The ROAR Podcast: Season 5 Intro

# ROAR Podcast: Season 5 Intro
**Guest:** Season 5 Intro
**Date:** 2025-10-09
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMqVJh1rxik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMqVJh1rxik)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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(0:01) [Music] Welcome to Northwestern Masters the Arts and Sports Administration revenue above replacement podcast. I'm Bryce Clinton and I'm Adam Gman. Adam, good to see you as always. Yeah, good to see you, too. >> What's amazing is you and I talking and listeners hearing us means there's typically some type of special occasion or something going on. And what is wild is that we're starting the fifth season of this podcast. And you know, you and I were talking before we started recording, it's pretty amazing that we have made it this far is a bad way to say it, but it's it's cool to to be able to get to this far and and you know, just looking back on it, did you think we'd make it this far? What are your thoughts on that?

(0:44) I say I guess I'm an analytical person, but I hadn't really thought about it that I still was surprised when we had the hundth episode last season. I didn't even register that it was 100 episodes, but yeah, it's been Yeah, we've done a lot. There's always there's a lot of interesting people to talk to and I'm excited that we've had this many episodes so far. Same. You're right. There always are interesting people to talk to and one of the really cool things is it kind of snowballs on itself. Yeah. from interviews that either one of us do or things that we do from a teaching perspective or in our day jobs. You run into those interesting people and typically it's not pulling people's legs really hard to be on a podcast. They like to talk and they like to promote their things and so it's worked out great for us because of of that reason. And it gives both of us a chance to talk to some really interesting people.

(1:34) Yeah, I think the opportunity to talk to really interesting people and to your point, I think there are a lot of people who want to engage with our community here in Northwestern and as this podcast has continue to grow, you know, folks outside of the Northwestern ecosystem. But I think the guests that we've had, the in insights that those guests provide, the topics that we cover, it's been really interesting. And you know you can track somewhat the evolution of the sports industry over the past 5 years across the conversations that we had been having you know the from you know the rise of artificial intelligence or you know historically you know we we were talking about this before but COVID the impact of COVID the impact of some of the new types of partnerships from a crypto or what you know some of these new technologies that have emerges perspective to artificial intelligence to some of the things we'll talk about in the upcoming season particularly real estate mixed use development technology media disruption. There's a lot of things that we've been able to talk about and track through the podcast and the interviews with the guests that we've had.

(2:30) >> You're right. And that's one that the real estate one I think is really interesting. It's one that originally I didn't have a whole lot of interest in. I mean, I love stadiums. I love visiting stadiums, but if you step back and the work that you did previously last year in the paper that you wrote, there's so much that goes into those things. Not only from the teams in the leagues, but the the finance partners, the real estate development components of it. It really interesting part of sports that without this podcast really wouldn't have uncovered much more. And it is really impactful across the sports industry. Yeah, we're planning on having a guest who is if not the expert was one of the foremost experts on Mixie's developments in sports coming up in in a later episode of the of the show. So excited for everybody to learn more from him given his expertise and experience.

(3:17) But yeah, I mean I think people, you know, this is a connection I try to make in my thought leadership pieces. But you know with the rise of technology particularly artificial intelligence there's potentially increased or parallel interest in people having in real life experiences and sports anchors can serve as the platform for in real life experiences inside and outside of game day. You know, also people want to live, work, play, and shop in places where they can maximize their happiness and fun and potentially maximize these in real life experiences and mixed use developments, particularly ones that are anchored by, you know, sports venues, practice facilities, corporate headquarters, or doesn't have to just be sports, sports and entertainment more broadly. Like those are things that people want to do and being able to live in the places where you can do the things that you want to do is really interesting and exciting. It's a good segue because you actually wrote a piece about this last I think it was last week around it was around the investment from I think it's a silver lake and so it was a sovereign wealth fund from NEA and so the purchase of EA from investor I think it's 55 billion but the point that you're making and I think it's a really interesting one is that just what you were saying is that the investments like this could be a really good sign for these in real life experiences and so why why do you think that that translates into those real life experiences.

(4:36) >> Yeah. And I think what the bed so yeah the the Saudi public investment fund or PIF and Silver Lake and a fund is called affinity led by Jerry Kushner. They put together the deal to take electronic arts from a public company to a private company as you said in a $55 billion transaction. And the article that I wrote about it for the revenue about replacement newsletter was focused on, you know, how could the la the world's largest or one of the of the world's largest video game companies being taken private be a good sign for in real life experiences. And with the PIF and Silverlake explicitly, they're trying to own the entire sports ecosystem. And you know, particularly if you're talking about Silverlake, the main thing that they own is Endeavor. While PIF has made several investments in e- gaming, but also in in real life experiences having to do with sports, a lot of which are coming to have already come to fruition.

(5:29) You'll see a lot more of those coming to fruition soon in terms of tournaments and special events and soccer. So like they've already made investments and I think they see the intersection of that being really important. So the idea you know this is something that's happened before in sports and different types of media constructs but people consuming sports in different ways whether it's media video games and media has been radio you know to start with then television then you know in streaming or stream video on demand or you know in all the different ways that the more people consume the content the more likely they want to experience it and typically the more likely they want to experience it in real life. We have a case study in the book that I co-authored called the sports strategist which highlights that from the UFC in terms of the ultimate fighter. The ultimate fighter becoming the entryway for people to start learning about UFC and then UFC parlayed that into a really important and vital in real life you know in venue live event and premium live event experience where people were paying top dollar to come to UFC events because of a media and way and ensuring a consumption strategy. And from my perspective, that's one of the reasons that so much money went into this strategy is these companies already have made substantial investments into sports and into sports experiences and using video games to catalyze a sports experience is really important. You just see that with two on Netflix, Driver Survive with F1. It's such an experience that drove people to Formula 1. Formula 1, you know, I had the opportunity to live in Europe for quite a while and Formula 1 was so big and it's so much fun to attend in person. and such a different experience of racing in the US. But now there's huge Formula 1 fans in the US and that was not something that was there but it came from that content right of hey let's watch this in a different way but you're right it drives that to want to now here a lot of it is viewing it >> on television because there's not as many Formula 1 races to attend in person at Las Vegas I think maybe the only US one currently but >> it does translate to that >> you know might edit that part out but there I think there's one in Austin that's been a very well-known race and in That's right. Three races in the United States.

(7:37) >> You know what's funny? I we should maybe we should leave it in because in the in the sense of I shouldn't forget that because one of our former students is she now leads the the marketing for the Formula 1 race in Miami and does all the marketing for that. And so I apologize to her and apologize to the listeners for that. But you're right, there are some good ones in the US. But it does it I think even from my own perspective I was my son is is six and he's really gotten into playoff baseball and I remember as a kid my dad always was like content on like he'd have the games on the radio in the garage and like oh this would be really good to be there and it's just a logical extension of that coming further you know shifting gears a little on that though similar we see this investment from the public investment fund and so on do you see that happening more and what I mean by that is outside entities whether it be funds from other countries or governmental funds in other places investing more into American sports or sports in general. Yeah, I mean that definitely seems to be the case. It's a good question and hopefully maybe a topic we'll talk about in more detail in later episodes as well. But yeah, I mean clearly that that's already happened.

(8:46) you know, sovereign wealth funds have made sports a priority and this has happened particularly in European soccer explicitly where they've taken large stakes and then you know soccer more broadly there's been impacts of sovereign wealth funds sovereign wealth funds have taken there's limits to what they can do in the United States and in North American pro leagues but the obviously the rise of private equity institutional capital and you know what people would call smart investors for lack of better term and accredited investors investing in sports is definitely something that is on the rise and that's you know in the NFL there's been several teams that have sold stakes for hundreds of you know valued at hundreds of millions of dollars NFL caps it at 10% other leagues cap it at you can own a certain number of teams and a certain percentage of equity there's platform platforms like Artos and Artos capital markets that are trying to encourage you know high net worth individuals and ultra high net worth individuals to invest in sports so yeah I think just the growing valuations in sports and I think Arto's put out a really interesting piece of thought leadership to say Is there this is one of the questions I think you had proposed as one of the topics for this conversation which again I think is a topic that we're going to talk about a lot this season is you know the rising can the rising valuations in sports franchises maintain or go up real estate is one way that they can go up because that's an a whole new asset and part of sports teams that haven't been fully unlocked at least from my perspective but that even if you put real estate aside there are areas of growth in the core business operations of sports teams Artos had an interesting column recently directly because Artos is a company or a firm that has it provides liquidity options and helps you know with from private capital perspective historically that has translated into for sports teams that has translated into taking minority position into sports teams and they did a because this is a question that they get a lot is like are sports teams franchises appreciating at the right level and they showed consist through multiple different data points how that is rising at a level that you would expect given you know other markets given the fundamentals of sports and given the fundamentals of the business that the appreciation in the enterprise value is in line with the expectations on normally you know or usually accepted financial metrics and I think that's a good article to look at particularly as people are thinking about a good analysis to look at as people are thinking about valuations of sports franchises and in context of the question that you're asking why is private equity interest it's because the value appreciation is happening but that The fundamentals of the sports business allow continued value appreciation to potentially happen and making investments in assets that can appreciate in value, particularly ones that are uncorrelated with other financial markets, meaning like sports teams have consistently appreciated in value in good and bad economic times.

(11:32) That's something that becomes attracted to outside capital. It's always a question that I get whether it's from students or people that generally know what we do is why do people want to buy sports teams if they often don't make money or they're not an enormous money-making venture? And you point to this piece that I would argue that oftentimes they are a pretty good money-making venture depending on how you run the team and so on and the league that you're in, the sport that you're in. But as you mentioned, the enterprise value of these franchises goes up enormously. I mean, if you just look back to, you know, when the the the Lakers were sold or when the Clippers were sold, the Enterprise, what was when they purchased those to when they're sold, it's it's unbelievable. I don't what the most recent sale of maybe the Celtics that we we talked about recently. Enormous growth from the value of those teams from when they're bought previously. Do you think that trajectory can continue or is that something that will we'll cap out? I guess you mentioned the real estate part. I think that's a really interesting part and that's why going back to last year when you did that work and then we talked about on the podcast several times that's a really interesting aspect of it because if you haven't and any for any any of the listeners you know those places like the battery in Atlanta or was it title town in Green Bay awesome experiences really cool places around the stadiums and I think teams investing or even to a certain degree all around Wrigley what's been done all around Wrigley and from a team invest in those types of things, you could really see the value growing. Yeah. I think the first part I did want to talk about is what you talked about in terms of profitability. big sports teams not solely but obviously largely due to league mediaized deals particularly major professional sports teams in North America when those deals increase like they have in the NBA and the NFL and NHL you know those deals are pretty much profit almost 100% profitable or 100% profit of accretive which means you know the media rights there's no in necessarily there's some but there's limited cost increase and while the value of those deals continues to increase that's one of the reasons is that major league baseball teams are interested in consolidating their rights to create a national platform to maximize the value of those rights. So I I would somewhat argue against the idea that these teams are profitable even though because I think they are increasingly becoming profitable NFL teams explicitly but even other teams particularly as they explore new revenue streams and have capital partners like Artos come in to help them better understand the value of those revenue streams at the same time. Yeah, I mean that was the obviously like I was saying part of the reason I brought up that article that the Archos Insights team brought up is to show how value of enterprise value of franchises can continue to to increase. One of the things I did talk about in the white paper I co-author and not everything has to be about something I did obviously in this podcast but >> no no but in the white paper I co-authored with clutch sports and RBC about sports anchored mixeduse developments is to say there there definitely are pressures on the core revenue streams of sports organizations.

(14:33) So I think it is a it is definitely a question that is worth asking particularly if you're talking about can media rights deals continue to increase can sponsorships ticket sales merchandise hospitality local you know either national revenues global revenues or local revenues continue to increase I think there's arguments both ways certainly you have to pressure test all the different revenue streams to see if those can increase and increase profitably in a ways that can increase the enterprise value of those of franchises. there's always going to be a premium on the fact that there's only so many of these franchises. So that obviously there's a you know arguably a non-economic or one non-economic way of there's a premium to be placed on a scarce asset. But and to your point also like part of the reason we wrote that paper or you know I co-authored that paper is that real estate should serve as a driver for a variety of different reasons of increased you know increased revenues, increased profitability and increase you know ability to increase franchise enterprise franchise values.

(15:31) So yeah, I mean I think it's just a you know again obviously if everybody agreed that this was always going to go up then there wouldn't be an other side of the argument. You know some of the times they say when you talk about valuation if everybody agreed on every valuation of every company there wouldn't be a stock market because you can't trade a stock if somebody doesn't think it's going to go up or somebody thinks it's going to go down you know fundamentally that's why there's a stock market that exists. So it's definitely an interesting conversation, but I would Artos is a leader in this space, but you know, certainly there are other platforms that talk about and highlight the the value and the potentially increasing in values of enterprise or enterprise values of sports franchises.

(16:04) It is definitely something we'll talk about so much more over the course of the season. Like Adam mentioned, we'll have guests that speak to these things, not only from a the enterprise value of teams, but the real estate component of it, the the developments with sports at the center of those. I think it's a great topic for us to continue to explore and it was one you know again pleasantly surprised from last year of hey stadium construction wasn't normally in my wheelhouse but it's really interesting and I think that's one of the things that's you know the podcast and doing the research and getting the interviews does give you the behind the scenes of that and it is a really impactful and interesting thing you know in the offseason so to speak the time that we had off from the podcast I had the chance to attend the the TED sports conference here in Indianapolis and so TED the organization that obviously many of us the listeners would would know they have their their flagship event which they do in Vancouver and then there are TEDx events which are really put on by universities or other institutions that kind of use the naming head itself the organizer did this here in Indianapolis are planning to continue to do it I think in Indianapolis going forward that said we've obviously heard me complain about Indianapolis a lot in many ways however as a sports city it is a really good one I think that the ecosystem and the infrastructure from sports and they've done a great job with that actually some of the construction pieces, the venues that are here, you know, the value of the teams continuing to grow, but what was really interesting to me in that the entire conference was a couple key themes and a big one was around women's sports, but not in the traditional way that we were that you and I have talked about a lot. I mean, that was a prevalent Timmy Catchings was one of the speakers and she, you know, four-time Olympian and and WNBA Hall of Famer, all these things. and she talked about how when she started playing sports, they were men's sports retrofitted to women. There weren't specific spaces designed for women and they're doing an initiative to create, you know, athletic facilities that are tailored to women's sports, which I think is really really interesting. But the other point that she made along with the the president of fever was think about the marketing and the the value that's there from women's sports of tapping into a whole different demographic of of people not only from the sport itself but all of the the collar content that goes around that you know you think about the cottage industry of talking about the game >> in the NBA the NFL major league baseball that same thing is going to continue to grow and expand with women's sports. And I think that's a really interesting part especially because if you look now with the WNBA season, you know where it is it coming up collected bargaining agreement for the players. We we had all the things Nfisa Carter was talking about a couple weeks ago. And so it's a really interesting crossroads for especially the WNBA, but I think women's force in general as a money-making venture in that route. Yeah. I mean, I think well, one, I think it's, you know, you're attending the TED conference has been helpful. We're going to get a couple episodes from that and I'm looking forward to hearing the episodes that you recorded from some of the speakers and guests that you met from the TED conference. Two, I think to your point about women's sports, I think. Yeah, I think that's an ongoing conversation that we're hopefully going to explore more in this season. My company currently works with the Chicago Sky.

(19:13) you're talking from from a WNBA perspective and seeing some of the metrics and ways things have grown and the partnerships they've been able to put into place has been really interesting. You know I think to your point about you know one of the things that is interesting one of the things that we my company will be helping the sky and some other folks other teams potentially in the WMA and women's sports otherwise is really understanding the fans. So I think there is you know one of the things that I've written about previously is like there are a lot of male fans that follow women's sports and that can be even the majority of fans. ESPN at one point said that twothirds of the fans watching WNBA games were male. I think that's you know one of the popular things I wrote a column about this are some of the popular misconceptions in sports you know and how you could use that to your advantage to understand the the value and demographic because I do think there are you know for like ways to leverage you really understand the audiences whether that's from a demographic interest consumption geography search behavioral data there's a lot of things you can look at to really understand those audiences and be able to target those audiences and I think the WNBA in particular has tapped into a much you know both from a you know wide perspective and depth perspective is really targeting audiences you know part of the the you get I no necessarily perspective on this but does look like to your point about the WNBA and some of the comments that have been going about leadership and from the players and if there's going to be a lockout and what's that what's that's going to look like and you know why are we at this place where the WNBA seems to be at its most successful point but you know there's a lot of legacy the historical legacy financial revenue issues that also need to be examined. So I think it's just that's part of what we why we like or at least I like I shouldn't speak for you but what we have in the podcast is exploring why is the WNBA heading towards the lockout? Why you know why are the salaries are what they are in the WNBA? How did the WNBA come to decide you know potentially to to do the media rights deal that it did you know which is quadrupling what it used to be previously. you know, where why are the ratings even though they're similar with the WNBA and the NBA didn't necessarily translate to the the similar levels of value. So, I think there's just a lot at least domestically I should say for those ranks. I think there's a lot of interesting topics that these things that are in the news, you know, allow us to explore and hopefully talk to guests to explore. I' been curious. Yeah.

(21:35) >> Well, I think that you're right. I'm 100% with you because it allows you to go a level deeper. I think on the surface we look at this and we think certainly they should be paid more money. It seems like they should be paid more money too in the sense that the league is doing well. Everything's up and to the right in a lot of ways. But as you mentioned, you peel back the layers, there's a lot of things that are involved in that. The previous CBA, the structure of ownership with the the NBA and the WNBA teams and how those things work. There's a lot of nuance to it. And I think that what's really great about having the podcast is obviously doing that work on our own, but getting really interesting people to come in that have more knowledge than either of us that work on the inside of that to give us detail around why some of these things evolve and shift the way that they do.

(22:15) That one's going to be a fun one to watch. I would really hope there's no work stoppage for many reasons. One, the enjoyment of the content itself, but two, I do think the trajectory of it is going in the right direction. I think that like you mentioned, the breadth of targeting the audiences, they do a great job of that. I think a lot of sports could take cues from the WNBA, especially in that realm because they do a great job of bringing in fans. And that's a really interesting point that you brought up that if you think about it, it is true that there are a lot of, it's not just women that watch the WNBA, right? There's a lot of male fans, a lot of basketball fans regardless of gender.

(22:50) I think they continue to put a quality product out there and the games be exciting, you know, and maybe some officiating components to it. And there's big complaints about the officiating, the freedom of movement, and the injuries that are there. I do think it is telling that if you look at the the top of the league, some of the best players in the league injured and out for long periods of the year. Is it correlation or causation? I don't know. But the it will be more enjoyable to see those those marquee players be out on the floor. But I think again that's a topic that we're going to cover a lot over the course of of the season. And I mean think if we think about where we're going to go this year, obviously the stadiums and the values from a team's perspective, but if we look at media rights and streaming, we talked about that in the WNBA. I think that's a big big component. We'll talk about your area of expertise around sponsorship and band monetization and data strategy. And then I think from my perspective really interested in and and yours as well.

(23:45) Obviously, the innovation technology, we've talked about artificial intelligence in sports a little bit, but how those things continue to take hold in sports, I think are going to be big topics for this season, especially some of the guests that we already have lined up, but Adam, there other things that you really want to get to this season or think are really pressing to get to. >> I do want to hold on the point you just made about innovation and technology. There was a I wrote a column previously about the impact of video creation, video editing on an automated basis and how that could unlock a lot of sports media rights value because if you if it could lower the cost or time or energy that you would need to create advertising content on meteorites platforms at is something that could make it much easier for smaller companies to advertise on larger platforms or even larger companies because they can more easily create the content to the advertising content that could go onto the within the media rights, you know, whether it's through te, you know, broadcasts or otherwise.

(24:43) I'm curious to hear obviously given your background if you think with Sora release of this Sora 2 and the success that that's had if you see any implications of Sora on the sports industry or if you agree with that point of view on the rise of video editing platforms in sports. I think it makes a huge difference. I think of the the manual intervention that's behind that now and the curating of that concept. I think one thing we'll have to let go of as sports fans and probably teams and leagues as well is the enormous granular level of control of that content itself. And what I mean by is you know think back to conversation we had last year the vice president of content the bulls how how curated that content is and how it gets put out. I think we'll see a shift a little bit to hey, we're just going to get content out to try to have people consume that. You know, for listeners, if you haven't heard of Sor or tried Sora, check it out. It's really interesting. You know, I think that you you get that uncanny valley feeling in some ways sometimes, too. But you're right, the I think one of the big impacts that we'll have with the continued innovation AI especially, is the operationalizing of a lot of workflow. So whether that's workflow in the media, whether that's workflow from a team or internal perspective, whether it's workflow around fan engagement, that's a big thing we've been talking about in my courses as of late is yeah, there's an enormous impact in sports with player personnel or evaluation, contracts, and salary caps, all those things, and there's they're data heavy, but bigger impacts you see being made in fan engagement in how to understand the fan, who's in the venue, who's watching at home, how are they consuming, when are they consuming? I think that's the bigger or at least the more immediate impact from an artificial intelligence perspective especially to sports because there's so much more tangible that can be done with that and then what do you because that's one area obviously that I've been focused on but from your perspective what do you think the implications are of the better understanding of the fan? I think there's a couple. One, better revenue generation because you understand a fan better. You can engage them better. You can sell to them better. That's the unsexy answer for a fan perspective. Hey, we're going to spend more money because they know us better. But if you spin that back, you want your team to understand you better and how you want to consume, right? it.

(27:04) Gone are the days of, hey, I just bought, you know, 41 games, season tickets for the NBA. They come in the mail in a sheet and then I just show up at the gate, right? Those experiences are going to be start to be more tailored. Okay, you bought these 10 games. At these 10 games, there's these promotions. You want to do those because your kid likes this player and this is a jersey night or it's a bobblehead, whatever it may be. Much more engaging, enjoyable experience based on what you want to really engage in. But then the flip side of that is the data and the understanding that the teams and leagues and organizations get from that and then how does that spin off, right? Whether it's with partners or whether it's with content consumption. I think that's a really interesting play for those teams and leagues venues whether it's around revenue generation or just creating the creating and updating the fan experience to know that fan better I think will be create a better value chain across the board for them all the way down to us as fans. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean I think feel exactly what you said I think it's slight the only reframe I was going to say before you went into it which you framed correctly is like if if you have more data about the fans whether it's from ticket sales merchandise hospitality food and beverage mixeduse developments right if you know what people want then you can give give the people what they want I guess as Jen Rose would say but like that's the idea is like we the sports teams of course are in the business of making money and certainly their investors and their financial backers are in the interest of making money but the idea of you know leveraging data to create you know somebody's talked about this or some concepts of personalization at scale right if you can create personalized experiences that at the scale of tens of thousands millions or you know potentially billions of people that consume sports content I think that's something that would be attractive right because you can get the things that what you want when you want how you want them is always been the goal of every business not just in sports so I think that's an interesting it's an interesting topic for sure do you think sports And this is a question I get often too do a good job of that. And here's what I mean. If you look at traditional businesses or businesses, at least from a tech forward perspective, they sit on the front edge of of new innovations, new technologies, and trying to use them. Sports can sometimes be seen as not an old school business, but businesses that are less risk are more riskaverse in some ways or there is a this is how it's always been done. I mean, the argument that people always make is the money ball argument, right, of oh well, hey, there's the gut feel versus the the computers, but if you extrapolate out that to the business side, are sports organizations in your experience willing and and want to do these things that up the fan engagement and understand the data behind it or is it kind of like pulling teeth to get them to do that? I think there's two separate questions. Is there an interesting one is like is the sports industry doing that already? You know, I guess the political answer would be we say there's a mix, but largely no. I think largely there's room for improvement on understanding the fan.

(30:07) That's something that my company in particular is trying to lead the charge on, which is >> aggregating multiple data sets across, you know, first party data, which is typically the data that teams have with other behavioral survey and third party data sets to really understand, you know, why would what are people really interested in? How are they spending their time, money, energy, resources, and how does that translate to understanding and maximizing sports revenue streams? I think charitably I'm not even say charitably I think this is I shouldn't say it terribly but sports ind the sports industry has been built on relationships and I think always going to be a place for relationships in almost any business but particularly the sports industry has people have been successful in sports industries as a whole as a whole has been built on relationship and that can be relationship with corporate partners the relationships that teams have with their fans the the relationships that you know from a media rights perspective in terms of either long-term short-term or media medium-term relationships that leagues have with meteorites partners, but it's definitely been historically a relationship driven business. There's many there are other businesses that have moved and pushed the needle much more to a you know either particularly if you're talking about advertising and audience understanding into a more technology, artificial intelligence, big data business. And I do think there will be a convergence of the sports industry with those larger industries or that's one of the things that I believe in at Roar. But I think it is like right. I mean it's hard to do that when there's been ways of being successful that have worked historically and will probably continue to work in a lot of forms in the sports industry. I think it's just, you know, one of the ironies of Moneyball, you know, I don't know if this is still the case with the A's, but when Billy Bean was in charge, they actually spent more money on scouting once they had Moneyball because they said, you know, the data, if you combine the best scouting with the best data, you could use that to even better identify players who could better fit the system.

(32:05) You know what's happened in baseball which happens in a lot of industries is once people understand and can use data there's a convergence of people who you know it's harder and harder to find you know some form of what's called alpha right what can you get that's different than what you know the market could find on its own and when there's a convergence of people understanding and using similar types of models to optimize performance it's harder to get that alpha. So leveraging qualitative data or insights is still there's still a place for it. It's still a big place for it and probably will continue to be a place for it in the long term of the sports industry. But yes, I think it's a it's always in any industry it's you know how do you balance you know innovation with ways that things have been successful historically. There's a very famous par paradox called the innovator's dilemma where it's you know when do you decide to disrupt your current business model because new technology is coming. There's a lot of companies right now particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence. Google most notably, you know, with its search business. Is its search business going to be disrupted by perplexity specifically is focused on search generally by artificial intelligence, you know, particularly JGBT. How does Google do that? How do they balance their current search business, which some people have called the greatest business in the world in terms of the cash flows and profitability that come with that with artificial intelligence?

(33:20) You know, there's no real clear answers. And I think again, exploring those topics are something we're looking forward to doing this season. Yeah, it'd be fun to explore those, especially like you said because of all the different ways that it can go. And you're right, you and I have talked about this a lot on this podcast and our own classes is that just like the internet was when we were much much younger and artificial intelligence is a tool. It's a tool in the tool belt. And I think that you can use that to augment the knowledge that you have and the skills that you have.

(33:46) And if you can get really good at that, they're right. I think the other thing that they missed in Moneyball is there was not a whole lot of focus on Barry Zto or Mark Mark Boulder or Tim Hudson, those guys that probably won 60 games between the third. But anyway, I dig still outstanding movie wins and losses. >> Oh, yeah. Outdated. Yes. It definitely is one of those things and I think that's interesting you bring that up that you know you would think that sports organizations very innovative in a lot of different ways but it is a refrain that we hear often of that they could be using some of these things better especially around the fan engagement component of that and I think that that will definitely be a topic of the season as we go forward because it's moving at such a pace that is continuing to shift and change and I think sports organizations and teams and leagues will continue to try to keep up with that you know beyond that I think there'll obviously be some college sports talk with NIL and how these things are wrapped into those those components as well. But it's exciting.

(34:40) It's an exciting year coming up, especially because of the great guests that we have coming up. So, we're really looking forward to what is the fifth season of this podcast. I just want to before we go, I just play point out what you just talked about with college sports. There's a lot of intersection topics we've talked about across those. You know, there was a report recently about the Big 10 potentially getting a $2 billion investment from private equity to help facilitate the growth of the league. So, the intersection of private capital in sports and college sports and then then that how that potentially impacts college sports generally, but NAL specifically. There's a lot of cross se you know and then the rise of technology mixed use developments how that impacts college sports you know there's a lot of these topics that really intersect and being able to have a good understanding in of the you know intersections of where these topics you know converge and really understanding and taking insights that can be applied is something again we have a a unique purge here on the podcast to really explore >> 100% and I think you're right it's amazing how those things all are intertwined and they trickle down not only from a professional level, but to the college and even even below that.

(35:45) And so it'll be the our our remit to try to bring the through line in those through. But I'm excited for the season. I'm really excited for the guest that we have coming up and appreciate the time to do this with you again. But thank you very much for the time today and and we look forward to all the interviews and all the content coming up this season. So, thank you to all the listeners and and we're excited for all of this. >> Yeah, really excited. It's going to be a great season. We have some really good guests, really good topics, and there's always topics that emerge that the sports industry is never a dull place.

(36:14) So, always some fun stuff to talk about. Looking forward to it for sure. Thank you everybody. [Music]