April 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Join hosts Michael Barr, Damian Sassower and Vanessa Perdomo for a look at some of the latest headlines and stories in the business of sports.
For the first time in the 10-year history of Bloomberg's March Madness bracket challenge, there is a back-to-back winner: dating app Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. Vanessa discusses this year's challenge that sees entrants donate money to charity. Plus, we recap this year's NCAA tournament.
Then, Bloomberg News global business reporter Ira Boudway joins to break down his reporting on the growing divide between the MLB's wealthiest franchises and those with smaller payrolls and how it impacts play on the field.
Finally, VOW founder and CEO Jennifer Brisman joins to discuss her company's BSB event and guest management platform, the "experience economy" and how they use technology geared at improving the live sports experience.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the business of sports.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The business of sports can be intimidating or hard for
a starting to break into.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
We really appreciate what our owners are actually there, you
know with us through the journey.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
all levels of the company. I think we're in the
bolden years for the NFL and college football. Our demographic
reach has continued to explode.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
for sports fans, sports evaluations arising, We'll see when they peak.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You don't have to be the best in your sport
to make a whole ton of money.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the
big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr,
along with my colleagues Damian Sasawer and Vanessa Bernomo. Coming
up on the show, we talk a little baseball now
that the season's well underway. We take a look at
the growing divide between MLB's haves and have not with
Bloomberg News Global Business reporter Ira Bodway. Plus we talk
(01:03):
with the founder and CEO of vow and innovative event
management company will learn about what they're doing to enhance
the fan experience.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That hoosts up to ten thousand guests in seats, So
we have a proprietary seating software that integrates with all
the tools in our platform. We have a proprietary ticketing software,
so everything is all in one. But what's very cool
is not only do we host up to ten thousand
guests in seats, you can have up to four hundred
people working in the platform in real time.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
All that is straight ahead on the Bloomberg business of sports.
But first, we've got winners in the NCAA basketball tournaments.
Paige Becker's and the Yukon Husky is one on the
(01:55):
women's side, while the Florida Gator is one in a
thriller for the men. Sounds like a great time for
Vanessa Berdomo. She recently did a write up on Bloomberg's
Bracket for Cause and can take us through her final
thoughts on this year's March Madness.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
So it's the ten year anniversary of Brackets for Cause
that we do here at Bloomberg, and it's just a
mix of, you know, lots of people who have big
money and they want to, you know, put it in
and they actually raise money for charity. So it's a
twenty thousand dollars buy in. They each have a different
charity that they vie for and it's CEOs, it's hedgehunder managers, vcs,
(02:30):
everything like that. And this year actually saw the first
ever back to back winner for the men's bracket, the
Bumble founder Whitney wolf Hurt. She said before that she
can't give away her secrets, doesn't like to give away
her secrets in failing out her bracket. But a couple
of other people I talked to the women's bracket winner,
Jeffrey Taupins and George Walker. They tied for like, they
(02:51):
both at two hundred and eleven points. This was a
different year for the brackets and a lot of people
had the higher seeds going further. But they both like
and you know, filling out their brackets to business and
risk taking and calculated risks.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
By the way, that's a back to back is the
first time that has ever happened doing this. Like you're saying,
but it's hard, it's hard to pick a winner out
of this. I mean it's because, like you said, it's
like if you go off the board and you try
to like, Okay, maybe I can zoom in and this
and that whatever and win it that way. But no,
(03:27):
this was one of those where you know, you had
the number ones pretty much going Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
This was the first time in since two thousand and
eight that all number one seeds made the final four
for the men's side. And you know, I think one
of the reasons we've seen that a lot of people
are liking it to nil in the transfer portal, and
you know, now mid majors are losing their players after
a year or so, so we're seeing a lot of that.
But obviously the top seeds were just really good this year.
(03:53):
But I think one of the interesting things for Whitney
winning again was she didn't get swept up and the
Duke you know wagon that I got swept up in
Cooper Flag and that. So that was another reason I
didn't do too great on the men's side.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And we should add too that Whitney wolf heard she
was playing for Baby to Baby.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Correct, Yes, she was playing for Baby to Baby. Jeffrey
Talpins is playing for American Prairie, which is doing a
really interesting thing with you know, they're trying to make
the largest reserve in the US. George Walker was playing
for the MSK Cancer Center, which is the research institute
here in New York City. So obviously a lot of
these people were just playing for really really big charities
that they have a lot to do.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
With overall year rounds. So it was good for them.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
And because of Jeffrey and George both tied, they got
first place and second prize split between their two Cheriteys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
When you fill out a bracket, folks, and I've always
said this, and I have to wait till next year
to do it again, I like to fill it out
in reverse. I like to fill out who I think
is going to win. That's how I filled out the
women's brackets because I thought, Okay, Yukon's going to win it,
and then I went and reverse the other way. I
had all Auburn going all the way, which, well, we.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Know, how yeah, yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Obviously a lot of people were split between Yukon and USC,
and obviously South Carolina has been a top of the
women's bracket for a long time, so I think it
was easy easy there. But I think a lot of people,
obviously including me, had USC going far because of Juju
Wawkins and but we're happy for pagebackers. She's going to
get drafted in to the WNBA.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Let's give a little forward look to this for audience. Yeah,
I mean, I think DraftKings and Fandel are picking who
duke in Houston to lead to win it next year, right,
so again, and they're looking for some repeat performances here.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Sim could you know do it?
Speaker 6 (05:37):
I think, I mean, after that way of losing, I
think you come back very very hungry because that was
that was a rough way to lose.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh yeah, Duke, I'm sorry. I'm watching that game and
I'm like, no, the refs had nothing to do with this. Unfortunately,
you know, things happened, but they're young men and uh,
you know they're going to bounce back next year. And
I always support that.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
It's all about character building, come back hunger than you
were before.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
We forgot to add that everybody who plays on this
puts up twenty grand.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
They put in twenty thousand dollars for the overall prize pool.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
One.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
Because this has been going on for ten years, over
six million dollars has been raised by a brakfast fair cause.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Wow, very good. I wish I had that money to right.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
Actually Douglas, who was overall globally said, you know, he
reached out to me and said, you know, great story.
You know, I was so excited to get the top
score overall, but he said, you know, hopefully.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
One day it can be a part of that.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
You know, I can be a part of the giving
up twenty thousand dollars here for charity and really have
some skin in the game. And I think that it's
a really fun thing for the CEOs, for the managers,
for everyone who's involved in Breakast for cause.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
I think they love to do it. People do it clearly.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Whitney's done it, you know, multiple times, winning back to back,
so I think people like to come back to It's
it's more fun even when you when you have skin
in the game for someone else, you know, you're donating
money to a good cause.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
In one thing that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
We were looking at Vanessa and we were talking about
how the NCUBLEA, how they're doing well in you know,
with the ratings and that's going on. But they also
had a settlement with involving nil and hopefully this will
(07:25):
bring a path toward at least giving the money to
people who said, hey, we couldn't make any money because
you guys held us back college athletes. And now there's
been a ruling in that.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
There hasn't been a ruling quite yet, you know.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
On April seventh, there was another hearing and the federal
judge basically kind of nodded her head and said, you know,
this will most likely be approved, but there's another hearing,
I believe in either Junior's lie where she will make
that final decision. But there was a couple of things
that she needed, you know them to address. One of
(08:00):
those being there's this revenue sharing model that is really
what's gonna change everything that people like players will actually
finally get paid. And that's what you're talking about there, Michael.
Schools will be able to opt in for this and
about share about twenty point five million dollars with their
student athletes in revenue sharing models that they've never been able.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
To do before.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
But the problem there is that not everyone you know,
makes money, and now they're gonna have to give money
to the players and know how to sparse it out.
So there's like threats to Title nine that because they're
gonna give most likely a lot of money to football players,
and men's and women's basketball players, and then they want
to make sure that addressing Title nine, they give scholarships
(08:43):
to every player on a roster, which means any sport.
But the problem is colleges can't really afford to do that.
So the threat was players are going to start getting cut.
Like I spent I played college soccer the way that
it works for college for women's college soccer, we get
twelve scholarships or so, and they sparse them out through
(09:05):
the team. I mean, you can't really make a soccer
team with twelve people. So we had about a roster
of like thirty players. A few players were walk ons,
they didn't have scholarships at all, but most of us
had partial scholarships and then they're made up by with
whatever else they can be made up with. But the
problem is they want the whole twenty to thirty people
to have full, you know, full scholarships, and that's where
(09:28):
there's a miscommunication and they think that that's where a
lot of the tension could come from. And the judge
wants them to rule that grandfather and the players who
are already on rosters and things like that.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Can you imagine if you had nil when you were
playing soccer.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
You know, I think about it a lot, and I think,
but you know, I talk about I talked to other
you know, college players. You know, my step siblings also
played in college and they played Revenue gener explains, Yeah,
they played. You know, my stepsters were played basketball at
Georgetown and my steps brother played a football at BC.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
So you know he would have made some money. Okay,
So we talked about it a lot.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
I mean, I personally, as a women's soccer player, I
think I would have had a hustle really hard to
you know, make money because we don't really see a
lot of women's soccer players getting those sorts of deals.
But hey, if it was a possibility, I would have
made that hustle, you know what I'm saying, Like, I
would have made it happen. And it all depends on
the market you're in. We're I played in Pittsburgh, and
I could imagine a lot of Pittsburgh you know, companies
(10:27):
are really you know, focused on having duquane players out
of you know things and meet and greets and.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Things like that.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
And I would have done anything I could have just
to just to get a little bit more money because
we couldn't really work.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We can't have jobs, no, I mean, but you could have,
like you know, and that's what a lot of nil
people are doing now. It's like, you know, but that's
a prodomo for the Ford Mustang. Yeah, and you could
have done that and now you're driving around in a Mustang.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, that's what we see.
Like Livy Dunn, who's a gymnast at LSU. You know,
she's one of the only gymnastics you know, athletes who's
that high up.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
She's I think she's third.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Overall an IL three million dollars or something, so for
net worth. You know, she just made it her own
and really really went for it. And that's what you
got to do.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
We see some players who are walk ons, you know,
getting deals and it's.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
All about the hustle.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
It's all about the hustle, you know, unless you know,
you're a basketball player, football player at a power conference
and you don't really have to do anything to make
that money.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
But good on you because you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Actually, and you know, it's about name, image and likeness.
But I don't don't quit because you got to build
the name first to make name, image and likeness.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Yeah, I think that's the hard thing that we're seeing
again with with this March madness in particular, that was
like a little bit affected by that. You know, seven
out of the fifteen players that were all on the
All American you know, Associated Press, we were players that
went to mid majors and then you know, went on
to bigger schools after that. And I think that those
(11:57):
mid majors were just you know, struggling to pay them
what they could. But with revenue sharing, we're gonna see
that maybe those mid majors that are basketball centric, like
a big East like in Atlantic ten, that don't have
to play football players, they're gonna be able to compete
with those. So maybe we'll be able to see that
eventually get back, you know, up into you know, they'll
start we'll start happening hin. But this year was a
(12:18):
rough year for the mid majors.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Check out Vanessa Bernomo's latest reporting on the tournament and
brackets for Cause now on the Terminal and at Bloomberg
dot Com. Up next, we turn to the baseball diamond,
and they're growing divide between the league's wealthy and the
teams trying to get by or Vanessa and Damien Sassaur.
I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of
(12:41):
Sports Bloomberg Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explored the
big money issues in the world of sports Michael Barr,
along with Damien Sasaur and Vanessa Berdomo. The MLB season
as well underway, following an offseason that saw some of
the league's top teams last year, the New York Yankees, Mets,
and the Los Angeles Dodgers, adding big name stars to
(13:15):
their rosters and spinning a lot to do so. It's
adding to a growing divide between the haves and the
have nots of baseball. Bloomberg News Global Business reporter Ira
Budway did some reporting on that lately, and he's here
now to take us through it. Iral, Welcome back to
the Bloomberg Business of Sports.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Hey, you wrote a great article. You talked about no
easy way to fix Major League Baseball's wealth gap. Obviously,
the big teams you've got the Yankees, You've got the Mets,
you've got the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And then on the end of the scale, our teams
like the Pittsburgh Pirates talk to us why we have
such a gap. I mean, I guess I look at
it like, Okay, yeah, people in the world that are
rich that can afford a portion. Then you got people
in the world that are doing okay, and maybe you
(14:10):
can afford to Lincoln, And then you got people like
me that can just afford a Chevrolet Vegas. So I
mean it seems like that's the same setup for baseball teams.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yeah, in a way, you're right. It's like somebody went
in and bought a Volkswagen is trying to race the
people who bought a Ferrari. You know, in the same
field of teams, the revenue for the Dodgers or the
Yankees just far out paces what teams in you know,
what the Pittsburgh Pirates can bring in, or even the
Milwaukee Brewers or the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore, you name it.
(14:45):
There's a lot of teams that just don't have the
revenue because baseball is a sport that depends on local revenues.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
In large part.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
You get ticket sales, and you got your regional TV deals,
and those are local. Those are for that team mainly.
So it just sets up a huge imbalance that's coming
to the fore because now you're seeing that gap open
up in what they're spending on payroll, and the fans
look at that and they go, well, I start spring
knowing I'm not even in this race. We can't we
(15:11):
can't keep up.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
And by the way, Benes, I don't want anybody from
any of their teams coming at me with a torpedo
bat and slapping me upside.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Now, you don't want to get hit with one of those.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
I don't think it seems like they can hit pretty good.
Speaker 8 (15:24):
I mean, I'm just stating, you know the obvious here
about money.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I think they know it too, though.
Speaker 6 (15:28):
And one of the things that I thought was funny
in the pc row Ira is what how Steinbrenner had
said to you that even they can't compete, even the
Yankees can't keep up with the Dodger spending.
Speaker 7 (15:40):
And I was like, reading that as.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
A Yankee fan a little annoyed, And then I could
imagine fans of other teams being annoyed, like.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (15:48):
You you could if you wanted to, So how does
that even work?
Speaker 7 (15:52):
Him saying that. I mean, they're still the most valued,
highest valued team in baseball.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
Yeah, I mean he said that on his own network
to be clear, on Yes network, but he you know,
it's I think a lot of people heard that and
raise an eyebrow, certainly Yankees fans after you know, he
said that after Sodo went to the Mets, Right he
lost out on that bidding war. You look at the Yankees,
and yeah, they any team technically can deficit spend, right,
(16:18):
Steve Cohen, I'm not sure is balancing the books right
now in the Mets. So if hal Steinbrenner wants to
lose money or lose more money, then he could, right.
And but the question is, like what is reasonable to
expect of owners, Like where are there limits? You know,
you look at the Pirates. They their owner is apparently
losing money year over year a little bit. They've been
(16:41):
taken on debt the last three seasons to local reports. Right,
So that's what the fans would say is either keep
taking on more or sell the team because this isn't working.
But like you could argue that that they need some
help to restructure this whole thing so that it can
work for people like that who are rich but not
mega rich, have good markets but not great markets, Like
(17:02):
shouldn't it be possible for teams to compete without going
deep deep into debt? Or what is the model here?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I mean, I mean, Ira, this article is amazing. There's
no easy way to fix major League Baseball's wealth gap.
That's arab boodway. And here's the interesting thing. I can't
believe anyone's reading it because all IRA does is beat
up on the Pittsburgh Pirates. And let's be clear, this
is nothing new. The Pirates are one in five this year,
six straight losing seasons. I think we've had a losing
season in twenty eight of the last thirty two years.
This is nothing new. And by the way, the Players
(17:29):
Association isn't going to change. They're not going to put
a salary cap in, as you rightly point out. You know,
Tony Clark is not a meanable to putting a salary
cap in to stop the bleeding. So my question for
you is, what if anything is left to change the
endemic wealth gap in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I mean, there's a few things you can imagine, right.
They've been adding to the luxury tax, cointax, the coen tax,
keeps getting steeper, and that basically is a way to say,
all right, we don't have a salary cap, but if
you spend over a certain threshold going to be tax
I mean, at this point, the Dodgers the Mets, when
they sign a guy for thirteen million, they're basically paying
(18:06):
double that. Their marginal tax rate is one hundred and
ten percent, right, so if they get it, it's a
twenty six million, But they don't seem to care for
you know, for them to get a thirteen million dollar
player at this point. So that's one avenue you could
keep trying to push that lever to see where Steve
Cohen's paying threshold is.
Speaker 7 (18:23):
That creates a war.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Between the big markets and the small markets. Right, the
owners who are receiving that revenue sharing money, that luxury
tax money are basically have a different set of interest
than the owners who are paying it out. And I
think that's why they're looking at the salary cap as
a more for the owner. From the owner's perspective, a
better option, because then you take the problem and you
put it in the players rather than on your fellow owners.
(18:45):
And I think that's why we're headed for a lockout
you know, at the end of next year, because I
think they're going to try to get a salary cap
in baseball and that's going to be a real fight.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, and Damian said it, I mean, the the average
there's just we have an article is out there on
the terminal. The average MLB salary tops five million dollars
for the first time ever. And according to AP And
it's like Damian saying, you put a salary cap in, well,
the toothpaste out of the tube. I mean, who's gonna say,
(19:17):
all right, I'll take a pay cut.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (19:20):
I mean.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
The way salary caps tend to work in other sports
is they benefit the middle class, so to speak, of
that league, the players who are not the superstars. And
if you look at baseball, it's interesting. You got these
massive eye popping contracts one Soto seven hundred and sixty
five million dollars, but the amount of money of revenue
going to players on in total is less in baseball
(19:45):
than it is in the NFL. In the NBA, where
they have salary caps, and they have negotiated an amount.
Speaker 8 (19:50):
Basically half that goes to the players.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
In Major League Baseball, it's forty six percent, and it's
going down, and so there are a lot of rank
and file players who actually might stand to benefit from
a salary cap, and so that's that's another sort of
tension in this that's going to have to get resolved.
The Wan Sotos of the world don't actually necessarily share
an interest in how this works with your journeyman player
(20:16):
who's you know, trying to you know, gone into free agency,
but is not going to set a record on their deal.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
But is it not, like, wouldn't it just changed a
little bit? Maybe they're like shorter deals or something like us.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We do see fifty million dollar you know, quarterback deals
in the NFL.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It's not like they don't get paid a.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Lot, right, No, I mean the NBA and NFL, they
the stars do great, but relatively the guys who are
like a tier or two down, you see eye popping
deals for those guys in the NFL and in the NBA.
Because of the way the cap is structured, basically, it
sort of creates a slightly fatter middle, right, which I
think is what if you see a salary cap come
(20:55):
to baseball, it's going to be at the cost of
ownership saying we promise you you're going to get fifty one
percent of revenue or something like that. Right, they're not
going to be able to get it without shelling out.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
And is that something that is that a compromise they'd
be willing to give.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I mean, that's what we're gonna we're gonna see. I mean,
I honestly from people I talk to, no one knows. Right,
Baseball's going to push for a salary cap. The Union's
going to say no, there's going to be a lockout.
Everyone seems to agree on those parts of this. But
then what happens next? Right, how long does it last?
Who blinks? If they do get a salary cap? What
does that look like? I don't think anybody knows.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Well, here's the thing. There has to be some sort
of a blueprint here. I mean, there are teams out
there in recent memory, like the Royals, like the Devil Rays,
you know, the Tampa Double Rays that have won the
World Ship Series championship, and they are small market teams.
Right now, riddle me this? Is it just that ownership
for those for those ball clubs are willing to spend
you know, on par with the Yankees, or maybe it's
(21:56):
something because the Double Rays play in the Al East.
They're getting incremental revenue from playing the Red Sox and
the Yankees. I mean, I'm just trying to wrap my
brain around why the Pirates are stuck in this twenty
eight of the last thirty two years, they've had a
losing season and no one seems to be taking notice.
I mean, I guess people in pat Pittsburgh are taking
notice of it.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
But who cares about that?
Speaker 9 (22:14):
No?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, I mean Iras, seriously, is there a rec.
Speaker 8 (22:19):
It is a shame.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
It's a great franchise with a great history. But yeah,
I think the you know, one answer is moneyball, right,
be smarter, But obviously not everyone can be smarter, right.
The definition is you're you're you're at a level above
and your ability to identify talent and and develop it
and and make trans smart transactions. I think being smarter,
(22:40):
you know, can get you the razor proof that you
can do it on a consistent basis. But even they
haven't won the World Series. And if you look at like,
which teams are you know, last year in the in
the NLCS, right, in the ALCS, who are the teams?
Speaker 8 (22:57):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Who is in the World Series? You know there is
there is an opportunity to sneak in there. The Orioles
had a great season a couple of years ago. It's
not like it's impossible. With a little bit of luck, right,
and some and some smart ownership, you can you can
have moments as a small market team where you where
you get in there. But the imbalance is getting to
be I think pretty glaring, right, just in terms of
(23:19):
who has the opportunities to win it all compared to
you know, you don't. You don't have a Kansas City Chiefs, right,
there is no equivalent to that.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Right, Can I suggest for your next article you talk
about bigger market teams who can't seem to win it all.
Speaker 8 (23:32):
Like the Digation.
Speaker 6 (23:33):
Well, I say that The thing is it's really only
worked for the Dodgers. They're really the only team who's
spending this kind of money and it's really worked. I mean,
it hasn't worked for the Yankees in Uh, Well, so
the Dodgers.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The Dodgers are basically have the most money and have
smart management, right, And so if you're playing moneyball with
a huge bag of money, then you're going to be really,
really good. And and I think everyone's starting to wake
up to the fact that we might be reaching a
point where it's like you might as well. You know,
baseball's got a lot of randomness. Injuries are there. Nothing
(24:06):
is guaranteed, but you just look at it right now
and you go, well, if they're healthy, they're going to
be They're in October, right, you don't really need to
play the season.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I have a I know we're out of time pretty much,
but I got a creative idea on what maybe the
smaller markets can do, and that is I think of
Paul's schemes. I mean, you talk about a pitching ace.
It's great for the pirates. Okay, maybe in fact, his
rookie card went for more than his salary did when
(24:37):
he hopped in the league. That that's incredible. But what
if the team said, okay, listen, we can only pay
you so much, but we're going to call a place
like maybe Ford and say, listen, can you like give
him a deal or something?
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Man from endorsement and this was not allowed, but I like, well.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
See I'm always on BWLO. You can see what happens here.
But anyway, hirabud back, thank you, my man. We appreciate
you coming on the Bloomberg business of sports. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Check out his latest work now at Bloomberg
dot com and on the terminal. Up next, we take
a look at how an event management company is looking
to enhance the fan experience for my colleagues Damien Sasauer
(25:23):
and Vanessa Berdomo. I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
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, along with my colleagues Damian
Sasauur and Vanessa Berdomo. Joining us now is Jennifer Brisman.
She's founder and CEO of VOW, an innovative all in
one event management platform looking to power what's called the
(26:02):
experience economy in sports and entertainment. Well, first you got
to tell us what is VOW, because this looks like
a very interesting company.
Speaker 9 (26:12):
Amazing. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well, I am a twenty year event producer and I
very much built a B to B to VIP product
to manage premium and premier experiences across sports, entertainment, the
business of sports, corporate philanthropy, and more so are all
(26:34):
in one. System allows event professionals to be superheroes, to
essentially have an end to end interconnected tool that unifies
event management, so managing the details of an event as
well as people management, so what we call fans, guests, participants.
(26:55):
It allows an organizer to manage all of these things
at scale and in a guest or a fan's hand,
it puts an engagement app to drive an end to
end experience for that guest.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
So that's what we're.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Doing over here, and we're modernizing how event pros planned
and we are making it more elegant and elevating the
guest experience at unbelievable scale and really ensuring that everybody
going to any gathering anywhere feels like VIP. And that's
(27:29):
really what our value system is and that's really what
we're driving towards.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
Jennifer, I'm curious, you know what was missing in the
market that you felt like when you were planning things
that you really needed and what you're doing for these planners.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Now, what I found was missing was the ability for
an event professional to engage them right as opposed to
just hitting their inbox with email after email after email,
or just touching them with a flat ticket. And there's
a whole journey of things. Is that if you are
going to an NBA game, if you're going to an
(28:04):
investor day, if you're going to south By Southwest, you
are a guest and you need stuff, not just stuff
when you enter the facility or the venue or the
arena where they hit you with point a sale, point
of sale, point of sale.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
You need things.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
You might need hotel, nightlife, dining, parking, you might want
to have a sense of where your colleagues are staying.
If you're a speaker, you know, or what suite you're
going to. And so that really takes what, in my opinion,
is a really nineteen nineties experience that we all have
when we attend live events and VIP gatherings, and it
(28:42):
really blazes it into the future. And it also uses
your data in the right way. So right now, when
you guys are going anywhere, you guys are getting to
hit over and over again by emails, whether from the brand,
whether from the stadium, the event organizer, and that really
changes all that. It's really there as a personal assistant
(29:04):
in the palm of your hands to elevate and blaze
your guest experience. So what I found is an event
organizer is the only way that I could touch my guests,
or my fans or my attendees is just to hit
them more on email. And that's just not the right
way to go. And so we really built something that
we want the end user to love so that event
(29:25):
professionals can do more, can take time back and execute
more high level experiences.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Okay, so old man bar wants to go to his
favorite sporting event, a NASCAR race, and I'm trying to like, Okay,
I need your help. How can you help organize If
you can take me through the steps, I want to
organize it with my friends and we're going to go
see the Pocono four hundred.
Speaker 9 (29:51):
Yeah, it's a great question. So there's two sides to that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
So we are for professionally organized experiences, meaning it's B
to B to So it typically starts with a brand
coming in. So maybe you're working for you know, Morgan
Stanley and to your point, they've bought you know, a block,
or they're organizing something for Formula one and you've got
(30:15):
a couple of friends going with you because you've been
given a couple of tickets and a bunch of other
colleagues have been given in as a couple of tickets
and a bunch more and so on and so forth,
and so an organizer will come in and they'll go
ahead and manage the event details in our product and
then be able to ship you a guest facing app
and say this is no before you go.
Speaker 9 (30:37):
It's everything you need.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
So in there for you and your friends, You're going
to have everything around where you need to park, where
you need to go, a timeline, a venue map, everything
and it's intuitive, it's real time. It's in the palm
of your hands. But more than that, today we are
a guest experience app. But tomorrow you're going to be
able to talk to that. You're going to be able
(31:00):
to say it about, Hey, I'm going to Formula one
with a bunch of my friends. You know, we're six people.
We need three hotel rooms. Can you tell us the
best places we can stay? Great val of course, and
then vow will help you book that experience. Do you
need parking? Do you want a place to dine? Do
you want to know where a lot of other groups
(31:20):
are dining nearby with similar interests, So it's moving you
to a place where you can interact with it as
opposed to you know, if you and your friends or
you and your wife did that transaction and you bought
those tickets to formula one, you then have to go
shopping for hotels. And when you were done that and
you had a very mediocre experience on Expedia, you then
(31:41):
kind of search on open Table or Rezi for dinner
experiences and you kind of piece this journey together, kind
of blocking and tackling, kind of like Mario Brothers, moving
between all these different functions. We really roll it up
in the palm of your hands and we kind of
take this flat call it ticketed experience, and we really
(32:02):
elevate it.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Jennifer, I'm looking at your app now and it looks awesome.
I mean the seeding charts and the access passes and
all this stuff. But this is the business of sports,
and we need to know about your business model. How
are you guys making money providing this application to you know,
your stakeholders number one and number two. You mentioned something
really interesting, right, the ability to you know, collect data
(32:24):
or collect information except from third party providers and vendors
and what have you and be able to offer that
through your app. And so you know, I'm just trying
to wrap my arms around. Is the is sort of
the the mote that you're trying to create around your company,
you know, those proprietary relationships and the access to their
data or is it something more so.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
As far as the pricing structure, we have a traditional
SaaS business model. We engage brands, the biggest brands in
the world, and they come on and they pay an
annual subscription fee to use vow It's a premium product,
so it's at a premium price and in doing that,
they have a B to B to VIP trusted platform
to manage event details.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
But we do have this really.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Interesting hub in what I call the business of sports,
so kind of building alongside what I would call the
decision makers in the sports arena for everything that happens
across sports. Right, sports has a huge corporate sector to
it that keeps it moving and grooving. We have a
SaaS fee for our brands. They come in and pay us.
What's nice about how they use val is today that
(33:25):
hosts up to ten thousand guests in seats so we
have a proprietary seating software that integrates with all the
tools in our platform. We have a proprietary ticketing software,
so everything is all in one. But what's very cool
is not only do we host up to ten thousand
guests in seats, you can have up to four hundred
people working in the platform in real time. There's very
(33:46):
few save buttons, you don't have to share logins. This
is a really big problem throughout both the event management
and the ticketing space. So you wouldn't believe it, but
there's a lot of legacy technology in the back end
where you're paying what we call perceive right, you're paying
for a number of access passes. So four people on
your team, five people on your team, we say, nope,
(34:08):
that's not the future. The future is all the stakeholders
working in real time, and that includes everybody within your
primary team, all of the stakeholders you could collaborate with.
It could be across agencies, boots on the ground, it
could be marketing, it could be ops, it could be
public relations, it could be a broadcast team, anything you need.
You're checking teams all live, all real time, and the
(34:31):
system can handle that much movement.
Speaker 9 (34:33):
So that's how we tackle that side.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
To answer your question about the data plays right now,
your data is being cannibalized no matter where you go.
If you walk into any stadium anywhere and you buy
two kids sweatshirts, the next thing you're going to get
in your inbox is emails for Disney on ice. That's
just how the world works. Everything is about point of sale,
everything is about commerce. Your data is being used being
(34:58):
sold to third parties. On Val takes such a different
view of data. And yes it's a mode. The data
belongs to the brand, to the organizer, but you, as
a guest, you are a single profile no matter where
you go.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
And because THOU isn't just.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Let's say a Ticketmaster application, because THOU is for all
experiences everywhere, you are that same person. So you will
get an experience tied to the event, but more important,
tie to you. So your data is used to make
your experience better for that particular event, but everywhere you
(35:37):
go it's learning and getting more predictive, more powerful, stronger
for you.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It sounds like you guys plan this out and you
make it a super nuper experience.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
We do, we do, and I do think, and this
really is my position of shapes a little bit about
how I think and I build this company. I do
believe that the ability to break through and cannibalize people's data,
once we're about five years out from now, is going
to become leaner and leaner. And so if you don't
offer not just better fan engagement, right, which is what
we call it today, what we call what I am
(36:10):
talking about today is just pure data data play fan engagement.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
We see that you love this platform, so we're going
to push you to these three other platforms. We see
like these two things and you bought them point of sale.
We're going to push you these three more. And it's
all about pushing things to you. We take a different
position on you as a guest, as a fan, as
an attendee, as a participant.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
I don't care what I call you.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
You are gold, your eyeballs, your attention, and yes, your data.
But instead of selling that data, we use it to
make you a better experience. So for us, this is
a really important value prop. We believe that's where the
industry is removing. Doesn't matter if you are on sports
corporate Premier league, you know, rising league, emerging leagues women's sports,
(36:57):
and we believe that there's also a much more, a
much bigger value prop in this for women's sports where
women transact and do things differently than men do, and
they like in all in one's sperience.
Speaker 9 (37:08):
So we do think it's.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Sort of tracks where a lot of these VIP experiences
oversees uk UAE, but certainly where women and women's sports
and women's engagement comes into play.
Speaker 7 (37:20):
Well, we're the one who plan everything, so.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes we are, so hopefully I've done a decent of
job of explaining it. Look, we are early, but super powerful,
powerful brands that we're very proud of and excited to
make our mark and really delineate how we.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Make the space better or Thanks to Jennifer Brisbane for
joining us. She's founder and CEO of vow Thank you
for joining us. From my colleagues Damian Sasaur and Vanessa Bernomo,
I'm Michael Barr. Tune in again next week for the
latest one of the stories moving big money in the
world of sports. You're listening to The Bloomberg Business of
Sports from Bloomberg or Radio around the world. Earl
This is the business of sports.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The business of sports can be intimidating or hard for
a starting to break into.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
We really appreciate what our owners are actually there, you
know with us through the journey.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
all levels of the company. I think we're in the
bolden years for the NFL and college football. Our demographic
reach has continued to explode.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
for sports fans, sports evaluations arising, We'll see when they peak.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You don't have to be the best in your sport
to make a whole ton of money.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the
big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr,
along with my colleagues Damian Sasawer and Vanessa Bernomo. Coming
up on the show, we talk a little baseball now
that the season's well underway. We take a look at
the growing divide between MLB's haves and have not with
Bloomberg News Global Business reporter Ira Bodway. Plus we talk
(01:03):
with the founder and CEO of vow and innovative event
management company will learn about what they're doing to enhance
the fan experience.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
That hoosts up to ten thousand guests in seats, So
we have a proprietary seating software that integrates with all
the tools in our platform. We have a proprietary ticketing software,
so everything is all in one. But what's very cool
is not only do we host up to ten thousand
guests in seats, you can have up to four hundred
people working in the platform in real time.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
All that is straight ahead on the Bloomberg business of sports.
But first, we've got winners in the NCAA basketball tournaments.
Paige Becker's and the Yukon Husky is one on the
(01:55):
women's side, while the Florida Gator is one in a
thriller for the men. Sounds like a great time for
Vanessa Berdomo. She recently did a write up on Bloomberg's
Bracket for Cause and can take us through her final
thoughts on this year's March Madness.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
So it's the ten year anniversary of Brackets for Cause
that we do here at Bloomberg, and it's just a
mix of, you know, lots of people who have big
money and they want to, you know, put it in
and they actually raise money for charity. So it's a
twenty thousand dollars buy in. They each have a different
charity that they vie for and it's CEOs, it's hedgehunder managers, vcs,
(02:30):
everything like that. And this year actually saw the first
ever back to back winner for the men's bracket, the
Bumble founder Whitney wolf Hurt. She said before that she
can't give away her secrets, doesn't like to give away
her secrets in failing out her bracket. But a couple
of other people I talked to the women's bracket winner,
Jeffrey Taupins and George Walker. They tied for like, they
(02:51):
both at two hundred and eleven points. This was a
different year for the brackets and a lot of people
had the higher seeds going further. But they both like
and you know, filling out their brackets to business and
risk taking and calculated risks.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
By the way, that's a back to back is the
first time that has ever happened doing this. Like you're saying,
but it's hard, it's hard to pick a winner out
of this. I mean it's because, like you said, it's
like if you go off the board and you try
to like, Okay, maybe I can zoom in and this
and that whatever and win it that way. But no,
(03:27):
this was one of those where you know, you had
the number ones pretty much going Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
This was the first time in since two thousand and
eight that all number one seeds made the final four
for the men's side. And you know, I think one
of the reasons we've seen that a lot of people
are liking it to nil in the transfer portal, and
you know, now mid majors are losing their players after
a year or so, so we're seeing a lot of that.
But obviously the top seeds were just really good this year.
(03:53):
But I think one of the interesting things for Whitney
winning again was she didn't get swept up and the
Duke you know wagon that I got swept up in
Cooper Flag and that. So that was another reason I
didn't do too great on the men's side.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
And we should add too that Whitney wolf heard she
was playing for Baby to Baby.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Correct, Yes, she was playing for Baby to Baby. Jeffrey
Talpins is playing for American Prairie, which is doing a
really interesting thing with you know, they're trying to make
the largest reserve in the US. George Walker was playing
for the MSK Cancer Center, which is the research institute
here in New York City. So obviously a lot of
these people were just playing for really really big charities
that they have a lot to do.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
With overall year rounds. So it was good for them.
Speaker 6 (04:34):
And because of Jeffrey and George both tied, they got
first place and second prize split between their two Cheriteys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
When you fill out a bracket, folks, and I've always
said this, and I have to wait till next year
to do it again, I like to fill it out
in reverse. I like to fill out who I think
is going to win. That's how I filled out the
women's brackets because I thought, Okay, Yukon's going to win it,
and then I went and reverse the other way. I
had all Auburn going all the way, which, well, we.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Know, how yeah, yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Obviously a lot of people were split between Yukon and USC,
and obviously South Carolina has been a top of the
women's bracket for a long time, so I think it
was easy easy there. But I think a lot of people,
obviously including me, had USC going far because of Juju
Wawkins and but we're happy for pagebackers. She's going to
get drafted in to the WNBA.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Let's give a little forward look to this for audience. Yeah,
I mean, I think DraftKings and Fandel are picking who
duke in Houston to lead to win it next year, right,
so again, and they're looking for some repeat performances here.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Sim could you know do it?
Speaker 6 (05:37):
I think, I mean, after that way of losing, I
think you come back very very hungry because that was
that was a rough way to lose.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Oh yeah, Duke, I'm sorry. I'm watching that game and
I'm like, no, the refs had nothing to do with this. Unfortunately,
you know, things happened, but they're young men and uh,
you know they're going to bounce back next year. And
I always support that.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
It's all about character building, come back hunger than you
were before.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
We forgot to add that everybody who plays on this
puts up twenty grand.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
They put in twenty thousand dollars for the overall prize pool.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
One.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
Because this has been going on for ten years, over
six million dollars has been raised by a brakfast fair cause.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Wow, very good. I wish I had that money to right.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
Actually Douglas, who was overall globally said, you know, he
reached out to me and said, you know, great story.
You know, I was so excited to get the top
score overall, but he said, you know, hopefully.
Speaker 7 (06:31):
One day it can be a part of that.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
You know, I can be a part of the giving
up twenty thousand dollars here for charity and really have
some skin in the game. And I think that it's
a really fun thing for the CEOs, for the managers,
for everyone who's involved in Breakast for cause.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
I think they love to do it. People do it clearly.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
Whitney's done it, you know, multiple times, winning back to back,
so I think people like to come back to It's
it's more fun even when you when you have skin
in the game for someone else, you know, you're donating
money to a good cause.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
In one thing that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
We were looking at Vanessa and we were talking about
how the NCUBLEA, how they're doing well in you know,
with the ratings and that's going on. But they also
had a settlement with involving nil and hopefully this will
(07:25):
bring a path toward at least giving the money to
people who said, hey, we couldn't make any money because
you guys held us back college athletes. And now there's
been a ruling in that.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
There hasn't been a ruling quite yet, you know.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
On April seventh, there was another hearing and the federal
judge basically kind of nodded her head and said, you know,
this will most likely be approved, but there's another hearing,
I believe in either Junior's lie where she will make
that final decision. But there was a couple of things
that she needed, you know them to address. One of
(08:00):
those being there's this revenue sharing model that is really
what's gonna change everything that people like players will actually
finally get paid. And that's what you're talking about there, Michael.
Schools will be able to opt in for this and
about share about twenty point five million dollars with their
student athletes in revenue sharing models that they've never been able.
Speaker 7 (08:19):
To do before.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
But the problem there is that not everyone you know,
makes money, and now they're gonna have to give money
to the players and know how to sparse it out.
So there's like threats to Title nine that because they're
gonna give most likely a lot of money to football players,
and men's and women's basketball players, and then they want
to make sure that addressing Title nine, they give scholarships
(08:43):
to every player on a roster, which means any sport.
But the problem is colleges can't really afford to do that.
So the threat was players are going to start getting cut.
Like I spent I played college soccer the way that
it works for college for women's college soccer, we get
twelve scholarships or so, and they sparse them out through
(09:05):
the team. I mean, you can't really make a soccer
team with twelve people. So we had about a roster
of like thirty players. A few players were walk ons,
they didn't have scholarships at all, but most of us
had partial scholarships and then they're made up by with
whatever else they can be made up with. But the
problem is they want the whole twenty to thirty people
to have full, you know, full scholarships, and that's where
(09:28):
there's a miscommunication and they think that that's where a
lot of the tension could come from. And the judge
wants them to rule that grandfather and the players who
are already on rosters and things like that.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Can you imagine if you had nil when you were
playing soccer.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
You know, I think about it a lot, and I think,
but you know, I talk about I talked to other
you know, college players. You know, my step siblings also
played in college and they played Revenue gener explains, Yeah,
they played. You know, my stepsters were played basketball at
Georgetown and my steps brother played a football at BC.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
So you know he would have made some money. Okay,
So we talked about it a lot.
Speaker 6 (10:04):
I mean, I personally, as a women's soccer player, I
think I would have had a hustle really hard to
you know, make money because we don't really see a
lot of women's soccer players getting those sorts of deals.
But hey, if it was a possibility, I would have
made that hustle, you know what I'm saying, Like, I
would have made it happen. And it all depends on
the market you're in. We're I played in Pittsburgh, and
I could imagine a lot of Pittsburgh you know, companies
(10:27):
are really you know, focused on having duquane players out
of you know things and meet and greets and.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Things like that.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
And I would have done anything I could have just
to just to get a little bit more money because
we couldn't really work.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
We can't have jobs, no, I mean, but you could have,
like you know, and that's what a lot of nil
people are doing now. It's like, you know, but that's
a prodomo for the Ford Mustang. Yeah, and you could
have done that and now you're driving around in a Mustang.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, that's what we see.
Like Livy Dunn, who's a gymnast at LSU. You know,
she's one of the only gymnastics you know, athletes who's
that high up.
Speaker 7 (11:00):
She's I think she's third.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Overall an IL three million dollars or something, so for
net worth. You know, she just made it her own
and really really went for it. And that's what you
got to do.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
You know.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
We see some players who are walk ons, you know,
getting deals and it's.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
All about the hustle.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
It's all about the hustle, you know, unless you know,
you're a basketball player, football player at a power conference
and you don't really have to do anything to make
that money.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
But good on you because you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Actually, and you know, it's about name, image and likeness.
But I don't don't quit because you got to build
the name first to make name, image and likeness.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Yeah, I think that's the hard thing that we're seeing
again with with this March madness in particular, that was
like a little bit affected by that. You know, seven
out of the fifteen players that were all on the
All American you know, Associated Press, we were players that
went to mid majors and then you know, went on
to bigger schools after that. And I think that those
(11:57):
mid majors were just you know, struggling to pay them
what they could. But with revenue sharing, we're gonna see
that maybe those mid majors that are basketball centric, like
a big East like in Atlantic ten, that don't have
to play football players, they're gonna be able to compete
with those. So maybe we'll be able to see that
eventually get back, you know, up into you know, they'll
start we'll start happening hin. But this year was a
(12:18):
rough year for the mid majors.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Check out Vanessa Bernomo's latest reporting on the tournament and
brackets for Cause now on the Terminal and at Bloomberg
dot Com. Up next, we turn to the baseball diamond,
and they're growing divide between the league's wealthy and the
teams trying to get by or Vanessa and Damien Sassaur.
I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of
(12:41):
Sports Bloomberg Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explored the
big money issues in the world of sports Michael Barr,
along with Damien Sasaur and Vanessa Berdomo. The MLB season
as well underway, following an offseason that saw some of
the league's top teams last year, the New York Yankees, Mets,
and the Los Angeles Dodgers, adding big name stars to
(13:15):
their rosters and spinning a lot to do so. It's
adding to a growing divide between the haves and the
have nots of baseball. Bloomberg News Global Business reporter Ira
Budway did some reporting on that lately, and he's here
now to take us through it. Iral, Welcome back to
the Bloomberg Business of Sports.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Always a pleasure.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Hey, you wrote a great article. You talked about no
easy way to fix Major League Baseball's wealth gap. Obviously,
the big teams you've got the Yankees, You've got the Mets,
you've got the Dodgers.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And then on the end of the scale, our teams
like the Pittsburgh Pirates talk to us why we have
such a gap. I mean, I guess I look at
it like, Okay, yeah, people in the world that are
rich that can afford a portion. Then you got people
in the world that are doing okay, and maybe you
(14:10):
can afford to Lincoln, And then you got people like
me that can just afford a Chevrolet Vegas. So I
mean it seems like that's the same setup for baseball teams.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yeah, in a way, you're right. It's like somebody went
in and bought a Volkswagen is trying to race the
people who bought a Ferrari. You know, in the same
field of teams, the revenue for the Dodgers or the
Yankees just far out paces what teams in you know,
what the Pittsburgh Pirates can bring in, or even the
Milwaukee Brewers or the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore, you name it.
(14:45):
There's a lot of teams that just don't have the
revenue because baseball is a sport that depends on local revenues.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
In large part.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
You get ticket sales, and you got your regional TV deals,
and those are local. Those are for that team mainly.
So it just sets up a huge imbalance that's coming
to the fore because now you're seeing that gap open
up in what they're spending on payroll, and the fans
look at that and they go, well, I start spring
knowing I'm not even in this race. We can't we
(15:11):
can't keep up.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
And by the way, Benes, I don't want anybody from
any of their teams coming at me with a torpedo
bat and slapping me upside.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Now, you don't want to get hit with one of those.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
I don't think it seems like they can hit pretty good.
Speaker 8 (15:24):
I mean, I'm just stating, you know the obvious here
about money.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
I think they know it too, though.
Speaker 6 (15:28):
And one of the things that I thought was funny
in the pc row Ira is what how Steinbrenner had
said to you that even they can't compete, even the
Yankees can't keep up with the Dodger spending.
Speaker 7 (15:40):
And I was like, reading that as.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
A Yankee fan a little annoyed, And then I could
imagine fans of other teams being annoyed, like.
Speaker 7 (15:47):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 6 (15:48):
You you could if you wanted to, So how does
that even work?
Speaker 7 (15:52):
Him saying that. I mean, they're still the most valued,
highest valued team in baseball.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
Yeah, I mean he said that on his own network
to be clear, on Yes network, but he you know,
it's I think a lot of people heard that and
raise an eyebrow, certainly Yankees fans after you know, he
said that after Sodo went to the Mets, Right he
lost out on that bidding war. You look at the Yankees,
and yeah, they any team technically can deficit spend, right,
(16:18):
Steve Cohen, I'm not sure is balancing the books right
now in the Mets. So if hal Steinbrenner wants to
lose money or lose more money, then he could, right.
And but the question is, like what is reasonable to
expect of owners, Like where are there limits? You know,
you look at the Pirates. They their owner is apparently
losing money year over year a little bit. They've been
(16:41):
taken on debt the last three seasons to local reports. Right,
So that's what the fans would say is either keep
taking on more or sell the team because this isn't working.
But like you could argue that that they need some
help to restructure this whole thing so that it can
work for people like that who are rich but not
mega rich, have good markets but not great markets, Like
(17:02):
shouldn't it be possible for teams to compete without going
deep deep into debt? Or what is the model here?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
I mean, I mean, Ira, this article is amazing. There's
no easy way to fix major League Baseball's wealth gap.
That's arab boodway. And here's the interesting thing. I can't
believe anyone's reading it because all IRA does is beat
up on the Pittsburgh Pirates. And let's be clear, this
is nothing new. The Pirates are one in five this year,
six straight losing seasons. I think we've had a losing
season in twenty eight of the last thirty two years.
This is nothing new. And by the way, the Players
(17:29):
Association isn't going to change. They're not going to put
a salary cap in, as you rightly point out. You know,
Tony Clark is not a meanable to putting a salary
cap in to stop the bleeding. So my question for
you is, what if anything is left to change the
endemic wealth gap in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I mean, there's a few things you can imagine, right.
They've been adding to the luxury tax, cointax, the coen tax,
keeps getting steeper, and that basically is a way to say,
all right, we don't have a salary cap, but if
you spend over a certain threshold going to be tax
I mean, at this point, the Dodgers the Mets, when
they sign a guy for thirteen million, they're basically paying
(18:06):
double that. Their marginal tax rate is one hundred and
ten percent, right, so if they get it, it's a
twenty six million, But they don't seem to care for
you know, for them to get a thirteen million dollar
player at this point. So that's one avenue you could
keep trying to push that lever to see where Steve
Cohen's paying threshold is.
Speaker 7 (18:23):
That creates a war.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Between the big markets and the small markets. Right, the
owners who are receiving that revenue sharing money, that luxury
tax money are basically have a different set of interest
than the owners who are paying it out. And I
think that's why they're looking at the salary cap as
a more for the owner. From the owner's perspective, a
better option, because then you take the problem and you
put it in the players rather than on your fellow owners.
(18:45):
And I think that's why we're headed for a lockout
you know, at the end of next year, because I
think they're going to try to get a salary cap
in baseball and that's going to be a real fight.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, and Damian said it, I mean, the the average
there's just we have an article is out there on
the terminal. The average MLB salary tops five million dollars
for the first time ever. And according to AP And
it's like Damian saying, you put a salary cap in, well,
the toothpaste out of the tube. I mean, who's gonna say,
(19:17):
all right, I'll take a pay cut.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (19:20):
I mean.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
The way salary caps tend to work in other sports
is they benefit the middle class, so to speak, of
that league, the players who are not the superstars. And
if you look at baseball, it's interesting. You got these
massive eye popping contracts one Soto seven hundred and sixty
five million dollars, but the amount of money of revenue
going to players on in total is less in baseball
(19:45):
than it is in the NFL. In the NBA, where
they have salary caps, and they have negotiated an amount.
Speaker 8 (19:50):
Basically half that goes to the players.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
In Major League Baseball, it's forty six percent, and it's
going down, and so there are a lot of rank
and file players who actually might stand to benefit from
a salary cap, and so that's that's another sort of
tension in this that's going to have to get resolved.
The Wan Sotos of the world don't actually necessarily share
an interest in how this works with your journeyman player
(20:16):
who's you know, trying to you know, gone into free agency,
but is not going to set a record on their deal.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
But is it not, like, wouldn't it just changed a
little bit? Maybe they're like shorter deals or something like us.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
We do see fifty million dollar you know, quarterback deals
in the NFL.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
It's not like they don't get paid a.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Lot, right, No, I mean the NBA and NFL, they
the stars do great, but relatively the guys who are
like a tier or two down, you see eye popping
deals for those guys in the NFL and in the NBA.
Because of the way the cap is structured, basically, it
sort of creates a slightly fatter middle, right, which I
think is what if you see a salary cap come
(20:55):
to baseball, it's going to be at the cost of
ownership saying we promise you you're going to get fifty one
percent of revenue or something like that. Right, they're not
going to be able to get it without shelling out.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
And is that something that is that a compromise they'd
be willing to give.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
I mean, that's what we're gonna we're gonna see. I mean,
I honestly from people I talk to, no one knows. Right,
Baseball's going to push for a salary cap. The Union's
going to say no, there's going to be a lockout.
Everyone seems to agree on those parts of this. But
then what happens next? Right, how long does it last?
Who blinks? If they do get a salary cap? What
does that look like? I don't think anybody knows.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Well, here's the thing. There has to be some sort
of a blueprint here. I mean, there are teams out
there in recent memory, like the Royals, like the Devil Rays,
you know, the Tampa Double Rays that have won the
World Ship Series championship, and they are small market teams.
Right now, riddle me this? Is it just that ownership
for those for those ball clubs are willing to spend
you know, on par with the Yankees, or maybe it's
(21:56):
something because the Double Rays play in the Al East.
They're getting incremental revenue from playing the Red Sox and
the Yankees. I mean, I'm just trying to wrap my
brain around why the Pirates are stuck in this twenty
eight of the last thirty two years, they've had a
losing season and no one seems to be taking notice.
I mean, I guess people in pat Pittsburgh are taking
notice of it.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
But who cares about that?
Speaker 9 (22:14):
No?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, I mean Iras, seriously, is there a rec.
Speaker 8 (22:19):
It is a shame.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
It's a great franchise with a great history. But yeah,
I think the you know, one answer is moneyball, right,
be smarter, But obviously not everyone can be smarter, right.
The definition is you're you're you're at a level above
and your ability to identify talent and and develop it
and and make trans smart transactions. I think being smarter,
(22:40):
you know, can get you the razor proof that you
can do it on a consistent basis. But even they
haven't won the World Series. And if you look at like,
which teams are you know, last year in the in
the NLCS, right, in the ALCS, who are the teams?
Speaker 8 (22:57):
Right?
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Who is in the World Series? You know there is
there is an opportunity to sneak in there. The Orioles
had a great season a couple of years ago. It's
not like it's impossible. With a little bit of luck, right,
and some and some smart ownership, you can you can
have moments as a small market team where you where
you get in there. But the imbalance is getting to
be I think pretty glaring, right, just in terms of
(23:19):
who has the opportunities to win it all compared to
you know, you don't. You don't have a Kansas City Chiefs, right,
there is no equivalent to that.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Right, Can I suggest for your next article you talk
about bigger market teams who can't seem to win it all.
Speaker 8 (23:32):
Like the Digation.
Speaker 6 (23:33):
Well, I say that The thing is it's really only
worked for the Dodgers. They're really the only team who's
spending this kind of money and it's really worked. I mean,
it hasn't worked for the Yankees in Uh, Well, so
the Dodgers.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The Dodgers are basically have the most money and have
smart management, right, And so if you're playing moneyball with
a huge bag of money, then you're going to be really,
really good. And and I think everyone's starting to wake
up to the fact that we might be reaching a
point where it's like you might as well. You know,
baseball's got a lot of randomness. Injuries are there. Nothing
(24:06):
is guaranteed, but you just look at it right now
and you go, well, if they're healthy, they're going to
be They're in October, right, you don't really need to
play the season.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I have a I know we're out of time pretty much,
but I got a creative idea on what maybe the
smaller markets can do, and that is I think of
Paul's schemes. I mean, you talk about a pitching ace.
It's great for the pirates. Okay, maybe in fact, his
rookie card went for more than his salary did when
(24:37):
he hopped in the league. That that's incredible. But what
if the team said, okay, listen, we can only pay
you so much, but we're going to call a place
like maybe Ford and say, listen, can you like give
him a deal or something?
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Man from endorsement and this was not allowed, but I like, well.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
See I'm always on BWLO. You can see what happens here.
But anyway, hirabud back, thank you, my man. We appreciate
you coming on the Bloomberg business of sports. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Check out his latest work now at Bloomberg
dot com and on the terminal. Up next, we take
a look at how an event management company is looking
to enhance the fan experience for my colleagues Damien Sasauer
(25:23):
and Vanessa Berdomo. I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
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, along with my colleagues Damian
Sasauur and Vanessa Berdomo. Joining us now is Jennifer Brisman.
She's founder and CEO of VOW, an innovative all in
one event management platform looking to power what's called the
(26:02):
experience economy in sports and entertainment. Well, first you got
to tell us what is VOW, because this looks like
a very interesting company.
Speaker 9 (26:12):
Amazing. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Well, I am a twenty year event producer and I
very much built a B to B to VIP product
to manage premium and premier experiences across sports, entertainment, the
business of sports, corporate philanthropy, and more so are all
(26:34):
in one. System allows event professionals to be superheroes, to
essentially have an end to end interconnected tool that unifies
event management, so managing the details of an event as
well as people management, so what we call fans, guests, participants.
(26:55):
It allows an organizer to manage all of these things
at scale and in a guest or a fan's hand,
it puts an engagement app to drive an end to
end experience for that guest.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
So that's what we're.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Doing over here, and we're modernizing how event pros planned
and we are making it more elegant and elevating the
guest experience at unbelievable scale and really ensuring that everybody
going to any gathering anywhere feels like VIP. And that's
(27:29):
really what our value system is and that's really what
we're driving towards.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
Jennifer, I'm curious, you know what was missing in the
market that you felt like when you were planning things
that you really needed and what you're doing for these planners.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Now, what I found was missing was the ability for
an event professional to engage them right as opposed to
just hitting their inbox with email after email after email,
or just touching them with a flat ticket. And there's
a whole journey of things. Is that if you are
going to an NBA game, if you're going to an
(28:04):
investor day, if you're going to south By Southwest, you
are a guest and you need stuff, not just stuff
when you enter the facility or the venue or the
arena where they hit you with point a sale, point
of sale, point of sale.
Speaker 9 (28:18):
You need things.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
You might need hotel, nightlife, dining, parking, you might want
to have a sense of where your colleagues are staying.
If you're a speaker, you know, or what suite you're
going to. And so that really takes what, in my opinion,
is a really nineteen nineties experience that we all have
when we attend live events and VIP gatherings, and it
(28:42):
really blazes it into the future. And it also uses
your data in the right way. So right now, when
you guys are going anywhere, you guys are getting to
hit over and over again by emails, whether from the brand,
whether from the stadium, the event organizer, and that really
changes all that. It's really there as a personal assistant
(29:04):
in the palm of your hands to elevate and blaze
your guest experience. So what I found is an event
organizer is the only way that I could touch my guests,
or my fans or my attendees is just to hit
them more on email. And that's just not the right
way to go. And so we really built something that
we want the end user to love so that event
(29:25):
professionals can do more, can take time back and execute
more high level experiences.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Okay, so old man bar wants to go to his
favorite sporting event, a NASCAR race, and I'm trying to like, Okay,
I need your help. How can you help organize If
you can take me through the steps, I want to
organize it with my friends and we're going to go
see the Pocono four hundred.
Speaker 9 (29:51):
Yeah, it's a great question. So there's two sides to that.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
So we are for professionally organized experiences, meaning it's B
to B to So it typically starts with a brand
coming in. So maybe you're working for you know, Morgan
Stanley and to your point, they've bought you know, a block,
or they're organizing something for Formula one and you've got
(30:15):
a couple of friends going with you because you've been
given a couple of tickets and a bunch of other
colleagues have been given in as a couple of tickets
and a bunch more and so on and so forth,
and so an organizer will come in and they'll go
ahead and manage the event details in our product and
then be able to ship you a guest facing app
and say this is no before you go.
Speaker 9 (30:37):
It's everything you need.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
So in there for you and your friends, You're going
to have everything around where you need to park, where
you need to go, a timeline, a venue map, everything
and it's intuitive, it's real time. It's in the palm
of your hands. But more than that, today we are
a guest experience app. But tomorrow you're going to be
able to talk to that. You're going to be able
(31:00):
to say it about, Hey, I'm going to Formula one
with a bunch of my friends. You know, we're six people.
We need three hotel rooms. Can you tell us the
best places we can stay? Great val of course, and
then vow will help you book that experience. Do you
need parking? Do you want a place to dine? Do
you want to know where a lot of other groups
(31:20):
are dining nearby with similar interests, So it's moving you
to a place where you can interact with it as
opposed to you know, if you and your friends or
you and your wife did that transaction and you bought
those tickets to formula one, you then have to go
shopping for hotels. And when you were done that and
you had a very mediocre experience on Expedia, you then
(31:41):
kind of search on open Table or Rezi for dinner
experiences and you kind of piece this journey together, kind
of blocking and tackling, kind of like Mario Brothers, moving
between all these different functions. We really roll it up
in the palm of your hands and we kind of
take this flat call it ticketed experience, and we really
(32:02):
elevate it.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Jennifer, I'm looking at your app now and it looks awesome.
I mean the seeding charts and the access passes and
all this stuff. But this is the business of sports,
and we need to know about your business model. How
are you guys making money providing this application to you know,
your stakeholders number one and number two. You mentioned something
really interesting, right, the ability to you know, collect data
(32:24):
or collect information except from third party providers and vendors
and what have you and be able to offer that
through your app. And so you know, I'm just trying
to wrap my arms around. Is the is sort of
the the mote that you're trying to create around your company,
you know, those proprietary relationships and the access to their
data or is it something more so.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
As far as the pricing structure, we have a traditional
SaaS business model. We engage brands, the biggest brands in
the world, and they come on and they pay an
annual subscription fee to use vow It's a premium product,
so it's at a premium price and in doing that,
they have a B to B to VIP trusted platform
to manage event details.
Speaker 9 (33:02):
But we do have this really.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Interesting hub in what I call the business of sports,
so kind of building alongside what I would call the
decision makers in the sports arena for everything that happens
across sports. Right, sports has a huge corporate sector to
it that keeps it moving and grooving. We have a
SaaS fee for our brands. They come in and pay us.
What's nice about how they use val is today that
(33:25):
hosts up to ten thousand guests in seats so we
have a proprietary seating software that integrates with all the
tools in our platform. We have a proprietary ticketing software,
so everything is all in one. But what's very cool
is not only do we host up to ten thousand
guests in seats, you can have up to four hundred
people working in the platform in real time. There's very
(33:46):
few save buttons, you don't have to share logins. This
is a really big problem throughout both the event management
and the ticketing space. So you wouldn't believe it, but
there's a lot of legacy technology in the back end
where you're paying what we call perceive right, you're paying
for a number of access passes. So four people on
your team, five people on your team, we say, nope,
(34:08):
that's not the future. The future is all the stakeholders
working in real time, and that includes everybody within your
primary team, all of the stakeholders you could collaborate with.
It could be across agencies, boots on the ground, it
could be marketing, it could be ops, it could be
public relations, it could be a broadcast team, anything you need.
You're checking teams all live, all real time, and the
(34:31):
system can handle that much movement.
Speaker 9 (34:33):
So that's how we tackle that side.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
To answer your question about the data plays right now,
your data is being cannibalized no matter where you go.
If you walk into any stadium anywhere and you buy
two kids sweatshirts, the next thing you're going to get
in your inbox is emails for Disney on ice. That's
just how the world works. Everything is about point of sale,
everything is about commerce. Your data is being used being
(34:58):
sold to third parties. On Val takes such a different
view of data. And yes it's a mode. The data
belongs to the brand, to the organizer, but you, as
a guest, you are a single profile no matter where
you go.
Speaker 9 (35:14):
And because THOU isn't just.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Let's say a Ticketmaster application, because THOU is for all
experiences everywhere, you are that same person. So you will
get an experience tied to the event, but more important,
tie to you. So your data is used to make
your experience better for that particular event, but everywhere you
(35:37):
go it's learning and getting more predictive, more powerful, stronger
for you.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It sounds like you guys plan this out and you
make it a super nuper experience.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
We do, we do, and I do think, and this
really is my position of shapes a little bit about
how I think and I build this company. I do
believe that the ability to break through and cannibalize people's data,
once we're about five years out from now, is going
to become leaner and leaner. And so if you don't
offer not just better fan engagement, right, which is what
we call it today, what we call what I am
(36:10):
talking about today is just pure data data play fan engagement.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
We see that you love this platform, so we're going
to push you to these three other platforms. We see
like these two things and you bought them point of sale.
We're going to push you these three more. And it's
all about pushing things to you. We take a different
position on you as a guest, as a fan, as
an attendee, as a participant.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
I don't care what I call you.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
You are gold, your eyeballs, your attention, and yes, your data.
But instead of selling that data, we use it to
make you a better experience. So for us, this is
a really important value prop. We believe that's where the
industry is removing. Doesn't matter if you are on sports
corporate Premier league, you know, rising league, emerging leagues women's sports,
(36:57):
and we believe that there's also a much more, a
much bigger value prop in this for women's sports where
women transact and do things differently than men do, and
they like in all in one's sperience.
Speaker 9 (37:08):
So we do think it's.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Sort of tracks where a lot of these VIP experiences
oversees uk UAE, but certainly where women and women's sports
and women's engagement comes into play.
Speaker 7 (37:20):
Well, we're the one who plan everything, so.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes we are, so hopefully I've done a decent of
job of explaining it. Look, we are early, but super powerful,
powerful brands that we're very proud of and excited to
make our mark and really delineate how we.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Make the space better or Thanks to Jennifer Brisbane for
joining us. She's founder and CEO of vow Thank you
for joining us. From my colleagues Damian Sasaur and Vanessa Bernomo,
I'm Michael Barr. Tune in again next week for the
latest one of the stories moving big money in the
world of sports. You're listening to The Bloomberg Business of
Sports from Bloomberg or Radio around the world. Earl
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