The ROAR Podcast: Adam Grossman

# ROAR Podcast: Adam Grossman
**Guest:** Adam Grossman
**Date:** 2025-11-20
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tTlbteaH7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tTlbteaH7g)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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(0:06) Adam, it's great to see you as always. Great to see you, too. Adam and I always do these things to get together to be able to talk about the season and things that have been going on. It's been a really interesting season with some of the guests, but along with those things, there's some news that Adam has to share. So, we wanted to really dig into that because it's really exciting news overall and it really fits well with the theme of the podcast this season. Adam, tell us what's going on. Yeah, my company revenue over and above replacement roar was acquired by Surge.

(0:34) Serge is a the leading firm involved in mixed use developments around sports, what we're calling sports and entertainment anchor district or seeds. We're large launching a new platform called smart districts as a service or smart dos. The idea behind Smart Dust is to really be able to leverage multiple different data sets, put that together to really understand consumers, fans, tourists, visitors, what are they interested in, what are they passionate about, what are they spending their time, money, energy on, and use that as part of the mixeduse development both on the planning side, on the capital structure side, on the ex execution side and commercialization side. So what does that mean in more direct terms is really understanding what fans, consumers, visitors, and people who live, work, and play in mixeduse developments or would want to potentially move into these mixeduse developments. If you really focus on what are they spending their money, time, and energy on, you could have a better sense of here are the things that we would like to develop, here are the things we'd like to finance, and here are the things we'd like to build. And once those things are built, how do we better commercialize, monetize them? So, how can we better attract tenants? How can we better attract people for residential areas?

(1:48) How can we better target people to come to these mixeduse developments and leverage multiple different what are called zero first party, second party or third party data sources to really drive that decision making, execution, and commercialization. It's such a cool thing and we're all very excited for you as it's a really interesting space and it's cool how it's growing. Along with that, as sports fans, I love those areas. There's a Braves fan, the Tourist Park and everything around there, obviously in Green Bay, there's such a cool thing to see. If we take a step back all the way back, you mentioned revenue over and above replacement. It was founded earlier this year. So, if we take it all the way back, walk us through when you realized there was a market need big enough to build this type of company from scratch. What was really the spark in that? Yeah, the original idea for revenue above over and above replacement was on sport asset monetization. In my previous company, Block 6 Analytics, I was really focused on sports partnerships. In my experience with Block 6 and then being acquired by Excel and then just industry conversations, I realized there there was a couple different areas that tended to work in silos. One was technology or platform companies. So those were companies that were really good at what they did but were really focused on a specific solution. And so typically you can think of in the partnership space there are companies that are focused on broadcast or logo exposure in video which is really important right do people see brands and they see either brands or branded content in video so think of whether that's stadium signage or logos on jerseys you have to be able to identify those logos. There's also companies that look at social media conversation. their accompanies both from textbased conversation or even logo exposure in text in social media posts.

(3:33) So saying are is there brand and content within the within a image, video or within a post itself that could say that this was a brand even if it's not mentioned by name directly in the post content or the text of the post. Then there's also companies that focus on content optimization, identifying content creators or influencers to help drive sales. There are companies that are focused on digital marketing, CRM solutions. There's all these different types of understanding consumer data, understanding the fan, understanding audience profiles. There's all these different companies. And then on the second part of it, the second vertical is in the advisory side. So you have all these technology and platform companies and there are advisory businesses that help say not just what to do with the technology or data but how do you help with strategic decision-m revenue execution content leadership thought leadership there are companies that work as strategic partners and advisory partners typically from a brand consulting or property sales. So brand consulting is helping brands enter into partnership. Property sales is really focused on selling assets. That's typically focused on properties, but that can also be on ticket sales, hospitality, merchandise, events. There are companies that help as strategic partners as strategic adviserss. And then there's also a sales element. So really focused on like actually selling these assets and how do you sell either from business to business or business to consumer depending on the business line.

(4:59) These kind of different verticals all operated separately. So I my idea behind roar is let's bring these all together. So if we could integrate multiple technology partners, integrate the advisory, have a direct sales platform. That was really the impetus to start Roar is because clients, our clients need all of these things, but they typically have to go to 50 plus partners to do that. As part of the buildup to this and as part of the launch of ROAR, and I've talked about this before on previous podcasts, I was approached by Clutch and RBC about a white paper they were thought talking about in mixeduse developments. that white paper we as we talked about have talked about on previous episodes and we can potentially link to those episodes in the show notes but idea is >> mixeduse developments is probably if not the most important or the topic that's talked most about by industry leaders it is certainly one of them in the paper we originally said it was a hundred billion dollar opportunity I think that's low estimate surge the company that has acquired roar has estimated the opportunity to be closer to a trillion dollars and Serge's goal is to deploy across 30 different projects It's a hundred billion dollars of capital and there are more than 30 projects that we even identified in the paper and that was focused on major North American professional sports not even international collegiate or high school opportunities. So the opportunity set is much larger than the hundred billion dollars that we originally identified.

(6:19) But I wrote this white paper with clutch and RVC and that opened my eyes to the opportunity of mixeduse development. And then in conversations once the white paper came out John and the surge team reached out to me. They were interested in working together collaborating on the concept that ended up becoming a smart district as a service. And that's how it spurred that was those initial conversations around the white paper how we could work together. It was John's insight to say instead of working together you should build that within surge and from those conversations that's where we decided it made sense and having the smart district as a service as the underlying technology and platform for mixeduse development but also as an underlying platform for roar's business focused on team operation and sport asset monetization is really where we saw a substantial opportunity that we had an episode with John earlier this year it's a fascinating episode I think it's really interesting how those things have come together, how you've built those things, not only what you've done now, but previously you mentioned block six analytics. You've done this before when you launched revenue over above replacement. You and I have talked. It wasn't necessarily the intention to run into John. This all blossomed together, but from that what made this opportunity with Surge different? What made it click? What made it want to come together?

(7:40) Well, I think one this you're right, this is almost the inverse of the block six opportunity where we spent several years putting it together and really going through when we were acquired by Excel Sports Management. It was definitely at the time we were acquired, it was definitely a realistic strategic option for the business to be acquired and that was an expectation and we had been approached by multiple companies about acquisition and decided to that Excel was the best fit for the business to make it grow. This was different, right? This was right, we weren't necessarily actively looking to be acquired or this was not necessarily as a strategic consideration. The reason we decided on both sides to do it is the fit, right? This is a perfect fit for both companies. We really from the white paper saw the opportunity in mixeduse development. John and the surge team are the industry leaders in mixeduse development around in sports and entertainment an anchor districts. That was clear from the initial conversation that I had with that I had with them and it was very clear just learning more about them throughout this process that this if we wanted to really build a practice that could again what is now going to what is now smart district as a service surge is the right partner to make that happen. And on the flip side John has really prioritized data and really understanding all of these different types of audiences that will inter interact with mixeduse developments. there's a real opportunity from a real estate side to build out this type of platform that can have a substantial impact certainly within mixed use developments and that is our focus and that is where we're going to be to really emphasizing this te technology and capability but in both of our conversations we've seen potentially an opportunity even outside of mixeduse developments and in real estate more broadly to leverage this in the planning execution and commercialization of real estate development more broadly and the opportunity for us to be a partner to multiple different either development, advisory, finance, construction. The opportunity to really have unique data sets. Bringing these data sets together and really be a part of the process from the beginning to help drive better outcomes from mixeduse developments that can drive hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue generation and also potentially depending on the opportunity hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in enterprise value to these businesses. That's where we really want to focus on and that's where the opportunity was. You >> mentioned a couple really interesting things there. You talked about the opportunity being more close to a trillion dollars. Serge themsself is deploying hundred billion dollars across 30 mixeduse developments and you talked about data. So in to you why is data the missing link in these large scale sports anchored mixeduse developments? Well I don't think it's necessarily the missing link. I think there is an opportunity to better use data because there's so much data that's going to be created. at scale of opportunity. There are so many things that are happening both inside and outside of the venues that can really be captured and we will be uniquely positioned to capture that data. Particularly the first party data that happen. So first party data is data that comes directly to an entity or and if you think about it from a sports perspective that's the teams have a lot of first-party data. They also have something called second party data where they get the data directly from the partners. So if you're talking about ticket ma ticket master fanatics technically the data starts through their platforms but is shared with the teams. So that's an example of second party data but the teams themselves have relationships typically through either social media promotions campaigns where they know a lot about their fans from a real estate perspective. You have you can and teams will also have point of sale data when people make purchases within the venue. food and beverage data which is again happens through point of sale but also specifically oriented around what people are buying from a food beverage merchandise perspective.

(11:31) So there's just a lot of there's just a lot of we can edit that part out where my wife called uh >> but there's just a there's a lot of data that's being collected and then we're going to have data sets about these mixed use developments themselves from a residential retail commercial office space perspective community development events. There's a lot of opportunities there that we're going to have data either directly or through our partnerships and our agreements that we will have access to. And then if you put that data that data set with other team data sets that with the partners that we working with thirdparty data sets and those third parties data sets can be transaction data behavioral data social data survey data clickstream data which is being able to track people's behavior in an ethically compliant way. At least the partner that we work with in an ethically compliant way across what they're doing in their mobile and web browser. you really can understand a lot about people in an ethic in an ethical way, right? We're not looking at people like this is Bryce Clinton. We're looking at what do people can we create personalized campa personalized campaigns at scale that resonate with the target audiences these developments.

(12:43) And I think what's cool about sports fans is they are in for those experiences, meaning that they're intentionally coming to a sporting event. They're intentionally coming to those areas and doing a lot of things. interacting and transacting all those different ways so they can continue to build on that. I think the data part of it is really cool and be able to build that. A rudimentary question for me is is Serge's goal the acquisition of property to build these mixed use developments or is it the ongoing operation of them or is it both? >> Yeah, two things. One, it's not just John makes this clear and he's I think he is absolutely right about this. The goal of mixeduse development is not what's happening on game day. It's what's happening on a Tuesday, right?

(13:25) You have to be able to drive traffic to mixeduse developments and you have to be able to have the sports and entertainment serves as anchors. Obviously, particularly on non-game days, what's happening in this mixeduse developments that's going to drive foot traffic or want to make people to live, work, shop, and play in those environments. The data can be very helpful from that perspective. A good example is the battery. Roughly, the battery in Atlanta is the mixeduse development around Truis Park. Roughly three million people come to Truish Park during the baseball season and roughly 10 million people come to the Battery in every year. So that means roughly at least at the very least seven million people are you know are people who are not necessarily involved in the games and we're not going to Braves games. So that's just you have to be able to to drive that traffic in order to get the types of returns that we're talking about. From a surge perspective, Serge is both can be both the finance and development partner working across multiple different phases. So it it participates directly. Serge participates directly in the financing of these developments. It can help with land acquisition. It can help secure additional capital partners, whether that's equity partners or debt partners.

(14:36) Serge will help to structure what's called the capital stack or where does potentially debt and equity capital work together in order to appropriately finance and best finance these projects. It can serve as somebody who can actually lead the development in terms of surge has just made a bunch of hires both from an investment and development perspective industry leaders industry experts who are have many years decades of experience focused on both the finance and development side. So we they can help with the development they can help with the execution. But the idea is that surge will have both the financial resources, the human resources and the scale to be involved from project from the ideation phase to the execution over a multi-year horizon to make sure that these projects are successful and drive returns for all parties who are involved in these projects.

(15:30) You talked about the smart desk, the platform itself was positioned as a customer data platform for districts, not just the venue itself. What does that actually mean for in the end the teams, the operators and ultimately the fans or the people that interact in these districts? Yeah. And again is the teams are obviously the anchor oftentimes the anchor tenants, but there are other people who are participating or have ownership stakes in mixeduse developments. The idea with smart dos is in terms of the non particularly on the non-game days is to what are the things that a should we be in the development process when you're talking about live work play shop there's a lot of different elements that you can think about if you think about it from a retail perspective what are the retail locations that you should be targeting that would be most likely attractive to the people who are visiting these areas so you can leverage data across multiple different like all the different data sets that I've previously talked about to say again what are people interested in what are they spending their money and where are they spending their time and it could be and this often can be the case there idiosyncratic solutions for specific neighborhoods for specific fans in Chicago a good example is that the Cubs fan could be and likely is substantially different than a white socks fan. So in a in more traditional real estate idea would be like we have a neighborhood comps. The closest comp to the Cubs would be the White Socks and vice versa. But they are actually very different and the areas around the stadiums are very different even just from a lease rate perspective and potentially a common metric in real estate is cost per square foot or foot traffic. There can be and the demographic makeup, the behavioral, those are all could be very different even though they're both Chicago baseball teams. So the idea is if you're going to build and think about what's happening on a Tuesday, you have to really understand what are people interested in that smart dos platform can then be helpful not only in terms of of determining what you know the types of locations and again this should only be one input. It's not the only input.

(17:27) You need to leverage the experience of teams like Sergeys team or your construction partners, owners representatives, other agency partners that can be involved in these projects. But the idea is that smart dos will give you a much more data forward like here's what the data is saying as recommendations for again these types of retail locations. One common example not just in retail but if you're thinking about restaurants like what are the types of restaurants that people actually are thinking about? A common consideration that teams think about is should we use a local restaurant or a local restaurant group or should we have national chains? And typically there's there can be arguments for both, but you really want to see are people spending more of their time and energ, money, and interest on national chains, and you want to potentially secure a franchise location, or do you want local restaurant options because that's where people are spending their time and dollars on. Yeah, that's not the only consideration, but that is a consideration that can help with the development process. Ultimately, a key metric that is typically used in real estate is something called net operating income and internal rates of return. So net operating income particularly from a um a leasing perspective is how you know how much money are coming from these the builds either from rents or leases or occupancy rates that's driving net operating income and then foot traffic is another big one that we've talked about really being able to understand how can we drive foot traffic to these sites if we need to have people coming here on a Tuesday you want to build the things that they want to come to and then the from an ongoing perspective is we want from an internal rate of return perspective is the faster you can drive occupancy foot traffic the earlier you're generating revenue the better the internal rates of return are in finance in there's we don't have to go into deep financial theory here but in general you want to generate revenue more quickly the f the more this a dollar generated today is worth more than a dollar generated tomorrow or six months from now or five years from now so the faster you can get commitments from a leasing or residential perspective perspective or commercial office face perspective the better. And if you can create again if you can create the things that people want or companies want, you can show that data to companies or to people as to these are the things they they want to do or these are the thing places they want to be. You can provide leasing agents or people who are working to actually sell the office space or at least provide secure tenants for the office space, secure tenants for residential spaces, whether that's high-end luxury, student housing, trying to get people or and that can be either from an owner from a to buy or to lease those areas. But the faster you can get income coming in, the better the internal rates of return, the better the internal rates of return, the more likely people are going to maximize the ROI of those projects. So that's again, there's a lot going on there. There's a lot of moving pieces, but that's the idea is that data can be used more effectively to achieve all of those goals. What's cool from my side and from a fan perspective is there's so much that goes into this to tailor that experience to the people that are going to be there. It's not just a shot in the dark. And I think that's great news for all of us that love to go to these places because the more they're tailored to that experience, the more we're going to not only interact with them, but consume. And I think that's an awesome thing for it. Talking about people and the people itself. You've mentioned in the past, you've said before people are data. How do you see that idea reshaping not just the sports business, but the entire districts that are designed and operated? Yeah, I think I I would probably say people are people. What they do can you know what they do, what they say, what their actions are, the data that we want to people are people.

(21:09) But in one of the things that we talked about this before we jumped on the call and I've mentioned this previously is that people want the reason I'm making a distinction is I think it's really important in this context is that people do want in real life experiences and they do want to be around other people. sports and entertainment and particularly within those districts facilitate you know what we talked Bruce Miller talked about in my podcast with him he's the CEO of populace and the leader or one of the in one of the senior architects of populace he mentioned people want connection and what buildings are designed to do or facilitate to design human connection and that's a similar approach at surge and at roar right this whole idea people want connection people want to have fulfilling lives they want to be better engage with their community. They want to better engage with other people and they want to have these interesting in real life experiences and these mixed use development platforms combined with the sports and entertainment anchor allow for those to happen and if but at the same time right there have been instances in the past where they haven't been as successful and I think in part what the battery has shown and what [clears throat] many other kind of ones that we highlight in the paper have shown is that building things that people want are more likely to achieve the success of these districts but also make it a better experience. The whole idea is like we the data can help drive a better ex not just better financial outcomes but better experiences for the people who are using those districts and that's the whole idea. We want to have more better, more fulfilling experiences that create these in real life experiences that facilitate h unique facilitate unique experiences and human connection. And I think that's where data can really play a part because right at the end of the day, we do want to see people as people and help use data as a way to see people as people and see what they really want, right?

(22:58) And build the things that people really want. >> True. I have seen the same thing from the push to those in real life experiences. We see it even in our classes. There's been a push to have people back in the classroom from the students. They want to be back in person and you see it in this space too. And I think that's great for all of us involved. It does drive human connection. If you anybody hasn't listened to that Bruce Miller episode, it's fascinating because you think it's going to be much more about the nuts and bolts of building a building, but there's not that much about that. It really is around how those buildings are created to facilitate those interactions and facilitate the enjoyment of the people that come to those venues. I think it's a really cool thing to see.

(23:34) Speaking of people yourself, you're going to play a huge role in this. Your new role as the chief analytics officer, that role kind of places you at the intersection of capital development, strategy, data and analytics. What do you think, and it may be way too early to tell, but what do you think that day-to-day looks like for you now inside of search? Yeah, I think I I have a dual role. One priority, one is chief analytics officer of Serge and then also I'm the president of roar. And the idea is that there's so much happening on both sides that it's going to be interesting on a day-to-day basis. I think it is going to change a lot. But from a surge perspective, the day-to-day is the focus on the smart DOS platform and how can we really leverage data to to help build better mixeduse developments. And the idea is that we'll have we as surge will have the ability to internally have these data sets, have these insights, have these platforms that can help with the development process. Externally, we can be a partner to all these different parties that I've mentioned. Whether it's the teams, there's something called owners representatives, which are people who work with the teams to help determine the best strategy for these mixeduse developments. There's advisory businesses, RCLO most notably in this space, but there's a bunch of other potential RCLO machete group. There's a bunch of other folks. Just because I didn't mention them doesn't mean that they're not experts in the space. But there's advisory businesses, there's capital partners, there's development partners, construction partners, a I mentioned before agency partners and Serge will serve as the platform from a data and audience data audience understanding audience profile analysis.

(25:16) Our goal is to be if not the currency a major currency in the industry when it comes to data and mixeduse development. on a day-to-day basis. That is what I need. That is what I will be focused on is to making sure that data becomes a key a key component of the every part of the process that Serge is involved with. From a ROAR side, it goes back to the thesis that I had originally, which is absolutely we're going to be helping on mixeduse development, but there's an opportunity to leverage all of this data, right? This data is not solely applicable to mixeduse development. If you really understand the fan, you can better monetize. And that's the idea is using smart dos and the advisory and advisory bit parts of the business the modeling the data the insights all that can be helpful in partnership specifically but how do we help teams on a day-to-day basis particularly these mixeduse development projects can take several years to really come online really depends on the size and scope of those projects but on a day-to-day basis we can help teams monetize their assets and not just teams we can work with a larger ecosystem of brands and agencies and athletes and influencers and content creators and we can also while we are focused on sports there's an opportunity to expand beyond sports to media entertainment music advertising more broadly. So the idea is we have this platform and we have ideas for future we have this platform we have these capabilities we can immediately and tangibly impact business the team's business on a day-to-day basis but also in a longer term vision there are many I shouldn't say teams but teams brands consultants agencies we can be partners to impact on a day-to-day basis and then as these mixeduse developments come online again helping be partners capturing this data helping to drive and make sure that these mixeduse developments are successful. If you're going to spend potentially tens of millions, hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars of capital on these mixeduse developments, these need to drive value. And the idea is that our platforms can help to continue to drive value for these businesses. One of the things that is a very important topic of interest is sponsorship both inside and outside or sponsorship and partnership opportunities both inside and outside of the venue and being able to have the infrastructure from a technology insights analytics and modeling perspective to really you know figure out how to best monetize particularly outside of the venue and in the mixeduse developments. How can we monetize partnership and sponsorship assets?

(27:46) Because this opens up a whole new set of inventory that can be available for partnership and sponsorship and we have the capability right now to help monetize those assets as both as they're coming online and in the development process. You talked about this a lot. You hit on a lot of things there, but what excites you most about this opportunity now being inside Surge backed by Surgeon and your dual role that you have inside of ROAR and in Surge as well? >> Yeah, there's multiple things, but I think it comes back to, you know, what what I was talking about earlier. This is a trillion dollar or we believe it's a trillion dollar opportunity. To be on the ground floor of a trillion dollar opportunity is very exciting, very interesting, and very compelling to me.

(28:28) and to be partnered with the industry leaders who are already engaged in multiple have a strong pipeline have projects already in in the works projects already in development all throughout the world and being backed by the people at Serge is backed by including Aerasplitzer Sports and Entertainment Ca Delaware North OVG Lion Tree on the investment committee are people from industry experts from that have experience with Brookfield property MSG already having relationships in place with 17 different teams. There's Surge having only it having only really launched in 2024 has really taken this world by storm and to be part of that opportunity in a real and substantial way is really interesting. And I also will say that I do think the original thesis of roar is also interesting but the cap combining the resources the capabilities and the opportunity of surge with everything we can and will be doing with roar that's potentially a once in a-lifetime opportunity and that's something where I'm really excited about and makes me even excited just talking about it. So I'm excited very announcement went out yesterday and obviously we're talking about it this podcast will come out on Thursday. So right now I'm in day two or post the announcement but it's just really exciting. It's a really exciting opportunity. I said this or we said this directly in the paper. We think you know this mixeduse developments in sports is the most important or one of the most important strategic strategic opportunities in the sports industry today. The amount of money, the amount of capital, the amount of interest and the impact that it can have on all these different stakeholders.

(30:08) I we said it in the paper. I believe it even more strongly today. And to be to have the opportunity to really shape the future of mixed use developments in sports and potentially the sports industry more broadly is really exciting. >> It is exciting. I'm excited about it too. I think that I'm excited to have these conversations. I know we'll have more of them going forward, not only on the podcast but separately. I'm excited from a teaching and program perspective because as you mentioned it's an enormous opportunity and part of our remit is to prepare students for things that they're going to do post the program and post their education and it's a amazing space to be in and to be able to be on the front edge of which you certainly are. I'm sure you're drinking from a fire hose. You said it's day two of those things. We'll get you out of here on this because I know there's so many things that you have to do, but for you and for Serge and for Roar, everybody involved, I'm sure this is a nebulous question in a way and hard to answer, but what does success look like for you in the short, medium, long term?

(31:04) Yeah, it is. The definition of success is what John has set out, which is investing in 30 projects and deploying hundred billion dollars of capital. That's it's we're all oriented in that direction. And then success obviously when you're talking about mixed use development success can take a long time. John and the surge team finding the right projects being able to find the right partners find the right team develop the continue to expand and grow. John has mentioned this previously. Roar is probably the first of many acquisitions that Serge will make.

(31:38) Having this be successful already even on day two. We've seen a lot of success. There's a lot of interest. We've had a great reception from the roll out so far. A lot of inbound interest which is great. That just further proves the point that this is a good idea. But I think I think it all orients around like visa businesses and surge roar but particularly surge has a real ability to reshape or at least to continue to shape the sports industry. the people behind it, the the people, the companies, the technology, the partners behind it really and the in this is the right company at the right time for the right opportunity. And that's what we are that's what we are oriented around and that's what makes this a really interesting place to be and again one of the many reasons that I'm happy to be officially a part of Surge.

(32:27) >> It's exciting. I'm excited for you. I think the listeners are excited for you. It's an exciting opportunity. We appreciate you taking the time because I know again you're drinking from a fire hose. All these things going on. So we appreciate you taking the time to talk about it and get it out to listeners because again it's a great space. It's a really evolving space as you mentioned. We'll put the link to the paper in the show notes. We put the link to the press release in the show notes so listeners can see that and then we have a lot of great content coming up in the coming weeks that'll be centered around some of these topics. Obviously Adam will be digging into those things. There'll be more around those and we have some other great guests coming up as well. So, Adam, congratulations and thank you so much for the time and we look forward to hearing so much more about it.

(33:03) >> Yeah, thank you. I think we do have some really great episodes coming up and looking forward for listeners to to hear those and appreciate you making the time as well like to do this podcast and really excited and hopefully the listeners will continue to see the growth of Surge and Roar as a search company and yeah, looking forward to having those conversations in the future. >> Thanks. Thank you.