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Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.

This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

I'm Damian Sasnawber.

And I'm Vanessa Prodemo.

Michael barr is off this week.

Coming up on the show, well recap the Major League Baseball season and a wild World Series between the Dodgers and the Blue Jays.

Bouchers to beat the chap you gonna knock, come out the Dodger stand, tall penwin, bucked up back titles.

We'll talk with two time World Series champion and MLB Network analyst Al Lighter for his reaction and insight.

Plus we'll hear part of my conversation with National Soccer Hall of Famer Brianna Scurry part of my new Business of Soccer series.

All that is on the way.

But first we take a look at a company that wants to revolutionize how brands invest and partner with women's sports.

Trey Blazing Sports Grew CEO Sarah Gofferinson sat down with us recently along with Michael Barr to talk about her company in how it's boosting women's athletes in the women's sports space.

Let's listen to that conversation.

Sarah, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

Thank you, it's great to be here with you all.

I appreciate the time.

You are the founder and CEO of Trail Block Sports Group.

Tell us about that, Well, we are a company that is just nearly four years old, and I founded Trailblazing after eighteen years at ESPN overseeing brand partnerships.

But I really believe in the.

Power of the purse and the power of brand marketers to really impact the growth of women's sports.

So I really wanted to do just focus on women's sports.

Although I love doing our college football and Monday Night deals and NBA Final partnerships, I really focus the next chapter of my career on just talking to brands about the ROI within women's and how they could invest authentically and connect with the growing fan base of women's sports.

We are a britiqued brand partnership firm and having fun doing it.

Sarah, I'm curious, you know when you were seeing things at ESPN and working on those brand deals and what drove you to do this, particularly in women's sports.

Were you seeing a lot left on the table there for women's sports and not a lot of attention being paid there that you realized so many people could benefit from something like this and what sports necessarily Were you thinking, Wow, they really deserve more investment from the brand side.

Yeah, I think.

I mean, I think ESPN was very early on.

I mean we're at the Women's Sports and Summit where I'm doing this podcast and this is I believe their fifteenth year.

So they believed in the power of women's sports early and I, you know, working with that team to get our brand partners like the Nikes of the world early on.

But I did see some signals coming out of the pandemic where brands were asking, how do we lean in a little bit more?

What could we do that's on the spots and dots and presenting of the WNBA games.

So what really energized me was where working with a few clients.

So we worked with Google to create the first WNBA studio show.

There was no WNBA Countdown.

Until about five years ago.

We worked at and.

T to do the Sue Bird and Diana FROSSI Mega.

I really was seeing some signals of.

Brands wanting to lean in, and I wanted the opportunity to just work with brands across the ecosystem, so not just within the ESPN platforms that we had, but also work with teams and work with leagues, and work with athletes, because I do think that the brands again have them the first, so if they can fuel athletes and can fuel the growth in teams and leagues, the ecosystem will be better for it.

So, Sarah, you know, what I find most interesting is the way you create this incremental in game advertising inventory right for you know, like so for example, in the middle of the game, when their free throws going on or you know.

Goals or whatever.

I guess, I guess, you know, stuff pops up on the rail of the show, kind of like what we're receiving when we're watching any sports these days.

Talk to us about that business, about the future of that business, about the power of advertising in that way.

Yeah, Well, it starts with the fact that women's sports fans are consuming sixty percent of women's sports content via streaming channels.

And it's really because they've had to over the years.

You couldn't just pop on a linear broadcast and find women's sports, so women's sports fans have been trained to actually search out women's sports content via CTV and via streaming.

So we thought, okay, well, there's an opportunity here to do more than just have a thirty second spot that lives within the linear broadcast.

So Trailblazing partnered with a company called Transmit, and what we do is we create incremental engaventory for adisers around the biggest moments in women's sports.

So if an advertiser to target every three point shot within the WNBA, we could oserve a picture and picture or an albar unit within the game without having to go to commercial bath after if they if a let's say a medical company or a healthcare company wanted to get injury timeouts, we could then serve an add that's contextually relevant within moments at sports.

And what we really love about it is for a long time I would say, oh, you know, we're trying to buy all you know, the inventory, and women's sports we just can't staff.

And this is sort of debunking that myth of like, listen, we can inventory and we can create opportunities, So we're excited.

It's called trailblazing moments across a number of different sports LPGA, Tennis, WNBA, and WSL.

I know we are running out of time, but I would like your reaction to something.

Tell me, I being the old geezer, I always think of what moment really started for women's sports to really put it on the map.

And you got to go back to me to nineteen seventy three with Billy Jean King going against Bobby Riggs, because that was on linear TV and I remember that very well and my mom.

I'll never forget this my mom.

Now she's not a big sports person, but I remember her watching this on ABC and my mom saying, you get that, Bobby, you get that Bubby like she did.

Just your reaction to it.

It just you know about a Billy g King thank you?

Yes?

Was she Billy jen King?

I mean, my company is.

Named Trailblazing Sports Group, and I think Billy Jean is the ultimate trailblazer.

And you know her her book, Pressure Is a Privilege is one everyone should read.

So she is, you know, to me, the godmother in sports.

I've had the frivorge from meeting her a couple of times.

My you know, twelve year old doc I think eight or nine at the time, met her with me and then again without me and just said thank you for all you do for for women, you know, a young girl.

I'm excited for the future.

So uh, there's totally there's totally that feeling like when meeting her and speaking to her that it's less like genuinely thank you to what she did and and the goal that she had at the time to not take less money and to take women's tennis away and say, guess what if you don't want to pay us we're going to figure out ourselves.

And truly, what she did in the seventies society, it's it's crazy, yeah, you think and where we are today.

Yeah.

And I don't know if you've heard, you know, but she had a She was a big part of Foudy and and the US women's national team and their fight for equal pay.

She you know, Foudy will tell you stories of villageing coming into their meetings and really encouraging them.

And and she still continues to be a big part of the women's you know, the Women's Sports Foundation.

She founded that with her check, her first equal paycheck.

So but I think for me, the moment was night was the ninety nine World College I went to that game at Rose Bowl Stadium as a kid from San Diego and seeing that that was the moment.

So I think when everybody says, oh, this is women's sports, we're having, you know, a moment, it's Caitlin Clark, It's like, no, no, Like I love that you went back to seventy three, But you think about the night the ninety four Dream Team and the Atlanta Olympics with Cheryl Swoops, and then you think about the ninety nine you know, World Cups, So women's sports has been on the rise, and I think it's fineting the do.

And I think, you know, we still are undervalued.

I mean, there was a great Mackenzie report that said, you know, it's going to be valued at two point five million, two five billion dollars by twenty thirty, which sounds like a big number because it's it's valued about one billion today.

But you know, then you hear Bateman talking about how the latest and NHL team to be valued at a two billion.

Dollar franchise fee next year.

So I just think that women's sports is still very undervalued, and I think there's a tremendous opportunity for brands and companies to increase the value that they that are putting towards it.

Absolutely.

You know, it's interesting, Sarah.

I had recently spoken with Briana Scurry, who was the goalkeeper of the nineteen ninety nine World Cup team.

Oh yeah, and she had pointed out to me that this moment that we're in right now is actually the same formula that we were in in the nineties when it was World Men's World Cup, then Olympic, then FIFA World Cup, then Olympics then Women's World Cup, and that's exactly what started the trajectory of women's sports.

So she said, take a look at what happened then and what's about to happen again, and it's going to be just the same as it was back then, So it's going to double from that momentum.

And I thought that was really interesting to take a look at that formula that we're in.

Yeah, I think, I mean, Vanessa, I just I listened to your you know, the business of soccer, and think about this.

So you've got the twenty seven World Cup in Brazil, twenty eight Olympics where the women are defending their gold in the United States.

Then you will have the thirty one World Cup state side, So you're just gonna have a tremendous wave of women's soccer and interest in women's soccer all on that fix, which I'm sure they got for Q.

So it's going to be an exciting time for women's soccer, I think over the next eight years.

Our thanks to Trailblazing Sports Group CEO Sarah godfits In for.

Joining us up next my conversation with two time Olympic gold medal winner and nineteen ninety nine World Cup champion Brianna Scary.

For Vanessa Perdomo and Michael Barr.

I'm Damian Sasaur.

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This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.

This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

I'm Damien Sassauer and.

I'm Vanessa Berudemo.

Michael Barr is sadly off this week.

We're gearing up for the World Cup coming to the States with a new series, The Bloomberg Business of Soccer.

You can catch new episodes on the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast feed.

Subscribe now on Apples, Spotify and all your favorite podcast platforms so you never miss a new episode.

On the latest edition of The Bloomberg Business of Soccer, I focused on goalkeepers.

I spoke with former US women's national team goalkeeper, National Soccer Hall of Famer and two time Olympic gold medalist Brianna Scarry.

Let's take a listen to a portion of that conversation.

Guys, I'm fangirling over here.

If you can't tell, I was a former goalkeeper.

So this is really a dream for me.

Brianna, thanks so much for joining the Business Soccer.

Oh my pleasure.

Thanks for having me, Thanks for thanking of me.

So I appreciate that goalkeepers.

To night exactly.

So that's exactly what I want to talk to you about, you know.

So, I think one of the things that is really interesting when we were talking about we're obviously soccer's coming up a lot this year.

It's why we have this podcast.

You know, we're around the corner from the World Cup.

But I think in the conversation of soccer in the conversation of stars.

Goalkeepers get lost in this conversation.

Would you agree with that?

I do agree.

It's a very interesting thing because America and I think the world likes goal scorers and not too fond of those of us who try to stop goals.

From being scored.

So, I mean, it's so interesting because it's exciting.

I mean, it's more exciting when a goal is scored, although we obviously think it's it's better when a.

Goal is stuck.

I love a good say, I love a good save.

Athleticism is everyone should really pay attention to that's the best.

Yeah, I know, lack of appreciation, I guess I don't know what to say.

Yeah, absolutely so.

I want to start with your journey in your career, and obviously we have to start with the ninety nine World Cup, which you know, I is the greatest performance from a team in greatest moment in American sports.

But I'm not biased at all.

Don't worry about that.

I don't detect any bios.

Yeah, so I want to start with, you know, kind of the overall arching aspect of the tournament.

It's nineteen ninety nine, it's a World Cup in the US, but it's women's soccer.

So it's kind of new.

I want to what was your take, you know, throughout how it grew, the fever grew from group stages to the final.

Well, the fact that we were even having in women's standalone event such as the World Cup was interesting and had never really been done on the scale that we were doing it.

Originally.

I don't know if you know this, but originally the tournament was supposed to be played regionally in small high school stadiums two to five thousand people.

But the committee decided to try to blow the doors off the thing and put it in football.

And that was like three years two three years before.

So we literally went door to door for two years selling our game and said, please please come.

To our tournament.

We're going to have it right.

Here to the US, in your backyard, and you don't want to miss it, and da da D and so we were educating and letting people know.

So then when we finally got to play our first game, you know, out a giant stadium in front of seventy six thousand people, it was truly a dream come true.

I mean, it was way beyond any expectation.

I mean, because there's a certain level of desire of a dream that you want to create, and then when you're actually living in it, it's very different.

And so we were very emotional that game, and of course now that it was it was happening, we had to get to business.

We had to get to work.

So we had a fantastic game that day and beat the team in Mark.

Three to zero.

Yeah, and obviously I know that one of your dreams when you were younger was to be an Olympian, and you played in the Olympics right a couple of years before that, and that was also in the US in nineteen ninety six, which is kind of the first Olympics where we see women's sports become a big thing.

Right, you guys win the gold medal.

The US basketball team wins the gold medal, and that spurs the WNBA And then you go into the moment of the World Cup.

Did that have any momentum do you think?

Or was the World Cup still kind of this new concept.

Everybody knew what the Olympics was, but not everybody maybe knew what the world the Women's World Cup was.

I think the ninety sixth Olympic Games had a lot of momentum in it.

One of the things that happened.

I don't know if you recall, but they didn't show our game live at all on NBC during that ninety six Olympics.

They were showing all these other different sports, but they didn't show our game live.

But though we had, you know, seventy six thousand people in the.

Stands and were favored to win, and so what you saw if you weren't at the stadium, you saw snippets.

So by the time ninety nine year old around, they decided, hey, maybe we should show the okay, once in a while, people might want to watch it, So they did, and so that was one thing that changed.

But I also feel like that Olympic Games was the was the year of the Woman.

It truly was.

And a lot of our collective sports teams in the United States one gold, and I think that really had a shift in how women's sports was perceived, especially team sports.

And so we were trying to do this, this standalone World Cup tournament.

A lot of people were skeptical because you know, they were like, oh, well, yeah, Olympics.

Of course, who wants who doesn't want to see the Olympics And who wouldn't want to go go to a game, a gold medal game, and they were saying, well, this is this is very different.

But we believed differently from them, and we thought we could pull it off.

So I feel like the two combined tournaments really had an impact on each other.

And so for me, we had great women.

I'm going into the ninety night World Cup because of the ninety six.

Olympics, and so you win in the ultimate fashion of penalty K shootout, which I I it's my favorite way to win.

I think it's just like the most incredible feeling.

I don't think there's anything that beats it.

But did you expect what the fervor that you guys got after winning ninety nine.

I feel like we kind of thought there would be some some real fire in women's game, especially in women's soccer, after we won.

But I don't think we truly understood the magnitude, at least I did it.

You know, awent from relative obscurity, uh you know leading into the World Cup, start to completely everybody knowing who I was.

Right after we won a lot of fame and a lot of uh you know, notoriety and truly relief that we had won.

Actually, yeah, getting back to goalkeepers a little bit, you know, and you mentioned it that maybe at the time there was obviously all these other factors that led you to not be the most marketable play But I also think it's interesting when we're looking at goalkeepers, it's a cyclical thing.

I mean, there's only been really three goalkeepers of the US women's national team in the last thirty years.

I mean thirty years.

That's really crazy.

But I think that there's something there too that, yes, the other players and other goalkeepers in general and internationally have been able to find some footing, but there also has to be this other element to it, like this first right, you were this iconic first player that ninety nine ers and all of that.

Hope Solo was very notorious for many things, you know, positive and negative, made a lot of headlines.

But I would say that a lot of my friends who are casual fans don't really know who Alyssen necessarily is by name.

So I think there has to be this other thing that propels people beyond for people to notice goalkeepers.

I think that's on the media side.

Do you think it's a personality thing, Like what would you say that that is, Well, yeah, that's.

A really fascinating point to make.

First of all, let me say that when it comes to winning with the women's side, the teams that are playing the World Cup and the Olympics tend to be the same people.

On the men's side, it's different.

So when you talk about cycles, world Cup is first and the Olympics are right after.

Every single cycle team USA has won either the Olympic gold or the World Cup championship.

And so I think in those few cycles where we were winning Olympic gold instead of World Cup gold, it's the same team, and so you have that notoriety.

I feel like what happened with Alyssa is I think that the lights shifted from goalkeepers being able to essentially take the game by the scruff of the neck and get the team to the final and then we figure out how to win it to you know, the field players.

You know, you had Megan Rapino, You've.

Had Abby Wambach, You've had a lot of different players.

Now you had you know, Kristin Press, Toban Heath, Lindsay Haran, all these great names, and the goalkeeper Alyssa didn't have to do as much.

I feel like as Hope and I had to do, and so her name wasn't really in the media that much.

But the truth is, in my opinion, she proved herself in twenty nineteen because there was no way that that team would have won that World Cup if it were for Alyssa.

But she was greatly overshadowed by Alex Morgan, by Megan Rapino, and just by all the different things that were going on.

And the first time was winning World Cup in a long time, so there was a lot going on there and that got a lot more attention than elicited, unfortunately.

But she is a brilliant goalkeeper.

I've met her several times, watched their play and she's got all the goods and we've been very blessed with great goalkeeping here for the women's side for decades.

Yeah.

Absolutely, Also she's a peak saving machine.

Listener, Yes, I know exactly.

You can bank it right, Yeah, that.

She's gonna save at least one, if not two.

Yes, I think it's interesting.

You know in your new you know your like second half career.

You know you work with brands.

You said you have more partnerships now you you've been part of a team and things like that.

Have you had conversations with brands about the power of goalkeepers and telling their story and and like we said, I mean, if I was a brand and I was going to invest in a player, I would invest in a player who's going to be in that seat for ten years.

You know, you know what I'm saying.

So have you had those conversations with brands.

I have had those conversations, not only with with goalkeepers in general.

I mean I explained to them how goalkeeping is the foundation of a team.

And at one point in time, if you go back in time and look at every single team that's won a World championship or Olympic championship at one point in time, and that run, the goalkeeper had the team on their shoulders.

And so if you don't have strong defensive goalkeeping, then you're not going to win.

That's just how it works.

And so who better to have represent you if you're if you're a company that wants to, you know, talk about strength or teamwork or camaraderie or leadership.

Goalkeepers are all those things wrapped into one.

And in my case, I feel like not only my goalkeeper, but I was also a trailblazer and so I understand how to how to literally blaze trails and make make something there that was not there before.

And so for me, I think the important thing too with goalkeepers is where we tend to be rather cerebral in our ability to you know, decide where who goes where and shift our teammates and positions to to be strong as a team.

I mean, I feel like one of my greatest my greatest traits was my ability to communicate to my backs and put them in a right position for them to be successful.

And so all these steps of success, these attributes of success are all the same whether you're on the picture in the boardroom.

That's a portion of my conversation with all time women's soccer great and my personal hero, Brianna Scurry.

Check out an extended edition of the conversation as part of the Bloomberg Business of Soccer.

You can find that on the Business of Sports podcast feed on Apple, Spotify and all your favorite podcast platforms.

Up next, we recap the World Series and talk coming baseball off season with two time World Series champ Outlider.

For Damian Sassar.

I'm Vanessa Perdomo.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.

Thanks for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

I'm Damian Sasauer and.

I'm Vanessa Proudemo.

Michael Barr will be back next week.

Damien, this weekend was by far the craziest World Series I have seen in a long time.

I mean, Yoshinobo Yamamoto, those are the only two words you need to remember, Vanessa.

I mean, what an outstanding performance by him and the entire Dodgers team.

I mean, I thought the Blue Jays had it.

I thought the Blue Jay's had it.

They were within one inch of making it happen.

Our show going on a second last time time time.

That's my girl Rojas who ties it on the top of the din saves it.

In the bottom of the dine well.

Joining us now to recap a wild, wild World Series and to look ahead to a busy offseason for baseball is one mister al Lighter.

He's a nineteen year MLB VETT, a two time World Series champion, and is currently an MLB network out on top of being a former New York That's great.

Al, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

Damien Vanessa, how are you well?

We had one heck of a World Series, Al, What are the key takeaways from your point?

I mean Toronto, I mean, I forget for that matter, Canada was up in arms.

What an incredible world Series?

What an incredible ending?

What do you takeaways here?

Well, the Dodgers are a super team, but they didn't do it as super everyone anticipated with their ninety three wins this year.

What they are able to do as a result of their deep pockets and large amount of revenue that they bring in.

Is quite frankly.

They had They had front end starters that were able to temper their workload until the end of the season.

A La Blake Snell their one starter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Unbelievable, Damien Vanessa, I don't know how close you guys are to baseball.

I pitched in the big leagues for nineteen years.

My son actually pitches now.

I've been around it my whole life, and I never ever would think someone.

Can do what Yamamoto did.

Game six, six innings, one hundred pitches right there at and the next day, not only just to come in and pitch in any he pitches three innings.

It's beyond comprehension.

He deserved the MVP and heartbreaking for me.

I'll be honest.

I played seven years in Toronto and was part of some World Series teams.

Very cool.

It was in their hands, man, it was their series to win, and it was again heartbreaking.

They're in Toronto, an entire country behind them, a massive amount of people eyeballs watching it.

Yeah, it was heart breaking.

Yeah, I feel like it was heartbreaking for more than just Canada.

Right.

I'm watching this as a Yankee fan who we absolutely get destroyed last year by the Dodgers in the World Series.

Horrible to watch.

Honestly, this was just more entertaining to watch from just a not heartbreaking aspect.

But I also feel like then you have people rooting for the Blue Jays, right because they don't want the Dodgers to win back to back.

But it's a great story.

Are the Dodgers the new evil Empire?

Is it gotten to the point yet where there will start to be people rooting just against them or are they just a likable team with the way they did win, and the way they pulled it out.

Do you think, Vanessa, you said you're a Yankee fan.

Okay, so guess what.

I think it's great for the sport and all sports to have a villain.

I really do.

I mean it's silly.

I mean, you know, it's comic book talk.

But I don't mind at all that they have.

They had a payroll over four hundred million.

Guess what.

The Mets weren't far behind at three hundred and forty million.

They didn't even make the playoffs.

They win any three games barely over five hundred.

Your Yankees are right there in the neighborhood over three hundred million.

The Phillies are there, and Toronto is fifth in payroll in twenty twenty five.

I say this because, yeah, they're likable guys.

Yeah, there's an interesting team.

There's a litany of different players from all around the world.

But I like that.

I like the fact I assume I'm much older than you guys.

But I liked when I used.

To watch football and the seventies and it was the Cowboys, the Steelers, the Dolphins, the Raiders, and it was it.

You had like, all right, we don't like them and we're gonna go after them, just like you probably don't like the Red Sox, and I think that's great for sports.

Do I put these as like evil empire and all full people?

No, of course not.

I love the fact that Mark Walter, the owner of this team, Guggenheim Partners.

They put money into payroll, They put money in the team, and guess what they got rewarded for it.

Well, you know what now, I mean you mentioned Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and you know, I'm looking at the free agents to watch as we head into this offseason and seen no fewer than three Japanese ballplayers, all legends.

I mean, Kazuma Okamoto, I mean, Tatsuya am I.

I mean, they're all coming to the major leagues next year.

And so talk to us a little bit about this influx of Japanese talent and how it's changing the face of the game.

Yeah, that's a good question, Damien, because perhaps there might be a conversation in the owners meetings whenever they have that in the wintertime, because there is a pipeline right now of the guys you just mentioned potentially coming here and signing with respective team, and what's going on with the LA because when you have Otani, you know, move from the Angels over to the Dodgers.

Yamamoto is a special guy.

Sasaki is also a special pitcher.

The free agents that you mentioned, you know, if there's a cornering of the best Japanese talent with one respective team.

I know it's free market, I know it's capitalism, but it would be a little disappointing to think that that they're all pipeline to what organization.

I hope that that's not the case, because there's there's talented players all around the world.

We know that, right the Caribbean has been littered with you know, great players Dominican, Cuba, Venezuela, you know, Puerto Rico, Mexico, et cetera.

So here we are.

We this has become here.

I think.

I think this was pretty cool.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto through the first pitch in Major League Baseball in Tokyo.

When when when the Dodgers went there and the last pitch was thrown by Yamamoto in Toronto, Canada, you get more of a better snapshot of where our sport is trying to go.

Now.

I know the NFL has put a corner on the market on.

That or at least, you know, with their experience of playing in mostly in Europe, but now Mexico and Brazil.

So yeah, it's getting the world's getting smaller.

Well, well you know what now, I mean, we knew the A's are moving to Vegas, right, And I had asked you, you know, league expand right.

I mean, look, what are your thoughts on expansion?

I mean, do you believe that we're gonna see it in the coming years.

I mean I imagine you know the answer would be yes, but I'm just curious to hear your thoughts.

And what do you think about some of these cities.

I mean, Nashville, we know is a baseball city, but Salt Lake Vegas, I mean, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, if they don't, I would be massively disappointed what you just set up there.

There are there are strong candidates for a major league team.

I one hundred percent agree with you, And I don't know that media rights issue with a place like Nashville close to Cincinnati, and you got Saint Louis nearby, and I guess to a lesser extent, Chicago.

I don't know, Atlanta will probably get a little upset about it, but you can figure it out, right.

It's all about money.

Yeah, I think Nashville would be a golden ticket for whoever gets that franchise and for Major League Baseball, as you know, being an anchor down by the way there you go.

Huh.

You know, we had a tough We had a tough one on the football side.

I know, I know, I don't know if we're out of it.

Yeah, but we'll see.

Well if they if they went out and be Tennessee, they're they're gonna be in the Uh, They're gonna be in the b.

C S, which is amazing.

Yeah, okay, sorry Sidetrack, I'm following the birdie.

Uh.

And we need another team out west.

You know it's Seattle.

His oral always been problematic with travel.

It looks like Oakland is going to settle in and in Vegas.

I hear Salt Lake.

I don't know.

With Portland.

Maybe with their troubles that I read about and watch videos of of downtown Portland, maybe that's scaring uh baseball, I don't know.

And yeah, so we put a team out west.

I'm all in for Nashville.

If Nashville doesn't get an expansion team, I think they missed the boat.

On that, I really do.

I couldn't.

You know, Charlotte is being mentioned probably out of it.

That's that's probably the strongest for right there.

No, I mean I agree with you.

If Nashville misses out on this, I mean it would be.

And also to it, Damian if they want to.

I think there's some there's some talk about realigning the whole thing because once the national TV package expires, and I think that's in twenty seven or eight, there's a chance to renegotiate.

Right and as you guys know, you're there at Bloomberg, you talk about numbers all the time.

They got to figure out how to national nationalize if it's worthd the TV package not only with a Fox or TVs or NBC or whoever, but the regional sports networks because not every regional sport network is you know, the S Network or Nessan or some of the strong ones Marquee.

You know, there's some of the clubs that struggle and their revenue is reflective based on viewership.

So that's all in play.

I think it's I think it's going to be.

A realignment to have, yes, Vanessa, the Yankees and the Mets in the same division.

Oh my god, could you imagine?

Interesting?

Well, one last question for me.

I mean, you know, we just saw the Dodgers when they're second in a row.

I mean, the last time we saw back to back to back champions you know who it was.

It was our ninety eight two thousand New York Yankees.

But it's only happened four times in the history of Major League Baseball.

What do you think about the Dodgers chances next year?

I'm gonna say they're probably the favorite.

I don't know what the line's going to be, but you have an ownership group that will continue to spend.

And I'm not saying all spending results in World championships, but.

It's pretty close.

Strong correlation.

Yeah, with strong correlation, thank you.

I mean you got the number one.

The Mets are disappointed, right, no question about.

It's my favorite story.

Actually, yeah, I'm looking at it again on spot track.

The Yankees playoff team third, Phillies playoff team for Toronto World Series, fit San Diego playoff team, Boston, playoff team Houston, the other one, oh Chicago.

Chicago's eleven.

Yeah, so there's a correlation, and why not that I don't see Owtani young motor is only going to get better.

Roki Sasaki is a young kid, He's going to get better.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's all about the way they spend.

They spend smart and they get they get some good guys.

That's right.

I mean, honestly, a lot of the owners want the model of truly the Tampa Bay Race.

You look at their win lost record over the last however of many years, they're right up there with the big dogs.

Another team was surprising because I was I was working the World Series and I was curious about payroll.

The Cleveland Guardians.

I went back to, like when the Dodgers started winning.

I think it was like twenty thirteen, the Cleveland Guardians were like second or third only like the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Guardians.

Not a big payroll, not a big market, not a big revenue.

So when the owners, the deep pocketed owners sit there and say, why am I spending three hundred and fifty million on players?

When the rays in the Guardians, you know, whoop our butts once a low.

They need everyone needs a better system, is what it is.

Better form system.

Because they're very.

Good at that mouse trap they're all trying to get ahead, but they're now it's splitting hairs because they're extrapolating data, number and analytics from kind of the same place as they really are.

Our thanks to two time World Series champion and MLB Network analyst Al light Are for joining us.

And that does it for this edition of The Bloomberg Business of Sports for Damian Sasaur, I'm Vanessa Prodomo.

Tune in again next week for the latest on the stories moving big money in the world of sports, and don't forget to catch our podcast on all your podcast platforms.

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