So Alex, back in September,
we talked with Mark Shapiro and it was a massive day. I have to say it was funny too, because he came in hot,
he came in buzzing, and you know, understandably, he had been at the New York Stock Exchange that day ringing the bell
for TKO, a brand new company. So WWE and UFC coming together. These are two of the
biggest brands in sports and entertainment. And I think that's a notable element here, because not only is he
the president of TKO, he's the president of Endeavor. This, in a lifetime of deals, this could have been one of his biggest. It may maybe the biggest and as far as impact, I
mean, think about this, it is like putting the
NBA and NFL together. Yeah.
And something that a lot of people didn't think could be done. They did the, the art of
the impossible. They did. Right. So one of the best things, Alex, about catching Mark on this
day was this was the first time he could really talk about all the nuances and all the inside politics of this deal. And the characters are unbelievable. Ari Emanuel, of course, the CEO and founder of Endeavor,
Mark's partner, he talks about how he first met Ari. That's a great story. But he
also talks about how these, and you alluded to this, seemingly never coming together, people came together. Vince McMahon, Dana White, combining their companies
into this entertainment sports behemoth. Yeah. Jason, when you
think about the personalities that you just mentioned, it
just tells you a little bit of Mark Shapiro's superpowers. Which is getting a lot
of healthy egos into a room that have strong views. And somehow he got 'em all
to play with the same Jersey And also Mark Shapiro himself. I mean, this is a guy who, you know, has his fingerprints all over what we know as modern sports media
when it comes to ESPN. He headed programming
there. Media is upside down. It's never been more disrupted, probably since the
invention of the television. He's got some key decisions to make. You know, he's clearly one
of the chief architects here. I call him a five-tool player in business. And what that means is he
can do it all and then some. And if you think about if any of these commissioners spots ever come up, I guarantee you Mark Shapiro
will be in everyone's top three list. Since we talked with Mark Shapiro, the private equity firm,
Silver Lake revealed plans to take Endeavor private for $13 billion. Additionally, a former employee sued WWE and Vince McMahon alleging
abuse, sexual trafficking, sexual assault, and negligence. McMahon, who has since resigned from WWE and TKO, denied the
allegations. In a statement, TKO
said the matter predates its executive team's tenure at the company, that it
takes the lawsuit's "horrific allegations very seriously" and is addressing the matter internally. Alright, Mark Shapiro, huge
day. You're here with us. How are you feeling right now? What, what does it feel
like to close this deal? Blur. It's just a blur. I mean, it's, you know, a
long journey to get here. But in the space of what, two and a half years we've
launched two public companies, rang the bell twice, the
New York Stock Exchange. You know, usually you don't do
that even once in your life, let alone in this short span. So you'd like to take a little time to smell the roses and enjoy it. Alright, so take us
back on, on this deal. Like, I think we can agree
the audacity of this deal, because I, I think it's fair to say like this was a marriage that like made sense. But the question was, could
you pull it off? That's right. Tell us, take us back. I think there's two,
two seminal moments. A couple years ago we drove to Stamford, the old WWE offices. Nick Khan had just started. And Ari and I, Ari mostly did the talking. And we basically told Vince
why we thought we should come together to whatever that was gonna be. That wasn't necessarily a separate public company at the time. Maybe it was just an acquisition of WWE, but everything was on the table. So Ari makes a lot of the pitch. I think he's excited about it. I'm not sure everything
comes out as cleanly as he wants it to come out. And we leave there and Vince
has zero interest. That was it. How long was the meeting? The meeting was about an hour and it was 48 minutes of us talking and explaining why this
marriage made sense. And that was, that was it. It was over. Now fast forward to
somewhere in the last year. We go out to dinner at
the Mark Hotel restaurant. We make the pitch again in a
more casual social setting. Is it a private room Mark?
Private room. Okay.
Expensive private room. Good. Good.
Worth it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Ari
and I didn't eat much. We were doing all the talking. Well, Ari never eats much, but we'll get to that later. Yeah. That's a disaster. Yep. But the energy's still
there, so you're good. I thought we have a very good display, a very good presentation all off the cuff. I mean, it's planned what
we're gonna talk about, but we're not, not we're
shuffling papers or anything, but can we get to a deal? And, you know, everybody's excited and Stephanie asks some great questions. Nick asks some great questions. Vince says, nothing, you
know, we leave the meeting. Now all of a sudden now,
a couple weeks later, maybe it's a month later, I got my dates wrong here somewhere. And now Raine's been hired.
The merchant bank, right. To put it up for sale, which brings me to seminal moment number two, which is our meeting at Raine
when I know we're getting this.
Right. So, lot of due diligence, lot of back and forth, lot of
questions, a lot of papers, numbers analysis, strategic
analysis, et cetera. You name it, it's all there. We go to Raine and we basically tell the Endeavor story about the Endeavor flywheel. What we did for UFC,
remember we bought this, call it four plus billion, but it was making 160, 170 million. And now you're talking about a, a division doing six, $700 million. I mean 3x in the space of, you know, how many years
here. You wrote the playbook, basically. You got it. Now again, you're back here. We're with Raine, we're
going through the story. Media rights, what we can do
in analytics, social content, sponsorship and global partnerships. Product licensing with
IMG. What we can do there. Expanding international,
direct to consumer. I walked outta that meeting
we're getting here. Mark, was there a moment something you or Ari said that Vince said, aha. Mostly events. Remember, IMG owns
produces stages, licenses, 800 events a year. From food to fashion
to art to golf, tennis, I mean, all over the globe. There's something going on. And when we took him through
how we monetize those events, no dissimilar by the way
to a wrestling match. Or a weekend or WrestleMania. And how you turn on
those different levers. This isn't just about media
rights and sponsorship. I mean that's, that's
negotiations, that's relationships. It's what you do on the
other levels of monetization that really sets you apart as a unicorn. It's just really, it was mostly about how WME comes into play. Ah, the talent, IP music
artists, how we use our, our dynamic ticketing
ticket pricing company, which is called Qcue that we acquired to get a higher number on
the ticket price, the yield, how we package that with experiences. So on the UFC note, like
what's Dana saying about this? And how much do you
bring him into the tent? Because this is going to
dramatically affect his life. That's right. Dana's
the greatest partner ever. I mean, he's just a killer. He he is. I mean he just, he just gets it done. Like I remember being in
ESPN, I'll remind you, I wouldn't put the UFC on the air. I was one of those guys that
was like, oh, too dangerous, too much this, too much blood on the mat, we're not ready for it. Plus, who's my boss? Mickey
Mouse. That's right. Right. There's no way ESPN was
gonna be comfortable with me putting on UFC, but
I also had an issue with it. And now look at it. It's
mainstream. It's a major, right? We're monetizing it everywhere. Champions are household names. We went to Dana saying, we think one plus one equals five. Are you on board for this? And Dana said, listen, early on, there was no bigger guy in
my face than Vince McMahon. Yeah.
As I was trying to build this, like he was at every corner stopping me obstacle roadblock. But I've been to WrestleMania
and he's been to my fights. And you know what, if you guys
tell me this is gonna be all that when we put 'em together, count me in. I trust you guys. Alright. Can we talk about Ari? Absolutely. All right.
Oh, one of my favorite subjects.
Okay. Look, we're both from Chicago. He's a little older than me, but we really didn't know each other. He went to one of my rival
high schools, New Trier, And I was in Glenbrook South. And we were on a plane
going from New York to LA before he flew private. You're in first class, you know, it's, it's 2 1 2 in first class. And I'm in the one and he's
in the aisle of the two. So he is, he's next to me. But there's an aisle in between us. And I used to use those
cross country trips to work on what's called
the president's reports. Michael Eisner and Bob
Iger would have every area of the company, every month
give 'em a president's report, you know, which is like basically your top 10 priorities, your top 10 bullets, which is hard for all of ESPN and ABC sports. But I used it as a real
communications tool for the overall company. You wanna know what's
going on with the company, you wanna know the focus, you
wanna know the priorities, read the president's report. And so that's what I
would do. And I'd spend those whole five and a half hours. And I type like this. I'm fast by the way, very
fast, so it doesn't matter. And I don't make a lot of mistakes still going like that. I peck the entire time. It's like five hours. It's dark now. And somewhere like 45 minutes or an hour from landing, Ari asks the guy sitting next to
me, he gets up and I see him. Now remember, it's very dark, but he's on the other side of the aisle. He goes around and he whispers
in the guy ear, guy's ear. But I hear, and he says like, can you get up, move over there. Oh my God. Okay.
And the guy says, excuse me? And all of a sudden he
backs up all Ari Gold-ish and says, what? Don't you understand?
Get the **** up, get over and move into my seat so I can sit there. Okay. First of all, be
arrested these days, right? But also the,
the guy actually does it. Instead of saying a flight
attendant , ring your call button, the guy gets up, Ari sits down, crosses his leg, turns to me and goes, what the **** are you doing? And that's how we met.
Wow. That's how we met. And that's a fast friendship. Oh, we're both from Chicago, we know a lot of the same people. Yeah. Have the same likes.
Cubs, Bears, sports. I was gonna say you're
both Cubs fans. 2016. Storytelling. Right?
Similar personalities. And so we got off to a fast start. Mark, going back
a little bit to TKO, you have a company, two
companies now inside of TKO, they're both juggernauts on their own. One of the things that's really interesting about when you combine UFC and WWE, by the
way, I was a massive WWE fan with, you know, going back
to the Hulk Hogan days and all "Macho" Camacho
on Randy, man, all that. My question to you is over
billion fans Right. Combined. I actually think you
guys in the early days of how do you serve that consumer 24/7, 365. There's so much upside. That's right. So we know we're still building a lot here domestically, but yet there's
a lot of international growth for the WWE. And using IMG and the Endeavor platform
as the underpinning to get it out there, to make deals that get you into new
territories all the time in good programming windows on
the platforms that matter. Absolutely key to that growth. Could you ever see integrating both into one could mega event? I could. One event? I still remember WrestleMania, which is, you know, that's right. When Hulk Hogan took the Giant and I, I do I see it
potentially as a one event. Yeah. Potentially. I, although they're two
different audiences, right? WWE is middle America. It's, you know, the, the
show's coming to town, A lot of kids. And it's a slice of Americana. The UFC has an
international flavor, right. It's college age and up.
It's a big betting sport. Also it's gender neutral. 'cause we have a lot of
female champions. Ronda Rousey is one of the
biggest stars ever to come out of the UFC. And ultimately Brazil, South America. I mean it's, you know, it's,
it's a monster. Canada. Australia. These are, these
are good places to be. So I think that there's an opportunity to bring 'em out together
as an opportunity to event. And maybe there's an opportunity to launch a channel
with them together. The Yankees model, YES Network. Yes. Exactly right. We at the UFC have
done our own proprietary. So we've got a strong
subbase that we sell direct to consumer. That could flip
flop, that could merge, I think. Interesting.
It's all up in the air right now. At the same time, not all the answers are here. We're gonna have to wait till
some things play out here. And fortunately we have time because the WWE deals are
not up until October. So let's talk media because you know a little
something about that. That's where you started
your career. That's right. Like literally as a production
assistant, if we, if we have that right, like we don't
need to go all the way back. Let's actually start here.
You said it very well. The media space is upside down, disrupted, all sorts of a mess. How do you describe it right now? And how do you, like, not just survive, but thrive in a world
that, that looks like this? I think when Charter,
first of all, yes, I, I've been in the media space for a long time. Let's, let's remember I was
in the chair when Chrissy Everett turned the table on Jim Rome. Wow.
I was producing that show. No way.
Just for the record. So, so I'm dating myself back to '93, but that was my literally first gig in the producer chair. Right.
Wow. And so I was
there for the beginning of ESPN two when they didn't
even know it was gonna work, let alone how many channels there are now. Which of course led to this
big fight with Charter. I think when, when Iger
talked about the new deal with Charter, hit it on the
head, which is, first of all, we want to be there for
this, for the sports fan. That's what matters most. The consumer options choices. But you have to toggle it right now. You still have, everyone loves
to beat up linear, I get it. The cord's being cut,
et cetera, et cetera. Last time I checked it's
still in 65 million homes. That's a lot of money.
That's a lot of eyeballs. That's a lot of traction.
Viewerships going up. You saw the numbers on
the, the ratings on the NFL and college football for week one. Of the 23-24 season. I mean, through the roof. Sports works, live events work. It's glue, it's sticky, it's traction, it's high engagement, it's rooting interest,
it's rivalries, it's young, it's sports betting as
part of the ecosystem. So they're multitasking
like it's a winner. That's where you want to be. And right now, no matter
where you are, Stranger Things or sports, you have to have enough content to fill the linear pipes
while they're still there. While you can still mine
them and monetize them, but at the same time have
enough premium content. And it must be premium in order to get the pickup on streaming that most of these companies are looking for. And that's why UFC's been
so strong for ESPN+. And I don't say that in
a, in a arrogant way. I love ESPN+. I love their library. I love a lot of the soccer and some of the other
properties they play. But they sold it to us as you are going to be the anchor tenant if
you're willing to put the UFC. Where, keep in mind they were
in less than 10 million homes. We were getting more out
of being pay-per-view with DirecTV than going through there. But if you're willing
to make that sacrifice, we will market you and cover
you so strong that you'll grow. And then as we grow, it's a win-win. And that's exactly what's happened. But you have to be willing
to put your premium content, not like NHL regular season. Do you think a lot of people are tuning in to see the Columbus, whatever, NHL team play a regular season game on ESPN? No, maybe in
Columbus, maybe it's playoffs they are, but regular season's different. There's just a lot of volume and tonnage. That's not a slam on the
NHL. There's no urgency. If you take your premium and you put it there,
the audience will follow. And we were willing to do that. But let me tell you, it was a gamble. And when we started,
when we'd made that deal, keep coming back to that word, right? Sponsors were not happy.
Like, where are the ratings? Well, ESPN+ doesn't have,
they're not doing ratings. Well, we're not, we can't
pay you what we committed to. 'cause we don't even know
who's seeing your product. We signed up to be a sponsor
when you were on Fox. Fox broadcast. And now you're buried on ESPN+
where you gotta pay a, you know, ransom to have a subscription. We, we want a, a rebate. And we had to manage all those sponsors. And so as a, as someone who's going to have to going back to a deal, negotiate for media rights over the next few years, and now in, in even larger fashion, how do you approach that deal making in a, in an environment that is so uncertain? You don't know what buyers are gonna be. ESPN is, I think it's fair to say diminished at this point. Who knows what its future is Still the best brand in sports though. Right. So what do you do? Like, like how do you approach that? How do you sort of marshal
the forces inside your shop to take on a landscape that
is dramatically different? Well, let's start with
the fact that the street, all they care about is the price. So you're balancing
that as a public company. You're balancing that with, with what's best for your brand, what's best for your product, what's your neighborhood look like? What other properties are around you are on your
channel, your platform. What's the long-term commitment from the company? Right? For how many months were we hearing, oh, esp n's gonna be sold off, ESPN's gonna be spun off under Bob Chapek. Oh, maybe, maybe Iger will
do it. Maybe he won't do it. So you have to, you have
to think about all of that and then how it changes. But obviously if you're the NBA or the UFC, you, you
want the best partner, you want the best marketing partner, but you're looking to
monetize your rights. And we're no different. I wanna talk a little bit
about you and your career. Sometimes we, we have a
lot of young listeners, entrepreneurs, viewers as well. I didn't go to college, you. went to University of Iowa.
Yep Right. You have a gazillion Ivy Leaguers that work for you. But you started, and I think our viewers would
really like to hear this. You started as a production assistant at ESPN in a few years. You're running the whole
content. How do you do that? Why do you do that? What advice can you give to our young listeners? Well, it's obviously there's, there's some luck involved there. And I'm not saying that to be humble. You, you can't, you can't script that. Fortunately I had mentors, executives that saw something in me
that, that had an eye on me that said, this is a guy
we wanna bring along. And when I delivered, they
rewarded me. That's rare. And you're, if you're not at a
company where the executives, the leaders, the managers are investing in their people like that. Succession planning for the future, trying to identify the future stars
of tomorrow, investing in them and then bringing them up
the ranks, nurturing them. You should get outta there. I mean, that, that's just the bottom line. So I had some set success with
the Sports Century Project, which was the precursor to 30 30. Love that it won a me it won a Peabody, our first Peabody ever
at the company that it's, so, it's so interesting. So there's an executive meeting that takes place behind the scenes. Sports century's coming to an end $25 million
profit winner for ESPN. Wow. End of the century.
Big hundred hours. Chronically in the best of
the best in sports stories, journalism highlights, games. I oversaw the whole thing at 26 years old and they made money. And it's, it's a critical winner. Now, what do we do with this
guy? We, we have a young star. I can say this now,
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and they have a meeting and one guy who's very high up, very high up says he's gonna be one of the best game producers ever. Let's, let's put him on
games. His, his personality. I've seen him in a truck live.
That's where he should be. And another exec says,
whatcha talking about? Like, here's what he just did.
He sold this whole project. He brought in General Motors,
right? He was the storyteller. He drove the narrative. It was profitable and it
was critically acclaimed. We gotta grow the classic sports network, which is now called ESPN Classic. Let's put him in charge of the network. The president of ES ESPN says, there is no president of networks. I'm the president of all of that. We don't have an individual president. I don't even know what that means. So the head of advertising, the head of affiliate sales are reporting to him. And they're like, and
the guy says, the guy who suggested it says, no, they're not. They stay reporting to
affiliate and ads says, and we just tell 'em to figure it out. We'll work across the aisle, make it work. Let's just just go for that. And the guy says, I'm telling you this, he could produce one a football for us one day if we ever get that. And the, and the guy turns to him, I got this whole story
from Joe George Bodenheimer and Steve Hornstein,
and we're running SPN. And he goes, you're gonna
stick this kid in Boise, Idaho, doing the C game when he
could be running a network and we could be building
him as a future executive. Because as a, as a game brought producer, you're not starting Mm. On, on a, an A level.
You're gonna go to Boise. I'm going back to Iowa City here, minor League. And so, so George and, and Steve listened to, to the old man that, that wanted me in these hip. And they put me in charge
of classic sports network. We were in 24 million homes
by Hooker, by Crooker. I worked with the different groups and the different teams without
trying to be threatening. I learned, I fell on my face. I had to submerge my ego, you name it. I mean, I didn't have direct,
they weren't direct reports. I was across the aisle.
But we sold the story. And quickly we were in 70 million homes. And now it's a success. And that set me up for the rest
of the, the planet at ESPN. And so what happens from there? What does that set you up to do? Yeah, so ESPN was really in a, a challenge time vis-a-vis ratings. Now keep in mind, and
you've seen the, this speak, but charter ESPN's getting
anywhere from eight to $10 a sub on your cable bill. Right? That's how much it's thrown out. ESPN makes their whole business. Yes, there's the ad stream, but their whole business is
the affiliate revenue stream. That's the big money. You
gotta keep that going. And there were a lot of cries
at that time from the MSOs. We can't do this anymore.
ESP n has to go a la carte. How funny is that? 'cause
that's what streaming is. It's a la carte. Right.
They have to go a la carte. And they were trying to get
Washington to dictate it. And Disney spent a lot
of money on lobbyists and regular to help them fight that off. Because ESPN and Disney were scared. If we go all la carte, we're not gonna have 80 to
a hundred million homes. How many people are
gonna sign up? Exactly. By the way, history
repeating itself. Yeah. It's exactly what they have
right now. How many people will sign up when ESPN actually
goes direct to consumer? Right. How? It's 20 99 9
or 39? Nine nine. Hey Mark, Just for our viewers,
just to catch 'em up, you have over a hundred
million subscribers. That's right. And about
eight 50 bucks. Right? That's $850 million per month.
Buck the ultimate cash cow. That's right. That's right. At that time we were about,
yeah. 93 million. I mean, yeah. And maybe they were at six bucks then, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. That's a, that's a,
it's hundreds and hundreds. Millions. Hundreds and millions.
It's the tRaine that drives. You think you're getting
ESPN two for 50 cents a sub. You're not without ESPN. Right. You think you're getting a, B, C, you think you're getting a B, C family, which is now freeform, Disney, junior ex. It's all on the backs of ESPN. So it drives the truck and
the engine for everybody. That's the business model.
It's absolutely brilliant. And by the way, they're
so good they can do that. You, you can't, can't
afford not to have ESPN. They don't wanna go a la carte. But the ratings are in the tank. They had lost NASCAR and
their ratings were going down. So the president says, we
gotta do something bold. We, we gotta, we gotta make a change here. We need original thinking.
We need original programming. We need, we need new leadership. And they turned to me to say, we wanna bring you in to
run all the programming. And How old are you at this
Point? I was 31. Wow. And I remember they'd taken me out for a walk in Central Park. Kind of like the father son. Yeah. Right. Father is Arm ro me got an arm because basically they
were gonna pay me nothing. Okay. Because, and I had
no leverage Of course. And it would be like,
dude, this is a gift. Yeah. Like no one does this. And they put me in charge of programming. The first things I wanted to do was launch a show called Pardon the Interruption. Wow. Which ended up being huge for us. And I wanted the NBA in
Wimbledon. Wimbledon. 'cause it's just summer programming. We needed it to lift up It's prestige too. It's Tiffany product and
the NBA 'cause it's the NBA. And when we got those,
our fortunes changed. We went and went on an eight quarter run of increased ratings. Year, quarter over
quarter, year over year. No one could argue with the strategy. It was how much can you bring it in for? We'll see, I was just with
Adam Silver yesterday. Ari and I were having,
having lunch with him. And Ari and I went to dinner last night to celebrate TKO at Res. Oh wow. And I said to Adam,
guess we're going for dinner. I said, res, that's where I took him and David Stern to sell
them on the NBA coming pn. I'll never forget that.
I'm sitting across, we don't have a package for you. We're on Turner NBC.
Split the Turner package. Split the Turner package, whatev whatever scraps you
got for us, we'll take it. Or if you want move the finals from NBC to A BC, we'll do that. That's where that whole thing got hatched. And so when you brought that
back to the bean counters, well, the NBA, all that
tonnage, high quality tonnage. Right. Kobe Shaq. Right. Big
players, big personalities. And what that would mean for SportsCenter and other properties we're trying to get. And and that was the, the
beginning of a new run. And it silenced the cable operators. It wasn't any more, Hey, you know, this is bss ESPN's charging too much. We're a must have. Yeah. So Mark, there's some critical decisions that get made at ESPN
around that time on during, during your tenure. Let's talk football.
Sunday night football. Monday night football. Like
we feel like we know it now. Right. It is not what it
always was. Yeah. Take us back. It's funny, you know, I
mean obviously Monday night football was even bigger than it is today. Yes. Right. The Howard
Cosell days come on. And for years and years and years, it was, it was under there and then it was handed off to Al Michaels. And you know, Those jackets, remember the yellow Jackets
In the old Days with Gifford and, and and Cosell and Dandy Don Meredith and
oh, and then Al came on and he had different partners. And that led up to Madden. It was a sad day when A, B, C,
I mean that's an institution. A B, C, Monday Night Football, the song, the Music institution halftime
highlights with Cosell. It was a sad day for the company when, when they lost E Monday night,
even though it went to ESPN. But this is the art of deal making. Right. Sometimes it is just luck. You can be as strategic as all you want. You can data analytics,
informed relationships, and sometimes timing optics. It just doesn't fall for you. Here's the situation, Steve
Bornstein, he comes to us and says, we wanna negotiate
a renewal right now for Sunday and Monday night I talked to Iger and, and George Bodenheimer
and we don't need to. Our window's not up. We're
not, we're not doing that. Now I go back to Steve Mark,
you should do this now, if you don't do this now,
you'll be the last one in. And you won't have the control. You won't be able to
dictate where this goes. You come in first, you got
the first mover advantage. You wanna hold us to our
window, we'll end up negotiating with the other guys first. And you take your chances. So we kinda have it like
we don't open it up, but let's at least talk
about what it would be. And we really wanna have
continuous Sunday night and continue with Monday night. And at one point Bornstein
throws out a number, which is like, I don't
know, one four for the two, 1.4 billion to keep 'em. Which is a big increase
for A, B, C and ESPN. And Iger says, I can't do
that Now Iger is in line to get Eisner's job. Mm. Disney is hurting right now. Remember there's a whole
vote to get Eisner Ron. Shareholders are revolting. You know, Eisner, who was
the fair herd Prince for so long could do nothing wrong. Disney's in trouble. Iger potentially is gonna succeed him, but they're gonna look outside. How much is iger to blame for what's going wrong with Eisner? So he's got a lot of optics
and politics at play. And I don't think it's in
his best interest to go to the board and say, I wanna open early. Here's the kind of increase, which is unprecedented right
now it looks like peanuts. Right. Right. And so he
says no to which I was like, we may not get another swing. This is not a bad deal for
the combo. Can't do it. Oof. And we turn it down. Well what happens? They go renew their deal with Fox and we end up losing
Monday night football. Yes. It moved to ESPN. And
that was like our saving grace. At least we got a RE SPN,
which is the cash cow, but we lost it for A B, C. And we end up paying 1.1 billion
just for Monday night. Oh. So for a few hundred more
million a year earlier, we would've had both. Right. And we would've had
been able to dictate the path, the nights, the network, whatever. Instead we're left with one on
Monday night for 1.1 billion, which is ridiculous. And remember it would've been
one four for the two of 'em. Yeah. Right. Okay. And with no schedule or anything, I mean,
they give us the worst schedule 'cause we were cable. Right. So now by the way,
Bob went on to be one of the best deal makers
of our time in business. Pixar, Marvel, the, I
mean Star Wars Lucas, the list goes on. Right. It's extraordinary
what he's built at Disney. But for different factors at that time he couldn't endorse that deal. And Mark, you are so young at the city, what makes you think that 1.4 billion is a good deal or a fair deal for the
whole Disney family? I'm living and breathing
sports media rights every day in my job. He's not, to be fair, it doesn't
matter how much older he is or wise or aged, I'm in it. I know this thing's gonna
move. I also know it's the NFL. And I know Dick Ebersol is
dying to get back into football and would love nothing more
than to stuff it to Disney. Considering Disney stole the NBA from him. So this is, it's a checkerboard
game, right? This is chess. I know this is gonna happen. Whether he couldn't move it
or he didn't wanna back me, or he didn't believe in the
not whatever it was, you know, it's ultimately a, a tough play and you kind of live in die by that. And that was the beginning of the end. You A, B, C sports as you
remember the why World of sports and A, B, C. So Mark, you mentioned Bob Iger. Jason and I are both big
fans of Iger icon, obviously. Absolutely. Can you
share with us maybe one or two lessons that you learned? 'cause you had a front row
seat to his management. Yes. What an opportunity. Yes. And there were some other turns there that could have happened. And I'll explain that here. Here's just as I saw Iger, first of all, I mean central casting guys,
we all know even today, right? I mean, it's just like
invented to be Mr CEO, I mean, looks the part charismatic,
very convincing, very persuasive, very
charming, very bright. Surrounds himself with good
people, takes chances, sports, entertainment,
personalities, relationships. I mean, honestly, he's
the model, CEO, right? And he came up through
sports similar to me. He came up through the
A, b, C sports ranks and he moved around and TV and film and he just, he has the package. And I remember telling him I wanted to do scripted programming at ESPN. And what do you mean we do live events? We do studio shows, news and information. We wanna go original
programming, game shows, docs, films, scripted. What do you mean scripted? Like ultimately that was Playmakers, right? Wow. That was the serious,
he backed that play. And not only did he back it,
he looked at every script. We're talking about
the COO of Disney. Wow. I turned in every script to
him and he gave script notes. What, for every episode.
It was a massive hit. By the way, Playmakers right, was the third highest rated show on ESPN after Sunday night football and Saturday night college football. It was a monster. It was all anyone ever talked
about it won the a FI award. I mean, it was, it was incredible. And Bob was totally hands on,
his fingerprints all over. So there was no job too small. So I tell you, when everybody
talks about, oh, you're, you're too hands on or too granular. Two in the weeds. Who,
who's to say that? Right? Who says that Bob Iger gets
up at three in the morning, practically, he's working out by four. He's in the office by five. Maybe I got it wrong by an hour, you're, but trust me, he's pretty and I'm close. And anytime I would send him an email or a call, it's an instant. Are you just sitting by your desk waiting? Like that's who he is. He's
on it. He leads by example. He inspires people. He,
you want to get behind him. And that, that's the takeaway. And that's one thing about leadership and doing deals and running companies. Like you can be a great boss or, but do people really wanna work for you? Are they inspired? There's a difference. Are they inspired by you?
Yeah, they might listen to you. Maybe it's out of fear.
Maybe they perform. But will they really follow
you into battle that loyalty? Do they have your back?
Do they believe in you? And having that gift to inspire people, that's not something you can teach in Harvard Business School. So when you think about
media rights across, especially the, the major sports and you know, you talked about,
you have talked about the, the NBA, the N-F-L-M-L-B, like how do you parse out the
value of rights going forward? Because these are sports that are on different
trajectories, right? At this point It is about, especially
today with streaming, let's just take ESPN for example, right? Not picking on them, but
they, they, I mean they're, they're the best When they go
direct to consumer, when they, when they flip the switch, they're gonna be basically
taking the linear feed of ESPN as you know it, which will still exist. 'cause it'll, it'll probably keep going, but they're gonna put it on streaming. So now you can stream the
channel, not ESPN plus, which is SVOD, the actual channel. And maybe it'll have stuff there that isn't on the linear feed we'll see, or tiers or whatever it might be. In order to make that work, the money, they're gonna be
foregoing from losing subs and ad revenue on linear. They're gonna have to
charge a hefty price. That's what this is all about. That's the models that are running. What do we have to charge for ESPN as a standalone channel on streaming? And there's a lot of articles out there and there's a lot of, you know, rumor and, and, and speculation. Is it 29 9 9? Is it 39 9? How many people will actually
pay 39 99 for a month? Is it 10 million? 20 million, 30? In order to make right to balance it out, the only way you're gonna get there, whatever the price is, is premium content. The only way you have to be
so disciplined that you know what, we're not gonna
carry that secondary sport. We're not gonna carry that tertiary sport. We're not gonna carry that studio show. That may be good, but it doesn't deliver. We have to stick with the tried and true what's gonna
bring people to table. And NBA is one of 'em. If I'm gonna get my games and my playoffs on that channel, if I'm gonna get NHL
playoffs on that channel, if I'm gonna get NFL on that
channel, if I'm gonna get UFC or dare I say WE first take,
pardon the interruption, take the stuff that
matter that really matters and invest in that and you
have to just cut the rest. And that's hard to do and
that affects a lot of lives and livelihoods, then that's the only way you're
going to get that number. So premium content wins. And one of the reasons we feel
so strong about UFC and wwe, and I'm not saying this to
be self-serving this works for a lot of other sports, is because we're, we're the full calendar. So if you can get premium
content that goes eight months, 10 months, let alone us, 12 months a year, scheduling flexibility,
nights, hours, two hours, three hours library programming,
that makes you invaluable. This has been incredible. We could talk to you for three
hours, four hours, forever. Thank you so much. We really Enjoyed it. I'm not sure where it starts or stops 'cause I, I just enjoy talking to you guys and you're your titans
of business yourself, so I appreciate the time. Thank you, mark. That was awesome.
