Today on The Breakfast Club, Michael Rubin Talks Fanatics Fest 2026, White Party, Robert Kraft, Karl-Anthony Towns, Sports, Community And Business. Listen For More!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FM
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every day a week ago, pick up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You don't finish for y'all done.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Everybody is DJ en Vy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy.
We are the Breakfast Club. Laula rouses here as well.
We got a special guest in the building. That's right,
have more celebrities at his party. And Taylors was wedding
ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Michael Roban.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
They calling you the new Diddy, Michael Rubin. What that
means seeing that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
On social media?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I don't pay atat to that, Michael, Michael Room is
the new Diddy. You know, there's one thing I've learned
that There's one thing I've learned. The harder you work,
the better you do, the more people come for you comes.
And you know what, I see that as I'm happy
that we're doing well overall and it's all good.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But they're saying that because of the White Party.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's what, you know what, You're allowed to have a party,
You're allowed to have fun. We're allowed to have fun again.
We're bringing fun back at twenty twenty six. They did
really change the.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Data your party for because Taylors was wedding.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You know the truth, Betold. We hadn't set the date yet,
and then when her wedding came out, there were a
couple people called me and said, hey, this is going
to be complicated. We said, hey, everyone comes to White Party,
can come whenever they want, so it didn't really matter.
So it's just easy to shift a couple of days
from when we were rigently thinking.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Now let's talk about Fanatics vest now for people that
don't know how was Fanatics created, because it was a
couple of companies you put together to create Fanatics, right, Yeah,
I've really.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Started Fanatics in like almost two thousand and one, two
thousand and two as part of a bigger couple vers running.
eBay bought that company and Fanatx was a teeny company.
Twenty eleven, I bought it back and really start building
this as my you know, one hundred percent focus darting
twenty eleven. So we've been out of fifteen years and
it's starting to get fun. It's really starting to get
(01:42):
fun now.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Haply in that what do you mean when you say
starting to get fun? It felt like work in the
beginning of.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
No, it never feels like work, Like I love what
I do every minute of every day. It's just I
think as we continue to touch more sports fans in
more ways, and we continue to broaden the business, and
I think really get so focused. I'm obsessed about how
do we raise the game for fans and everything we do.
I just feel like, you know, we used to think
when I was small, we dreamed about getting big. Now
(02:09):
that we're a little bit bigger, I think big is bad.
I dreamed about how do you become beloved? Like how
do you make the most beloved brand in the world.
And it's funny talk about Fanatics Fest. It's like, that's
about how do you be beloved? How do you bring
all these incredible you know, athletes, celebrities, artists, and most
importantly two hundred thousand sports fans together for four days
And that's like, that's about being beloved. It's about giving
(02:30):
a big give back to sports fans.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
So, you know, that's a great point you bring up
because you've seen to have genuine relationships with everybody, like
the people.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
That rock with you, like they really artist, celebrities, athlete.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
How do you know who's really your friend and not
just wanting to be with you because you're Michael Rubin demillion.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
You know, I think that comes with time. Like, none
of these relationships they're they're, as you said, pretty authentic.
It's just like the first time we all met each other.
We just met each other for the first time. But
now we've all known each other, you know, it feels
like freaking years at this point, and so like these
things become genuine. And I think you also get tested
during periods of time. People ask you to show up
(03:08):
or you ask them to show up, and you see
who shows up for you and who doesn't. So I think,
for a guy, and I say this all the time,
people always think of being self deprecating for a guy
who barely made it out of high school, who learns
from conversations, That's how I learn, you know, I listen
to what a good interview you are by trying to
throw me off base right away by the first question.
You just trust me, okay, and you like you pick
(03:30):
these things up. And so like, I feel like I'm
very lucky to have so many different people around me
that I can help bring together in certain ways. And
I think people would say the same thing about me.
So we're all learning from each other, we're all helping
each other I think over time, I've been through it
with a bunch of different people as well, and I think,
you know, relationships have been tested, and hopefully I can
(03:53):
show what I'm made of and they show what they're
made of. And I think that's what makes these things
really authentic.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Who's idea was it to take it just outside of
the jerseys and do cars and do memorabilion and outside
of that, because you know, at first it just started
off as a company that.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Sold jerseys and hate T shirts, but now it seems
on a huge scale.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Look, look, the hardest business we're in is the business
we started, and that's the power on fang your business,
and that's it's a pretty big business now. I mean
people always say about fanatics, but we also own own lids,
we own several power brands, We make all the we
make you know, most of the Nike merchandise for the
NFL and Major League Baseball in college, and we own
Mitchell Ness, and we own we do all the Champion
(04:33):
licensed merchandise and Rebok license merchandise. And for us, you know,
we're always thinking about how to improve that business. So
for the first from twenty eleven really till twenty twenty.
I didn't want to have any distractions. And I think
it's actually a pretty challenging business because what people never
think about is, you're wearing a USA kit right now.
(04:54):
Were they going to do something no one ever imagine?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Do it?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
All this year? They're gonna get knocked out in the
first round or something between. And you didn't know what
USA Hockey was going to do, and you don't know
what the Giant's going to do this year with how
about the next I mean, shout out to the next baby.
Nothing more incredible than that. And so because of the
complexity with predicting how teams are going to do and
how players going to do, it's a very complicated business
where we have to keep innovating to be better for
(05:18):
the fan, to be able to serve what the fan wants,
because fans want what's hot, they don't want what's cold.
And so we were really very focused on that business
for the first nine or ten years. What happened was
we got to a certain place where we said, Okay,
we can reinvent ourselves as a digital sports platform. And
what's really interesting was, and everyone knows this, they kind
of four or five years ago, we had a couple
(05:40):
of things that kind of punched us in the face.
And getting punched in the face and business is a
very good thing because it makes you better, Okay, And
at that time we said, okay, what do we really
stand for it fanatics and our brand purpose. We want
to do two things, to be honest. One was we
announced that we were taking over the hockey jerseys and
the Finax was going to be on ice would be
(06:01):
the brand on ice, and fans didn't have a positive reaction.
They said, well, we don't want Finax to make the
on ice hockey jersey.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And then the second thing, well, why would it matter,
Like I've never seen a jersey, but like Knights makes that,
so I hate it all.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Look that teeny bit of this is like I do
pay attention to that one percent of you know noises
because I think it makes you smarty when you listen
to noise, you say are they right or are they wrong?
You asked me a question about the White Party. I
kind of like laughed off. I laugh it off because
I'm like, look, I love bringing people together. It's a
great party. It's not deep. Some said something about my company.
(06:35):
I'm trying to say, are they right or are they wrong?
They're right, then I want to use that to make
the company better. We thought. I think, as I said
earlier when we first started, your dream is like one
day can build something this big. Then you start as
you get bigger, like wait a second, big sucks, man.
I want to be beloved. That's a totally different thing.
So when we had that negative reaction about taking over
(06:56):
the hockey jersey, and then in partnership with Nike, you know,
we make the baseball jerseys, and there was a redesign
of the baseball jersey which we took a lot of
heat for. I'd say on that case not necessarily rightly so,
but we owned it and we said, okay, how do
we use this to be better? And we went away
and we said, okay, the job at Fanatics said relentlessly
(07:16):
enhance the fan experience, and everything we do has to
do that, and if we don't do it, then we
shouldn't do It's a great question. But when we start
our sports book, we didn't say, okay, we just want
to be like FanDuel draftings. How do we make it better?
We said, We're going to do two fundamental different things.
One is, every time you bet with us. We're going
to give the customer fan cash that they can use
to make more bets, to buy merchandise, to get trading cards,
(07:40):
to go to lids, to get tickets, like we're going
to give back and this year we're going to give
back a billion one in fan cash, and people love that.
The second thing is what people always complain about if
your sports better is my player got hurt early in
the game. Okay, we said, you know, if a player
gets hurt in the first half of the game, we're
going to take them out of the player bet, and
(08:00):
millions of people that would have lost won their bet.
The reason I give you that example is when we
started the sports book, we said, how do we be
better and different because we need to relentlessly enhance the
fan experience. Okay. In trading cards, a business that we
only entered five years ago, which is our biggest and
most valuable part of our company today, we said, what
are people really saying they don't like about trading cards?
And one was like all these IOUs that collectors had,
(08:23):
you know, they bought a box of cards or pack
of cards, and you know they got this great card
that said, well it's an I or EEO to me, well,
how do we fix that? We worked with all the
athletes and the players associations to fix that problem. And
another would be like all the marketing creativity and the
product creativity. I'm only giving these examples because it was
a real mind mindset shift that happened four or five
(08:45):
years ago to say everything we need to do needs
to relentlessly and has the fan experience. And that's why
we start a fanatics Fest. Okay. Fanacs Fest is like
it's the hardest thing we do all year. It's a
complete give back to fans. You take I mean, you
think about this. In the NBA, we got Lebron, James
k D, James Harden, Wemby Cooper, Flag sga Ant and
(09:08):
a bunch of other stars all coming to Fanatics Fest.
That takes off the relationships we have to put this
on for fans, but we do it because it's such
a great give back. Okay, and we do this across
every sport. We have like four hundred of the biggest athletes, artists,
celebrity stars coming you know to fanatics Fest, and so
(09:29):
like for us, we love that because it's like we're
doing something really cool for fans and I want you
guys to all come this year, and you tell me, like,
was this one of the coolest sports moments I've ever
had being that fanatics fest. I think you're say it is.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
You know, it's interesting you're saying how you want fanatics
to be beloved, and I'm sitting back, like, I feel
like sports is the easiest thing to make people love,
because like beloved means to have an emotional attachment to something.
There's not too many things in this world that people
have more of an emotional attachment to the sports no
matter what, even if they're losing the USA, I don't
care if they win that for so, I.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Agree with you one hundred percent. And that's why we
have such a big opportunity. But here's a great thing
about sports fans. If they don't like something, they are
allowed okay. And by the way, that's what makes our
business such an amazing opportunity when we do something something
doesn't like. And by the way, we are far from perfect.
We're a growth company. We make mistakes, we get things wrong.
Fans tell us that you have to use that input
(10:22):
to be better. And look, you guys have had controversy,
shit that's gone wrong, and you guys decide are people
right or wrong when you do that, and then when
they're right, how do you use that to be better?
So I think the biggest benefit we have is there's
two billion avid sports fans in this world who are
very loud and proud. But everything doesn't always go the
(10:43):
way you expected to go.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Was it intentional on a planning around like all the
World Cup stuff?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yes, it was one hundred. So I'll tell you the
thing I'm singlely most excited about so in the World
Cup is to me, I think it's just this such incredible,
amazing event every four years and then you have at
the end two teams remaining. Four years ago it was
Argentina and it was France and Boppy captain of France,
(11:10):
Messi captain of Argentina. They do a press conference two
days before the final match at the stadium where the
final matches, so it would be at MetLife. They actually
moved that press conference for the first time in the
history of the World Cup to be at Fanatics Festival
in front of fans. Okay, so this is a repeat
of four years ago, which it very well could be.
Argentina played France you'd have him boppy and MESSI at
(11:34):
Fanatics Fest in front of tens of thousands of fans.
Now that's insane.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
So four days this year as well.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know, look, we couldn't cram it all in to
three days anymore. I mean we're gonna have When you
look at the people coming this and I just looked
at this, I mean you've got in every sport, every
top athlete and by the rank culture you got from
jay Z to Travis Scott to Wane to every other
artist that comes through. And I just look, Kevin Hart's
hosting Cold his Balls and he's got you know, Djokovic
(12:04):
one day and Cooper Flagg another day, and you know
he's got you know, so many different great athletes and
so like we love bringing all together and it's by
it is. We'll spend like between us our partners will
spend like eighty or ninety million dollars to put this
thing on.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And the ticket revenue, the ticket's like sixty or seventy
bucks a ticket, So it's like two hundred thousand people come.
It's like, you know, it's like fifteen million bucks in
ticket revenue. But we do it because it's just a
great thing to work your ass off, because fans that
come through, they love fanatics when they leave. And I
remember last year I had a guy in his nineties
grabbed me. He's like, mister Ruben. By the way, the
(12:39):
only thing I don't like is being called mister Ruben.
Makes me feel old. So I'm always like Michael, you know,
Rube whatever, anything about mister Rubin. He's like, I just
want to tell you, this has been the greatest weeknd
of my life. I'm here with my son, my grandson,
my great grandson. And he said the moment we've had
that we've been here all all three days of this
and he had like tears coming out of his eyes,
and it made me almost tear up just seeing. You
know how much joy you brought that's beloved.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Now you talked about sports betting. I want to go
back to sports betting.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Do you feel like sports betting hurt the league in
sports a little bit?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, because it was happening one hundred percent, as we
all know, illegally. So by taking something that has happened
illegally and making it legal and giving it the regulation,
I think it made it much safer for consumers. And
by being regulated. I think a lot of things that
were going wrong, those things are being worked out of
the system. So like people talk about, like you know,
(13:30):
the things where players have made mistakes, people have done
things they shouldn't have done. That stuff has happened before,
you just didn't have the systems in place to catch it.
Now it's happening far less because of the systems that
are in place. So I think of regularly, like to me,
sports betting gambling is a century old business, you know,
I mean, did you bet before you had legalized sports betting?
(13:53):
Did you bet before you have legalized sports? Better? Listen everything,
because I just felt like I knew me bad. You
don't do it anywhere right by? Sports band is ninety
percent male? In fairness, do you guyspect before?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
No funny it was?
Speaker 6 (14:13):
It was funny over Michael, You don't have to be
every once in a while.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I tried, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I doubt you do. Try to be inclusive, right, yeah,
so shut it, let's go. But it is it's not
like like the casino part of our businesses. You know,
fifty to fifty male to female sports bands like ninety
two percent male dress and all this business that you.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Do all these big names, Like I just every time
we talk to you, I feel your excitement for what
you do. How do you said it's getting fun down
but it's not because it wasn't fun before. How do
you keep your work so like passion field and like
like it it grows so big, But you're like a
kid at the candy store right now.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I agree with that, and I'll say to you something
that I could say. It will be offensive, but I
really believe is if you don't love what you do,
you shouldn't do it. Now. I know what everyone's to say, it's, oh, well,
it's easy. It's easy for Michael Ruben to say that, Okay,
But I like, look, you only have so many days
on this planet, and like, I love so much what
(15:13):
I'm doing. I love the great parts about what I do,
and I love the challenges that I learn from when
I grow from. And so that's what makes me so
passionate to the question you just asked me. Like, I
wake up every so I go to bed. You know,
on a normal day, I'll go to bed eleven o'clock,
eleven thirty. I wake up within three hours, and like
I want to go to work, so bad. But then
I know it's so unhealthy. It only sleep three hours
(15:35):
and night, so I try to get like another two
to three hours sleep and I wake up and I
jump out of bed because I'm excited to see all
the action that I missed in the five and a
half hours I didn't look at my phone, and you know,
and I love building it so to me, like I'm
learning every day, I'm growing every day. I have so
many great people around me, you know, like, look, by
the way, think about this. We're in the middle of
(15:55):
the World Cup, I have an access coming up next week,
just finished with the White Party. It's like it's almost
like we were just saying I was joking, which I think.
I need to turn my phone off for like a
couple of weeks in August, just to try to give
my brain a little bit of a detox. Is there
a point where the growth becomes enough? Like Lauren, it like,
(16:18):
let me ask you a question. If you were number one,
if your show was the number one show in the
world of anything above anything, not just against your core metrics,
against everybody in the world. Okay, you still say that sucks.
It's not good enough, right, And so I'm never satisfied.
I'm never happy. And when I go through Fanatics Fest,
no matter how great it is, I'm gonna look at
(16:39):
what all the things I see that aren't right. I
remember doing a walk through the White Party three hours before.
I was pointing out like fifty things that bothered me. Okay,
because I have that attention to detail. It's just the
brain I was born with. And so I don't think
you should ever be satisfied. I don't think you know
how good you are. Do you think Tom Brady was
satisfied with seven Super Bowls? He only talks about the
(17:00):
three heatd win. Okay, it's not talking about the you know,
he's not talking about the ones that you know he
wanted somebody. You know, I can't believe what happened against
the giants. I can't believe what happens here. That's the mentality,
and so that's the winner's mentality. So no, we should
never be satisfied.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
I was gonna ask you from there, you know, what
does your family say? Because you work so much, you're
always moving, you got daughters, your wife, So how does
your family feel about the work you put in?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
They accept that. It's what they would say is my
one screwed up part of my personality. But they also
know what they were born into or signed up with,
and you know it is. You know, even yesterday it
was my daughter's sixth birthday and we took her a
split splash in in in Long Island and by which
was amazing. And you know, every time I come down
(17:44):
the water slide, I want to look at my phone,
see what I missed, see what's going on. And my
excuse is, I said, you know to my wife, I'm like, baby,
it's like finax Fast is seven days away from me.
As she's like Michael, She's basically shut the fuck up.
There's always an excuse, like like stop talking, you telling
me about finax Fast. It was last week was White
Party and as World Cup this finags Fast and would
be than Azibus. There's always something she's right, but that's
(18:05):
it's just who I am. And I think hopefully my
kids will learn from me really good work at it
because they're around me all the time. And even if
they see me working and hustling, like hopefully, I'm you know,
showing them like you know, hard work does pay off,
and they see how much I love it, they see
how into it I am, and at least you're there,
(18:25):
You're right there. I am there, and sometimes look, you
can be physically there and not mentally there. And that's
probably my weakness, but you know, I try to get
the best balance I can, and I do. I am.
Actually I have developed one new habit in the last year. Well,
I'll put my phone down for like a half an
hour hour a day that I'm awake and just say like, okay,
whether it's a twenty minute dinner with the kids or
(18:48):
something else, we're just like, it doesn't matter who calls,
there's always going to be some emergency. There's always going
to be something, So like just put it down.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
If you ever showed up to one of those places
and the service was bad or somebody was rude and
you was like, you know, you threaten to buy it
and fire a.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Person, no, never, because you know what, somebody who would
do that, it's a bad person, you know. One of
the things I love to see is how people treat
the people that I work with every day, not me,
because somehow and I always say, like I'll say, like, obabe,
that person's great, Like yeah, everyone treats you well, Like
don't pay attention to how they treat you. Pay attention
to how do they treat the lowest person at your
(19:19):
company's coming coming up? And by I'll tell you without
telling you who it was. I remember being with Robert
Kraft at a guy we were both friendly with, and
I saw how he treated somebody. I never spoke to
the person again, okay, because I saw them to treat
their staff in a way that made me really uncomfortable.
And so you know, to me, those are the things
(19:40):
you learned. So no, I try to be like when
I'm going through that park, I'm being nice to everybody.
I'm thanking everyone because that's I'm lucky to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Always.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
If you want to see somebody's true character, watch how
they treat people that can't do anything for them.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Right, So your true characters, You're gonna beat me a
few more times, so I love you. It's too bigy
things to say. Whether I could say something like would
I treat somebody? Would I treat somebody? Really, you're ditty opening,
I got it. I just want you to know, okay,
I expect that if you're to come in me with that,
I'd be disappoorted. I'd be like, yo, Charlott mane is
losing his He's losing his edge.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
When it comes to billionaires, when people say billionaires shouldn't exist,
do you take that personally?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I don't, but I think there's a problem with that, right.
The American Dream is incredible. Like I don't think I
get why people can be jealous envious. But here's the
way I look at it. Like when I was a kid,
my idol was Phil Knight. It wasn't an athlete. It
was Phil Knight, Okay, the founder of Nike, and I
(20:39):
idolized him because I was always a business person from
the time I was a young kid, and like I
always like, I was always an entrepreneur. That's it's what
I always want to do.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
It.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Like I knew I'd never be a good athlete. I
knew I'd never be a good student, but I loved business.
And so you know, to me, when someone says like
kill the American Dream, like you like, don't you want
to have the dream? Hey? If I'm your guys, like,
how do I take the show? How do I turn
it into its own business? How do I monetize better?
How do I make it worth I'll be like I
(21:07):
don't want you guys to not treat I want you
guys to dream for the biggest thing you can possibly
dream for. And so I don't like people saying, hey,
like kind of kill the American dream. That said it
doesn't bother me because I understand like people can look
at say, hey, Michael's fortune, he's lucky, he's whatever. Does
it truly doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers
(21:28):
me is when people tell me things I think they're
right about. Then I want to turn that into action
and fixing it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I guess for me, it's not about It's not about
the killing of the American dream. I just feel like
sometimes people want to put a cap on it that
kind of feels strange, Like I can create something and
make a shitload of money on it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Who's faulted it?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah? And by the way, look at whether you like
Elon Musk, don't like Elon Musk, like Jeff Bezos, don't
like Jeff Bezos, like Mark Zuckenberger or not like those
are aspirational stories. I mean, look how freaking by the way,
I don't even really know Elon Musk. Look at look
at the different things he's built from, you know, SpaceX
to Tesla, and you're like, you have to respect the brain,
you have to respect the drive, Like why do I
(22:06):
want to put a cap on that? So I want
everyone in the world to say anything as possible, and
I can do whatever I set my mind to, and
I don't like putting caps on that. That said, the
influence elections, and by the way, you know me well
enough to I stay out of I hate politics, you
know why, because it divides people. And I run a
consumer company, okay, And the second we talk about politics,
(22:28):
half the people hate you. Yeah, okay, So I just
try to avoid politics at all costs. It's not good.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
You do a lot of charity.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I do so many things behind the most of it's
behind the scenes, and I enjoy it. And some of
the things, look, you guys all know because it's how
we all first met. Like the Reform Allignes that we
started because of Meek with Jay and Meek and Robert
Kraft has like been work that I love doing and
we've made a huge impact with and the work we
do with Make a Wish, which I always say anyone,
By the way, there are a lot of people that
(22:55):
hate on the reform A lines like oh, you know,
you're getting criminals like they don't even understand what they
they just want to hate on it. Okay, make a wish,
which is the biggest partnership. We have a Fanatics where
we take every sports wish we help make better for
the for the kids. Okay, So anyone that's got a
wish in sports Fanatics, it's kind of part of making
it happen. If you don't like make a wish, you're
(23:16):
a bad human being. Okay, I'll just say it right now.
If someone wants to hate on make a Wish, they're
literally a bad human But we love, we love doing
charity work. Like it's again, if you take the perspective,
and I think you guys probably do that we're all
lucky to be here. Then there's our responsibility to give
back and make a difference.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Do you think charity sometimes becomes a substitute for fixing
broke broken systems like the actual systems being broken?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, I think the government is a really inefficient, you know,
way of doing things, but it's just the way the
world works. Like do I believe when we started the
Reform Alliance, and I remember someone said to me, Hey, Michael,
you should have a goal of how many people you
get out of probation and parole. And I said, what
do you think it's a good number? And this person
who I'm not going to, who I love, not like
(24:01):
it's a very important person in this world. They said,
you should have a goal of ten thousand people. I'm like, huh.
I'm like, there's four and a half million people on
probation and parole. I think probably like a million or
two million people should be on probation and parol, so
it should be like two to three million less people.
They said, well, you won't miss the goal of ten thousand.
I'm like, that's fucking bullshit. It sucks. I'm like, I
(24:22):
have my goal. They're like, what are you going to do?
I'm like a million people, Like you might miss the goal.
I'm like, screw that. Like, I want to make a
big goal. If you go after the big number, what's
the worst that happens. You said I want to get
a million, you get seven hundred thousand, right, that's seven
yes what the person would have said. So that goes
to the mentality of like taking entrepreneurialism against like a
government issue. Right, probation and parl is broken because of
(24:45):
the government we created, created the reform a lines because
of what happened to me. Remember Meek was on probation
for eleven years at the time this happened, or ten
years at the time this happened, and he had another
like ten years left. Okay. None of us could be
on probation for twenty years. Okay, and follow the rules
of probation. But that get by the way. Remember you
(25:06):
can't be in contact with a felon on probation. How
many people that on probation naturally would be in contact
with it. It's just a natural thing, okay. And so like,
I think it's great to bring entrepreneurialism to fixing government problems.
And I think you know, the two kind of you know,
kind of you know, offset each other.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
If your money disappeared tomorrow, what impact would you still
be proud of?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
So let me say one thing. First of all, I
asked people this question all the time. It's amazing how
divided an answer I get. More that disagree with me.
So I say all the time, I would give up everything.
I had to be ten years younger everything.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Wow, you got a lot of energy.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I mean, in one second, what for sure, you get me.
He's always gone for it. I thought that was your issue,
by the way, not mine. So yeah, so I just
the way I look at it. First of all, I
(26:07):
love the grind. I love the hustle. I believe if
I started over tomorrow, morney would If I start tomorrow
morning with nothing, it would be fun going through the trials,
the tribulations. What ideas I came with, How I built
to be ten years younger? Oh my god, I would
do it. One second. I asked people who are really
well off this question all the time. Most people disagree
with me. They're like, nah, I won't do that. I'm like,
you got no fight. He then like, I love the fight.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
You want to be younger to start over against so
you got to go through the work to get the
where you're adding.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I'm fifty three. If I could be forty three, fuck yeah,
I'm in take everything.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Like Robert Craft still be ninety if he was young.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
No, maybe he'd be seventy five, would be seventy five.
I'm I'm gonna tell you. I'll tell you a great
story between Robert and I. So I'm like a very
happy person. It's just like I know I'm lucky. I
wake up with good energy.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
That is evident. I'm not even joking.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, So on my fiftieth we took a w I
walk with Robert all the time. It's like he's like
brother father to me. And so we walk, you know,
I don't know, twenty thirty days a year we take
you know, like three four mile walks. It's a nice
thing to do together. So we're gonna walk on my
fiftieth birthday. He said to me, Michael, you see m
Off today. I said, I am. He said why. I said, honestly, like,
(27:18):
I'm like, it's kind of depressing to turn fifty today.
He's like why. He's like, He's like, I don't know.
My life's I feel like my life's more than half over.
Like and I always thought of myself as a kid.
And he says something to me. He said, Michael, every
decade for me has been better than the last decade.
He said, My thirties are better than my twenties, forties,
better than thirties, you know, sixties, better than the fifties,
(27:39):
seventies better than the sixties, eighties, better than seventies. And
I'll tell you what that's been true for me. But
still like getting older. There's nothing I like about it. Yeah, yeah,
it does scare me a little bit, Like I like
to I like to be on this earth healthy for
as long as possible. So yes to say, I would
give up everything I had everything right now to start over.
(28:01):
And by the way, I would love every minute of
the journey. Okay, it would be so fun to me
to see how my life is different. What did I do?
What did I build? You know?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He said, the only thing worse than getting old is
not getting old. That's what I feel that way.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
When after you guys like Robert Craft or any older elder,
I'm like, that's the goal.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, I want to be as I want to live
as long as possible.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I agree, And you start saying we all know this.
As we get older, you see different people you know
that aren't with us anymore because you know, you know,
some health issue or something, and make sure you just
like I take my health so much more seriously now
than I did three years ago, Like I actually manage
my health like I managed work.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
What was what was your that one business decision that
you regret, if there's any.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It's a great question. One business decision that I regret
I used to think it was not being all in
on like you know, buying all of the Sixers when
I was involved with the Sixers, or buying a football
team earlier. And then I realized that the opportuity guy
with fanatics is so much bigger than that. So I
think it was that at one point, it's not now.
(29:04):
I'm gonna tell you this, like, there's lots of things
I screw up, but I don't have any regrets, Like
why don't I want to have regrets regrets? So like,
I learned from my mistakes, but I'm not gonna have regrets.
I really don't.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Seventy six's question, does Lebron come in to seventy sixes?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I don't know that answer.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Do you want to see him in the seventy sixes?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I would love to see it. I mean, I think
Lebron is still you know, top top top NBA star,
I think culturally. Yet you know, there's one thing I've
seen and I didn't understand this even ten years ago.
There were so many people that are so gifted athletically,
some of the best athletes in the world, they don't
(29:43):
have the heart. Okay, if you took my heart and
certain athletes' skills. I feel like you'd win the championship
every year. Lebron has both, and so like I've never like, Look,
I'm fortunate enough to have spent so much time with Brady,
and you see why he won seven Super Bowls, Like
right now for the Fanatics Games next week at Finags Fest,
(30:05):
I don't know if you guys fully understand it. So
we take fifty athletes, celebrities, artist against fifty average Joe fans,
So one hundred people competing for a million dollar first prize,
a FRI's worth like a half million dollars second prize,
and a quarter million dollar trading card is the third prize.
And it's like eight different athletic competitions like how hard
can you punch the UFC bag your ww walkout, kicking
(30:27):
a field goal, pitching in baseball, basketball, three point shooting competition.
And Brady won it last year, and the shit he's
been talking about how he's gonna win it this year.
He can't wait to compete. He's literally in people's head
that are like some of the best athletes in the world. Okay,
like Djokovic is doing this year, Kat's doing it this year,
(30:49):
like it's just so many you know, great athletes doing this,
and I hear him just he's mentally messing with people
to make sure he has every edge of cat and
he's serious, like he's like, I'm winning first prize, I'm winning,
I'm winning again. He doesn't care about the money. He
cares about winning because he's like, I want that championship.
I want him in the Finas Games two years in
a row. I love that drive. So when I look
at Bron, I look at a guy who every time
(31:10):
I've been fortunate enough to spend time with him, I
see why he is who he is, and he is
driven at a way like so few people, so few
athletes or I think less than one percent of the
athletes in the world have that kind of mentality. So yes, absolutely,
you see that.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Do you see that same mentality in people outside of athletics,
and if so, who.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, I do. And the way I learn, as I've said,
is I learned this is the great thing by bringing
people from different backgrounds together. You learn from different people
around you. You know, Look, take Desire Press. We both
know Deaz she's a killer. Okay, she's gonna win or
whatever she does. She's gonna win whatever she does. Okay,
(31:53):
she's just got that. Man. By the way, we have
a competition who's working harder, like this shit that's talked
between Like meantime Brady, who's up first in the morning.
You know he'll hit me four thirty Why are you sleeping?
Why are you sleeping? A four forty five? It was
really she just gets we sleeping at bets at this
point she said that that that ship missality. She says,
she looks at me. She needs her eight hours of
(32:14):
sleep every night. She's not walting me near her in bed.
She's got her nose strips, her ear plugs, her her
full black out chase, that bombia noise everything. I'm just like,
let me get back to work as quickly as possible.
But like so I learned from everyone around me, and
that's how that's how I grow and learn.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
If you haven't mentioned it yet, what is one of
the most exciting activations that you're looking forward to people experiencing.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
This year for Fanatics Fest, I'll say the thing that
humbles me the most is how much time and effort
the biggest stars that I'll put in there. So like
last year Lebron came for the first time, okay, and
he did two big things. He looked at me, he said, Rube, like,
this is incredible, okay. And by the way, we're in
(32:57):
the forty forty in the middle of you know, because
we we do the forty forty pop up in the
middle of Fanatics Fest. He's like, look at the great
time everyone's having in the middle of the sports festival.
And then this year's coming back. He's doing like twice
the amount of things for fans, and like Djokovic is
coming for the first time. He texted me last night
He's like, I can't wait, you know, to be with
all these incredible athletes, to be with my biggest fans,
(33:19):
Like to just watch what jay Z does there with
Travis Scott who just like no matter what, he's always
find somebody to out do himself there each year. Like
I just love the way people show up for their fans.
So for me, I think the number one thing, there's
two things I'm super excited for. Number one is like
the Knicks, baby, Like, I mean, fifty three years they
won the championship. We have so many different Nix things,
(33:41):
we have the entire you know, we have you know,
have the starting five come together, and I know they're
going to walk through with the trophy through all fanatics
fest before they go on stage, okay after they come
on stage. Not sure which way it is, but that's
gonna be insane. And just seeing all the Knicks fans
just how much like I watched so many people cry
when they won because they were just so much to them.
And then to see the World Cup press conference, you know,
(34:04):
to see the two teams that are remaining, the team
captains at f and as Fest, like those two things
I'm so exciting for. But I just looked at my schedule,
so I'm programmed out every fifteen minutes from like seven
am to eleven pm, you know, starty and by it's
that we're doing the spis. Came to New York to
kind of, you know, be part of the whole sports
week that we're creating, you know in New York around
(34:24):
for ax Fest. So that's Wednesday night and then I'll
be there by seven am, you know, Thursday morning show
opens at one to the public nine to for a
private group of people, and I'll be their first day
and last out every day. And I love doing that.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Would you do for your birthday.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You know, this year is the first time I've ever
done this for my birthday. So the last couple of years,
I just Camil and I just like literally do a
dinner by ourselves. But I actually scheduled myself with nothing
on my birthday this year. I'm just like, you know what, nothing.
I mean, I'll still do stuff all day, but it's
just like, I just want to not have a schedule
this year. You normally I have like fifteen hours of meeting. Yeah, yeah, birthday,
it's twenty nine knife, let's go baby. Yeah. People, I
(35:06):
definitely like I listen my billionaire with empathy. Look, I
think I'll say this. I think a lot of people
that have becoming I hear this all the time. A
lot of people have become really successful. They're not relatable.
You can't like, I mean, billionaires you bring on, You're like,
oh you are. You won't bring them on because you
know they wouldn't be like an interesting conversation. Like that's
what makes me made. There's a lot of things that
(35:28):
suck about me. Right, I can barely read, you know, barely.
The only language I barely speak is English. But like,
you know, like, look, I do have like I have
you know. I think that's what makes movies. I do
have you know a real heart, and I love it.
And I think there are a lot of good billionaires
in this world. There are also a lot of painful
billionaires in this world.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
We've got a couple more questions. I haven't gotten you
in trouble yet, but keep trying.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It doesn't. It doesn't when we have so far we
have the our talent dysfunction we have.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
This year, I didn't see some hugs from the back
this year.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Stop that. Well, first of all, I just want to
say one thing. I've hugged many of people drunk every
which way front back and don't give a ship. But
I would say, after that happens, definitely made more sense
if to not have a picture like that go out,
I will hug you from the back anytime. About that,
(36:24):
I'm looking at like Holland's Instagram and like he was
just an ice bath. I actually thought about you guys
yesterday because I saw Holland obviously the star of Norry is, like,
you know, one of the most incredible soccer we call
football players in the world. Was that? Why do you
think about that? Was there an ice? He was in
an ice bath with one of his teammates. It was
like a little ice band. I'm like, oh god, the ship.
You guys would be talking. I can't take an ice
(36:45):
bath together.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
Would do a lot.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Why would anybody take an ice bath together?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Because the athletes could have fun and make a joke
and take a picture of people. I don't think they
were really taking ice band together.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I thought it was a joke.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I will hug you from behind. Still you brought up.
I don't like it by the way he does. He
tries to act like it bothers him, but it doesn't.
We're making hugging comfortable. Twenty twenty six. We can have fun.
We can hug, okay, from the front, hug from the back.
There's nothing suspect about it.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
The thing I do respect about you.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Know what suspect thinking you can't hug.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I can hug a hug right now.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Let's go baby from the back. But if I ever
seen you when I've had like ten drinks, I'm jumping
on your back. Just definitely jump on his back. Here's
gonna be probably he's gonna post backcas like I'm too old.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Now you put my when I go back to see
this why they call you the new Diddy.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
You do.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Know, but different thing I respect about you. Know you
are one of the few billionaires I believe who's really
embraced black culture instead of just profiting from it. Because
you've putting a lot of money in a lot of
black people's pocket, right, But what's the responsibilit that.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Comes with it.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Look, I don't look at it is black culture, not
black culture. I think they're just doing the right thing.
Here's my real mentality. I am fortunate and lucky, and
I want everyone to do great around me. I think
a lot of people I know this from a lot
of really well off white billionaires who they're actually not
trying to help the other. People like I grew up
(38:24):
with Robert Craft, Jonathan Craft, are always trying to help me. Okay.
I got a lot of people that helped me to
be where I am, So I want to help everybody
that I can. Okay, And we have lots of friends
in like real friends in common where I've like gotten
to war for friends, I helped them. I'm big transformative
things in their life, and they would do the same
thing for me. I don't care white, black, purple, It
doesn't matter. It just to me, it's just like, do
(38:47):
you have a mentality if you want everyone to do
great around you? I want everyone to do great. I
want all of us to grow together, of us to
push each other up.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I've told us one time, he said, and if you
will see Robert Craft, I hate when I help people
from othermmunities to get money and they don't help their communities.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah. I actually remember hearing that. And look what I
would say, is I really have the mentality. I just
want everyone to do well. And I think if you
if you have that mentality, it's great karma, good shit happens.
And so I think I never like I didn't try to,
you know, start the Reform Alliance. Like I watched something
horrible happened to Meek that was wrong and said, okay,
(39:26):
we like I'm an entrepreneur, it's my responsibility that we've
got to go start something to fix this. And I
didn't even think about it, just did it, okay. And
that's when myself and Jay and Me and Robert Craft,
the whole group came together. But we've impacted like more
than a million people that would be on provision protay
that aren't. But it wasn't like some strategic decision. And look,
if you look at say, I don't know what what
(39:49):
percent of America's black, twelve percent? Right, So that that's
our business. It's not like more more or less like
we have a very I mean, our business is anyone
who's a sports fan. So like I'm not like to me,
I just want to always help where I and help
and then be comfortable to ask people like you know,
for questions and where I can learn from the man
I've learned from jay Z, the man I've learned from
(40:10):
Travis Scott, just by listening to them, by watching them.
It's like that helps me learn and be better. I'm
fortunate to be in that position you.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Talked about the last time you was here when we
talked about the black on black hate and you got
a lot of pushback for that. You posted apology. You
said you got a phone call for one of the
people that you have the most respect for in the world,
and they told you that they appreciated your intention behind
the comments, but it wasn't your place to speak on
black culture. And you get it, and you really appreciate
the input. What was the learning, like, what did you
learn next?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, It was a good learning because I'm just like
such a transparent person. I say what'sever on my mind,
which is why I generally am a great and interview
for this guy when he's trying to get me in trouble,
you know, because I speak my mind. I think the
learning there was if you have the mentality you just
want everyone to do great, and by me. So many
(40:56):
people were also sending me notes saying you don't apologize,
you are right, including I think one of you guys
might have I can't remember who one of you guys
hit me right, like, like, look, I was well intended,
and what I was just trying to say is like
I want everyone to do great. I don't want anyone
to hate on anybody. But I get when it's not
you know, you know the world you're from, people can
(41:18):
say like it's not your place to speak, and that's
a very logical, you know, input to give to me.
And so sometimes you just need to as you get bigger, right,
people are going to pick apart everything you said. Everything okay,
and so you just need to be a little more
careful of just not like just speaking so quick, off
off off the cuff, even if it hurts an interview
that he does doesn't matter. You guys know who called me.
(41:40):
I know who calls you, right, I'm not saying I'm
not saying it was I got nothing. I got nothing
to say.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
How many celebrities call you when they can't get into
the party. How many calls do you get when you
don't send an in that look?
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I will tell you the thing I love about the
White Party is bringing so many great people together and
the great things that come from it and the fun
that people have. By the way, it's a twelve hour party,
Like we have fun and we're allowed to have fun.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
There's no twelve hour party.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah, I know your different shifts. Yeah, there's four parts
of the party. Five thirty we do like five thirty
to eight thirty cock the White Party five thirty to
eight thirty. It used to be five thirty eight thirty.
There's cocktails and it's really like kind of more like
business running. Everyone's just kind of having conversations and people
finding things they can do with each other. Network eight.
(42:32):
Everyone's not old and tired like you. We have good energy. Yeah,
eight thirty to ten o'clock we do dinner. This year
we had the USA game I ever once the USA game.
Then we go to my roof, okay, ten o'clock and
we had by the way, it was Alicia Keys did
New York, New York to the fireworks. It was she
wasn't good or great, she was spectacular, okay, j Yeah,
(42:53):
but he was great, snoop, he was brief. He was great.
Then we go to the club like twelve thirty and
you know, Carti was in the club, Nelly was in
the club performing. I mean, Wayne was in the club,
and they were just all so good. So it's just
like it's different shifts and it's like one time people
and but average person is probably there eight nine, ten
hours and so you know, to me, it's just like
(43:14):
it's good fun. So we are allowed to have fun
in twenty twenty six, we're bringing fun back.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
It's okay.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Yeah, So how many celebrities sit you that were mad
that they didn't get invited.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
That's quit a fair amount. But here's at this point,
I'm really bringing people that I'm friends with, people that like,
we have real relationships with. It's so that's ninety five
percent of people there. So that's what I don't like
about the party is the people's feelings that your because
remember can only it's my roof has a three hundred
and there's like three hundred and seventy five people. That's it. Okay,
(43:42):
so we're not people think they look at the part
of the home that must be thousands people. That's three
hundred and seventy five people. So the thing I hate
about the party is all the people you upset with people,
so many people you're friends with, they're like, hey, I
love you. It's just like I have someone I need
to call today who's really important to me. Okay, who
literally called somebody at work with and say they were
in their feelings that they didn't get invited because they're
a real friend of mine. And the thing is, I
(44:03):
love this person, Okay, I love this person's family. But
it just was there were like hundreds of people like
that that we couldn't invite. And that's the difficult thing
about doing the part.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
How do you do with the and the plus ones
because everybody comes with somebody.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I know, we don't do plus ones. Oh I love that. Yeah,
we don't do plus ones. And most you know, there
could be of everyone there there might have been ten
or twenty people that weren't specifically invited, and then we
go through and figure out who it is, and we
try to also avoid conflicts and bullshit. People sneak in
No zero chance, yeah, zero chance. I've had like ten
(44:35):
people tell me they were just try to sneak in.
And we have more than one hundred security surrounding the house.
I mean there's there's I mean there's all kinds of
detections and they surround the house pretty well.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (44:46):
No plus one, you better meet somebody in this motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
But everyone, but everyone knows each other too, Like so
many people are friends with each other. It's you know,
it's it's my house. I want people that were all
comfortable with that, we all like each other, that we're
all gonna have fun with.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
And then it's every year, so like if you don't
get invited this year, is it possible that you get
invited next year or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It's kind of you're kind of like, look, we start
the list of scratch each year and we kind of
look at like, you know, where are the relationships, Who's
important to me, Who's you know, it's and it's it's
a fun thing to do because everything's not forever. And
so there's certain people that you know by the way,
certain people have not acted well and they couldn't handle
a call for eight hours or ten hours, you know,
(45:25):
peacefully not invite them back. Some people get tired and
like you know, they'd be asleep after three hours, like
this guy, and so you just know he woon't make
a good showing. So you couldn't have them right this.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
This is my last question because I do like the
way you handle your power right or the way you
use your power. What's the biggest misconception people have about power?
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Well, I think the biggest misperception would be you should
use it and leverage it, because I think that's I
think if you have it, you don't need to leverage
it or use it. So for me, if you most
people have power, or really fortunate people, I think they
should not use it and not leverage it and that
makes them a better human being. Is the thing we
(46:05):
talked about seeing how people act, you know, when they
don't think this cameras around, when they don't know that
people are paying attention to how they are. Like I'll
tell you something. I'm gonna tell you something. I'll tell
you a story about something you guys probably all love.
Someone I've just really got to know in the last
year or two is Cat. Okay. I said something to
him basketball player Karl Anthony town Is Carl. One of
(46:32):
the things I get to see is how some of
the biggest stars in the world, how they treat people
around them, how they treat the everyday fan. And he
and Jordan stayed at my house over White Party weekend,
and we went out to two or three meals. I
never go out, by the way, I don't know how
he ended up. My boy Will is always like I
(46:53):
don't know, he like kind of makes a social plan.
So we went out to two or three meals and restaurants.
First thing was, in everything I've ever seen, I've never
seen restaurants just stop with the entire restaurant applauds. Okay,
he's so sweet to see. But then I actually saw
hundreds of people, one by one coming up to him
and saying, hey, can I grab a picture? And he
(47:13):
was generally so nice and sweet and he wasn't putting
my shirt. That's who he is, okay, And that means
more to me than anybody. But I also learned from them,
like man, well that guy's thousands of times more known
than I am. Okay, if he treats every single person
like that, you learn from that, you say, well you
should act that way. There are other people I won't name.
I'm like, they're a prick, Okay, Like I don't like that,
(47:35):
Like just like be nice.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
There's a lot more pricks than cats.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
And Cat. I agree with that.
Speaker 6 (47:40):
I've seen Cat do it myself too. What we were
at a mall and he had a basketball camp and
middle of the mall his day.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
He didn't have no securities with his dad people, and
he took and he not even just take pictures, would
talk to the kids. They would ask him questions and
he sat there that whole time and did the whole thing.
Speaker 6 (47:56):
And I was so shocked, with so surprised. Oh yeah,
so salute the cat.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We even had. This was one of the crazy things
I've ever seen. So we were at Biblica for lunch,
I don't know, maybe the day after the White Party,
two days after the White Party, and there were two
kids six and eight years old, and it was my
boy Will sitting, then me, then Carl, then Jordan, and
(48:20):
then Will's wife Joe. Two kids literally started crawling on
top of didn't even have just crawl on top of
will then me to get to him, Like he's in
the middle of a booth, so you can't get to him.
Crawt on top was I was like, Okay, they didn't
like the mom's laughing while she's taking a video.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
I'm like, if this were my kid, I would literally
like this would be a learning moment of all learning moments,
and the mom need the learning moment who allowed her
kids to do this? But he was like so gracious
about it, like they but the kid's footprints were all
my white pants, okay. And I'm like, you're just like,
you know what. You go back to watching how gracious
he is with I saw some dude one hundreds of
(49:02):
he said yes to everybody, never got annoyed once, talk
to everybody. You're like, that's a good human being. So
going back to the question of how do you use
how do you how do you leverage or use your
power by doing the right thing, by being a good
human being, and by way we can all learn from
each other. We can all be better every day too.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (49:18):
Mike Lady Michael July sixteenth through the nineteenth The Javid Senate.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Now people always ask they feel like when they get
inside everything is free, but if they want autographs, they
gotta wait on lines. They got to buy a jersey,
So break that down because IVE seen a lot of
people complaining about that last year.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
You getdn't No.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, So first of all, fanatics fest. We want to
make the prices so accessible for fans. So having a
sixty seventy hour ticket, there's not more value for anything
like this than you could ever do. I would challenge say,
give me where you get more value for sixty or
seventy dollars. You know, it is incredible value, and we
do it that way because it's give back to fans.
There are many by way people camp out. I'm sure
(49:55):
there are tens of thousands of pictures that are taken
by chance. You know, cat walks by and somebody asks
him for a picture of Brady. Does I see that
happen because people that are around me I always pay attention
at all. But yes, if you want to do a
pre order picture autograph, yes, those cost money and there's
tens of thousands of people that do that. But there's
so many things that you also fall into and all
(50:16):
the experiences from the leagues. You want to do ww walkout,
a field goal kicking thing at the NFL, or a
pitching competition at baseball. All that stuff is included. The
only thing that's incremental is if you want to buy
trading cards or merchandise, or if you want to buy
and order in advance a picture or an autograph, which
are very valuable with listen, that's where you go by
like people say, Okay, you know, oh, the Knicks pictures
(50:39):
are expensive. Well, the Knicks players get paid. Okay, these
are organized pictures and autographs. They should get paid for that,
and they keep most of the money that the stuff
doesn't bother I mean, that's where you look online and say, Okay,
they're right or wrong. In this case, they're not right.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
You've got ESPN going live with First Take in Sports.
Then on the seventeenth, this is very interesting Lebron and
Tyreus Halliburton on Mine the Game, which is Braun's podcast,
but also Lebron in a joke on the shop.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
With New Holes.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Lebron hasn't spoken at all during this whole fre agency period.
One that's gonna be his first time speaking.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Will he already have made his mind up or will
he make his mind up there?
Speaker 1 (51:12):
I want to say, well, you can only pray and
hope for things papping after KD got traded to Houston
on stage last year, let's go baby. Bron needs to
decide what he's gonna do with that next Thursday or Friday.
That's what we're looking for. If you asked me the
moment I'm most excited about, it's Lebron to decide what
team he wants to go to and announce that for
a fest. Probably not happening, but let's have good karme,
(51:32):
good energy. You never know, let's manifest to happen. Well,
it's Michael Rubin.
Speaker 6 (51:36):
It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Always love being with you guys.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Thank you every day a week.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Click yours up.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
The Breakfast Club you don't finish for y'all done it
Every day a week ago, pick up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You don't finish for y'all done.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Everybody is DJ en Vy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy.
We are the Breakfast Club. Laula rouses here as well.
We got a special guest in the building. That's right,
have more celebrities at his party. And Taylors was wedding
ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Michael Roban.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
They calling you the new Diddy, Michael Rubin. What that
means seeing that.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
On social media?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I don't pay atat to that, Michael, Michael Room is
the new Diddy. You know, there's one thing I've learned
that There's one thing I've learned. The harder you work,
the better you do, the more people come for you comes.
And you know what, I see that as I'm happy
that we're doing well overall and it's all good.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But they're saying that because of the White Party.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's what, you know what, You're allowed to have a party,
You're allowed to have fun. We're allowed to have fun again.
We're bringing fun back at twenty twenty six. They did
really change the.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Data your party for because Taylors was wedding.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
You know the truth, Betold. We hadn't set the date yet,
and then when her wedding came out, there were a
couple people called me and said, hey, this is going
to be complicated. We said, hey, everyone comes to White Party,
can come whenever they want, so it didn't really matter.
So it's just easy to shift a couple of days
from when we were rigently thinking.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Now let's talk about Fanatics vest now for people that
don't know how was Fanatics created, because it was a
couple of companies you put together to create Fanatics, right, Yeah,
I've really.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Started Fanatics in like almost two thousand and one, two
thousand and two as part of a bigger couple vers running.
eBay bought that company and Fanatx was a teeny company.
Twenty eleven, I bought it back and really start building
this as my you know, one hundred percent focus darting
twenty eleven. So we've been out of fifteen years and
it's starting to get fun. It's really starting to get
(01:42):
fun now.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Haply in that what do you mean when you say
starting to get fun? It felt like work in the
beginning of.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
No, it never feels like work, Like I love what
I do every minute of every day. It's just I
think as we continue to touch more sports fans in
more ways, and we continue to broaden the business, and
I think really get so focused. I'm obsessed about how
do we raise the game for fans and everything we do.
I just feel like, you know, we used to think
when I was small, we dreamed about getting big. Now
(02:09):
that we're a little bit bigger, I think big is bad.
I dreamed about how do you become beloved? Like how
do you make the most beloved brand in the world.
And it's funny talk about Fanatics Fest. It's like, that's
about how do you be beloved? How do you bring
all these incredible you know, athletes, celebrities, artists, and most
importantly two hundred thousand sports fans together for four days
And that's like, that's about being beloved. It's about giving
(02:30):
a big give back to sports fans.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
So, you know, that's a great point you bring up
because you've seen to have genuine relationships with everybody, like
the people.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
That rock with you, like they really artist, celebrities, athlete.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
How do you know who's really your friend and not
just wanting to be with you because you're Michael Rubin demillion.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
You know, I think that comes with time. Like, none
of these relationships they're they're, as you said, pretty authentic.
It's just like the first time we all met each other.
We just met each other for the first time. But
now we've all known each other, you know, it feels
like freaking years at this point, and so like these
things become genuine. And I think you also get tested
during periods of time. People ask you to show up
(03:08):
or you ask them to show up, and you see
who shows up for you and who doesn't. So I think,
for a guy, and I say this all the time,
people always think of being self deprecating for a guy
who barely made it out of high school, who learns
from conversations, That's how I learn, you know, I listen
to what a good interview you are by trying to
throw me off base right away by the first question.
You just trust me, okay, and you like you pick
(03:30):
these things up. And so like, I feel like I'm
very lucky to have so many different people around me
that I can help bring together in certain ways. And
I think people would say the same thing about me.
So we're all learning from each other, we're all helping
each other I think over time, I've been through it
with a bunch of different people as well, and I think,
you know, relationships have been tested, and hopefully I can
(03:53):
show what I'm made of and they show what they're
made of. And I think that's what makes these things
really authentic.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Who's idea was it to take it just outside of
the jerseys and do cars and do memorabilion and outside
of that, because you know, at first it just started
off as a company that.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Sold jerseys and hate T shirts, but now it seems
on a huge scale.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Look, look, the hardest business we're in is the business
we started, and that's the power on fang your business,
and that's it's a pretty big business now. I mean
people always say about fanatics, but we also own own lids,
we own several power brands, We make all the we
make you know, most of the Nike merchandise for the
NFL and Major League Baseball in college, and we own
Mitchell Ness, and we own we do all the Champion
(04:33):
licensed merchandise and Rebok license merchandise. And for us, you know,
we're always thinking about how to improve that business. So
for the first from twenty eleven really till twenty twenty.
I didn't want to have any distractions. And I think
it's actually a pretty challenging business because what people never
think about is, you're wearing a USA kit right now.
(04:54):
Were they going to do something no one ever imagine?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Do it?
Speaker 1 (04:57):
All this year? They're gonna get knocked out in the
first round or something between. And you didn't know what
USA Hockey was going to do, and you don't know
what the Giant's going to do this year with how
about the next I mean, shout out to the next baby.
Nothing more incredible than that. And so because of the
complexity with predicting how teams are going to do and
how players going to do, it's a very complicated business
where we have to keep innovating to be better for
(05:18):
the fan, to be able to serve what the fan wants,
because fans want what's hot, they don't want what's cold.
And so we were really very focused on that business
for the first nine or ten years. What happened was
we got to a certain place where we said, Okay,
we can reinvent ourselves as a digital sports platform. And
what's really interesting was, and everyone knows this, they kind
of four or five years ago, we had a couple
(05:40):
of things that kind of punched us in the face.
And getting punched in the face and business is a
very good thing because it makes you better, Okay, And
at that time we said, okay, what do we really
stand for it fanatics and our brand purpose. We want
to do two things, to be honest. One was we
announced that we were taking over the hockey jerseys and
the Finax was going to be on ice would be
(06:01):
the brand on ice, and fans didn't have a positive reaction.
They said, well, we don't want Finax to make the
on ice hockey jersey.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
And then the second thing, well, why would it matter,
Like I've never seen a jersey, but like Knights makes that,
so I hate it all.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Look that teeny bit of this is like I do
pay attention to that one percent of you know noises
because I think it makes you smarty when you listen
to noise, you say are they right or are they wrong?
You asked me a question about the White Party. I
kind of like laughed off. I laugh it off because
I'm like, look, I love bringing people together. It's a
great party. It's not deep. Some said something about my company.
(06:35):
I'm trying to say, are they right or are they wrong?
They're right, then I want to use that to make
the company better. We thought. I think, as I said
earlier when we first started, your dream is like one
day can build something this big. Then you start as
you get bigger, like wait a second, big sucks, man.
I want to be beloved. That's a totally different thing.
So when we had that negative reaction about taking over
(06:56):
the hockey jersey, and then in partnership with Nike, you know,
we make the baseball jerseys, and there was a redesign
of the baseball jersey which we took a lot of
heat for. I'd say on that case not necessarily rightly so,
but we owned it and we said, okay, how do
we use this to be better? And we went away
and we said, okay, the job at Fanatics said relentlessly
(07:16):
enhance the fan experience, and everything we do has to
do that, and if we don't do it, then we
shouldn't do It's a great question. But when we start
our sports book, we didn't say, okay, we just want
to be like FanDuel draftings. How do we make it better?
We said, We're going to do two fundamental different things.
One is, every time you bet with us. We're going
to give the customer fan cash that they can use
to make more bets, to buy merchandise, to get trading cards,
(07:40):
to go to lids, to get tickets, like we're going
to give back and this year we're going to give
back a billion one in fan cash, and people love that.
The second thing is what people always complain about if
your sports better is my player got hurt early in
the game. Okay, we said, you know, if a player
gets hurt in the first half of the game, we're
going to take them out of the player bet, and
(08:00):
millions of people that would have lost won their bet.
The reason I give you that example is when we
started the sports book, we said, how do we be
better and different because we need to relentlessly enhance the
fan experience. Okay. In trading cards, a business that we
only entered five years ago, which is our biggest and
most valuable part of our company today, we said, what
are people really saying they don't like about trading cards?
And one was like all these IOUs that collectors had,
(08:23):
you know, they bought a box of cards or pack
of cards, and you know they got this great card
that said, well it's an I or EEO to me, well,
how do we fix that? We worked with all the
athletes and the players associations to fix that problem. And
another would be like all the marketing creativity and the
product creativity. I'm only giving these examples because it was
a real mind mindset shift that happened four or five
(08:45):
years ago to say everything we need to do needs
to relentlessly and has the fan experience. And that's why
we start a fanatics Fest. Okay. Fanacs Fest is like
it's the hardest thing we do all year. It's a
complete give back to fans. You take I mean, you
think about this. In the NBA, we got Lebron, James
k D, James Harden, Wemby Cooper, Flag sga Ant and
(09:08):
a bunch of other stars all coming to Fanatics Fest.
That takes off the relationships we have to put this
on for fans, but we do it because it's such
a great give back. Okay, and we do this across
every sport. We have like four hundred of the biggest athletes, artists,
celebrity stars coming you know to fanatics Fest, and so
(09:29):
like for us, we love that because it's like we're
doing something really cool for fans and I want you
guys to all come this year, and you tell me, like,
was this one of the coolest sports moments I've ever
had being that fanatics fest. I think you're say it is.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
You know, it's interesting you're saying how you want fanatics
to be beloved, and I'm sitting back, like, I feel
like sports is the easiest thing to make people love,
because like beloved means to have an emotional attachment to something.
There's not too many things in this world that people
have more of an emotional attachment to the sports no
matter what, even if they're losing the USA, I don't
care if they win that for so, I.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Agree with you one hundred percent. And that's why we
have such a big opportunity. But here's a great thing
about sports fans. If they don't like something, they are
allowed okay. And by the way, that's what makes our
business such an amazing opportunity when we do something something
doesn't like. And by the way, we are far from perfect.
We're a growth company. We make mistakes, we get things wrong.
Fans tell us that you have to use that input
(10:22):
to be better. And look, you guys have had controversy,
shit that's gone wrong, and you guys decide are people
right or wrong when you do that, and then when
they're right, how do you use that to be better?
So I think the biggest benefit we have is there's
two billion avid sports fans in this world who are
very loud and proud. But everything doesn't always go the
(10:43):
way you expected to go.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
Was it intentional on a planning around like all the
World Cup stuff?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yes, it was one hundred. So I'll tell you the
thing I'm singlely most excited about so in the World
Cup is to me, I think it's just this such incredible,
amazing event every four years and then you have at
the end two teams remaining. Four years ago it was
Argentina and it was France and Boppy captain of France,
(11:10):
Messi captain of Argentina. They do a press conference two
days before the final match at the stadium where the
final matches, so it would be at MetLife. They actually
moved that press conference for the first time in the
history of the World Cup to be at Fanatics Festival
in front of fans. Okay, so this is a repeat
of four years ago, which it very well could be.
Argentina played France you'd have him boppy and MESSI at
(11:34):
Fanatics Fest in front of tens of thousands of fans.
Now that's insane.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
So four days this year as well.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know, look, we couldn't cram it all in to
three days anymore. I mean we're gonna have When you
look at the people coming this and I just looked
at this, I mean you've got in every sport, every
top athlete and by the rank culture you got from
jay Z to Travis Scott to Wane to every other
artist that comes through. And I just look, Kevin Hart's
hosting Cold his Balls and he's got you know, Djokovic
(12:04):
one day and Cooper Flagg another day, and you know
he's got you know, so many different great athletes and
so like we love bringing all together and it's by
it is. We'll spend like between us our partners will
spend like eighty or ninety million dollars to put this
thing on.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And the ticket revenue, the ticket's like sixty or seventy
bucks a ticket, So it's like two hundred thousand people come.
It's like, you know, it's like fifteen million bucks in
ticket revenue. But we do it because it's just a
great thing to work your ass off, because fans that
come through, they love fanatics when they leave. And I
remember last year I had a guy in his nineties
grabbed me. He's like, mister Ruben. By the way, the
(12:39):
only thing I don't like is being called mister Ruben.
Makes me feel old. So I'm always like Michael, you know,
Rube whatever, anything about mister Rubin. He's like, I just
want to tell you, this has been the greatest weeknd
of my life. I'm here with my son, my grandson,
my great grandson. And he said the moment we've had
that we've been here all all three days of this
and he had like tears coming out of his eyes,
and it made me almost tear up just seeing. You
know how much joy you brought that's beloved.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Now you talked about sports betting. I want to go
back to sports betting.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Do you feel like sports betting hurt the league in
sports a little bit?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
No, because it was happening one hundred percent, as we
all know, illegally. So by taking something that has happened
illegally and making it legal and giving it the regulation,
I think it made it much safer for consumers. And
by being regulated. I think a lot of things that
were going wrong, those things are being worked out of
the system. So like people talk about, like you know,
(13:30):
the things where players have made mistakes, people have done
things they shouldn't have done. That stuff has happened before,
you just didn't have the systems in place to catch it.
Now it's happening far less because of the systems that
are in place. So I think of regularly, like to me,
sports betting gambling is a century old business, you know,
I mean, did you bet before you had legalized sports betting?
(13:53):
Did you bet before you have legalized sports? Better? Listen everything,
because I just felt like I knew me bad. You
don't do it anywhere right by? Sports band is ninety
percent male? In fairness, do you guyspect before?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
No funny it was?
Speaker 6 (14:13):
It was funny over Michael, You don't have to be
every once in a while.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I tried, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I doubt you do. Try to be inclusive, right, yeah,
so shut it, let's go. But it is it's not
like like the casino part of our businesses. You know,
fifty to fifty male to female sports bands like ninety
two percent male dress and all this business that you.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
Do all these big names, Like I just every time
we talk to you, I feel your excitement for what
you do. How do you said it's getting fun down
but it's not because it wasn't fun before. How do
you keep your work so like passion field and like
like it it grows so big, But you're like a
kid at the candy store right now.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
I agree with that, and I'll say to you something
that I could say. It will be offensive, but I
really believe is if you don't love what you do,
you shouldn't do it. Now. I know what everyone's to say, it's, oh, well,
it's easy. It's easy for Michael Ruben to say that, Okay,
But I like, look, you only have so many days
on this planet, and like, I love so much what
(15:13):
I'm doing. I love the great parts about what I do,
and I love the challenges that I learn from when
I grow from. And so that's what makes me so
passionate to the question you just asked me. Like, I
wake up every so I go to bed. You know,
on a normal day, I'll go to bed eleven o'clock,
eleven thirty. I wake up within three hours, and like
I want to go to work, so bad. But then
I know it's so unhealthy. It only sleep three hours
(15:35):
and night, so I try to get like another two
to three hours sleep and I wake up and I
jump out of bed because I'm excited to see all
the action that I missed in the five and a
half hours I didn't look at my phone, and you know,
and I love building it so to me, like I'm
learning every day, I'm growing every day. I have so
many great people around me, you know, like, look, by
the way, think about this. We're in the middle of
(15:55):
the World Cup, I have an access coming up next week,
just finished with the White Party. It's like it's almost
like we were just saying I was joking, which I think.
I need to turn my phone off for like a
couple of weeks in August, just to try to give
my brain a little bit of a detox. Is there
a point where the growth becomes enough? Like Lauren, it like,
(16:18):
let me ask you a question. If you were number one,
if your show was the number one show in the
world of anything above anything, not just against your core metrics,
against everybody in the world. Okay, you still say that sucks.
It's not good enough, right, And so I'm never satisfied.
I'm never happy. And when I go through Fanatics Fest,
no matter how great it is, I'm gonna look at
(16:39):
what all the things I see that aren't right. I
remember doing a walk through the White Party three hours before.
I was pointing out like fifty things that bothered me. Okay,
because I have that attention to detail. It's just the
brain I was born with. And so I don't think
you should ever be satisfied. I don't think you know
how good you are. Do you think Tom Brady was
satisfied with seven Super Bowls? He only talks about the
(17:00):
three heatd win. Okay, it's not talking about the you know,
he's not talking about the ones that you know he
wanted somebody. You know, I can't believe what happened against
the giants. I can't believe what happens here. That's the mentality,
and so that's the winner's mentality. So no, we should
never be satisfied.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
I was gonna ask you from there, you know, what
does your family say? Because you work so much, you're
always moving, you got daughters, your wife, So how does
your family feel about the work you put in?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
They accept that. It's what they would say is my
one screwed up part of my personality. But they also
know what they were born into or signed up with,
and you know it is. You know, even yesterday it
was my daughter's sixth birthday and we took her a
split splash in in in Long Island and by which
was amazing. And you know, every time I come down
(17:44):
the water slide, I want to look at my phone,
see what I missed, see what's going on. And my
excuse is, I said, you know to my wife, I'm like, baby,
it's like finax Fast is seven days away from me.
As she's like Michael, She's basically shut the fuck up.
There's always an excuse, like like stop talking, you telling
me about finax Fast. It was last week was White
Party and as World Cup this finags Fast and would
be than Azibus. There's always something she's right, but that's
(18:05):
it's just who I am. And I think hopefully my
kids will learn from me really good work at it
because they're around me all the time. And even if
they see me working and hustling, like hopefully, I'm you know,
showing them like you know, hard work does pay off,
and they see how much I love it, they see
how into it I am, and at least you're there,
(18:25):
You're right there. I am there, and sometimes look, you
can be physically there and not mentally there. And that's
probably my weakness, but you know, I try to get
the best balance I can, and I do. I am.
Actually I have developed one new habit in the last year. Well,
I'll put my phone down for like a half an
hour hour a day that I'm awake and just say like, okay,
whether it's a twenty minute dinner with the kids or
(18:48):
something else, we're just like, it doesn't matter who calls,
there's always going to be some emergency. There's always going
to be something, So like just put it down.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
If you ever showed up to one of those places
and the service was bad or somebody was rude and
you was like, you know, you threaten to buy it
and fire a.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Person, no, never, because you know what, somebody who would
do that, it's a bad person, you know. One of
the things I love to see is how people treat
the people that I work with every day, not me,
because somehow and I always say, like I'll say, like, obabe,
that person's great, Like yeah, everyone treats you well, Like
don't pay attention to how they treat you. Pay attention
to how do they treat the lowest person at your
(19:19):
company's coming coming up? And by I'll tell you without
telling you who it was. I remember being with Robert
Kraft at a guy we were both friendly with, and
I saw how he treated somebody. I never spoke to
the person again, okay, because I saw them to treat
their staff in a way that made me really uncomfortable.
And so you know, to me, those are the things
(19:40):
you learned. So no, I try to be like when
I'm going through that park, I'm being nice to everybody.
I'm thanking everyone because that's I'm lucky to be here.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Always.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
If you want to see somebody's true character, watch how
they treat people that can't do anything for them.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Right, So your true characters, You're gonna beat me a
few more times, so I love you. It's too bigy
things to say. Whether I could say something like would
I treat somebody? Would I treat somebody? Really, you're ditty opening,
I got it. I just want you to know, okay,
I expect that if you're to come in me with that,
I'd be disappoorted. I'd be like, yo, Charlott mane is
losing his He's losing his edge.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
When it comes to billionaires, when people say billionaires shouldn't exist,
do you take that personally?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I don't, but I think there's a problem with that, right.
The American Dream is incredible. Like I don't think I
get why people can be jealous envious. But here's the
way I look at it. Like when I was a kid,
my idol was Phil Knight. It wasn't an athlete. It
was Phil Knight, Okay, the founder of Nike, and I
(20:39):
idolized him because I was always a business person from
the time I was a young kid, and like I
always like, I was always an entrepreneur. That's it's what
I always want to do.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
It.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Like I knew I'd never be a good athlete. I
knew I'd never be a good student, but I loved business.
And so you know, to me, when someone says like
kill the American Dream, like you like, don't you want
to have the dream? Hey? If I'm your guys, like,
how do I take the show? How do I turn
it into its own business? How do I monetize better?
How do I make it worth I'll be like I
(21:07):
don't want you guys to not treat I want you
guys to dream for the biggest thing you can possibly
dream for. And so I don't like people saying, hey,
like kind of kill the American dream. That said it
doesn't bother me because I understand like people can look
at say, hey, Michael's fortune, he's lucky, he's whatever. Does
it truly doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers
(21:28):
me is when people tell me things I think they're
right about. Then I want to turn that into action
and fixing it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I guess for me, it's not about It's not about
the killing of the American dream. I just feel like
sometimes people want to put a cap on it that
kind of feels strange, Like I can create something and
make a shitload of money on it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Who's faulted it?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah? And by the way, look at whether you like
Elon Musk, don't like Elon Musk, like Jeff Bezos, don't
like Jeff Bezos, like Mark Zuckenberger or not like those
are aspirational stories. I mean, look how freaking by the way,
I don't even really know Elon Musk. Look at look
at the different things he's built from, you know, SpaceX
to Tesla, and you're like, you have to respect the brain,
you have to respect the drive, Like why do I
(22:06):
want to put a cap on that? So I want
everyone in the world to say anything as possible, and
I can do whatever I set my mind to, and
I don't like putting caps on that. That said, the
influence elections, and by the way, you know me well
enough to I stay out of I hate politics, you
know why, because it divides people. And I run a
consumer company, okay, And the second we talk about politics,
(22:28):
half the people hate you. Yeah, okay, So I just
try to avoid politics at all costs. It's not good.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
You do a lot of charity.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I do so many things behind the most of it's
behind the scenes, and I enjoy it. And some of
the things, look, you guys all know because it's how
we all first met. Like the Reform Allignes that we
started because of Meek with Jay and Meek and Robert
Kraft has like been work that I love doing and
we've made a huge impact with and the work we
do with Make a Wish, which I always say anyone,
By the way, there are a lot of people that
(22:55):
hate on the reform A lines like oh, you know,
you're getting criminals like they don't even understand what they
they just want to hate on it. Okay, make a wish,
which is the biggest partnership. We have a Fanatics where
we take every sports wish we help make better for
the for the kids. Okay, So anyone that's got a
wish in sports Fanatics, it's kind of part of making
it happen. If you don't like make a wish, you're
(23:16):
a bad human being. Okay, I'll just say it right now.
If someone wants to hate on make a Wish, they're
literally a bad human But we love, we love doing
charity work. Like it's again, if you take the perspective,
and I think you guys probably do that we're all
lucky to be here. Then there's our responsibility to give
back and make a difference.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Do you think charity sometimes becomes a substitute for fixing
broke broken systems like the actual systems being broken?
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Well, I think the government is a really inefficient, you know,
way of doing things, but it's just the way the
world works. Like do I believe when we started the
Reform Alliance, and I remember someone said to me, Hey, Michael,
you should have a goal of how many people you
get out of probation and parole. And I said, what
do you think it's a good number? And this person
who I'm not going to, who I love, not like
(24:01):
it's a very important person in this world. They said,
you should have a goal of ten thousand people. I'm like, huh.
I'm like, there's four and a half million people on
probation and parole. I think probably like a million or
two million people should be on probation and parol, so
it should be like two to three million less people.
They said, well, you won't miss the goal of ten thousand.
I'm like, that's fucking bullshit. It sucks. I'm like, I
(24:22):
have my goal. They're like, what are you going to do?
I'm like a million people, Like you might miss the goal.
I'm like, screw that. Like, I want to make a
big goal. If you go after the big number, what's
the worst that happens. You said I want to get
a million, you get seven hundred thousand, right, that's seven
yes what the person would have said. So that goes
to the mentality of like taking entrepreneurialism against like a
government issue. Right, probation and parl is broken because of
(24:45):
the government we created, created the reform a lines because
of what happened to me. Remember Meek was on probation
for eleven years at the time this happened, or ten
years at the time this happened, and he had another
like ten years left. Okay. None of us could be
on probation for twenty years. Okay, and follow the rules
of probation. But that get by the way. Remember you
(25:06):
can't be in contact with a felon on probation. How
many people that on probation naturally would be in contact
with it. It's just a natural thing, okay. And so like,
I think it's great to bring entrepreneurialism to fixing government problems.
And I think you know, the two kind of you know,
kind of you know, offset each other.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
If your money disappeared tomorrow, what impact would you still
be proud of?
Speaker 1 (25:28):
So let me say one thing. First of all, I
asked people this question all the time. It's amazing how
divided an answer I get. More that disagree with me.
So I say all the time, I would give up everything.
I had to be ten years younger everything.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Wow, you got a lot of energy.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I mean, in one second, what for sure, you get me.
He's always gone for it. I thought that was your issue,
by the way, not mine. So yeah, so I just
the way I look at it. First of all, I
(26:07):
love the grind. I love the hustle. I believe if
I started over tomorrow, morney would If I start tomorrow
morning with nothing, it would be fun going through the trials,
the tribulations. What ideas I came with, How I built
to be ten years younger? Oh my god, I would
do it. One second. I asked people who are really
well off this question all the time. Most people disagree
with me. They're like, nah, I won't do that. I'm like,
you got no fight. He then like, I love the fight.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
You want to be younger to start over against so
you got to go through the work to get the
where you're adding.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I'm fifty three. If I could be forty three, fuck yeah,
I'm in take everything.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Like Robert Craft still be ninety if he was young.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
No, maybe he'd be seventy five, would be seventy five.
I'm I'm gonna tell you. I'll tell you a great
story between Robert and I. So I'm like a very
happy person. It's just like I know I'm lucky. I
wake up with good energy.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
That is evident. I'm not even joking.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, So on my fiftieth we took a w I
walk with Robert all the time. It's like he's like
brother father to me. And so we walk, you know,
I don't know, twenty thirty days a year we take
you know, like three four mile walks. It's a nice
thing to do together. So we're gonna walk on my
fiftieth birthday. He said to me, Michael, you see m
Off today. I said, I am. He said why. I said, honestly, like,
(27:18):
I'm like, it's kind of depressing to turn fifty today.
He's like why. He's like, He's like, I don't know.
My life's I feel like my life's more than half over.
Like and I always thought of myself as a kid.
And he says something to me. He said, Michael, every
decade for me has been better than the last decade.
He said, My thirties are better than my twenties, forties,
better than thirties, you know, sixties, better than the fifties,
(27:39):
seventies better than the sixties, eighties, better than seventies. And
I'll tell you what that's been true for me. But
still like getting older. There's nothing I like about it. Yeah, yeah,
it does scare me a little bit, Like I like
to I like to be on this earth healthy for
as long as possible. So yes to say, I would
give up everything I had everything right now to start over.
(28:01):
And by the way, I would love every minute of
the journey. Okay, it would be so fun to me
to see how my life is different. What did I do?
What did I build? You know?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
He said, the only thing worse than getting old is
not getting old. That's what I feel that way.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
When after you guys like Robert Craft or any older elder,
I'm like, that's the goal.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, I want to be as I want to live
as long as possible.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I agree, And you start saying we all know this.
As we get older, you see different people you know
that aren't with us anymore because you know, you know,
some health issue or something, and make sure you just
like I take my health so much more seriously now
than I did three years ago, Like I actually manage
my health like I managed work.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
What was what was your that one business decision that
you regret, if there's any.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It's a great question. One business decision that I regret
I used to think it was not being all in
on like you know, buying all of the Sixers when
I was involved with the Sixers, or buying a football
team earlier. And then I realized that the opportuity guy
with fanatics is so much bigger than that. So I
think it was that at one point, it's not now.
(29:04):
I'm gonna tell you this, like, there's lots of things
I screw up, but I don't have any regrets, Like
why don't I want to have regrets regrets? So like,
I learned from my mistakes, but I'm not gonna have regrets.
I really don't.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
Seventy six's question, does Lebron come in to seventy sixes?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I don't know that answer.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
Do you want to see him in the seventy sixes?
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I would love to see it. I mean, I think
Lebron is still you know, top top top NBA star,
I think culturally. Yet you know, there's one thing I've
seen and I didn't understand this even ten years ago.
There were so many people that are so gifted athletically,
some of the best athletes in the world, they don't
(29:43):
have the heart. Okay, if you took my heart and
certain athletes' skills. I feel like you'd win the championship
every year. Lebron has both, and so like I've never like, Look,
I'm fortunate enough to have spent so much time with Brady,
and you see why he won seven Super Bowls, Like
right now for the Fanatics Games next week at Finags Fest,
(30:05):
I don't know if you guys fully understand it. So
we take fifty athletes, celebrities, artist against fifty average Joe fans,
So one hundred people competing for a million dollar first prize,
a FRI's worth like a half million dollars second prize,
and a quarter million dollar trading card is the third prize.
And it's like eight different athletic competitions like how hard
can you punch the UFC bag your ww walkout, kicking
(30:27):
a field goal, pitching in baseball, basketball, three point shooting competition.
And Brady won it last year, and the shit he's
been talking about how he's gonna win it this year.
He can't wait to compete. He's literally in people's head
that are like some of the best athletes in the world. Okay,
like Djokovic is doing this year, Kat's doing it this year,
(30:49):
like it's just so many you know, great athletes doing this,
and I hear him just he's mentally messing with people
to make sure he has every edge of cat and
he's serious, like he's like, I'm winning first prize, I'm winning,
I'm winning again. He doesn't care about the money. He
cares about winning because he's like, I want that championship.
I want him in the Finas Games two years in
a row. I love that drive. So when I look
at Bron, I look at a guy who every time
(31:10):
I've been fortunate enough to spend time with him, I
see why he is who he is, and he is
driven at a way like so few people, so few
athletes or I think less than one percent of the
athletes in the world have that kind of mentality. So yes, absolutely,
you see that.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Do you see that same mentality in people outside of athletics,
and if so, who.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, I do. And the way I learn, as I've said,
is I learned this is the great thing by bringing
people from different backgrounds together. You learn from different people
around you. You know, Look, take Desire Press. We both
know Deaz she's a killer. Okay, she's gonna win or
whatever she does. She's gonna win whatever she does. Okay,
(31:53):
she's just got that. Man. By the way, we have
a competition who's working harder, like this shit that's talked
between Like meantime Brady, who's up first in the morning.
You know he'll hit me four thirty Why are you sleeping?
Why are you sleeping? A four forty five? It was
really she just gets we sleeping at bets at this
point she said that that that ship missality. She says,
she looks at me. She needs her eight hours of
(32:14):
sleep every night. She's not walting me near her in bed.
She's got her nose strips, her ear plugs, her her
full black out chase, that bombia noise everything. I'm just like,
let me get back to work as quickly as possible.
But like so I learned from everyone around me, and
that's how that's how I grow and learn.
Speaker 5 (32:31):
If you haven't mentioned it yet, what is one of
the most exciting activations that you're looking forward to people experiencing.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
This year for Fanatics Fest, I'll say the thing that
humbles me the most is how much time and effort
the biggest stars that I'll put in there. So like
last year Lebron came for the first time, okay, and
he did two big things. He looked at me, he said, Rube, like,
this is incredible, okay. And by the way, we're in
(32:57):
the forty forty in the middle of you know, because
we we do the forty forty pop up in the
middle of Fanatics Fest. He's like, look at the great
time everyone's having in the middle of the sports festival.
And then this year's coming back. He's doing like twice
the amount of things for fans, and like Djokovic is
coming for the first time. He texted me last night
He's like, I can't wait, you know, to be with
all these incredible athletes, to be with my biggest fans,
(33:19):
Like to just watch what jay Z does there with
Travis Scott who just like no matter what, he's always
find somebody to out do himself there each year. Like
I just love the way people show up for their fans.
So for me, I think the number one thing, there's
two things I'm super excited for. Number one is like
the Knicks, baby, Like, I mean, fifty three years they
won the championship. We have so many different Nix things,
(33:41):
we have the entire you know, we have you know,
have the starting five come together, and I know they're
going to walk through with the trophy through all fanatics
fest before they go on stage, okay after they come
on stage. Not sure which way it is, but that's
gonna be insane. And just seeing all the Knicks fans
just how much like I watched so many people cry
when they won because they were just so much to them.
And then to see the World Cup press conference, you know,
(34:04):
to see the two teams that are remaining, the team
captains at f and as Fest, like those two things
I'm so exciting for. But I just looked at my schedule,
so I'm programmed out every fifteen minutes from like seven
am to eleven pm, you know, starty and by it's
that we're doing the spis. Came to New York to
kind of, you know, be part of the whole sports
week that we're creating, you know in New York around
(34:24):
for ax Fest. So that's Wednesday night and then I'll
be there by seven am, you know, Thursday morning show
opens at one to the public nine to for a
private group of people, and I'll be their first day
and last out every day. And I love doing that.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Would you do for your birthday.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You know, this year is the first time I've ever
done this for my birthday. So the last couple of years,
I just Camil and I just like literally do a
dinner by ourselves. But I actually scheduled myself with nothing
on my birthday this year. I'm just like, you know what, nothing.
I mean, I'll still do stuff all day, but it's
just like, I just want to not have a schedule
this year. You normally I have like fifteen hours of meeting. Yeah, yeah, birthday,
it's twenty nine knife, let's go baby. Yeah. People, I
(35:06):
definitely like I listen my billionaire with empathy. Look, I
think I'll say this. I think a lot of people
that have becoming I hear this all the time. A
lot of people have become really successful. They're not relatable.
You can't like, I mean, billionaires you bring on, You're like,
oh you are. You won't bring them on because you
know they wouldn't be like an interesting conversation. Like that's
what makes me made. There's a lot of things that
(35:28):
suck about me. Right, I can barely read, you know, barely.
The only language I barely speak is English. But like,
you know, like, look, I do have like I have
you know. I think that's what makes movies. I do
have you know a real heart, and I love it.
And I think there are a lot of good billionaires
in this world. There are also a lot of painful
billionaires in this world.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
We've got a couple more questions. I haven't gotten you
in trouble yet, but keep trying.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
It doesn't. It doesn't when we have so far we
have the our talent dysfunction we have.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
This year, I didn't see some hugs from the back
this year.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Stop that. Well, first of all, I just want to
say one thing. I've hugged many of people drunk every
which way front back and don't give a ship. But
I would say, after that happens, definitely made more sense
if to not have a picture like that go out,
I will hug you from the back anytime. About that,
(36:24):
I'm looking at like Holland's Instagram and like he was
just an ice bath. I actually thought about you guys
yesterday because I saw Holland obviously the star of Norry is, like,
you know, one of the most incredible soccer we call
football players in the world. Was that? Why do you
think about that? Was there an ice? He was in
an ice bath with one of his teammates. It was
like a little ice band. I'm like, oh god, the ship.
You guys would be talking. I can't take an ice
(36:45):
bath together.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
Would do a lot.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Why would anybody take an ice bath together?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Because the athletes could have fun and make a joke
and take a picture of people. I don't think they
were really taking ice band together.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I thought it was a joke.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I will hug you from behind. Still you brought up.
I don't like it by the way he does. He
tries to act like it bothers him, but it doesn't.
We're making hugging comfortable. Twenty twenty six. We can have fun.
We can hug, okay, from the front, hug from the back.
There's nothing suspect about it.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
The thing I do respect about you.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Know what suspect thinking you can't hug.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I can hug a hug right now.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Let's go baby from the back. But if I ever
seen you when I've had like ten drinks, I'm jumping
on your back. Just definitely jump on his back. Here's
gonna be probably he's gonna post backcas like I'm too old.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Now you put my when I go back to see
this why they call you the new Diddy.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
You do.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Know, but different thing I respect about you. Know you
are one of the few billionaires I believe who's really
embraced black culture instead of just profiting from it. Because
you've putting a lot of money in a lot of
black people's pocket, right, But what's the responsibilit that.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
Comes with it.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Look, I don't look at it is black culture, not
black culture. I think they're just doing the right thing.
Here's my real mentality. I am fortunate and lucky, and
I want everyone to do great around me. I think
a lot of people I know this from a lot
of really well off white billionaires who they're actually not
trying to help the other. People like I grew up
(38:24):
with Robert Craft, Jonathan Craft, are always trying to help me. Okay.
I got a lot of people that helped me to
be where I am, So I want to help everybody
that I can. Okay, And we have lots of friends
in like real friends in common where I've like gotten
to war for friends, I helped them. I'm big transformative
things in their life, and they would do the same
thing for me. I don't care white, black, purple, It
doesn't matter. It just to me, it's just like, do
(38:47):
you have a mentality if you want everyone to do
great around you? I want everyone to do great. I
want all of us to grow together, of us to
push each other up.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
I've told us one time, he said, and if you
will see Robert Craft, I hate when I help people
from othermmunities to get money and they don't help their communities.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah. I actually remember hearing that. And look what I
would say, is I really have the mentality. I just
want everyone to do well. And I think if you
if you have that mentality, it's great karma, good shit happens.
And so I think I never like I didn't try to,
you know, start the Reform Alliance. Like I watched something
horrible happened to Meek that was wrong and said, okay,
(39:26):
we like I'm an entrepreneur, it's my responsibility that we've
got to go start something to fix this. And I
didn't even think about it, just did it, okay. And
that's when myself and Jay and Me and Robert Craft,
the whole group came together. But we've impacted like more
than a million people that would be on provision protay
that aren't. But it wasn't like some strategic decision. And look,
if you look at say, I don't know what what
(39:49):
percent of America's black, twelve percent? Right, So that that's
our business. It's not like more more or less like
we have a very I mean, our business is anyone
who's a sports fan. So like I'm not like to me,
I just want to always help where I and help
and then be comfortable to ask people like you know,
for questions and where I can learn from the man
I've learned from jay Z, the man I've learned from
(40:10):
Travis Scott, just by listening to them, by watching them.
It's like that helps me learn and be better. I'm
fortunate to be in that position you.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Talked about the last time you was here when we
talked about the black on black hate and you got
a lot of pushback for that. You posted apology. You
said you got a phone call for one of the
people that you have the most respect for in the world,
and they told you that they appreciated your intention behind
the comments, but it wasn't your place to speak on
black culture. And you get it, and you really appreciate
the input. What was the learning, like, what did you
learn next?
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, It was a good learning because I'm just like
such a transparent person. I say what'sever on my mind,
which is why I generally am a great and interview
for this guy when he's trying to get me in trouble,
you know, because I speak my mind. I think the
learning there was if you have the mentality you just
want everyone to do great, and by me. So many
(40:56):
people were also sending me notes saying you don't apologize,
you are right, including I think one of you guys
might have I can't remember who one of you guys
hit me right, like, like, look, I was well intended,
and what I was just trying to say is like
I want everyone to do great. I don't want anyone
to hate on anybody. But I get when it's not
you know, you know the world you're from, people can
(41:18):
say like it's not your place to speak, and that's
a very logical, you know, input to give to me.
And so sometimes you just need to as you get bigger, right,
people are going to pick apart everything you said. Everything okay,
and so you just need to be a little more
careful of just not like just speaking so quick, off
off off the cuff, even if it hurts an interview
that he does doesn't matter. You guys know who called me.
(41:40):
I know who calls you, right, I'm not saying I'm
not saying it was I got nothing. I got nothing
to say.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
How many celebrities call you when they can't get into
the party. How many calls do you get when you
don't send an in that look?
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I will tell you the thing I love about the
White Party is bringing so many great people together and
the great things that come from it and the fun
that people have. By the way, it's a twelve hour party,
Like we have fun and we're allowed to have fun.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
There's no twelve hour party.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Yeah, I know your different shifts. Yeah, there's four parts
of the party. Five thirty we do like five thirty
to eight thirty cock the White Party five thirty to
eight thirty. It used to be five thirty eight thirty.
There's cocktails and it's really like kind of more like
business running. Everyone's just kind of having conversations and people
finding things they can do with each other. Network eight.
(42:32):
Everyone's not old and tired like you. We have good energy. Yeah,
eight thirty to ten o'clock we do dinner. This year
we had the USA game I ever once the USA game.
Then we go to my roof, okay, ten o'clock and
we had by the way, it was Alicia Keys did
New York, New York to the fireworks. It was she
wasn't good or great, she was spectacular, okay, j Yeah,
(42:53):
but he was great, snoop, he was brief. He was great.
Then we go to the club like twelve thirty and
you know, Carti was in the club, Nelly was in
the club performing. I mean, Wayne was in the club,
and they were just all so good. So it's just
like it's different shifts and it's like one time people
and but average person is probably there eight nine, ten
hours and so you know, to me, it's just like
(43:14):
it's good fun. So we are allowed to have fun
in twenty twenty six, we're bringing fun back.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
It's okay.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
Yeah, So how many celebrities sit you that were mad
that they didn't get invited.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
That's quit a fair amount. But here's at this point,
I'm really bringing people that I'm friends with, people that like,
we have real relationships with. It's so that's ninety five
percent of people there. So that's what I don't like
about the party is the people's feelings that your because
remember can only it's my roof has a three hundred
and there's like three hundred and seventy five people. That's it. Okay,
(43:42):
so we're not people think they look at the part
of the home that must be thousands people. That's three
hundred and seventy five people. So the thing I hate
about the party is all the people you upset with people,
so many people you're friends with, they're like, hey, I
love you. It's just like I have someone I need
to call today who's really important to me. Okay, who
literally called somebody at work with and say they were
in their feelings that they didn't get invited because they're
a real friend of mine. And the thing is, I
(44:03):
love this person, Okay, I love this person's family. But
it just was there were like hundreds of people like
that that we couldn't invite. And that's the difficult thing
about doing the part.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
How do you do with the and the plus ones
because everybody comes with somebody.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I know, we don't do plus ones. Oh I love that. Yeah,
we don't do plus ones. And most you know, there
could be of everyone there there might have been ten
or twenty people that weren't specifically invited, and then we
go through and figure out who it is, and we
try to also avoid conflicts and bullshit. People sneak in
No zero chance, yeah, zero chance. I've had like ten
(44:35):
people tell me they were just try to sneak in.
And we have more than one hundred security surrounding the house.
I mean there's there's I mean there's all kinds of
detections and they surround the house pretty well.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (44:46):
No plus one, you better meet somebody in this motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
But everyone, but everyone knows each other too, Like so
many people are friends with each other. It's you know,
it's it's my house. I want people that were all
comfortable with that, we all like each other, that we're
all gonna have fun with.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
And then it's every year, so like if you don't
get invited this year, is it possible that you get
invited next year or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
It's kind of you're kind of like, look, we start
the list of scratch each year and we kind of
look at like, you know, where are the relationships, Who's
important to me, Who's you know, it's and it's it's
a fun thing to do because everything's not forever. And
so there's certain people that you know by the way,
certain people have not acted well and they couldn't handle
a call for eight hours or ten hours, you know,
(45:25):
peacefully not invite them back. Some people get tired and
like you know, they'd be asleep after three hours, like
this guy, and so you just know he woon't make
a good showing. So you couldn't have them right this.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
This is my last question because I do like the
way you handle your power right or the way you
use your power. What's the biggest misconception people have about power?
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Well, I think the biggest misperception would be you should
use it and leverage it, because I think that's I
think if you have it, you don't need to leverage
it or use it. So for me, if you most
people have power, or really fortunate people, I think they
should not use it and not leverage it and that
makes them a better human being. Is the thing we
(46:05):
talked about seeing how people act, you know, when they
don't think this cameras around, when they don't know that
people are paying attention to how they are. Like I'll
tell you something. I'm gonna tell you something. I'll tell
you a story about something you guys probably all love.
Someone I've just really got to know in the last
year or two is Cat. Okay. I said something to
him basketball player Karl Anthony town Is Carl. One of
(46:32):
the things I get to see is how some of
the biggest stars in the world, how they treat people
around them, how they treat the everyday fan. And he
and Jordan stayed at my house over White Party weekend,
and we went out to two or three meals. I
never go out, by the way, I don't know how
he ended up. My boy Will is always like I
(46:53):
don't know, he like kind of makes a social plan.
So we went out to two or three meals and restaurants.
First thing was, in everything I've ever seen, I've never
seen restaurants just stop with the entire restaurant applauds. Okay,
he's so sweet to see. But then I actually saw
hundreds of people, one by one coming up to him
and saying, hey, can I grab a picture? And he
(47:13):
was generally so nice and sweet and he wasn't putting
my shirt. That's who he is, okay, And that means
more to me than anybody. But I also learned from them,
like man, well that guy's thousands of times more known
than I am. Okay, if he treats every single person
like that, you learn from that, you say, well you
should act that way. There are other people I won't name.
I'm like, they're a prick, Okay, Like I don't like that,
(47:35):
Like just like be nice.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
There's a lot more pricks than cats.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
And Cat. I agree with that.
Speaker 6 (47:40):
I've seen Cat do it myself too. What we were
at a mall and he had a basketball camp and
middle of the mall his day.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
He didn't have no securities with his dad people, and
he took and he not even just take pictures, would
talk to the kids. They would ask him questions and
he sat there that whole time and did the whole thing.
Speaker 6 (47:56):
And I was so shocked, with so surprised. Oh yeah,
so salute the cat.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We even had. This was one of the crazy things
I've ever seen. So we were at Biblica for lunch,
I don't know, maybe the day after the White Party,
two days after the White Party, and there were two
kids six and eight years old, and it was my
boy Will sitting, then me, then Carl, then Jordan, and
(48:20):
then Will's wife Joe. Two kids literally started crawling on
top of didn't even have just crawl on top of
will then me to get to him, Like he's in
the middle of a booth, so you can't get to him.
Crawt on top was I was like, Okay, they didn't
like the mom's laughing while she's taking a video.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
I'm like, if this were my kid, I would literally
like this would be a learning moment of all learning moments,
and the mom need the learning moment who allowed her
kids to do this? But he was like so gracious
about it, like they but the kid's footprints were all
my white pants, okay. And I'm like, you're just like,
you know what. You go back to watching how gracious
he is with I saw some dude one hundreds of
(49:02):
he said yes to everybody, never got annoyed once, talk
to everybody. You're like, that's a good human being. So
going back to the question of how do you use
how do you how do you leverage or use your
power by doing the right thing, by being a good
human being, and by way we can all learn from
each other. We can all be better every day too.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (49:18):
Mike Lady Michael July sixteenth through the nineteenth The Javid Senate.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Now people always ask they feel like when they get
inside everything is free, but if they want autographs, they
gotta wait on lines. They got to buy a jersey,
So break that down because IVE seen a lot of
people complaining about that last year.
Speaker 6 (49:33):
You getdn't No.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, So first of all, fanatics fest. We want to
make the prices so accessible for fans. So having a
sixty seventy hour ticket, there's not more value for anything
like this than you could ever do. I would challenge say,
give me where you get more value for sixty or
seventy dollars. You know, it is incredible value, and we
do it that way because it's give back to fans.
There are many by way people camp out. I'm sure
(49:55):
there are tens of thousands of pictures that are taken
by chance. You know, cat walks by and somebody asks
him for a picture of Brady. Does I see that
happen because people that are around me I always pay attention
at all. But yes, if you want to do a
pre order picture autograph, yes, those cost money and there's
tens of thousands of people that do that. But there's
so many things that you also fall into and all
(50:16):
the experiences from the leagues. You want to do ww walkout,
a field goal kicking thing at the NFL, or a
pitching competition at baseball. All that stuff is included. The
only thing that's incremental is if you want to buy
trading cards or merchandise, or if you want to buy
and order in advance a picture or an autograph, which
are very valuable with listen, that's where you go by
like people say, Okay, you know, oh, the Knicks pictures
(50:39):
are expensive. Well, the Knicks players get paid. Okay, these
are organized pictures and autographs. They should get paid for that,
and they keep most of the money that the stuff
doesn't bother I mean, that's where you look online and say, Okay,
they're right or wrong. In this case, they're not right.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
You've got ESPN going live with First Take in Sports.
Then on the seventeenth, this is very interesting Lebron and
Tyreus Halliburton on Mine the Game, which is Braun's podcast,
but also Lebron in a joke on the shop.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
With New Holes.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Lebron hasn't spoken at all during this whole fre agency period.
One that's gonna be his first time speaking.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Will he already have made his mind up or will
he make his mind up there?
Speaker 1 (51:12):
I want to say, well, you can only pray and
hope for things papping after KD got traded to Houston
on stage last year, let's go baby. Bron needs to
decide what he's gonna do with that next Thursday or Friday.
That's what we're looking for. If you asked me the
moment I'm most excited about, it's Lebron to decide what
team he wants to go to and announce that for
a fest. Probably not happening, but let's have good karme,
(51:32):
good energy. You never know, let's manifest to happen. Well,
it's Michael Rubin.
Speaker 6 (51:36):
It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
Always love being with you guys.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
Thank you every day a week.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Click yours up.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
The Breakfast Club you don't finish for y'all done it
The Breakfast Club News
Hosts And Creators
Charlamagne Tha God
DJ Envy
Jess Hilarious
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.