Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Welcome back to the Deal.

I'm your host, Jason Kelly, alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez.

Coming up on the show, we have Laura Carenti, she's the founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment, talking all about the business of women's sports.

But before we get to that, Alex, were rolling into Labor Day weekend.

We're going to get some rest because it's going to be busy next week.

We'll get to that in a second.

It also puts me in the mindset of college football.

As you know, you've got to know me pretty well with the last couple of years.

I love college football.

I just I can't get enough of it, and I'm so excited for this season.

You're probably pretty excited, not just because University of Miami I think is going to be pretty good, but your Daughta goes to University of Michigan.

They have a quarterback that they are paying, wait for it, twelve and a half million dollars.

What is going on?

I mean, when you see something like that, what's your reaction?

Well, first of all, I have a follow up question, is that for one year or for all four years.

It's for four years.

It's spread across.

Yeah, Jason, if you told me this five years ago, I would have called BS.

Like, there's no way.

I mean, some of these guys are going to take pay cuts when they go into the NFL.

If they get into the NFL.

It's just remarkable the amount of interest.

And just like you and I love college, so do a lot of wealthy people that want to, you know, follow up under Alma Mato exactly.

So that is largely funded by Larry Ellison and his family.

His wife went to University of Michigan.

And what's so interesting about this story to me as well is, as you very well know, Michigan obviously stalwart of the Big Ten.

This is a quarterback, Bryce Underwood, who was originally going to LSU.

Brian Kelly obviously the coach they are well known from coaching Notre Dame LSU, you know, a stalwart in its own right of the SEC.

Michigan comes in and basically says, oh, you're gonna pay him like a million, million and a half.

That's adorable.

We're gonna up the ante and we're gonna pay him a total package of twelve and a half million dollars.

Now, I can't imagine he's gonna be there for four years, so we'll see what that net payout means to be.

But that's sort of a baseline of what he's gonna get paid because he's probably got other other deals coming in.

NIL has completely changed everything and a nice segue.

That's my job is to find these connections between these things.

We're gonna be really busy next week because here in New York, you're gonna be here.

We're taping several episodes of the deal that you'll see later the season, but we're gonna be live on stage at Power Players.

This is an annual event that we host here at Bloomberg Headquarters in New York.

NIL in college Sports is going to be one of the things we're going to talk about.

We're gonna have the athletic directors of UCLA, Duke, and Ohio State all on stage together talking about the business of college sports.

So you're gonna be interested in that, if only to see what Ohio State has to say for your but your no beloved Wolverines.

But I'm so excited to see you.

It's gonna be a baller day.

It's gonna be awesome, and the fact that we're going to do three shows back to back to back is awesome.

And Bloomberg always attracts the best of the best audience, and I cannot wait not only for who's going to be on the panels, but who's actually there watching, which is always a stellar, stellar crew.

Yeah, it's a very deal deal friendly crew that's going to be there.

A lot of leaders in business and sports.

And just to go through some of the folks that we're going to see throughout the course of the day, some familiar faces from the Deal Cinematic universe, starting off with Maria Sharapova.

She was our first guest on this show.

She was the premiere episode.

She's going to be in conversation with our colleague of sorts and your fellow sports owner David Rubinstein.

I'm gonna sit down with Tom Garfinkel, the CEO of the Dolphins in the Miami F One Grand Prix, alongside Mike Arraghetti, someone you know well, obviously the CEO of Aries.

They were one of the first private equity investors to go into the NFL.

There's going to be lots of other conversations Gary Bettman and a NHL commissioner.

Another familiar deal guest, ted leonsis he's going to be joining us as well.

And do you want to reveal who are our deal guest is going to be?

It is a fellow New York champion who I know you're very excited to see.

Yes, Justin tuk and I'm so excited to talk to him.

I mean, he's had a phenomenal career.

He's only forty two.

And guess what some of his places he's been at Notre Dame were in business school, the Giants and gold Mis Sachs.

We cannot wait to unpack a lot of great conversations.

Yeah, I'm not sure people know this.

I mean, if you know, you know kind of thing here Justin tuckson, managing director at Coleman Sachs.

I mean, which is wild.

As you say, you love to talk about blue chip names.

He is blue chip across the board.

You know.

Obviously, as you said, played at one of the pre eminent institutions in college football, the only truly like independent champion college football program out there, the Irish.

They are one of one when it comes to that.

And obviously the lineage of the players who came out of there, but the idea that he went to work on Wall Street.

Coming out of that, he's invested in companies like Roan and just so much to talk to Hm about.

Also, you know this and I know this because we both know he's also such a good dude.

Like I'm just excited to share a stage, and I have to say, people are going to lose it when he comes in.

He won two Super Bowls in New York.

Well, that's what I was going to say.

I mean, you beat me to it.

But when you say one of one, so is justin talk.

I mean, in fact, he's a two time world champion in New York City.

The first forty two years have been phenomenal.

I'm more interested in what happens in the next forty two years.

And we will ask him that.

Yeah, so so much going on next week.

If you're in New York, you know, see if you can join us live or you know, watch on Bloomberg TV.

It'll be on Bloomberg Radio.

You and I will be making the rounds.

Lots of fun people who are going to be here in the building with us, on stage, backstage, in the audience.

As you say, so power players.

We always do it to tie it into the US Open, and really excited to be with you.

And as you say, we've got a couple other episodes that'll be coming down the pike that we'll be taping here when you're here back home in New York.

All right, coming up Laura Karrenti.

She is the founder and CEO of Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

Next on the Deal.

Welcome back to the Deal.

I'm Jason Kelly along aside Alex Rodriguez here in New York.

We're so excited to have with us Laura Krenty, of course, the CEO and founder of Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

Elsie, great to see you.

You're a podcaster yourself, So you come ready to play?

I know, always ready to play, boss.

Do you stay ready?

You don't have to.

Get ready exactly exactly.

So, you and I have known each other for a few years as I got deeper and deeper into the sports world and the intersection of business, sports and culture.

And you've gone all in on women's sports, you know, Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.

You've got a roster of incredible partners, sponsors, etc.

I want to jump right in.

What was the moment that you decided to go all in on women's sports.

Sure, well, I think just for backstory and context, because this wasn't a bandwagon fans situation.

Really, there was a pinnacle moment in twenty nineteen when the US women's national team won their fourth World Cup in France, and at the very end of that game, when they're hoisting the trophy, the crowd breaks out and a chance of equal pay instead of USA.

And that was the same year that a number of players from the national team had sued their employer in US Soccer and one in achieving that equal pay status.

And I remember very vividly sitting at the Jersey shore as one does, watching this match and seeing all the commentators and broadcasters and even the social media started to light up, saying, we haven't seen this kind of momentum since ninety nine, So now you're talking twenty years forward in terms of this level of excitement, enthusiasm and support for this team.

But it was really larger than the team.

It was for the women's sports ecosystem at large.

And in that moment, Jason, I go.

To the NWSL website and if you scroll to the very bottom of that website, in twenty nineteen, which I did on that day, which was July seventh.

There were four partners to the league at that point, so Nike had the Kits lifetime, The Women's Cable Network was the media rights distributor at that point, thor In, the supplement's company, and A Long Care Service was the fourth.

And as somebody who had grown up in the advertising industry predominantly as a media buyer, you know very well what makes this industry go round, right, And that's not just the media rights, it's also the advertisers who support it.

And I knew in that moment, while appreciative of those advertisers and partners knowing critical to just have a league in play, it was certainly not going to be enough to meet this moment, and so I started to dig in and it really was a multi year journey to realize that.

Fast forward into twenty twenty three when I decided to go full throttle.

This wasn't a product issue that team in particular had been dominant for decades.

This wasn't for lack of storytelling.

These athletes were so multi dimensional and haven't had the opportunity to tell their stories on the field, let alone off of it, and it said again, as somebody who had been a buyer, I recognized in that moment, just as a microcosmic example, you know, women's sports, to get nerdy with it for a second, were being sold on the same currency and measured on the same metrics that men's sports were, and that was largely based on reach.

And even in twenty twenty three, outside of these current broadcast deals that have just been negotiated METEA Wites deals, women's sports hadn't been mainstream, let alone put into an appointment viewing position, primetime positioning, et cetera, and so forth in order to be sold, let alone transacted and measured on that same metric.

And so you start to realize this is a system's issue, and leveraging twenty plus years in the ad business, coupled with having played through the collegiate level, paired these two skill sets and said we're off to the racis yeah.

And it's funny too, because you do.

Fast forward to twenty twenty five and I'm sitting here in New York City alongside the owner and governor of the Minnesota Lynx, who I think it's fair to say, Alex, you have very quickly gotten religion around the economic power of women's sports.

So tell me, like how you come to it and sort of how you come to this conversation.

Well, I come from Laura, from a very humble and trying to really educate myself into space because it's like none.

That I've ever studied or seen.

And just to give an example, when you look at the Timboleves and the Lynx, the crossover is single digits.

It's somewhere on eight or nine percent on our fan base, which to me was like extraordinarily surprising.

I would have probably handicapped it like probably forty or fifty percent, but it's not.

It's it's on eight or nine percent.

But I guess, Laura, my question for you as I kind of I'm in my education early in my education journey with a WNBA, and I'm so excited about it with my partner Mark LORII.

What should we be thinking about and what are the people like Clara's a great example from the Liberty Clara was high yeahs, who's really the goat?

I mean, she's really done in incredible.

What should we be thinking about?

What are great owners that Clara doing?

Full disclosure, You're a huge Liberty fan.

I'm a women's sports fan, but as a Jersey girl, I support all of the local teams.

So yes, I am a huge Liberty fan.

But in order to see the industry succeed, the whole pie has to.

And just to answer your question, Alex, I think when you look at what a team like the Liberty has been able to achieve off the back of and sorry to say this, their last championship where they defeated the Links and the trajectory of advertisers and net new revenue.

They've been able to bring in not just from ticket sales and merchandise which are double triple digit LYFT, but also just sponsorship deals.

It's been fascinating to see.

When I started the business in twenty twenty three, fast forward twenty twenty five.

I mean we're not even two full years in yet.

At Deep Blue, the initial conversations were all just about recognition of the space.

Now we're in an instance where or a situation in chapter where we need to write side the business case, and so I'll give you an example and I'll take us out of the w but I think it's a pertinent one.

Some data just came out around the NWSL's commercial sponsorship revenue in twenty twenty four, which achieved seventy five million dollars and AD revenue that is up sixteen percent from twenty twenty two, so growing, not exponentially in the ways we've seen some other numbers, but.

Still double digit lift.

Yet when you look at those numbers, there is a glaring issue with respect to the annual average value of those partnerships.

So seventy five million dollars came in across four hundred and forty one partners.

The reason I told you that story about when I looked into the league in twenty nineteen, we're up from four partners to four hundred and forty one partners in that span.

But if you divide those numbers, you're talking an average net value of one hundred and seventy thousand dollars.

This is where I see the gap in terms of how do you start right sizing it?

And so then you dig in and you start saying, Okay, of that seventy five million, three clubs generated forty six percent of that Angel City the current in Kansas City and San Diego.

So then you're like, okay, the average probably at the bottom half of that table what are we really talking about five figure deals?

How do you grow at the rate in which the market is demanding?

And so these are where we start talking about right sizing and to do that, you know, we've been really working on.

Okay, start making the business case in apples to Apple scenarios and when you start comparing it to men's so you'll appreciate this, I think particularly Alex A thirty second spot in the MLB World Series over the last few years has averaged four hundred and fifty to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars per thirty second advertising spot.

That means that one hundred and seventy thousand dollars I can acquire the rights to work with a team for an eight month plus season at the same rate I can buy at a quarter and eighth in some instances what I'm buying a thirty second spot in the World Series.

So you start to put.

Those comparisons together, I mean, and then you get into things like, Okay, a Super Bowl spot you know last year alone was seven to eight million.

You come in into a league with a seven to eight million dollar check, you could own the whole damn pie.

So these are the sort of rois and comparisons, and we've been talking about getting in now, but I think this expression of focusing on how cheap it is, and I hate to use that word, but the entry point as opposed to the ROI and what you can actually achieve in value at this stage of growth is something that I think the market is missing.

And so tell us about some of the brands that are coming in.

You know, there are some household names that you've worked with, you know, whether it's ally financial, mass, mutual others.

But I'm sure you look around the target center, Alex and you know, I watch these games on TV and you are starting to see really big names come in.

What's the case as you're sort of cutting these deals because you were in a very trusted intermediary between all of this and you're making these deals happen.

What's the case you're making that resonates the most to the potential sponsors.

I mean, it's just what we talked about, the value exchange and the return you're going to get for the investment that you're putting in.

And when you start again right sizing in comparison to where these media buyers on behalf of brands or the brands themselves are investing their media and sponsorship dollars.

You'd be hard pressed to make a case where the WNBA, for example, last year in twenty twenty four, so an average of thirteen x on the investments brands made as league officials.

I don't have to tell you.

Guys at Bloomberg that type of return and an investment in one year.

It's significant.

And so you know when you talk about an Ally Financial, you know ALLI Financial is a first mover in the space.

They came out into the market a couple years ago.

What I think they don't get enough credit for but a very bold, audacious, perhaps ahead of its time, but certainly a catalyst commitment, which was saying, you know, we're going to initiate this fifty to fifty pledge for every dollar we spend in men's sports, we're going to put into women's sports within a certain period of time, a real, tangible, measurable goal.

Well, they get into the space and they recognize there's not enough inventory to actually even meet their own goals.

So now you start recognizing your role as an advertiser is not just to invest in the market.

We actually have to create the market.

We need to invest in, and so I think Ally has done an incredible job of showing up in places like not just becoming league officials for the NWSL and the PA.

There now a league official for the WNBA, showing up in places like unrivaled, investing in niche media properties like Tobinheath and Kristen Press's reinc investing into the whole ecosystem so that there is enough for advertisers who need to achieve scale in many instances to justify the media investments they're making, to able to come back and say, Okay, I could put X in with X return, because many of them say, this isn't charity.

They're not doing this as a check the box anymore.

This is a really viable market.

But the media ecosystem, coupled with the team league athlete ecosystem has to mature in terms of its accessibility and availability of inventory for these advertisers to make the business case.

Laura, I'm want to just take it like one step deeper.

We talked a little bit about the links.

Take someone like Nafisia Collier, who is a historic player who could very well be the MVP this year.

She's a great business entrepreneur.

How should we be thinking about positioning her in the market, and do you position her parallel to the links or completely separate?

That's a yes, And I think the value obviously she brings to your organization is like none other, you know, as you said, a legacy player who stands on her own.

And at the same time, I think she demonstrates what is the best of women's sports, which probably has been one of the most undervalued, which she's a multi hyphenate.

This is a woman who's an entrepreneur and starting Unrivaled, had the ambition and went out and created it, stood it up, proved the business model.

You know.

I just was reading the.

Other day how they're expected to give increases to the players in Unrivaled in just year two for their salaries because they overachieved or hit every single metric that they set out to do in year one, which is not easy to do in sports, as we know.

I love seeing the ads that she's in right now with care dot Com, emphasizing her role as a parent and a mom and bringing that dimension to the space.

And so when I look at some of the stars of the w I think, yes, we owe them more coverage.

With respect to their stats and score lines and all the incredible things they're doing on the court.

But we also know there's a casual fan base out there that we've yet to even scratch the surface on that isn't just coming to watch the w for the on court competition.

They're coming because these are moms, these are fashion icons, these are entrepreneurs, they're recording artists.

I mean, you could go down the list of all of the and ones that these athletes are and have had to do, largely because prior to the moment we're in, they didn't have a choice, right, many of them had to be able to make ends meet, whether playing overseas or starting businesses, just to be able to justify the means of being professional athletes.

Yeah, so let's talk about that multi hyphen aspect, because you know, I'm sitting next to one here, and part of the reason this show exists is because of Alex's own ambition, and the three of us all know that that's not a given for every athlete, like it takes a special athlete to take that extra step or those multiple extra steps.

We've had several people, several of those multi hyphenates who've been on this show recently Alison Felix, who I know is a recent business partner of yours, super Bird, who's a longtime business partner of hers.

So help us understand that and maybe start with Sue because I know you've been working with her for a long time.

Again, she sat on set with us and sort of walked us through her journey.

How did you guys get together and what is it about her and your partnership that you can describe?

Sure, it was a very serendipitous opportunity for us to connect, which was around an industry event prior to launching Deep Blue, and as I was getting into the operational side of how we were going to make the business case to advertisers.

You know, I can come all day with the receipts of the things I've been able to develop in my career as a brand builder, an ad buyer, activation creator, etc.

But there was a key piece that was missing and I was noticing in every room I was going into, was that first person athlete person effective?

Now in men's sports, it's relatively known because we have documentaries, we've heard the stories, we have the first person point of view, and ongoing press conferences pregame shows, postgame coverage, et cetera.

Women's sports not the case.

And so what I found to be interesting was when, you know, you would talk to advertisers and in some instances agencies in the year plus of you know, research and diligence we were doing prior to deciding to go all in, and I started recognizing, for example, you'd walk into meet with a brand whose creative agency was developing the brief, the strategy all the way through to execution of an ad campaign for example, that was meant to either feature and or run in and around women's sports.

The creators behind those ads more often than not had never watched a women's sports let alone been to a women's sports game, experience, whatever the case may be.

So how can you authentically connect with an audience, let alone tell a story if you haven't had that experience.

And so this perspective was what that was missing, And serendipitously got connected with Sue.

This was just on the heels of her retirement, obviously an illustrious goat certified career, but also this was not at the time when basketball had taken off yet, it was this in between period, and we started talking about the work that she was doing, and I think it really piqued her curiosity to know not just the level of storytelling that goes out, but more importantly, if nobody sees the story, there's no promotion or tune into the story, which was a side of the coin I was playing on.

That story you're telling is a moot point.

So this ability to have a hand and put her fingerprints, I think, on end to end was appealing.

I will tell you when we decided to link up.

I announced the company in December of twenty three.

I have great text receipts for a book.

Someday people tell me it was absolutely out of my mind, Lauren, nobody cares about women's sports.

I mean a lot of expletives in between.

I announced Sue in January twenty four.

Now the sudden people stand up a little straight or wait a minute, we haven't seen this on the women's side the same way we've seen you know, Alex, you and your peers linking up with entrepreneurs business executives to launch and build companies.

It was relatively not done.

And fast forward April of twenty four, Caitlin Clark meets Angel Reese in that Final four and the rest was history.

Not only did Sue's time become very limited, she became very busy because obviously lightning in a bottle moment for her, which I'm so excited for and glad to see that she's gotten opportunities to weigh in on, but ever so more important to have her perspective as well as other athletes we work with at the table talking to advertisers in a way that there's no amount of field research you can do when you want to put out an Olympic campaign spot focused around team USA women's basketball and not have super Bird's opinion at the day.

You can't compare these things.

I mean, her five gold medals, yeah.

Not one, so I know you keep counting them, so yeah.

I mean, it's been a tremendous competitive advantage for Deep Blue, but also a tremendous competitive advantage for the market to have athletes like Sue Bird and others who are assuming business positions and able to inform and just make the whole industry smarter about the true experience of what they've lived.

Laura, I love the space that you're navigating in as a father to two teenage daughters.

It really excites me that people like you that are so capable are really expanding the footprint of women's sports.

A question about Deep Blue.

You found it two years ago.

Have you thought about your five year plan and inside that five year plan can you see Deep Blue being NLP or a GP owner to a sports franchise.

So it's so funny, Alex.

When we started the company, we had a five year plan which went from twenty three to LA twenty eight.

We were going to look at that five year window up until the Olympics in the US.

I think within the first six months I probably ripped that plan up two or three times because the market was just electric and the opportunities that were presenting itself were coming at a rate where like no plan on paper made sense because you're just constantly having to hit the edit butt in.

But the true nature of it two years in is recognizing that, first of all, sports is not the output for me, it's the vehicle and how do you thread and take this deep subject matter expertise at the intersection of media, marketing, advertising and women's sports to move horizontally, not just vertically.

So agency services, so to speak, was our trojan horse in our primary customer was to work with brands to make them smarter, help them understand the space right, size the investments that they were making, and help extrapolate incremental value.

We've done that, as Jason alluded to, for some world class blue chip brands who are early and then some who have been new.

For example, I just brokeer to deal just within the last few months between Vagicil and the New York Liberty talking about body confidence.

They had never invested in the world of women's sports before.

So a lot of netnew comers as well.

But as you pick your head up, I'd be remiss not to say, like, that's just the entry point things like IP development.

This is something we're very excited about.

We saw an opening for the lack of content creation.

You know, less than fifteen percent of coverage today still in the world of sports goes to women's sports, and that's where you start to sacrifice the storytelling that is missing, and so we decided to go all in with iHeart to develop iHeart Women's Sports, which in less than two years has over sixteen original pods in the space, covering a variety of sports from both former athletes, broadcasters, talent, et cetera.

It's still to this day containing the only official women's daily podcast called Good Game with Sarah Spain with a former ESPN broadcaster slash journalist.

And so we started looking at the IP creation.

Okay, what comes off of this?

You start thinking about the world of commerce, you know, you start thinking about live events.

For three years running now we've hosted the Business Women's Sports Summer in New York City in the spring, and an initiative that first started as like if they build it, will they come.

But it is a convening ground where it is the only space in the world as far as we're aware, where the intersection of business and women's ports or comes together.

So you start creating all of these products and assets.

So IPE live events definitely interesting to us.

Getting in and around the world of commerce interesting to us.

And then the last frontier is a venture we are learning so much in real time.

I see a world where Deep Blue owns teams.

I see a world where Deep Blue starts collecting assets and ultimately being the grounding center all through the lens of that subject matter expertise.

I want to go a little deeper on this ownership piece, Laura, because obviously very interesting to my partner here this notion of ownership, and I do wonder how you see that developing, not just from the deep blue perspective, but in these conversations that you have with partners like super Bird because ownership and again I'm sitting beside an example of it, that the athlete to owner transition is becoming much better trid for lack of a better term.

How do you see that developing and how does that play into your business model?

Sure, I mean I think again it goes to a yes, and the strategic value of an Alex Rodriguez or a superd sitting in an ownership position to be able to provide a point of view that reflects the players that you know, reflects the training facilities resource needs to develop.

On field excellence is paramount, There's no doubt about it.

And I don't know how you can actually replicate that if you hadn't played it at that level.

And also one of the things that I'm seeing, especially in the world of women's sports, is it is a gold rush and there are a number of you know, investors of all kinds, family offices all the way through to pev you know, venture et cetera coming in and around the space.

We cannot apply the men's playbook to women's sports full stop.

And I think there is and Alex, I appreciate you saying this a real need for education on who the audience is really understanding the fan experience.

Alex, I don't know if you've had a chance to go see a New York Liberty game.

I haven't been to see the Links live.

You've seen them in Liberty, But this game day experience and the audience that it is super serving, there is nothing like it in sports period.

And if you can't.

Understand the distinctions around that, I think you really handicap growth a small microcosm and thinking about facilities and stadium development, and this is an area I'm fascinated by.

I was at a Washington Spirit match against Gotham in Washington, d C.

At Audyfield and actually took a picture of this moment.

I was going up the escalator and there was a whole section of strollers stroller parking.

It wasn't a formal official place.

Now there was a third party vendor that was supporting that, you know, sort of parking and go.

But when you start thinking about you know, mother rooms having espresso martiniz on tap.

I mean, I could go down the list of things that when you start really thinking about the nuances and experience, how owners can get in and around the world of branding, media, marketing, influencers, creators, game day experience through experiential activation.

We're no longer talking about a playbook we all know and grew up on.

This is developing for a modern audience and a modern experience.

And so I would encourage owners coming into this space to not be presumptive and really get in and under the hood, because I think the ability to derive incremental value by getting outside of the box of the thing we all know and love is only going to increase the evaluations.

Lord, this reminds me a little bit when you think about Deep Blue, it reminds me a little bit of you know, Baine consulting in Mitt Robney, and Mitt was going to leave to start his own private equity group.

And what they realized was, wait a minute, we're consulting, We have all the data, we bring, all the value, we understand where the puck is going.

Why are we going to let such a great talent mid Rodney go?

Why not start being capital and then the birth of basically being private equity started.

I mean, you're collecting all the data.

You're really in a position of strength.

I can't think of anyone who could be a dial or an Arctos, and you're well positioned in women's sports to bring tremendous amount of value.

Thank you appreciate.

I actually was reading about your new venture and Jump and the amount of capital that you've obviously raised.

Our congratulations.

And you know what I'm so enamored by is this full three sixty where you own the data.

This is another area when you get into the world of women's sports that has been such an impediment to growth.

So just as a microcosmic example, you look at im a Gotham season ticket holder.

Now outside of the Kansas City current, every women's sports team in the United States, regardless of sport, is renting or leasing their facility from a men's team or some other provider.

Right they do not own the space.

And I always think about it going through the turnstiles at Red Bull Arena and now Sports Illustrated Arena.

How the trickle effect and what delays that can create for an organization when you don't have real time, access to who's coming through the turnstyle, what they're buying at concessions, what the merchandise flow is, and not having that as a collective to then turn around Alex you're talking about as an owner and going out to advertisers.

Advertisers want the data, and they don't want yesterday's they want days.

They want to be able to have real time informed decision making.

And so by creating a platform like Jump, from my understanding, it will have everything from ticket sales all the way through merchandising in one platform.

This will help in my opinions and not only expedite deal flow, but also increase it.

And I think that's something again as a media buyer for twenty years, I look at clients want data, brand marketers want data.

I want to say clients.

The women's sports industry largely has not had it, and I think that has been a tremendous discservice and why we're seeing one hundred and seventy thousand dollars deals because you really have nothing to bet on and everybody reports to somebody, right, and so at the end of the day to make these decisions, you have to be able to justify this and like I said, we're not in the checkbox era anymore.

We need real tangible results.

You know, what are the areas Laura that you know you and I have talked about this.

I think we actually talked about it on our panel that the Business Women's Sports Summit, the media deal side, you know, media rights, et cetera.

I know you've looked at this intensely and obviously a lot of that plays directly into what your clients want and expect and what the leagues want, what the teams want.

It plays into valuations.

As alex Well knows what happens next when it comes to media rights for the big women's.

Sports, this will be a hot take.

I care less about the total number, more about the experience today, and what I mean by that is seeing a number of leagues chase very, very high numbers, which again I understand the reason the business case sport of directors, you know, needs for the leagues, etc.

But in doing so, and often cases, we're fragmenting games across four or five plus networks, and you're taking audiences that are already nascent and still in their formative years.

And I'm talking, you know, high six figures, low seven at best, and now you're splintering them across five networks.

Women's sports offers from two main issues.

They're hard to find and they're hard to buy.

We talked about the buying piece, I'll talk about the finding piece.

It's been fascinating to see this moment play out because everybody so excited by the multiples, but people not recognizing you're disrupting the audience experience.

People don't know where to find half of these games.

I mean, you need a master calendar that would stretch my dining room table just to understand what to do this weekend.

I don't think that's a good service model for your fans.

They're frustrated.

You see them take it out in real time on social media.

They're often helping each other figure out how to find it.

And two, if you really think about it, in some instances, there are leagues with five distribution partners, which means you're creating five different rate cards for advertising, five different commercial products, five different game day experiences, and you're going to the same five advertisers asking them for the same five deals.

It doesn't work.

And so this is a part where you know, I can understand why the MLB, the NFL.

They have the luxury, right, You're talking tens of millions of people tuning in over how many decades.

It's a fine tune machine.

Women's sports is not there yet, and so when I look at those deals, I'm like, how do we streamline both the efficacy of finding it, but then you have to think about making it more efficient for advertisers to participate in it.

Laura, this is not a struggle or a challenge that is exclusively for WNBA or women's sports.

I recently got a call from my mother who's eighty nine.

Okay, that's a different demographic, but she still watches the Yankees game every night.

I mean that kind of I loves her bad and she loves she loves her Yankees.

She's very frustrated right now.

They're hard to love right now.

She wants to to answer all the questions that my mom.

I don't have other I'm not watching as closely as I have the timbos and the links.

I'm sorry, but in one week, Laura, there was a six different telecast.

We had a Yes Network, we had Apple TV, we had Gotham, we had Fox, we had Ruku, and then we had ESPN Sunday Night Baseball and Fox of course was Saturday.

And my Mom's like, where in the world do I find these apps?

Can we go back to the old days and just turn on the Yes Network?

And I said, no, Mom, those days are over.

But that just gives you a little example of it's hard to find and hard to buy, right.

And you know it's interesting.

I just saw literally a work that came out around if you want to be an NFL fan this year and watch the entire season.

I forget how many there were.

I believe it was something like a thousand to eleven hundred dollars worth of subscriptions just to be able to watch the full season as a fan.

Wow.

Right now, I love football, but I'm a Jets fan.

So that's a big commitment when you've been on the losing side, Like you're alone.

I hate yourself.

If you're a Jets fan.

You Jets and Mets?

Is that usually how it works?

Jets Yankees?

This is unconventional.

I know, I know, I know, I blame my husband, but I confer to me it's the Jets lawyer for you.

No.

I mean, you know, New Yorker fans are right or die, But you know, when you start talking about for you know, the average consumer eleven hundred dollars worth of subscriptions come on and you know then and then you look at the women's sports space, it's not much far behind in terms of the amount of you know, if you want to be a w fan and an NWSL fan, I mean, how many platforms do you need?

And so I think this is where we're at at a very interesting inflection point in media.

The streamers are running up the or board in terms of price and having the disposable cash to be able to put up these types of deals.

But at some point there has to be a convening of the powers that be that recognize you are fragmenting and diluting the value of your league.

I did mention something earlier that I wanted to sort of circle back on, which is the deal that you did with Always Alpha and Alison Felix, Always Alpha being the talent management company that she started.

Help us understand sort of what you're doing there, because this notion of managing talent is a fascinating one.

It's one you have a lot of windows into.

It goes back to something you know you've been talking about when it comes to you know, athletes like Alex, like Sue and others who just have so much to offer, tell us about that deal and sort of how it came about it and what the vision is there.

Very vividly remember one of my colleagues calling me saying that they had heard some rumblings that another women's sports firm was coming into the space.

Now, at this point in the early twenty twenty four, we were still the only I mean now, obviously the big talent agencies had women's sports services, but in terms of dedicated no, and it was going to focus on talent.

And there was this immediate rush of those inside the women's sports business bubble, which wasn't still relatively niche, who immediately want to pit you against each other.

Right, They're like, there could only be one.

But what was interesting was the skill set that we had and the business model we were running was complimentary to what Allison and her business partners Cassette and West, were after in that they were going to focus hyper focus on managing the careers of female athletes exclusively.

I was not in the business of managing anyone.

We were in the business of managing deal flow, and so when you looked at the opportunity.

You know, there are a couple of things that I started thinking about.

You control the money, you control the market, You have input and partnership with the athletes, You have the influence.

So this became a really interesting proposition to me to say, hey, wait a minute, we already have a great vantage point into where all the money is flowing.

But if we can now bolt on the influence and the incremental earned value of what these athletes can generate and how they are dictating the marketplace, you've cornered the market lights out.

And a series of conversations and meetings ensued and got to talking about the unique nature of bringing these two and at that point only focused companies in the world of women's sports.

And it was as simple as a handshake and the.

Value exchange there in the joint venture that we created between Deep Blue and Always Alpha was Always Alpha was going to manage the talent all the ways that you would anticipate talent management firm supporting its clients, and we were going to bring this added layer of strategic expertise and industry knowledge to help shape an athlete's platform.

To think about brand strategy, you can't just I mean, Alex, I'd be curious to get your perspective on this.

Like we are no longer in the day of just playing the sport.

I mean there's very few people you talking about just playing the sport.

You have to be able to dimensionalize this female athletes times ten, and so to be able to provide that level of insight, knowledge, expertise what we were seeing in the market while also developing that as athletes, as ip, all of a sudden, you have a tremendous competitive vantage because it's not about transaction anymore.

It's about transformation yea.

And we were very focused on working with the athletes to say, this moment that you're in in your playing career, because they're predominantly working with a lot of active athletes, let this be the vehicle.

This is not the endgame.

And so as early as we can start getting in and thinking about, yes, you may be a peloton instructor crushing the leader board or you know, world class runner who's out there breaking records.

How are we using this moment and this platform both the world and what it's providing us and coverage also your social channels, how you're showing up in the market, et cetera, to start to build the tentacles and what will become your multi hyphen business.

So that added component helps to supercharge and I think pay off on you know what you even asked earlier on what owners can do it.

It's bringing that level of strategy well beyond the transactional nature of it.

It is funny, Alex to think about this idea that you were following in the footsteps of like Magic Johnson, but there weren't a lot of people that emulated.

Now, it feels like, especially in the age of nil and everything else, if you're not thinking about your brand, if you're not thinking about yourself as a multi hyphen it, you're actually the outlier versus when it was when you were coming up.

Do you think that's true?

Oh yeah, I mean, look, just twenty five years ago, I signed at that point the largest contract in the history of sports for ten years, two hundred and fifty two million dollars Tom Hickstonner the Text Rangers, and before that I had been in the league for six years.

I was twenty four years old.

That entered as an eighteen year old teenager, and I became immediately public enemy Number one because of that contract.

And when you fast forward twenty five years and you see Shoheo Tania seven hundred and he becomes literally a hero and an icon.

That brings a smile to my face because there's an amazing shift that's gone on.

At that point in twenty twenty one, the team had all the power.

They controlled the media, they controlled the narrative.

We didn't have social thousand, two thousand and one, sorry twenty four years ago.

And today that's shifted.

Whether you talk about Nficia Collier or you're talking about Anthony Edwards or Aaron Judge or Shohio Tani, the player has much influence as the team, and they have become truly our partners, and we work very well with them together.

It's my hope and dream that Major League Baseball gets direct together and they can work more collectively as a unit.

If not more.

If not more, I mean, we're a big believer in individuals over institutions, and this is not unique to sport.

This is just the way modern media is moving.

And so I think, Alex you asked the question earlier about NAFISA as a standalone versus NFISA as a bolt on and I think the answer is yes.

You know, I think allowing her to develop that platform and also figuring out how it develops the brand that is the links.

These two things in tandem are the superpower.

Not to take over your show, No, but I actually I do.

I have a question and a final thought, Alex.

A question, as somebody who signed the largest deal in the history of baseball in your prime, when you look at the world of win in sports today, what has been the absolute head scratcher and how are you thinking about things differently from that person you were in that deal twenty five years ago to now applying those principles to a market that, yes, fifty plus years old, but still relatively junior with you know, it's professionalization.

Wow, that's a great question.

I'd love some time to think on that a little bit more.

I'm a novice in the space and I'm really enjoying it and I'm really collecting a lot of data and talking to a lot of smart people.

But I do think that the opportunity.

Is endless, totally, And I'd love to just leave you with the final thought because you did allude to your daughters, and I think you know it's easy to get caught up in the short term ism of the moment that we're living in a women's sports Although I like to play the long game, I'm not just in this because it's fun, it's exciting, it's all of those things, and it's a net new industry to chase.

What I really want to leave your listeners with are the stakes of what we're talking about.

Forty five percent of girls are dropping out of sport in the United States by the age of fourteen, nearly one out of two, largely to body confidence issues.

What influences body confidence issues the media, marketing, and advertising industries of which I'm a part of.

And so when you start to think about girls who play becoming women who lead, ninety four percent of women in the C suite have played sports at some point at any point in their lives, and over fifty percent of those collegiately.

When you think about that drop off nearly one out of two, and the social economic impact of what is lost and potentially what could be gained as a result of keeping girls in sport and what it does for their development.

That is why we're in this game.

And I think one of the things that I am so impressed by and continue to be inspired by on a daily basis is to leave it better than we found it.

Mentality of the entire women's sports community, and I think that that is something that cannot be lost.

Yes, the numbers will prove themselves out.

Yes, there will be a lot of people who make a lot of money in this industry.

But when you really think about the long tail impact of what we're talking about, we're talking GDPs, it's far greater than the short term valuation some media orite steals we're seeing today.

All Right, we're gonna do a lightning round and then we'll let you get on with the rest of your day.

Laura, you've been very generous with your time.

All right, five questions will bounce it back and forth.

First thing that comes to your mind, you ready.

Go for it?

All right?

What's the best piece of advice you've received on deal making or business?

If you see a better way, you have an obligation to do it.

And that advice came from former General Electric vice chair Beth Coomstock, who is a longtime client and mentor of mine.

Who's your dream deal making partner?

You?

Oh?

Wow, deals happening on the deal My favorite thing.

Which team do you want to see win a championship more than any I.

Mean, I'd love to see the Liberty go back to back.

Come on boy.

Wow.

One great answer, one not so great answer.

This is the deal.

Here we go.

What is your hype song before you go into a big meeting or negotiation?

Oh my gosh.

This probably won't surprise anyone who knows me as the Jersey girl, but anything from Bruce Springsteen gets me, like, you know, there's something about you know, baby, we were born to run.

You're on the move there, Yeah, all right, love, get it all right.

What's your advice for someone listening who wants a career like yours?

Do the work.

You know.

I think it's easy to pull up chat at GPT and you know, streamline the information, but I think truly getting in the mix and cutting your teeth are what developed some of the most competitive players I've worked with.

And I think until you've lived it and you've experienced, it's really hard to be able to navigate this industry.

So do the work.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.

This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip.

Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connolly is our video editor.

Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.

Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brenda Newnham.

Sage Fouman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast.

Additional support from Rachel Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles.

Thanks so much for listening to the deal.

If you have a minute, subscribe, rate and review our show.

It'll help other listeners find us.

I'm Jason Kelly.

See you next week.