is one country, one team.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
So you had forty one million people Canadians cheering for
one team, and they would have gone through our two
Tiffany blue Blood franchises, the New York Yankees and the
LA Dodgers. My god, how sweet would they have tasted?
And they literally tasted it. I've never seen a game
six and a game seven both end on a double play,
(08:55):
the most radical double playing Game six with a time
run on third. It was just you know, watch TV.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well and it's funny, you know, we keep talking about
you know, it went seven games. I mean, it went
almost nine games when you figure in all you know,
I mean the fact there was an eighteen inning game
that's the equivalent of two games right there, and then
extra innings to boot. All right, So put on your
owner's hat. You and your partner, Mark Lori owned the
Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Link at which everybody who's
listening to this probably knows. But I know you have
(09:23):
a lot of admiration for Mark Walter and his group.
Magic Johnson being you know, one of the owners. You
talked to him on the postgame show on Fox. As
you're thinking about this from an ownership perspective, what do
you take away, how does this inform your playbook as
an owner?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's all people.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I mean when Mark Walter, I remember, you know, over
a decade ago, Jays, I'm sure you remember when he
paid two point two billion. Mark Walter was a laughing
stock of the market. Yeah, can you pay so much money?
You overpaid?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Da da da.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
But what he knew more than anybody is that he
had two hundred and fifty million dollars a year coming
for basically the next twenty years from the TV contract. Acentually,
what you're looking at is NFL economics that just happens
to have been the mob umbrella. And the fact that
they're the first team ever in Major League Baseball sports
(10:11):
to go over a billion dollars in gross revenue. It's
really a remarkable feat. But it's all people. I mean,
look at look at the people they have. And I
break it down.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Into three layers.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You have Mark Walters, you have Todd Bowley, you have
Peter Gouber, you have standcasting, Lonrosen, Magic Johnson, and then
you go Andrew Friedman, who's you know, came from Tampa,
did wonderful things there. And then on the field you
have Dave Roberts and you have a world class roster.
I mean, it's hard not to get it right with
so much talent in the room. And what Mark Walter's
(10:40):
done better than anyone is he has a big vision.
Obviously he has deep pockets, but he's wonderful at bringing
the best people in the world to surround him and
then have a balance between you know, analytics and humans,
and he does that better than anyone.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's also funny to think about, you know, in your
in your relatively new job as an NBA owner.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I'm sure you're looking that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
On the one hand, you have a lot of admiration
for him as the owner of the Dodgers. On the
other hand, you're looking and said, oh, wait, now he
owns the Lakers, right so right and right there at
the Western Conference.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So maybe that's coming a little closer to home as
you go. So one of the things that does sort
of stick in my mind. And I'm not the first
person to say this.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Is baseball.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's doing great. The numbers bear it out. You know,
some brilliant moves with the pitch clock. Obviously you think
about that eighteen in the game. Can you imagine how
long that would have been without the pitch. I mean
they'd still be playing it right now. Yeah, so great moment.
And yet you and I both know CBA expires next December,
(11:45):
just over a year from now.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
How worried are you.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Not to put too fine a point on it that
baseball could just like blow this again and and sort
of squander this moment of increased popularity.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It'sunny you see commissioners go through evan flows of like
popularities and all that, and you know Rob went through
a hard time. I personally think Rob Manford, our commissioner,
I think he gives too much of a hard time.
He's just a real guy, very honest, doesn't really play
the political game, and in some ways that's hurt him.
And I actually think what he's done over the last
five years, I mean, he should be on his way
(12:21):
to the Hall of Fame because he really saved the
game of baseball with the clock, the bases and just
implementing these things and make the game a lot more
progressive and more fun to watch. This has been such
an extraordinary year and has taken us over ten years
to get this moment back, to get baseball back, to
bring back starting pitching, to bring back, strategy, to bring back.
(12:41):
We had more hit and runs and buns in this
series in the last five or seven combined. I hope
that between Tony Clark, who's very capable, and Rob Manford,
that they figure out a way not to strike or
have any work stoppage, because when you have everybody in
the game talking about baseball, this is the time to
add on that to subtract.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, well, Tony Clark, of course the head of the PA,
well regarded ahead of the PA.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I mean there's a lot of work to do, you know.
I mean there's talk of, you know, potential expansion, you know,
in the next couple of years. Obviously, the media deals,
which you're very familiar with, you know, that continues to
be a challenge because, as you mentioned earlier in the conversation,
the Dodgers have that incredible TV deal.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Not every team has that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Because it doesn't Baseball doesn't have the national deals that
some of the other leagues have.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So I am so excited about baseball.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I of course want the Atlanta Braves to be a
little bit better, but I do worry a little bit
because we've seen it go away before and we've also
seen and you mentioned the last ten years. I remember
back to the nineties when there was the work stoppage
and how long it took to sort of get people back.
You know, the Yankees obviously had a lot to do
with it. But it's interesting since you played for the
(13:56):
New York Yankees to think about the Dodgers now being
I mean, they are what the Yankees were, you know,
back to back champions. I believe the last team to
do it was the Yankees. They've got a target on
their backs. But you know they're the odds on favorite.
I mean, they could three peat. They are an absolute
juggernaut right now.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, I mean, just to equo a little bit what
you're saying that this has only happened when I mean
repeat right, like what the Dodgers just accomplished, It's happened
twice in the last forty six years to your point,
the Yankees ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand three p
and then before that it was the Blue Jays two
and ninety three. It is very difficult to do, but
the Dodgers are not going anywhere. The New York Yankees
(14:37):
had a lock on the top franchise and on the
game probably for about a century, one hundred years, and
for the first time you can actually say, without a doubt,
the Dodgers have now taken over that position and they're
only getting stronger.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
A little bit more bad news if you're not a
Dodger fan.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They have the number one farm system in baseball, they
have the number one pitching farm system in baseball, and
they have the number one hitting that yeah, nothing's going well.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean it's crazy, and it's also crazy to
think about, you know, the deals that they've done in
the past few years. You know, obviously Otani is the
one that everybody will point to, but you think about
Freddie Freeman, a key role that he played in this series.
Mookie Betts was you know, somewhat quiet, but you know
there he was helping make the very last out to
secure the championship. So, I mean, these are marquee players.
(15:23):
And again I go back to this idea because you
and I both know this, stars are really important and
sort of these name brand stars that baseball didn't have
for a long time they have now.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Jayson want to I want to make one quick point,
just to put a button on this. You know, I
get often asked by a lot of folks, you know,
where should I invest my money? You know, you have
all the big obviously, you have the big four, right, NFL, NBA,
and will be NHL, and then you have all the
secondary ones like pick a ball and volleyball. But I've
always said the NHL has been on a honeymoon here.
(15:56):
They've been up like twenty seven percent over the last
few years. NFL the monster that just keeps on giving.
NBA has been on fire. And what I mean by
that is some of these multiples have gone from NBA,
NFL anywhere from you know, eleven to like eighteen times
just top line revenue. Right, Baseball is the one sport
that's gone up about three or four percent. So when
(16:17):
I talk to investors, I've always been a contrarian. I
think the actually the best asset to buy right now
is to invest in the mob baseball because you have
the uncertainty of the work stoppage. You have a lot
of uncertainties, a lot of headwinds, you know. So I
think if you're an investor, you can look at a
Major League baseball team at a six or seven time
multiple and there's some real value there. There's a value
(16:40):
buy and you haven't seen this in sports in the
last seven or eight years.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see sort of who
emerges next year as we think about next season. You know,
it wasn't that long ago that it looked like, you know,
one of the teams that was going to make it
all the way was the much lower payroll Milwaukee Brewers.
Our friend Mark out Anaco obviously as stewarded that club
very well. That they did not make it all the way,
and we'll sort of see how the economics continue to change.
(17:15):
All right, So, speaking of stars, you came back from
doing that. You're here in New York this week and
premiering a documentary series, Alex Versus a Rod. I got
to be with you at the premiere. Congratulations. I would
say two things, Congratulations and whoe beast.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean, it is it's intense. How are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
You know, some nervousness, some anxiety is definitely triggering. I
talk about a lot of difficult, intimate things in this
documentary on HBO Alex Versus a Rod.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I think people are going to be very surprised.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I think you're gonna expect one thing and see another
as you saw in the first episode, and I really
dive into the mental health part of things and how
that affects and I think we the great Mike Francessa
who's a legendary sports radio icon here in New York
for the last almost forty years.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He had a great line in.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
It where he said, you know, a rod is a
Shakespearean figure, and he's a very flawed man, or he
was a very flawed man.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And I thought that was spot on.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
And then I talk about my therapy and what I
did about being that flawed man and all of that,
and is a human story and that human just happened
to play baseball, is not a baseball story with a
guy that had issues. So and my hope is that
the next generation of athletes or young people out there
like our kids, can take some of my mistakes, learn
(18:36):
from them, and hopefully avoid them and move up to
the front of the line.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, it was quite an experience to be in that
room with you know a lot of other friends and
friends and family, and you know, notable folks showing up
to show their support. Tom Brady, Michael Strahan among them,
Constant Swartz, Marini, a lot of people who who have
been in and around the deal cinematic universes, I like
to say, and obviously you have been key figures in
your life, your family, your daughters, you know, your brother
(19:02):
and sister, your mom, you know, everybody sort of sort
of in the room.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, you and I are closed. It was intense.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It was intense to sort of sit there with you
and and sort of take all that in. So congratulations
on that. I'm excited for the world to see it
and again excited to be your partner in this. So
thank you for putting that out into the world. Congratulations
on another baseball season in the books. It was fun
to watch you on TV and you guys were obviously
having a lot of fun doing it, and it's great
(19:30):
to see baseball. You know, we talk all the time
on this show about this intersection of business, sports and culture.
I don't know that I've seen baseball feel as much
a part of the culture as it does right now
in a long time, to your point, like ten twenty years,
you know, going back to you know, probably when you
guys were winning World Series in you know, fifteen twenty
years ago.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah, two things to close here, Jason is one, this
World Series had a feel like when you guys won
the Atlanta Braves, I mean in the mid nineties, right
ninety five, and then you go to the Braves and
you go twins and you had some of.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The Blue Jays.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
It just felt like an old school series and it
reminded us all why we fell in love with baseball,
and it was very It had the resemblance of those
feelings we had when we were all younger, and that's
great for baseball. The second part in closing, I'm really
looking forward to what you think about. But I'm even
thinking about more where your mom's gonna think about the documentary,
(20:26):
and I would love to hear what she thinks.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Oh my god, the Debbie Kelly review will be an
honest and for both one, I believe. So just maybe
we'll have to book some time in Atlanta for that one.
All right, thank you so much for listening to the Deal.
We will see you next time. The Deal is hosted
(20:54):
by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was
made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Phillip Amy. Kean is
our editor and Will Connolly is our video editor. Our
theme music is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers
are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brenda neonham Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel
(21:16):
Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks so much for listening
to the deal. If you have a minute, subscribe, rate
and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us.
I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi everyone, welcome back to the DAL. I'm Jason Kelly
alongside Alex Rodriguez. This is a special edition, not your
scheduled programming here, but we had to get together Alex
to talk about the World Series. You were there, You
saw it all unfold. I was watching on TV and candidly,
there were a lot of people watching this. I want
to break it down with you. Get the perspective from you,
(00:36):
know you as a broadcaster, you was obviously a former
All Star and also as a team owner because this
is a juggernaut of a business in the back to
back champion Los Angeles Dodgers, and also a really great
moment it feels like for baseball.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So give me your top line thoughts.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You know, what did it feel like to watch this
end up in the two best words in sports?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Game seven? You were there? What did it feel like?
Speaker 4 (01:02):
And even better than Game seven? Game seven of a
World series? Right, yeah, which is incredible. First of all,
it was the most incredible event. It was the best
World Series I've ever seen in my fifty years. You
had three countries heavily viewing, heavily involved with the US
Canada and Japan.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, you can.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Make an argument that the Jays outplayed them in every
facet of the game. But somehow, in order to be
a champion, you got to know, knock out the champion.
And the Dodgers just simply don't make mistakes. Yeah, and
they don't make it in a three dimensional level, right,
They don't make it at the Mark Walter level with
the ownership. They don't make it at the Andrew Friedman
who runs you know, baseball operations for them. And Dave
(01:41):
Roberts just had one of the most magnificent I told
him on air and then off air again, is there
is the third Championship as a manager. This is by
far the best master Classes ever put on. It was
the most anti script world series we've seen in over
ten years, meaning he did things that were unconventional. It
was an old school style. Let pitchers pitch up to
one hundred and twenty pitchers. Obviously Yama Moto pitchers Game two,
(02:04):
six and seven, you've never seen. You had four starters
pitch for the Dodgers. They made a combined one point
four billion dollars in contracts, and ironically is the guy
that's basically making the minimum in Rojas who hits the
home run, and then you have you Savage on the
other side, the young pitchers twenty two years old, also
making the minimum. He started his season in Dunedin. So
(02:26):
what makes it great about baseball?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Jason? Sorry to geek out here, but you know how
much I love baseball is that I like basketball.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Unlike basketball and football, where you know the ball is
going to be in Tom Brady's hand throwing to his
favorite receiver or in basketball as Michael Jordan or Steph Curry,
in baseball, you have no idea who the next hero
is going to be, and we saw exactly that in
this series.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Well, and it's interesting too because you know, you came
up in an age of baseball where it was a
star driven league.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
You were one of those stars.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It feels like baseball has been lacking some of that
up until the last couple of years. And this series
was really a showcase. I mean a showcase. Pun intended
was sho hey O Tani obviously doing things on the
baseball field that literally have never been done before, and
yet he doesn't even end up as the MVP.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yamamoto does.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think it's fair to say that had the Blue
Jays one Vladimir Guerrero Junior, which obviously would have been
the MVP. So the starmaking aspect, which ultimately is very
important to the bottom line of this sport, I think
you would agree, was really on display in a way
that we haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Does that track with you?
Speaker 4 (03:36):
You're one hundred percent right, Jason. The other thing is
like covering this with Fox in the pre and posts,
with Kevin Burkhard and Derek Jeter and Big Poppy. It
was like the most delicious, most tasty, five star dinner
you can have. There was so much to talk about.
I have a longtime producer who's a dear friend of
mine who always said, the key to a big world
series or big you know sports is the three s's, superstars,
(03:59):
strategy and storylines. And just had it in abundance all three.
You had the biggest stars in the world, right, You
had incredible strategy, the stuff that was going on it
was like chess, three dimensional, and then the storylines.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Was just incredible. And what makes baseball so unique unlike
a Super Bowl.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
It's like a movie and it's a big time movie
with Tom Cruise or you name your star. What's great
about baseball in a seven game series? It's like a
seven episode docu series where you're investing in the characters
and the storylines and the injuries, and so you must
watch that Game of Thrones. Game seven is the final,
the finality. Yeah, And it's everything that leads up to
(04:38):
that that makes it so like romantic and like I
just walked out from our practice the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Timberwolves here in New York, and I.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Had every guy come up to me, goes, I've never
watched a down of baseball, but I got to tell you,
I couldn't take my eyes off the thing. And when
we were flying, we had like the whole team in
this little TV just watching the games. It was a transformational, great, great,
great moment for baseball.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know, obviously you look at this through the lens
of being a broadcaster. Now twenty six million people tune
into Fox peak of thirty one million, I believe, give
or take. In Game seven, I have to think that
the bosses at Fox had big smiles on their faces
as you were walking around and traveling with them, because
(05:23):
it wasn't a given. Fox doesn't show in Canada, and
so the Blue Jays that at least coming into it
is not an optimal situation, and yet the numbers still delivered.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What do you make of that?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, you could make an argument, and I'm not sure
how the Fox executives felt, but any TV executive will say, boy,
I wish it's two American teams.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So we can get both markets. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
For example, you mentioned that thirty one point five at
the peak for Game seven, which was about eleven forty
when things got a little dicey there. If that was
the Yankees, for example, that thirty one will probably jump
to like forty five, right, because all of New York.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
So the fact that you got thirty one to five
is the highest rating since twenty seventeen when the Dodgers
played the Astros. And that doesn't include you know, Canada,
that include Japan. It's just a magnificent number. They were thrilled.
They were thrilled, to say the least. And you had
the best two teams playing the best style of baseball.
And in many ways, Jason, the last ten years, the
(06:20):
game of baseball that we all fell in love with
had been taken away from us. And what I mean
by that is they were scripting these scripts at ten
o'clock in the morning to do something at ten o'clock.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
At night, and it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah, when you saw Dave Roberts and John Schneider, both
managers were brilliant here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
They were brilliant.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
They were doing things unconventional in real time, whether it's
starting Rojas or whether it's you know, Benching their center fielder.
And then he comes in and makes the catch of
the century as he runs over Keika Hernandez Pahes and
it was just incredible.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Stuff you saw is just you fell.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
In love with just staying on the numbers for a second.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So you have that that twenty six million were for
the US, you have another you know, ten or eleven
in Canada, which, by the way, based on the population
of Canada, essentially one in four Canadians were watching this,
which is wild. We haven't seen numbers around any event
in television maybe bar the Super Bowl in forever. I mean,
(07:18):
that's insane. And then the Japan of it all. We
all have sort of friends and colleagues who've been to Japan.
It's Dodger Mania over there, obviously, between Otani, Yamamoto and
other players who are sort of coming through the American system.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It was an actual World Series.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It really was.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
And again it had a little bit of an Olympics
feel because when you know the Canadians, there's such a
fantastic job of the pregame ceremonies was just wild. They
would pull out the beautiful red Canadian flag and it
would start all the way in center field and it
would end up at home played, and it was I
get goosebumps talking about it now, Like you first go
with the national anthem and that was beautiful, and then
(07:59):
that stops. And then and I'm telling you, you had
fifty thousand people singing every word of the Canadian It
felt more than baseball.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And look, we're in the world today.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
That's kind of very spicy between political stuff arrosts, which
I'm not going to get into, but you certainly felt.
And you think about this, Jason, if you're the Canadians
and you're you have one team, one country, first time
in the history of Canada as far as Major League
Baseball that even in ninety two when the Blue Jays
won ninety two and ninety three, you still had the
(08:29):
Montreal Expos that were really really good at that time.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
This is one country, one team.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
So you had forty one million people Canadians cheering for
one team, and they would have gone through our two
Tiffany blue Blood franchises, the New York Yankees and the
LA Dodgers. My god, how sweet would they have tasted?
And they literally tasted it. I've never seen a game
six and a game seven both end on a double play,
(08:55):
the most radical double playing Game six with a time
run on third. It was just you know, watch TV.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well and it's funny, you know, we keep talking about
you know, it went seven games. I mean, it went
almost nine games when you figure in all you know,
I mean the fact there was an eighteen inning game
that's the equivalent of two games right there, and then
extra innings to boot. All right, So put on your
owner's hat. You and your partner, Mark Lori owned the
Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Link at which everybody who's
listening to this probably knows. But I know you have
(09:23):
a lot of admiration for Mark Walter and his group.
Magic Johnson being you know, one of the owners. You
talked to him on the postgame show on Fox. As
you're thinking about this from an ownership perspective, what do
you take away, how does this inform your playbook as
an owner?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's all people.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
I mean when Mark Walter, I remember, you know, over
a decade ago, Jays, I'm sure you remember when he
paid two point two billion. Mark Walter was a laughing
stock of the market. Yeah, can you pay so much money?
You overpaid?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Da da da.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
But what he knew more than anybody is that he
had two hundred and fifty million dollars a year coming
for basically the next twenty years from the TV contract. Acentually,
what you're looking at is NFL economics that just happens
to have been the mob umbrella. And the fact that
they're the first team ever in Major League Baseball sports
(10:11):
to go over a billion dollars in gross revenue. It's
really a remarkable feat. But it's all people. I mean,
look at look at the people they have. And I
break it down.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Into three layers.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You have Mark Walters, you have Todd Bowley, you have
Peter Gouber, you have standcasting, Lonrosen, Magic Johnson, and then
you go Andrew Friedman, who's you know, came from Tampa,
did wonderful things there. And then on the field you
have Dave Roberts and you have a world class roster.
I mean, it's hard not to get it right with
so much talent in the room. And what Mark Walter's
(10:40):
done better than anyone is he has a big vision.
Obviously he has deep pockets, but he's wonderful at bringing
the best people in the world to surround him and
then have a balance between you know, analytics and humans,
and he does that better than anyone.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's also funny to think about, you know, in your
in your relatively new job as an NBA owner.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I'm sure you're looking that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
On the one hand, you have a lot of admiration
for him as the owner of the Dodgers. On the
other hand, you're looking and said, oh, wait, now he
owns the Lakers, right so right and right there at
the Western Conference.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
So maybe that's coming a little closer to home as
you go. So one of the things that does sort
of stick in my mind. And I'm not the first
person to say this.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Is baseball.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's doing great. The numbers bear it out. You know,
some brilliant moves with the pitch clock. Obviously you think
about that eighteen in the game. Can you imagine how
long that would have been without the pitch. I mean
they'd still be playing it right now. Yeah, so great moment.
And yet you and I both know CBA expires next December,
(11:45):
just over a year from now.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
How worried are you.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Not to put too fine a point on it that
baseball could just like blow this again and and sort
of squander this moment of increased popularity.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It'sunny you see commissioners go through evan flows of like
popularities and all that, and you know Rob went through
a hard time. I personally think Rob Manford, our commissioner,
I think he gives too much of a hard time.
He's just a real guy, very honest, doesn't really play
the political game, and in some ways that's hurt him.
And I actually think what he's done over the last
five years, I mean, he should be on his way
(12:21):
to the Hall of Fame because he really saved the
game of baseball with the clock, the bases and just
implementing these things and make the game a lot more
progressive and more fun to watch. This has been such
an extraordinary year and has taken us over ten years
to get this moment back, to get baseball back, to
bring back starting pitching, to bring back, strategy, to bring back.
(12:41):
We had more hit and runs and buns in this
series in the last five or seven combined. I hope
that between Tony Clark, who's very capable, and Rob Manford,
that they figure out a way not to strike or
have any work stoppage, because when you have everybody in
the game talking about baseball, this is the time to
add on that to subtract.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, well, Tony Clark, of course the head of the PA,
well regarded ahead of the PA.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I mean there's a lot of work to do, you know.
I mean there's talk of, you know, potential expansion, you know,
in the next couple of years. Obviously, the media deals,
which you're very familiar with, you know, that continues to
be a challenge because, as you mentioned earlier in the conversation,
the Dodgers have that incredible TV deal.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Not every team has that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Because it doesn't Baseball doesn't have the national deals that
some of the other leagues have.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So I am so excited about baseball.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I of course want the Atlanta Braves to be a
little bit better, but I do worry a little bit
because we've seen it go away before and we've also
seen and you mentioned the last ten years. I remember
back to the nineties when there was the work stoppage
and how long it took to sort of get people back.
You know, the Yankees obviously had a lot to do
with it. But it's interesting since you played for the
(13:56):
New York Yankees to think about the Dodgers now being
I mean, they are what the Yankees were, you know,
back to back champions. I believe the last team to
do it was the Yankees. They've got a target on
their backs. But you know they're the odds on favorite.
I mean, they could three peat. They are an absolute
juggernaut right now.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, I mean, just to equo a little bit what
you're saying that this has only happened when I mean
repeat right, like what the Dodgers just accomplished, It's happened
twice in the last forty six years to your point,
the Yankees ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand three p
and then before that it was the Blue Jays two
and ninety three. It is very difficult to do, but
the Dodgers are not going anywhere. The New York Yankees
(14:37):
had a lock on the top franchise and on the
game probably for about a century, one hundred years, and
for the first time you can actually say, without a doubt,
the Dodgers have now taken over that position and they're
only getting stronger.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
A little bit more bad news if you're not a
Dodger fan.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They have the number one farm system in baseball, they
have the number one pitching farm system in baseball, and
they have the number one hitting that yeah, nothing's going well.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, I mean it's crazy, and it's also crazy to
think about, you know, the deals that they've done in
the past few years. You know, obviously Otani is the
one that everybody will point to, but you think about
Freddie Freeman, a key role that he played in this series.
Mookie Betts was you know, somewhat quiet, but you know
there he was helping make the very last out to
secure the championship. So, I mean, these are marquee players.
(15:23):
And again I go back to this idea because you
and I both know this, stars are really important and
sort of these name brand stars that baseball didn't have
for a long time they have now.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Jayson want to I want to make one quick point,
just to put a button on this. You know, I
get often asked by a lot of folks, you know,
where should I invest my money? You know, you have
all the big obviously, you have the big four, right, NFL, NBA,
and will be NHL, and then you have all the
secondary ones like pick a ball and volleyball. But I've
always said the NHL has been on a honeymoon here.
(15:56):
They've been up like twenty seven percent over the last
few years. NFL the monster that just keeps on giving.
NBA has been on fire. And what I mean by
that is some of these multiples have gone from NBA,
NFL anywhere from you know, eleven to like eighteen times
just top line revenue. Right, Baseball is the one sport
that's gone up about three or four percent. So when
(16:17):
I talk to investors, I've always been a contrarian. I
think the actually the best asset to buy right now
is to invest in the mob baseball because you have
the uncertainty of the work stoppage. You have a lot
of uncertainties, a lot of headwinds, you know. So I
think if you're an investor, you can look at a
Major League baseball team at a six or seven time
multiple and there's some real value there. There's a value
(16:40):
buy and you haven't seen this in sports in the
last seven or eight years.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see sort of who
emerges next year as we think about next season. You know,
it wasn't that long ago that it looked like, you know,
one of the teams that was going to make it
all the way was the much lower payroll Milwaukee Brewers.
Our friend Mark out Anaco obviously as stewarded that club
very well. That they did not make it all the way,
and we'll sort of see how the economics continue to change.
(17:15):
All right, So, speaking of stars, you came back from
doing that. You're here in New York this week and
premiering a documentary series, Alex Versus a Rod. I got
to be with you at the premiere. Congratulations. I would
say two things, Congratulations and whoe beast.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean, it is it's intense. How are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
You know, some nervousness, some anxiety is definitely triggering. I
talk about a lot of difficult, intimate things in this
documentary on HBO Alex Versus a Rod.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I think people are going to be very surprised.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
I think you're gonna expect one thing and see another
as you saw in the first episode, and I really
dive into the mental health part of things and how
that affects and I think we the great Mike Francessa
who's a legendary sports radio icon here in New York
for the last almost forty years.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
He had a great line in.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
It where he said, you know, a rod is a
Shakespearean figure, and he's a very flawed man, or he
was a very flawed man.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And I thought that was spot on.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
And then I talk about my therapy and what I
did about being that flawed man and all of that,
and is a human story and that human just happened
to play baseball, is not a baseball story with a
guy that had issues. So and my hope is that
the next generation of athletes or young people out there
like our kids, can take some of my mistakes, learn
(18:36):
from them, and hopefully avoid them and move up to
the front of the line.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, it was quite an experience to be in that
room with you know a lot of other friends and
friends and family, and you know, notable folks showing up
to show their support. Tom Brady, Michael Strahan among them,
Constant Swartz, Marini, a lot of people who who have
been in and around the deal cinematic universes, I like
to say, and obviously you have been key figures in
your life, your family, your daughters, you know, your brother
(19:02):
and sister, your mom, you know, everybody sort of sort
of in the room.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, you and I are closed. It was intense.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It was intense to sort of sit there with you
and and sort of take all that in. So congratulations
on that. I'm excited for the world to see it
and again excited to be your partner in this. So
thank you for putting that out into the world. Congratulations
on another baseball season in the books. It was fun
to watch you on TV and you guys were obviously
having a lot of fun doing it, and it's great
(19:30):
to see baseball. You know, we talk all the time
on this show about this intersection of business, sports and culture.
I don't know that I've seen baseball feel as much
a part of the culture as it does right now
in a long time, to your point, like ten twenty years,
you know, going back to you know, probably when you
guys were winning World Series in you know, fifteen twenty
years ago.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah, two things to close here, Jason is one, this
World Series had a feel like when you guys won
the Atlanta Braves, I mean in the mid nineties, right
ninety five, and then you go to the Braves and
you go twins and you had some of.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The Blue Jays.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
It just felt like an old school series and it
reminded us all why we fell in love with baseball,
and it was very It had the resemblance of those
feelings we had when we were all younger, and that's
great for baseball. The second part in closing, I'm really
looking forward to what you think about. But I'm even
thinking about more where your mom's gonna think about the documentary,
(20:26):
and I would love to hear what she thinks.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Oh my god, the Debbie Kelly review will be an
honest and for both one, I believe. So just maybe
we'll have to book some time in Atlanta for that one.
All right, thank you so much for listening to the Deal.
We will see you next time. The Deal is hosted
(20:54):
by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was
made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Phillip Amy. Kean is
our editor and Will Connolly is our video editor. Our
theme music is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers
are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brenda neonham Sage Bauman
is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel
(21:16):
Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks so much for listening
to the deal. If you have a minute, subscribe, rate
and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us.
I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.
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