December 27, 2024 • 38 mins
Join hosts Michael Barr, Scarlet Fu, Damian Sassower and guest hosts Bloomberg Originals chief correspondent Jason Kelly and Bloomberg Originals sports correspondent Vanessa Perdomo for a look at some of the latest headlines and stories in the business of sports.
Former New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-winning film and television producer Jeff Benedict shares his thoughts on NFL coaching legend Bill Belichick's decision to coach at the University of North Carolina and how it impacts the college landscape and his legacy.
With the NBA's recent early season ratings coming in lower, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Tyler Cowen discusses why he believes the decline could be a symptom of a larger problem for the league.
Plus, we dive into the business of air travel for professional teams and athletes with Elevate Aviation Group CEO Greg Raiff.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports.
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Business of Sports can be intimidating for hard for a
start to break into.
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We really appreciate when our owners are actually better, you
know with us through the journey.
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Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
all levels of the company.
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Maybe we're in the golden years for the NFL and
college football.
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Our demographic reach has continued to explode.
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This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
for sports fans.
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to make a whole ton of money.
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Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Do you.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore
the big money issues in the world of sports. Michael
Barr along with my colleagues Scarlett Fu and Damian Sasaur
coming up on the show. We talked some football. We
hear from Jeff Benedict. He's an Emmy Award winning writer
and a New York Times best selling author whose latest book,
(01:08):
The Dynasty, is considered the definitive account of the Patriots
during the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft era that
yield its Super Bowl. After Super Bowl.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
Patriots win the Super Bowl, Brady has his def what
a come back.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We'll also check in on the private jet space and
learn about the business of air travel for pro teams.
All of that is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business
of Sports. But first, the NBA. Despite adding in things
like the NBA Cup, it's looking like the TV ratings
are much lower than last year. And Bloomberg opinion columnist
(01:51):
Tyler Collen believes the issue comes down to economics. He's
also a professor of economics at George Mason University. Tyler
here now to talk with us. It is a great piece, Professor,
that you have written an opinion that the NBA's problem
is economics, not basketball.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
What happened? What?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
The game is supposed to be the perfect game because
it's a two and a half hour window and it
helps everybody with their attention span.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But what happened?
Speaker 8 (02:26):
I'm an NBA fan, and I'm worried that other people
are starting to lose interest. So TV ratings are down.
Recently the NBA Cup was held, it seemed the world
didn't care that much. I think what people are really
missing from the NBA are just megastars and mega teams
that keep on winning. The next Michael Jordan, the next
(02:46):
younger Lebron James. That's what really draws interest to the sport.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's what draws interests to the sport. And it's not
as if there aren't any superstars or superstars in the making.
I know Lebron James, you know, towards the end of
his career as opposed to the beginning, but he has
a son, and there was a lot of excitement over
father and son playing on the same team. And the NBA,
more than any other sport, is known for minting superstars.
You can see their face. There aren't that many of
(03:15):
them on the court, as opposed to a game like hockey,
for instance, where there are helmets covering their faces and
it's very much a team sport. What is it about
the economics of the NBA that is preventing superstars from
really being able to, you know, be their best superstar selves.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
Well, the last six years, we've had six different teams
win NBA titles, so there's not been a dominant team.
In the nineteen eighties, it was the Celtics and the Lakers.
In the nineteen nineties, it was Michael Jordan and the
Chicago Bulls. For a while earlier it was the Golden
State Warriors. But we have this thing in basketball called
the salary cap. It's very complicated. They've made it tighter,
(03:58):
but basically it's very hard for top teams to keep
spending money to keep their old stars or to bring
in new ones. So there's a kind of parody sets
in where every year there's a different winner and fans
generate less interest. If you look at chess, Magnus Carlson
an incredible performer, you know he drove interest in the game.
(04:18):
In tennis, it was Roger Federer who just got everyone involved.
So fans don't actually want pure competitive balance.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Professor, one of the things you had written in your
opinion piece is that the smaller market teams like maybe
a Milwaukee or in Oklahoma, they may have a dedicated
fan base, but they're having a tough time trying to
hang with broadcast rights and such.
Speaker 8 (04:45):
Well, if the problem is if you're now the Los
Angeles Lakers or the New York Knicks, or the Los
Angeles Clippers or Chicago, you're in a big market, but
there's this thing in the salary cap. It's called the
second apron, and it just makes it prohibitively expensive to
use your market size to become better. I think fans
would actually enjoy it more if there were two or
(05:08):
three dominant teams with regular faceoffs. And right now, well,
you have Toronto in for a year, you have Denver
win for a year, you have the Boston Celtics win
for a year. And it's frustrating because none of the
players on those teams can achieve the iconic status of
say a Michael Jordan, who won six NBA titles across
(05:29):
the span of six years and.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Became a franchise player in a way that maybe we're
not going to see in the meantime. But let me
go back to that idea of parody. I thought every
league wanted parody. When you have a league that's dominated
by one team too much other teams, fans tend to
lose interest because it's kind of like you're swimming against
the tide. It's it's almost impossible. Teams are always talking
(05:52):
up how they want to create more parody so that
each cities team has a chance. Is there such a
thing is too much parody.
Speaker 8 (06:01):
There is such a thing as too much parody. Keep
in mind, the NBA, like many sports, is increasingly becoming
a national and also international market. So do the people
in Milan, Italy? You care if the San Antonio Spurs
are competitive this year?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Probably not.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
There's so much competition for people's attention. What you need
to do is to attract their viewing to the sport
at all. Like I live outside of Washington, d C.
I don't care that much if the Wizards are a
good team. In fact, they're a terrible team. But if
the sport is interesting, I'll follow games on TV. That
brings in a more lucrative TV contract ad revenue pace
(06:39):
for the whole sport. So the city by city analysis,
it just matters much less than it used to.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And you are right because and just a quick comparison
to the NFL, the NFC North is extremely competitive. You've
got three out of the four teams and you don't
know where it's going to go by the time the
regular season is over. But in the NBA it seems
that's not the case.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
Yes, what the NFL has done is made the Super
Bowl the single most important national event in some ways,
it gets more attention than the day of our presidential election.
And people don't sit back and say, oh, is my
team in the Super Bowl? No, they want to watch it. Right,
it's this universal event you want to talk about the ads,
have snacks with your friends, have a party over your house.
(07:27):
The NBA Finals are nothing like that, And I think
that's the problem. Again, the more intense the competition for attention,
the bigger your biggest star needs to be. For the NFL,
it's not an individual because there's a helmet on, but
it's like the ultimate game itself, the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Also, there's limited supply, right, there's a limited number of teams,
there's a limited number of games played per season as well.
I want to ask you, Tyler, as the NBA thinks
about expanding beyond its current thirty team lineup, from an
econ point of view, how should they proceed?
Speaker 8 (08:02):
Well, I think Las Vegas, for instance, and also Seattle
could easily support profitable NBA teams. I think they should
do it, but it doesn't solve the basic problem for
the sport, which is, in the long run, there's cable
cutting younger viewers for almost everything. They just have different tastes,
and the question is, you know, why should they follow
the same sport that maybe their father and grandfather did.
(08:25):
And right now, the NBA does not have a great
answer to that question. There are some other issues in
the sport. So many people say there's too many three
point shots, it's boring. I agree with that. I'm not
sure it's the main problem, but it's an issue. Another
issue is so many of the top stars now are foreigners.
Maybe Americans relate less well to those individuals than they would,
(08:47):
say to Michael Jordan or Lebron James or Larry Bird.
That's another possible problem, but it's not one we really
can fix.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
It's an interesting problem because out of the four major
sports food groups baseball, football, basketball, hockey, the NBA is
the only one where they have a competitive WNBA and
you would think that it would draw interest to the
game itself, but they're struggling with the finances for the NBA.
Speaker 8 (09:21):
One thing the NBA has done very well is figure
out how to use the Internet and how to use
Twitter to popularize the sport. And the NBA makes sense
in short clips in a way that say baseball does
not maybe hockey does not. So that's a built in
advantage they had, I say, ten years ago, they were
very much using that to their benefit. But the games
(09:41):
from that have plateaued and they're looking for the next
big marketing innovation.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
What do you think of the NBA Cup as a
marketing innovation. I kind of didn't understand it when they
first announced it, and you know, just doing some preliminary
googling on it, I've learned that it's the Emirates NBA Cup.
So it feels like this was created because there was
a sponsor that wanted to sponsor something like this.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
I think very few people care. No one understands the rules.
I don't understand the rules. I didn't really follow it.
I didn't feel I lost anything from not following it.
It doesn't have any predictive value.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
You know.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
I'm fine with the Emirates paying for some of it,
but that's a sign no domestic sponsor is really that involved. Right,
So ultimately the whole thing is a symptom of not
having this major climactic event, and if anything, it seems
to make the NBA Finals slightly less vocals, slightly less iconic,
slightly less important.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I'm a big fan of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, what
does he need to do to help fix this problem.
Speaker 8 (10:45):
I don't know that they can fix it. I do
think they should entertain rules changes to limit the number
of fouls, limit the number of three pointers, and just
have some new clever marketing idea and treat the NBA
Final as something grand. You know, one thing tennis has done. Well,
there's just a large number of decisive points in any
(11:07):
tennis match. Well, there's a game, there's a set, there's
a match, right, so there's a lot at stake on
many different plays. So if you're watching Federer, well you
feel this is an important moment more than once or
twice in the course of a number of sets. And
maybe the NBA should restructure its finals and playoffs so
that's more the case, and that would be a normal game.
(11:30):
It's like a best out of five sets something like that.
More decisive points.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And that would be a normal thing for sport to
retool some of how the season works or how the
game is played. I think about MLB and the rule
changes that it implemented two seasons ago, and the games
became faster, they became more compelling.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
How else do you think they don't have to learn
any new rules for that. So I'm watching an NBA game,
like halfway through the second quarter, I'm thinking, like, none
of this matters. Can I just fast forward to the
last five minutes of the game. I think many people
feel that way.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I've long thought that way. But I'm a hockey fan,
so I was always kind of a little bit put
off by the NBA because they soak up so much
more attention during the winter than the hockey games. To Tyler,
when you watch a game, how do you take yourself
as the economist out of the picture? How do you
just watch it as as a fan as opposed to
as an economist?
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 8 (12:24):
I always watch it as an economist. I'm thinking, how
well did the numbers measure value here? What's this player worth?
How is the salary cap influencing what I see on
the court. But I think that's fine if that's what
keeps me interested.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Great, Tyler Cowen, seeking excellence in the NBA. Thank you
so much. Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist professor
of economics. If you couldn't tell at George Mason University.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Up next on the show, we turned to the business
of air travel for pro teams for my colleague Scarlett
Fou and Damian Sasauer. I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to
the Bloomberg Business of Sports from bloem Berger Radio. Around
the world.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore
the nig money issues in the world of sports. I'm
Michael Barr along with my colleague Scarlett Foo and Damien Sassauer.
Elevate Aviation Group helps to get your athletes and favorite
teams where they need to be. It's an aviation company
with a diverse fleet of private aircraft that serves numerous teams,
(13:32):
players and leagues. Elevate CEO Greg Raife took time recently
to talk with Scarlett, Damien and guest host Bloomberg Original
Sports correspondent Vanessa Perdomo. Let's take a listen to some
of that conversation on the business of air travel for athletes.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So this is a company that's been around for decades.
Give us a sense of what you do for the
professional sports leagues. Do you work with leagues or do
you work with teams and do you provide all their
travel needs.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
The answer to that is yes to both. Everyone's got
either Sam Walton or Steve Jobs. Quote in mine was
the Sam Walton adage of every great idea I have
I stole from somebody else. Way back, maybe almost thirty
years ago, now what was Northwest Airlines now part of Delta,
started a program with David Stern for the NBA and
(14:25):
as a league based program, because Commissioner Stern was sick
and tired of teams showing up late for games and
showing up late to away cities. And so we built
using the pressure and the leverage of all those television
revenues and the fantastic meteoritic rise of the NBA back then,
sort of pulled all the teams in took almost ten years.
(14:47):
We copied that with some of the other sports leagues
and then built it off into working directly with clubs. Ultimately,
if you think about any sports league, it's really the
not for profit operating arm of it's each individual owners,
right folks, and league officers like to tell me that
they work for the team owners. So ultimately it's a
(15:08):
little bit of hurting cats. You've got to get the
teams to be willing to sign up. But it's great
to have the relationship with the league offices directly who
and influence decisions and frankly deliver purchasing power by aggregating
that spend.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
So Greg, you have to help me out here, because
you know, I remember the good old days when Kenny
Dickter came rolling around with net Jets and Marque Jet.
And now, I mean I get LinkedIn notes, I get
emails all the time about you know, Damian we watch
I mean, like how many how many private charters are
really out there? And you know, you know what differentiates you,
like why would teams and athletes choose elevate?
Speaker 6 (15:47):
So you know, as a as a disclaimer, I think
if Kenny as a dear friend, and I remember when
he was first running Marque Jet and he used to
count the number of windows on the airplane to tell
you whether it was a big jet or a small jet.
You know, I got started doing this thirty five years ago.
The first airplane I ever charted was a Boeing seven
forty seven in the company I started out of my
dorm room that became MTV spring Break before we sold
(16:10):
it in the late nineties, and so I always sort
of thought about airplanes as being Boeings and air buses
and big, huge monster airplanes. In fact, our company didn't
actually charter our first executive jet until two thousand and
five when one of the drummers for one of the
bands that we were supporting needed to go see as
Chiropractor and veiled and turned to turned to one of
(16:32):
the flight attendants and said, Hey, can you get me
a leerjet? We sort of all scratched our heads and said,
what's a leer jet? Most of the providers and there
are thousands and thousands of providers in the executive jet
space right and it's a little disappointing because all it
takes is a Gmail address and a cell phone to
say that you're in the charter business. What we do
is very different. I sort of think of Elevate Aviation
(16:55):
Group as the FedEx of moving people instead of boxes.
We focus on the deepest end of the transportation market,
moving presidential campaigns, working with both of them. In the
last cycle, obviously, the professional sports teams CEOs of the
largest the largest companies in the United States, working with
(17:16):
the US government and other groups where what they all
share in common is they're using air transportation to commute
to work. It's not about champagne. It's not about caveats.
About taking athletes and taking other professionals to a place,
to a meeting, to a game, to a concert, to
a to a speech, and having them arrive rested, stress free,
(17:40):
re energized, refueled right. And doing that requires a level
of expertise, logistics, and hands on knowledge that far exceeds
what you might get in one of these traditional book
the cheapest jet dot com app that you can find
so easily on the internet.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
You know, it's funny that you were saying about how
it's not about them drinking champagne and things like that.
But I have a hard time believing that they don't
have a little bubbly.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
When they when they first bore the plane.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
But one of the.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
I was just gonna admit that whenever one of our
pro teams wins a championship, there's a lot of champion
among other things.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I'm sure.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
So a few years.
Speaker 9 (18:22):
Ago, you know, you were talking about how it's really
about getting you know, people to places without stress and
things like that. So can you talk to us a
little bit about how different it is, and how much
of an advantage it is for teams and leagues to fly,
you know, charter. A few years ago, the New York
Liberty owners got in trouble for flying their team charter
because it was an advantage they had over other teams.
(18:44):
So can you explain to us exactly what those advantages are?
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Absolutely so. The way I like to think that is
that a typical professional team in a winter sport, right
with all the games, so think professional high hockey, professional basketball,
they might have seventy five or even eighty flights in
the course of the season. And we like to think
of our job as being responsible for trying to shave
(19:10):
off six twelve minutes on every flight. And anyone who's
ever taken a commercial flight and had the captain say,
we're just waiting a second to finish some paperwork, We're
going to need a few more moments to get the
bags together, we're waiting for our jetway, we're waiting for
the beltload, or whatever it might be. Those minutes add up.
Professional athletes are we all know, sort of the one
(19:32):
percent of the one percent of the highest performing humans
on the planet from a physical perspective, right whenever sport
they've chosen, and they're all pretty close, right, you know,
the difference scene winning a championship and not even making
the playoffs might be three or four games, might be
you know, a basket here or one goal in that game.
And so if we can save our teams ten minutes
(19:55):
a flight on every flight between the time that they
roll in on the buses and they're on the buses
at the arrival city moving out ten minutes times eight
times seventy five flights is seven hundred and fifty minutes.
Well that's I get to do the math. I think
it's twelve and a half hours of rest, right, So
think about what happens to a professional athlete, how much
(20:15):
better they can perform when they have, over the course
of a season twelve and a half extra hours, whether
it's to watch film, sleep, be in pt, be in
the workout room, the strength room, grabbing a meal, whatever
it might be, it makes a difference, and I think
it's huge. I remember when you know, Major League soccer
(20:38):
has been on an absolute tear, and soccer, or football,
as people outside of the US call it, has been
on this meteor meteoric rise in the United States right,
and that league has been incredible and they've done amazing work.
And when I think about the fact that not before COVID,
those teams were all flying commercial and now they're all
(21:01):
flying privately everywhere they go. WNBA is now stepped up.
Right now they're all flying privately. It's a huge investment.
Moving a team around is maybe the largest spend that
a team will pay for in the course of a season,
beyond obviously payroll and the stadium and practice facilities themselves,
and travels a huge part of it. So that investment
(21:23):
pays off for teams that are willing to invest in it.
And it's wonderful to see every once in a while
you'll see a new owner by a franchise and decide
to buy an airplane. It's a huge eight figure investment
that they make. And Mark Cuban was famous for buying
a seven fifty seven when he bought the Mavericks and
to their credit, I understand that the new ownership, the
(21:46):
Addison family out of Las Vegas, is keeping the airplane
despite the fact that they turned over the ownership.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right that makes sense, especially this idea of maximizing efficiency,
minimizing the disruption of cross country travel on these elite
as fleets. I'm curious what the single biggest challenge of
transporting professional sports teams is that you only discovered once
you were doing it versus when it was part of
your pitch.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Boy, you know, I've been doing this for so long
it's's kind of hard to remember that far back. But
I will admit that I did not realize just how
cold it gets in places in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg in
the middle of the winter. I mean, if they could
start playing professional hockey in the summer instead of in
(22:35):
the winter, that would be great as far as I'm concerned.
But you know, I think it's really as science as
sports science, and as technology has grown. We all take
it for granted at home or even on this even
on this call together. But you know, Wi Fi is
just so important and having people stay connected because it
(22:59):
allows them reproductive on the plane. We have tables, conference
tables set up on the airplanes that coaches and and
general managers will use to negotiate trades, look at roster assignments,
watch game film, do the do the business work of flying.
The other piece, I guess in the sports science part
is I'm I'm stunned at exactly how many calories a
(23:25):
professional athlete has to consume every day just keep their
weight up and therefore keep their strength.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Up, including on the travel trips too, right, I mean,
while they're light and.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
And and and frankly, it can't be jump food, right,
I mean, I mean, I guess it can be. There's
one player in particular where we have put a king
sized Snickers bar on a seat before every flight, and
sure enough I didn't hear that. But the but so
getting people, you know, no one, no one thinks that
(23:57):
airline food is fantastic, right, There's certainly great food you
can get you an Emirates first Class versus the peanuts
you might get on Southwest. But making certain that these
athletes are fueled, and that particularly right after a game
when they burn through all those calories, is so important, right,
because if you don't, you don't replace the calories, it's
going to burn off all that all that muscle mass.
(24:19):
And so in a lot of these teams, we see
players and the season four or five pounds later than
they began the season. And trust me, these people don't
need to lose weight. They don't want to lose weights
to function on just how hard it is to keep
up with that with that regimen.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Greg, I'd like to ask you about your margins. And
what I mean by that is this, you know, the
running your business today. You know, do you want to
be a fleet owner? Do you want to be a
fleet renter? I mean, are you really just navigating a
network of runways and control towers across the country. I mean,
do you want to even you know, go into all
the stuff with dealing with pilots and and and and
service staff as you rightly mention, you know, and making
sure that food is on airplanes? I mean what I mean,
(24:56):
after all that adds up, does jet fuel even matter
to your business anymore? I mean, seriously, where do your
margins really come from?
Speaker 6 (25:05):
The great part about having what's effectively a low utilization fleet,
right that that a major airline like a Southwest might
fly their brand new seven thirty seven, three hundred, three
hundred and fifty hours in a month, and we're doing
roughly one hundred or one hundred and twenty five hours
right half that Now, so the variable cost of fuel
is a little less meaningful in our business than it
(25:26):
is and theirs.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's Elevate Aviation Group CEO Greg Rafe speaking with my
colleague Scarlett Food, Damien sas Hour, and Bloomberg Original Sports
correspondent Vanessa Berdomo about the business of air travel for athletes.
Up next, Bill Belichick is heading to UNC. We'll talk
about that and his legacy with Jeff Benedict's Emmy Award
(25:48):
winning writer and author of The Dynastic I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to The Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Around the world, you're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports
from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Thanks for joining us on The Bloomberg Business of Sports,
where we explore the big money issues in the world
of sports. I'm Michael Barr. Jeff Benedict is an Emmy
Award winning writer and a New York Times best selling
author of seventeen books, including The Dynasty, the Definitive account
of the New England Patriots during their historic run under
Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady. With Belichick now
(26:31):
heading to the College Ranks, my colleagues Damian Sasaur, Bloomberg
Originals Chief correspondent Jason Kelly, and Bloomberg Original sports correspondent
Vanessa Perdomo got a chance to speak with Benedict for
his thoughts on this next phase of Belichick's career. Le
stick a listen to that conversation.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
So, Jeff, we have to kick off by asking you
about coach Bill Belichick. I mean, he's going to UNC.
Talk to us about what that means for college sports.
It's about for nil and for some of these players,
and you know how we're going to develop them and
get an NFL ready.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
Yeah, I'm not sure actually how much Bill's entrance to
college football affects any of that. I think college to
be honest, I mean, college football is a big, open,
kind of wild West environment right now, and I just
don't think Bill Belichick going to North Carolina moves the
(27:27):
needle much in terms of changing or impacting anything.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Really.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
I mean, it might be different if he were going
to a school like Alabama or Notre Dame or Michigan,
but going to North Carolina, the fourth best team in
the ACC, I'm just not sure how much that really
impacts college football.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Well, tells what you think, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I mean, my goodness, that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I mean, like, but no, I mean, seriously, I know
they're number four in the ACC But I mean you
would think, I mean, with all the money, with all
the nil dollars that are flowing around, someone like Bill Belichick,
who was used to dealing with men with pros, who understands,
you know what that means in terms of how to
pay players and how to motivate players. I mean, do
you think that he might be able to change the
course of that for you know, of UNC of their
(28:12):
football program.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Look, anything's possible, But what you just said to me
really is the root of the problem here is He's
This is a man who spent his entire life in
the ranks of the NFL. He is the most accomplished
football coach in the history of the National Football League.
He has never been anywhere near coaching college football. And
(28:38):
it's an environment that's completely different than the one he's
operated in his whole career. And he's dealing now with
what amount to kids. I mean that the young men
that he would need to recruit to come to North
Carolina are legally, by definition, minors. I mean, he's going
to be recruiting teenagers. Bill doesn't deal with teenagers, He
(29:00):
never has. He deals with grown men, men, like Teddy
Bruski and Rodney Harrison and Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski
some of the you could argue mentally and physically toughest
men you'll find in the sport of football. He's now
dealing with kids who are going to be looking for
(29:21):
the best deals they can get, whose parents are looking
for the best deals their child can get, who can
move around at will. I just think it's very different
than anything he's ever done. So it would be a
leap to think that he's going to make a dramatic impact.
I mean, time will tell, but time will also tell
(29:43):
how long he's even there.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I think that's so interesting that, you know, you brought
that up, and we were talking about obviously, how coaching
grown men and coaching you know, NFL players is so
different than coaching college kids. And I think one of
the other things there to think about is the way
that their contracts were right. You coach college players now,
they essentially are free agents every year because of the
(30:07):
transfer portal, and that obviously works very differently than NFL contracts,
where you have to be on the team for a
certain amount of years and all of that. So, how
do you think that will affect and how successfully unsuccessfully
can he bring that system in and juggle all of
those different things that the college system has.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
Now, it's a great question, and I don't think anybody
can honestly answer it right now and say, oh, here's
how that's going to work out, because it's such an
unproven with Bill. I mean, I think you have to
look at what things are evident, like, what are the
things we know? What we know is that Bill has
(30:44):
been an amazing motivator of men throughout his career, even
before he was a head coach, when he was with
the Giants as a defensive coordinator, he managed to motivate
a group of men on that Giants team that you know,
Carl Banks and Lawrence Taylor and all those guys who
were really the ones responsible for the Giants winning those
Super Bowls under Bill Parcells. So he is a record
(31:07):
of that. He also has a proven record of being
probably the best schemer in the game of football in
terms of designing game schemes. I mean, he out schemes
his opponents. He's been doing that his whole career as well.
He has no record of doing some of the most
important things that a college coach has to do, which
all starts with recruiting, and I don't really know how
(31:30):
a guy who's in his seventies, who's going to a
place like Tobacco row and you want to bring the
best athletes coming out of high school to North Carolina
and you've got to out basically, you've got to outbid Michigan,
Ohio State, USC Texas. I mean, it's I just think
(31:53):
it's a huge ask for him to do that and
to actually succeed. I mean, when he's come into coaching
jobs like New England, you know, he had a runway
of time to get established. His first season he was
five and eleven and that was with the best quarterback
in the NFL at the time, Drew. But so, I mean,
(32:15):
I just think it's a huge ask to put on him.
But no one asked him to do this. He supposedly
wanted to do it. So I just think the jury
is out though in terms of whether he's able to
turn North Carolina into a winning football program.
Speaker 10 (32:32):
So you hit on something really interesting there, Jeff, which
is this whole idea that you know, this was his
choice to go there, and by all accounts, obviously he is.
He exercised his free will to do it. At the
same time, there were no NFL you know, teams that
came a calling. You've you've talked very eloquently over the
past few minutes about sort of his gift for talent
(32:52):
management that had. You wrote an incredible book, The Dynasty,
that's all about this magic formula, this this cocktail of
the crafts in Belichick and you know, the greatest probably
to ever play the game, Tom Brady, you know, going
on this historic streak of winning Super Bowls. What was
it about that that couldn't translate into another job for
(33:16):
him in the NFL.
Speaker 7 (33:18):
Well, I was always attracted to the New England Patriots
dynasty story from the beginning, based on the fact that
I saw it as something so much larger than a
football story.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 7 (33:35):
It's an incredible American story, the dynasty. That word dynasty
is really appropriate for what Bill and Tom and Robert
and all the other the bigger cast of characters up
there did over the last twenty five years. But part
of that part of that story is what's embedded in
(33:57):
it is the personal the personalities specifically of Tom, Bill
and Robert. And I think that what those three were
able to achieve together. I've said this before. I don't
think we'll ever see another owner, coach, quarterback candem that
will achieve what they did. And as much as I
(34:19):
respect Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, I just don't see
them doing this for twenty years. It's so hard to
stay together. And when you look at this team, the
Patriots under Bill when he was a coach, I mean,
he did things that were fantastic for New England's success,
(34:40):
but they are not great for the next chapter of
your life, if there is a next chapter. And I
think that Bill probably always thought he would end his
career in New England. He would surpass Don Shula and
he would ride off into the sunset. He'll have a
bust in the Hall of Fame, and he'll sail his
(35:03):
boat around Nantucket. But that changed, and when it changed,
it really changed. In the last four years that he's
spent in New England were nothing like the previous twenty.
And I think when he was suddenly unemployed and you
look around and the fact that just think about how
(35:23):
many job openings there have been just since he left,
and we all know how many openings there are going
to be in about a month, and it's so obvious
that no one wanted to hire him because I don't
think there's anything left on Bill's bucket list to do
(35:44):
as a as a head coach. Then passed on Shulan.
And it's and it has always been important to him,
as it should be. Like that's not a criticism when
I say that, I think it is. It absolutely is
understandably important to him. It would be to anybody. It's
like the last thing that he has, and he's not
going to get the chance to do it, certainly not
(36:06):
in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Well, I guess it helps that Bill is such a
sweet and likable guy. Also, you know, Jeff seriously though, Yeah,
so cuddly. But you know what's interesting about this, Jeff,
for me, is you think about I mean, there's one
person that Bill is, Bill Bilichick is friends with, and
that's Nick Saban. And Nick Saban just left the college
football ranks because of NIL, and here comes Bill Belichick
(36:27):
coming into college football despite what's going on in NIL.
I mean, talk to us a little bit about that,
the impact of NIL, Jeff, And I mean, does perhaps,
you know, coach Belichick see something that we don't.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Are we missing something?
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Here.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
I mean, does he see perhaps the ability, you know,
you know, his experience in the NFL, that that's going
to draw in players? I mean, and is he bringing
anyone with him? Is he bringing his son with him
to help coaches? He bringing anyone with him to help recruit?
I mean, what's it going to look like down there in.
Speaker 7 (36:56):
UNC Well, I certainly would never pretend to see what
Bill sees. I don't know what Bill.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Sees or is it just about having a job.
Speaker 7 (37:07):
To me, it's what it really speaks to more than anything,
and I think is a lot more profound than the
question of what will happen in North Carolina. What this
really speaks of is it's the aftermath of the way
Bill was Bill in the NFL for twenty five years
and there isn't anybody that has wanted to open the
(37:32):
door for him. And I find that mind boggling, because
there's teams like the Dallas Cowboys where you would think
a guy like Bill could actually take Jerry Jones to
the promised land that he's been trying to get back
to for twenty five plus years, and the phone doesn't bring.
(37:53):
You know, it's interesting and I think fascinating. It really
says a lot about sort of the way these guys
have rolled out of what they built, that dominant force
that they built in New England, that stomped on everybody,
that won so much for so long, and Tom and
Bill have both spun out of it, and they've spun
(38:16):
out of it very differently.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
That's my colleagues Damian Sasaur, Jason Kelly, and Vanessa Bernomo
speaking with Emmy Award winning and New York Times best
selling author Jeff Benedict. And that does it for this
edition of The Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Michael Barr.
Thank you for joining us. Tune in again next week
for the latest on the stories moving big money in
the world of sports. You're listening to Bloomberg Business of
(38:41):
Sports from Bloomberger Radio around the world, and don't forget
the Cat Tower podcast on all your podcast platforms. Stay
with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are
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Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
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Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
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Speaker 3 (00:47):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore
the big money issues in the world of sports. Michael
Barr along with my colleagues Scarlett Fu and Damian Sasaur
coming up on the show. We talked some football. We
hear from Jeff Benedict. He's an Emmy Award winning writer
and a New York Times best selling author whose latest book,
(01:08):
The Dynasty, is considered the definitive account of the Patriots
during the Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft era that
yield its Super Bowl. After Super Bowl.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
Patriots win the Super Bowl, Brady has his def what
a come back.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We'll also check in on the private jet space and
learn about the business of air travel for pro teams.
All of that is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business
of Sports. But first, the NBA. Despite adding in things
like the NBA Cup, it's looking like the TV ratings
are much lower than last year. And Bloomberg opinion columnist
(01:51):
Tyler Collen believes the issue comes down to economics. He's
also a professor of economics at George Mason University. Tyler
here now to talk with us. It is a great piece, Professor,
that you have written an opinion that the NBA's problem
is economics, not basketball.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
What happened? What?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
The game is supposed to be the perfect game because
it's a two and a half hour window and it
helps everybody with their attention span.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But what happened?
Speaker 8 (02:26):
I'm an NBA fan, and I'm worried that other people
are starting to lose interest. So TV ratings are down.
Recently the NBA Cup was held, it seemed the world
didn't care that much. I think what people are really
missing from the NBA are just megastars and mega teams
that keep on winning. The next Michael Jordan, the next
(02:46):
younger Lebron James. That's what really draws interest to the sport.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's what draws interests to the sport. And it's not
as if there aren't any superstars or superstars in the making.
I know Lebron James, you know, towards the end of
his career as opposed to the beginning, but he has
a son, and there was a lot of excitement over
father and son playing on the same team. And the NBA,
more than any other sport, is known for minting superstars.
You can see their face. There aren't that many of
(03:15):
them on the court, as opposed to a game like hockey,
for instance, where there are helmets covering their faces and
it's very much a team sport. What is it about
the economics of the NBA that is preventing superstars from
really being able to, you know, be their best superstar selves.
Speaker 8 (03:34):
Well, the last six years, we've had six different teams
win NBA titles, so there's not been a dominant team.
In the nineteen eighties, it was the Celtics and the Lakers.
In the nineteen nineties, it was Michael Jordan and the
Chicago Bulls. For a while earlier it was the Golden
State Warriors. But we have this thing in basketball called
the salary cap. It's very complicated. They've made it tighter,
(03:58):
but basically it's very hard for top teams to keep
spending money to keep their old stars or to bring
in new ones. So there's a kind of parody sets
in where every year there's a different winner and fans
generate less interest. If you look at chess, Magnus Carlson
an incredible performer, you know he drove interest in the game.
(04:18):
In tennis, it was Roger Federer who just got everyone involved.
So fans don't actually want pure competitive balance.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Professor, one of the things you had written in your
opinion piece is that the smaller market teams like maybe
a Milwaukee or in Oklahoma, they may have a dedicated
fan base, but they're having a tough time trying to
hang with broadcast rights and such.
Speaker 8 (04:45):
Well, if the problem is if you're now the Los
Angeles Lakers or the New York Knicks, or the Los
Angeles Clippers or Chicago, you're in a big market, but
there's this thing in the salary cap. It's called the
second apron, and it just makes it prohibitively expensive to
use your market size to become better. I think fans
would actually enjoy it more if there were two or
(05:08):
three dominant teams with regular faceoffs. And right now, well,
you have Toronto in for a year, you have Denver
win for a year, you have the Boston Celtics win
for a year. And it's frustrating because none of the
players on those teams can achieve the iconic status of
say a Michael Jordan, who won six NBA titles across
(05:29):
the span of six years and.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Became a franchise player in a way that maybe we're
not going to see in the meantime. But let me
go back to that idea of parody. I thought every
league wanted parody. When you have a league that's dominated
by one team too much other teams, fans tend to
lose interest because it's kind of like you're swimming against
the tide. It's it's almost impossible. Teams are always talking
(05:52):
up how they want to create more parody so that
each cities team has a chance. Is there such a
thing is too much parody.
Speaker 8 (06:01):
There is such a thing as too much parody. Keep
in mind, the NBA, like many sports, is increasingly becoming
a national and also international market. So do the people
in Milan, Italy? You care if the San Antonio Spurs
are competitive this year?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Probably not.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
There's so much competition for people's attention. What you need
to do is to attract their viewing to the sport
at all. Like I live outside of Washington, d C.
I don't care that much if the Wizards are a
good team. In fact, they're a terrible team. But if
the sport is interesting, I'll follow games on TV. That
brings in a more lucrative TV contract ad revenue pace
(06:39):
for the whole sport. So the city by city analysis,
it just matters much less than it used to.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
And you are right because and just a quick comparison
to the NFL, the NFC North is extremely competitive. You've
got three out of the four teams and you don't
know where it's going to go by the time the
regular season is over. But in the NBA it seems
that's not the case.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
Yes, what the NFL has done is made the Super
Bowl the single most important national event in some ways,
it gets more attention than the day of our presidential election.
And people don't sit back and say, oh, is my
team in the Super Bowl? No, they want to watch it. Right,
it's this universal event you want to talk about the ads,
have snacks with your friends, have a party over your house.
(07:27):
The NBA Finals are nothing like that, And I think
that's the problem. Again, the more intense the competition for attention,
the bigger your biggest star needs to be. For the NFL,
it's not an individual because there's a helmet on, but
it's like the ultimate game itself, the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Also, there's limited supply, right, there's a limited number of teams,
there's a limited number of games played per season as well.
I want to ask you, Tyler, as the NBA thinks
about expanding beyond its current thirty team lineup, from an
econ point of view, how should they proceed?
Speaker 8 (08:02):
Well, I think Las Vegas, for instance, and also Seattle
could easily support profitable NBA teams. I think they should
do it, but it doesn't solve the basic problem for
the sport, which is, in the long run, there's cable
cutting younger viewers for almost everything. They just have different tastes,
and the question is, you know, why should they follow
the same sport that maybe their father and grandfather did.
(08:25):
And right now, the NBA does not have a great
answer to that question. There are some other issues in
the sport. So many people say there's too many three
point shots, it's boring. I agree with that. I'm not
sure it's the main problem, but it's an issue. Another
issue is so many of the top stars now are foreigners.
Maybe Americans relate less well to those individuals than they would,
(08:47):
say to Michael Jordan or Lebron James or Larry Bird.
That's another possible problem, but it's not one we really
can fix.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
It's an interesting problem because out of the four major
sports food groups baseball, football, basketball, hockey, the NBA is
the only one where they have a competitive WNBA and
you would think that it would draw interest to the
game itself, but they're struggling with the finances for the NBA.
Speaker 8 (09:21):
One thing the NBA has done very well is figure
out how to use the Internet and how to use
Twitter to popularize the sport. And the NBA makes sense
in short clips in a way that say baseball does
not maybe hockey does not. So that's a built in
advantage they had, I say, ten years ago, they were
very much using that to their benefit. But the games
(09:41):
from that have plateaued and they're looking for the next
big marketing innovation.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
What do you think of the NBA Cup as a
marketing innovation. I kind of didn't understand it when they
first announced it, and you know, just doing some preliminary
googling on it, I've learned that it's the Emirates NBA Cup.
So it feels like this was created because there was
a sponsor that wanted to sponsor something like this.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
I think very few people care. No one understands the rules.
I don't understand the rules. I didn't really follow it.
I didn't feel I lost anything from not following it.
It doesn't have any predictive value.
Speaker 7 (10:15):
You know.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
I'm fine with the Emirates paying for some of it,
but that's a sign no domestic sponsor is really that involved. Right,
So ultimately the whole thing is a symptom of not
having this major climactic event, and if anything, it seems
to make the NBA Finals slightly less vocals, slightly less iconic,
slightly less important.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I'm a big fan of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, what
does he need to do to help fix this problem.
Speaker 8 (10:45):
I don't know that they can fix it. I do
think they should entertain rules changes to limit the number
of fouls, limit the number of three pointers, and just
have some new clever marketing idea and treat the NBA
Final as something grand. You know, one thing tennis has done. Well,
there's just a large number of decisive points in any
(11:07):
tennis match. Well, there's a game, there's a set, there's
a match, right, so there's a lot at stake on
many different plays. So if you're watching Federer, well you
feel this is an important moment more than once or
twice in the course of a number of sets. And
maybe the NBA should restructure its finals and playoffs so
that's more the case, and that would be a normal game.
(11:30):
It's like a best out of five sets something like that.
More decisive points.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And that would be a normal thing for sport to
retool some of how the season works or how the
game is played. I think about MLB and the rule
changes that it implemented two seasons ago, and the games
became faster, they became more compelling.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
How else do you think they don't have to learn
any new rules for that. So I'm watching an NBA game,
like halfway through the second quarter, I'm thinking, like, none
of this matters. Can I just fast forward to the
last five minutes of the game. I think many people
feel that way.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I've long thought that way. But I'm a hockey fan,
so I was always kind of a little bit put
off by the NBA because they soak up so much
more attention during the winter than the hockey games. To Tyler,
when you watch a game, how do you take yourself
as the economist out of the picture? How do you
just watch it as as a fan as opposed to
as an economist?
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Well, I don't.
Speaker 8 (12:24):
I always watch it as an economist. I'm thinking, how
well did the numbers measure value here? What's this player worth?
How is the salary cap influencing what I see on
the court. But I think that's fine if that's what
keeps me interested.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Great, Tyler Cowen, seeking excellence in the NBA. Thank you
so much. Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist professor
of economics. If you couldn't tell at George Mason University.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Up next on the show, we turned to the business
of air travel for pro teams for my colleague Scarlett
Fou and Damian Sasauer. I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to
the Bloomberg Business of Sports from bloem Berger Radio. Around
the world.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore
the nig money issues in the world of sports. I'm
Michael Barr along with my colleague Scarlett Foo and Damien Sassauer.
Elevate Aviation Group helps to get your athletes and favorite
teams where they need to be. It's an aviation company
with a diverse fleet of private aircraft that serves numerous teams,
(13:32):
players and leagues. Elevate CEO Greg Raife took time recently
to talk with Scarlett, Damien and guest host Bloomberg Original
Sports correspondent Vanessa Perdomo. Let's take a listen to some
of that conversation on the business of air travel for athletes.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So this is a company that's been around for decades.
Give us a sense of what you do for the
professional sports leagues. Do you work with leagues or do
you work with teams and do you provide all their
travel needs.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
The answer to that is yes to both. Everyone's got
either Sam Walton or Steve Jobs. Quote in mine was
the Sam Walton adage of every great idea I have
I stole from somebody else. Way back, maybe almost thirty
years ago, now what was Northwest Airlines now part of Delta,
started a program with David Stern for the NBA and
(14:25):
as a league based program, because Commissioner Stern was sick
and tired of teams showing up late for games and
showing up late to away cities. And so we built
using the pressure and the leverage of all those television
revenues and the fantastic meteoritic rise of the NBA back then,
sort of pulled all the teams in took almost ten years.
(14:47):
We copied that with some of the other sports leagues
and then built it off into working directly with clubs. Ultimately,
if you think about any sports league, it's really the
not for profit operating arm of it's each individual owners,
right folks, and league officers like to tell me that
they work for the team owners. So ultimately it's a
(15:08):
little bit of hurting cats. You've got to get the
teams to be willing to sign up. But it's great
to have the relationship with the league offices directly who
and influence decisions and frankly deliver purchasing power by aggregating
that spend.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
So Greg, you have to help me out here, because
you know, I remember the good old days when Kenny
Dickter came rolling around with net Jets and Marque Jet.
And now, I mean I get LinkedIn notes, I get
emails all the time about you know, Damian we watch
I mean, like how many how many private charters are
really out there? And you know, you know what differentiates you,
like why would teams and athletes choose elevate?
Speaker 6 (15:47):
So you know, as a as a disclaimer, I think
if Kenny as a dear friend, and I remember when
he was first running Marque Jet and he used to
count the number of windows on the airplane to tell
you whether it was a big jet or a small jet.
You know, I got started doing this thirty five years ago.
The first airplane I ever charted was a Boeing seven
forty seven in the company I started out of my
dorm room that became MTV spring Break before we sold
(16:10):
it in the late nineties, and so I always sort
of thought about airplanes as being Boeings and air buses
and big, huge monster airplanes. In fact, our company didn't
actually charter our first executive jet until two thousand and
five when one of the drummers for one of the
bands that we were supporting needed to go see as
Chiropractor and veiled and turned to turned to one of
(16:32):
the flight attendants and said, Hey, can you get me
a leerjet? We sort of all scratched our heads and said,
what's a leer jet? Most of the providers and there
are thousands and thousands of providers in the executive jet
space right and it's a little disappointing because all it
takes is a Gmail address and a cell phone to
say that you're in the charter business. What we do
is very different. I sort of think of Elevate Aviation
(16:55):
Group as the FedEx of moving people instead of boxes.
We focus on the deepest end of the transportation market,
moving presidential campaigns, working with both of them. In the
last cycle, obviously, the professional sports teams CEOs of the
largest the largest companies in the United States, working with
(17:16):
the US government and other groups where what they all
share in common is they're using air transportation to commute
to work. It's not about champagne. It's not about caveats.
About taking athletes and taking other professionals to a place,
to a meeting, to a game, to a concert, to
a to a speech, and having them arrive rested, stress free,
(17:40):
re energized, refueled right. And doing that requires a level
of expertise, logistics, and hands on knowledge that far exceeds
what you might get in one of these traditional book
the cheapest jet dot com app that you can find
so easily on the internet.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
You know, it's funny that you were saying about how
it's not about them drinking champagne and things like that.
But I have a hard time believing that they don't
have a little bubbly.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
When they when they first bore the plane.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
But one of the.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
I was just gonna admit that whenever one of our
pro teams wins a championship, there's a lot of champion
among other things.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I'm sure.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
So a few years.
Speaker 9 (18:22):
Ago, you know, you were talking about how it's really
about getting you know, people to places without stress and
things like that. So can you talk to us a
little bit about how different it is, and how much
of an advantage it is for teams and leagues to fly,
you know, charter. A few years ago, the New York
Liberty owners got in trouble for flying their team charter
because it was an advantage they had over other teams.
(18:44):
So can you explain to us exactly what those advantages are?
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Absolutely so. The way I like to think that is
that a typical professional team in a winter sport, right
with all the games, so think professional high hockey, professional basketball,
they might have seventy five or even eighty flights in
the course of the season. And we like to think
of our job as being responsible for trying to shave
(19:10):
off six twelve minutes on every flight. And anyone who's
ever taken a commercial flight and had the captain say,
we're just waiting a second to finish some paperwork, We're
going to need a few more moments to get the
bags together, we're waiting for our jetway, we're waiting for
the beltload, or whatever it might be. Those minutes add up.
Professional athletes are we all know, sort of the one
(19:32):
percent of the one percent of the highest performing humans
on the planet from a physical perspective, right whenever sport
they've chosen, and they're all pretty close, right, you know,
the difference scene winning a championship and not even making
the playoffs might be three or four games, might be
you know, a basket here or one goal in that game.
And so if we can save our teams ten minutes
(19:55):
a flight on every flight between the time that they
roll in on the buses and they're on the buses
at the arrival city moving out ten minutes times eight
times seventy five flights is seven hundred and fifty minutes.
Well that's I get to do the math. I think
it's twelve and a half hours of rest, right, So
think about what happens to a professional athlete, how much
(20:15):
better they can perform when they have, over the course
of a season twelve and a half extra hours, whether
it's to watch film, sleep, be in pt, be in
the workout room, the strength room, grabbing a meal, whatever
it might be, it makes a difference, and I think
it's huge. I remember when you know, Major League soccer
(20:38):
has been on an absolute tear, and soccer, or football,
as people outside of the US call it, has been
on this meteor meteoric rise in the United States right,
and that league has been incredible and they've done amazing work.
And when I think about the fact that not before COVID,
those teams were all flying commercial and now they're all
(21:01):
flying privately everywhere they go. WNBA is now stepped up.
Right now they're all flying privately. It's a huge investment.
Moving a team around is maybe the largest spend that
a team will pay for in the course of a season,
beyond obviously payroll and the stadium and practice facilities themselves,
and travels a huge part of it. So that investment
(21:23):
pays off for teams that are willing to invest in it.
And it's wonderful to see every once in a while
you'll see a new owner by a franchise and decide
to buy an airplane. It's a huge eight figure investment
that they make. And Mark Cuban was famous for buying
a seven fifty seven when he bought the Mavericks and
to their credit, I understand that the new ownership, the
(21:46):
Addison family out of Las Vegas, is keeping the airplane
despite the fact that they turned over the ownership.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right that makes sense, especially this idea of maximizing efficiency,
minimizing the disruption of cross country travel on these elite
as fleets. I'm curious what the single biggest challenge of
transporting professional sports teams is that you only discovered once
you were doing it versus when it was part of
your pitch.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
Boy, you know, I've been doing this for so long
it's's kind of hard to remember that far back. But
I will admit that I did not realize just how
cold it gets in places in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg in
the middle of the winter. I mean, if they could
start playing professional hockey in the summer instead of in
(22:35):
the winter, that would be great as far as I'm concerned.
But you know, I think it's really as science as
sports science, and as technology has grown. We all take
it for granted at home or even on this even
on this call together. But you know, Wi Fi is
just so important and having people stay connected because it
(22:59):
allows them reproductive on the plane. We have tables, conference
tables set up on the airplanes that coaches and and
general managers will use to negotiate trades, look at roster assignments,
watch game film, do the do the business work of flying.
The other piece, I guess in the sports science part
is I'm I'm stunned at exactly how many calories a
(23:25):
professional athlete has to consume every day just keep their
weight up and therefore keep their strength.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Up, including on the travel trips too, right, I mean,
while they're light and.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
And and and frankly, it can't be jump food, right,
I mean, I mean, I guess it can be. There's
one player in particular where we have put a king
sized Snickers bar on a seat before every flight, and
sure enough I didn't hear that. But the but so
getting people, you know, no one, no one thinks that
(23:57):
airline food is fantastic, right, There's certainly great food you
can get you an Emirates first Class versus the peanuts
you might get on Southwest. But making certain that these
athletes are fueled, and that particularly right after a game
when they burn through all those calories, is so important, right,
because if you don't, you don't replace the calories, it's
going to burn off all that all that muscle mass.
(24:19):
And so in a lot of these teams, we see
players and the season four or five pounds later than
they began the season. And trust me, these people don't
need to lose weight. They don't want to lose weights
to function on just how hard it is to keep
up with that with that regimen.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Greg, I'd like to ask you about your margins. And
what I mean by that is this, you know, the
running your business today. You know, do you want to
be a fleet owner? Do you want to be a
fleet renter? I mean, are you really just navigating a
network of runways and control towers across the country. I mean,
do you want to even you know, go into all
the stuff with dealing with pilots and and and and
service staff as you rightly mention, you know, and making
sure that food is on airplanes? I mean what I mean,
(24:56):
after all that adds up, does jet fuel even matter
to your business anymore? I mean, seriously, where do your
margins really come from?
Speaker 6 (25:05):
The great part about having what's effectively a low utilization fleet,
right that that a major airline like a Southwest might
fly their brand new seven thirty seven, three hundred, three
hundred and fifty hours in a month, and we're doing
roughly one hundred or one hundred and twenty five hours
right half that Now, so the variable cost of fuel
is a little less meaningful in our business than it
(25:26):
is and theirs.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That's Elevate Aviation Group CEO Greg Rafe speaking with my
colleague Scarlett Food, Damien sas Hour, and Bloomberg Original Sports
correspondent Vanessa Berdomo about the business of air travel for athletes.
Up next, Bill Belichick is heading to UNC. We'll talk
about that and his legacy with Jeff Benedict's Emmy Award
(25:48):
winning writer and author of The Dynastic I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to The Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Around the world, you're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports
from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Thanks for joining us on The Bloomberg Business of Sports,
where we explore the big money issues in the world
of sports. I'm Michael Barr. Jeff Benedict is an Emmy
Award winning writer and a New York Times best selling
author of seventeen books, including The Dynasty, the Definitive account
of the New England Patriots during their historic run under
Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady. With Belichick now
(26:31):
heading to the College Ranks, my colleagues Damian Sasaur, Bloomberg
Originals Chief correspondent Jason Kelly, and Bloomberg Original sports correspondent
Vanessa Perdomo got a chance to speak with Benedict for
his thoughts on this next phase of Belichick's career. Le
stick a listen to that conversation.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
So, Jeff, we have to kick off by asking you
about coach Bill Belichick. I mean, he's going to UNC.
Talk to us about what that means for college sports.
It's about for nil and for some of these players,
and you know how we're going to develop them and
get an NFL ready.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
Yeah, I'm not sure actually how much Bill's entrance to
college football affects any of that. I think college to
be honest, I mean, college football is a big, open,
kind of wild West environment right now, and I just
don't think Bill Belichick going to North Carolina moves the
(27:27):
needle much in terms of changing or impacting anything.
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Really.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
I mean, it might be different if he were going
to a school like Alabama or Notre Dame or Michigan,
but going to North Carolina, the fourth best team in
the ACC, I'm just not sure how much that really
impacts college football.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
Well, tells what you think, Jeff.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I mean, my goodness, that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I mean, like, but no, I mean, seriously, I know
they're number four in the ACC But I mean you
would think, I mean, with all the money, with all
the nil dollars that are flowing around, someone like Bill Belichick,
who was used to dealing with men with pros, who understands,
you know what that means in terms of how to
pay players and how to motivate players. I mean, do
you think that he might be able to change the
course of that for you know, of UNC of their
(28:12):
football program.
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Look, anything's possible, But what you just said to me
really is the root of the problem here is He's
This is a man who spent his entire life in
the ranks of the NFL. He is the most accomplished
football coach in the history of the National Football League.
He has never been anywhere near coaching college football. And
(28:38):
it's an environment that's completely different than the one he's
operated in his whole career. And he's dealing now with
what amount to kids. I mean that the young men
that he would need to recruit to come to North
Carolina are legally, by definition, minors. I mean, he's going
to be recruiting teenagers. Bill doesn't deal with teenagers, He
(29:00):
never has. He deals with grown men, men, like Teddy
Bruski and Rodney Harrison and Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski
some of the you could argue mentally and physically toughest
men you'll find in the sport of football. He's now
dealing with kids who are going to be looking for
(29:21):
the best deals they can get, whose parents are looking
for the best deals their child can get, who can
move around at will. I just think it's very different
than anything he's ever done. So it would be a
leap to think that he's going to make a dramatic impact.
I mean, time will tell, but time will also tell
(29:43):
how long he's even there.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I think that's so interesting that, you know, you brought
that up, and we were talking about obviously, how coaching
grown men and coaching you know, NFL players is so
different than coaching college kids. And I think one of
the other things there to think about is the way
that their contracts were right. You coach college players now,
they essentially are free agents every year because of the
(30:07):
transfer portal, and that obviously works very differently than NFL contracts,
where you have to be on the team for a
certain amount of years and all of that. So, how
do you think that will affect and how successfully unsuccessfully
can he bring that system in and juggle all of
those different things that the college system has.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
Now, it's a great question, and I don't think anybody
can honestly answer it right now and say, oh, here's
how that's going to work out, because it's such an
unproven with Bill. I mean, I think you have to
look at what things are evident, like, what are the
things we know? What we know is that Bill has
(30:44):
been an amazing motivator of men throughout his career, even
before he was a head coach, when he was with
the Giants as a defensive coordinator, he managed to motivate
a group of men on that Giants team that you know,
Carl Banks and Lawrence Taylor and all those guys who
were really the ones responsible for the Giants winning those
Super Bowls under Bill Parcells. So he is a record
(31:07):
of that. He also has a proven record of being
probably the best schemer in the game of football in
terms of designing game schemes. I mean, he out schemes
his opponents. He's been doing that his whole career as well.
He has no record of doing some of the most
important things that a college coach has to do, which
all starts with recruiting, and I don't really know how
(31:30):
a guy who's in his seventies, who's going to a
place like Tobacco row and you want to bring the
best athletes coming out of high school to North Carolina
and you've got to out basically, you've got to outbid Michigan,
Ohio State, USC Texas. I mean, it's I just think
(31:53):
it's a huge ask for him to do that and
to actually succeed. I mean, when he's come into coaching
jobs like New England, you know, he had a runway
of time to get established. His first season he was
five and eleven and that was with the best quarterback
in the NFL at the time, Drew. But so, I mean,
(32:15):
I just think it's a huge ask to put on him.
But no one asked him to do this. He supposedly
wanted to do it. So I just think the jury
is out though in terms of whether he's able to
turn North Carolina into a winning football program.
Speaker 10 (32:32):
So you hit on something really interesting there, Jeff, which
is this whole idea that you know, this was his
choice to go there, and by all accounts, obviously he is.
He exercised his free will to do it. At the
same time, there were no NFL you know, teams that
came a calling. You've you've talked very eloquently over the
past few minutes about sort of his gift for talent
(32:52):
management that had. You wrote an incredible book, The Dynasty,
that's all about this magic formula, this this cocktail of
the crafts in Belichick and you know, the greatest probably
to ever play the game, Tom Brady, you know, going
on this historic streak of winning Super Bowls. What was
it about that that couldn't translate into another job for
(33:16):
him in the NFL.
Speaker 7 (33:18):
Well, I was always attracted to the New England Patriots
dynasty story from the beginning, based on the fact that
I saw it as something so much larger than a
football story.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 7 (33:35):
It's an incredible American story, the dynasty. That word dynasty
is really appropriate for what Bill and Tom and Robert
and all the other the bigger cast of characters up
there did over the last twenty five years. But part
of that part of that story is what's embedded in
(33:57):
it is the personal the personalities specifically of Tom, Bill
and Robert. And I think that what those three were
able to achieve together. I've said this before. I don't
think we'll ever see another owner, coach, quarterback candem that
will achieve what they did. And as much as I
(34:19):
respect Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, I just don't see
them doing this for twenty years. It's so hard to
stay together. And when you look at this team, the
Patriots under Bill when he was a coach, I mean,
he did things that were fantastic for New England's success,
(34:40):
but they are not great for the next chapter of
your life, if there is a next chapter. And I
think that Bill probably always thought he would end his
career in New England. He would surpass Don Shula and
he would ride off into the sunset. He'll have a
bust in the Hall of Fame, and he'll sail his
(35:03):
boat around Nantucket. But that changed, and when it changed,
it really changed. In the last four years that he's
spent in New England were nothing like the previous twenty.
And I think when he was suddenly unemployed and you
look around and the fact that just think about how
(35:23):
many job openings there have been just since he left,
and we all know how many openings there are going
to be in about a month, and it's so obvious
that no one wanted to hire him because I don't
think there's anything left on Bill's bucket list to do
(35:44):
as a as a head coach. Then passed on Shulan.
And it's and it has always been important to him,
as it should be. Like that's not a criticism when
I say that, I think it is. It absolutely is
understandably important to him. It would be to anybody. It's
like the last thing that he has, and he's not
going to get the chance to do it, certainly not
(36:06):
in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Well, I guess it helps that Bill is such a
sweet and likable guy. Also, you know, Jeff seriously though, Yeah,
so cuddly. But you know what's interesting about this, Jeff,
for me, is you think about I mean, there's one
person that Bill is, Bill Bilichick is friends with, and
that's Nick Saban. And Nick Saban just left the college
football ranks because of NIL, and here comes Bill Belichick
(36:27):
coming into college football despite what's going on in NIL.
I mean, talk to us a little bit about that,
the impact of NIL, Jeff, And I mean, does perhaps,
you know, coach Belichick see something that we don't.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Are we missing something?
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Here.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
I mean, does he see perhaps the ability, you know,
you know, his experience in the NFL, that that's going
to draw in players? I mean, and is he bringing
anyone with him? Is he bringing his son with him
to help coaches? He bringing anyone with him to help recruit?
I mean, what's it going to look like down there in.
Speaker 7 (36:56):
UNC Well, I certainly would never pretend to see what
Bill sees. I don't know what Bill.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Sees or is it just about having a job.
Speaker 7 (37:07):
To me, it's what it really speaks to more than anything,
and I think is a lot more profound than the
question of what will happen in North Carolina. What this
really speaks of is it's the aftermath of the way
Bill was Bill in the NFL for twenty five years
and there isn't anybody that has wanted to open the
(37:32):
door for him. And I find that mind boggling, because
there's teams like the Dallas Cowboys where you would think
a guy like Bill could actually take Jerry Jones to
the promised land that he's been trying to get back
to for twenty five plus years, and the phone doesn't bring.
(37:53):
You know, it's interesting and I think fascinating. It really
says a lot about sort of the way these guys
have rolled out of what they built, that dominant force
that they built in New England, that stomped on everybody,
that won so much for so long, and Tom and
Bill have both spun out of it, and they've spun
(38:16):
out of it very differently.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
That's my colleagues Damian Sasaur, Jason Kelly, and Vanessa Bernomo
speaking with Emmy Award winning and New York Times best
selling author Jeff Benedict. And that does it for this
edition of The Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Michael Barr.
Thank you for joining us. Tune in again next week
for the latest on the stories moving big money in
the world of sports. You're listening to Bloomberg Business of
(38:41):
Sports from Bloomberger Radio around the world, and don't forget
the Cat Tower podcast on all your podcast platforms. Stay
with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are
coming up right now.
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