May 16, 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.
The new WNBA season is just getting underway, following their most successful season yet. Thayer Lavielle, managing director of The Collective, Wasserman's dedicated women-focused, global impact and advisory business joins to talk about the growth of women's sports and how leagues and players can capitalize on the growing popularity of women's athletics.
Then, Noah Basketball CEO John Carter joins to discuss his company's unique on-court basketball data technology, which provides real-time feedback to players on their shooting.
Plus, listen in on a special conversation Bloomberg Originals chief correspondent Jason Kelly and Vanessa had with Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO, as well as Washington Capital and Wizards owner Ted Leonsis. He talks about women's sports and what's next for Capital One Arena in the heart of DC as undergoes renovations
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is the business
of sports.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The business of sports can be intimidating or hard for
a starting to break into.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We really appreciate when our owners are actually better, you
know with us through the journey.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
all levels.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Of the company.
Speaker 6 (00:23):
I think we're in the bolden years for the NFL
and college football.
Speaker 7 (00:26):
Our demographic reach has continued to expande.
Speaker 8 (00:29):
This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
for sports fans.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Sports evaluations arising.
Speaker 7 (00:36):
We'll see when they peak.
Speaker 9 (00:37):
You don't have to be the best in your sports
to make a whole ton of money.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the
big money issues in the world of sports. Michael Barr
along with my colleagues Damien sas Sauer and Vanessa Berdomo.
Coming up, we'll hear from Monumental Sports and entertain CEO
Ted Leonsis. We'll get his thoughts on the growth of
women's sports and progress on renovating Capitol One Arena in
the heart of DC.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
We're bringing almost three million people a year into our building.
We have one of the busiest buildings in the country,
and we have to make sure that people have kind
of wow fact right that they feel really really good
about that experience.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We'll also learn about Noah Basketball. It's a data company
that uses advanced technology to get real time feedback to players.
All that and more is on the way. But first,
the new WNBA season is just getting underway, and it's
starting coming out of one of the most successful years
of all time. Here to talk about what's next for
(01:45):
the WNBA and the recent rise and popularity of women's
sports is fair Lavel. She is the managing director of
the Collective. It's part of sports marketing agency Wasserman and
focused on women's sports. Fayure, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
of sports.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Thanks for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, let's start because we are just now into a
very young w NBA season. Who Ray last year was
one whale of a year for the league. How can
they build up on this success?
Speaker 8 (02:20):
I think they already are building up on this success.
They have a new franchise, the Golden State of Alkyrise.
They have Toronto Tempo coming up. You know, shortly behind
them next year, and there's a lot of great news
coming out of the league. I think they could not
have ended on a higher note with the championship that
they had, the parade in New York.
Speaker 9 (02:38):
Twenty eight years in the makings, the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
New York Liberty Double, Wendy champions l E. D.
Speaker 8 (02:48):
Elefant always a fan favorite, and just so much innovation
coming out of the league there.
Speaker 10 (02:53):
You know, the Collective worked on a study with Deloyd
on in bridging the gap and investment in women's sports,
and it pointed out that eighty percent of decision makers
have increased their investment in women's sports over the past
five years. And you know, the Collective started in twenty nineteen.
I'm curious how you've seen, you know, those conversations change
over time with brands and sponsorships, like how much easier
(03:16):
was it to sell things for the Golden State Valkyries
than say, Angel City was five years ago.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Well, to be fair, we weren't the ones selling for
Golden State Valkyries, but I will say that we've seen
a huge influx of brands coming into women's sports full stop.
And the WNBA has certainly proven and the Golden state
vokraries have certainly proven to be an incredible investment for
any brands coming in. What we've seen though, is what's
been interesting is not only that you've had these non
(03:45):
endemic brands coming into it to sports. So for the
first time every year seeing you know, cosmetics and beauty
care products coming in, which seems like a natural, but
for many years in the past, if they've never entered
into the sports space. So this is an exciting time
to be in women's sports. It's also a time when
women's sports is really galvanizing new methods of marketing, new
(04:07):
method methods of you know, finding and loving up their
fan bases, if you will, on their early stages. And
so it's been an exciting moment to witness all of
these brands and all of this new investment coming in.
There's obviously still lots of rooms. So for all those
brands out there listening, we welcome all of your investment
into the league.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
All this new investment, all these new brands.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Yet, the average WNBA salary for the twenty twenty four
season was just one hundred and forty seven and forty
five dollars. Your average player makes less than a woman's
pickaball player at two hundred and sixty thousand per year.
I mean, there, what is up with the disconnect and
what is going to change it?
Speaker 8 (04:45):
Well, I mean, it's still a business, and I think
the NWNBA has you know, they're in the middle of
a collective bargaining year and they have an incredible commissioner
who are working hard along with the team at the
w NBA to be able to you know, achieve more
for all of the players and the teams and leagues themselves.
This has been a long, steady climb for this league
(05:07):
and for you know, the players coming up. I think
it's still a business. And I'm not sure. I'm not
an expert in the pickleball league or what their salaries are,
but I trust in the leadership that we have within
the Systney Sports space to really deliver more and more
as this league continues to grow well failure.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You're right, it is a business. And so then I
have to ask you this question, why is the Connecticut
Sun selling at this point? Because the business of the
business of women's basketball seems to be just you know,
at the precipice of blowing out, you know what I mean,
And you know, with the new you know, media deal
that's going to get struck in the next year or so.
I mean, you would hope that, you know, there'd be
a lot more revenue to go around. So I'm just curious,
I mean, without speaking about the connecticuts and specifically because
(05:48):
you're not close to that situation, you know, you know,
what is it going to take here? Is it going
to be striking new deals with the Amazon primes and
the apples of the world. Is it going to be
something bigger than that? I mean, you know, what do
you think is going to move the needle here for
women's sports and the Women's National Basketball Association in.
Speaker 8 (06:04):
Specific, Well, I would say that the women's the women's
sports as a whole has been you know, has really
found its footing over the last five six years in
terms of viewership, attendance, you know, merchandise sales, sponsorship.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
On the rise. All of that has been positive markers.
Speaker 8 (06:23):
Media rights have gone up significantly across WNBA and WSL,
which in this country are as we would call them,
the more mature leagues, even though they're far far behind
their male counterparts, which I do think needs to be
continued to continue to be pointed out because it's not
necessarily a fair comparison to say, well, you're not necessarily
where men should be. There's no comparison that should be
(06:44):
made there. They're you know, the WNBA has or the
NBA has fifty years on the WNBA.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
So we need to look at the.
Speaker 8 (06:52):
The leagues in and of themselves and what needs to
be able to help them grow as bits and parts.
It's not one fell swoop is going to come in
and one TV deal is going to fix all the things,
or one sponsorship deal is going to fix all the things.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
There are many different ways that.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
Women's sports are different than men's sports, and those ways
need to be articulated and also need to be invested into.
It's everything from innovating around women's health, which you know
there are owners that are really leaning into that, like
Michelle King. It's everything from investing in the fan experience
and driving forward on getting people into the building from
like Claire Side and the Liberty to the Balkyries, and
(07:28):
there are many other teams.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Obviously the Aces, et cetera, that are doing that.
Speaker 8 (07:32):
And then there are you know, ways to look at
how to engage in you know, viewership to social media
to pushing forward and advocating for the women as players
and as individuals, and women as players and individuals need
as much support as you know as their men counterparts,
but a little bit differently because they actually can also
(07:55):
give birth to humans, and so they need to make
sure that they're you know, supported to that end a
different way. And so that all of that leads to
a little bit of a different lens on it, but
also one that it's a great opportunity for brands and
companies to come in and be in a support mechanism
to this, you know industry in these leagues.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I used to be from the old school from if
you were in the owner of a team and someone says, well,
when do you make money as an owner? And I
used to say, well when you sell it. But now
with private equity, that's kind of changed the whole landscape.
How does it affect women's sports today with private equity.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
Well, I mean, that's such a great sign. It's fantastic
that private equity is coming to the sport. I think
it's a great nod to the fact that this that
women's sports are being seen as really viable businesses that
will deliver great returns on investment. So I think that's
a positive, you know, but it is a business, and
so there are different says I believe in investing in
(09:02):
a women's sports team than investing in a men's team today.
We did a report last year with RBC that really
dove into this, particularly in the NWSL and the w
n b A, and looked at specifically the types of
things that these teams really need, which are you know,
when you're investing in a women's teams, you might need
to over rotate as an owner to be looking at
this more as a startup in some ways. So how
(09:24):
can you lend more of your contacts, how can you
lend more of your connections and technology, How can you
look at delivering on different you know, facilities or different
programs that that may already be accepted within the men's space,
but because women's sports is not as far as advanced
in some ways, that these owners oftentimes in these ownership
(09:48):
groups oftentimes can come in and be real partners in growth,
which is an exciting opportunity.
Speaker 10 (09:54):
On that same pathway, when we're talking about you know,
ownership and private equity and ROI things like that. In
the study, you know, there's an argument that brands should
use different metrics for evaluating women's sports sponsorship ROI what
are those different metrics and why do you think that
these properties need to be treated differently than men's properties.
Speaker 8 (10:13):
I think for now, what we're looking at is and
the way that we think about this is and not
going into the details of all of the ways that
we at Wasserman will value and look at, you know,
property valuations and the different elements that go into it,
but you know, it's largely based on impressions and engagement.
And what we really feel like is that in the
women's game, there are other metrics that can be considered
(10:36):
which will help up value those teams to be able
to give them more of a leg up and provide
more backup, to charge more for those sponsorship assets, and
so that might be looking at things like in the
case of the team report that we did with r REC,
we looked at forty different variables that went into what
(10:57):
made up revenue, and that was everything from you know,
how you look at things across operations, how you look
at across the market itself, how do you look at
things across performance, team performance, and once you're able to
go into those forty different variables, you're able to really
analyze us in and of themselves, which then become levers
that you can plus up. Obviously, we want to make
sure that those are defensible, that's defensible math, but that
(11:19):
you're able to start to plus those things up in
so that these teams can start to build on themselves
without having to just rely on viewership numbers or attendance numbers,
which may not be where where they need to be
in order to charge more. So we start to look
at how do you actually what are the other assets
that you can start to value and how do you
do this?
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Hey, you've worked with, among others, Pepsi, Microsoft, Theagio American Express.
You've seen it all and you know putting yourself in
their shoes, right, I mean you've been in their shoes before. Right.
What data points do you believe they haven't seen yet
that makes the case for women's sports? I mean, I
mean it's playing off of what you know, Vanessa asked
your earlier. You know, is there anything that they have
(12:00):
seen that they're asking you for that can help them
make more informed decisions about where to invest? Along the vertical?
Speaker 8 (12:07):
I think where what we see to be unique to
women's sports today is the loyalty of.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Women's sports fans. So we are just at breaking news.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
We're just about to come out with another report and
one of the key findings of those reports is around
looking at women's sports fandom. And one of these key
stats is the fifty percent of women's sports fans first
identify as women's sports fans before a team, before a league,
before a player, before an app before any of it.
I would say truly that the women's sports fan base
(12:41):
is one to not being messed with or undervalue in
any way. In fact, I think there's more value.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Put on that our thanks to thay Or Lavio for
joining us. She's the managing director of the collective with
the firm Washerton Up. Next, we turn to a company
that's harnessing data to help basketball players improve their shooting.
For my colleagues, Damian Sasauur and Vanessa Pernomo, I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg
(13:07):
Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
This is 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 Sasaur and Vanessa Bernomo.
Noah Basketball is a data service provider that uses machine
learning to give real time data and feedback to basketball players.
Here to talk to us about the tech and how
(13:40):
it could help basketball players improve their shooting. Is Noah
Basketball CEO John Carter John, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
of Sports.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Thank you excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, you've got a product out there and it's ahead
of its time when you first introduced it about Noah Basketball,
tell us all about it, please.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Well that's an understatement. We you know, we started over
twenty years ago and it was it was an interesting run.
I tell people all the time. I'm not sure people
cared that much about what we were doing until around
twenty and seventeen. But we we went around. We did
barnstorm gyms basically to sell enough systems to keep the
(14:23):
lights on, if you want to think about it that way.
And the tech got better and there was a generational
change in players and coaches. If you go back to
two thousand and five to when we sold our first
commercially first commercial product, you know, there was no cloud.
There wasn't you know, very limited as far as cell
phones and smartphones and those type things. And the old
(14:45):
school coaches weren't big fans of tech, especially when it
comes to shooting. Shooting is they generally don't like to
have their players messed with, so to speak, or things
like that. But fast forward twenty years and we have
twenty eight MBA customers and most all of your major
brands in college basketball use our tech now, and thousands
(15:08):
of high schools and today's generation of players they grew
up with tech in their pocket and we've made it
really easy for them, and we have the data to
back up what we're doing and why it works and
how it works.
Speaker 10 (15:21):
So explain to us a little bit about how it works,
what it does for player shots, and why they finally
were bought into the idea of no basketball.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
So, our system basically tracks the basketball and we collect
and give feedback on three particular high definition metrics that
you can't see with the neked eye. The first thing
is trajectory or the arc of the shot as most
people in basketball refer to it, and we measure that
as the eNTRI angle coming into the rim. We have
(15:52):
found through collecting seven hundred million basketball shots that the
perfect interr angle is forty five degrees. That's where things
all the physics lines up in your favor. And so
if you think about trajectory, that's one of the biggest
issues we see, especially at the youth and high school level,
as players are all over the place on trajectory. And
(16:13):
so what our system does when the ball gets to
the rim, it will verbally tell you, It'll say thirty nine,
thirty eight, fifty two whatever. And so the beauty of
that is that players aren't really changing anything with their
shot other than the release point of the basketball shot.
So just think about their arm angle. They're perfecting the
(16:34):
release high the release angle and perfecting the which allows
them to protect perfect the entry angle, which gets them
to line up the physics in their favor. And you
absolutely will see more shots drop if you're shooting in
the mid forties. And we have proven this every way possible,
and it just absolutely makes a difference. And so the
(16:56):
biggest thing I found, whether it's with NBA college, you know, Hasku, wherever,
once they have some success with it, then everybody buys
in and h and it starts spreading throughout the team.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Damien, I guess Shaquille O'Neil could have used this. Yes,
when he was on the free throw line, it was
like a straight arrow going.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't say to the Robinson Michael Barlett,
here's the reality, John Carter, you need to take me
back to twenty eleven. You need to take me back
to Lebron James. You need to take me back to
Dwayne Wade. That statue would not be in front of
the of Miami's arena were it not for you and
your you know, Noah basketball program fixing him on the
(17:39):
free throw lines.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
Talk to us a.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Little bit about how you started, how you got NBA,
these NBA players to even find you, figure out that
you're you had this product that worked, and then obviously
take you forward to today's success.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Yeah. Well, obviously you read some of the d Wade
stories way back when from the heat or you found
that somewhere.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
But I got that up, John, I did my home.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
That's impressive, David. But you know, the the biggest thing was,
you know, we didn't you know, I'm no former NBA
player or anything crazy like that. We just did it
through hard work, you know, and just building relationships. We
build a relationship with this high school coach, which introduces
us to this college coach, and then this college coach
(18:21):
introduces us to this NBA assistant coach, and just worked
that for a number of years to get in those doors.
Those doors don't swing open easily as you can imagine.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
No, and the product, if I'm not mistaken, it's somewhere
in the order of let's say, I don't know, at
the low end, four thousand to what six thousand dollars.
So yeah, I mean it's a it's a product, right,
I mean you got to be out there guerrilla marketing
and getting in people's faces, getting in coaches faces, players faces.
Speaker 7 (18:46):
I mean, do you have a staff? How do you
do that?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (18:48):
So so today, you know, back then, in the early days,
we did not have a staff. It was primarily me.
You know, today, you know, we we have a reasonable
sized staff, and you know, we have six full time
salespeople I think it is, and and you know, we
make our rounds. We you know, we we do a
lot of marketing that we have not done in the
(19:10):
past when we were just focused on college and NBA teams.
We didn't do any marketing. It was all personal relationships,
you know, feet on the street and reaching out to people,
making our way into doors, doing demos and you know,
begging coaches to bring players in so that we could
demonstrate the product to the players. And you know, and
(19:31):
it took some time, and you know, it was several
It was a little bit of a perfect storm. So
number one, the tech got better. You know, the product,
the things that we do today compared to what we
did in twenty eleven totally different. And that's because center
tech has gotten better. A lot of that's been driven
by driverless cars and robotics and animation and or automation
and things like that. So that was a big piece
(19:54):
of it. Also, along the way, as you guys will know,
the game has become about shooting threes. The game has
come about shooting and so that that really helped us
in a big way. And then, as I mentioned earlier,
having the next generation of players that really grew up
with tech and believe in tech. All those things together
and we look up and suddenly we've got you know,
(20:15):
almost the entire NBA and WNBA for that matter, using
our tech.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I mean, where does it end John, I mean this technology,
can it be used in volleyball? Can it be used
in golf? I mean, my golf game needs some work.
Michael Barr knows this. I mean taught us a little
bit about what comes next for you for the company.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Well, so we're still a basketball only company today. We
have done some things in volleyball, and there's certainly some
other applications, but our focus right now is on you know,
we've been focused on the NBA and college market the
last few years, and we've been waiting for tech to
get a little bit better and a little bit cheaper
so that we could really go after the high school
(20:50):
and middle school market in a significant way. And so
and we introduced that product this time last year, last summer,
and that product is flying off the chef. This is
a product that you can start with as little as
fifteen hundred dollars. You can install it in thirty to
forty five minutes, and your high school team is up
and running. So it's that's been a huge breakthrough for us.
(21:12):
And again it was about waiting for the sensor technology
to get to a point that we could do the
things we've wanted to do. Easier and cheaper, and so
we have those. So we're really focused on the high
school market right now in a significant way. We are
also since this product is so easy to install and
has so a little bit of a very small support piece,
we're now starting to explore international sales.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
With your technology.
Speaker 10 (21:34):
You're basically proving right the things that we've heard a
bunch of times that sports and basketball is really just
math and geometries. I right, Like, could you hear a
player shooting a ball and be like, oh, I was
three degrees off?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
There there's so much math going on in an athlete's
head and they don't even know it. You know, for example,
do I accelerate, how do I stop? They do all
of those things. There's math going on at all times.
About take that risk to try to get that steal?
You know, there's You're exactly right. Math is all around us,
and you know, I'm an engineer, so I love it.
(22:09):
But you can scare people away if you go in
and lead with this is all about math, and people
will say, well, there's the door, because it can be
a little bit intimidating to people. And so we've actually
spent a lot of time simplifying our message, simplifying our product.
You know, we use something called splash in a significant way,
(22:30):
and so we tell people when they're in the splash zone,
something that even NBA players love. We have this when
you get your arc your depth shot depth in the
basket is a big deal. And then we also measure
left right consistency and where a player shoots the ball
straight and not and when they get all those things
in a particular zone, we give them a cha ching.
And that seems like such a silly thing, but NBA
(22:53):
players love the chachin. College players love the chachin, and
so it just lets them know that they had everything
in the right spot and game of fast shooting a
bit for them. And uh and we've also another thing
that was a was a big deal is that you know,
we've now eded in our latest product where you can
have your music playing and your earbuds and getting the
NOA feedback all at the same time, and that makes
(23:14):
it makes a difference as well.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
John, you know, I find it so interesting that you
mentioned that start stop, that suddenness, because that really measuring
that has become like the new thing I think in sports.
If you're reading the same stuff I'm reading, right. I mean,
it used to be you can you run the fastest forty?
Can you bench press two hundred times? I don't know?
But now it's it's measuring a lot of these you know,
these these these characteristics that you could never measure before,
(23:36):
right until the technology was there. So I'm just curious
to hear your thoughts like what comes next in sports
measurement and athlete measurement? Like what are you hearing out there?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Sure well I can tell you. Let me tell you
what we're doing now, which is is exactly going down
the path you're you're mentioning here. So so we're we're
a shooting company. We focus on shooting. We don't focus
on defense and all the other things. We focus on
making more shots and winning more games. It's kind of
our slogan. But something just like you've seen you've all
seen this with golf or baseball, where they're doing motion
(24:09):
capture analysis to understand all the body joint angles and
understanding that fully. That's an easy thing to do. In baseball,
as an example, you get a bunch of cameras pointed
at the mound. You get a bunch of cameras pointed
at home plate, and you analyze this data, you find
all these things out and you find things that are
good or bad. In basketball, other than the free throw,
(24:32):
there's no two shots that are the same. And so
we have now built a fully automated motion capture system
so that we can look at all the joint angles,
all the inverse kinematics, all the velocities, everything throughout the
shop motion, and we can collect that data in practice gyms.
We already have this installed at two NBA facilities, and
(24:53):
we'll install probably another eight or ten this year, and
so we will start understanding and everybody wants to know
what's the perfect shot. We know the physics of the
perfect shot now with great certainty. But even though I
feel like I'm a pretty good shooting guy, none of
us really know. The things from a body mechanics standpoint
that will kill your shot are the things that if
you do this, this, and this, you've got a much
(25:15):
greater chance of success. You talk about golf, you know
there's some of that type tech that's already out there
where you can, you know, turn your phone or whatever
and it will and you can use AI to determine
what you need to change. From a golf swing standpoint,
and we're going down a similar path from a basketball standpoint,
and because of our tracking engine and all that, we
(25:35):
can automate it where other companies can our.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Thanks to Noah Basketball CEO John Carner for joining us today.
Up next, we hear from Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis
from my colleagues Damien's Assaur and Vanessa Berdomo. I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg
Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
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. Recently, Bloomberg original chief correspondent
Jason Kelly and our own Vanessa Perdomo had an opportunity
to catch up with Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO and
Washington Capitol and Wizard's owner Ted Leonses. They covered a
(26:29):
variety of topics, including progress on renovating Capital One Arena
in DC. Let's take a listen to that conversation, starting
with his thoughts on the growth of women's sports as
the WNBA season gets underway.
Speaker 9 (26:42):
All right, Ted Leons, is great to have you here
with us at Bloomberg Headquarters in New York. So much
going on across the sports world, but we're talking to
you on the eve of the WNBA season starting the
Washington Mystics getting back after it. So much has happened
in the world of women's sports and women's basketball. How
do you approach this season and what's the vibe going in.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I think we started a real movement last year. It's
in coming on everyone, every part of the ecosystem WNBA
to keep that momentum going. I should never ever take
for granted that you'll have this kind of growth in
this moment, and I think everyone is very focused on
being in alignment and keeping it the momentum happening.
Speaker 10 (27:26):
Ted, you've been an owner in the WNBA for twenty years.
You know, when you bought the team back in two
thousand and five and it was separate from the Wizards deal,
you obviously saw something. Then did you see what the
potential was for as we see it right now, or
what was the potential you saw?
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I was always disappointed and surprised that women's sports wasn't
the growth engine growing up on the internet, seeing the
demography of who was getting online where the purchasing was made.
It's more women than men. I have a son and
a daughter participate equally in both of their academics and sports,
(28:05):
and it just seemed that it made sense that women's
sports would be growth and it also seemed to be
the right thing to do as well, for equality and
for just driving more value.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
But then you look back and you go, thank God
for Title nine.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Thank god.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You know, it wasn't until the seventies. We went to Georgetown.
Georgetown didn't have women graduates until the seventies, So, you know,
we have to step on the gas and take advantage
of this moment in time. I also think Title nine
and the athleticism of the women, that was something that
(28:48):
I always felt was underplayed. The game was played fundamentally,
very soundly, but below the rim. Now these women, they're
great athletes, and so we're finally starting to see the
media reporting on the game like it's professional sports, not
like it's a charitable effort doing the right thing in
(29:10):
the right way.
Speaker 9 (29:11):
Right, And you mentioned value. You paid around five and
a half million dollars, you know, ten million, okay, so
ten million to ten million.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Dollars twenty years ago.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Okay, twenty years ago, and now we're talking about you
know that some of the news this week is that
the Connecticut Sun are going up for sale, either minority
stake or maybe a majority. The numbers being kicked around
there two hundred to two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Does that feel right to you from a valuation perspective?
How do you see valuations going from here?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well, I look at we have monumental basketball, so yeah,
the Wizards, we have a G League team, the Go Go.
We have an NBA two K team, But monumental basketball
with the Mystics are located, they're sharing facilities, they're sharing
some of the real estate. And basketball teams in big
(30:03):
markets are ten to twelve times revenue, so I look
at it. So that's the impetus to grow revenues. That'll
also be good for the league, that'll be good for
the players. So if we can be a growth company,
thirty to forty percent kind of growth per year really
really important. We've gotten better media deals. Ticket prices are
(30:25):
going up once you sell out, and then you have
a playoff team, your renewals increase. So it's kind of
follow the same kind of pattern that the NBA the
NHL has done is great indoor sports. And my bet
is that you know, these teams can get to twenty
twenty five million dollars in revenue on average, and so
(30:47):
if you have it ten times multiple on it, that's
how you get to quarter billion dollars.
Speaker 10 (30:51):
You know, you talked a lot there about growth and
then facilities and things like that, and now a few
Mystic games a year being played in bigger arenas. Last
year saw a few games played at Capitol One, and
because of the renovations, will be played at.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Different arenas this year.
Speaker 10 (31:04):
But because of the growth of everything, you're saying home
record home games are sold out right, But the care
First arena is only four thousand person capacity and that
deals until twenty thirty seven. So how do you grow
revenue and grow business when you're stuck in that arena?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Well, short term, there's nothing I can do about it.
And we right sized those buildings for what the reality
of the attendance was. We were playing in the twenty
thousand seat building and selling fifteen hundred to two thousand
seats and when you're in a big city and you're
a union shop. I mean, that's what happened with MSG
(31:41):
why they had a move. It's very expensive to run
the building and open it up, and then you lose
revenues when you don't have the dates and you can
have a Bruce Springsteen concert, let's say so. Our goal
was always let's try to have a five thousand seedsh
arena for Monday night games against maybe an opponent that
(32:02):
doesn't have the kind of rivalry experience, and then use
the big building for playoff games, camp days, big games.
And that's still the plan eventually, though I can see
as we'll figure out a way to put some other
programming in care first and when we can sell out
all of the games and the big building, they would
(32:23):
deserve to be in there. And you know, that's one
of the benefits I think of our strategy of owning
the venues, owning the networks. We were the really the
first w NBA team to have a practice facility and
an arena. We use the Wizard chefs, we use nutritionalists,
we have the same platform. We want to build a platform,
(32:44):
and the women really appreciated being treated the same way
as an NBA player was. Separate facilities really really matter
to them, and I think, you know, they'll excel in
care first. But it's our aspiration to have twenty thousand
right sellouts for the women and for the men on
(33:09):
an ongoing basis.
Speaker 9 (33:10):
All right, let's talk about the arena, because this is,
you know, one of the big projects going on across
the country. Although you know now down in Washington you're
a little overshadowed a little by by your friend josh
Aras coming in and you know, building this new stadium.
But the arena, it was a you know, monumental pun
intended deal, you know, with Mayor Muriel Bowser. You stay
(33:32):
at Capital one eight hundred million dollars, I believe between
the two of you sort of going into this, what's
the status there, what's the timeline? Has anything changed in
that regard?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No, we're kind of ahead of schedule. We broke around.
There's a ton of work that's going on right now.
The Caps are in the playoffs. As soon as the
playoffs would end for us, hopefully in a month or so,
we basically will have a thousand people on site doing
incredible amount of work that if you came by. The
(34:03):
Wizard's locker room doesn't exist right now. It's been destroyed
and it'll be redone for the next season. The amount
of suites that are being built, the new kitchens, the
new bathrooms, I mean it's going and that was our intent.
It's going to take three off seasons. Basically, you know,
we have to rebuild the plane while it's flying, and
(34:26):
we're working with Clark Construction, Gensler. They're really doing a
fantastic job and we're a little bit head of schedule.
Speaker 10 (34:34):
Why is it so important in this day and age
to upgrade, you know, the arena. Obviously we're seeing a
lot of people doing that. Obviously, private equity coming in
for NFL teams to create new stadiums. But if you're
a great you have your stadium, it's operating three hundred
plus events a year. Why does it need to be
upgraded and so fancy?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It's that fancy, it's it's the functionality to start. We
need better kitchens, We need better training facilities for the athletes,
and I kind of stack ranked them. We need our players,
our coaches, our staff to have the latest, the greatest,
(35:16):
the best, and when you're constrained by the amount of
real estate. We're going from nine hundred thousand feet to
a million six hundred thousand feet. We're adding a ton
of space. And it was unique for us because we
were landlocked, if you will. We couldn't go up at
all because of the height limitations in DC, and I
(35:37):
couldn't go down because the Metro was there. And I
hate to say, we got lucky that the mall next
door went out of business and someone bought it and
we were able to do a big lease deal with them.
And that's given us the elbow room to innovate, to
add value for the players and the coaches. And then
as we move up the second year and the third
(35:57):
year for the fans, that's better site lines, that's more
dining capability, that's a reimagination, if you will, on how
people get into the building, get out of the building,
more look of the interactivity. On why does the building
have to be dark eighteen hours a day. That's always
(36:19):
blown my mind on these facilities. We put a cage
to lock people out of the building when these are
such iconic and important buildings for businesses, for fans, for tourists,
and so we want the opportunity in a way to
reimagine a front door, if you will, for downtown and
(36:41):
to make this a portal. We're bringing almost three million
people a year into our building. We have one of
the busiest buildings in the country, and we have to
make sure that people have kind of wow factory that
they feel really, really good about that experience.
Speaker 9 (36:56):
So, as we wrap up one piece of your portfolio
that I know you would love to add, and you've
talked about it in a number of times, is a
baseball team? Is that still in your mind? And how
likely do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know, ESPN yesterday announced it's new streaming services and
it's surprisingly called ESPN and it's twenty nine dollars a
month and they have forty six thousand hours of live
programming a year. And the reason for that is you
want to get scale. You want to get as many
(37:29):
subscribers as you can. It's expensive to get a subscriber.
You don't want them churning off what all of us
who are struggling with the local media landscape. That's why
we bought RSN. I wanted to control the destiny, just
like we want to own the building. You want to
control the scheduling destiny. If you only have winter sports,
(37:51):
you only have one team, and you get someone to subscribe, well,
when the season ends, they're going to cancel, right and
now you have the great expense of having to get
them again.
Speaker 9 (38:00):
You're a longtime, long term investor and we like that
about you.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That's monumental. Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted leonsis speaking with
Bloomberg original chief correspondent and host of The Deal with
Alex Rodriguez, Jason Kelly, along with our own Vanessa Verdomo.
And that does it for this edition of the Bloomberg
Business of Sports. Thanks for joining us. Tune in again
next week for the latest one the stories moving big
old money in the world of sports. You are listening
(38:25):
to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberger Radio around the world.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is the business
of sports.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The business of sports can be intimidating or hard for
a starting to break into.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
We really appreciate when our owners are actually better, you
know with us through the journey.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Teams ours especially have been very intentional to diversify at
all levels.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Of the company.
Speaker 6 (00:23):
I think we're in the bolden years for the NFL
and college football.
Speaker 7 (00:26):
Our demographic reach has continued to expande.
Speaker 8 (00:29):
This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
for sports fans.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Sports evaluations arising.
Speaker 7 (00:36):
We'll see when they peak.
Speaker 9 (00:37):
You don't have to be the best in your sports
to make a whole ton of money.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the
big money issues in the world of sports. Michael Barr
along with my colleagues Damien sas Sauer and Vanessa Berdomo.
Coming up, we'll hear from Monumental Sports and entertain CEO
Ted Leonsis. We'll get his thoughts on the growth of
women's sports and progress on renovating Capitol One Arena in
the heart of DC.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
We're bringing almost three million people a year into our building.
We have one of the busiest buildings in the country,
and we have to make sure that people have kind
of wow fact right that they feel really really good
about that experience.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We'll also learn about Noah Basketball. It's a data company
that uses advanced technology to get real time feedback to players.
All that and more is on the way. But first,
the new WNBA season is just getting underway, and it's
starting coming out of one of the most successful years
of all time. Here to talk about what's next for
(01:45):
the WNBA and the recent rise and popularity of women's
sports is fair Lavel. She is the managing director of
the Collective. It's part of sports marketing agency Wasserman and
focused on women's sports. Fayure, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
of sports.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Thanks for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, let's start because we are just now into a
very young w NBA season. Who Ray last year was
one whale of a year for the league. How can
they build up on this success?
Speaker 8 (02:20):
I think they already are building up on this success.
They have a new franchise, the Golden State of Alkyrise.
They have Toronto Tempo coming up. You know, shortly behind
them next year, and there's a lot of great news
coming out of the league. I think they could not
have ended on a higher note with the championship that
they had, the parade in New York.
Speaker 9 (02:38):
Twenty eight years in the makings, the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
New York Liberty Double, Wendy champions l E. D.
Speaker 8 (02:48):
Elefant always a fan favorite, and just so much innovation
coming out of the league there.
Speaker 10 (02:53):
You know, the Collective worked on a study with Deloyd
on in bridging the gap and investment in women's sports,
and it pointed out that eighty percent of decision makers
have increased their investment in women's sports over the past
five years. And you know, the Collective started in twenty nineteen.
I'm curious how you've seen, you know, those conversations change
over time with brands and sponsorships, like how much easier
(03:16):
was it to sell things for the Golden State Valkyries
than say, Angel City was five years ago.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Well, to be fair, we weren't the ones selling for
Golden State Valkyries, but I will say that we've seen
a huge influx of brands coming into women's sports full stop.
And the WNBA has certainly proven and the Golden state
vokraries have certainly proven to be an incredible investment for
any brands coming in. What we've seen though, is what's
been interesting is not only that you've had these non
(03:45):
endemic brands coming into it to sports. So for the
first time every year seeing you know, cosmetics and beauty
care products coming in, which seems like a natural, but
for many years in the past, if they've never entered
into the sports space. So this is an exciting time
to be in women's sports. It's also a time when
women's sports is really galvanizing new methods of marketing, new
(04:07):
method methods of you know, finding and loving up their
fan bases, if you will, on their early stages. And
so it's been an exciting moment to witness all of
these brands and all of this new investment coming in.
There's obviously still lots of rooms. So for all those
brands out there listening, we welcome all of your investment
into the league.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
All this new investment, all these new brands.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Yet, the average WNBA salary for the twenty twenty four
season was just one hundred and forty seven and forty
five dollars. Your average player makes less than a woman's
pickaball player at two hundred and sixty thousand per year.
I mean, there, what is up with the disconnect and
what is going to change it?
Speaker 8 (04:45):
Well, I mean, it's still a business, and I think
the NWNBA has you know, they're in the middle of
a collective bargaining year and they have an incredible commissioner
who are working hard along with the team at the
w NBA to be able to you know, achieve more
for all of the players and the teams and leagues themselves.
This has been a long, steady climb for this league
(05:07):
and for you know, the players coming up. I think
it's still a business. And I'm not sure. I'm not
an expert in the pickleball league or what their salaries are,
but I trust in the leadership that we have within
the Systney Sports space to really deliver more and more
as this league continues to grow well failure.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
You're right, it is a business. And so then I
have to ask you this question, why is the Connecticut
Sun selling at this point? Because the business of the
business of women's basketball seems to be just you know,
at the precipice of blowing out, you know what I mean,
And you know, with the new you know, media deal
that's going to get struck in the next year or so.
I mean, you would hope that, you know, there'd be
a lot more revenue to go around. So I'm just curious,
I mean, without speaking about the connecticuts and specifically because
(05:48):
you're not close to that situation, you know, you know,
what is it going to take here? Is it going
to be striking new deals with the Amazon primes and
the apples of the world. Is it going to be
something bigger than that? I mean, you know, what do
you think is going to move the needle here for
women's sports and the Women's National Basketball Association in.
Speaker 8 (06:04):
Specific, Well, I would say that the women's the women's
sports as a whole has been you know, has really
found its footing over the last five six years in
terms of viewership, attendance, you know, merchandise sales, sponsorship.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
On the rise. All of that has been positive markers.
Speaker 8 (06:23):
Media rights have gone up significantly across WNBA and WSL,
which in this country are as we would call them,
the more mature leagues, even though they're far far behind
their male counterparts, which I do think needs to be
continued to continue to be pointed out because it's not
necessarily a fair comparison to say, well, you're not necessarily
where men should be. There's no comparison that should be
(06:44):
made there. They're you know, the WNBA has or the
NBA has fifty years on the WNBA.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
So we need to look at the.
Speaker 8 (06:52):
The leagues in and of themselves and what needs to
be able to help them grow as bits and parts.
It's not one fell swoop is going to come in
and one TV deal is going to fix all the things,
or one sponsorship deal is going to fix all the things.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
There are many different ways that.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
Women's sports are different than men's sports, and those ways
need to be articulated and also need to be invested into.
It's everything from innovating around women's health, which you know
there are owners that are really leaning into that, like
Michelle King. It's everything from investing in the fan experience
and driving forward on getting people into the building from
like Claire Side and the Liberty to the Balkyries, and
(07:28):
there are many other teams.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Obviously the Aces, et cetera, that are doing that.
Speaker 8 (07:32):
And then there are you know, ways to look at
how to engage in you know, viewership to social media
to pushing forward and advocating for the women as players
and as individuals, and women as players and individuals need
as much support as you know as their men counterparts,
but a little bit differently because they actually can also
(07:55):
give birth to humans, and so they need to make
sure that they're you know, supported to that end a
different way. And so that all of that leads to
a little bit of a different lens on it, but
also one that it's a great opportunity for brands and
companies to come in and be in a support mechanism
to this, you know industry in these leagues.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I used to be from the old school from if
you were in the owner of a team and someone says, well,
when do you make money as an owner? And I
used to say, well when you sell it. But now
with private equity, that's kind of changed the whole landscape.
How does it affect women's sports today with private equity.
Speaker 8 (08:38):
Well, I mean, that's such a great sign. It's fantastic
that private equity is coming to the sport. I think
it's a great nod to the fact that this that
women's sports are being seen as really viable businesses that
will deliver great returns on investment. So I think that's
a positive, you know, but it is a business, and
so there are different says I believe in investing in
(09:02):
a women's sports team than investing in a men's team today.
We did a report last year with RBC that really
dove into this, particularly in the NWSL and the w
n b A, and looked at specifically the types of
things that these teams really need, which are you know,
when you're investing in a women's teams, you might need
to over rotate as an owner to be looking at
this more as a startup in some ways. So how
(09:24):
can you lend more of your contacts, how can you
lend more of your connections and technology, How can you
look at delivering on different you know, facilities or different
programs that that may already be accepted within the men's space,
but because women's sports is not as far as advanced
in some ways, that these owners oftentimes in these ownership
(09:48):
groups oftentimes can come in and be real partners in growth,
which is an exciting opportunity.
Speaker 10 (09:54):
On that same pathway, when we're talking about you know,
ownership and private equity and ROI things like that. In
the study, you know, there's an argument that brands should
use different metrics for evaluating women's sports sponsorship ROI what
are those different metrics and why do you think that
these properties need to be treated differently than men's properties.
Speaker 8 (10:13):
I think for now, what we're looking at is and
the way that we think about this is and not
going into the details of all of the ways that
we at Wasserman will value and look at, you know,
property valuations and the different elements that go into it,
but you know, it's largely based on impressions and engagement.
And what we really feel like is that in the
women's game, there are other metrics that can be considered
(10:36):
which will help up value those teams to be able
to give them more of a leg up and provide
more backup, to charge more for those sponsorship assets, and
so that might be looking at things like in the
case of the team report that we did with r REC,
we looked at forty different variables that went into what
(10:57):
made up revenue, and that was everything from you know,
how you look at things across operations, how you look
at across the market itself, how do you look at
things across performance, team performance, and once you're able to
go into those forty different variables, you're able to really
analyze us in and of themselves, which then become levers
that you can plus up. Obviously, we want to make
sure that those are defensible, that's defensible math, but that
(11:19):
you're able to start to plus those things up in
so that these teams can start to build on themselves
without having to just rely on viewership numbers or attendance numbers,
which may not be where where they need to be
in order to charge more. So we start to look
at how do you actually what are the other assets
that you can start to value and how do you
do this?
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Hey, you've worked with, among others, Pepsi, Microsoft, Theagio American Express.
You've seen it all and you know putting yourself in
their shoes, right, I mean you've been in their shoes before. Right.
What data points do you believe they haven't seen yet
that makes the case for women's sports? I mean, I
mean it's playing off of what you know, Vanessa asked
your earlier. You know, is there anything that they have
(12:00):
seen that they're asking you for that can help them
make more informed decisions about where to invest? Along the vertical?
Speaker 8 (12:07):
I think where what we see to be unique to
women's sports today is the loyalty of.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Women's sports fans. So we are just at breaking news.
Speaker 8 (12:19):
We're just about to come out with another report and
one of the key findings of those reports is around
looking at women's sports fandom. And one of these key
stats is the fifty percent of women's sports fans first
identify as women's sports fans before a team, before a league,
before a player, before an app before any of it.
I would say truly that the women's sports fan base
(12:41):
is one to not being messed with or undervalue in
any way. In fact, I think there's more value.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Put on that our thanks to thay Or Lavio for
joining us. She's the managing director of the collective with
the firm Washerton Up. Next, we turn to a company
that's harnessing data to help basketball players improve their shooting.
For my colleagues, Damian Sasauur and Vanessa Pernomo, I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg
(13:07):
Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
This is 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 Sasaur and Vanessa Bernomo.
Noah Basketball is a data service provider that uses machine
learning to give real time data and feedback to basketball players.
Here to talk to us about the tech and how
(13:40):
it could help basketball players improve their shooting. Is Noah
Basketball CEO John Carter John, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
of Sports.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Thank you excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, you've got a product out there and it's ahead
of its time when you first introduced it about Noah Basketball,
tell us all about it, please.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Well that's an understatement. We you know, we started over
twenty years ago and it was it was an interesting run.
I tell people all the time. I'm not sure people
cared that much about what we were doing until around
twenty and seventeen. But we we went around. We did
barnstorm gyms basically to sell enough systems to keep the
(14:23):
lights on, if you want to think about it that way.
And the tech got better and there was a generational
change in players and coaches. If you go back to
two thousand and five to when we sold our first
commercially first commercial product, you know, there was no cloud.
There wasn't you know, very limited as far as cell
phones and smartphones and those type things. And the old
(14:45):
school coaches weren't big fans of tech, especially when it
comes to shooting. Shooting is they generally don't like to
have their players messed with, so to speak, or things
like that. But fast forward twenty years and we have
twenty eight MBA customers and most all of your major
brands in college basketball use our tech now, and thousands
(15:08):
of high schools and today's generation of players they grew
up with tech in their pocket and we've made it
really easy for them, and we have the data to
back up what we're doing and why it works and
how it works.
Speaker 10 (15:21):
So explain to us a little bit about how it works,
what it does for player shots, and why they finally
were bought into the idea of no basketball.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
So, our system basically tracks the basketball and we collect
and give feedback on three particular high definition metrics that
you can't see with the neked eye. The first thing
is trajectory or the arc of the shot as most
people in basketball refer to it, and we measure that
as the eNTRI angle coming into the rim. We have
(15:52):
found through collecting seven hundred million basketball shots that the
perfect interr angle is forty five degrees. That's where things
all the physics lines up in your favor. And so
if you think about trajectory, that's one of the biggest
issues we see, especially at the youth and high school level,
as players are all over the place on trajectory. And
(16:13):
so what our system does when the ball gets to
the rim, it will verbally tell you, It'll say thirty nine,
thirty eight, fifty two whatever. And so the beauty of
that is that players aren't really changing anything with their
shot other than the release point of the basketball shot.
So just think about their arm angle. They're perfecting the
(16:34):
release high the release angle and perfecting the which allows
them to protect perfect the entry angle, which gets them
to line up the physics in their favor. And you
absolutely will see more shots drop if you're shooting in
the mid forties. And we have proven this every way possible,
and it just absolutely makes a difference. And so the
(16:56):
biggest thing I found, whether it's with NBA college, you know, Hasku, wherever,
once they have some success with it, then everybody buys
in and h and it starts spreading throughout the team.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Damien, I guess Shaquille O'Neil could have used this. Yes,
when he was on the free throw line, it was
like a straight arrow going.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't say to the Robinson Michael Barlett,
here's the reality, John Carter, you need to take me
back to twenty eleven. You need to take me back
to Lebron James. You need to take me back to
Dwayne Wade. That statue would not be in front of
the of Miami's arena were it not for you and
your you know, Noah basketball program fixing him on the
(17:39):
free throw lines.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
Talk to us a.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Little bit about how you started, how you got NBA,
these NBA players to even find you, figure out that
you're you had this product that worked, and then obviously
take you forward to today's success.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Yeah. Well, obviously you read some of the d Wade
stories way back when from the heat or you found
that somewhere.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
But I got that up, John, I did my home.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
That's impressive, David. But you know, the the biggest thing was,
you know, we didn't you know, I'm no former NBA
player or anything crazy like that. We just did it
through hard work, you know, and just building relationships. We
build a relationship with this high school coach, which introduces
us to this college coach, and then this college coach
(18:21):
introduces us to this NBA assistant coach, and just worked
that for a number of years to get in those doors.
Those doors don't swing open easily as you can imagine.
Speaker 7 (18:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
No, and the product, if I'm not mistaken, it's somewhere
in the order of let's say, I don't know, at
the low end, four thousand to what six thousand dollars.
So yeah, I mean it's a it's a product, right,
I mean you got to be out there guerrilla marketing
and getting in people's faces, getting in coaches faces, players faces.
Speaker 7 (18:46):
I mean, do you have a staff? How do you
do that?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (18:48):
So so today, you know, back then, in the early days,
we did not have a staff. It was primarily me.
You know, today, you know, we we have a reasonable
sized staff, and you know, we have six full time
salespeople I think it is, and and you know, we
make our rounds. We you know, we we do a
lot of marketing that we have not done in the
(19:10):
past when we were just focused on college and NBA teams.
We didn't do any marketing. It was all personal relationships,
you know, feet on the street and reaching out to people,
making our way into doors, doing demos and you know,
begging coaches to bring players in so that we could
demonstrate the product to the players. And you know, and
(19:31):
it took some time, and you know, it was several
It was a little bit of a perfect storm. So
number one, the tech got better. You know, the product,
the things that we do today compared to what we
did in twenty eleven totally different. And that's because center
tech has gotten better. A lot of that's been driven
by driverless cars and robotics and animation and or automation
and things like that. So that was a big piece
(19:54):
of it. Also, along the way, as you guys will know,
the game has become about shooting threes. The game has
come about shooting and so that that really helped us
in a big way. And then, as I mentioned earlier,
having the next generation of players that really grew up
with tech and believe in tech. All those things together
and we look up and suddenly we've got you know,
(20:15):
almost the entire NBA and WNBA for that matter, using
our tech.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I mean, where does it end John, I mean this technology,
can it be used in volleyball? Can it be used
in golf? I mean, my golf game needs some work.
Michael Barr knows this. I mean taught us a little
bit about what comes next for you for the company.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Well, so we're still a basketball only company today. We
have done some things in volleyball, and there's certainly some
other applications, but our focus right now is on you know,
we've been focused on the NBA and college market the
last few years, and we've been waiting for tech to
get a little bit better and a little bit cheaper
so that we could really go after the high school
(20:50):
and middle school market in a significant way. And so
and we introduced that product this time last year, last summer,
and that product is flying off the chef. This is
a product that you can start with as little as
fifteen hundred dollars. You can install it in thirty to
forty five minutes, and your high school team is up
and running. So it's that's been a huge breakthrough for us.
(21:12):
And again it was about waiting for the sensor technology
to get to a point that we could do the
things we've wanted to do. Easier and cheaper, and so
we have those. So we're really focused on the high
school market right now in a significant way. We are
also since this product is so easy to install and
has so a little bit of a very small support piece,
we're now starting to explore international sales.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
With your technology.
Speaker 10 (21:34):
You're basically proving right the things that we've heard a
bunch of times that sports and basketball is really just
math and geometries. I right, Like, could you hear a
player shooting a ball and be like, oh, I was
three degrees off?
Speaker 6 (21:47):
There there's so much math going on in an athlete's
head and they don't even know it. You know, for example,
do I accelerate, how do I stop? They do all
of those things. There's math going on at all times.
About take that risk to try to get that steal?
You know, there's You're exactly right. Math is all around us,
and you know, I'm an engineer, so I love it.
(22:09):
But you can scare people away if you go in
and lead with this is all about math, and people
will say, well, there's the door, because it can be
a little bit intimidating to people. And so we've actually
spent a lot of time simplifying our message, simplifying our product.
You know, we use something called splash in a significant way,
(22:30):
and so we tell people when they're in the splash zone,
something that even NBA players love. We have this when
you get your arc your depth shot depth in the
basket is a big deal. And then we also measure
left right consistency and where a player shoots the ball
straight and not and when they get all those things
in a particular zone, we give them a cha ching.
And that seems like such a silly thing, but NBA
(22:53):
players love the chachin. College players love the chachin, and
so it just lets them know that they had everything
in the right spot and game of fast shooting a
bit for them. And uh and we've also another thing
that was a was a big deal is that you know,
we've now eded in our latest product where you can
have your music playing and your earbuds and getting the
NOA feedback all at the same time, and that makes
(23:14):
it makes a difference as well.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
John, you know, I find it so interesting that you
mentioned that start stop, that suddenness, because that really measuring
that has become like the new thing I think in sports.
If you're reading the same stuff I'm reading, right. I mean,
it used to be you can you run the fastest forty?
Can you bench press two hundred times? I don't know?
But now it's it's measuring a lot of these you know,
these these these characteristics that you could never measure before,
(23:36):
right until the technology was there. So I'm just curious
to hear your thoughts like what comes next in sports
measurement and athlete measurement? Like what are you hearing out there?
Speaker 6 (23:45):
Sure well I can tell you. Let me tell you
what we're doing now, which is is exactly going down
the path you're you're mentioning here. So so we're we're
a shooting company. We focus on shooting. We don't focus
on defense and all the other things. We focus on
making more shots and winning more games. It's kind of
our slogan. But something just like you've seen you've all
seen this with golf or baseball, where they're doing motion
(24:09):
capture analysis to understand all the body joint angles and
understanding that fully. That's an easy thing to do. In baseball,
as an example, you get a bunch of cameras pointed
at the mound. You get a bunch of cameras pointed
at home plate, and you analyze this data, you find
all these things out and you find things that are
good or bad. In basketball, other than the free throw,
(24:32):
there's no two shots that are the same. And so
we have now built a fully automated motion capture system
so that we can look at all the joint angles,
all the inverse kinematics, all the velocities, everything throughout the
shop motion, and we can collect that data in practice gyms.
We already have this installed at two NBA facilities, and
(24:53):
we'll install probably another eight or ten this year, and
so we will start understanding and everybody wants to know
what's the perfect shot. We know the physics of the
perfect shot now with great certainty. But even though I
feel like I'm a pretty good shooting guy, none of
us really know. The things from a body mechanics standpoint
that will kill your shot are the things that if
you do this, this, and this, you've got a much
(25:15):
greater chance of success. You talk about golf, you know
there's some of that type tech that's already out there
where you can, you know, turn your phone or whatever
and it will and you can use AI to determine
what you need to change. From a golf swing standpoint,
and we're going down a similar path from a basketball standpoint,
and because of our tracking engine and all that, we
(25:35):
can automate it where other companies can our.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Thanks to Noah Basketball CEO John Carner for joining us today.
Up next, we hear from Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leonsis
from my colleagues Damien's Assaur and Vanessa Berdomo. I'm Michael Barr.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg
Radio around the world.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
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. Recently, Bloomberg original chief correspondent
Jason Kelly and our own Vanessa Perdomo had an opportunity
to catch up with Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO and
Washington Capitol and Wizard's owner Ted Leonses. They covered a
(26:29):
variety of topics, including progress on renovating Capital One Arena
in DC. Let's take a listen to that conversation, starting
with his thoughts on the growth of women's sports as
the WNBA season gets underway.
Speaker 9 (26:42):
All right, Ted Leons, is great to have you here
with us at Bloomberg Headquarters in New York. So much
going on across the sports world, but we're talking to
you on the eve of the WNBA season starting the
Washington Mystics getting back after it. So much has happened
in the world of women's sports and women's basketball. How
do you approach this season and what's the vibe going in.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I think we started a real movement last year. It's
in coming on everyone, every part of the ecosystem WNBA
to keep that momentum going. I should never ever take
for granted that you'll have this kind of growth in
this moment, and I think everyone is very focused on
being in alignment and keeping it the momentum happening.
Speaker 10 (27:26):
Ted, you've been an owner in the WNBA for twenty years.
You know, when you bought the team back in two
thousand and five and it was separate from the Wizards deal,
you obviously saw something. Then did you see what the
potential was for as we see it right now, or
what was the potential you saw?
Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:40):
I was always disappointed and surprised that women's sports wasn't
the growth engine growing up on the internet, seeing the
demography of who was getting online where the purchasing was made.
It's more women than men. I have a son and
a daughter participate equally in both of their academics and sports,
(28:05):
and it just seemed that it made sense that women's
sports would be growth and it also seemed to be
the right thing to do as well, for equality and
for just driving more value.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
But then you look back and you go, thank God
for Title nine.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Thank god.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
You know, it wasn't until the seventies. We went to Georgetown.
Georgetown didn't have women graduates until the seventies, So, you know,
we have to step on the gas and take advantage
of this moment in time. I also think Title nine
and the athleticism of the women, that was something that
(28:48):
I always felt was underplayed. The game was played fundamentally,
very soundly, but below the rim. Now these women, they're
great athletes, and so we're finally starting to see the
media reporting on the game like it's professional sports, not
like it's a charitable effort doing the right thing in
(29:10):
the right way.
Speaker 9 (29:11):
Right, And you mentioned value. You paid around five and
a half million dollars, you know, ten million, okay, so
ten million to ten million.
Speaker 6 (29:18):
Dollars twenty years ago.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Okay, twenty years ago, and now we're talking about you
know that some of the news this week is that
the Connecticut Sun are going up for sale, either minority
stake or maybe a majority. The numbers being kicked around
there two hundred to two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Does that feel right to you from a valuation perspective?
How do you see valuations going from here?
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well, I look at we have monumental basketball, so yeah,
the Wizards, we have a G League team, the Go Go.
We have an NBA two K team, But monumental basketball
with the Mystics are located, they're sharing facilities, they're sharing
some of the real estate. And basketball teams in big
(30:03):
markets are ten to twelve times revenue, so I look
at it. So that's the impetus to grow revenues. That'll
also be good for the league, that'll be good for
the players. So if we can be a growth company,
thirty to forty percent kind of growth per year really
really important. We've gotten better media deals. Ticket prices are
(30:25):
going up once you sell out, and then you have
a playoff team, your renewals increase. So it's kind of
follow the same kind of pattern that the NBA the
NHL has done is great indoor sports. And my bet
is that you know, these teams can get to twenty
twenty five million dollars in revenue on average, and so
(30:47):
if you have it ten times multiple on it, that's
how you get to quarter billion dollars.
Speaker 10 (30:51):
You know, you talked a lot there about growth and
then facilities and things like that, and now a few
Mystic games a year being played in bigger arenas. Last
year saw a few games played at Capitol One, and
because of the renovations, will be played at.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Different arenas this year.
Speaker 10 (31:04):
But because of the growth of everything, you're saying home
record home games are sold out right, But the care
First arena is only four thousand person capacity and that
deals until twenty thirty seven. So how do you grow
revenue and grow business when you're stuck in that arena?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Well, short term, there's nothing I can do about it.
And we right sized those buildings for what the reality
of the attendance was. We were playing in the twenty
thousand seat building and selling fifteen hundred to two thousand
seats and when you're in a big city and you're
a union shop. I mean, that's what happened with MSG
(31:41):
why they had a move. It's very expensive to run
the building and open it up, and then you lose
revenues when you don't have the dates and you can
have a Bruce Springsteen concert, let's say so. Our goal
was always let's try to have a five thousand seedsh
arena for Monday night games against maybe an opponent that
(32:02):
doesn't have the kind of rivalry experience, and then use
the big building for playoff games, camp days, big games.
And that's still the plan eventually, though I can see
as we'll figure out a way to put some other
programming in care first and when we can sell out
all of the games and the big building, they would
(32:23):
deserve to be in there. And you know, that's one
of the benefits I think of our strategy of owning
the venues, owning the networks. We were the really the
first w NBA team to have a practice facility and
an arena. We use the Wizard chefs, we use nutritionalists,
we have the same platform. We want to build a platform,
(32:44):
and the women really appreciated being treated the same way
as an NBA player was. Separate facilities really really matter
to them, and I think, you know, they'll excel in
care first. But it's our aspiration to have twenty thousand
right sellouts for the women and for the men on
(33:09):
an ongoing basis.
Speaker 9 (33:10):
All right, let's talk about the arena, because this is,
you know, one of the big projects going on across
the country. Although you know now down in Washington you're
a little overshadowed a little by by your friend josh
Aras coming in and you know, building this new stadium.
But the arena, it was a you know, monumental pun
intended deal, you know, with Mayor Muriel Bowser. You stay
(33:32):
at Capital one eight hundred million dollars, I believe between
the two of you sort of going into this, what's
the status there, what's the timeline? Has anything changed in
that regard?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No, we're kind of ahead of schedule. We broke around.
There's a ton of work that's going on right now.
The Caps are in the playoffs. As soon as the
playoffs would end for us, hopefully in a month or so,
we basically will have a thousand people on site doing
incredible amount of work that if you came by. The
(34:03):
Wizard's locker room doesn't exist right now. It's been destroyed
and it'll be redone for the next season. The amount
of suites that are being built, the new kitchens, the
new bathrooms, I mean it's going and that was our intent.
It's going to take three off seasons. Basically, you know,
we have to rebuild the plane while it's flying, and
(34:26):
we're working with Clark Construction, Gensler. They're really doing a
fantastic job and we're a little bit head of schedule.
Speaker 10 (34:34):
Why is it so important in this day and age
to upgrade, you know, the arena. Obviously we're seeing a
lot of people doing that. Obviously, private equity coming in
for NFL teams to create new stadiums. But if you're
a great you have your stadium, it's operating three hundred
plus events a year. Why does it need to be
upgraded and so fancy?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It's that fancy, it's it's the functionality to start. We
need better kitchens, We need better training facilities for the athletes,
and I kind of stack ranked them. We need our players,
our coaches, our staff to have the latest, the greatest,
(35:16):
the best, and when you're constrained by the amount of
real estate. We're going from nine hundred thousand feet to
a million six hundred thousand feet. We're adding a ton
of space. And it was unique for us because we
were landlocked, if you will. We couldn't go up at
all because of the height limitations in DC, and I
(35:37):
couldn't go down because the Metro was there. And I
hate to say, we got lucky that the mall next
door went out of business and someone bought it and
we were able to do a big lease deal with them.
And that's given us the elbow room to innovate, to
add value for the players and the coaches. And then
as we move up the second year and the third
(35:57):
year for the fans, that's better site lines, that's more
dining capability, that's a reimagination, if you will, on how
people get into the building, get out of the building,
more look of the interactivity. On why does the building
have to be dark eighteen hours a day. That's always
(36:19):
blown my mind on these facilities. We put a cage
to lock people out of the building when these are
such iconic and important buildings for businesses, for fans, for tourists,
and so we want the opportunity in a way to
reimagine a front door, if you will, for downtown and
(36:41):
to make this a portal. We're bringing almost three million
people a year into our building. We have one of
the busiest buildings in the country, and we have to
make sure that people have kind of wow factory that
they feel really, really good about that experience.
Speaker 9 (36:56):
So, as we wrap up one piece of your portfolio
that I know you would love to add, and you've
talked about it in a number of times, is a
baseball team? Is that still in your mind? And how
likely do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know, ESPN yesterday announced it's new streaming services and
it's surprisingly called ESPN and it's twenty nine dollars a
month and they have forty six thousand hours of live
programming a year. And the reason for that is you
want to get scale. You want to get as many
(37:29):
subscribers as you can. It's expensive to get a subscriber.
You don't want them churning off what all of us
who are struggling with the local media landscape. That's why
we bought RSN. I wanted to control the destiny, just
like we want to own the building. You want to
control the scheduling destiny. If you only have winter sports,
(37:51):
you only have one team, and you get someone to subscribe, well,
when the season ends, they're going to cancel, right and
now you have the great expense of having to get
them again.
Speaker 9 (38:00):
You're a longtime, long term investor and we like that
about you.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That's monumental. Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted leonsis speaking with
Bloomberg original chief correspondent and host of The Deal with
Alex Rodriguez, Jason Kelly, along with our own Vanessa Verdomo.
And that does it for this edition of the Bloomberg
Business of Sports. Thanks for joining us. Tune in again
next week for the latest one the stories moving big
old money in the world of sports. You are listening
(38:25):
to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberger Radio around the world.
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