The ROAR Podcast: George Barrios Return

# The ROAR Podcast: George Barrios Return
**Guest:** George Barrios
**Date:** 2026-09-03
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sd5nnZ1r58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sd5nnZ1r58)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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[00:02] In July of 2020, George Barrios had a thick employment agreement sitting in front of him. He just left WWE after more than a decade, the back half of it as co-CEO. Private equity bought Univision, and they wanted him to run it. Someone close to him read the room better than he did. She told him, "When you get excited about something, you can hear it. And listening to him talk about this, he didn't sound excited. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself."

[00:32] The next morning, he called and turned it down. Then he called Michelle Wilson, his co-CEO at WWE, and told her he wanted to build something with her instead. She told him it was the best call she'd gotten in a long time. And this episode is what came after that phone call. Taking Endeavor public through SPAC in 2021 in the middle of the frothiest IPO market in decades. Going back to W or Endeavor merger with UFC that created TKO. And this past April, closing on Global

[01:03] Sports Group with CVC. A holding company built around minority stakes in La Liga, the one, the WTA, FIFA, and rugby. Leagues and federations, no teams, by design. George Barrios is back for round two, and this one goes where the first one didn't. Why public markets don't demand different skills, just brighter light. The three questions every management team should be able to answer to a 6-year-old. I'm Bryce Clinton, and this is the Roar podcast.

[01:36] >> Welcome to the Roar podcast. I'm your host Adam Grossman. With me today again is George Barrios. George, welcome back to the podcast. >> Hi Adam, thanks for having me back. Appreciate it. >> Well, I think we had to have you back. We got such good feedback on your first episode. It's one of the ones we get the most feedback on. So, we pinpointed a few areas from the first podcast that we're going to jump into. So, for those of you who haven't listened to the first one, definitely go back, listen to the first one. George had a book come out, which we're happy to play again. I don't know if you we can start from there, and then we'll we'll jump into the rest of the conversation. >> Awesome. Yeah, my publisher would kill

[02:07] me if you gave me an opening not to like the book and talk about it. But yeah, I uh came out in in June, Sometimes Wrong, But Never in Doubt. It's a business memoir, covers my journey, and including the transformation at of WWE, and then closing the biggest deal in sports history. So, yeah, it was a labor of love to write, and available where all books are sold, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. You can read the prologue on georgebarrios.com if you want to get a flavor for the book. >> Yeah, George had a several events, which I've been tracking on social media, and

[02:38] it looks like a good time. So, hopefully if you haven't seen George at one of the events, you'll see George soon, cuz that'll be great. What to do. So, in the first podcast, and in your book, you mentioned obviously talking about your career, and we spent a lot of time on the WWE. We spent less time about your career post-WWE, and that's where we want to start today's conversation. In particular, you had a I don't want to say interregnum, but you had a time period after you left WWE before you came back to WWE where you launched ISOS, and ISOS Capital. So, probably a good place to start there is how did you go from really focused on

[03:09] how you went from being an operator to more of an investor working with operators. >> Yeah, you know, it was it was an interesting journey, Adam. You know, and I tell, you know, part of of how we got there, but you know, Michelle and I, after running WWE as co-CEOs for the last half of our tenure there, so quite a long time, and and feeling great about we what we'd accomplished, felt great about our working relationship. Like we had really figured out how to make that type of, you know, co-leadership role

[03:39] work. But, the truth is at that point in time, we both wanted to do our own thing, you know, we wanted to kind of drop the co and go run something. And I actually accepted a role at the at I left WWE there in those first few months while COVID's happening. I was going to join Univision and run that company. Uh and and in any event, but I was doing that. I'm talking to Michelle throughout that period, you know, those first few months and we're bouncing ideas. She's looking at things cuz she came close to taking something. But anyway, the more we talk during that time, the

[04:12] more that we were both getting excited about A doing continuing to do something together. So you think you know what you want and we I thought that we both thought we were like, "Hey, yeah, it's been great, but we want to go solo." But the more we talked, we said, "You know what? We we have so much fun doing stuff together. We we think we kind of, you know, there's this steel sharpens steel element to the to the professional relationship. And then there's also this element of like, "Hey, we've been operators. We know we're good at it."

[04:43] There there was this element of like, "How about if we take that though and and do it kind of a from a principal perspective?" Meaning, you know, it be invested in, have ownership in directly in in a business or or more. So in any event, you know, I'm not sure exactly what how that was going to go, but we had that conversation and I I still remember, you know, it's July 2020. I've got an you know, big thick employment agreement with around the Univision opportunity. And Carol says to me, she's like, "You

[05:14] know, she calls me Al." It's my middle name, so that's why the book is written by George Aldo Barrios. calls me Al. She goes, "Al, she goes, "When you're excited about something like you know, you're just on fire." And goes, "When you're talking about this Univision thing, you sound it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself." Anyway, so I'm I'm giving you a lot of a lot of the preamble, but it the short story was I wasn't sure. But in any event, that point in time I I I pick up the phone the next morning. So we're it's I think it's like July 5th or 6th cuz we'd had some friends over for

[05:45] and that would had kind of brought the conversation. I call Michelle and I'm like, "Hey, I'm I'm telling the you know, PE firm that had uh in bought Univision. I said, "I'm calling them tomorrow and telling them I'm not doing it." And she I go, "I want to do something with you." And she I remember her exact words. She goes, "This is the best call I've gotten in a long, long time." So, and anyway, at that point we decide, not sure exactly what we're going to do, but we're going to invest, advise in sports and entertainment. So, we go on the journey. Now, looking back, like I always say, you know, life

[06:17] when you look backwards, this finely crafted novel, a quote by Joe Walsh. So, you know, looking backwards, everything looked it's perfect. It's neat and it's perfect. When you're going through it, you're like making decisions, not sure if that's going to work. You got to pivot. But, we've basically done three things. First, 2021, we take Bowlero public, so it's the largest bowling center operator in the world. We join the board kind of we have our playbook. We work with management on that. While we're on the board, the stock's up 70%. So, we do that for the first couple years. It was

[06:48] great. Then, you know, feel kind of our work is done there. So, um you know, uh divest, jump off the board. And at that point, while we're thinking about, well, what's the next thing? We've got a couple of things in the in the hopper, get a call from from Vince, and he calls me and you know, in fact, if you wanted to get a sense of that call, that's the prologue for the book, which you can get on georgebarris.com, what that conversation was. But, basically, it ends with him saying, "Hey, look, there's I want to do one more big thing. I'm not sure what it is. Can you come back and help? I need the A

[07:20] team. You know, this is going to be the kind of the big next big thing. I'm not sure exactly, you know, is it acquire something? Is it be acquired? Not sure." So, uh you know, then he asked me, goes, "Do you think Michelle would come back to it?" I said, "Yeah, I think so." He goes, "Well, can you call her?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure." So, I call Michelle. Of course, she goes, "Yeah, let's do it." So, we go back, got to lead that process that ends up uh you know, after looking at a lot of different opportunities, ends up being with the merger with UFC to form TKO, new public company that's majority owned

[07:51] by Endeavor, another public company. So, kind of a, you know, interesting structure, but regardless. So, we spent a year and a half doing that, and that was a home run. So, felt, you know, the stocks doubled since then. So, you know, another kind of, you know, two for two out of the gate. And then the third, and got there in the cutest way, and I won't bore you with the journey, but the end point is we end up partnering with CVC, large European private equity firm, large global private equity firm, but based out of Europe, to create Global Sport Group, which, in

[08:21] essence, we spent almost two years through that process. We just closed the formation of the company in April, so a few months ago. And so, Global Sport Group now houses CVC's sports investments, La Liga, Ligue 1, the WTA, FIBB, Six Nations Rugby, Prem Rugby, URC Rugby. So, it's got seven minority interests in some of the premium sports properties in the world. It now sits in a holding company, so outside the private equity fund structure. CVC is

[08:52] the majority holder, majority equity holder, but there are there other equity players, and then we also recapitalize the entire business. So, worked on that for two years, and now our investors in that holding company, as well as board members. And and, you know, just as opportunities, you know, you don't know when they come. We get a great opportunity as we're working on closing Global Sport Group and creating that on the first acquisition that Global Sport Group does. So, it we acquire Equine Network, which is the largest

[09:23] equine sports business in the United States. And then Michelle and I are investors there, and co-chairs of that board. So, kind of a whirlwind tour, but take Bull Aero public, join the board, great outcome, then rejoin WWE board, architect the the merger with UFC, great outcome, and now uh you know, we're board members and and investors in in the largest sports investment platform in the world. So, you know, really excited about that and super active. I mean, we've got a couple of deals we're looking at right now, in fact. So, uh

[09:55] yeah, having a lot of fun, too. >> Yeah, I mean, as usual, a lot of a lot of stuff there, but let's start with Bolero. You know, I think right when that was happening, obviously SPACs were a interesting and popular investment vehicle. So, one, how did you decide to launch the SPAC? How did you decide that Bolero would be the target? And what was the process to get Bolero through the SPAC? >> Yeah, and you know, SPAC became kind of a bad word in 2021 2020 and 2021 because in hindsight, you know, you could always tell again, in hindsight, everything's

[10:25] crystal clear. When you're going through it, not so much. >> Right. >> But there was an IPO bubble happening, right? Well, if you look at historically, the number of not just SPAC IPOs, just IPOs generally, the number of IPOs that happen every year, relatively steady for a long period of time. The number of SPACs that happened every year, so a subset of the overall IPO market, relatively steady. 2020 2021, there's just a ton of companies going public. And in hindsight, companies that maybe shouldn't have gone public. And so, what

[10:56] you've seen of that cohort, if you will, and again, not just SPACs, but traditional IPOs, haven't done well and on average. Bolero was one of the real success stories. Like I said, uh 2 years in, stock's up about 70%. It's pulled back since then, after we left the board, uh but we're still big believers in in the company. But so, to your question, we're looking at what's happening. You can kind of feel that it's a little frothy cuz you're seeing things going public that you're like, you know, Michelle and I are you know, pretty seasoned public company

[11:27] executives. So, we like to think we know what a public company looks like. And it you know, like, ah this a lot of these things don't look like they belong in the public markets." Again, based on what you're seeing. So, we decide we're only taking a business public first that we understand deeply. So, we got a lot of, you know, it sounds funny now, but they was real, you know, the the flying taxi companies. And you know, they literally we have probably got 10 of those inbounds. And so, we're saying, "Look, these are things that we don't really understand, can't really add a

[11:58] lot of value in." However, Bowlero is one of those. And when you look at the business, you said, "Well, look, it's an experiential business. We certainly understand that. They are owners of the PBA, the Professional Bowlers Association. We definitely understand that business really well." And then we look at it, and when you, you know, we do what we do, which is do a deep dive in the business, look at kind of the the core economic drivers. And we said, "Boy, one of the largest participatory sports in the US, have a really good

[12:28] management team that is uh had consistent growth, same-store sales growth, you know, year-over-year. It's a big acquisition opportunity. They're fundamentally doing almost nothing internationally, so we think we can help there. There's an opportunity on the digital side and the data side as they have more and more uh customers who are in the in the in the facilities, but what can you do with synchronously, right? You know, like asynchronous bowling leagues, if you will. Something where you know, people can compete and not have to be necessarily IRL uh

[12:59] competing directly So, anyway, we look at it, we said, "Boy, really, really like it." And move forward. And and we'll say in that whole decision-making, cuz it was so frothy, there was a lot of people like us that were out there saying, "Hey, you know, we can help a business go public." And so on. So, part of us being willing to get into that, we took a hard look. I think there were probably three, 250, 300 SPAC sponsors, which tells you how frothy it was. Traditionally, number SPACs a year is

[13:29] like 20 to 40, but you had a bunch of people doing what we were doing. And so, we looked at it and say, "Hey, do we really want to go into this kind of, you know, competitive bloodbath?" But when we looked at it, we said, "Well, what do we think would make a good sponsor to take someone public?" Deep understanding of the business. Deep understanding of the public markets, not necessarily as an investor, but someone who's operated in it, right? Cuz the value you can bring is to the people who are going to now be operating in the public markets, helping them get their sea legs as quick as possible cuz

[14:00] it's a different it's a different beast. So, in any event, we looked at it and we said, "Look, we may not be the best SPAC sponsors out the list out of these 300, but we're up at the top in our, you know, in our opinion. What we think we're in the top 10." And so, then then the question became, "Do we think there's 10 good businesses out there or 20?" And we said, "Yeah." Do we think there's 300, like one for every SPAC vehicle? No, probably not. There's just not that many companies kind of that deserve to be in the public domain. So, anyway, that was the whole process.

[14:31] Ended up, you know, our our thesis ended up being right. Had a lot of fun with the team. Had a lot of fun through the process in and of itself. The the closing of that deal, like every deal dies a thousand deaths and um you know, there there there were some uh sharp elbows, right? Cuz you you're talking about, you know, a lot of people, uh you know, and trying to get the deal done. Everybody trying to get what's best for them in the deal, including us. And you know, we tell some of that story in the book, too, uh some of the sharp elbows that were thrown. But at the end of the day, it was it was

[15:02] just a lot it was a lot of fun. And and we enjoyed the process. >> Yeah, you mentioned then uh I think it's good for our audience. You mentioned a lot about difference between public and private and being seasoned operators of public companies. You talk more about some of those lessons, particularly as you're A, what you guys have learned in your experience with B, as you're teaching other people to come through the same process. >> Yeah, so I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll Before I answer that, I'll tell you something someone told me, a guy who I worked for a long time ago, and it was a lesson that stuck with me. And I was running a

[15:33] business. I was a general manager. I was a practice here, so multi-billion dollar business. The business I'm the red general manager of is two to 300 million dollars, roughly that size. Brand new. I'm I'm probably 30 31. First time I'd run a business, right? I'd had kind of jobs reporting to the guy who was running the business. First time running a business. So, it was, you know, a great learning experience, scary as But, anyway, at one point we're doing this conversation, and you know, he's the CEO of the company, and we're

[16:03] talking about, you know, what I'm going to do to do this, that, and that, implement something. And in that conversation, he told me something that was incredibly powerful. It was a great lesson. He said, "George, the easiest thing to do in business, um, is to run a business in for the short run. Because all you got to do is cut costs, maybe raise prices real quick, and you can turn a profit. Now, if you you may end up pissing off your customers, degrading the product, and then over the long term, you've screwed the business.

[16:35] But, the easiest thing to do is to run a business for a short run. The second easiest thing to do is to run a business for the long term. Because then you always sit around just saying, 'Well, what I deliver tomorrow doesn't happen. I've got some vision for 10 years from now.' And that's what I'm working towards. Great. So, he goes, 'The hard thing to do,' and this is what he was telling me, and it was a tough a tough love, because he said to me, he goes, 'I think you can do this, but I'm not sure. And if you can't do it, I'll find somebody who can. But, the tough thing to do is to do both of those.

[17:08] To deliver while you're growing, while you're investing for the future to grow. He goes, 'That's really hard.' And so, I I remember that. You learn You hear that. You're like kind of like, "Think I understand." Then life you learn. You go, "Yeah, that is hard. Those other two are really easy." Now, back to your question about public private. The thing about the public markets is everybody says they're investing for the long term. But when you look at what actually people do, the average holding is about 4 to 6 months. When you look at

[17:38] the uh you know, that's the reality. So, every investor will tell you they're long term they're investing for the long term. But when you actually look at what investors do, that isn't what they do. So, the public markets become this cauldron of focus on your short-term results. But they also want to hear that you have a vision for the long term because by the way, everybody knows that the value of a company, 70 or 80% of it is on the perpetuity of it. It's not on the cash flows over the 5 to 10 years, right? Nvidia, 4 trillion-dollar

[18:10] valuation, you know, 20% of valuation is what the expected cash flows over the next 5 to The rest of it is the ability to continue growing perpetuity. So, in any event, they want the long term, but it's short short term. So, back to the your question, that's one of the things in the public markets that you really have to learn is this kind of, you know, incessant drumbeat of delivering over the short term, but while still being able to invest for the the long term. And you don't get a respite cuz you got to, you know, do it

[18:40] every quarter. You know, Vince used to get that question a lot. Um of you know, why would he get a successful business, he controlled it, why be in the public markets? Why put yourself through that? And I remember him early on. I remember me asking him. I'm like, you know, this is hard. And you know, the stuff we're going to do, you could in this we could actually buy back the stock relatively cheap blah blah blah blah blah. And And he one of the things that he he he equated it. And I remember him telling me, you know, he

[19:10] he didn't work out or exercise, as he corrected me once. He trained. That's what he did. He trained. And there was a difference and there is a difference. And he said, "The thing about being a public company is it forces me" he's putting himself in it to to to manage the company in that same way. There is There are no You can't take a break because every 3 months you're getting in front of people and telling them, "This is how we did. This is how we're going to do. And this is what we're building to the future." So, what you know, that

[19:42] is the that what you have to be prepared to do. And the private markets, you know, again, depends on the ownership structure. When you're private, you could argue sometimes that private equity kind of instills that same kind of discipline. It's It's debatable, but you could argue that. But other other structures don't. And it it it's kind of eye-opening when you get into the into the public markets. Like It's like one of those things everybody loves the idea of being public if they're private cuz it's like, "Hey, it's almost like a

[20:12] milestone that you reach." But you know, after you're in it, it's it's painful. It's like I I used to tell people, "Every Everybody wants my job cuz they want with it. The compensation, the and the you know, the Well, you get to make decisions." I'm like, "Yeah, you're right. There's a lot of good stuff." But there's a lot of stuff The stuff you don't see is what you really got to be willing to do. And I think that's the same thing with being public. There's a lot of good stuff, but there's you know, it's hard. So, anyway, that that was the That's the lesson we taught. And And

[20:42] when we were looking for companies to take public, that was one of the things. And you're making a judgment call of It's Will this management team be able to execute in the public markets? >> Yeah, and um that I want to I do want to transition back into the you know, you're talking about going public, obviously, in the private side and what you're doing with the Global Sports Group. But when you say when you're looking for the management team, you know, obviously, we've talked about some of the features, but what do you look for then in a management team? Or what should a management team be really prepared to do? I You know, obviously, there's this combination of long-term

[21:14] long-term and short-term thinking and strategic decision-making, but you know, what what is like it or what do you consider the effective traits of a management team in the that's operating a public >> Yeah, there's three things I'd say that somebody who really who Now, again, none of us are perfect. So, you're never going to get a perfect answer to any of this, but the three questions that you that I like to see that someone can answer very clearly, and I mean, when I say clearly,

[21:44] that you could explain, you know, I think it's an apocryphal quote, but I use it all the time that Einstein said, you know, if you could if you if you understand something, you can explain it to a 6-year-old. Right? If you really understand so if you can't, you really don't understand it. So, the three things that somebody should be able to explain to a 6-year-old and that you look for is, do you have a clear view of where you're going? Can you very clearly say, "This is what the business I'm building is going to look like in 5 years, 10 years or so,

[22:16] and this is what I'm building for, the North Star. I've got a very clear view of what I'm building." That's one. The second one, they can tell you very clearly what they're doing over the next 12 months that gets them to that and as well as that's the long-term as well as what it'll deliver in the short-term and how it's better than it was last year, cuz that's the main right? That's what you're shooting for is you want to keep better. So, again, very simply, very clearly to a 6-year-old, "And this is what we're doing over the next 12 months that's going to help us get to that uh to that

[22:47] long-term, and here's what we're going to deliver." And then, the third one is the same thing on the people. Here's the Here's what I will need, right, in terms of team to to be able to execute at the level I'll need to execute to for my North Star. And here's where I am today, and here's the capabilities that we're building up, and here's capabilities I'm going to add, here's places that I think I could get better where I need to help people get better, whatever. But those three things, where am I going in the long term, where am I going in the short term, and how and who are the people who

[23:19] are going to get me there. You want somebody who can explain all those three things clearly and how they relate to each other. Somebody who could do that's going to do well in the private markets and the public markets. >> Yeah, I'd like >> is here I am. >> expose things. That's what happens. That's what happens. It's not that you need different skill. The problem is it exposes that the lack of the skills. It because the the the glare is so bright. >> Yeah, well, I was going to say I hope I'd like to hear Einstein explain general relativity to a 6-year-old, but that makes

[23:49] >> Hey, I got to tell you, there's not a lot of video. Richard Feynman, >> Yeah. >> right? Physics professor. >> Yeah. >> Videos of him are out there. Watch him explain quantum. Now, look, do you really understand it? No, but do you all of a sudden kind of get the concept? You do. Cuz he really understands. So, if you want to have some fun, I'd say throw on a rich a Richard Feynman video and watch it. It's like it's enlightening. He is one of the most charismatic guys, and he's talking literally about the most complex

[24:20] subjects that exist. So, I think you got >> Yeah, quantum mechanics and quantum physics are very complex, so >> That's right. >> Maybe maybe not a 6-year-old, but still, it's very interesting in that regard. I agree with you, I would definitely uh like to good way to put something on to learn something very complicated. And that was his expertise that he developed Feynman. Not that we need to talk about all this, but Feynman diagrams and explain >> Exactly. >> People still to this day talk about the legend of yeah. >> Yep. >> I definitely would second that as somebody who's a very uh interested in

[24:50] physics, but definitely not a physicist. So, I will say. So, uh Now, no silky segue from that to Global Sports Group, or maybe there is. If anybody could do it, you could do it. But, talk a little bit more about the Global Sports Group, how you got involved. You've talked about it at a high level, but really want to drill into there, cuz >> Yeah. >> And then, in the context I was going to say, it's just investment in sports has obviously taken on a life of its own. There's obviously a lot of stuff in the news. But, I wanted somebody who's done it and made that transition, what does it look like and why are you so interested in Global Sports Group?

[25:21] >> Yep. So, I'll I'll take the your first question first. So, like it's like everything. In hindsight, it all makes perfect sense. You're a board member in in a large sports investment platform. It's what you wanted to start out to do. Of course. It It actually got there against circuitous. I I get a call from one of the guys who who I'd known at CVC, and he's actually calling me for a a board seat on one of their investments. And, you know, in that conversation, I go, "Well, it's great, you know, very humbled you'd think of me. But, I don't

[25:51] really go on boards if you know, if I'm not invested in you know, cuz boards are tough work. So, I won't you know, time is your most important asset. So, you know, I I don't like to sit on boards where I'm not kind of deeply invested. So, probably not a fit." All right, so that calls me later. During that conversation, though, we had caught up. You know, this whole discussion we just had on Bowl Era. Oh, that's interesting. He asked me, "So, what are you guys doing?" Well, we're looking at finding opportunities to invest in sports, talking to a bunch of different people. Why are you guys so interested in

[26:22] sports? I give and I'll go back to that, cuz he asked that's your second question. So, I'll touch on it. I I tell him, you know, I think that you know, that starts percolating. You know, one thing leads to another. He calls back. He's like, "How about this? We've been thinking a lot about the best structure because of the long-term nature of sports investment and the horizon, thinking about the best structure and whether a fund structure is the best for that, or whether you know, this concept of a holding company might be might be

[26:53] better. What do you guys think What do you think about that? You know, Michelle and I joins me. We start bouncing ideas along with him and his colleagues. Na na na na na. All of a sudden we fall and during that process we actually are make two different bids on two two potential opportunities. Uh Can't mention them here, but we didn't win either one, but we're working with them on that, right? So, we're talking about this bigger holding company structure and along the way we're also finding ways where we would co-invest with them and and work with them on

[27:23] these So, we're getting to know them and enjoying that process, finding out that we're like-minded, right? Cuz it's one thing to be on a few calls, but when you're starting to actually to work on stuff together. So, anyway, that becomes a you know, almost a 2-year process. Didn't plan it that way, but through all that we said, "Boy, this you know, this gives us a great platform to do what what we want to do, what we started out to do, which is invest and help sports businesses grow." So, yeah, it it was it it just was a a perfect fit, but again, didn't start out saying

[27:54] this is what we want to do. Let's find someone. It kind of happened organically. And then, you know, the discussion with with with with the CBC team around how we viewed sports and why we were so excited about it. And now to your question, why are you doing this, right? Cuz the answers are the same. It's you know, we felt for a long time uh and continue to believe that uh as the media and entertainment sector you know, and this has now been happening for 10 years or so, continued to you know, evolve, you know, some

[28:25] people would say be disrupted, evolve, there were going to be new winners and losers, like they're always all right. You have a value chain, it existed for a long time, and the different players in the value chain, you know, you have the sports properties, you have the networks, you have the distributors, each have their economic kind of thing, you know, uh solidified. Everybody knows who gets what. You negotiate a little bit, you do a little bit better, but you know, starting 10, 12 years ago, that all started to unwind. That's what created the opportunity for WWE, and

[28:56] that allowed us to do what we did there. So, with something we've been watching for a long time, and our thesis has always been that in this as the value chain gets re-architected, sports was going to do disproportionately better than other types of content, and better than the intermediaries. That they would have opportunities that that the value would accrue there. And you know, why is that? For a lot of the reasons that, you know, I know you know sports deeply. It's this multi-generational,

[29:27] tribal, global, community-based engagement, right? That that this is something that people are so passionate about. Most, not all sports, but most sports are relatively easy to understand, so they they cross geographic boundaries. The ability now with multiple ways to reach someone on all the different size screens and types of screens, the the the audience is just growing, and you know, we were talking I obviously everybody talks about it today. We were talking about that 10 years ago. It's

[29:57] just the continued drive of the amount of content being created, and first UGC content, and then it was going then it was AI-driven content. We were seeing that even in 2020, 2020, even before generative AI, which now has unleashed it. But in any event, in all of that, the thesis was ultimately what's not going to change is human craving for human contact. And so, the experiential element, the ability to convene global audiences who are passionate about

[30:29] something across time zones, that you know, sports was just uniquely positioned to do all that. So, that there was just too many things, you know, big trends outside of sports that sports was going to benefit from. And so, in any event, yeah, so and we continued to believe that. We think we're in early days. Yeah, I tell people all the time, there's still three, four billion people around the world that don't have access to high-speed internet. So, the ability to to to engage in in in video, that's changing

[31:01] rapidly. You know, every year there's another 250 to 400 million people who do get that access. So, you're growing the the pie is growing massively. And again, sports is positioned within now what's an almost will be an unlimited amount of video content is so unique. You know, the human provenance of sports is in debatable. Like today, when you're watching video throughout the internet, you're saying, "Well, is it AI-generated? Is it not?" People care about that, right? So, whether you're

[31:32] for AI or not, you there's an element of saying, "Hey, there's value I get from seeing something that's human-created and curated." In sports, there's no Nobody watches a game and goes, "Hey, is that real or not?" No, you know, those are people, you know, competing. So, in any event, that's why we got into That's why we That's what we've believed for a long time. And we think, you know, there's another, you know, 20, 30 years, certainly longer than my Well, maybe not my life lifetime, but my professional lifetime, that it that the opportunity is still going to be there. So, you

[32:03] know, we're excited to be >> One thing we mentioned in the previous podcast we talked about is maybe a deeper discussion on AI and the disruption of AI in sports. And that's something obviously roar and surge and the factors of of sports being live experience and people wanting human connection. That's certainly things that we are focused on. But one thing that I think is really interesting particularly about CVC is that CVC's relatively early investors into sports and sports as an asset class. And so, now that has been increasingly growing as an asset class, there's an opportunity for CVC and the

[32:34] global sports group to take the advantage of those learnings and apply them. So, one, what are learnings that you think have been had because you've been relatively early investors, and two, what's going to differentiate your portfolio compared to other folks who are starting to enter the space? >> Yeah, and it's a little bit the answer to the second is is tied to the first. You look at Global Sports Group and and look at the and look at the portfolio, one of the things you'll notice it's that it's leagues and federations, right? So, there's no team investments.

[33:04] It's leagues and federations. That's by design, right? So, we want to be kind of at the at the core of the particular sport and not just at the team level. And I think one of the learnings is that, you know, CVC pioneered the model of partnering with leagues and federations to do that. And so, I think A from an investor standpoint, it's differentiated because you have that. So, you don't have the team performance risk cuz you're invested at the whole sport level. So, that to us is very

[33:35] interesting and strategic. And then for a potential partner, they've seen that this team knows how to work with leagues and federations, right? And then that's important cuz you're now getting in a world that's it's different, right? The these structures have existed for a long time. There's multiple stakeholders involved. And so, you have to learn how to work with them. And and, you know, the our equestrian business in the US we control, we own 100%, but those other investments I mentioned La Liga and Ligue 1 they're minority investments.

[34:05] And so, you you know, that whole how do you partner, I think is really important. So, we think it's the combination of that history of of being able to partner is very validating. And then the the second element, the fact that our investments are at the core, that's very interesting. And third, you know, a lot of what we did, the playbook we wrote at WWE to ride that scale is what everyone in sports is is still trying to replicate. And so we bring kind of a a unique expertise of not just

[34:38] knowing what needs to be done, but actually having done it, right? So exactly when people tell me that, you know, that they really have data and that data is helping them, you know, customize the experience for their fans, nine times out of 10 the data they have are email lists, right? They haven't got yet through the hard work of really taking first, second party data, multiple data sets, integrating them, and really getting the value that they can turn around and say, "Hey, to to their fans, give them things that do

[35:08] make it more exciting as opposed to just email marketing." You know, there's a lot to do. I think when you look at the execution element, that's where AI to me is one of the most exciting things, you know, because at WWE we had it was a laborious, time-consuming process to create that infrastructure. I think the things you can do today, you can move so much quicker, and especially if you know exactly where you're going. So we have that North Star, we know exactly where we want to go, we've been there, we see we know how it works. Now the ability to

[35:40] execute it I I think it's just is, you know, you're probably an order of magnitude faster and cheaper to do that. And so that's really exciting. >> Yeah, I mean that's something that ROAR has built a whole suite of product offerings around, particularly really understanding the fan at a zero first second party data perspective. Obviously this is not a ROAR sales pitch. No, we're not going to pitch you right now, but that is something that how AI powers that understanding of your audience is something we're very familiar with, and completely agree with you on that front. And you know, one question, you know,

[36:10] into whether using a data-driven solutions I think is >> the way, sorry to I'll interrupt you. The other element around all this is it still early days. >> I don't I mean at this point >> even the organizations that tell you they're they're AI first, especially organizations that have been for around a while, are still in the dabbling stage. You know, there's pilots and they So, the opportunity is we're not people you know, if you use the base We're not even in the first inning, you know, and we're in batting practice at

[36:42] this point when it comes to to AI. So, the opportunity I think is just is is massive. >> And again, that's something we completely agree with and that's why we've taken sports experience and overlaid that on AI to build purpose-built solutions >> for sports >> Yeah, exactly. Real estate. So, to understand the use case and I think that increasingly will be where value's created and people who can leverage all these things together. That being said, part of what I want to bring up is you mentioned being a minority investor and TVC having experience and that clearly has gotten a lot of attention. So, I think this is one area where you can as

[37:13] minority investor help move the needle for a league or federation. So, how do you as minority investors, technology, AI, data or otherwise, how do you use that position when you're not in control to help drive >> change at an organization? >> Yeah, and look, it's a great question. I mean, again, not to get too much into into the inside baseball, but you know, from a from the holding company perspective and you think of the center of the holding company, right? So, the resources at the center, it's definitely an on-demand model with our um minority investments, right? They have They've got to feel comfortable saying, "Hey,

[37:44] you know, we're kind of tackle something. Help us." But ultimately, what it is is convening people because everybody is doing different things, right? Based on what they think is important to them and they're getting learning. So, one of the real powers of the group is convening people and cross-pollinating really quickly. So, you're you know, person you know, this person over here is working on this project. This person over here is working on another project. That person over there is working on the third You get everybody in the room and they're saying, "Oh, okay." and learn and and this is the mistake we made, right? Cuz

[38:14] that's always the learning. The The most important learning is I would say what you want is not people to tell you what you should do cuz anybody can do that. What you want is people who've already done it, have the scars, and say this is what you should not do, or be prepared, cuz this is the second-order impact you're going to get from doing what sounds like a great idea, and it is, but you're going to get this second- or third-order impact, and you should be prepared for that. So, that's really the power of the group. And then, to your point on when you do have control, you can just move a little bit quicker on

[38:46] that, right? It's less of on demand, it's more like, "Hey, we're we're invested in this, you know, let's let's go in that let's all work together and row in this um direction." But, yeah, it's you know, ultimately back you back to the first question or one of the first questions you asked is why Michelle and I decided to to partner here and do it is is because of all that. It's just we saw the benefit of multiple touchpoints, multiple learning touchpoints that we could then prop- propagate more quickly. And because in our case, again, we've done it, so we've failed, we've made mistakes, have seen

[39:17] the second-order impacts, we can take the workflow perspective and couple it with the technology, right? That the This is how you have to stitch this together for it to work. And then, use the technology to kind of enable that. So, I think that to me really is is you need both of of them. Cuz otherwise, you get lost in a And I look, and we get pitched a lot, I'll be honest. A lot of the folks pitching us, you could tell that, you know, they've got kind of a boilerplate view of what the workflow is, but they don't really understand the workflow. And, you know,

[39:47] that's to me that to me is a big accelerant. >> Is that a good way to put That was going to be one question before we jump directly into AI. Can you tell me what that is in reality when you say you hear the boilerplate versus the actual workflow in some of the pitches that you're getting? >> Yeah, so it Look, it comes It's the boring is I would say it's the boring stuff, you know, I've got a pitch We all have pitch decks, right? And our pitch deck describes how we think about creating value in sports, right? And we've got the five levers that we think are important, and then under each of those levers, we've got five other

[40:19] levers. So, you go through it, there's six pages, 25 things on there, and you go, "Oh, this is interesting. Okay, yeah, yeah." The reality is almost everybody has something similar. What they don't have is 400 pages of written words of text around each of the for those boxes. So, let's say 20 pages each of Great example. I was having and I'll come back to this. I was having lunch the other day. Guy runs a major sports property in the United States.

[40:49] And he tells me he's hiring a, you know, in this kind of way I'm going to hire a chief digital officer. And I go, "Why the would you do that, Tom?" And he's like, "What do you mean, right? It's important. It's digital." I go, "Well, yeah, I know it's important. Well, why don't you hire a chief electricity officer cuz you need the electricity to do the digital." And my The reason I make the point is because what what he was trying and he's a friend, so I could I could kind of be pretty direct with him. And then we talked and I was like, "You're putting stuff together that, let's be honest,

[41:20] you're not 100% sure how it all works. You're trying to shove it into a box." I go, "That's not the system you're building. You're You have an I You're Your core business is intellectual property and to stick all of a sudden the sales function, the data function, the product all together." I go, "That doesn't make To me, it doesn't make any sense. You're I go, "That's not the way to structure it." And then I gave him what I what I thought he should do. But, that's one tiny example of what I mean by workflow.

[41:51] It's like you really have a perspective deep, not shallow, not PowerPoint slides, text of how things should work together, what are the right KPIs, who owns what process, who's I mean, those are the ugly things about execution that nobody, you know, that consultants usually don't want to deal with, right? Cuz that's hard. So, they will sell you kind of the concept and they'll give you two good tools, but the how do I actually make this work day-to-day with a whole team

[42:22] of Yeah, that's hard. And unfortunately, it's one of those things you only know it by having done it. >> And then a good seg- segue into AI, right? Cuz there aren't that many people have done it. There are a lot of people out there. There are a lot of people trying to figure it out. Your friend who needs the chief digital officer is a good example. >> Since AI is so new, particularly generative AI, you're right. Like earlier versions of AI, we used it at my previous company, but generative AI and LLMs and how do you put that into the workflow and how do you think about agentic workflows and agents? So, how

[42:54] are you thinking about that just personally and then also how you thinking about it from a GSG perspective? >> Yeah, it's it's a great question. And I look, Frank, ultimately, how I think about it personally, it'll, you know, informs a little bit about how to think about GSG, although, you know, again, some portfolio companies may decide to do their their own thing. What I would say is it's early days and but I'll I'll give you one example and which just came up. You know, there's a lot of people I shouldn't say a lot. There are There are people out there who are trying to kind of sell the AI

[43:26] you know, proprietary database traditional SaaS model, right? You come on to our platform, whatever that platform may be, you entity, you sports entity, and you'll come on and we'll help you do this that or the other thing. We'll own the technology and, you know, you'll you'll pay us a a subscription. You know, my view at right now, and it can change, is this is different. And if I was running a company, I would not do that. I would say this is something that

[43:57] I'm going to develop and own the code myself. I don't want to hear about that it's anonymized data. People don't really The people themselves who are making these uh were you know the frontier companies can't exact aren't exactly sure how that data is being processed and you know what really is anonymized as opposed to training the actual tool on yet. So, you know, people have used the term you know the every business has an alpha their unique secret sauce which really is a lot of

[44:27] what we were talking about how it the internal processes that they've created to deliver their product or service. I would not be putting that into anybody else's machine, right? So, that's an example of where right now I could change I think it's different but I I tell people all the time I would not be signing up for some sort of SAS like proprietary database model. You may have to do the hard work of building like you said whether you call them you know the loop engineering graph engineering harnesses whatever terms and these terms

[44:58] are all changing but it's you're going to have to do it yourself. Like anything else what I would be doing is I would be finding something small not risky and saying I'm going to take that piece of part of work and I'm going to create something that's pure AI to do that to to really to learn about it. So, that to me is my advice to people is take something take something that's not core yet but instead of dabbling around the edges you know somebody says oh yeah you know

[45:29] we've got everybody we've got everybody cloud subscriptions, right? So, they're using AI for everything. That's great and we should be you should be doing that. That's awesome. But in parallel again if I'm CEO of somewhere I'm finding some something that I can encapsulate some workflow that I can encapsulate and say I'm going to AI that cuz I want to learn about how this works and also the what I talked about you know building my own stack from top to bottom including the LLM and and seeing how that functions. So, I

[45:59] would be doing both. >> You want to build it just a quick you would you would say build the LLM from scratch or build >> No, not build the LLM from scratch, build the harness around the LLM, right? And yeah, and and then, you know, whether you need a frontier model, whether you need open weight model, you can figure that out, but you're going to own it as opposed to the old model, like let's say, right? For CRM, hey, you sign up a subscription with Salesforce, they give you all these tools, it's proprietary data, it's not, you know, it's You could argue it's not your the

[46:30] way the data lives in their system isn't really yours, right? You can access it. So, I'm like that I right now would not sign up for that. And there's a lot and I've seen a lot of, you know, vendors out there selling that model, right? Cuz for them it's, of course, they they're going to lock you in. Now, you could say, well, yeah, maybe I don't want to be a software developer and develop my own stack. I've had, you know, SaaS tools forever. I didn't have to do it. My thing is this is different. You are now potentially going to digitize the thing,

[47:01] your alpha, the thing that makes you special. >> Well, what do you mean? >> not sure I All your workflows. >> I was going to say, what do you >> Everything you do. >> I think there's a Obviously, you and I don't disagree that often, or at least on these podcasts. I do disagree with you on the enterprise data security perspective. I think you need the LLMs as a whole have a different security profile than what we even say our company for we won't put anybody else in there, but we're starting from a data security, data engineering, data governance perspective. Understanding the data is one of the most important

[47:32] assets. It can't be shared. It has to be stored correctly. There's been a history of companies, most notably in medical records, where you can't share data. It has to be as secure as possible. And I think you One of the challenges that LLM companies broadly have had is that's not necessarily their number one priority, right? Their number one priority is training the models, and that typically requires the most data possible. So, I think your point is well taken. You have to be careful. You have to always be careful about security risks. But I would push back a little bit and I'm curious to hear about the workflow being

[48:02] the primary competitive advantage is How would >> Workflow and the data. That the combination of the two. That to me is if you really brought down every business that's ever existed, that really is their secret sauce is what they know and how they do whatever it is they do. >> How do you digitize doing what you do? >> Oh, if you begin to taking every piece of knowledge work that goes into getting a product or service done and you are you know, in essence trying to AI that

[48:32] workflow, now you're actually teaching maybe not you know, you're in essence giving that to someone else. Now again, people will say it well it's all anonymized and you know, and your specific data is going to be at this point, I think this is too important to again, it's not that I don't want to work with partners, but in a closed system, I'm not sure I'd be I I wouldn't be signing up for that right now. I would not be signing up for a closed system.

[49:02] >> Yeah, I think that's a fair point Chris, but I would just say even if you let's say theoretically knew how to sell tickets, we can't sell tickets to a sporting I mean that's part of the obviously one of the features of sports, right? Is we can know how to sell partnerships, we don't sell partnerships. We can know how to sell tickets, we don't know how to sell tickets. So even if you have the know-how and the data, you still can't do it because you're not the rights holder. So from my perspective and this is something I think you've very well articulated, it's the intellectual property. >> Take take that take that example. There's a somebody who's selling us the NBA, NFL, every said hey, we'll do all

[49:35] that for you. Kind of like Salesforce would have done with CRM. We'll do that for you, you pay us a subscription. Why do you want to develop all the harnessing and all that should we will do that. And that model has worked for 30 years with software. I'm saying that at this point I'm skeptical that I want to do that into the future. >> Yeah, that's that's fair. >> I don't want I don't want an AI version of Salesforce. You know, fill in the blank of whoever that is. Yeah, and I I may get there, but right now I wouldn't be doing that. I would be doing the

[50:06] opposite. I would be building the harness myself. >> Yeah, we've dealt dealt with that I think we disagree on that point cuz I think >> Yeah, that's all right. >> That's not where sports are from our perspective. That's not where sports or real estate or entertainment that's to me it's this somewhat of the SaaS model, right? If you can focus on what you're good at and have other people focus on what they're not good at and work together, that's where it comes together. Obviously, you have some skepticism. >> I I I just I think you know what? And I always say never whenever somebody says this is different, I always pull back.

[50:37] >> Yeah. >> different, but there's a part of me that it start is feeling like this is different. Yes. >> It kind of actually goes back to your public what's the hardest thing and we can end on this is the short-term and the long-term. I think this could both be the same and be different and I think that's where >> right. I think that's I think that's fair. >> Yeah. >> So back to the title of the book sometimes wrong, but never in doubt. I I I could be wrong on this. So I'm willing to be proven wrong, but if you said to me what where are you today? Like what's your mental models and when I said but

[51:08] but we're early days. >> Yeah, we're early days and you could be right. Yeah, I can see that too. And we got to talk about the book one more time. So >> [laughter] >> we'll continue this comment again. We have to have you back again. So we'll have to do round three on this one. >> I love it. I I I love the you know, I know you and your audience are into sports. It's what I love the business of sports not just sports at the the fun of sports but the business part. So yeah, I know I love this conversation. [music] So would love to do it again. >> Yeah, thanks. George Barrios, thanks for being our guest for round two and we're hopefully have many more rounds to come. >> You've got it, man. All right.

[51:40] >> Take care.