[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3008/disagreement-and-debate-are-a-key-part-of-successful-strategy","id",3008,"title","Disagreement and debate are a key part of successful strategy","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160\nwhen we were first looking at pickleball as an opportunity.\n\n2\n00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:07.360\nYou know, there was a lot of risk to it.\n\n3\n00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.930\nAnd, you know, I think Chris had some questions on whether it was the right\n\n4\n00:00:10.930 --> 00:00:12.240\nplace to put our money.\n\n5\n00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:14.240\nIs this something smart we want to go after?\n\n6\n00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:18.640\nAnd, you know, I said, listen, I've been in this business for a long time.\n\n7\n00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:23.360\nI worked on the match, the original match with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.\n\n8\n00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:28.240\nI said this destination programming, as long as you can, you know, as long as\n\n9\n00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:29.040\nyou can describe\n\n10\n00:00:29.680 --> 00:00:33.840\nthis opportunity in less than 15 seconds, it's probably going to be successful.\n\n11\n00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:38.560\nYou have to, if it takes five minutes to discuss an idea, you probably don't\n\n12\n00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:39.440\nhave the right idea.\n\n13\n00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:42.720\nYou know, it's got to be distinct, quick, and understandable.\n\n14\n00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:47.230\nAnd, you know, I just said, take the biggest growing sport in America, pickle\n\n15\n00:00:47.230 --> 00:00:47.600\nball,\n\n16\n00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:51.920\nand put the best racket sports names in it and have them play for a million\n\n17\n00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:53.680\ndollars on ESPN.\n\n18\n00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:55.200\nI think it's going to be pretty successful.\n\n19\n00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:59.520\nAnd, you know, to Chris's credit, he goes, listen, this is your expertise.\n\n20\n00:01:00.480 --> 00:01:01.280\nLet's go for it.\n\n21\n00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:05.600\nYou know, and so, you know, that's the kind of relationship we have.\n\n22\n00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:10.010\nAnd I think, you know, in any business, you know, you need to be able to\n\n23\n00:01:10.010 --> 00:01:10.960\ncommunicate\n\n24\n00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:13.840\nand have open conversations.\n\n25\n00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:14.880\nYou don't always agree.\n\n26\n00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:16.890\nBy the way, if you always agree, I don't think you're going to be that\n\n27\n00:01:16.890 --> 00:01:17.440\nsuccessful.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1897779,"end_time",1975379,"keywords","Disagreement, debate, pickleball, communication, agree","slug","disagreement-and-debate-are-a-key-part-of-successful-strategy","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","oVdJcMZGpT01o1kPuWcwbpcA00IOcKzglLCIuc6YbsK900","mux_asset_id","mj022cJejRijF2mQNSbbAtbBRPYHBaNfCq3PJaFPihMA","leader_id",240,"episode_id",392,"updated_at","2025-08-14T16:53:57.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3008/disagreement-and-debate-are-a-key-part-of-successful-strategy","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","True vision takes guts","true-vision-takes-guts","Listen to this leadership podcast with David Levy, Co-CEO of Horizon Sports + Experiences, and see how to back your big ideas and get people on board with them.","summary","

Have a big idea, but not sure how to make it happen?

David Levy has been there. As Co-CEO of Horizon Sports & Experiences and the former President of Turner Networks, he’s led some of the boldest moves in sports and media.

He forged the landmark March Madness deal that let fans watch every game across CBS and Turner. And now, he’s betting big on new ventures like The Pickleball Slam and Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 pro women’s basketball league.

In this episode, David shares what it really takes to turn vision into action. Learn how to trust your instincts, back bold ideas with confidence, and lead people toward making them happen.

You’ll also learn:

The mark of a great leader (hint: it has nothing to do with your org chart)
Why 100% agreement might be a huge red flag
How to look beyond the obvious for big-growth opportunities
The #1 leadership lesson he learned from Ted Turner

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.110\nIf we were to start over from scratch and you were able to start a sports\n\n2\n00:00:03.110 --> 00:00:03.920\nmarketing company\n\n3\n00:00:03.920 --> 00:00:08.560\ntoday versus what you did 15, 20 years ago, what would you do differently?\n\n4\n00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:12.160\nAnd that's was our secret sauce is we didn't have any legacy.\n\n5\n00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.200\nWhat separates the people who spot big opportunities from the ones who actually\n\n6\n00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:18.480\nmake them happen?\n\n7\n00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:22.640\nWell, you're about to find out. Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm David Novak\n\n8\n00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:23.360\nand every week I\n\n9\n00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:27.520\nhave conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become\n\n10\n00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:28.160\nthe best leader\n\n11\n00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:33.760\nthat you can be. Today, I'm talking with David Levy, the co-CO of Horizon\n\n12\n00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:35.440\nSports and Experiences\n\n13\n00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:40.000\nand the former president of Turner Networks. If you ever wondered who put the\n\n14\n00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:41.040\nmadness in March\n\n15\n00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:46.890\nMadness, it's David. He forged the landmark deal that let fans watch every NCAA\n\n16\n00:00:46.890 --> 00:00:48.320\ntournament game\n\n17\n00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:53.620\nacross all the CBS and Turner networks. And it took the popularity of the\n\n18\n00:00:53.620 --> 00:00:55.440\ntournament to a whole new\n\n19\n00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:59.840\nlevel. These days he's betting on innovative formats like the Pickleball Slam\n\n20\n00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:00.800\nand Unrivaled,\n\n21\n00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:05.760\nwhich is a three on three women's pro basketball league. And behind all of it\n\n22\n00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:07.120\nis a big vision for\n\n23\n00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:12.200\nthe future of sports, media and live events. But here's the thing, vision isn't\n\n24\n00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:12.800\njust about\n\n25\n00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:17.920\nspotting these opportunities. It's about having the guts to act on them. And in\n\n26\n00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:18.560\nthis episode,\n\n27\n00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:22.290\nyou'll see how to trust your instincts on those big ideas, back them with\n\n28\n00:01:22.290 --> 00:01:22.960\nconfidence,\n\n29\n00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:27.520\nand then lead people to making it all happen. Here's my conversation with my\n\n30\n00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:28.320\ngood friend,\n\n31\n00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:30.400\nand soon to be yours, David Levy.\n\n32\n00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:41.280\nHere you are, you've come up in the traditional cable world. I got to ask you,\n\n33\n00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:44.320\nhow many streaming services do you have at your home now?\n\n34\n00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:47.840\nWell, I'm one of those guys that unfortunately, I probably don't even know how\n\n35\n00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:48.560\nmuch I'm paying\n\n36\n00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:53.280\nfor all of them. But I probably have six of them that I'm either paying for or\n\n37\n00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:54.320\ngot for free with\n\n38\n00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:59.540\nsome other connection or some other promotion. You get your phone, get a free h\n\n39\n00:01:59.540 --> 00:02:00.320\nulu or something\n\n40\n00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:06.400\nlike that. But I have them all and I love the content. So I'm a junkie.\n\n41\n00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:09.350\nYeah, well, what's your favorite and why? If you had to pick one streaming\n\n42\n00:02:09.350 --> 00:02:09.760\nservice,\n\n43\n00:02:09.760 --> 00:02:11.120\nwhich one would it be and why?\n\n44\n00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:16.560\nOh, it's hard to pick your favorites. In my business, I love all my friends.\n\n45\n00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:22.000\nBut I think it really depends on, it's almost programmed by programming. It's\n\n46\n00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:22.800\nwhat's funny about\n\n47\n00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:30.560\nthis business. History kind of repeats itself. We unbundled the bundle when we\n\n48\n00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:31.040\nstarted going\n\n49\n00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:34.640\nto these streaming services. And now all the people want to rebundle the bundle\n\n50\n00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:35.120\nbecause the\n\n51\n00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.640\nstreaming services cost so much, why wouldn't we just rebundle everything back\n\n52\n00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:39.440\nup into the cable\n\n53\n00:02:39.440 --> 00:02:44.160\nbusiness? I think it's programmed by programming right now. Stick on Apple TV.\n\n54\n00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:45.920\nI'm deep into mob land,\n\n55\n00:02:45.920 --> 00:02:50.590\nwhich I believe is on Paramount+. So there's a few here and there that I'm that\n\n56\n00:02:50.590 --> 00:02:51.120\nI bought through\n\n57\n00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:54.800\nand depending on the program, that's why I have them all.\n\n58\n00:02:54.800 --> 00:03:00.720\nYeah, I'm into mob land too. That was amazing. Guy Richy's got a good model.\n\n59\n00:03:00.720 --> 00:03:05.590\nHe does. I can't wait to dig into how you lead, but first I want to take you\n\n60\n00:03:05.590 --> 00:03:06.080\nback to your\n\n61\n00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:10.010\nbeginning, David. What's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of\n\n62\n00:03:10.010 --> 00:03:10.640\nleader you are\n\n63\n00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:17.200\ntoday? I played hockey, which is a team sport. And I thought I was good enough\n\n64\n00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:18.000\nat some point to make\n\n65\n00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.600\nthe pros, but then you realize as you get older, everybody's a good hockey\n\n66\n00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:22.800\nplayer. And when you get\n\n67\n00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:25.860\nto college, they're really good hockey players and they're all captains of\n\n68\n00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:26.960\ntheir own teams. But\n\n69\n00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:33.490\nI think playing sports and working with people and finding ways to win and\n\n70\n00:03:33.490 --> 00:03:34.800\nfinding solutions to\n\n71\n00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:41.040\nchallenges was all part of my building of my character, I guess, and how I\n\n72\n00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:41.760\nlearned to lead.\n\n73\n00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:47.040\nAnd I ended up being the captain of my hockey team and captain up in Syracuse\n\n74\n00:03:47.040 --> 00:03:47.920\nfor the club team.\n\n75\n00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:53.280\nSo I think it stems to playing sports early on and learning to deal with people\n\n76\n00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:54.560\nand finding\n\n77\n00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:59.650\nsolutions to challenges. After college at Syracuse, you got your start in\n\n78\n00:03:59.650 --> 00:04:00.880\nadvertising sales in New\n\n79\n00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:04.690\nYork as I understand it. You know, what did that experience teach you right out\n\n80\n00:04:04.690 --> 00:04:05.520\nof the gate?\n\n81\n00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:09.920\nWhen I was at Syracuse, I graduated in 1984. My senior year, I figured out a\n\n82\n00:04:09.920 --> 00:04:11.440\nway to actually\n\n83\n00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:16.660\nget a job and turn around and have that job be credits that made credits to\n\n84\n00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:18.000\nhelp me graduate\n\n85\n00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.790\nschool. And the job was working for an advertising agency called Oakmont\n\n86\n00:04:21.790 --> 00:04:23.280\nAdvertising. From there,\n\n87\n00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:28.880\nI ended up getting a job in New York at an advertising agency called SSC&B,\n\n88\n00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:34.870\nworked for a woman named Elizabeth O'Brien and Gary Carr. And I loved it. It\n\n89\n00:04:34.870 --> 00:04:35.600\nwas great being in\n\n90\n00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:40.020\nthe city. But of course, I was thinking I was making $9,000 a year. That's what\n\n91\n00:04:40.020 --> 00:04:40.560\nthey were paying\n\n92\n00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:45.380\nback in 1984. What was interesting, though, was I realized very early, because\n\n93\n00:04:45.380 --> 00:04:47.040\nthe job I had at\n\n94\n00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:53.200\nSSC&B was a assistant network buyer. The funny thing about that was they put me\n\n95\n00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:54.480\non the cable business\n\n96\n00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:57.880\nbecause they didn't have a lot of cable money back then. And there were\n\n97\n00:04:57.880 --> 00:04:59.040\nprobably only seven\n\n98\n00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:05.220\nnetworks. And one of them was Superstation TBS and MTV and Nashville network, I\n\n99\n00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:06.240\nthink, was around\n\n100\n00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:09.490\nthere and USA network and things of that nature. And I realized very quickly\n\n101\n00:05:09.490 --> 00:05:10.560\nthat I wanted to be on\n\n102\n00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:14.310\nthe other side of the desk. And I wanted to be on the sales side because the\n\n103\n00:05:14.310 --> 00:05:15.120\nsales guy has made\n\n104\n00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:20.100\nall the money. And I figured out really early that this agency job wasn't going\n\n105\n00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:20.800\nto make me much\n\n106\n00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:26.520\nmoney at $9,000 a year. So within a year and a half, I left and found myself in\n\n107\n00:05:26.520 --> 00:05:27.520\nthe sales side\n\n108\n00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:32.840\nof the business. So I went over to a company called Cable Networks Inc, which\n\n109\n00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:33.280\nis kind of\n\n110\n00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:38.910\nanother funny story. As I went around trying to find a sales job, every sales\n\n111\n00:05:38.910 --> 00:05:39.440\ncompany I went to,\n\n112\n00:05:39.440 --> 00:05:43.910\nwhether it was MTV or ESPN or Nashville network, they all said the same thing\n\n113\n00:05:43.910 --> 00:05:44.880\nto me. They said,\n\n114\n00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:50.710\n\"Listen, we like you, but go get some sales experience and then come back.\" And\n\n115\n00:05:50.710 --> 00:05:51.680\nso I went to this\n\n116\n00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:55.800\ncompany called Cable Networks Inc, which was John Kramer, who came up with,\n\n117\n00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:57.360\nwhich was local cable\n\n118\n00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:03.760\nsales. It's right below a pregnant aunt, as far as where it was in the cycle. I\n\n119\n00:06:03.760 --> 00:06:04.400\nmean, this wasn't\n\n120\n00:06:04.400 --> 00:06:09.230\nthe days of cable where they had NFL football and Major League Baseball. This\n\n121\n00:06:09.230 --> 00:06:10.160\nwas the days where\n\n122\n00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:16.480\nit was PK Karate and Slowpitch Softball and reruns of Samford and Son. But\n\n123\n00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:17.760\nlocal cable was,\n\n124\n00:06:17.760 --> 00:06:21.150\nand the guy John Kramer was just about to say the same words. He's just about\n\n125\n00:06:21.150 --> 00:06:22.080\nto say to me,\n\n126\n00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:26.020\n\"Go get some,\" and I said, \"John, don't tell me to go get sales experience.\" I\n\n127\n00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:26.160\nsaid,\n\n128\n00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:29.440\n\"Let me ask you a question. How am I ever going to get sales experience if\n\n129\n00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:30.080\nnobody's going to give\n\n130\n00:06:30.080 --> 00:06:34.850\nme a sales job?\" And he ended up saying, \"You know what? You're right.\" And he\n\n131\n00:06:34.850 --> 00:06:36.000\nhired me, and\n\n132\n00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.760\nthat's how I got into the sales side of the business. And you end up at Turner\n\n133\n00:06:39.760 --> 00:06:40.480\nand you work\n\n134\n00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:43.480\nyour way up the ladder there. You're there for 30 years and you become\n\n135\n00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:44.800\npresident of the company.\n\n136\n00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:50.880\nWhat do you think you did differently as a leader that allowed you to climb the\n\n137\n00:06:50.880 --> 00:06:52.240\nranks like you did?\n\n138\n00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:57.120\nThere's a few things here and there that I think are important when you think\n\n139\n00:06:57.120 --> 00:06:58.000\nabout leadership.\n\n140\n00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:06.560\nNumber one is surround yourself as you move up and as you get new jobs. Make\n\n141\n00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:07.360\nsure the people that\n\n142\n00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:12.190\nreplace you or the people that you are managing are equal or better than you,\n\n143\n00:07:12.190 --> 00:07:13.200\nbut have different\n\n144\n00:07:13.200 --> 00:07:18.480\ntypes of skill sets. The only way you kind of move up as a leader is you make\n\n145\n00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:18.960\nsure that you're\n\n146\n00:07:18.960 --> 00:07:22.790\nreplaceable and that that someone can take your place. If you hire people that\n\n147\n00:07:22.790 --> 00:07:24.240\nare not as good\n\n148\n00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:29.160\nas you, then your bosses and your bosses bosses are never going to move you out\n\n149\n00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:29.680\nbecause they don't\n\n150\n00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:33.750\nwant to lose whatever you have built. So the best thing that you can do as a\n\n151\n00:07:33.750 --> 00:07:34.560\nleader is to\n\n152\n00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:39.250\nactually surround yourself with very talented people. And that allows you to\n\n153\n00:07:39.250 --> 00:07:41.680\nmove up in the ladder.\n\n154\n00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:45.690\nI think I always made sure that I surrounded myself with really, really good\n\n155\n00:07:45.690 --> 00:07:46.320\npeople.\n\n156\n00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:50.800\nThe second thing is, I always tell people you could always lead people that\n\n157\n00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:51.760\nreport to you,\n\n158\n00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:55.520\nbut the great leaders are the ones that can lead people that don't report to\n\n159\n00:07:55.520 --> 00:07:55.840\nyou.\n\n160\n00:07:55.840 --> 00:08:01.840\nSo not only do you have to lead in a horizontal type of situation, but you have\n\n161\n00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:02.960\nto spread out\n\n162\n00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:08.190\nvertically as well. I'm assuming vertically is where and spread out horizontal\n\n163\n00:08:08.190 --> 00:08:08.880\nin the sense that\n\n164\n00:08:08.880 --> 00:08:12.420\nyou need to lead people that don't report to you. And that's when you know you\n\n165\n00:08:12.420 --> 00:08:13.280\n're truly a great\n\n166\n00:08:13.280 --> 00:08:17.680\nleader. And I always try to figure out how to work with different divisions and\n\n167\n00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:18.080\ndifferent\n\n168\n00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.640\nopportunities and to work within the company, not just a Turner, but with HBO\n\n169\n00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:23.600\nand with Warner\n\n170\n00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:29.490\nBrothers and try to find ways to work with our partners. And I thought that was\n\n171\n00:08:29.490 --> 00:08:30.240\nvery important\n\n172\n00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:35.600\nto make sure you lead it from a horizontal way, not just vertically up and down\n\n173\n00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:35.920\n.\n\n174\n00:08:36.880 --> 00:08:43.460\nAnd then lastly, as I started to acquire things or we looked at buying new\n\n175\n00:08:43.460 --> 00:08:43.920\nassets,\n\n176\n00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:48.800\nto me, I always wanted to be an insider, not an outsider. A lot of leaders\n\n177\n00:08:48.800 --> 00:08:50.720\nsometimes wait to see\n\n178\n00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:56.030\nhow other things react or does it work or doesn't it work. I remember early on\n\n179\n00:08:56.030 --> 00:08:56.800\nat Turner\n\n180\n00:08:56.800 --> 00:09:01.860\nin our sports division, when I came back from running international, I came\n\n181\n00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:02.720\nback to run Turner\n\n182\n00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:08.900\nsports and I got a lot of experience overseas with digital content and digital\n\n183\n00:09:08.900 --> 00:09:09.920\nvideo on phones.\n\n184\n00:09:09.920 --> 00:09:14.380\nIt really wasn't here in the US at the time yet. We were still dealing with\n\n185\n00:09:14.380 --> 00:09:15.360\nMotorola Razors\n\n186\n00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:23.070\nand very barely even texting at that time. That was back in 2002, 2003. I\n\n187\n00:09:23.070 --> 00:09:24.000\nstarted buying up\n\n188\n00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:29.920\ndigital sports rights that at the time, no one really even cared about. Because\n\n189\n00:09:29.920 --> 00:09:30.640\nthere wasn't much\n\n190\n00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:35.590\ndigital content running on phones at the time. And so I might have overpaid a\n\n191\n00:09:35.590 --> 00:09:36.480\nlittle bit in certain\n\n192\n00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:42.320\nways. We also started a digital sports sales division, which in the early days\n\n193\n00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:43.200\nwere not very\n\n194\n00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:47.690\nsuccessful. We bought NASCAR rights that were way too expensive. I bought some\n\n195\n00:09:47.690 --> 00:09:48.560\nPGA tour rights that\n\n196\n00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:53.950\nwere not, were probably too expensive. And I was able to cover it on other\n\n197\n00:09:53.950 --> 00:09:55.520\nparts of my division.\n\n198\n00:09:55.520 --> 00:10:00.250\nBut I learned a lot about the digital business while I was managing those\n\n199\n00:10:00.250 --> 00:10:02.240\nproperties. And that\n\n200\n00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:06.940\nallowed me to understand how to buy the next property. We worked with the NBA\n\n201\n00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:07.520\nand that deal\n\n202\n00:10:07.520 --> 00:10:13.120\nwas very successful. And then the NCAA, when we did the NCAA with CVS, that was\n\n203\n00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:14.000\nvery successful.\n\n204\n00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:18.960\nSo learning from the inside, actually making some mistakes, yes, overpaying\n\n205\n00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:19.760\nhere and there,\n\n206\n00:10:19.760 --> 00:10:24.800\nbut then knowing where I knew what I had to do to solve those issues. And I\n\n207\n00:10:24.800 --> 00:10:25.680\nthink that was very\n\n208\n00:10:25.680 --> 00:10:30.310\nimportant as well. So those are some of the learnings, I guess, that I would\n\n209\n00:10:30.310 --> 00:10:32.240\nstand by as my career\n\n210\n00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:37.310\nreturner. You know, when you were a turner, the media landscape was just\n\n211\n00:10:37.310 --> 00:10:38.480\nshifting so fast. And\n\n212\n00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:43.360\nit still is. I mean, I don't know of any industry that's continually dealing\n\n213\n00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:44.480\nwith so much change.\n\n214\n00:10:45.040 --> 00:10:51.280\nWhat have you learned about adapting and staying on your front foot in an\n\n215\n00:10:51.280 --> 00:10:52.080\nindustry that's\n\n216\n00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:57.520\nconstantly just shifting? You know, someone, I think there was a book that said\n\n217\n00:10:57.520 --> 00:10:57.680\nthat\n\n218\n00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:03.750\nain't broke, break it, right? You know, you have to constantly look at what's\n\n219\n00:11:03.750 --> 00:11:04.880\nahead and what's\n\n220\n00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:09.950\nhappening and be at the forefront. You know, you know, I thought sports rights\n\n221\n00:11:09.950 --> 00:11:11.120\nwere going to be a\n\n222\n00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:18.380\nbig part of the future of content because they're passionate, built-in fan\n\n223\n00:11:18.380 --> 00:11:19.040\nbases\n\n224\n00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:24.320\naround sports properties. And we made a conscious effort of going after some of\n\n225\n00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:25.120\nthe biggest sports\n\n226\n00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:31.190\nrights, not just in cable, but in television. And so being in the forefront and\n\n227\n00:11:31.190 --> 00:11:32.720\naggressively doing\n\n228\n00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:37.630\nthat, we were the first to go after large movie packages, because I realized\n\n229\n00:11:37.630 --> 00:11:38.880\nthat there are big\n\n230\n00:11:38.880 --> 00:11:43.330\nmovie fans, whether you're a Star Wars fan or James Bond fan, you know, when\n\n231\n00:11:43.330 --> 00:11:44.560\nthose movies come up and\n\n232\n00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:49.290\nthey repeat often on many of our channels, they're just fans that people will\n\n233\n00:11:49.290 --> 00:11:50.800\ntune in and stick.\n\n234\n00:11:50.800 --> 00:11:54.000\nThey're very sticky when you're big, when you're Star Wars fan, you're flipping\n\n235\n00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:54.320\nthrough the\n\n236\n00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:57.790\nchannels I called collision viewing when you're just going up and down the\n\n237\n00:11:57.790 --> 00:11:58.880\nchannels and you find\n\n238\n00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:02.150\na starboard movie and you happen to be a fan, you're going to get locked on it\n\n239\n00:12:02.150 --> 00:12:03.040\nor a rocky movie\n\n240\n00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:05.950\nor something like that. So we bought big movie back here. We, we understand, I\n\n241\n00:12:05.950 --> 00:12:07.280\nmean, Ted Turner\n\n242\n00:12:07.280 --> 00:12:11.050\ntaught me very, very well, content is king. That's what he said. No matter what\n\n243\n00:12:11.050 --> 00:12:11.920\nthe device,\n\n244\n00:12:11.920 --> 00:12:16.090\nno matter what the distribution platform is, as long as you have great content,\n\n245\n00:12:16.090 --> 00:12:16.960\nyou will find viewers.\n\n246\n00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:21.300\nHey everyone, it's Kula from How Leaders Lead. And a couple years ago, we did a\n\n247\n00:12:21.300 --> 00:12:22.080\nsurvey of all of\n\n248\n00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:26.240\nyou podcast listeners and in it, you told us that you would like more of David\n\n249\n00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:27.600\n's point of view on\n\n250\n00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:31.470\nsome of the topics that he talks about with the guests that he interviews. And\n\n251\n00:12:31.470 --> 00:12:32.080\nin case you didn't\n\n252\n00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:36.370\nknow, we have an episode that does just that. Every Monday, we release an\n\n253\n00:12:36.370 --> 00:12:37.360\nepisode called\n\n254\n00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:41.520\nThree More Questions with David Novak, where I put David in the hot seat and\n\n255\n00:12:41.520 --> 00:12:42.320\nget his point of\n\n256\n00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:46.420\nview and his take on some of the concepts that he talks about with the guests\n\n257\n00:12:46.420 --> 00:12:47.680\nthat he interviews.\n\n258\n00:12:47.680 --> 00:12:51.500\nIt's a great way to get learnings from David and to hear about his experience\n\n259\n00:12:51.500 --> 00:12:52.720\nleading young brands,\n\n260\n00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:57.660\na company of over 1.5 million employees. So if you haven't subscribed to the\n\n261\n00:12:57.660 --> 00:12:58.400\nHow Leaders Lead\n\n262\n00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:01.700\nFeed, wherever you get your podcast, do that now so that you never miss an\n\n263\n00:13:01.700 --> 00:13:02.560\nepisode of Three More\n\n264\n00:13:02.560 --> 00:13:07.240\nQuestions and so that you can get coaching from David himself. Speaking of\n\n265\n00:13:07.240 --> 00:13:09.120\ngreat content and also\n\n266\n00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:12.920\ngoing back to the one of the points you made earlier about the importance of\n\n267\n00:13:12.920 --> 00:13:14.800\nleading horizontally,\n\n268\n00:13:14.800 --> 00:13:22.320\nnot just the people that report to you and managing up and down. You help pull\n\n269\n00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:22.640\noff\n\n270\n00:13:22.640 --> 00:13:26.550\nprobably one of the most groundbreaking media deals in the history of sports\n\n271\n00:13:26.550 --> 00:13:27.600\nwhen you\n\n272\n00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:35.440\nteamed up with CBS and got the NCAA March Madness tournament. The thing was so\n\n273\n00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:35.920\npopular.\n\n274\n00:13:35.920 --> 00:13:40.400\nTell us a story about that and the biggest lesson you learned from it.\n\n275\n00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:44.010\nThat's a landmark deal. That's probably something that I'll always be\n\n276\n00:13:44.010 --> 00:13:46.000\nremembered by in our relationship\n\n277\n00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:53.600\nwith CBS and Sean McManus. The other thing I truly believe and I think is\n\n278\n00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:54.640\nreally, really important\n\n279\n00:13:54.640 --> 00:13:59.760\nis culture beat strategy all the time. You have great culture. I think it will\n\n280\n00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:00.720\nbeat strategy\n\n281\n00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:04.660\nday in and day out. If you have them both, obviously culture and strategy, it's\n\n282\n00:14:04.660 --> 00:14:05.200\na home run.\n\n283\n00:14:05.200 --> 00:14:11.680\nIt was very interesting about our relationship with CBS. CBS had a very, very\n\n284\n00:14:11.680 --> 00:14:12.800\ndifferent culture\n\n285\n00:14:12.800 --> 00:14:18.640\nthan Turner Broadcasting. They were far more what I would say, more traditional\n\n286\n00:14:18.640 --> 00:14:22.560\nmedia company versus\n\n287\n00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:28.080\nwhat I would say more an aggressive modern media company. We also knew that\n\n288\n00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:29.680\nSean and myself knew that\n\n289\n00:14:29.680 --> 00:14:33.760\none in one is going to make four on this particular. If we could find a way,\n\n290\n00:14:33.760 --> 00:14:41.200\nCBS at the time was losing money on the tournament. They had a couple years\n\n291\n00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:41.920\nleft and\n\n292\n00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:45.070\nthe tournament went out in the marketplace to see if there was going to be any\n\n293\n00:14:45.070 --> 00:14:46.240\nother partners.\n\n294\n00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:52.000\nI got called from a gentleman named Greg Shaheen asking about what I'd be\n\n295\n00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:53.680\ninterested in having\n\n296\n00:14:53.680 --> 00:14:58.260\nsome type of package and what would I be thinking about. As I went through the\n\n297\n00:14:58.260 --> 00:14:58.720\nRFP,\n\n298\n00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:04.050\nI realized very quickly that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to need a\n\n299\n00:15:04.050 --> 00:15:06.160\npartner and probably a\n\n300\n00:15:06.160 --> 00:15:10.220\nbroadcast partner because I didn't think the NCAA was going to put all of their\n\n301\n00:15:10.220 --> 00:15:12.160\ngames in one foul\n\n302\n00:15:12.160 --> 00:15:18.240\nswoop on a cable network. I just think that I needed at that time and it was\n\n303\n00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:19.360\nback in 2010\n\n304\n00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:25.420\nthat it would be great to partner with CBS. I said to Sean out of the gate, I\n\n305\n00:15:25.420 --> 00:15:25.680\nsaid,\n\n306\n00:15:25.680 --> 00:15:29.370\nI'm more than happy to partner see when I was also talking to Fox at the time.\n\n307\n00:15:29.370 --> 00:15:30.160\nI said to Sean,\n\n308\n00:15:30.160 --> 00:15:36.540\nbut I don't want to have a cable package. This has to be a 50/50 partnership,\n\n309\n00:15:36.540 --> 00:15:37.360\nmeaning I'm going to\n\n310\n00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:41.560\nhave the finals and semi-finals every other year and we're both going to go\n\n311\n00:15:41.560 --> 00:15:42.720\nafter this together.\n\n312\n00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:49.920\nHe heads and hogs maybe a little bit, but at the end he realized that he didn't\n\n313\n00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:50.640\nwant to lose the\n\n314\n00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:56.430\nNCAA package either. He realized he needed a partner because the idea we came\n\n315\n00:15:56.430 --> 00:15:57.040\nup with,\n\n316\n00:15:57.040 --> 00:16:02.280\nwhich was unheard of at the time, was to put all the games on live at the same\n\n317\n00:16:02.280 --> 00:16:02.880\ntime.\n\n318\n00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:10.950\nWe let the viewer, the consumer, be the control of what game they wanted to\n\n319\n00:16:10.950 --> 00:16:12.400\nwatch. Prior to us doing\n\n320\n00:16:12.400 --> 00:16:17.760\nthis deal and it started in 2011, CBS did regionals. If you lived on the West\n\n321\n00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:18.240\nCoast,\n\n322\n00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.240\nyou saw West Coast games or what CBS thought you might want to watch. If you\n\n323\n00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:23.120\nlived on the East\n\n324\n00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:27.740\nCoast, you saw East Coast games and so forth and so on. They did some cut-ins,\n\n325\n00:16:27.740 --> 00:16:28.720\nbut all the games\n\n326\n00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:32.000\nwere running at the same time, but you couldn't see them all. This was taking T\n\n327\n00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:34.080\nBS, TNT, TrueTV,\n\n328\n00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:39.530\nand CBS and having all four games run simultaneously at the same time. Then\n\n329\n00:16:39.530 --> 00:16:41.680\neven more dramatic and still\n\n330\n00:16:41.680 --> 00:16:47.730\ntoday is when there's a blowout on CBS. You got Jim Nance saying, \"Hey, we've\n\n331\n00:16:47.730 --> 00:16:48.560\ngot a blowout game,\n\n332\n00:16:48.560 --> 00:16:53.120\nbut look what's going on TBS right now. Switch to your TBS channel.\" The reason\n\n333\n00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:54.800\nwhy he was able to\n\n334\n00:16:54.800 --> 00:16:58.550\nsay, \"Go off of my channel and go somewhere else,\" was because the way we\n\n335\n00:16:58.550 --> 00:17:00.080\nstructured this deal was a\n\n336\n00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:05.730\ntrue 50/50 partnership. It didn't matter where a commercial that ran on TBS or\n\n337\n00:17:05.730 --> 00:17:06.080\ncommercial\n\n338\n00:17:06.080 --> 00:17:11.170\naround CBS, all the dollars fell into one big pop. All the revenue streams were\n\n339\n00:17:11.170 --> 00:17:12.480\njust divided 50/50.\n\n340\n00:17:13.040 --> 00:17:18.270\nIt's a great idea. I should have known that, but it makes subtle sense. You\n\n341\n00:17:18.270 --> 00:17:20.720\nfound the big win win.\n\n342\n00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:26.880\nThe only thing that wasn't divided 50/50, which made it very profitable and\n\n343\n00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:28.000\nstill is very profitable\n\n344\n00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:34.870\nfor Turner, was we kept out two areas. CBS was able to keep its retrans and its\n\n345\n00:17:34.870 --> 00:17:35.920\nlocal avales,\n\n346\n00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:41.340\nand we were able to keep all of our subscription revenue. Subscription and ret\n\n347\n00:17:41.340 --> 00:17:42.160\nrans were out of the\n\n348\n00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:46.410\ndeal, but every other revenue stream, whether it be digital or whether it be\n\n349\n00:17:46.410 --> 00:17:47.440\nconcert series or\n\n350\n00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:52.140\nwhether it be anything else, was all divided 50/50, and it's still today. That\n\n351\n00:17:52.140 --> 00:17:53.520\nwas a landmark\n\n352\n00:17:53.520 --> 00:17:59.120\ndeal in the sense that I don't think it ends till 20/32. Wow, that's amazing.\n\n353\n00:17:59.120 --> 00:17:59.920\nFor the people who aren't\n\n354\n00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:05.550\nin the industry, what's a retrans? Retrans is where CBS, with all their local\n\n355\n00:18:05.550 --> 00:18:06.400\nstations,\n\n356\n00:18:07.360 --> 00:18:13.840\nget paid a subscription, meaning retransing the actual signal and are paid by\n\n357\n00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:15.040\nthe cable operators\n\n358\n00:18:15.040 --> 00:18:22.890\nfor that signal. You had such an incredible run at Turner. You're in the\n\n359\n00:18:22.890 --> 00:18:24.320\nbroadcasting hall of fame,\n\n360\n00:18:24.320 --> 00:18:32.590\nand you're viewed as a genius in the industry. What led you to make the\n\n361\n00:18:32.590 --> 00:18:33.920\ndecision to step away from\n\n362\n00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:40.640\nTurner? I'm pretty unusual maybe in this day and age. I stayed there 33 years.\n\n363\n00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:49.990\nTed hired me back in '87. I saw the merger between Time Warner and Turner. I\n\n364\n00:18:49.990 --> 00:18:50.800\nsaw the merger\n\n365\n00:18:50.800 --> 00:18:55.920\nbetween AOL and Time Warner, and then I saw AOL leave and Time Warner take its\n\n366\n00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:57.040\nownership back.\n\n367\n00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:06.960\nThen I saw AT&T by Time Warner. Then I actually left after, I say two years\n\n368\n00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:11.370\nunder that regime. Listen, I went through a lot of different mergers and\n\n369\n00:19:11.370 --> 00:19:12.880\nacquisitions and takeovers,\n\n370\n00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:19.140\na lot of different bosses, lifting styles. After 33 years, we accomplished a\n\n371\n00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:19.600\nlot.\n\n372\n00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:29.120\nI had a great run. At the time, John Stanky was reorganizing the company and\n\n373\n00:19:29.120 --> 00:19:29.520\nactually\n\n374\n00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:33.680\nfolding a lot of positions and a lot of different opportunities under different\n\n375\n00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:37.440\nroofs and different functions. To be honest with you, there was nothing that\n\n376\n00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:38.400\nreally excited me\n\n377\n00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:43.840\nand what it was going to be. I said to John, let's shake hands. This is your\n\n378\n00:19:43.840 --> 00:19:45.200\nbaby. It's time to move\n\n379\n00:19:45.200 --> 00:19:52.160\non. No regrets. I had a great run. No one stays at a company 33 years. At the\n\n380\n00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:54.240\nend, I was running\n\n381\n00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:59.080\nbasically all of Turner except for the international division and the news. I\n\n382\n00:19:59.080 --> 00:20:00.640\nwas ready to try something\n\n383\n00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:05.840\nelse and here I am today. What was it, David, that made you go out on your own\n\n384\n00:20:05.840 --> 00:20:06.960\nand start up\n\n385\n00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:13.150\nHorizon sports and experiences? Bill Coningsburg, who runs Horizon Media, owns,\n\n386\n00:20:13.150 --> 00:20:13.520\nnot runs,\n\n387\n00:20:13.520 --> 00:20:18.990\nowns Horizon Media. I have been friends for many, many years, probably 30 plus\n\n388\n00:20:18.990 --> 00:20:20.400\nyears in the business.\n\n389\n00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:29.960\nHe called me up and said that he really wanted to grow and blow out his sports\n\n390\n00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:31.040\nmarketing company\n\n391\n00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:37.840\nat the time was called Scout. It was a smaller company, but Tomásak had just\n\n392\n00:20:38.560 --> 00:20:42.510\ninvested in Horizon Media and they wanted to grow their business and he was\n\n393\n00:20:42.510 --> 00:20:43.760\nfinding new ways\n\n394\n00:20:43.760 --> 00:20:47.200\nand he realized the sports business was going to be something that had a lot of\n\n395\n00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:48.000\ngrowth potential\n\n396\n00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:53.010\nand asked me to run it. We went back and forth and had some conversations and I\n\n397\n00:20:53.010 --> 00:20:53.840\nsaid, Bill,\n\n398\n00:20:53.840 --> 00:20:59.310\nI think the best way for us to have this relationship is you spin out Scout\n\n399\n00:20:59.310 --> 00:21:00.320\ninto a new co\n\n400\n00:21:00.320 --> 00:21:06.310\nprovide equity and some investment dollars and so forth. I'd be interested in\n\n401\n00:21:06.310 --> 00:21:07.200\ndoing this.\n\n402\n00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:14.880\nBut as a partner, not as an employee and to Bill's credit, he called back and\n\n403\n00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:15.040\nsaid,\n\n404\n00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:18.240\nhey, would you do it with a partner? I said, you're my partner. He goes, no, no\n\n405\n00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:19.920\n, another partner.\n\n406\n00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:24.260\nAnd I said, who? And he goes, Chris, wow. And I go, I love Chris. I've known\n\n407\n00:21:24.260 --> 00:21:25.440\nChris for 25 years.\n\n408\n00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:32.880\nSo the three of us went out to Montauk and spent a couple of days together and\n\n409\n00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:33.840\nbanged out what\n\n410\n00:21:33.840 --> 00:21:38.780\nthe roles and responsibilities are because we all know sometimes co-CEOs don't\n\n411\n00:21:38.780 --> 00:21:39.600\nwork.\n\n412\n00:21:39.600 --> 00:21:44.240\nI would say almost 90% of the time they don't. The way we constructed this,\n\n413\n00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:45.680\nwhich is putting\n\n414\n00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:52.420\nwhat Chris's skill sets are and what he did at Momentum for 20 plus years as\n\n415\n00:21:52.420 --> 00:21:53.520\nthe CEO Momentum,\n\n416\n00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:58.790\nthe probably one of the best largest sports marketing agency in the world and\n\n417\n00:21:58.790 --> 00:21:59.440\nwhat a job he\n\n418\n00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:04.350\ndid there. If you took Chris's role index and my role index, or that's an old\n\n419\n00:22:04.350 --> 00:22:05.200\nword, we can say\n\n420\n00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:11.180\nour contact list and merge it together, there'll only be about a 20% overlap.\n\n421\n00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:12.480\nAnd so we constructed\n\n422\n00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:17.840\nthe agency that way. Chris manages the brand consulting side, experiential\n\n423\n00:22:17.840 --> 00:22:19.040\nactivation side of\n\n424\n00:22:19.040 --> 00:22:25.460\nthe business and I manage and oversee the IP ownership and creation of IP, the\n\n425\n00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:26.240\nsales,\n\n426\n00:22:27.120 --> 00:22:31.490\nsponsorship, sales division, as well as our media consulting division. So we\n\n427\n00:22:31.490 --> 00:22:32.720\nkind of have our\n\n428\n00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:36.530\nseparate roles and responsibilities, but then we roll up into one big\n\n429\n00:22:36.530 --> 00:22:37.760\norganization and of course,\n\n430\n00:22:37.760 --> 00:22:42.050\nwe help each other out when needed on both sides of the equation. David, give\n\n431\n00:22:42.050 --> 00:22:42.560\nme a share\n\n432\n00:22:42.560 --> 00:22:47.320\nsort of a high level overview of your business, this company and that you're\n\n433\n00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:48.240\nresponsible for as\n\n434\n00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:53.720\nthe co-CEO. So we thought about this in a big way. We said, listen, if we were\n\n435\n00:22:53.720 --> 00:22:54.560\nto start over from\n\n436\n00:22:54.560 --> 00:22:58.480\nscratch and you were able to start a sports marketing company today versus what\n\n437\n00:22:58.480 --> 00:22:59.600\nyou did 15,\n\n438\n00:22:59.600 --> 00:23:04.320\n20 years ago, what would you do differently? And that's was our secret sauce is\n\n439\n00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:04.800\nwe didn't have\n\n440\n00:23:04.800 --> 00:23:08.630\nany legacy. And so we were able to build something that we thought would be\n\n441\n00:23:08.630 --> 00:23:09.520\nvery interesting. And so\n\n442\n00:23:09.520 --> 00:23:14.640\nwe have three pillars, I guess, that we focus on. One is our brand consulting\n\n443\n00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:16.560\nactivation\n\n444\n00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:21.870\nexperiential side of our business, where we have clients like Proximo and\n\n445\n00:23:21.870 --> 00:23:23.280\nPayPal and Venmo and\n\n446\n00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:30.720\nParamount Plus and Sentinel One and and Cogsnet and New York Life. And those we\n\n447\n00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:31.440\nhandle all their\n\n448\n00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:38.190\nsponsorships, all their experiential and activations. We help them with League\n\n449\n00:23:38.190 --> 00:23:40.240\nand team negotiations,\n\n450\n00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:46.320\nJersey patch negotiations, as well as anything else they need us to do. And the\n\n451\n00:23:46.320 --> 00:23:47.200\nother two pillars\n\n452\n00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:51.610\nwe have is one is ownership and creation of IP, which that's very unique and\n\n453\n00:23:51.610 --> 00:23:52.560\ndifferent. And you\n\n454\n00:23:52.560 --> 00:23:56.800\nmentioned it very early on our pickleball slam, which is now in our we're going\n\n455\n00:23:56.800 --> 00:23:57.600\nto announce very\n\n456\n00:23:57.600 --> 00:24:02.100\nshortly our slam for event, which I think is going to be incredibly good. And\n\n457\n00:24:02.100 --> 00:24:03.280\nwhere we had in our first,\n\n458\n00:24:03.280 --> 00:24:07.720\nwe had Agassie, Mackinrow, Roddick and Chang play for a million dollar purse.\n\n459\n00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:09.680\nAnd then we brought in\n\n460\n00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:16.600\nSteffi and Maria Sharapova, Sharapova and Mackinrow played Steffi and Agassie,\n\n461\n00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:17.840\nwhich was fantastic.\n\n462\n00:24:17.840 --> 00:24:21.830\nAnd then our third one had Jeannie Beshard and Roddick play against Steffi and\n\n463\n00:24:21.830 --> 00:24:23.040\nAgassie. So\n\n464\n00:24:23.040 --> 00:24:27.640\nall great events, all real events with real money on the line and obviously\n\n465\n00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:29.360\nbringing the best\n\n466\n00:24:29.360 --> 00:24:33.720\nracket players in the world to play against each other. We then realized very\n\n467\n00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:34.880\nearly that women's\n\n468\n00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:39.180\nsports was going to be a huge growth opportunity. And that was two and a half\n\n469\n00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:40.240\nyears ago when we\n\n470\n00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:45.200\njumped in a little bit before the Caitlyn Clark, you know, phenomenon happened,\n\n471\n00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:46.000\nbut we kind of\n\n472\n00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:50.090\nsensed it was going on. We also knew that World Cup was coming and a lot of\n\n473\n00:24:50.090 --> 00:24:52.080\nother and the NWSL\n\n474\n00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:57.350\ngrowth and so forth and so on. So we invested in the women's champions classic,\n\n475\n00:24:57.350 --> 00:24:58.080\nwhich is we own\n\n476\n00:24:58.080 --> 00:25:01.680\nthe marks, the rights and logo, our partner Nat is Fox and we went after\n\n477\n00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:02.960\nConnecticut and we signed\n\n478\n00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:07.360\nConnecticut to a five year deal, figuring that was the best women's basketball\n\n479\n00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:08.480\nbrand name in the\n\n480\n00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:12.090\ncountry. We didn't have them locked on how much of the event would have been as\n\n481\n00:25:12.090 --> 00:25:12.800\nsuccessful.\n\n482\n00:25:13.520 --> 00:25:19.920\nAnd we're having our second event this coming December 20th. So we invest in\n\n483\n00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:20.720\nour own IP and then\n\n484\n00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:26.400\nwe also invest in other IP and leagues, but on strategic basis, so unrivaled HS\n\n485\n00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:28.080\nNE invested\n\n486\n00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:32.630\nin the league itself. But we also did their media rights for them with Warner\n\n487\n00:25:32.630 --> 00:25:33.680\nBrothers and we are\n\n488\n00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:39.200\nthe agency of record for their sponsorship sales. So really a nice relationship\n\n489\n00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:40.720\nin that\n\n490\n00:25:41.520 --> 00:25:45.200\ntremendous league that I think after its first season was hugely successful and\n\n491\n00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:46.560\ngoing to go up\n\n492\n00:25:46.560 --> 00:25:52.800\nin my opinion. So we invest in own in IP and we create IP and then we also have\n\n493\n00:25:52.800 --> 00:25:53.840\na sponsorship\n\n494\n00:25:53.840 --> 00:26:00.560\nsales division that sells all this IP. We also sell other leagues and teams IP\n\n495\n00:26:00.560 --> 00:26:01.280\nif it's the right\n\n496\n00:26:01.280 --> 00:26:06.030\nmix for us, which we've done like right now we're representing the pro paddle\n\n497\n00:26:06.030 --> 00:26:06.560\nleague\n\n498\n00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:13.570\nand help them with their their sponsorship sales. So we don't own any of the P\n\n499\n00:26:13.570 --> 00:26:14.560\nPL, but\n\n500\n00:26:14.560 --> 00:26:18.080\nwe do do their sponsorship sales for them. And then lastly, we have a nice\n\n501\n00:26:18.080 --> 00:26:19.040\nmedia consulting\n\n502\n00:26:19.040 --> 00:26:24.300\nbusiness where we help people with go to market strategies, media rights. I\n\n503\n00:26:24.300 --> 00:26:25.840\njust did a I work\n\n504\n00:26:25.840 --> 00:26:32.560\nwith the zone recently with their club World Cup rights where we negotiated\n\n505\n00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:33.040\nwith\n\n506\n00:26:34.320 --> 00:26:40.480\nUnivision and Turner to have those games air on the Spanish language Univision\n\n507\n00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:41.040\nso forth.\n\n508\n00:26:41.040 --> 00:26:45.130\nSo I helped the zone with that. We work with top ranked boxing. We work with\n\n509\n00:26:45.130 --> 00:26:45.600\nthe NBA.\n\n510\n00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:50.880\nSo we have a nice client list in helping them either with go to market strategy\n\n511\n00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:50.880\n,\n\n512\n00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:55.840\nsponsorship sales or media rights. So David, that's like you cover the gamut in\n\n513\n00:26:55.840 --> 00:26:56.720\nthe world of sports.\n\n514\n00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:01.150\nSo what do you find to be your biggest leadership challenge? Just making sure\n\n515\n00:27:01.150 --> 00:27:02.000\nwe stay ahead of the\n\n516\n00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:07.440\ngame, making sure we bring in the right talent. We now have 91 employees\n\n517\n00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:12.320\nand maintaining that talent and making them feel like they're a part of this\n\n518\n00:27:12.320 --> 00:27:13.360\ngrowth company.\n\n519\n00:27:13.360 --> 00:27:18.560\nI think that's very, very important working with Chris, making sure that we're\n\n520\n00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:19.200\nboth\n\n521\n00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:24.080\nwhile we're running around doing our own responsibilities, but making sure that\n\n522\n00:27:24.080 --> 00:27:25.120\nwe're still running\n\n523\n00:27:25.120 --> 00:27:30.340\na company as one company and making sure that we think about our employees. I\n\n524\n00:27:30.340 --> 00:27:31.200\nthink the most\n\n525\n00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:34.940\nimportant thing is making sure your employees are happy and that they feel like\n\n526\n00:27:34.940 --> 00:27:35.600\nthere's growth\n\n527\n00:27:35.600 --> 00:27:40.350\nopportunities. And we happen to be very lucky right now. We're I think in the\n\n528\n00:27:40.350 --> 00:27:41.040\nright genre.\n\n529\n00:27:41.040 --> 00:27:45.620\nI think sports is having its moment right now, not just in television or in\n\n530\n00:27:45.620 --> 00:27:46.080\nstreaming,\n\n531\n00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:51.760\nbut in private equity and investment. It just seems to be a really hot space\n\n532\n00:27:51.760 --> 00:27:52.640\nright now.\n\n533\n00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:56.550\nAnd then of course, the areas that we're focused on, which is women's sports,\n\n534\n00:27:56.550 --> 00:27:57.760\nFormula One, golf,\n\n535\n00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:07.680\nsoccer, and racket sports, we seem to be in a very we're in the right genres in\n\n536\n00:28:07.680 --> 00:28:09.040\nthe sports space.\n\n537\n00:28:09.040 --> 00:28:13.300\nYeah. Well, you're into live sports. I mean, what do you think is a secret\n\n538\n00:28:13.300 --> 00:28:14.800\nsauce of live sports?\n\n539\n00:28:14.800 --> 00:28:20.640\nWell, our tagline is live is the new digital. I think it's very apparent that\n\n540\n00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:22.640\neven though money\n\n541\n00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:27.730\nmay be tight in certain ways with certain people, I think the community of\n\n542\n00:28:27.730 --> 00:28:28.800\ngoing to a live event\n\n543\n00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:34.110\nand being with other people is still something that consumers want and\n\n544\n00:28:34.110 --> 00:28:36.160\nconsumers will pay for.\n\n545\n00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:39.980\nYou may not pay for other things, but you're going to pay to go to a concert if\n\n546\n00:28:39.980 --> 00:28:40.880\nyou're a music\n\n547\n00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:45.040\nlover. You're going to pay to go to a sporting event if you're a sports fanatic\n\n548\n00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:46.240\n. And that's still\n\n549\n00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:51.590\ntoday. And you see teams realizing that they want to keep the experience even\n\n550\n00:28:51.590 --> 00:28:52.800\nthe experience at\n\n551\n00:28:52.800 --> 00:28:58.100\nthese venues now are becoming experiences. You're getting a lot more value at\n\n552\n00:28:58.100 --> 00:29:00.000\nthese arenas\n\n553\n00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.480\nand what's available to you and so forth and so on. And there's opportunities,\n\n554\n00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:05.200\nbut you also can't\n\n555\n00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:08.630\nprice yourself out of the marketplace. And I think that's sort of what the\n\n556\n00:29:08.630 --> 00:29:10.160\nbalance is right now is,\n\n557\n00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:14.670\nhow do you make sure you can still get the diehard fan to come and afford\n\n558\n00:29:14.670 --> 00:29:15.600\ncoming to the games?\n\n559\n00:29:15.600 --> 00:29:18.850\nWe'll be back with the rest of my conversation with David Levy in just a moment\n\n560\n00:29:18.850 --> 00:29:19.600\n. The Pickleball\n\n561\n00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:23.740\nSlam has been a smashing success. No pun intended. And one of the competitors\n\n562\n00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:24.720\nis none other than\n\n563\n00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:29.000\nAndy Roddick. He's a legendary tennis player, of course, but he's also a\n\n564\n00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:30.320\nterrific leader.\n\n565\n00:29:30.320 --> 00:29:35.600\nHe joined me here on the pod a few years back. And I love what he had to say\n\n566\n00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:37.760\nabout imposter syndrome.\n\n567\n00:29:37.760 --> 00:29:43.040\nI certainly feel like I live through imposter syndrome daily. You know, so, but\n\n568\n00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:44.480\nI think, you know,\n\n569\n00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:52.490\nwhat I think humans inherently have this built in thing where they want to help\n\n570\n00:29:52.490 --> 00:29:53.040\nas long as it's\n\n571\n00:29:53.040 --> 00:29:57.120\npresented the right way and they know that someone's being earnest. I can tell\n\n572\n00:29:57.120 --> 00:29:58.880\nyou, you know, you\n\n573\n00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:01.760\ngauge the room. You don't, you know, fly off questions within 10 seconds of\n\n574\n00:30:01.760 --> 00:30:02.480\nmeeting someone.\n\n575\n00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:09.280\nBut if the relationship is there, I think people appreciate it. And I guarantee\n\n576\n00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:09.920\nevery person that\n\n577\n00:30:09.920 --> 00:30:15.490\nI've asked a question to had someone give them advice, had mentorship on their\n\n578\n00:30:15.490 --> 00:30:17.200\nway as well. So\n\n579\n00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:23.170\nI, yeah, I think at first, and I think that's a big, big value for people that,\n\n580\n00:30:23.170 --> 00:30:24.080\nyou know,\n\n581\n00:30:24.080 --> 00:30:29.130\naren't necessarily trained or from the business world is always asking if there\n\n582\n00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:29.440\n's something you\n\n583\n00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:32.470\ndon't understand, you know, if someone's speaking a different language because\n\n584\n00:30:32.470 --> 00:30:33.280\nthey're really good\n\n585\n00:30:33.280 --> 00:30:36.010\nat whatever they do and they speak in kind of slang terms, don't be scared to\n\n586\n00:30:36.010 --> 00:30:36.560\njust say stop.\n\n587\n00:30:36.560 --> 00:30:39.600\nWhat does that mean? You know, you can, you can ask once and look dumb or you\n\n588\n00:30:39.600 --> 00:30:40.560\ncan kind of be\n\n589\n00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:44.430\ndone every time it's said from there on out. Go back and listen to my entire\n\n590\n00:30:44.430 --> 00:30:45.920\nconversation with\n\n591\n00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:52.850\nAndy, episode 49 on the pod here on How Leaders Lead. You know, you mentioned\n\n592\n00:30:52.850 --> 00:30:53.520\nyou and Chris have\n\n593\n00:30:53.520 --> 00:30:57.340\na great relationship and you worked hard to really identify your roles. And you\n\n594\n00:30:57.340 --> 00:30:57.760\nknow,\n\n595\n00:30:57.760 --> 00:31:03.640\nwhen you cover such a wide spectrum of ideas and events that you could\n\n596\n00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:05.600\npotentially go after,\n\n597\n00:31:05.600 --> 00:31:10.640\nhas there ever been a time where you guys disagreed and if so, how do you work\n\n598\n00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:11.600\nyour way through it?\n\n599\n00:31:11.600 --> 00:31:15.640\nSure. I mean, if you don't disagree, I don't think it's healthy. You know, I\n\n600\n00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:16.240\nmean, one of the\n\n601\n00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:19.280\ngreat things is to surround yourself with people who are smart that will give\n\n602\n00:31:19.280 --> 00:31:20.160\nyour opinions. You\n\n603\n00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:25.600\nknow, if we didn't want opinion, we didn't want other thoughts and ideas, then\n\n604\n00:31:25.600 --> 00:31:26.800\nI don't know,\n\n605\n00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:30.590\nyou know, I don't think we'd be as successful. You worked them out by talking\n\n606\n00:31:30.590 --> 00:31:30.960\nthrough it.\n\n607\n00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:38.080\nAnd give me an example, David, where that happened. I would say that when we\n\n608\n00:31:38.080 --> 00:31:39.520\nwere first looking at\n\n609\n00:31:39.520 --> 00:31:45.410\npickleball as an opportunity, you know, there was a lot of risk to it. And, you\n\n610\n00:31:45.410 --> 00:31:46.640\nknow, I think Chris\n\n611\n00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:50.170\nhad some questions on whether it was the right place to put our money. Is this\n\n612\n00:31:50.170 --> 00:31:50.880\nsomething smart\n\n613\n00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:55.470\nwe want to go after? And, you know, I said, listen, I've been in this business\n\n614\n00:31:55.470 --> 00:31:56.880\nfor a long time. I\n\n615\n00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:01.180\nworked on the match, the original match with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. I\n\n616\n00:32:01.180 --> 00:32:01.760\nsaid this\n\n617\n00:32:01.760 --> 00:32:06.170\ndestination programming, as long as you can, you know, as long as you can\n\n618\n00:32:06.170 --> 00:32:08.400\ndescribe this opportunity\n\n619\n00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:12.530\nin less than 15 seconds, it's probably going to be successful. You have to, if\n\n620\n00:32:12.530 --> 00:32:13.360\nit takes five\n\n621\n00:32:13.360 --> 00:32:18.000\nminutes to discuss an idea, you probably don't have the right idea. You know,\n\n622\n00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:19.120\nit's got to be distinct,\n\n623\n00:32:19.120 --> 00:32:23.520\nquick and understandable. And, you know, I just said, take the biggest growing\n\n624\n00:32:23.520 --> 00:32:24.320\nsport in America,\n\n625\n00:32:24.320 --> 00:32:29.330\npickleball, and put the best racket sports names in it and have them play for a\n\n626\n00:32:29.330 --> 00:32:30.320\nmillion dollars\n\n627\n00:32:30.320 --> 00:32:35.120\non ESPN. I think it's going to be pretty successful. And, you know, to Chris's\n\n628\n00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:36.080\ncredit, he goes, listen,\n\n629\n00:32:36.080 --> 00:32:42.120\nthis is your expertise. Let's go for it. You know, and so, you know, that's the\n\n630\n00:32:42.120 --> 00:32:42.960\nkind of relationship\n\n631\n00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:47.740\nwe have. And I think, you know, in any business, you know, you need to be able\n\n632\n00:32:47.740 --> 00:32:48.800\nto communicate\n\n633\n00:32:49.600 --> 00:32:53.520\nand have open conversations. You don't always agree, by the way, if you always\n\n634\n00:32:53.520 --> 00:32:54.000\nagree, I don't\n\n635\n00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:59.370\nthink you're going to be that successful. I think having diverse opinions in\n\n636\n00:32:59.370 --> 00:33:01.520\nany corporation\n\n637\n00:33:01.520 --> 00:33:08.370\nis healthy. It's the question of how you satisfy the people who may have a\n\n638\n00:33:08.370 --> 00:33:10.160\ndifferent opinion\n\n639\n00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:13.280\nand how do you get through it. And sometimes you have to make a tough decision\n\n640\n00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:13.680\nand say, listen,\n\n641\n00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:17.250\nI hear you, but we're going to take a risk on this. And that's the leader, you\n\n642\n00:33:17.250 --> 00:33:18.160\nknow, putting his\n\n643\n00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:24.060\nhis neck on the line. I mean, I remember Jeff Bucus going back to the March\n\n644\n00:33:24.060 --> 00:33:25.840\nmadness when we\n\n645\n00:33:25.840 --> 00:33:31.870\nhad spent 11 billion dollars, right? And I went up to the board and, you know,\n\n646\n00:33:31.870 --> 00:33:32.640\npresented the,\n\n647\n00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:36.610\nyou know, why I thought this was a great idea for Turner and the risk that was\n\n648\n00:33:36.610 --> 00:33:37.680\ngoing to take\n\n649\n00:33:37.680 --> 00:33:43.160\non the company. I remember Jeff saying me point blank, two things. One, he said\n\n650\n00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:44.000\n, what if you're\n\n651\n00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:50.860\nwrong? You know, like, what if Alacart comes around and we're sitting here with\n\n652\n00:33:50.860 --> 00:33:51.280\n, you know,\n\n653\n00:33:51.280 --> 00:33:56.120\nthis 11 billion dollar ownership licensing deal that we can't get out of. And\n\n654\n00:33:56.120 --> 00:33:56.880\nnow every,\n\n655\n00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:02.080\nthe cable bundle is unbundling. And a lot of this, you know, profits had come\n\n656\n00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:03.040\nfrom our subscription\n\n657\n00:34:03.040 --> 00:34:07.550\nside of the business. And I said, well, Jeff, if the bundle is unbundling, it's\n\n658\n00:34:07.550 --> 00:34:08.320\nnot just us, the\n\n659\n00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:13.460\nworld, the entire business is going to be bad. And would you rather have March\n\n660\n00:34:13.460 --> 00:34:14.320\nmadness in your\n\n661\n00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:20.130\nrun bundling or Seinfeld reruns? And so, you know, that was part A of his\n\n662\n00:34:20.130 --> 00:34:22.160\nquestion. And then part B,\n\n663\n00:34:22.160 --> 00:34:28.160\nhe said, listen, can we do an eight year deal instead of an 11 year deal? This\n\n664\n00:34:28.160 --> 00:34:28.960\nis the first one we\n\n665\n00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:32.560\ndid. We actually extended it another eight years after we did the first one.\n\n666\n00:34:32.560 --> 00:34:34.800\nBut it, no, excuse me,\n\n667\n00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:39.520\na 14 year deal was a 14 year deal plus an eight. He said, listen, can we do an\n\n668\n00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:40.160\neight year deal\n\n669\n00:34:40.160 --> 00:34:46.240\nversus a 14 year deal? And I said, no. And it was kind of silenced in the room.\n\n670\n00:34:46.240 --> 00:34:47.040\nAnd he said, why?\n\n671\n00:34:47.040 --> 00:34:51.320\nAnd I said, because I want to do a 20 year deal and they won't let me do it.\n\n672\n00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:52.480\nAnd at that moment,\n\n673\n00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:59.000\nhe goes, okay, I get it. You believe in this. And once he saw my conviction of\n\n674\n00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:00.000\nthis is a smart thing,\n\n675\n00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:06.880\nhe said, okay, go get, go get the 14 year deal. And so, sometimes you just need\n\n676\n00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:07.600\nto be\n\n677\n00:35:07.600 --> 00:35:14.080\nconvincing. And sometimes you need to listen. But ultimately, I think when you\n\n678\n00:35:14.080 --> 00:35:14.640\nhave an open\n\n679\n00:35:14.640 --> 00:35:18.910\nconversation, you come to the right conclusion. He was making sure that I had\n\n680\n00:35:18.910 --> 00:35:20.160\nno doubt that this\n\n681\n00:35:20.160 --> 00:35:23.170\nwas the right thing to do. He also said, by the way, if you're wrong, you're\n\n682\n00:35:23.170 --> 00:35:23.680\ngoing to be mowing\n\n683\n00:35:23.680 --> 00:35:30.000\nmy lawn for the next 14 years. Well, that didn't happen. You know, and you know\n\n684\n00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:30.640\n, that's a great\n\n685\n00:35:30.640 --> 00:35:34.920\nstory on conviction. And it's also a great story of, of, you know, somebody\n\n686\n00:35:34.920 --> 00:35:35.920\ncoming at you and really\n\n687\n00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:40.720\ntested testing that conviction. Now you're seem to be really convicted about\n\n688\n00:35:40.720 --> 00:35:42.240\nwomen's sports, you know,\n\n689\n00:35:42.240 --> 00:35:47.790\ntake us through the process you build or you have that builds the kind of\n\n690\n00:35:47.790 --> 00:35:49.440\nconviction that\n\n691\n00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:54.360\ngets you to stand up and say, Hey, look, I want 20, not eight. I mean, I want\n\n692\n00:35:54.360 --> 00:35:54.720\n20.\n\n693\n00:35:54.720 --> 00:36:00.020\nBeing in the sports business, long as I've been in it, you know, women's sports\n\n694\n00:36:00.020 --> 00:36:00.320\nhas been\n\n695\n00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:06.800\nsort of hanging around the hoop a little bit. You know, I remember, you know,\n\n696\n00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:09.280\nthe WNBA has not made,\n\n697\n00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.160\nyou know, you know, and again, publicly, it's been, you know, it's been, it's\n\n698\n00:36:13.160 --> 00:36:13.840\nbeen, you know,\n\n699\n00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:18.750\nsort of out there in the marketplace that no team has made money and the league\n\n700\n00:36:18.750 --> 00:36:19.600\nhas not made money.\n\n701\n00:36:19.600 --> 00:36:23.600\nBut the league's only 28 years old. I bet you the NFL didn't make money in\n\n702\n00:36:23.600 --> 00:36:24.800\ntheir first 28 years or\n\n703\n00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:31.140\nthe major league baseball or or any of the, or NBA and so forth. It takes time\n\n704\n00:36:31.140 --> 00:36:32.640\nto build and get the\n\n705\n00:36:32.640 --> 00:36:35.890\nTV rights that you need and the merchandising rights and the licensing rights\n\n706\n00:36:35.890 --> 00:36:36.560\nand the ticket\n\n707\n00:36:36.560 --> 00:36:41.470\nrights and all the things and the fan bases. And, you know, I saw, I kind of\n\n708\n00:36:41.470 --> 00:36:42.640\nsaw this inflection\n\n709\n00:36:42.640 --> 00:36:48.100\npoint happening in college basketball. I'm a sports junkie. So I kind of, you\n\n710\n00:36:48.100 --> 00:36:48.880\nknow, see what's\n\n711\n00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:53.750\ngoing on in my social channels and what people are talking about. And the\n\n712\n00:36:53.750 --> 00:36:54.880\nbarrier of entry\n\n713\n00:36:54.880 --> 00:37:00.450\nfor women's sports as sitting in the old seat that I had, you know, as a as a\n\n714\n00:37:00.450 --> 00:37:01.440\nhead of Turner\n\n715\n00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:05.040\nsports, you know, the acquiring rights, the rights keep going up and they're\n\n716\n00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:06.320\nnot going down because\n\n717\n00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:10.870\nsports have built in fan bases and you saw the most recent sports rights,\n\n718\n00:37:10.870 --> 00:37:11.760\nwhether it be the NFL\n\n719\n00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:15.280\nrights or NBA rights and so forth and so on, they're getting very expensive.\n\n720\n00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:16.720\nBut women's sports,\n\n721\n00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:22.160\neven though rights are going up, they're still from an ROI basis, a very, very\n\n722\n00:37:22.160 --> 00:37:23.680\ngood ROI based on\n\n723\n00:37:23.680 --> 00:37:27.620\nthe ratings that they're now delivering. And so whether you're a sponsor trying\n\n724\n00:37:27.620 --> 00:37:28.560\nto get in\n\n725\n00:37:28.560 --> 00:37:36.880\nto women's sports or whether you're a media company acquiring sports rights or\n\n726\n00:37:36.880 --> 00:37:37.280\nnow you're\n\n727\n00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:41.590\nseeing brands shifting dollars because, you know, one of the things that we did\n\n728\n00:37:41.590 --> 00:37:42.800\nat HS&E is we focused\n\n729\n00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:50.170\non categories that typically do not sponsor sports properties. So for example,\n\n730\n00:37:50.170 --> 00:37:51.520\nthe WCC is\n\n731\n00:37:51.520 --> 00:37:57.250\nsponsored by the title sponsor is Shark Beauty. My phone rang off the hook.\n\n732\n00:37:57.250 --> 00:37:59.280\nOkay. When we announced\n\n733\n00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:03.530\nthat Shark Beauty was a title sponsor for three years, people were like, what\n\n734\n00:38:03.530 --> 00:38:04.720\nis Shark Beauty? I\n\n735\n00:38:04.720 --> 00:38:11.550\nhad what, no, they were more accustomed to state farm, all state, AT&T, your\n\n736\n00:38:11.550 --> 00:38:12.720\ntypical brands that\n\n737\n00:38:12.720 --> 00:38:18.690\nget title sponsors, capital one that typically go in. But Shark Beauty, a\n\n738\n00:38:18.690 --> 00:38:20.320\nsponsor or title\n\n739\n00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:27.760\nsponsor in a basketball tournament, really? And we also went after Sephora for\n\n740\n00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:28.560\nUnrivaled\n\n741\n00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:33.430\nand Wayfair, some of these brands who have never been in sports, let alone\n\n742\n00:38:33.430 --> 00:38:34.800\nwomen's sports.\n\n743\n00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:40.390\nOkay. So as you enter into these new categories, that's only filtering the\n\n744\n00:38:40.390 --> 00:38:41.280\nopportunities.\n\n745\n00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:47.080\nAnd these brands typically showed up on red carpets, the Oscars, the Grammys,\n\n746\n00:38:47.080 --> 00:38:47.840\nthe Emmys,\n\n747\n00:38:47.840 --> 00:38:53.400\nbut they never showed up red carpet walk-ins for a basketball game like Sephora\n\n748\n00:38:53.400 --> 00:38:54.480\ndid with Unrivaled.\n\n749\n00:38:54.480 --> 00:38:59.580\nThey had that red carpet or they had the black carpet that went on to social.\n\n750\n00:38:59.580 --> 00:38:59.680\nSo,\n\n751\n00:38:59.680 --> 00:39:06.080\nthe phenomenon was there. I saw it, I kind of felt it that there was going to\n\n752\n00:39:06.080 --> 00:39:07.280\nbe opportunity.\n\n753\n00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:11.600\nAnd also from a new agency perspective, I said to Chris and he agreed with me\n\n754\n00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:12.160\nas well. We were\n\n755\n00:39:12.160 --> 00:39:16.910\nboth kind of noodling this is that it would be hard for us to jump into the NBA\n\n756\n00:39:16.910 --> 00:39:18.160\nor the NFL because\n\n757\n00:39:18.160 --> 00:39:25.040\na lot of the traditional agencies, whether it be CAA or IMG or Endeavor or\n\n758\n00:39:25.040 --> 00:39:26.320\nWasserman Group,\n\n759\n00:39:26.320 --> 00:39:31.800\nthey're already so deep into those sports. So we thought, hey, if we could jump\n\n760\n00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:33.040\ninto pickleball\n\n761\n00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:39.360\nand Formula One and women's sports, we'd have a bigger opportunity to get a\n\n762\n00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:40.800\nbigger slice of the\n\n763\n00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:44.800\npie. And then putting our money where our mouth was, which is actually putting\n\n764\n00:39:44.800 --> 00:39:45.600\ninvestment dollars\n\n765\n00:39:45.600 --> 00:39:50.790\nbehind it. And again, you're hitting home runs in each of these areas, no pun\n\n766\n00:39:50.790 --> 00:39:51.520\nintended here.\n\n767\n00:39:51.520 --> 00:39:56.400\nAnd you got the women's champions classic, which was a perfect example of that,\n\n768\n00:39:56.400 --> 00:39:57.360\nwhere you did this\n\n769\n00:39:57.360 --> 00:40:02.280\ndeal with Connecticut because they're the top women's basketball program. And\n\n770\n00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:03.200\nyou also get\n\n771\n00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:11.270\nYukon, in the Disney Yukon, you get Tennessee and Iowa and Louisville. How hard\n\n772\n00:40:11.270 --> 00:40:11.920\nwas it to get\n\n773\n00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:16.920\nConnecticut to come in on this deal? Or was it just a pure financial play for\n\n774\n00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:17.440\nthem?\n\n775\n00:40:17.440 --> 00:40:24.720\nNo. And in fact, I remember we got on the phone with our partners, Fox, and we\n\n776\n00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:25.600\ncalled up Geno.\n\n777\n00:40:25.600 --> 00:40:30.370\nAnd we had an open conversation. We said, listen, I think there's a white space\n\n778\n00:40:30.370 --> 00:40:31.600\n. The white space is\n\n779\n00:40:31.600 --> 00:40:38.030\nGeno. There is no early season women's dominant college basketball tournament.\n\n780\n00:40:38.030 --> 00:40:38.800\nThere are million\n\n781\n00:40:38.800 --> 00:40:43.790\nmen's. There's the Maui classic. There's the Atlantis. There's all these great\n\n782\n00:40:43.790 --> 00:40:44.640\nearly season\n\n783\n00:40:44.640 --> 00:40:50.900\nmen's college, but I don't see a dominant women's ones that would be in prime\n\n784\n00:40:50.900 --> 00:40:51.840\ntime on Fox\n\n785\n00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:58.000\nbroadcasting. Okay. And I go, Geno, this is your legacy. This is something that\n\n786\n00:40:58.000 --> 00:40:58.720\nyou should put a\n\n787\n00:40:58.720 --> 00:41:02.880\nstamp on, you know, and we need your help. And I'm willing to, and I said this\n\n788\n00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:03.440\nto him, I said,\n\n789\n00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:07.670\nlisten, I know what the women's basketball teams get paid. And I want the men's\n\n790\n00:41:07.670 --> 00:41:08.480\nteam to get paid\n\n791\n00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:12.580\nfor these early tournaments. I'm willing to put up the money as if it was the\n\n792\n00:41:12.580 --> 00:41:13.760\nsame as the men's.\n\n793\n00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:19.520\nSo I'm willing to take Connecticut's women's team and put up the money as well\n\n794\n00:41:19.520 --> 00:41:20.080\nas all the other\n\n795\n00:41:20.080 --> 00:41:24.750\nteams. I'm willing to do it in New York. So, Geno said, listen, this is a great\n\n796\n00:41:24.750 --> 00:41:25.280\nidea.\n\n797\n00:41:26.560 --> 00:41:31.050\nHe said two things I must have. I said what? He goes, a, it's got to be in New\n\n798\n00:41:31.050 --> 00:41:31.440\nYork,\n\n799\n00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:36.350\nthe mecca of basketball. And two, I really truly think it has to be on an NBA\n\n800\n00:41:36.350 --> 00:41:37.120\ncourt.\n\n801\n00:41:37.120 --> 00:41:42.800\nHe goes because a lot of these ladies won't ever get to play on an NBA court.\n\n802\n00:41:42.800 --> 00:41:43.360\nAnd I think that's\n\n803\n00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:48.290\nsomething that's very special in front of a big crowd in New York. And I said,\n\n804\n00:41:48.290 --> 00:41:49.520\ndone. We'll figure\n\n805\n00:41:49.520 --> 00:41:56.670\nit out. And to Geno's credit, he helped recruit the teams. And anytime I need\n\n806\n00:41:56.670 --> 00:41:56.960\nhelp,\n\n807\n00:41:56.960 --> 00:42:00.960\nhe's always there to, who do you need me to call? Who do you want me to call?\n\n808\n00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:01.760\nHe wants this to be\n\n809\n00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:06.890\nthe most elite early season women's basketball tournament. And that's what it's\n\n810\n00:42:06.890 --> 00:42:08.080\nbecoming to be.\n\n811\n00:42:08.080 --> 00:42:15.310\nSo you got to play on this court, an NBA court. How do you get the hustler, the\n\n812\n00:42:15.310 --> 00:42:16.320\nguts, the courage\n\n813\n00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:20.240\nthat to actually take somebody on like that and have an opinion like that?\n\n814\n00:42:20.240 --> 00:42:24.720\nYou know, I always say go with your gut, right? There's a lot of risk, right?\n\n815\n00:42:24.720 --> 00:42:25.440\nIf we don't sell\n\n816\n00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:29.850\nsponsorships or we don't sell tickets, we're out a lot of money. Because we\n\n817\n00:42:29.850 --> 00:42:30.800\nhave produced it,\n\n818\n00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:33.900\nyou know, we've got to promote it. We got to market it. We got to build a\n\n819\n00:42:33.900 --> 00:42:34.960\nwebsite for it.\n\n820\n00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:39.920\nWe got to pay the teams, right? So, you know, it's a lot to take a risk from.\n\n821\n00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:41.600\nBut if your gut says\n\n822\n00:42:41.600 --> 00:42:46.920\nit's right and not just gut, but experience, you know, 40 years of experience\n\n823\n00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:47.760\nin this business,\n\n824\n00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:54.720\nI have a feel for that, you know, and women's sports where it was, you know,\n\n825\n00:42:54.720 --> 00:42:55.280\nknock on wood,\n\n826\n00:42:55.280 --> 00:43:00.360\nwe've been successful with it. So it's experience, it's gut, and it's taking\n\n827\n00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:01.360\nchances. You know,\n\n828\n00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:05.560\nyou got to take, but you know, calculated risks, right? You know, what they\n\n829\n00:43:05.560 --> 00:43:06.080\ncall it.\n\n830\n00:43:06.080 --> 00:43:08.240\nIf you don't take risk, you're not going to succeed.\n\n831\n00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:11.410\nAnd speaking of another risk, I mean, this seems to be somewhat of a risk, you\n\n832\n00:43:11.410 --> 00:43:12.880\nknow, is unrivaled.\n\n833\n00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:17.920\nI mean, you're going to get WNBA players to play three on three on a full court\n\n834\n00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:17.920\n,\n\n835\n00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:19.840\ntake us behind the scenes on that one.\n\n836\n00:43:19.840 --> 00:43:25.510\nTo give Breonna Stewart and Fisa Collea and Alex Bazel a lot of credit, they\n\n837\n00:43:25.510 --> 00:43:26.080\nwere working on this\n\n838\n00:43:26.080 --> 00:43:30.940\nfor quite some time. They were looking at white space. Their white space was,\n\n839\n00:43:30.940 --> 00:43:32.000\nyou know, after the\n\n840\n00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:36.780\nWNBA ends, you know, and these women are not getting paid a lot of money. They\n\n841\n00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:37.920\nwere mostly going\n\n842\n00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:41.990\noverseas, leaving their families, leaving their children, leaving their loved\n\n843\n00:43:41.990 --> 00:43:42.400\nones,\n\n844\n00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.870\ngoing to countries they didn't want to go to. You know, we all know the\n\n845\n00:43:45.870 --> 00:43:46.880\nBrittany Griner\n\n846\n00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:52.850\nsituation. So they saw this white space of, well, what if we were able to play,\n\n847\n00:43:52.850 --> 00:43:53.760\nmake a lot of money,\n\n848\n00:43:53.760 --> 00:43:59.200\nand stay in the United States and be able to be with our families, which means\n\n849\n00:43:59.200 --> 00:43:59.680\nwe, you know,\n\n850\n00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:03.440\nwe brought everybody down to Miami, including their families, their husbands,\n\n851\n00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:04.000\ntheir\n\n852\n00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:10.000\nsignificant others, you know, their children. And we put up nurseries and had\n\n853\n00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:11.120\nopportunities and\n\n854\n00:44:11.120 --> 00:44:15.570\nthey were housed. Every player got an equity position. So they owned a piece of\n\n855\n00:44:15.570 --> 00:44:16.320\nthis league\n\n856\n00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:22.820\nand were paid, you know, as if they were being paid overseas. So it was a\n\n857\n00:44:22.820 --> 00:44:24.400\nreally strong opportunity.\n\n858\n00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:30.080\nAnd when I was listening to this and listening about that white space and\n\n859\n00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:31.120\nthinking about the names\n\n860\n00:44:31.120 --> 00:44:34.950\non the back of the jerseys, I said, you know, can you imagine if this was the\n\n861\n00:44:34.950 --> 00:44:35.760\nNBA? You couldn't\n\n862\n00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:39.780\nget it done in the NBA to be honest with you, because, you know, even though\n\n863\n00:44:39.780 --> 00:44:40.480\nyou could think\n\n864\n00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:44.930\nthe names, you know, whether it's, you know, LeBron and Kevin Durant and Curry\n\n865\n00:44:44.930 --> 00:44:45.280\nand\n\n866\n00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:50.320\nFremont Green and all these great names, you know, they make too much money to\n\n867\n00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:50.800\nsay, you know, I'm\n\n868\n00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:54.570\ngoing to take three months and go play. And they didn't have to go overseas,\n\n869\n00:44:54.570 --> 00:44:54.720\nright?\n\n870\n00:44:54.720 --> 00:45:00.610\nAnd they have a longer season, much longer season. So it wouldn't work. But\n\n871\n00:45:00.610 --> 00:45:01.040\nwhat was\n\n872\n00:45:01.040 --> 00:45:07.010\nlight bulb in my head was, you know, the best names on the back of the jerseys\n\n873\n00:45:07.010 --> 00:45:07.840\nin a competitive\n\n874\n00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:12.960\nsport where everyone has equity. So you know, they're going to market it. And I\n\n875\n00:45:12.960 --> 00:45:13.600\nknow where\n\n876\n00:45:13.600 --> 00:45:17.600\nbasketball is going right now and, you know, women's basketball, this is a\n\n877\n00:45:17.600 --> 00:45:18.800\ngreat opportunity.\n\n878\n00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:23.450\nAnd I said, we got to get involved, not just get involved from a, hey, let's go\n\n879\n00:45:23.450 --> 00:45:23.840\nhelp them\n\n880\n00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:27.360\nmarket it and let's go help sell sponsors, but let's invest. Let's put our\n\n881\n00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:28.400\nmoney where our mouth is.\n\n882\n00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:35.040\nAnd so we invested in a league. And we're happy to know because there's a new\n\n883\n00:45:35.040 --> 00:45:36.320\nround coming out.\n\n884\n00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:42.110\nAnd the valuation on this league is only going one way, which is up. And so the\n\n885\n00:45:42.110 --> 00:45:42.960\ntiming was right.\n\n886\n00:45:43.680 --> 00:45:49.790\nI think the most important thing though, if I had to say is the product on the\n\n887\n00:45:49.790 --> 00:45:50.400\nfloor,\n\n888\n00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:57.650\nhad they treated this more like a scrimmage, it would not be successful. But\n\n889\n00:45:57.650 --> 00:45:58.640\nbecause they're\n\n890\n00:45:58.640 --> 00:46:05.010\nplaying for money, they're playing for equity. And they, and the quality of the\n\n891\n00:46:05.010 --> 00:46:06.000\nproduct on the\n\n892\n00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:10.270\nfloor was great. And that's what made the league names on the back of the\n\n893\n00:46:10.270 --> 00:46:11.440\njersey and the product\n\n894\n00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:15.280\non the floor. I love it. You know, this has been so much fun. And I want to\n\n895\n00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:16.240\nhave some more with my\n\n896\n00:46:16.240 --> 00:46:20.260\nlightning round of questions. So you're ready for this? Yes. The three words\n\n897\n00:46:20.260 --> 00:46:21.360\nthat best describe\n\n898\n00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:27.610\nyou. Risk taking humor. Third one. I'll take risk taking humor. That's three.\n\n899\n00:46:27.610 --> 00:46:29.120\nYeah, risk taking\n\n900\n00:46:29.120 --> 00:46:32.720\nand humor. There you go. If you could be one person for a Davis side yourself,\n\n901\n00:46:32.720 --> 00:46:33.600\nwho would it be?\n\n902\n00:46:33.600 --> 00:46:38.480\nMick Jagger didn't take you long. What's your biggest pet peeve? Having emails\n\n903\n00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:39.600\nI didn't answer.\n\n904\n00:46:39.600 --> 00:46:43.290\nWho would play you in a movie? Who I'd like to play me in a movie. George Clo\n\n905\n00:46:43.290 --> 00:46:43.520\noney.\n\n906\n00:46:43.520 --> 00:46:49.010\nHow many points could you win against Agacy in a one-on-one pickable match?\n\n907\n00:46:49.010 --> 00:46:49.200\nNone.\n\n908\n00:46:49.200 --> 00:46:54.240\nYou get two front row tickets to anything you want. Where are you going and who\n\n909\n00:46:54.240 --> 00:46:55.200\nyou taking with you?\n\n910\n00:46:55.200 --> 00:47:00.800\nI'd go to any Stanley Cup Ranger game that that Rangers meaning hockey.\n\n911\n00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:05.520\nAny Stanley Cup Ranger game that they would make, I would love to be sitting\n\n912\n00:47:05.520 --> 00:47:06.560\nright on the ice\n\n913\n00:47:06.560 --> 00:47:12.570\ncheering them on, which I was game seven for in 1994. Still a die-hard Ranger\n\n914\n00:47:12.570 --> 00:47:13.520\nfan. Best\n\n915\n00:47:13.520 --> 00:47:17.140\nbest best sporting event for me being an ex hockey player. And who would be\n\n916\n00:47:17.140 --> 00:47:17.600\nwith you?\n\n917\n00:47:17.600 --> 00:47:21.120\nAnd who would be with me? My wife. What's a phrase you'd use to describe what\n\n918\n00:47:21.120 --> 00:47:22.080\nit's like being\n\n919\n00:47:22.080 --> 00:47:27.080\ninducted in the broadcast and cable hall of fame? Honored. Flattered and hum\n\n920\n00:47:27.080 --> 00:47:27.920\nbled. What's\n\n921\n00:47:27.920 --> 00:47:32.050\nsomething you've changed your mind about recently? I would say that my golf\n\n922\n00:47:32.050 --> 00:47:33.120\ngame is getting worse.\n\n923\n00:47:33.120 --> 00:47:36.080\nSo I'm changing. I'm deciding whether I still want to play this game.\n\n924\n00:47:36.080 --> 00:47:40.240\nWhat's the one thing you do just for you? Golf.\n\n925\n00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:43.840\nDecide your family what's your most prized possession?\n\n926\n00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:48.560\nI would say my Willie May's autographed uniform jersey.\n\n927\n00:47:48.560 --> 00:47:52.560\nWhat's something about you a few people would know? I guess. I guess people\n\n928\n00:47:52.560 --> 00:47:53.440\nknew I played hockey\n\n929\n00:47:53.440 --> 00:47:57.040\nfor 22 years. People didn't know I played Syracuse hockey. How's that?\n\n930\n00:47:57.040 --> 00:48:00.400\nWhat's one of your daily rituals something that you never miss?\n\n931\n00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:02.820\nBreakfast. All right. We're out of the lightning. We're out of the lightning.\n\n932\n00:48:02.820 --> 00:48:03.760\nGood job there David.\n\n933\n00:48:03.760 --> 00:48:08.160\nYou and your wife Nikki have two grown sons. What's the biggest lesson you've\n\n934\n00:48:08.160 --> 00:48:09.760\nlearned over the years\n\n935\n00:48:09.760 --> 00:48:15.400\nabout how to lead at home? I would say listen, you got to let them grow up to\n\n936\n00:48:15.400 --> 00:48:15.840\nbe their own\n\n937\n00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:20.670\nindividuals, their own people. You can't force things that they may not want to\n\n938\n00:48:20.670 --> 00:48:20.880\ndo.\n\n939\n00:48:20.880 --> 00:48:25.200\nBut what I always said to them is once you make a decision, you got to follow\n\n940\n00:48:25.200 --> 00:48:26.000\nthrough with it.\n\n941\n00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:29.840\nSo anytime they decided to do something, whether it's a team sport, they had to\n\n942\n00:48:29.840 --> 00:48:30.320\nfinish it,\n\n943\n00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:34.040\nthey couldn't quit in the middle. It was their decision to join, but it's also\n\n944\n00:48:34.040 --> 00:48:34.960\ntheir decision\n\n945\n00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:39.360\nto finish. And I always make sure that people when they commit to something,\n\n946\n00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:42.560\nthey have to commit to it because other people are counting on it.\n\n947\n00:48:42.560 --> 00:48:46.560\nYou know David, something that we both have in common is we're passionate about\n\n948\n00:48:46.560 --> 00:48:47.120\nfinding a\n\n949\n00:48:47.120 --> 00:48:52.480\ncure to diabetes. My wife Wendy had type one from the time that she was seven\n\n950\n00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:53.680\nand I know your son\n\n951\n00:48:53.680 --> 00:49:00.720\nBrett was diagnosed at age 11. How has that experience shaped your perspective\n\n952\n00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:03.520\nas a father and leader?\n\n953\n00:49:03.520 --> 00:49:12.540\nIt's tough. What I call it now is the new normal. Every day he lives with pr\n\n954\n00:49:12.540 --> 00:49:13.440\nicking his finger and\n\n955\n00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:19.200\nmaking sure he has the right insulin amount when he eats and so forth. It's a\n\n956\n00:49:19.200 --> 00:49:19.520\ntough\n\n957\n00:49:19.520 --> 00:49:25.300\nslock for him. But you know God bless. He lives every day and loves what he's\n\n958\n00:49:25.300 --> 00:49:25.520\ndoing.\n\n959\n00:49:25.520 --> 00:49:30.420\nAnd you can live with diabetes. You just have to be very, you know, he had to\n\n960\n00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:31.200\ngrow up at 11\n\n961\n00:49:31.200 --> 00:49:34.880\nyear old boy. He had to grow up pretty quickly, right? And be very responsible\n\n962\n00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:36.960\nat a very young age,\n\n963\n00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:43.250\nwhich is, you know, not great on some senses and interesting on others. But\n\n964\n00:49:43.250 --> 00:49:44.240\nwhat it teaches you is,\n\n965\n00:49:44.240 --> 00:49:48.570\nyou know, life hits you with a lot of different challenges. And it's just\n\n966\n00:49:48.570 --> 00:49:49.440\ngetting through him\n\n967\n00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:55.310\nand getting through him as a family and making sure that, you know, you realize\n\n968\n00:49:55.310 --> 00:49:56.480\nthat if you can\n\n969\n00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:01.080\nlive with what I would call the new normal, then that's the new normal and just\n\n970\n00:50:01.080 --> 00:50:01.680\nkeep moving on.\n\n971\n00:50:01.680 --> 00:50:07.600\nBut life isn't easy. We know that. And people that can understand that to make\n\n972\n00:50:07.600 --> 00:50:08.080\nit through are\n\n973\n00:50:08.080 --> 00:50:11.620\nthe ones that are very successful. Well said. What do you see as your\n\n974\n00:50:11.620 --> 00:50:12.720\nunfinished business?\n\n975\n00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:17.260\nOh, I want this agency to continue to grow. We're really only two and a half\n\n976\n00:50:17.260 --> 00:50:18.080\nyears into this thing.\n\n977\n00:50:18.080 --> 00:50:26.000\nAnd, you know, even at 63 years old, which I hate to give my age, I still feel\n\n978\n00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:27.600\nyoung and love this\n\n979\n00:50:27.600 --> 00:50:31.940\nbusiness. And I think there's real opportunity to grow this sports marketplace\n\n980\n00:50:31.940 --> 00:50:32.960\nwhere we're right\n\n981\n00:50:32.960 --> 00:50:39.070\nin the heat of what I would say the hottest category. And we're doing a great\n\n982\n00:50:39.070 --> 00:50:41.440\njob. Chris and I and\n\n983\n00:50:41.440 --> 00:50:46.470\nBill as our partner in this, in building this company. And I'm excited to build\n\n984\n00:50:46.470 --> 00:50:46.960\nit.\n\n985\n00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:50.940\nLast question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be\n\n986\n00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:51.600\na better leader?\n\n987\n00:50:51.600 --> 00:50:58.680\nI would say, as we talked about in the beginning, you know, great leaders are\n\n988\n00:50:58.680 --> 00:50:59.280\nthe ones that can\n\n989\n00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:03.910\nlead people that don't report to them. That's what a great leader can really do\n\n990\n00:51:03.910 --> 00:51:04.320\n. Because if they\n\n991\n00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:08.700\nreport to you, they have to, they have to listen to you. Right? So I would say\n\n992\n00:51:08.700 --> 00:51:10.000\nalways make sure\n\n993\n00:51:10.640 --> 00:51:15.200\nyou try to figure out to work with your peers, work with everybody, collaborate\n\n994\n00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:17.520\n. And that'll\n\n995\n00:51:17.520 --> 00:51:21.880\nonly help you grow your networking and your success. You know, you're\n\n996\n00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:23.920\ndefinitely one of the most out\n\n997\n00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:31.360\nof the box thinkers that I've had the privilege of having on this show. And you\n\n998\n00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:32.320\ndemonstrated that\n\n999\n00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:37.390\nby saying that most people say one plus one equals three, you made it one plus\n\n1000\n00:51:37.390 --> 00:51:38.320\none equals four\n\n1001\n00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:42.080\nwith you and Chris. And I think you guys obviously have a lot of fun working\n\n1002\n00:51:42.080 --> 00:51:43.440\ntogether and I can see\n\n1003\n00:51:43.440 --> 00:51:48.530\nwhy. I want to thank you for taking the time to be on this show and wish you\n\n1004\n00:51:48.530 --> 00:51:49.280\nthe best as you\n\n1005\n00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:53.200\ncontinue to grow your company. David, thank you. I appreciate it. Your\n\n1006\n00:51:53.200 --> 00:51:55.120\nquestions were very unique.\n\n1007\n00:51:55.120 --> 00:52:01.400\nI think I've done a few podcasts in my career or a few interviews. And I have\n\n1008\n00:52:01.400 --> 00:52:02.480\nrarely heard questions\n\n1009\n00:52:03.440 --> 00:52:08.570\nthat you were pulling out today. So appreciate it. And I'll have to study up\n\n1010\n00:52:08.570 --> 00:52:09.760\nnext time when you\n\n1011\n00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:12.880\ninvite me back on the show. You're great. Thank you very much.\n\n1012\n00:52:12.880 --> 00:52:22.400\nYou know, a lot of people have good ideas. They're seeing the right trends.\n\n1013\n00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:23.280\nThey're sensing the\n\n1014\n00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:27.800\npotential in all the right places. But what sets leaders like David apart is\n\n1015\n00:52:27.800 --> 00:52:29.440\nthe courage to act\n\n1016\n00:52:30.160 --> 00:52:35.360\nfrom March madness to pickleball. And even in his own career path, he bets big\n\n1017\n00:52:35.360 --> 00:52:36.480\non what he believes\n\n1018\n00:52:36.480 --> 00:52:40.820\nin. And he knows how to bring others along with him. See, that's the thing.\n\n1019\n00:52:40.820 --> 00:52:42.080\nTrue vision doesn't just\n\n1020\n00:52:42.080 --> 00:52:47.760\nlive in your head. It shows up in your decisions and in your words and in the\n\n1021\n00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:48.960\nrisk you're willing to\n\n1022\n00:52:48.960 --> 00:52:55.730\ntake. I love how David puts it. Plain and simple. If you don't take risks, you\n\n1023\n00:52:55.730 --> 00:52:56.640\n're not going to\n\n1024\n00:52:56.640 --> 00:53:01.130\nsucceed. So here's a little challenge for you this week. What's a big idea you\n\n1025\n00:53:01.130 --> 00:53:02.640\n've been sitting on?\n\n1026\n00:53:02.640 --> 00:53:07.610\nSomething you believe in, but haven't acted on yet. Reflect on what might be\n\n1027\n00:53:07.610 --> 00:53:08.880\nholding you back and\n\n1028\n00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:13.200\nthen consider what it would really look like to make it happen. So do you want\n\n1029\n00:53:13.200 --> 00:53:14.240\nto know how leaders\n\n1030\n00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:18.680\nlead? What we learned today is that great leaders know that true vision takes\n\n1031\n00:53:18.680 --> 00:53:20.560\nguts. Coming up next\n\n1032\n00:53:20.560 --> 00:53:25.680\non how leaders lead is Roger Crandall, CEO of Mass Mutual. So be sure you\n\n1033\n00:53:25.680 --> 00:53:27.360\nsubscribe on YouTube or\n\n1034\n00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:31.690\nwherever you get your pods so you don't miss it. Thanks again for tuning in to\n\n1035\n00:53:31.690 --> 00:53:32.800\nanother episode of\n\n1036\n00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:37.140\nhow leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview\n\n1037\n00:53:37.140 --> 00:53:38.480\nsome of the very best\n\n1038\n00:53:38.480 --> 00:53:42.620\nleaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each\n\n1039\n00:53:42.620 --> 00:53:43.840\nepisode that you can\n\n1040\n00:53:43.840 --> 00:53:56.000\napply to your business so that you will become the best leader that you can be.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL6954265235.mp3","dx_media_id",2411,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2025-08-14","itunes_episode_id",252,"youtube_id","0xKYPe2MJLY","2025-08-14T15:46:58.000000Z","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/JL5M8UeRG5nCXkhH5B277tryiM5hGMx0RNip52BF.mp3","dx_filename","JL5M8UeRG5nCXkhH5B277tryiM5hGMx0RNip52BF.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","e5SpXV6rI9NUkbJxr6HHSitnf69AZ1wRYBSf4KdN4RI","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/2411.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",3228908,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/0xKYPe2MJLY/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_95":79,"_96":77,"_97":-5,"_31":81,"_33":98,"_99":-5,"_100":83,"_86":87,"_101":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","Ro9asaXNTPGhkJGTdSsXSy48wbbEdZTvvDTzVvrDo00U","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","David","last_name","Levy","job_title","Horizon Sports + Experiences, Co-CEO","David Levy, sports, sports business, Horizon, Turner, broadcasting, CEO","external_links","https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-levy-494000270,https://www.horizonse.com/company,https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/01/17/sports-media-pod-david-levy/",0,"image_media_id",2395,2394,"2026-07-20T20:45:34.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/Oyup6VKJt2QrDMvrWNoA2XA5P5eWviThLh5Jkn6m.jpg","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/8kQlokS28cC5ktapsrBC6vPaqhxa55rPx9ct0kF8.jpg","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/240/david-levy","industry_id",3,"industry",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":137},"industries",[132],"image_media",{"_13":113,"_95":131,"_96":118,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},{"_13":114,"_95":130,"_96":119,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},"8kQlokS28cC5ktapsrBC6vPaqhxa55rPx9ct0kF8.jpg","Oyup6VKJt2QrDMvrWNoA2XA5P5eWviThLh5Jkn6m.jpg",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":136},"name","Sports","pivot",{"_35":36,"_121":122},{"_35":36,"_121":122},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_146":147,"_148":149,"_150":151,"_152":153,"_154":155},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]