The ROAR Podcast: Joey Graziano, Indiana Pacers & Fever

# ROAR Podcast: Joey Graziano
**Guest:** Joey Graziano
**Date:** 2026-03-04
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f_wOcP1640](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f_wOcP1640)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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(0:05) As listeners of this podcast will know, my family moved to Indianapolis from Chicago not so long ago. It's no secret to anyone with an earshot of me that I gravely miss the city of Chicago. The energy of the city is unsurpassed. The people are my people. And yes, even the weather makes you tougher throughout the year. Chicago is also an incredible sports town and it has been historically but so is the place that we moved Indianapolis and the future lives very bright from a sports perspective in this city. That trajectory has to do with interest investment winning and also innovative people like our guest today Joey Braziano.

(0:48) Joy's the chief business officer of the Indiana Pacers in Indiana fever. His career path is anything but convention. From the courtrooms of Jones Day where he cut his teeth on white collar cream fence work to the baseball diamonds of Georgetown to building a thriving immersive education business from the ground up. Joy's never been afraid to run towards the fire. And that instinct has taken him some remarkable places. In this interview, you'll hear how a chance coffee meeting led him to the NBA where over six years he taught bring professional basketball to India.

(1:20) navigate to follow the Daryl Mo tweet from inside China and became one of the architects of the NBA bubble, one of the most audacious operations fees in sports history. Joey is now channeling all that experience into Indianapolis where he's not just building a winning culture around the Pacers in the Surge and Fever franchise, but reimagining what a sports organization can be. Park content studio, part mixed juice real estate development, and part community anchor. Adam and Joy cover a ton of ground, leadership, vulnerability, international expansion, data strategy, and what Joey looks like when he's building new teams.

(1:58) This is an episode you don't want to miss. I'm Rice Linton, and this is the Revenue Above Rep. Welcome to the Revenue Above Rep. I'm your host, Adam Gman. With me today is Joey Graziano. Joey, welcome to the podcast. >> Thank you for having me, buddy. It's good to good to spend some time with you. >> Yeah, good to see you. As I said before we started recording, looking good in the podcast. Glad to see you're doing so well. We're going to hear about your career to date and particularly all the exciting things you're doing with the Pacers and Fever, but we want to start the episode like we start all our episodes with the question, can you walk us through your career to date and tell us how you got to your current role?

(2:37) >> No, it certainly I did not have on the bingo card of life that I would be talking to you right now from Indianapolis. It >> Yeah, >> I'm a New York City kid from Queens. is a son of a New York City fireman. My father had one test growing up in our life, which is when your neighbor's house is on fire, do you run towards the fire? And I've lived my life by that test. And it's led me some very uh to take on some very different opportunities that have been incredibly enriching and I'm so grateful for, but it always emanates from taking a complex subject and simplifying it. And my father, not knowing, has probably guided my life with that one simple test more than anything else. So I started my I'll call it my adult career as a attorney at Jones Day and worked on white collar criminal defense work, complex litigations, foreign corrupt practices stuff, nothing to do with sports. And about a year plus into that part of my time at Jones Day, a family that had been very close to mine in 911, they were instrumental in helping my family get through that particularly difficult time. As I referenced, my dad was a New York City fireman on the upper east side of Manhattan. This family, I ended up going to live with them for a period of time. They're the reason I ended up getting to play. I played baseball at Georgetown. I They showed me a completely different world and I am forever grateful for the family. Their son owned a company and that company was going through the bet the company litigation and so he asked me to grab coffee one day. I thought we were just catching up as older brother, younger brother vibe and instead he was like, "Hey, I need you to leave. I don't know who else we can trust and I need you to we're about to be on the cover of the Washington Post."

(4:17) >> And so I did. We were on the cover of the Washington Post. I took the company from employee 50 almost down to employee one and we rebuilt it and had at some point hundreds of employees across 17 states. And it was a business in the immersive live experience space. And we we found and believe that there are six skills that lead to lasting happiness and success. Skills like optimism, goal setting, resiliency, self-efficacy. And those skills are not taught in American schools. And our belief was like we could teach science and math. We could also teach somebody to be more optimistic and that would have a lasting impact regardless of passion. And we thought the best way to do that was through these immersive environments.

(5:01) Think localized versions of Disney World. And so I spent my time as our chief operating officer designing, writing all the scripts like I was WWE Vince McMahon and Mayday writing all the scripts. Everybody was a cast and a character teaching kids there's probably no better way to teach self-efficacy than to think of teaching a four-year-old about superhero academy and that the best superheroes don't always wear capes. And so we built this incredible IP. It got very popular. Uh and then we brought it to sports. as an old baseball player. I don't think there's a better thing to teach grit than the game of baseball and and so we had about a third of the IP of Major League Baseball, a number NFL team, um some MLS teams, and then we also started to work in recruiting spaces for high school athletes, giving the pressures of high school athletics and using sports to get in a better school than you otherwise would, which is certainly how I felt like my time at Georgetown was.

(5:58) So it was a great fora. That business became very successful and upon my exit, I was back in New York and I was thinking about what I was going to do next and I was writing a book about my dad and engine 22 ladder 13 and someone just said, "Hey, would you go meet a a friend of mine at the MBA?" And I did. Um, not really thinking about jobs, thinking more just like great opportunity and a connection is obviously the MBA. And in in that meeting, they started asking me about you've got all this human capital optimization experience and you've grown revenue streams and you've taken legacy businesses and reinvented them. And they were telling me about their global events department and the opportunity to be able to reimagine some of the ways in which that event business goes on. And about let's call it 15 minutes into a conversation with Kelly Fato who is one of the best people in our entire industry. Next thing I'm I'm being told, "Hey, I need you to go meet with HR."

(6:51) for HR comes in then I'm getting a meeting with at the time Danny Meiselle and Bill Koik and call it a month later I'm in Mumbai India bringing and helping to bring the first ever North American professional sports league to India when the NBA played randomly in full circle it was the Pacers and the Kings things I didn't and I had this incredible run at the NBA really challenging circumstances I saw leadership I was in China when the Daryl my tweet happened. I was one of a small team that that helped bring back the NBA and the N and the bubble. I worked intimately for months on on that project. Then I was the first person on the ground and the last to leave the NBA bubble. So worked on that. I have one of the only successful equity exits in the history of the NBA with a business called NBA Experiences that I launched alongside Quint. We created something called NBA Con. Got to work and spend a lot of time on the first ever NBA Cup.

(7:49) So, I had this like incredible NBA exper like things you could not imagine to happen in six years, right? Just so grateful to the league. >> Yeah. And then we'll talk about your Pacers and fever and how you came to the Pacers of Fever in a second, but what I usually like to say is let's start at the beginning. You mentioned your time as a Georgetown baseball player and learning about grit. We have a lot of students in our classes and people listen to this podcast who are either current or former athlete. So, you don't necessarily have to have a career in sports and leverage your career as an athlete, but how has your career as an athlete, grit or otherwise, how did that help you shape your career and where you've gotten?

(8:24) >> To me, it's one of the first things I look for when hiring young people. I may be biased. I know if you can get up for 5 a.m. workouts >> and you can and you can decide how to be successful and prioritize academic and athletics while being on the road and away from your classroom, then you're going to be successful as a professional when you're trying to split time between showing up for your family and being being a great employee and launching something new. I just think the discipline of athletics and there's certainly other disciplines. I wouldn't put music art, but it's that like desire to be great and the discipline and work it requires to do so while also being focused on another aspect of your life.

(9:04) I just don't think there's many platforms that teach young people that. And so, again, there are I've met great people who had a full-time job while they were in college and and so I think there's there are other ways to do it. I just may again I'm biased to the idea of I've been coached hard >> in my career as an athlete. I like being coached hard. I've been called everything under the sun by coaches in a different time. >> Me too. And yeah, and so there's I think there is something amazing about about athletics and why I'm so bullish on young people playing and participation rates is you just you learn core values that are just hard to learn in other environments and they have impacts and ripple effects on the rest of your life.

(9:49) And so I don't think the aspiration of professional athletics is, and I know there's a lot going on in the college space right now, but the purity still of a young person falling in love with the sport, being a good teammate, learning incredible lessons about how to pick yourself up and view failure as fuel is really second to none. And you know why I I loved the business we had at Headfirst for high school athletics was the thought that like you could help a young person continue their career and it didn't have to and everyone will jump towards power four athletics but to me like you can go play softball at Mbury >> like lifechanging experience.

(10:27) >> Absolutely. >> And that being in the space to be able to help people do that was something I found to be incredibly fulfilling. >> I like to say this between the two of us we've won one collegiate soccer game. I understand learning from failure a lot. But one thing I did want to you know all joking aside and bad jokes aside I would say is your first business experience was in this really challenging environment. So how did you leverage your experience as an athlete into this challenging environment? Clearly there was seems like there was a use case that you thought was really applicable as you mentioned about really creating these immersive experiences that allowed for people. But how was your experience as an athlete? Maybe a training ground or helped you prepare for this really difficult environment.

(11:09) >> To me, I've just never been the most talented person in any room I've ever walked into. And I felt like that as a as an athlete, like I I always, for lack of a more articulate phrase, attempted to outkick my coverage. >> Yeah. It's good mix in football and baseball together. Yeah. Now, >> yeah. >> As a basketball guy. Yeah. I got to mention the And so I I view that in the way in which I've approached the business world. I don't believe I'm the smartest person to walk into any room. >> But you won't outwork me. You just won't. And I will catch up. Whatever it is that you know that I don't know, I will catch up. And when I do, like I'm coming for you.

(11:49) >> And that's the way in which I've approached business. It's how I train the people who work underneath me is I don't care at all where we are today. But I very much care about where we are going to get to and I'm very adamant of setting big visions and hard challenges and then figuring out how to get there through through hard work and tenacity and then frankly a lot of creativity. I think that's one of the things I candidly learned as an athlete having to coach myself was and get myself better was I had to be really creative. like I was never going to be the fastest player on a field, but how could I maximize my gifts? And so I had a real intellectual curiosity about my performance that I had as an athlete before I had it as an academic. And the experience to me that trained me to have that same sort of and approach things the same way was I was fortunate to go through the roads and the Mitchell at Georgetown and it was the best education experience I've ever gotten. They I had for the first time professors train me like an athlete but to think and interview and how to answer questions in the round. And every morning I started reading the New York Times cover to cover and being able to debate opeds and things that I wasn't and it was I got my butt handed to me in interview after interview and mock cocktail party. like I I grew up in an in that experience more than anything else I've ever done academically where I went from where I was to where I left and I would encourage every single student who can find the fellowship office in their university to run towards it and as a motivator for the type of GPA you require that kept me having a very high GPA. Before we jump into anything else, what's a mock cocktail party and how do they >> Oh, amazing. So, you go to you're you're interviewing for a roads and you get named finalist. Like the first event is a cocktail party.

(13:50) >> Yeah. >> You're 21 years of age. You don't go to a lot of cocktail parties. >> And so, one of the things that like Georgetown and the professor who Dr. John Glavin, like he set up mock cocktail parties to teach us like you need to drink, >> but you need to drink at a level that allows you to answer questions. Like every conversation is ultimately an interview about what he taught me in that moment. I've now used it for another 20 plus years of business development. >> Yes. how I walk into a room, the presence, being able to have interesting conversations to to learn how to get to quickly something deep with somebody.

(14:30) >> Yes. >> From a from a personal level to learn about people's families and why to create uni interesting analogies so that people remember you as an interesting conversationalist. >> Yeah. >> To say something bold at the right time. All of that I learned from Dr. Glavin through like sheer practice and he trained me like an athlete and again I'm forever grateful to him. >> I want to get into other parts of your career but I think this is really interesting. Building networks, building professional relationships is really important in the sports industry. It's all important in any industry but particularly in sports. You mentioned how you have deep conversations relatively quickly. What do you think is the key to doing that? What is the key to building the relationships that you've been building?

(15:11) >> Vulnerability and humility. I think being vulnerable with people is one of the most underrated skills. >> Y >> and it requires you to be a little bit raw and I think especially in the sports world there's so many jerks >> and so many there's so many big personalities and there's a ton of ego in our industry. >> Some of it rightfully but some of it certainly not. And the people who I and I'm fortunate I work for a number of very successful people who are self-made and there's not an ego the first question in the room they ask is about you and they want to learn and watching it again now as an adult like I'm reminded do more listening >> and also though when you speak be willing to share something with people that they weren't expecting you'd be willing to tell be open about your failures and the times where you didn't achieve what you thought was possible.

(16:08) Be open about the times where you felt like you didn't get what you deserved or you were overlift and overshadowed. And so I think that vulnerability in our industry in particular is such a breath of fresh air when you experience it because it's somebody you then want to spend time with instead of what goes on which is like the constant sales pitch, the constant people telling you how great they are and how they've done this and revolutionized that. And again, some of it is I love our industry because it is an incredible platform, but the people who I love in our industry, I find are really raw and very authentic.

(16:49) We're going to get into a lot of your successes in this industry, but since you brought it up, is there a story either early in your career or at the NBA or even now at the Pacers and Fever that really encapsulates this idea of talking about failure or vulnerability that you think is a good one to share for the audience that they could learn from in terms of your experience? >> Yeah. As a as a young attorney and you're in a fairly cut and dry environment, you don't know anything. And what I remember about being young was I was never afraid of the red pen.

(17:21) And I don't know that people do the red pen anymore in the same way. I don't know that's a thing. >> His track changes. Yeah. >> Google documents or something. >> So it's crazy. And now I like because of this I shifted from a red pen to a blue pen. So I still edit a lot of things on paper and to get back to people, but I don't use a red pen as And I can remember going home feeling like my my what my work product was bleeding. It was so red. and you're you build this camaraderie around and I can remember other young associates being afraid to show how their work was destroyed and I would bring it to the barn. I'd be like so and so partner just ripped mine apart and I think it was where I learned these lessons in college but it really it allowed me to lead an entire class at a law firm.

(18:08) >> Yeah. >> Because I I think people admired the fact that I wasn't afraid. >> Yes. I and so I think from a very young age I have never been afraid to show you the scars or the place where it's bleeding or where I'm not good enough. >> Yeah. >> But in my mind I've always viewed that as the Kobe Bryant dark muse cage. I hear you I'm not good enough today but I like I promise you I will be. And so I think like that even that very young experience of being around people who all of us have our insecurities and anxieties >> and a young associate like you have a lot of them because you don't you're not good and some of them and some people are getting better work assignments and you're like am I falling behind and I can promise you there's not a 28-year-old nobody's falling behind than anything but you do feel that way. I felt that way.

(18:59) >> Yeah. and that I was falling behind. And the I think the initial in inclination in those moments is to guard guard how you're doing and make everybody else think you're doing amazing. Be like, you're killing it. I'm the best. Like I I look at what I'm getting to do. And my >> gut reaction was the opposite, which was like, show people how bad I'm doing and be okay that they're mocking. Like in law school, I used to show up. Everyone I feel like in law school is posing. You had the what they used to call the gunners, the people who were like trying to get A's in every class like right from day one. Always raising their hand.

(19:40) >> Very annoying people. >> But I used to show up to class in like sweatpants, a t-shirt, a backwards hat, and everyone in the whole like my whole first they all thought I was a dumb jock. I was like I'm fine with you thinking that. And by the way, I didn't do the reading. And I'm happy to tell the professor I did not do the reading. >> I promise you when like when it came out who was the top ranked of the class and my name was on there, it was shocking people. But I knew and had the confidence to be like I am very comfortable with you thinking I'm a complete buffoon because by the way I am. I just be at the end of this class.

(20:18) I wouldn't say it's luck but it was not something you prepared to do with the MBA and jumping into the NBA and jumping into the deep end of the pool where you're going to Mumbai and yeah you when you're doing the thing and we I definitely want to talk about the bubble and that experience because that's a totally idiosyncratic experience but this kind of attitude where you're saying I come off as buffoon but I'm always going to be the one who's coming for you. Were you able to employ that in the NBA when you started or is that something that you were able to do once you were more successful and entrenched?

(20:47) No, I think at the NBA like I did not have major global event experience at that period of time. What I had was a boss who believed I had an aptitude. >> Got it. >> And why I'm incredibly grateful to Kelly and why I will forever say she's one of the best people I've ever worked with was she trusted me implicitly from the beginning. And it wasn't because of a list of her resume where I could exactly point to the fact that I did this particular item before. It was a I trust that this person will have incredible judgment, will work, will be the most prepared person in the room. We'll ask questions when they don't know. We'll learn. And I will tell you like the jump that I made professionally over my six years there like I started as a sure very good employee, but I left completely different. And I at the end like I had complete mastery. Like my thought is how quickly can I get that 10,000 hour roll in?

(21:40) >> Yeah. And the quick and I feel like my one of the things that is a superpower of mine is I'll get to that 10,000 hour rule >> quicker than most. >> Yeah, >> for sure. >> And so yeah, I was I had to be vulnerable with her. And I think where I am forever grateful is that she celebrated that vulnerability and didn't demean me for not having all of the answers on day one. And I think as I left we were partners like real partners at the end of my time at the NBA. And I think it was because of the trust that was built through repetition after repetition. And I wanted to start with your international experience particularly you said move going to Mumbai and other international experiences. What did you learn by going abroad particularly so early in your career and how has that impacted your careers going forward?

(22:28) >> Yeah I was fortunate. So when I graduated from Georgetown, I the thing I ended up playing a little bit of baseball, but I part of it was I ran a nonprofit in the Dominican Republic called Baseball Aligos. So I moved to Canuelo. I when I got on a plane, I spoke really not a word of Spanish. I still now speak again not a word of Spanish. >> I I moved to a small sugar bat. No electricity, no running water. And I basically created my own version of the Peace Corps. We bought a old Red Cross school building and our vision was that we could flip the traditional biscon model around wi-i which incentivize young people in the Dominican Republic to leave school as early as possible if they have any athletic aptitude but then limit what you can really do after which is functionally cut sugar cane because you don't have basic math skills or you don't know how to speak English which helps you in the tourism sector and our vision was we could flip that and we did and we had hundreds of kids that would come to our program when they'd have to go to school and our vision was teaching basic math, reading, writing, and English. And then we'd play baseball with the best training and best facilities all afternoon. So I started for a kid who had never taken an international trip, very bluecollar, like that was not a part of how our family was able to grow up. We did not have we did not spend time globally traveling in a house that was both my parents worked multiple jobs. I got to go to the Dominican and I figured out how to like survive by myself too.

(23:57) Didn't fully speak the language. Was living in a sugar batt, no cell phone, no way to call home, no way to get money. I just had to figure it out. And so from that, I've always viewed the opportunity to be international really important professionally. And even here at the Pacers, one of the things that part of the commitments that I from our organization is last year we went to Paris. We're going to be traveling internationally over the next two years as well. And that was a big part for me was I wanted to see our vision in the broadest possible context. And certainly when you were traveling internationally, I think the first thing is the power of the platform.

(24:37) This past year when we were in Paris, we had we I ran something called the quest for gold. It was a bringing the gold out global was a gold outs are a big thing in Indiana around the Pacers games. And we ran a citywide scavenger hunt with partners and we had young fans from all across Europe. They were sleeping out cuz they tried to hack the code that we gave. Like they were sleeping out at 10 p.m. the night before to be first in line. And I remember talking to our ownership group and they're like, "This won't work." And I remember taking video of all of these fans who were sleeping out the night before. Like we were running a Taylor Swift concert to be first in line to be in for the scavenger hunt reveal for the Indiana Pacers. I was like this is fans from Finland. And like that part you just you don't realize the power of the opportunity if you don't get outside of this country.

(25:31) >> Yeah. And I think it's a really important thing certainly for young professionals but I would say for all of us to constantly remind ourselves to think in a broader context and that brings me I guess weirdly into the bubble right the bubble and what happened in the bubble you have all these different things all these different components working together seeing things in a different context obviously the bubble was a totally different context and totally different way to consume the game >> from your perspective hey can you walk us through the process of how you were select Ed for and how you took on that project and then I guess lessons learned from that experience.

(26:07) >> Yeah. One of the under valued lessons or under reportported lessons to me of the bubble and it's something I really value and come to value more and more and something I when I hire people I look for this trait is the ability to take complex subjects and simplify them. >> Yeah. >> And people will always talk about the return >> the play. >> Yeah. I actually think the most impressive leadership lesson I've ever seen live was watching Commissioner Silver shut down the NBA, which functionally shut down the world. >> Yes. >> And Adam created a Think about this, 30 billionaires, >> all who've been wildly successful in their own right >> in different states that have very different rules and approaches to this pandemic, especially in March, that period of time. And Adam created a very simple test. If an NBA player tested positive, we were stopping.

(26:57) >> Yeah. >> And functionally, the world followed. This date was impressive leadership lesson I've ever seen. And then certainly that to come back like I again I I view it as the greatest gift anyone's given me professionally was the opportunity to work 19 hours a day not create thousands and thousands of slides and models of how we could think about returning to play among colleagues and a very small group of us who like to this day we are bonded in a way that will never forget all of us doing it from our respective New York City apartments not sleeping not really eating and trying to find a way to bring back certainly the NBA but more importantly provide a model for others to return and then creating a city with our partners at Disney in basically a month convincing all of these NBA players to trust us and at that time I remember trust us with their lives >> I remember when the first day I flew down there we had I we had created all these models we had all these operating plans the procedure and I showed up I had never I hadn't been on a plane obviously during during any of that period of time. I get on a plane and I get to Florida and I'm like this is basically Mars >> because I'm from I mean I've been living in New York City in Spokane.

(28:17) >> The parks were shut down at that particular point. Like I couldn't even go for a walk. >> Yeah. >> And I'm showing up to Florida and like seeing people in a swimming pool. But the first thing that happened was the pandemic when we had modeled all this out was really particularly acute in cities like New York. >> Yeah. and was doing significantly better in that time in place like Florida. And it turned out it was obviously because the like the weather where people were spending time indoors, people were spending their more time outdoors in March in in Florida and more time indoors in New York. And so it was easier to spread. We didn't know that at that time. So the first thing that I did when I got off the plane, I remember getting a a phone call from Mark Tatum, was we created the model to shut down the bubble we were about to create. That was the first thing I did when I touched down in Florida was like, how do we delay?

(29:04) >> Yeah. >> Going to do So, it was touch and go for every moment of us getting live and it was one of those experiences like I call them the I was there when moments. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Like you it requires you to care deeper and these moments they end up defining your career. frankly they define your life >> and they don't happen enough >> to all of us and so when you're in one of those moments >> like you need to find a way to full immersion to care more deeply and I was fortunate that my significant other allowed me to go that she was comfortable with taking this on and the fact I probably didn't talk to her very much over any of those periods of time but it was one of those I was there moments and I will never forget the leadership lessons learned the stories the folks, the laughs, the things that got us through it, the people that I did alongside it was in some ways, not from the health perspective, but like you miss it.

(30:04) >> Yeah. >> Like you miss the And you're waiting for the next one to happen in your career, not knowing if you'll ever have another one. >> It's definitely not the same stakes. People say that about either going to battle or going to war. You miss that camaraderie, the intensity, and obviously it's not the same stakes. Although there are obviously some these were high stakes as you were saying the NBA players and their families trusting you to get through that >> and from your perspective and I want to get into the Pacers and the fever and first how you got to that job or how that position became open to you but you mentioned some of the lessons but are there more day-to-day operational things you learned from your experience at the NBA particularly in the bubble that you've taken from and applied now in your career to date?

(30:44) Tons of lessons. I certainly think about a big one that I have. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. Something I said a lot I said a lot in the bubble and it was this concept of you cannot be you cannot be puddle deep. >> Yeah. >> If you're going to commit to stuff and I think as you there's thousands of great ideas. >> Yep. >> And something that I work with somebody very closely who followed me from the MBA and and one of the things that she does such a great job for me is I get very excited by new ideas. I like the ideation process and new ideas that don't get executed do nothing for anybody.

(31:18) >> Yeah. >> And ultimately one of the great lessons to me of the bubble was like I've never been more focused >> on one thing. It was operating the bubble was managing the relationship with Disney. It was keeping people healthy and safe. I And in some ways like I was so good. >> Yeah. Because the world, at least my world, recognized what I was doing and left me alone. >> Yeah. >> They like there was no take other meetings about this other potential business development idea. There wasn't like, hey, what else are what new business are you going to launch?

(31:52) >> Yeah. >> After the bubble, it was every day was like locked in. >> Yeah. >> And I think of that like when you think about athletes, like athletes do that, professional athletes, like they're really able to lock in on a core task. It's very hard as a business to like today if I could look I had I don't know my first meeting started at 8:00 this morning. No one meeting connected to the next and I haven't produced anything today. I've been in backto backto back zooms or live meetings. All of them on a very different topic. None of them have actually like produced a tangible piece of work product for our organization.

(32:28) And I think that finding those windows being unbelievably disciplined. Yeah. >> To have a way in which you can record those ideas so you don't forget them, put them in a place, but like at the end of the day, we are measured by our results. Can we take X to Y? And that is a practice and essentialism that I think is one of the great lessons I've learned about the from my time at the NBA because when you're at the NBA, everybody will say yes to you. Everyone will say yes to you the meeting. Everybody will say yes with an idea. Everyone will be pitching you. And you could spend all day and unfortunately I've met colleagues like they spend all day in interesting conversations >> and nothing done.

(33:07) >> And so that practice of essentialism I learned it I learned it again in the NBA because of how many people like the what the inbound volume was. But I remember from the bubble how good I was when I was only thinking about one thing. Yeah, I think that's a really good point and I think really focus, clarity of purpose, being able to drive forward on a single mission is really important. I think the common saying now is like nobody's good at multitasking, but everybody does multitasking all the time. Being able to focus in is really important. I do want to get in obviously we've talked around it a little bit, but your current position at the Pacers and Fever obviously you've had these experiences at the NBA, you had these experiences throughout the world, you had some experience building. How did the opportunity with the Pacers and the Fever come about and how did you decide to move forward with the Pacers and Fever as your next role?

(33:56) >> Yeah, I was really fortunate as I had a sense of wanting some new challenges and some opportunities and things I was excited about and that I had built a reputation where there was a number of NBA teams that were very interested in thinking about how we could work together. And so I I felt really great about where I was and Indiana was maybe a surprising choice to some, >> but when I thought about the things that were going on here, we had a a new CEO who and this is not about whether I love the old CEO, we're very close, but it was just a new leadership means there's going to be some changes and so there's maybe different ways of doing things that are open on the table and I'm very close really appreciate and have a lot of respect and loyalty towards towards Mel Reigns who's our CEO here. The other was Kayen Clark got drafted here.

(34:41) >> Yeah. >> And that was going to shine an international light on what we were doing and how we were thinking about and maybe raise our ambition as part of this. And then I've got the best ownership group in sports um with Herb Simon and Steve Simon and Steven Rails. All of which are really excited about taking on interesting challenges since we've been on this my phone. I've got I missed two FaceTimes from from Herb Simon who has a a like a voracious appetite for deal flow and innovation and he's excited by all these new ideas. Today I spent my morning talking to him about anime and why is a place like that we should be running towards. You wouldn't expect that from from a particular owner, but that's the kind of leader he is. And one of we so we got some alignment around new ideas and one of which is we're building what I believe is going to be one of the most bold and ambitious mixeduse sports entertainment districts in the country.

(35:38) 60 acres surrounding Gamebridge Fieldhouse, which is one of the best basketball venues in the world. But that we our vision is to become holistic entertainment providers. We made our first announcements with a Ritz Carlton coming and also a Live Nation music venue. We've got some other major announcements that I think is going to set the industry on fire that we're excited to announce and that we're we're going to announce a big new bold IP around the fieldhouse district that we think is going to ingratiate people. And it starts also with knowing and you're data guy and in analytics like we we've talked a little bit about this but like knowing why something is looking up and to the right. And here in Indianapolis we've got a couple really interesting dynamics from a demographic perspective.

(36:21) We've got both IU and Purdue are bringing tens of thousands of new college students into downtown turning our downtown city into a college town for the first time. Our convention center is doubling in size and we already have one number one conventions convention city in the country. >> Yeah. >> You I reference both teams are on the up upward rise and I didn't know we were going to be as good as we were last year with the Pacers. That was a crazy run. >> Yeah. >> And you think about all of these things and say is this a place where we can create a model that could be exported.

(36:51) And so when we think about the real estate play, we're not just talking about the legacy being our ability to change the city. We think we can create the model that American cities across the country follow. That's the kind of ambition and energy that excites me. And we think in this world of data and digital, there are no big or small markets anymore. There are just markets. And our vision is what we're doing in Indie is really a content studio. That's what it is. And so we our vision is to go be as as big a brand as anything in the country. And we're not shy from that vision. And can you talk about particular on the real estate side? You mentioned being a model city. you obviously mentioned some of the things that you have going on, but what does that mean in terms of being a model city and a model that can be exported to other cities?

(37:34) >> Yeah, I think it's how we think about public private partnership and how we align key stakeholders. I'm fortunate I'm benefiting from 40 plus years decades of experience by Herb Simon and Simon Property Group in relationships in this city between the city and state level. I don't think there's a more connected organization or team than what we have and certainly that is a really important piece of this is alignment across stakeholders. Two, it's in how we thinking about placemaking. >> Yeah. >> So, as an example, one of the one of the communities we're spending a lot of time thinking about is the Latino community, which is growing at a very rapid rate in Indianapolis. And traditionally, those communities may have underindexed on basketball. And so, if we're a basketball company, >> Yeah. That means we don't have anything authentically potentially to speak to that organization except to convert them to basketball fans and which we are working on. But if we can be an organization that's as focused on our Latin concert business, which we are, >> yeah, >> or in our relationships with WWE, which we are, all of a sudden now we've got easier ways to make inroads and to show how important that community is to feeling like they're part of our city, our fabric, and inviting them in. So then when you think about what is the right restaurant partner you want to bring in, you now are open to something that is much more much more diverse than what how you would have thought would pigeon hole a basketball team. And so I think it I think the model that we are focusing on is how do we create something between the universities, the business community and recruiting and helping Fortune 100s find homes here in Indianapolis. the political stakeholders necessary to partner with us to bring much of this to life. How we think about loyalty which I think is a really important piece especially for us and the development that we're talking about is in non-ontiguous pieces of land.

(39:27) >> Yes. >> Not like a destination where you can go and it's going to be walled off and immediately when you're in it branding and marketing is going to be really important. And I think those kind of complex problems lead to really innovative solutions and it's in those solutions that the models for ex sporting are possible. >> I want to dive into that. I know we're getting towards the end of the time so I want to get to a couple questions but particularly around that. So a how do you think about branding and loyalty particularly in a mixeduse development and how's that compared to your core sports properties and core sports anchor and you mentioned data. How does data play a role? Yeah. what kind of data things are you thinking about from a particularly from a mixeduse real estate perspective and with this specific challenge. So on the loyalty front, I think what's exciting is we've started to recruit some of these incredible global operators into Indianapolis. The Ritz Live Nation being the first two we've publicly announced. Those operate, they've got their own operating systems.

(40:23) They're not exactly like Marriott Bonvoy is not going away so that we could run our own loyalty program, >> right? >> As it shouldn't. And part of the reason why we're so excited is what they've built with Bonvoy. And the question becomes if you view your basketball team as just another incredible operator. So the Pacers are just an amazing operator and so are the Fever, an amazing operator. They speak, by the way, to very different fan bases. There's only a 5% overlap between those particular fan bases. >> We then have another operator in our concert business. And so if you view all of them respective operators with their own data, their own marketing, the question becomes, can you create an intriguing overlay that connects those disperate operators and gives fans a reason to want to spend their time and attention? And we believe our role is to sit at the center to basically be like the conductor. And so that may mean, as an example, we know what's going on inside Gamebridge Fieldhouse where two million people attend. And I want to be able to send the text message in the fourth quarter to those who are there.

(41:22) But I want to tell the right audience who I knew went to a country concert to go to our honky tonk and a different audience to go to our steakhouse and a third audience to think about because we knew they flew in why they may want to see the rich even if they're not staying there. And so our job is to play that role in the middle. And so we're thinking a lot about how we are collecting and acquiring the data necessary to do that, but also how we're providing something that is actually of value >> to our respective fans. I think that's it's not about them giving us their data, it's about us providing value.

(41:59) We're starting from the value proposition. And so as we think about data, we've got a huge announcement coming up in about two weeks that we're going to make with two incredible partners around what we think is the right data play for teams and leagues globally. And it it's I don't want to I don't want to upset my partners by giving too much other than to say I've not been as excited about anything in my career as I am about what we're going to put forward. And I'm hoping the industry sees sees the work we put into this challenge and how it helps break down traditional market size limitations.

(42:35) >> Yeah, we'll have to have you back on the podcast to discuss that. So, a lot we didn't cover in our time. >> Listen, we everyone needs a part two. I don't know if you need it with me, but everyone needs a part two. >> Exactly. We're definitely going to need a part two, particularly after this announcement is made. But you as we get to the end of the time, we like to ask all of our guests, particularly senior leaders in the space. You already mentioned this a little bit in two separate ways, but when you're looking to hire people, when you're looking to grow teams, when you're looking for people, particularly as our audience of people who are senior executives or people who are looking to enhance or grow their career in sports, you mentioned grit, you mentioned determination, but what are some of the characteristics that you're looking for as you're hiring roles within the Pacers and Fever within the organization?

(43:16) I I I'm going to give controversial guidance here, but one of the things I very much encourage young professionals to not start their career in sports. >> Yeah. >> And I I know that can be deemed maybe disloyal to my own industry, >> but I don't think we do a great job because we just don't have the resources to train. I think it's I don't think that is a place where we have a superpower, credible platform, get to doing amazing work, but the training is not something as good. And so I often encourage young people to go to industries where there's great training and so that may be Wall Street or the big consulting firms like Bane, McKenzie, BCG, Deote, they train people incredibly well. I think about it certainly about what I got at Jones Day like I'll always be forever loyal because of that red pen and it taught me what polished work product looks like and I can really tell the difference even at the senior level when we're interviewing people who are coming in even at the seuite do you know how to produce polished work product or not as as you age in your career and may maybe the request to actually produce the polished work product will dissipate over time and more and more will be done by the team to which you build but there's There's a difference of can you open the PowerPoint and produce something that sings? Can you write like really can you produce a financial Excel model and whip it up in the middle of the night to show how something works?

(44:43) And again, I think that skill set may be called for less and less as you but it I can tell right away if somebody can do it or not. >> Yeah. And I tend to like the people who still can who can still throw the fast ball, who still are like, if I had to be, I could be the top individual contributor. I'm not anymore, but I know how to do it. And I think there's a lot of people that are faking their way through some stuff. And often, so one of the first things that I believe all interviews, I require a case study from you're the most junior employee all the way up. I think you have to produce something. And I don't judge just because I like somebody or they could answer good questions or they're a good interviewee. I want to see what they can produce and then I want to walk through it and see how they think.

(45:28) >> Yeah. >> And so case studies are required for everybody who we hire at least that reports to me. >> A data suggest and there's a lot of good books and particularly the undoing project with with very famously went into the interview process and Daryl my I think also your perspective on this. So another thing we can talk about in the next episode. So Joey Graziano, thank you for the time. This is very insightful, very enlightening, and we really appreciate you having you on the podcast. >> No, thank you for having me, man. I'm a huge fan of yours. Just to tell your audience, you are one of the best people in this industry, and your success is inspiring and motivating to all of us and what you've built and how you've built your career is something all of us should aspire to. I'm a massive fan of yours and I'm really grateful for the friendship.

(46:11) >> Appreciate that. I don't know a better way to end than that, so I won't say anything else. Thank you, Jennifer, for being on the podcast.