August 21, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly cover expansion and realignment in Major League Baseball. Later, they speak with Greg Olsen about his company, Youth Inc., and its mission to transform organized sports for kids. Olsen explains how his football career informs his work as a FOX Sports commentator, why the broader sports landscape is due for innovation, and the financial hurdles now confronting families involved in baseball.
You can also watch this interview on the Bloomberg Podcasts YouTube page.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome back to the Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez.
All right, Alex, this is the time of year where
you know, I always love talking to you, but I
love talking to you about baseball this time of year
because it feels like the storylines get more and more serious.
We talked a little last week about sort of who's hot,
who's not. You know who may emerge as we get
(00:32):
closer and closer to October. But over the weekend there
were some inchting comments from Commissioner Rob Manfred about the
idea of expansion in Major League Baseball and with expansion
potentially realignment, And as is often the case, I see
these headlines and I think, all right, note to self,
(00:53):
ask Alex about this on the podcast, because you're the
expert on this and you see it from lots of
different perspectives, both as a former player, but I'll so
now as a team owner. I'll be it in a
different league. So when you hear about expansion, what are
your first thoughts, regardless of your role, Like, is expansion
a good idea from a business perspective in your view?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, I think expansion is a great idea. I think
it's really important to see what the two teams would land.
I mean, to go from thirty to thirty two teams
to mirror the NFL. I think it's really smart, Jason,
Atlanta has a little bit of a monopoly in the South. Yeah,
and you know that's your neck of the woods. You know,
people in the South are just maddling love with baseball.
(01:35):
Some of the best minor league teams and businesses are
in the South, whether's South Carolina, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma
City is an interesting I mean, they've done such an
incredible job with that franchise there. So yeah, I've always
wondered why does Atlanta have the South all by themselves?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And then other markets.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I know that Sacramento's thinking about putting their best foot
forward and other markets, you know, Portland and Nashville. So
wherever they land, I think spend a really a lot
of time on the front end.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Where do we take these next two teams.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, it's interesting on that note. You know, I was
thinking about it because I was looking at some of
the you know, potential city names. Nashville comes up a lot,
and I was thinking to your exact point this idea.
And listen, I grew up and still love the Braves,
as you know, by virtue of the geography, the minor
league system TBS, Ted Turner, I mean, they really had,
you know, such a they and still have such a
(02:29):
devoted following across the Southeast. The other thing that is
reflected in that, and I wanted to talk about realignment
in a second, but just from an expansion perspective. And
this goes to the point of our conversation later with
Greg Olsen. The youth baseball culture in the South, it
is just much more of a sort of it's the
(02:50):
spring sport, whereas and I lived this as a dad
in the Northeast, is lacrosse Like lacrosse has like really
eaten up and eaten away at baseball. Now, there are
still some great programs, you know, out in Long Island,
in baseball in Connecticut, New Jersey, et cetera. But down South,
baseball is life, man, I mean, and you just see
these great players, and you mentioned a lot of the
(03:11):
great college programs, you know. Earlier this year we were
down taping at Georgia Tech and we saw their facilities
and you know, met with their team a little bit,
just just visiting, and it's incredible what Southern you know,
fans and Southern players are to baseball. So let me
ask you this question about realignment, because Manfred has at
(03:33):
least talked about the idea of maybe we don't have
the American League in National League that look the way
that they're going to look, you have a little more
geographic consistency. What would that? I mean, does that make
sense to you? And now I'm almost asking you to
put it. I'm asking you to wear two hats. You know,
one is a former player. How it would change your
life as a player but also as an owner thinking
(03:54):
about the sort of nuts and bolts and the dollars
and cents of it.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yes, anytime the commissioner can make the game better for
the players, it's something worthy to look at. And I
think when you think about, you know, more convenient, more
efficient travel, all that makes sense for players and for
owners and for expenses and for fans. The one thing
I would caution is this is the oldest game in America, right, Yeah,
(04:21):
it's been around well over one hundred years. You want
to be careful not to destroy the legacy rivalries, whether
that's you know Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies as a
fan and now you're a New Yorker, I will call
you right.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Is that my mind, Kelly right now is absolutely horrified
that you just said that, and unfortunately it's true.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But go on, yeah, she just said, objection your honor.
So what I would say is, as a fan, you
still have the moonshot potential of what happened in the
year two thousand, right the Subway series with Yankees Mets,
or you still want to have Red Sox Phillies, Red Sox.
That's very fun and I wouldn't want to disrupt that.
At the same time, if you see less legacy issues,
(05:06):
could you make it easier and simpler. I think it's
worth looking at.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I mean it's such a hard puzzle piece because
you're right, and it's such a good point around the
legacy of baseball, because even I feel like newer fans
who come in the teams, and I think the Dodgers
do a really nice job of this, obviously, the Red Sox,
the Yankees obviously maybe more than any so celebrating the
(05:33):
rich heritage of these teams and to your point, like
disrupting anything that threatens that history because that's part of
what makes baseball great. Now. I will be you know,
I would be the first to say baseball and I
think you would agree with me, can be a little
bit fusty at times. I think they're a little bit
(05:54):
you know, set in their ways. And there are a
lot of things that we've talked about a lot on
this show that we feel like baseball could do from
fan service. They've been late to change some of the
elements of the game, but the game is better. The
game is commercially more successful because of some of these
changes they've made, like the pitchclock and some of the
you know, not being able to shift and all those
sorts of things. More people are watching the game, so
(06:15):
that delicate balance. It's not an easy job. But I
would imagine now sitting in the owner's seat in the
NBA and the WNBA, as you do even there, you
probably have to think about how do we maintain this,
you know, this history while also sort of looking to
the future. That's not easy.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, I would tell you one way.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
It's just something about the Mets, Phillies, Dodgers in the
American League would not feel right. The Yankees, Red Sox
in the National League. There's something about the history that
is so beautiful. It's such a romantic story that goes
back again over one hundred years that you want to
keep intact some of that beautiful history that we have
above any other sport in America. With that said, when
you look at teams like the Marlins, the Rays in Tampa,
(06:59):
when you look at maybe Minnesota, so some of the
newer teams, maybe there's a little bit more flexibility there,
and they're also looking for better revenue, more resources. So
anything where I think the Yankees, the Phillies, the Dodge,
they're doing really well on any metrics, they're winning. So
I would lean into it, whether it's an owner or
(07:19):
as a player. If we're not married to that history,
then the more change the better.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, that's interesting. That's a really interesting point. Yeah, And
I do you know, just to go back to the
New York of it all for a second, and I
am showing my stripes as someone who is like deeply
entrenched in New York at this point, I think I've
told you that there's this incredible book that came out
earlier this year or late last year called The New
York Game. And it really just talks about it goes.
You know, from the late eighteen hundreds up until the
(07:45):
mid nineteen fifties, we talk a lot about the intersection
of business, sports, and culture. And you know, baseball teams,
especially in New York were just so richly embedded into
you know, what it means to be a New Yorker.
You lived it, you knew you know. I mean you
were sort of maybe in in that final stretch when
the Yankees were the most important team in New York.
(08:08):
I mean, you know, sorry to all the other sports
and the Mets and all that, but like the Yankees
are the Yankees and managing to hold on to that.
But as you say, maybe with some of the other
franchises being a little bit more aggressive and a little
bit more innovative could could help the help the bottom line.
So on the subject of baseball, Little League World Series
(08:28):
wraps up this weekend, and I know we've both been
watching it. It's always exciting to sort of see those
kids out there. It also is a reminder of the
huge business of youth sports. We have Greg Olsen coming
up on the show. He is your partner of sorts,
albeit at a different sport. On Fox on Fox Sports,
but also heavily invested in the business of youth sports.
(08:51):
And it's a really interesting conversation. You and he traded
some insights that I think people are really going on
to here because it's not necessarily what I expected from
you and not what I expected from him in terms
of what the right moves are for youth sports going forward.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, and you buried the lead because the best thing
about Greg Olsen is that he's an alum from the
University of Miami.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You really love that. You always called me out for
not missing that, like at the top of the list.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I do, man, the you we got to always remember that.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
No, but I think, look, Greg is an incredible person
who's doing really cool things in the world of youth sports,
and I think for our audience this is very relevant
and not to forget what I think is the most
important part.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
About youth baseball.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Number one, Youth sports is a forty.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Billion dollar business.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
This is a real and it's also one of the
most fragmented businesses in the US.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, all right, coming up all that and more from
Greg Olsen. Welcome back to the dl IF Jason Kelly
alongside Alex Rodriguez. So excited to have with us as
(10:07):
our guest day, Greg Olsen. He is, of course, an
Emmy winning sports broadcaster, former professional football player, and the
creator of Youth Inc. We're going to talk about all
of it today, Greg. Really, good to see you.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Great to see you, guys. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
All right, so let's talk about some shared experiences here
between you and Alex Rodriguez, you know, sitting here next
to me in New York City. The transition from being
a player to being a broadcaster is a key moment
for anybody. You got to it pretty early, like even
while you were still playing, you were starting to dabble
(10:43):
in it a bit. Why what made you want to
sort of be on TV and be behind a mike.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah. So if you would have asked me, you know,
four or five years into my playing career, what I
was going to do after I was done playing, I
would have said, I have no idea. I'm going to
play until the wheels fall off and I'll figure it out.
But I had some really unique opportunities that came my way.
And like everybody knows, life's about it, you know, an
element of luck and an element of opportunities and then
what you make of them kind of dictates where those
(11:11):
paths ultimately lead. And so twenty fifteen Fox actually was
nice enough. Both Kevin Burkhardt, who's Alex's partner obviously with
the pregame show and the great job they do there
at Fox, who was my first partner at Fox. We
go way back to North Jersey together, we grew up.
I've known Kevin for a long time since I was
in high school. So Kevin actually, yeah, So Kevin did
(11:33):
a audition for me. So anyone who's been to one
of these auditions, you sit in a sterile studio out
in La at the Fox Studios, and you just call
a game off of a television monitor and it's as
simple as that. So I was. I was lucky enough
that Fox asked me to do a dry run game
with Kevin. And then in twenty seventeen, on the bye
week of my twenty seventeen season, I joined Kevin and
(11:55):
his partner at the time was Charles Davis, and we
did a three man booth. And then in twenty nineteen
Fox had me back again and I did a two
man booth on my bye week. So I did all
of this as a current player, and it just gave
me such an opportunity to really see what I liked.
And I had done some studio and I had done
some game stuff. I did college, I did NFL, but
(12:16):
it was really stepping into an NFL booth and a
real live game back in seventeen where I walked away
from the stadium saying like I could do this, Like Wow,
I feel really good about this. This might be my
niche and I did it. I called XFL games. You know,
people always say, oh, man, in two years you called
the super Bowl? Why did you rise so fast? I
was like, well, you just didn't know any of the
(12:36):
games I did before, Like anything, right, These overnight successes
take a long time to get there. So I was
very fortunate the opportunities I was giving during my playing career,
and it just kind of organically found me as much
as I found it, and I've loved doing it ever since.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Greg, I'm kind of spooked right now because, first of all,
my partner Jason, who is the best. He did forget
to mention, the greatest thing about you is your University
of Miami alum. Right then we got sat at that
board for twenty years and you know, really had an
incredible time watching you and your excellence there.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So thank you for your service.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
But in twenty fifteen, it's ironic you mentioned that that
was exactly the same year that Fox was generous enough
to talk to me. And I came back that year
for my suspension, which was a vital year for me
to get back on track. I ended up having a
really nice year and you know, getting my career back
on track a little bit. And I went on an
off day once they signed me to say, okay, can
you do the playoffs once you.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Guys get eliminated.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And I agreed to that, and then we had a
day off and I went into the Fox studio in
Central City in LA and I sat there for like
two and a half hours, and we did a mock
pregame show and I was I remember, my knees were shaken.
I'm like, wait a minute, I'm used to playing in
Yankee Stadium in front of fifty five thousand people at
the old stadium, and I'm nervous about this. But Kevin,
I call him Magic Johnson. He's a little bit like Jason.
(13:54):
He's an ultimate giver. He sets you up to win.
I'm interested to know, because we're sharing Kevin and we
both him so much. What is it about him that
made you feel better? I mean, you want an Emmy
with him, But what makes him such a great leader
and a great broadcast partner.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up, because I think
all of us, yourself me, I'm sure Tom Brady would
now say it. Like everyone who's ever worked with Kevin,
the first thing they say is like, it's just easy,
Like everything he does is easy. He takes you exactly
where you want to go, he keeps you out of
maybe where you don't want to go. And I think
your Magic Johnson, he is the ultimate point guard. He's
(14:30):
the ultimate kind of weave in and out, do all
the hard work, and then his ultimate goal and what
he does so well is he just makes whoever sitting
next to him, whether it's on the desk with you
and Big Poppy and Jeter, or whether it's sitting in
the booth with you know, the different guys he's worked
with in the NFL, whoever works with him, he makes
them always look awesome, and he makes them always look great.
(14:53):
And it's the greatest compliment that you could pay a guy.
He has no ego, He is selfless as the day
is long, and it's the best teammate to have, especially
for guys like us who you might know baseball and
I might know football, but we don't know TV. In
the early days, at least I didn't, I didn't really
know TV, and in a lot of ways now, Alex,
I don't know how you feel about it, but like
(15:14):
there's still elements of TV that I really still don't get.
But like, when your partner is just so good at
managing and directing traffic and managing all of the technical
stuff and you can just do what you do well,
which is talk the game and provide insight and analysis,
it just makes everything work so smoothly. But yeah, I
could go on. We could do this entire We could
(15:35):
do this entire segment about Kevin and now my partner
Joe Davis, who's also on Your Guys World Series and
postseason crew. Our team at Fox, as it is for
the baseball crew equally for the NFL crew, is just
a really good collection of really talented people who can
make the analyst job look a lot better than we
probably are.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
To that exact point, Greg Lake, what is the thing
that you feel like you had to learn the most.
I know from working alongside this guy. It's like, if
there's one thing about professional athletes, and for professional athletes,
you guys are grinders, You're coachable, you like to learn,
you like to get better. What was the thing you
had to get better at that you have sort of
(16:15):
accomplished in these intervening years.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, So I think the biggest thing is and I
don't even know if I've necessarily completely gotten over it
or completely fixed all the problems, but I think one
of the challenges that a lot of guys have that
have played the game. And I'm sure for Alex to
sit there when he watches a Major League baseball game,
Alex can probably find twenty five things on any given
at bat, or any given pitch sequence, or any different
(16:39):
defensive rotation in the field, and he could probably talk
twenty five minutes about why it's so important and why
he finds it so interesting. It would be great television,
but we don't have these unlimited boxes of time. We
have to talk in these very clear cuts to sync,
especially doing an NFL broadcast where we're talking between plays
in twenty second interval. So I think early on, for me,
(17:02):
it was just because I see five things that I
might find interesting, and I want to bring the viewer
in on. I probably only have time to make a
case for one of those interesting things, but I have
a three hour broadcast to come back to some of
the others. I think early on, I wanted to tell
everybody everything I saw on every play because I'm fascinated
(17:23):
by it. I love it. I find it the most interesting,
you know, thing in the world. But it doesn't always
make for great television. So I think that's something I'm
still working through, where less is more, you know, see
a little, see a lot. Like all those phrases we
used to have as athletes to simplify things, I think
we can lean on a lot of those now in
the broadcasting in live television, where when you go too
(17:46):
long is often when you get yourself in trouble, and
that's been something that I've had to continue to remind
myself as i've done this now the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
So Greg, I want to dig in there a little
bit because that's a great answer, and I'm really wondering
you go to twenty fifth and now you cut to
twenty twenty five and you're a completely different broadcaster, like
Jason said, you won an Emmy, You've covered a Super Bowl,
like you're one of the most respected guys in the industry.
But talk to me about twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. What
were a couple things besides the one you just articulated
(18:17):
things you were doing probably wrong that today it will
be a big no no that today you do more naturally.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think a
lot of the things would probably be what doesn't come
on air, aside from just being more succinct and more
clear and have better clarity and in the conversational is
probably the best way to phrase it, that you and
your partner just come across like there two guys sitting
on the couch having a beer together and just talking ball,
Like that's what everyone wants from a viewer's perspective. I
(18:45):
think when I look back on those early years where
I had a lot of trouble, maybe not trouble, but
had a learning curve, was managing the picture of what
we were saying. For example, we want to do a
replay after a scoring touchdown, right, and I want to
talk about before we get to the ball and the
throw and the catch. I want to make sure we
spend some time because the running back in the offensive
(19:05):
line did a really nice job picking up a really
elaborate blitz scheme that gave the quarterback time. Mahomes has
time now to throw a touchdown to Kelsey instead of
just diving in and just saying, great throw, Mahomes, great catch, Kelsey.
I wanted to be able to steer the truck to say, Hey,
I want the skycam behind the quarterback. Start on a freeze,
because I want to draw up that they I had
(19:26):
a hard time in real time getting that across. I
knew what I wanted. It was hard for me to
speak television that the people in the truck knew that
they could put on the screen what I saw in
my brain. And now it's a lot easier for me
to say, Hey, I want an ISO bottom of the screen, Kelsey,
start on pause. Everyone knows what I want. Hey, I
(19:47):
want behind the defense pitframe. Start on pause because I
want to talk about the defensive tackle whoever it is like.
I can now have a little bit quicker and clearer
way to direct the truck so that they set up
a picture that is in line with what I'm really
excited to talk about. But I think, like anything else,
like it takes a little time to get a comfortable
(20:09):
enough to say, Hey, you guys in the truck that
have been doing this a really long time, I want
this picture and I promise you like it's gonna be good.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
I think early on you're a little hesitant and you're
a little nervous. You're saying whatever you put up, I'll
talk about. So as anything, there's been a little bit
of an evolution where I'm a little bit more assertive
and saying no, I feel really strongly I want to
go this direction. And to the credit of my producers
and directors and you know Mitcheska, he produces the world
series with you guys. Like again, I've been lucky that
(20:37):
the producers and directors that I had have trusted that
growth and are just really good at their job.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah. And you know, one thing that obviously you've talked
a lot about, Greg, and I have to give you
credit for talking as much and as openly as you have,
is you know, getting a new partner, essentially being you know,
replaced by Tom Brady, which you know I mean, is tough.
On one hand, and also very understandable given the Tom
Brady noess of it all. I don't want to make
you sort of relive and say a lot of the
(21:04):
things that you've said before. But it does strike me
that a lot of people listening, you know, this is
a business audience, many people have encountered that exact same thing,
where like someone else you know comes in, you know,
new guy coming into the company, a new man or
woman you know coming onto the team. What's your advice
for somebody having now gone through this who faces something similar,
(21:26):
Because you've handled it with a lot of grace, with
a lot of confidence, how did you sort of get
there and what would you say to people is the
best way to handle something like that?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think in a lot of ways through this transition,
a lot of the lessons that I've tried to learn
on the fly in the new industry have just been
leaning on things that served me well in my former life,
which was as an athlete. And anyone who's lived in
a competitive environment, and obviously Alex can speak to this
as good as anybody in history of sports. Like when
you compete at a high level and you have high
(21:59):
expectation and the expectations of you. There's only so many
people that have ever reached that level, right, and I,
certainly from a playing career, didn't. But when it came
to this new chapter in my life, so many of
the things of my former career paid dividends, and this
was one of them. And I think the biggest lesson
what I would say to people is there's nothing wrong
with being incredibly competitive. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
(22:22):
be the best player on the New York Yankees. But
that doesn't mean that Derek Jeter has to go over.
That doesn't mean that the other players on your team
can't have a lot of success. So like that was
my career as a player, Like every year there were
guys drafted to take my position, and there were guys
on the offensive side of the ball who competed for
targets and catches and yards and all of that. And
(22:44):
my success did not have to mean their failure, and
their success didn't have to mean I couldn't be really
good either, And so I approached this world of TV
in really the same fashion, Like my expectations are to
be amongst the best people in the industry, and whatever
game that is, there's a lot of moving parts outside
of your control. But what I control is I control
how hard I prepare, I control how much I know
(23:06):
about the sport of football, and I genuinely enjoy doing it.
And if there's someone else who comes along who also
is good, great, There's plenty of room for all of us.
And that's really just been my approach. And with Tom,
like I want Tom to do a great job. I
want Tom to have success. I root for Tom and
Kevin like they're my friends, like they're people, they're my colleagues,
(23:27):
they're my friends. I want them to have success. But
I still want to be regarded as being the best
in the industry. And that's not a knock on anyone else.
It's just the only way I know. And you know,
I'm sure no one knows it better than than Alex.
Like the expectations for a long time, or that Alex
is the best baseball player in Major League Baseball, and
then all of a sudden you go line up next
to Derek Jeter, who's at Icon in New York City.
(23:50):
That doesn't mean that Alex Rodriguez can't still be the
best baseball player in major in the world. Like it's
a very similar world where you say I can be
really good regards gardless of the people around me being
good or bad.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, I love that, Greg.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
And look, when you have a career like you've had,
where includes you know, doing some of the biggest games
in the NFL and includes an Emmy, and you know,
the principle brings it into the office, it's usually gonna
be like, hey, we're gonna double your pay and you're
gonna be in the A team forever, and instead you
get the opposite. So I've often said that you can't
control what happens to you, but you certainly can control
(24:24):
how you react to those circumstances and those decisions.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
What made you reads that mindset.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, and this is something that people probably think I'm
a little crazy when we're coaching our kids' teams and
we're coaching football, and you know, I coach my son's
travel baseball team. Alex and I have talked a lot
of youth baseball in our past times crossing pats over
the years. I'm just a big believer, like, if we're
gonna do it, let's do it. Like if we're if
we're gonna spend all this time and energy, like I
(24:50):
just don't have a lot of understanding and patience for
just participating and just being content to have the position.
I've always been of the mindset where I might not
always be the best. I certainly was never the best
football player my entire life. I was never the best
NFL football player. At no time in my life was
I ever the best player on my team. Maybe in
(25:11):
high school, but in college and NFL, certainly I was
never the best player on my team. But I was
always the best player I could possibly be. There was
nothing more for me to do. If someone was better
than me, they were just better than me. And it's
the same thing now in the broadcast role. Whatever you
label us as the two crew, the B crew, the
one crew, they see whatever it is. If I'm gonna
(25:32):
do it, and I'm gonna spend all week and I'm
gonna travel the weekends, and we're gonna meet with these teams,
like the expectation is, if we're gonna do it, we're
gonna do it with every intent to be the very
best at it. And that doesn't guarantee you will be
the best, and it doesn't guarantee you are perceived as
the best. But that is just the intent going forward
with everything you do in your preparation, your perform and
all that, and then the dust can settle from there.
(25:54):
And like I said, my approach as a player and
all the lessons that I learned to kind of punch
above my weight class as a player against better athletes, bigger,
stronger guys that I competed with. I try to bring
a lot of those same principles and approaches to now
my time on television.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You gave us a great segue into the youth sports business.
You know you are announcing or have recently announced a
new venture called you think for those watching on video
and YouTube, you've got some sick merch that you're wearing
right now that demonstrates that Alex and I are both
fascinated by this business. Having you know, played as kids,
(26:44):
being parents and having our kids play. What brought you
to the point that you wanted to go beyond coaching
your kids to really building a business around this.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yes? What really, it's just been kind of the story
of my life. I grew up in North Jersey. My
dad was the local public high school football coach for
forty years. He coached me and all my brothers. It
was stereotypical local high school football, very intense, very driven,
high expectations. You know. Again, my two brothers and I
all three went on to play Major Division one football
(27:16):
as a product because of that early accessibility towards camps
and coaching and leadership and all of those qualities we
learned at a young age growing up playing through my dad,
and then obviously I made a career out of it,
and now have come full circle where I'm the dad
and I'm raising two teenage boys and a teenage girl,
and they're all in their varying sports and levels of
interest and whatnot. And I find myself now coaching those
(27:38):
middle school teams and those girls basketball teams, and I'm
coaching travel baseball and trying to understand, Okay, how do
we best navigate this not only for my own kids,
but for the kids that we take responsibility for as
the coach, as members of our team. And We'd lay
in bed at night with my wife and I'd be like,
I'm not sure if we're doing this right. Like, I'm
not sure if we have it right? Does the world
(27:58):
have it right? There has to be a conversation out
there towards getting these families, best practices to navigating what
is a very different youth sports scene than what Alex
and I grew up in. Like it just it is
unrecognizable from ten to fifteen, twenty years ago. And that
was the content piece of You Think, And we're having
Alex and I, through our friends at Fox, are actually
going to sit down and have a conversation. Alex has
(28:20):
been nice enough to agree to that and just talk
about best practices, best experiences. Tom Brady was our launch episode,
and we have Malcolm Gladwell, who's one of the greatest
thought leaders in the entire world, sociologists and psychologists and
different practices. We have a really wide birth of different
interview guests as well as other people creating content on
our platform to entertain, to inform, and to empower people
(28:42):
to have a better experience in youth sports. And then
the back real engine of the company is a commerce
platform trying to give people better experiences to represent their
son or daughter's youth foot both For us to buy
a Dallas Cowboy or a Carolina Panther hoodie or a
T shirt, it is as simple as going to fanatics.
You type it in and it drops. Why can't we
(29:03):
do that for the youth sports team. Why can't you
wear that polo you have and it has your son
or daughter's high school logo on it that you would
wear to go play golf or you'd wear to go
play launch. We're creating that ecosystem of the commerce on
the heels of acquiring our customers and bringing our consumers
in through a lot of our content pieces.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's so interesting too. So I'm you know, I have
a son who I went through it from a lacrosse perspective.
So my son played you know, club lacrosse all through,
ended up playing in college, and so like the massive
ecosystem around youth sports. It's beyond, you know, by some measures,
forty billion dollar market, but it is broken up as
(29:44):
much as anything else. You know, we've had David Blitzer,
Josh Harris on this show. They obviously have their own
take on this through Unrivaled, which I know you're deeply
familiar with. How does this business for you grow? I mean,
and is this something that consolidates with other companies. I
know you're literally just launching it, but I know you've
(30:04):
thought about these things like take us inside the business plan.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah, I'm not sure with the long term strategy. Again,
we are literally on like week one of this launch,
what's been a two year journey to get to this point.
You mentioned the Unrivaled guys, actually just sat down with
them up in Cooperstown. They obviously owned Cooperstown All Star Village.
They're a partner and a sponsor and are continuing to
do more and more things with us that you think
and obviously the projects that they're doing with cal Ripkin
(30:28):
Baseball and the Cooperstown trip that we just took my
twelve year old son's team to a couple of weeks ago,
so that we align in a lot of similar kind
of circles of those guys in Unrivaled that you just mentioned.
But I think big picture for us, if if we
had to kind of just summarize what we're trying to
do is we're trying to improve the experience of everyone
involved in youth sports. And there's a lot of ways
to do that, right. So there's the educational component. There's
(30:52):
teaching coaches and players best practices of running. Everything from
Alex Rodriguez telling us you know how to hit a
curveball to Ryan Day, you know on the heels of
a national champion telling us how do you get back
into the lab after having an incredible season, What does
off season strategy look like, how do you build a
coaching staff, how do you recruit in today's nil day,
(31:13):
Tom Brady and all these people giving very unique perspectives
to both inform and empower. But then there's also an
entertainment property. We have a lot of really fun, you
know content, you know series that are coming down the
pipeline that'll be more in the age of what everyone's
sons are kind of watching on YouTube and Instagram and
TikTok and whatnot. That we're excited about. The commerce piece
is the improving of experience of I want to represent
(31:36):
my son or daughter's team, and what I wear on
a Friday night to a football game or a Saturday
morning on a baseball field is very different experience getting
that pullover, that T shirt, those pair of shorts, then
what it would be for the University of Miami or
the Minnesota Timberwolves or whoever it is. It's a very
different experience, and we took a step back when we said, okay,
(31:56):
the infrastructure of that experience is very ingrained in people
and what they're used to in their daily activity. Why
don't we just to take those and apply it into
the youth sports sense, so now you can wear your
favorite team. Because for a lot of these parents, and
you guys know this, their favorite team is whatever team
their kid is playing for Monday through that's on the weekends,
that's what they're living for. So it seems like a
(32:18):
real hole in the market that we feel like we
can attack and go after. And we feel pretty good
about the team we've put in place, the experience of
a lot of our founders and a lot of the
people we've brought on board, that we can execute the
content element and the commerce side, and we can do
it jointly, and obviously the expectation is that we can
make a dent in this market.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I have a bone to pick with, especially like youth basebon.
Maybe you can help me address this. Let's talk youth baseball.
I live youth baseball every day in my life, but
I'm so sick of it, honestly, And I'll tell you why.
You know, I come from a mother, you know, single mother.
She was a secretary of the morning, So at tables
at night, we're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hour days We'll leave
us seven in the morning and come home sometimes at
(32:58):
midnight on Fridays and Saturday. But I have so many
of my friends greg today that say, Alex, if you
were a kid today, if you were ten years old,
Alex Rodriguez would never make it to the big leagues.
And I would say, why, Well, because you and your
mother couldn't afford it. And the same parents are selling
their cars, they're having a double mortgage in their homes
(33:18):
to be traveling around this perfect game stuff and all
this nonsense. You have to make sports more affordable, and
it just drives me crazy.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
You're one hundred percent right, and listen, I live this
every single day. I've coached both my boys teams. I
now just coach my twelve year team. We just spent
a week in Cooperstown. I wrote a check for thirty
thousand dollars to bring thirteen boys to Cooperstown, New York
for an entire week. My team from the beginning. Again,
everybody you know different to play on my team, you
(33:47):
pay me zero dollars. The only thing you got, Alex Rodriguez,
you're on my team. I got a spot for you.
If you've got some eligibility I could have on your
team then, as I was, you could have I think
you could afford Yes, I think you could afford my team.
You could probably buy our. But all that being said,
like you got to get yourself a bat and a
glove and a pair of cleats, and we'll take care
of everything else. And you know, tournament entry fees will
(34:10):
take care of everything else that comes along with it.
Like sports to me costs me money. Now I understand
for a lot of these organizations, for a lot of
these coaches, this is their full time job. Right There
is a professionalization of youth sports. There are professional youth
sports coaches. Their only job in the world is to
coach young athletes, both privately and they get paid to
(34:31):
coach their team. And I don't fault anybody for it.
There's a lot of really passionate people that spend their
entire day in the world of developing young athletes, especially
in baseball. But everything you said about the cost that
comes with it is one hundred percent the truth. There
are kids at twelve years old that are paying three
to five thousand dollars a year to play on one team.
(34:54):
They could show up to that team and have three
new players come from Miami, Florida, be given a uniform
and take the spot, paying nothing. But they've also flown
to Atlanta, They've flown to Texas, They've flown to wherever
the tournament is. They've stayed in hotels, they've rented cars,
plus plus plus plus the five thousand dollars to play
(35:15):
on their team. It is a never ending cost that
if you want to participate in the Junior Showcase, there's
an element of costs that is a barrier to entry.
And I don't sit here pretending to know what the
fix is to that. Like anything, I feel like once
that ball starts rolling downhill, it's very hard to push
it back up. There is a lot of money to
(35:37):
make off the development of young athletes, and I try
not to be critical because I know there are a
lot of people that are doing it for the right reasons.
But there are a lot of people that are just
running business off of the idea of coaching and whatnot.
And it's just not the world that I come from.
We're coaching our kids middle school football team. I'm from
(35:58):
the world of youth coaches, being volunteer yours. Those days
are becoming very few and far between Alex and someone
with your voice in the space, someone with your you know, credibility,
your success obviously probably has a ton a ton of
weight maybe to sway that pendulum back the other way.
But baseball, of all the sports that were in baseball,
has probably gone the furthest towards specialization, professionalization, high cost
(36:24):
of entry, and very very serious and competitive at the
earliest of ages.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Greg my first year, I'm gonna date myself here. I
was a rookie at eighteen years old for the Seattle Mariners,
playing with the goat Ken Griffith Junior, the great manager, Lupanela,
Randy Johnsenega Martinez, hall of famers galore all around. And
at that point there was about twenty to twenty five
percent of the league was African American, and today is
under five percent. And if you pull and I was
(36:50):
guessed because I don't have this data, but if you
go to inner cities, some of our greatest athletes in
the world are picking football, basketball, and soccer and you
know other sports because they truly just can't afford it.
And I bet you eighty percent of them if you
pulled them, they just say, we just can't afford to
try baseball, so we're going to go try something else.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And for Major League Baseball at the macro level, how
do you grow the tam of baseball is you got
to have the greatest athletes playing the sport. And thank god,
there's one great example that plays right here in New
York City. His name is Aaron Judge, who was recruited
by Notre Dame Stanford to be a tight end. And
thank god for us and all of us who love baseball,
he chose baseball. But I guarantee you nine out of
ten are going to go to Notre Dame or Stanford
(37:30):
to play football.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Yep. Absolutely, And that's a great example of a kid
who maybe nowadays, growing up, he might be forced to
only play football or he might be forced to only
play baseball, and he doesn't have those experiences as a
high school player. And of course it's worked out for him.
He's an MLB All Star and an MVP. But there's
a lot of kids who the best time of their
(37:52):
sports career might be their senior year in high school.
And that's okay, Like, if the idea of playing baseball
as a young kid, if my kids only reason my
two boys played baseball, and they're both they're gonna be
in seventh and eighth grade. If their only reason for
playing baseball was to grow up to be Alex Rodriguez,
we should stop playing baseball. The odds of that happening
(38:12):
are zero. I don't even know that the long shot
of that happening is close to zero. But there's so
many other experiences that come just from being on the
team competing in high school. Some of your best core
memories are playing at a young age as a young kid,
growing up with your buddies in the neighborhood. And I
think so often that is lost, where for so many
(38:34):
people the only objective of playing youth sports is to
either get a college scholarship or to become a professional.
And I'm not saying those aren't worthwhile aspirations and that
those aren't great goals, but I think if we keep
them as the only driving forces, we're missing so many
of the amazing other lessons in life, things that we
can carry forward into our marriages, into our parenting style,
(38:55):
into the ability to work with different people from different
backgrounds in the world. Like there are so many other
aspects of sport that teach people how to live in
society more than just the ability to make a living
doing it.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, no, it's totally true. And again, you know, having
lived this from a parent's perspective, you know, when you
actually start to do the math even and greg, you'll
appreciate this, especially as your your boys get older. You know,
the idea of like what you're spending and then you know,
in pursuit of a college scholarship, like the math doesn't
even add up. You know, if you're spending you know,
(39:30):
like five ten thousand dollars, it's like, no, if what
you're really trying to do is pay for college, then
like put that money in a five twenty nine. But
if you go into it, and you know, not to
be too preachy about this, but like we said to
our son through all of high school, it's like, listen,
you are in this for so many other reasons than
playing in college or getting a college scholarship. And we
(39:52):
were very clear with him, it's like, if you wake
up tomorrow, you know and say, like, you know what,
I'm done with this, Like all of it was worth
it because of the extent exactly what you're saying, because
of the experience you had making these friends, learning how
to set goals, learning how to succeed, learning how to fail, win, lose,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, and it's funny and when you go into it
with the right driving forces at the start, and you're
not going into it to win as many games as
you can and to get a college scholarship. But you
go into it, especially from a coaching perspective, and you
can say, let's create a space of development, of accountability,
of growth, of like really strong program rules and alignment.
(40:32):
It's amazing how the goals that everyone wants you end
up at a lot of times a lot of the
kids reach them. But it's a byproduct of everything else.
Not everyone's going to go play college baseball, but everyone's
going to get all the great lessons and then ten
percent of them are going to go play college baseball.
Like at our kids school here in Charlotte, we have
a really good baseball program. We have a really good
football program too, but our baseball program has a bunch
(40:55):
of really young talented kids in the program. Small school,
but just very very good. In this last class, we're
sending kids to NC State. Our pitcher went to Wake Forest,
our shortstop got drafted into the fifth round last year
to the Orioles. We got some young kids that'll be
like high high level either draft picks or college Power
five kids. But it's because it's a program. They're playing
(41:15):
with their buddies. They've gone to school here since they
were in middle school. Like there's an element of growth
in saying, all right, I might want to wait my
turn till I'm a sophomore junior to play, but it'll
all be worth it. Like we are speeding up the
process of development so fast these days that we're skipping
over so many steps. And if you don't become Alex Rodriguez,
(41:36):
or you don't get a college scholarship, for everybody else,
which is the vast majority, don't fit into that bucket.
You look back and say I didn't get anything else either,
like I missed all the other stuff that at least,
that's what's going on right now, and it's just getting
younger and younger.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
We're gonna do our lightning round five questions. Just first
thing that jumps to your mind. I'll start, and then
Alex we'll pick up. All right, here we go. Best
piece of advice you've received on deal making your business?
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Have a strong understanding of what you don't know. Surround
yourself with people who know a lot more than you,
and you're probably gonna be in good shape. If you're
the smartest guy in the room, it's a problem.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Who's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I mean along the lines of what we're doing right now.
If you think you know, like a guy like Michael Rubin, right,
I mean what they've built at Fanatics understanding commerce and
I think he's brilliant in a lot of ways, but
I have a lot of respect for what he's built.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, what a hustler. Which team do you want to
see win a championship more than any.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
I'd like to see Miami, Miami Hurricanes. Hopefully Alex feels
me there big time. I'll take it in anything. I'll
take it in baseball, basketball, girls, basketball, football, I'll take
it in any But yeah, I'd like to see Miami
to get back to being what we all remember.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Let's keep it as a football and we have a
big opener against Notre Dame. Question number four here, what
is your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 4 (43:12):
So I'm a big king, I know you guys know
Kings of Leon of course the band. I just saw
him play in New York a couple of weeks ago
with Zach Bryant. A song there called Fans sa Ns
and it's just about check it out. It's a really
good all right.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
That's good, all right. Last question, what's your advice for
someone listening who wants a career like yours.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
The best thing that I've done in my career is
I've always just continued the art of learning, and the
art of curiosity, and the art of getting better. I
don't know if at any stagnant point in time I
was ever the best person at any given frozen moment.
I think my strength had been I never stopped getting
(43:52):
better for a really long period of time. And when
we stopped at the end and I looked around a
lot of people who were better than me early on,
I had passed by a long time ago. So I
think that the ability to improve indefinitely has always been
a strength of mind.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
That's great, all right, Well, this was super, super fun.
We could literally do this all day. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
We really appreciate you, guys, Greg. That was awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong and Lizzie Phillip.
Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connelly is our
video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.
Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brendan Newnham.
Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support
(44:46):
from Rachel Carnivale and Elena sos 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):
Welcome back to the Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez.
All right, Alex, this is the time of year where
you know, I always love talking to you, but I
love talking to you about baseball this time of year
because it feels like the storylines get more and more serious.
We talked a little last week about sort of who's hot,
who's not. You know who may emerge as we get
(00:32):
closer and closer to October. But over the weekend there
were some inchting comments from Commissioner Rob Manfred about the
idea of expansion in Major League Baseball and with expansion
potentially realignment, And as is often the case, I see
these headlines and I think, all right, note to self,
(00:53):
ask Alex about this on the podcast, because you're the
expert on this and you see it from lots of
different perspectives, both as a former player, but I'll so
now as a team owner. I'll be it in a
different league. So when you hear about expansion, what are
your first thoughts, regardless of your role, Like, is expansion
a good idea from a business perspective in your view?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, I think expansion is a great idea. I think
it's really important to see what the two teams would land.
I mean, to go from thirty to thirty two teams
to mirror the NFL. I think it's really smart, Jason,
Atlanta has a little bit of a monopoly in the South. Yeah,
and you know that's your neck of the woods. You know,
people in the South are just maddling love with baseball.
(01:35):
Some of the best minor league teams and businesses are
in the South, whether's South Carolina, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma
City is an interesting I mean, they've done such an
incredible job with that franchise there. So yeah, I've always
wondered why does Atlanta have the South all by themselves?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And then other markets.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I know that Sacramento's thinking about putting their best foot
forward and other markets, you know, Portland and Nashville. So
wherever they land, I think spend a really a lot
of time on the front end.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Where do we take these next two teams.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, it's interesting on that note. You know, I was
thinking about it because I was looking at some of
the you know, potential city names. Nashville comes up a lot,
and I was thinking to your exact point this idea.
And listen, I grew up and still love the Braves,
as you know, by virtue of the geography, the minor
league system TBS, Ted Turner, I mean, they really had,
you know, such a they and still have such a
(02:29):
devoted following across the Southeast. The other thing that is
reflected in that, and I wanted to talk about realignment
in a second, but just from an expansion perspective. And
this goes to the point of our conversation later with
Greg Olsen. The youth baseball culture in the South, it
is just much more of a sort of it's the
(02:50):
spring sport, whereas and I lived this as a dad
in the Northeast, is lacrosse Like lacrosse has like really
eaten up and eaten away at baseball. Now, there are
still some great programs, you know, out in Long Island,
in baseball in Connecticut, New Jersey, et cetera. But down South,
baseball is life, man, I mean, and you just see
these great players, and you mentioned a lot of the
(03:11):
great college programs, you know. Earlier this year we were
down taping at Georgia Tech and we saw their facilities
and you know, met with their team a little bit,
just just visiting, and it's incredible what Southern you know,
fans and Southern players are to baseball. So let me
ask you this question about realignment, because Manfred has at
(03:33):
least talked about the idea of maybe we don't have
the American League in National League that look the way
that they're going to look, you have a little more
geographic consistency. What would that? I mean, does that make
sense to you? And now I'm almost asking you to
put it. I'm asking you to wear two hats. You know,
one is a former player. How it would change your
life as a player but also as an owner thinking
(03:54):
about the sort of nuts and bolts and the dollars
and cents of it.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yes, anytime the commissioner can make the game better for
the players, it's something worthy to look at. And I
think when you think about, you know, more convenient, more
efficient travel, all that makes sense for players and for
owners and for expenses and for fans. The one thing
I would caution is this is the oldest game in America, right, Yeah,
(04:21):
it's been around well over one hundred years. You want
to be careful not to destroy the legacy rivalries, whether
that's you know Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies as a
fan and now you're a New Yorker, I will call
you right.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Is that my mind, Kelly right now is absolutely horrified
that you just said that, and unfortunately it's true.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
But go on, yeah, she just said, objection your honor.
So what I would say is, as a fan, you
still have the moonshot potential of what happened in the
year two thousand, right the Subway series with Yankees Mets,
or you still want to have Red Sox Phillies, Red Sox.
That's very fun and I wouldn't want to disrupt that.
At the same time, if you see less legacy issues,
(05:06):
could you make it easier and simpler. I think it's
worth looking at.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I mean it's such a hard puzzle piece because
you're right, and it's such a good point around the
legacy of baseball, because even I feel like newer fans
who come in the teams, and I think the Dodgers
do a really nice job of this, obviously, the Red Sox,
the Yankees obviously maybe more than any so celebrating the
(05:33):
rich heritage of these teams and to your point, like
disrupting anything that threatens that history because that's part of
what makes baseball great. Now. I will be you know,
I would be the first to say baseball and I
think you would agree with me, can be a little
bit fusty at times. I think they're a little bit
(05:54):
you know, set in their ways. And there are a
lot of things that we've talked about a lot on
this show that we feel like baseball could do from
fan service. They've been late to change some of the
elements of the game, but the game is better. The
game is commercially more successful because of some of these
changes they've made, like the pitchclock and some of the
you know, not being able to shift and all those
sorts of things. More people are watching the game, so
(06:15):
that delicate balance. It's not an easy job. But I
would imagine now sitting in the owner's seat in the
NBA and the WNBA, as you do even there, you
probably have to think about how do we maintain this,
you know, this history while also sort of looking to
the future. That's not easy.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Well, I would tell you one way.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
It's just something about the Mets, Phillies, Dodgers in the
American League would not feel right. The Yankees, Red Sox
in the National League. There's something about the history that
is so beautiful. It's such a romantic story that goes
back again over one hundred years that you want to
keep intact some of that beautiful history that we have
above any other sport in America. With that said, when
you look at teams like the Marlins, the Rays in Tampa,
(06:59):
when you look at maybe Minnesota, so some of the
newer teams, maybe there's a little bit more flexibility there,
and they're also looking for better revenue, more resources. So
anything where I think the Yankees, the Phillies, the Dodge,
they're doing really well on any metrics, they're winning. So
I would lean into it, whether it's an owner or
(07:19):
as a player. If we're not married to that history,
then the more change the better.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, that's interesting. That's a really interesting point. Yeah, And
I do you know, just to go back to the
New York of it all for a second, and I
am showing my stripes as someone who is like deeply
entrenched in New York at this point, I think I've
told you that there's this incredible book that came out
earlier this year or late last year called The New
York Game. And it really just talks about it goes.
You know, from the late eighteen hundreds up until the
(07:45):
mid nineteen fifties, we talk a lot about the intersection
of business, sports, and culture. And you know, baseball teams,
especially in New York were just so richly embedded into
you know, what it means to be a New Yorker.
You lived it, you knew you know. I mean you
were sort of maybe in in that final stretch when
the Yankees were the most important team in New York.
(08:08):
I mean, you know, sorry to all the other sports
and the Mets and all that, but like the Yankees
are the Yankees and managing to hold on to that.
But as you say, maybe with some of the other
franchises being a little bit more aggressive and a little
bit more innovative could could help the help the bottom line.
So on the subject of baseball, Little League World Series
(08:28):
wraps up this weekend, and I know we've both been
watching it. It's always exciting to sort of see those
kids out there. It also is a reminder of the
huge business of youth sports. We have Greg Olsen coming
up on the show. He is your partner of sorts,
albeit at a different sport. On Fox on Fox Sports,
but also heavily invested in the business of youth sports.
(08:51):
And it's a really interesting conversation. You and he traded
some insights that I think people are really going on
to here because it's not necessarily what I expected from
you and not what I expected from him in terms
of what the right moves are for youth sports going forward.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yeah, and you buried the lead because the best thing
about Greg Olsen is that he's an alum from the
University of Miami.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You really love that. You always called me out for
not missing that, like at the top of the list.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I do, man, the you we got to always remember that.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
No, but I think, look, Greg is an incredible person
who's doing really cool things in the world of youth sports,
and I think for our audience this is very relevant
and not to forget what I think is the most
important part.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
About youth baseball.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Number one, Youth sports is a forty.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Billion dollar business.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
This is a real and it's also one of the
most fragmented businesses in the US.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, all right, coming up all that and more from
Greg Olsen. Welcome back to the dl IF Jason Kelly
alongside Alex Rodriguez. So excited to have with us as
(10:07):
our guest day, Greg Olsen. He is, of course, an
Emmy winning sports broadcaster, former professional football player, and the
creator of Youth Inc. We're going to talk about all
of it today, Greg. Really, good to see you.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Great to see you, guys. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
All right, so let's talk about some shared experiences here
between you and Alex Rodriguez, you know, sitting here next
to me in New York City. The transition from being
a player to being a broadcaster is a key moment
for anybody. You got to it pretty early, like even
while you were still playing, you were starting to dabble
(10:43):
in it a bit. Why what made you want to
sort of be on TV and be behind a mike.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah. So if you would have asked me, you know,
four or five years into my playing career, what I
was going to do after I was done playing, I
would have said, I have no idea. I'm going to
play until the wheels fall off and I'll figure it out.
But I had some really unique opportunities that came my way.
And like everybody knows, life's about it, you know, an
element of luck and an element of opportunities and then
what you make of them kind of dictates where those
(11:11):
paths ultimately lead. And so twenty fifteen Fox actually was
nice enough. Both Kevin Burkhardt, who's Alex's partner obviously with
the pregame show and the great job they do there
at Fox, who was my first partner at Fox. We
go way back to North Jersey together, we grew up.
I've known Kevin for a long time since I was
in high school. So Kevin actually, yeah, So Kevin did
(11:33):
a audition for me. So anyone who's been to one
of these auditions, you sit in a sterile studio out
in La at the Fox Studios, and you just call
a game off of a television monitor and it's as
simple as that. So I was. I was lucky enough
that Fox asked me to do a dry run game
with Kevin. And then in twenty seventeen, on the bye
week of my twenty seventeen season, I joined Kevin and
(11:55):
his partner at the time was Charles Davis, and we
did a three man booth. And then in twenty nineteen
Fox had me back again and I did a two
man booth on my bye week. So I did all
of this as a current player, and it just gave
me such an opportunity to really see what I liked.
And I had done some studio and I had done
some game stuff. I did college, I did NFL, but
(12:16):
it was really stepping into an NFL booth and a
real live game back in seventeen where I walked away
from the stadium saying like I could do this, Like Wow,
I feel really good about this. This might be my
niche and I did it. I called XFL games. You know,
people always say, oh, man, in two years you called
the super Bowl? Why did you rise so fast? I
was like, well, you just didn't know any of the
(12:36):
games I did before, Like anything, right, These overnight successes
take a long time to get there. So I was
very fortunate the opportunities I was giving during my playing career,
and it just kind of organically found me as much
as I found it, and I've loved doing it ever since.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Greg, I'm kind of spooked right now because, first of all,
my partner Jason, who is the best. He did forget
to mention, the greatest thing about you is your University
of Miami alum. Right then we got sat at that
board for twenty years and you know, really had an
incredible time watching you and your excellence there.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So thank you for your service.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
But in twenty fifteen, it's ironic you mentioned that that
was exactly the same year that Fox was generous enough
to talk to me. And I came back that year
for my suspension, which was a vital year for me
to get back on track. I ended up having a
really nice year and you know, getting my career back
on track a little bit. And I went on an
off day once they signed me to say, okay, can
you do the playoffs once you.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Guys get eliminated.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And I agreed to that, and then we had a
day off and I went into the Fox studio in
Central City in LA and I sat there for like
two and a half hours, and we did a mock
pregame show and I was I remember, my knees were shaken.
I'm like, wait a minute, I'm used to playing in
Yankee Stadium in front of fifty five thousand people at
the old stadium, and I'm nervous about this. But Kevin,
I call him Magic Johnson. He's a little bit like Jason.
(13:54):
He's an ultimate giver. He sets you up to win.
I'm interested to know, because we're sharing Kevin and we
both him so much. What is it about him that
made you feel better? I mean, you want an Emmy
with him, But what makes him such a great leader
and a great broadcast partner.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up, because I think
all of us, yourself me, I'm sure Tom Brady would
now say it. Like everyone who's ever worked with Kevin,
the first thing they say is like, it's just easy,
Like everything he does is easy. He takes you exactly
where you want to go, he keeps you out of
maybe where you don't want to go. And I think
your Magic Johnson, he is the ultimate point guard. He's
(14:30):
the ultimate kind of weave in and out, do all
the hard work, and then his ultimate goal and what
he does so well is he just makes whoever sitting
next to him, whether it's on the desk with you
and Big Poppy and Jeter, or whether it's sitting in
the booth with you know, the different guys he's worked
with in the NFL, whoever works with him, he makes
them always look awesome, and he makes them always look great.
(14:53):
And it's the greatest compliment that you could pay a guy.
He has no ego, He is selfless as the day
is long, and it's the best teammate to have, especially
for guys like us who you might know baseball and
I might know football, but we don't know TV. In
the early days, at least I didn't, I didn't really
know TV, and in a lot of ways now, Alex,
I don't know how you feel about it, but like
(15:14):
there's still elements of TV that I really still don't get.
But like, when your partner is just so good at
managing and directing traffic and managing all of the technical
stuff and you can just do what you do well,
which is talk the game and provide insight and analysis,
it just makes everything work so smoothly. But yeah, I
could go on. We could do this entire We could
(15:35):
do this entire segment about Kevin and now my partner
Joe Davis, who's also on Your Guys World Series and
postseason crew. Our team at Fox, as it is for
the baseball crew equally for the NFL crew, is just
a really good collection of really talented people who can
make the analyst job look a lot better than we
probably are.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
To that exact point, Greg Lake, what is the thing
that you feel like you had to learn the most.
I know from working alongside this guy. It's like, if
there's one thing about professional athletes, and for professional athletes,
you guys are grinders, You're coachable, you like to learn,
you like to get better. What was the thing you
had to get better at that you have sort of
(16:15):
accomplished in these intervening years.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Yeah, So I think the biggest thing is and I
don't even know if I've necessarily completely gotten over it
or completely fixed all the problems, but I think one
of the challenges that a lot of guys have that
have played the game. And I'm sure for Alex to
sit there when he watches a Major League baseball game,
Alex can probably find twenty five things on any given
at bat, or any given pitch sequence, or any different
(16:39):
defensive rotation in the field, and he could probably talk
twenty five minutes about why it's so important and why
he finds it so interesting. It would be great television,
but we don't have these unlimited boxes of time. We
have to talk in these very clear cuts to sync,
especially doing an NFL broadcast where we're talking between plays
in twenty second interval. So I think early on, for me,
(17:02):
it was just because I see five things that I
might find interesting, and I want to bring the viewer
in on. I probably only have time to make a
case for one of those interesting things, but I have
a three hour broadcast to come back to some of
the others. I think early on, I wanted to tell
everybody everything I saw on every play because I'm fascinated
(17:23):
by it. I love it. I find it the most interesting,
you know, thing in the world. But it doesn't always
make for great television. So I think that's something I'm
still working through, where less is more, you know, see
a little, see a lot. Like all those phrases we
used to have as athletes to simplify things, I think
we can lean on a lot of those now in
the broadcasting in live television, where when you go too
(17:46):
long is often when you get yourself in trouble, and
that's been something that I've had to continue to remind
myself as i've done this now the last couple of years.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
So Greg, I want to dig in there a little
bit because that's a great answer, and I'm really wondering
you go to twenty fifth and now you cut to
twenty twenty five and you're a completely different broadcaster, like
Jason said, you won an Emmy, You've covered a Super Bowl,
like you're one of the most respected guys in the industry.
But talk to me about twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. What
were a couple things besides the one you just articulated
(18:17):
things you were doing probably wrong that today it will
be a big no no that today you do more naturally.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think a
lot of the things would probably be what doesn't come
on air, aside from just being more succinct and more
clear and have better clarity and in the conversational is
probably the best way to phrase it, that you and
your partner just come across like there two guys sitting
on the couch having a beer together and just talking ball,
Like that's what everyone wants from a viewer's perspective. I
(18:45):
think when I look back on those early years where
I had a lot of trouble, maybe not trouble, but
had a learning curve, was managing the picture of what
we were saying. For example, we want to do a
replay after a scoring touchdown, right, and I want to
talk about before we get to the ball and the
throw and the catch. I want to make sure we
spend some time because the running back in the offensive
(19:05):
line did a really nice job picking up a really
elaborate blitz scheme that gave the quarterback time. Mahomes has
time now to throw a touchdown to Kelsey instead of
just diving in and just saying, great throw, Mahomes, great catch, Kelsey.
I wanted to be able to steer the truck to say, Hey,
I want the skycam behind the quarterback. Start on a freeze,
because I want to draw up that they I had
(19:26):
a hard time in real time getting that across. I
knew what I wanted. It was hard for me to
speak television that the people in the truck knew that
they could put on the screen what I saw in
my brain. And now it's a lot easier for me
to say, Hey, I want an ISO bottom of the screen, Kelsey,
start on pause. Everyone knows what I want. Hey, I
(19:47):
want behind the defense pitframe. Start on pause because I
want to talk about the defensive tackle whoever it is like.
I can now have a little bit quicker and clearer
way to direct the truck so that they set up
a picture that is in line with what I'm really
excited to talk about. But I think, like anything else,
like it takes a little time to get a comfortable
(20:09):
enough to say, Hey, you guys in the truck that
have been doing this a really long time, I want
this picture and I promise you like it's gonna be good.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
I think early on you're a little hesitant and you're
a little nervous. You're saying whatever you put up, I'll
talk about. So as anything, there's been a little bit
of an evolution where I'm a little bit more assertive
and saying no, I feel really strongly I want to
go this direction. And to the credit of my producers
and directors and you know Mitcheska, he produces the world
series with you guys. Like again, I've been lucky that
(20:37):
the producers and directors that I had have trusted that
growth and are just really good at their job.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah. And you know, one thing that obviously you've talked
a lot about, Greg, and I have to give you
credit for talking as much and as openly as you have,
is you know, getting a new partner, essentially being you know,
replaced by Tom Brady, which you know I mean, is tough.
On one hand, and also very understandable given the Tom
Brady noess of it all. I don't want to make
you sort of relive and say a lot of the
(21:04):
things that you've said before. But it does strike me
that a lot of people listening, you know, this is
a business audience, many people have encountered that exact same thing,
where like someone else you know comes in, you know,
new guy coming into the company, a new man or
woman you know coming onto the team. What's your advice
for somebody having now gone through this who faces something similar,
(21:26):
Because you've handled it with a lot of grace, with
a lot of confidence, how did you sort of get
there and what would you say to people is the
best way to handle something like that?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
I think in a lot of ways through this transition,
a lot of the lessons that I've tried to learn
on the fly in the new industry have just been
leaning on things that served me well in my former life,
which was as an athlete. And anyone who's lived in
a competitive environment, and obviously Alex can speak to this
as good as anybody in history of sports. Like when
you compete at a high level and you have high
(21:59):
expectation and the expectations of you. There's only so many
people that have ever reached that level, right, and I,
certainly from a playing career, didn't. But when it came
to this new chapter in my life, so many of
the things of my former career paid dividends, and this
was one of them. And I think the biggest lesson
what I would say to people is there's nothing wrong
with being incredibly competitive. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
(22:22):
be the best player on the New York Yankees. But
that doesn't mean that Derek Jeter has to go over.
That doesn't mean that the other players on your team
can't have a lot of success. So like that was
my career as a player, Like every year there were
guys drafted to take my position, and there were guys
on the offensive side of the ball who competed for
targets and catches and yards and all of that. And
(22:44):
my success did not have to mean their failure, and
their success didn't have to mean I couldn't be really
good either, And so I approached this world of TV
in really the same fashion, Like my expectations are to
be amongst the best people in the industry, and whatever
game that is, there's a lot of moving parts outside
of your control. But what I control is I control
how hard I prepare, I control how much I know
(23:06):
about the sport of football, and I genuinely enjoy doing it.
And if there's someone else who comes along who also
is good, great, There's plenty of room for all of us.
And that's really just been my approach. And with Tom,
like I want Tom to do a great job. I
want Tom to have success. I root for Tom and
Kevin like they're my friends, like they're people, they're my colleagues,
(23:27):
they're my friends. I want them to have success. But
I still want to be regarded as being the best
in the industry. And that's not a knock on anyone else.
It's just the only way I know. And you know,
I'm sure no one knows it better than than Alex.
Like the expectations for a long time, or that Alex
is the best baseball player in Major League Baseball, and
then all of a sudden you go line up next
to Derek Jeter, who's at Icon in New York City.
(23:50):
That doesn't mean that Alex Rodriguez can't still be the
best baseball player in major in the world. Like it's
a very similar world where you say I can be
really good regards gardless of the people around me being
good or bad.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, I love that, Greg.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
And look, when you have a career like you've had,
where includes you know, doing some of the biggest games
in the NFL and includes an Emmy, and you know,
the principle brings it into the office, it's usually gonna
be like, hey, we're gonna double your pay and you're
gonna be in the A team forever, and instead you
get the opposite. So I've often said that you can't
control what happens to you, but you certainly can control
(24:24):
how you react to those circumstances and those decisions.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
What made you reads that mindset.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, and this is something that people probably think I'm
a little crazy when we're coaching our kids' teams and
we're coaching football, and you know, I coach my son's
travel baseball team. Alex and I have talked a lot
of youth baseball in our past times crossing pats over
the years. I'm just a big believer, like, if we're
gonna do it, let's do it. Like if we're if
we're gonna spend all this time and energy, like I
(24:50):
just don't have a lot of understanding and patience for
just participating and just being content to have the position.
I've always been of the mindset where I might not
always be the best. I certainly was never the best
football player my entire life. I was never the best
NFL football player. At no time in my life was
I ever the best player on my team. Maybe in
(25:11):
high school, but in college and NFL, certainly I was
never the best player on my team. But I was
always the best player I could possibly be. There was
nothing more for me to do. If someone was better
than me, they were just better than me. And it's
the same thing now in the broadcast role. Whatever you
label us as the two crew, the B crew, the
one crew, they see whatever it is. If I'm gonna
(25:32):
do it, and I'm gonna spend all week and I'm
gonna travel the weekends, and we're gonna meet with these teams,
like the expectation is, if we're gonna do it, we're
gonna do it with every intent to be the very
best at it. And that doesn't guarantee you will be
the best, and it doesn't guarantee you are perceived as
the best. But that is just the intent going forward
with everything you do in your preparation, your perform and
all that, and then the dust can settle from there.
(25:54):
And like I said, my approach as a player and
all the lessons that I learned to kind of punch
above my weight class as a player against better athletes, bigger,
stronger guys that I competed with. I try to bring
a lot of those same principles and approaches to now
my time on television.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You gave us a great segue into the youth sports business.
You know you are announcing or have recently announced a
new venture called you think for those watching on video
and YouTube, you've got some sick merch that you're wearing
right now that demonstrates that Alex and I are both
fascinated by this business. Having you know, played as kids,
(26:44):
being parents and having our kids play. What brought you
to the point that you wanted to go beyond coaching
your kids to really building a business around this.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yes? What really, it's just been kind of the story
of my life. I grew up in North Jersey. My
dad was the local public high school football coach for
forty years. He coached me and all my brothers. It
was stereotypical local high school football, very intense, very driven,
high expectations. You know. Again, my two brothers and I
all three went on to play Major Division one football
(27:16):
as a product because of that early accessibility towards camps
and coaching and leadership and all of those qualities we
learned at a young age growing up playing through my dad,
and then obviously I made a career out of it,
and now have come full circle where I'm the dad
and I'm raising two teenage boys and a teenage girl,
and they're all in their varying sports and levels of
interest and whatnot. And I find myself now coaching those
(27:38):
middle school teams and those girls basketball teams, and I'm
coaching travel baseball and trying to understand, Okay, how do
we best navigate this not only for my own kids,
but for the kids that we take responsibility for as
the coach, as members of our team. And We'd lay
in bed at night with my wife and I'd be like,
I'm not sure if we're doing this right. Like, I'm
not sure if we have it right? Does the world
(27:58):
have it right? There has to be a conversation out
there towards getting these families, best practices to navigating what
is a very different youth sports scene than what Alex
and I grew up in. Like it just it is
unrecognizable from ten to fifteen, twenty years ago. And that
was the content piece of You Think, And we're having
Alex and I, through our friends at Fox, are actually
going to sit down and have a conversation. Alex has
(28:20):
been nice enough to agree to that and just talk
about best practices, best experiences. Tom Brady was our launch episode,
and we have Malcolm Gladwell, who's one of the greatest
thought leaders in the entire world, sociologists and psychologists and
different practices. We have a really wide birth of different
interview guests as well as other people creating content on
our platform to entertain, to inform, and to empower people
(28:42):
to have a better experience in youth sports. And then
the back real engine of the company is a commerce
platform trying to give people better experiences to represent their
son or daughter's youth foot both For us to buy
a Dallas Cowboy or a Carolina Panther hoodie or a
T shirt, it is as simple as going to fanatics.
You type it in and it drops. Why can't we
(29:03):
do that for the youth sports team. Why can't you
wear that polo you have and it has your son
or daughter's high school logo on it that you would
wear to go play golf or you'd wear to go
play launch. We're creating that ecosystem of the commerce on
the heels of acquiring our customers and bringing our consumers
in through a lot of our content pieces.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's so interesting too. So I'm you know, I have
a son who I went through it from a lacrosse perspective.
So my son played you know, club lacrosse all through,
ended up playing in college, and so like the massive
ecosystem around youth sports. It's beyond, you know, by some measures,
forty billion dollar market, but it is broken up as
(29:44):
much as anything else. You know, we've had David Blitzer,
Josh Harris on this show. They obviously have their own
take on this through Unrivaled, which I know you're deeply
familiar with. How does this business for you grow? I mean,
and is this something that consolidates with other companies. I
know you're literally just launching it, but I know you've
(30:04):
thought about these things like take us inside the business plan.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Yeah, I'm not sure with the long term strategy. Again,
we are literally on like week one of this launch,
what's been a two year journey to get to this point.
You mentioned the Unrivaled guys, actually just sat down with
them up in Cooperstown. They obviously owned Cooperstown All Star Village.
They're a partner and a sponsor and are continuing to
do more and more things with us that you think
and obviously the projects that they're doing with cal Ripkin
(30:28):
Baseball and the Cooperstown trip that we just took my
twelve year old son's team to a couple of weeks ago,
so that we align in a lot of similar kind
of circles of those guys in Unrivaled that you just mentioned.
But I think big picture for us, if if we
had to kind of just summarize what we're trying to
do is we're trying to improve the experience of everyone
involved in youth sports. And there's a lot of ways
to do that, right. So there's the educational component. There's
(30:52):
teaching coaches and players best practices of running. Everything from
Alex Rodriguez telling us you know how to hit a
curveball to Ryan Day, you know on the heels of
a national champion telling us how do you get back
into the lab after having an incredible season, What does
off season strategy look like, how do you build a
coaching staff, how do you recruit in today's nil day,
(31:13):
Tom Brady and all these people giving very unique perspectives
to both inform and empower. But then there's also an
entertainment property. We have a lot of really fun, you
know content, you know series that are coming down the
pipeline that'll be more in the age of what everyone's
sons are kind of watching on YouTube and Instagram and
TikTok and whatnot. That we're excited about. The commerce piece
is the improving of experience of I want to represent
(31:36):
my son or daughter's team, and what I wear on
a Friday night to a football game or a Saturday
morning on a baseball field is very different experience getting
that pullover, that T shirt, those pair of shorts, then
what it would be for the University of Miami or
the Minnesota Timberwolves or whoever it is. It's a very
different experience, and we took a step back when we said, okay,
(31:56):
the infrastructure of that experience is very ingrained in people
and what they're used to in their daily activity. Why
don't we just to take those and apply it into
the youth sports sense, so now you can wear your
favorite team. Because for a lot of these parents, and
you guys know this, their favorite team is whatever team
their kid is playing for Monday through that's on the weekends,
that's what they're living for. So it seems like a
(32:18):
real hole in the market that we feel like we
can attack and go after. And we feel pretty good
about the team we've put in place, the experience of
a lot of our founders and a lot of the
people we've brought on board, that we can execute the
content element and the commerce side, and we can do
it jointly, and obviously the expectation is that we can
make a dent in this market.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I have a bone to pick with, especially like youth basebon.
Maybe you can help me address this. Let's talk youth baseball.
I live youth baseball every day in my life, but
I'm so sick of it, honestly, And I'll tell you why.
You know, I come from a mother, you know, single mother.
She was a secretary of the morning, So at tables
at night, we're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hour days We'll leave
us seven in the morning and come home sometimes at
(32:58):
midnight on Fridays and Saturday. But I have so many
of my friends greg today that say, Alex, if you
were a kid today, if you were ten years old,
Alex Rodriguez would never make it to the big leagues.
And I would say, why, Well, because you and your
mother couldn't afford it. And the same parents are selling
their cars, they're having a double mortgage in their homes
(33:18):
to be traveling around this perfect game stuff and all
this nonsense. You have to make sports more affordable, and
it just drives me crazy.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
You're one hundred percent right, and listen, I live this
every single day. I've coached both my boys teams. I
now just coach my twelve year team. We just spent
a week in Cooperstown. I wrote a check for thirty
thousand dollars to bring thirteen boys to Cooperstown, New York
for an entire week. My team from the beginning. Again,
everybody you know different to play on my team, you
(33:47):
pay me zero dollars. The only thing you got, Alex Rodriguez,
you're on my team. I got a spot for you.
If you've got some eligibility I could have on your
team then, as I was, you could have I think
you could afford Yes, I think you could afford my team.
You could probably buy our. But all that being said,
like you got to get yourself a bat and a
glove and a pair of cleats, and we'll take care
of everything else. And you know, tournament entry fees will
(34:10):
take care of everything else that comes along with it.
Like sports to me costs me money. Now I understand
for a lot of these organizations, for a lot of
these coaches, this is their full time job. Right There
is a professionalization of youth sports. There are professional youth
sports coaches. Their only job in the world is to
coach young athletes, both privately and they get paid to
(34:31):
coach their team. And I don't fault anybody for it.
There's a lot of really passionate people that spend their
entire day in the world of developing young athletes, especially
in baseball. But everything you said about the cost that
comes with it is one hundred percent the truth. There
are kids at twelve years old that are paying three
to five thousand dollars a year to play on one team.
(34:54):
They could show up to that team and have three
new players come from Miami, Florida, be given a uniform
and take the spot, paying nothing. But they've also flown
to Atlanta, They've flown to Texas, They've flown to wherever
the tournament is. They've stayed in hotels, they've rented cars,
plus plus plus plus the five thousand dollars to play
(35:15):
on their team. It is a never ending cost that
if you want to participate in the Junior Showcase, there's
an element of costs that is a barrier to entry.
And I don't sit here pretending to know what the
fix is to that. Like anything, I feel like once
that ball starts rolling downhill, it's very hard to push
it back up. There is a lot of money to
(35:37):
make off the development of young athletes, and I try
not to be critical because I know there are a
lot of people that are doing it for the right reasons.
But there are a lot of people that are just
running business off of the idea of coaching and whatnot.
And it's just not the world that I come from.
We're coaching our kids middle school football team. I'm from
(35:58):
the world of youth coaches, being volunteer yours. Those days
are becoming very few and far between Alex and someone
with your voice in the space, someone with your you know, credibility,
your success obviously probably has a ton a ton of
weight maybe to sway that pendulum back the other way.
But baseball, of all the sports that were in baseball,
has probably gone the furthest towards specialization, professionalization, high cost
(36:24):
of entry, and very very serious and competitive at the
earliest of ages.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Greg my first year, I'm gonna date myself here. I
was a rookie at eighteen years old for the Seattle Mariners,
playing with the goat Ken Griffith Junior, the great manager, Lupanela,
Randy Johnsenega Martinez, hall of famers galore all around. And
at that point there was about twenty to twenty five
percent of the league was African American, and today is
under five percent. And if you pull and I was
(36:50):
guessed because I don't have this data, but if you
go to inner cities, some of our greatest athletes in
the world are picking football, basketball, and soccer and you
know other sports because they truly just can't afford it.
And I bet you eighty percent of them if you
pulled them, they just say, we just can't afford to
try baseball, so we're going to go try something else.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
And for Major League Baseball at the macro level, how
do you grow the tam of baseball is you got
to have the greatest athletes playing the sport. And thank god,
there's one great example that plays right here in New
York City. His name is Aaron Judge, who was recruited
by Notre Dame Stanford to be a tight end. And
thank god for us and all of us who love baseball,
he chose baseball. But I guarantee you nine out of
ten are going to go to Notre Dame or Stanford
(37:30):
to play football.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Yep. Absolutely, And that's a great example of a kid
who maybe nowadays, growing up, he might be forced to
only play football or he might be forced to only
play baseball, and he doesn't have those experiences as a
high school player. And of course it's worked out for him.
He's an MLB All Star and an MVP. But there's
a lot of kids who the best time of their
(37:52):
sports career might be their senior year in high school.
And that's okay, Like, if the idea of playing baseball
as a young kid, if my kids only reason my
two boys played baseball, and they're both they're gonna be
in seventh and eighth grade. If their only reason for
playing baseball was to grow up to be Alex Rodriguez,
we should stop playing baseball. The odds of that happening
(38:12):
are zero. I don't even know that the long shot
of that happening is close to zero. But there's so
many other experiences that come just from being on the
team competing in high school. Some of your best core
memories are playing at a young age as a young kid,
growing up with your buddies in the neighborhood. And I
think so often that is lost, where for so many
(38:34):
people the only objective of playing youth sports is to
either get a college scholarship or to become a professional.
And I'm not saying those aren't worthwhile aspirations and that
those aren't great goals, but I think if we keep
them as the only driving forces, we're missing so many
of the amazing other lessons in life, things that we
can carry forward into our marriages, into our parenting style,
(38:55):
into the ability to work with different people from different
backgrounds in the world. Like there are so many other
aspects of sport that teach people how to live in
society more than just the ability to make a living
doing it.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, no, it's totally true. And again, you know, having
lived this from a parent's perspective, you know, when you
actually start to do the math even and greg, you'll
appreciate this, especially as your your boys get older. You know,
the idea of like what you're spending and then you know,
in pursuit of a college scholarship, like the math doesn't
even add up. You know, if you're spending you know,
(39:30):
like five ten thousand dollars, it's like, no, if what
you're really trying to do is pay for college, then
like put that money in a five twenty nine. But
if you go into it, and you know, not to
be too preachy about this, but like we said to
our son through all of high school, it's like, listen,
you are in this for so many other reasons than
playing in college or getting a college scholarship. And we
(39:52):
were very clear with him, it's like, if you wake
up tomorrow, you know and say, like, you know what,
I'm done with this, Like all of it was worth
it because of the extent exactly what you're saying, because
of the experience you had making these friends, learning how
to set goals, learning how to succeed, learning how to fail, win, lose,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, and it's funny and when you go into it
with the right driving forces at the start, and you're
not going into it to win as many games as
you can and to get a college scholarship. But you
go into it, especially from a coaching perspective, and you
can say, let's create a space of development, of accountability,
of growth, of like really strong program rules and alignment.
(40:32):
It's amazing how the goals that everyone wants you end
up at a lot of times a lot of the
kids reach them. But it's a byproduct of everything else.
Not everyone's going to go play college baseball, but everyone's
going to get all the great lessons and then ten
percent of them are going to go play college baseball.
Like at our kids school here in Charlotte, we have
a really good baseball program. We have a really good
football program too, but our baseball program has a bunch
(40:55):
of really young talented kids in the program. Small school,
but just very very good. In this last class, we're
sending kids to NC State. Our pitcher went to Wake Forest,
our shortstop got drafted into the fifth round last year
to the Orioles. We got some young kids that'll be
like high high level either draft picks or college Power
five kids. But it's because it's a program. They're playing
(41:15):
with their buddies. They've gone to school here since they
were in middle school. Like there's an element of growth
in saying, all right, I might want to wait my
turn till I'm a sophomore junior to play, but it'll
all be worth it. Like we are speeding up the
process of development so fast these days that we're skipping
over so many steps. And if you don't become Alex Rodriguez,
(41:36):
or you don't get a college scholarship, for everybody else,
which is the vast majority, don't fit into that bucket.
You look back and say I didn't get anything else either,
like I missed all the other stuff that at least,
that's what's going on right now, and it's just getting
younger and younger.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
We're gonna do our lightning round five questions. Just first
thing that jumps to your mind. I'll start, and then
Alex we'll pick up. All right, here we go. Best
piece of advice you've received on deal making your business?
Speaker 4 (42:15):
Have a strong understanding of what you don't know. Surround
yourself with people who know a lot more than you,
and you're probably gonna be in good shape. If you're
the smartest guy in the room, it's a problem.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Who's your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
I mean along the lines of what we're doing right now.
If you think you know, like a guy like Michael Rubin, right,
I mean what they've built at Fanatics understanding commerce and
I think he's brilliant in a lot of ways, but
I have a lot of respect for what he's built.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, what a hustler. Which team do you want to
see win a championship more than any.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
I'd like to see Miami, Miami Hurricanes. Hopefully Alex feels
me there big time. I'll take it in anything. I'll
take it in baseball, basketball, girls, basketball, football, I'll take
it in any But yeah, I'd like to see Miami
to get back to being what we all remember.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Let's keep it as a football and we have a
big opener against Notre Dame. Question number four here, what
is your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 4 (43:12):
So I'm a big king, I know you guys know
Kings of Leon of course the band. I just saw
him play in New York a couple of weeks ago
with Zach Bryant. A song there called Fans sa Ns
and it's just about check it out. It's a really
good all right.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
That's good, all right. Last question, what's your advice for
someone listening who wants a career like yours.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
The best thing that I've done in my career is
I've always just continued the art of learning, and the
art of curiosity, and the art of getting better. I
don't know if at any stagnant point in time I
was ever the best person at any given frozen moment.
I think my strength had been I never stopped getting
(43:52):
better for a really long period of time. And when
we stopped at the end and I looked around a
lot of people who were better than me early on,
I had passed by a long time ago. So I
think that the ability to improve indefinitely has always been
a strength of mind.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
That's great, all right, Well, this was super, super fun.
We could literally do this all day. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
We really appreciate you, guys, Greg. That was awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.
This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong and Lizzie Phillip.
Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connelly is our
video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.
Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brendan Newnham.
Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support
(44:46):
from Rachel Carnivale and Elena sos 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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