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Bloomberg Business of Sports
Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss Exit; Cain CEO Jonathan Goldstein Talks Sports Investing
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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
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So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the.
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Malcolm Gladwell
Data because it's here, there and everywhere?
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Ryan Reynolds
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Bloomberg audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is the business of sports.
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Damian Sassauer
Sports are the greatest unscripted show on earth.
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Ben Portnoy
The next generation of players really grew up with tech and believe in tech.
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Randall Williams
The NFL is a bulletproof business.
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Ben Portnoy
Racing is unique because there is absolutely no reason why we can't compete with the guys. Come on, is pro pickleball real? Are people really going to tune into this? If you're playing Moneyball with a huge bag of money, you're going to be really, really good.
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Bloomberg Business of Sports From Bloomberg Radio.
- [02:23]
Michael Barr
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr.
- [02:29]
Damian Sassauer
And I'm Damian Sasso.
- [02:30]
Michael Barr
Vanessa Perdomo will join us later in the show.
- [02:33]
Damian Sassauer
Coming up, we'll check in on the sports betting space with BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt.
- [02:39]
Michael Barr
And we'll hear from Kane co founder and CEO Jonathan Goldstein about his firm Stakes in the sports world. All that and more is on the way on the Bloomberg business of sports. But we start in the college ranks. The big headline this past week was Lane Kiffin's controversial move from Ole Miss to lsu.
- [02:59]
Damian Sassauer
It was a big headline, Michael Barr. But not as big as five star quarterback Jared Curtis from Nashville Christian flipping from Georgia to my hometown Vandy Commodores.
- [03:10]
Michael Barr
Let's go.
- [03:10]
Ben Portnoy
Anchor down.
- [03:12]
Michael Barr
See, man, now you drooled on the scripts and everything, man. Randall Williams, our very own Bloomberg business of sports reporter man is also here to join us. And you gotta join in on the chat, man.
- [03:27]
Randall Williams
None of what Lane Kiffin has done over the course of his career has surprised me. He's an agent of chaos in the chaotic world of college sports and I think everybody wants to like chastise him for these different things. But when athletes can up and leave and enter the transfer portal and be paid, and coaches have long been able to switch jobs or be fired with payouts, I think this is just the world we live in and everybody needs to get over it.
- [03:52]
Michael Barr
More now on the latest in the college ranks, we welcome Ben Portnoy, college sports reporter at the Sports Business Journal. Ben, welcome to the Bloomberg business of sports.
- [04:03]
Ben Portnoy
What's going on, guys? Thanks for having me.
- [04:05]
Damian Sassauer
So let's get into it. I mean, I mean, look, talk to us a little bit about the drama that's going on in Mississippi.
- [04:12]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. You look, Lane Kiffin is someone that drama follows no matter where he is. It's whether it's good, bad, indifferent. Right? And I remember talking to some folks and some friends, you know, right when Lane got hired at Ole Miss. And, you know, the conversation was basically, and I said it then was, you know, this is basically going to go one of two ways. It's going to go up in smoke in four years because it doesn't work, or it's going to go up in smoke in four years because Lane leaves and does so well and he goes somewhere else. And the exit is going to be, you know, fiery, right? And here we are. And so I think, look, the way that it's worked, right, is that, you know, Lane is leaving Ole Miss in the middle of a playoff run to go to lsu, a place that, you know, he thinks he can go win a national championship, essentially. I think, I think it's an interesting dynamic at play when you have these coaching searches that turn into these high profile conversations and how they fit into the media narrative.
- [04:59]
Randall Williams
Ben, nice to talk to you. My question for you is pretty Simple. There's a lot of people out there who say, oh, this is. That he is a victim of the schedule of college football. The transfer portal and these coaches hirings and firings all play into this decision. I wonder how much you factored that into this. While also Lane being a simply chaotic character in the business of college sports.
- [05:23]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah, I mean, look like at a very base level, right. Like Lane is chaotic and I think we can all agree on that. And the ways that he's gone out. We talked about the Raiders, right. We talked about Ole Miss is the most recent one, you know, that doesn't even mention, you know, him being fired on the tarmac at usc. And so, so there's that, like we can set a baseline there. But I think that, you know, Nick Saban was on talking about the calendar a little bit. Kirk Herbstreet was talking about, about that Lane should be allowed to coach through the playoff and that this is a problem with the calendar and all of these things. Right. And I think that frankly that argument is completely disingenuous. I think that in my view that you have a college sports calendar that operates on the university system. College sports leaders might be ticked off about how the calendar operates. But short of going and changing the semester programs at every school in America, good luck fixing that because that's just how this works. These are tethered to institutions of higher education. And so I think that, you know, look. Yes. Is this is the timing not ideal? Absolutely. Right. Like this is not a great situation that Lane is having to leave a team in the middle of a playoff. But you know, there's like a pretty simple solution to all of this and that's that he would not take the LSU job and he would coach Ole Miss. So I think that like this is sort of a thing that has come up a lot. But I think that yes, the calendar is broken. It's got its issues. Like there. There is no question that like the football calendar and the academic calendar are sort of at odds, so to speak. But I think to say that this is not essentially entirely out of Lane Kiffin's doing, I think is kind of disingenuous generally speaking.
- [07:01]
Damian Sassauer
But then before we dig into five star quarterback Jared Curtis flipping to Vandy, let's talk about Sports Business Journal. I mean, you've just partnered with Bloomberg through our new subscription bundle. It gives our audience access to both Bloomberg's business reporting and sbj's industry leading sports coverage. And if you're listening, you probably have already guessed college football. I mean the Season's there, the season's nearly over, and there's going to be some talk after the playoffs as to what it looks like for the 26, 27 campaign. I know you've written on this extensively. You know, SEC Commissioner sankey prefers this 5 plus 11 format. The Big Ten prefers something different. Prefer something different. Talk to us a little bit about what you think comes next as we get through this season and look to next.
- [07:45]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah. How much time you guys got? I think that look, I mean, I think look, the, the, the College Football Playoff is going to continue to be a conversation and there's been a conversation about whether to expand this thing beyond 12 teams or go to 16 or, you know, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petiti has pushed the idea of as many as 24 teams. That conversation remains ongoing. Like the people I've talked to that, that, that remains ongoing. Those four commissioners from the Big 12, the ACC, the SEC and the Big 10 are essentially the ones in charge of that. But ultimately it's going to be Greg Sankey and Tony Petiti who have to agree on that, given the weighted voting structure of how that works. There, in theory, was a deadline of early December to have a decision on what they would do for 26, 27. Naturally, they blew past that deadline and have moved the deadline to about four days after the national championship in January. So whether anything gets done between now and then, I will say I have my doubts. I've talked to some folks involved in some of these conversations and, you know, there's not exactly optimism, I would say, that anything's going to get done and that anything would change. But I would say, like, there's some important caveats with this. So, you know, as it exists right now, the 12 team format, you're in kind of a tight window as far as where you can put these games. Obviously you're going head to head with the NFL. That's a conversation with first round games. If you were to expand to, I mean, let's play it just 16 teams. Right. Like, the understanding is there's a clause in the ESPN deal that would trigger a renegotiation given that you're adding essentially a couple extra games. If the, if it expands to, I believe 14, which had been kicked around a little bit, it wouldn't trigger that clause. So that's an interesting piece of this of like ESPN is already paying billions of dollars for this property. Do they really want to spend more on it? Realistically, probably not. Right. But what are they getting out of that as well is an interesting Piece of this as well. So again, like, I think these conversations remain ongoing. It's still a question of like, is 12 teams right? Is 16 teams right? Is 24 teams right? Like where you could build this out and you know, the concept that's as it's been explained to me would be, you know, you have 24 teams in the playoff, but instead of where you have traditional championship weekend games, right, the conference championship games that we're heading into and all of that toward the end of the postseason, that instead you would have essentially play in games and you would have, you know, high level conference matchups in that last week of the season. And so I think that becomes an interesting conversation piece to all of that. And how do you reimagine championship weekend? I think that's going to happen regardless. But I do think that it's definitely tethered to what happens with the CFP as well.
- [10:18]
Damian Sassauer
Well, Michael Barr had 14 teams. That mean. That means Vandy's a shoeing. I mean if we had 14 teams, Vandy's going to the college football playoffs right now. I mean, not everyone, like our friend Ben Portnoy went to Indiana and has Mendoza, quarterback is number two team ranked in the nation. Right?
- [10:31]
Michael Barr
Oh, that's what.
- [10:32]
Ben Portnoy
Listen, guys, I was gonna say I watched a lot of really bad football in my four years.
- [10:37]
This is pretty crazy.
- [10:39]
Randall Williams
I wonder how you view the NCAA as an organization today. I mean, if you look 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they were responsible for suspending coaches and really enforcing the rules. But now in a lot of my group chats, everyone's like, the NCAA needs to do something, when not long ago they were being villainized for saying, oh, they're not paying athletes and deservedly so. But nowadays it seems like this is a free market economy. And as everyone you've heard this term, just as much as I have, is the wild, wild West. And the NCAA doesn't really have the governance that it used to. Talk to me about the role that they play in college sports today because it doesn't really seem like we're hearing as much of the power shift that they had years ago.
- [11:20]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah, I mean, look, I think right now, the way that college sports is set up, I think the Power 4 conferences ultimately have sort of the absolute power, quote unquote over the ecosystem and what shape it's going to take, generally speaking. And most of that driven through as it relates to the ncaa. I think look like you've taken this entity that for such a long time was involved in investigations and punishing coaches and all of those things, and they're still sort of in that game a little bit as it relates to academics. You saw them hand down a pretty significant penalties to Michigan over the sign stealing scandal. Both of those things are sort of independent of limiting player payments and things like that. It's a little bit of a different scope, but I do think there's an interesting conversation of what is the NCAA's role moving forward and what do they look like? Certainly they're in charge of running championships for a lot of these sports. That's. That's a really important thing. Right? Like someone needs to run the Division 1 cross country championship. Right. And that's not a knock on cross country. Just pick a sport.
- [12:22]
Malcolm Gladwell
Right.
- [12:23]
Ben Portnoy
But I think there's a lot of folks that would say, and, you know, conversations I've had with people who talk about whether there needs to be someone else running the men's and women's basketball tournaments, for example, which are run by the ncaa. You know, there's some criticism of, like, hey, we could run these better, or, you know, we could make more money off of these if we ran them a different way, or whatever that might be. So I think that you're seeing an ncaa, the NCAA shift from what was once sort of, you know, judge, jury, executioner to something that's a little more managerial is probably overstating it, but I think that, you know, they're trying to figure out what that role is. And I think you've seen, again, like, the power for is. Is sort of the. Has sort of their tentacles on a lot of this. The NCAA changed their governance structure entirely to basically give those leagues voted, waiting, excuse me, weighted voting on a bunch of their committees up and down and to slim things out. And essentially a way to simplify things. But also that would grant them more power to operate more freely within the ecosystem. So I think that it's a group that's in flux. I think that certainly the staff at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis is thinner than it has been previously. And I think there's a lot of folks there that are wondering like, hey, what does this look like moving forward? And I think it's a little bit of a moving target. But I think that as this moves to a more professionalized model, like there needs to be someone in the center of this running things as sort of a central hub. But I don't know that the NCAA actually becomes that. Right. Especially as it relates to college football, which is its own entity entirely. But basketball becomes kind of the. The. Infliction point for a lot of that.
- [13:58]
Damian Sassauer
Ben Portnoy, College Sports Reporter at Sports Business Journal. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We really do appreciate it.
- [14:08]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah, thanks for having me guys. This is great. Really appreciate it.
- [14:10]
Damian Sassauer
And remember for our audience, Sports Business Journal has just partnered with Bloomberg through our new subscription bundle which gives readers access to both Bloomberg's business reporting and sbj's industry leading sports coverage.
- [14:22]
Michael Barr
Up next, we turn to the gaming industry with BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt for Damien Sass Hour. I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
- [14:37]
Ryan Reynolds
If a Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't shop around. Just go directly to the source lenovo.com you'll find exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business like the ThinkPad X914, Aura Edition and Yoga 7i 2 in 1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source Lenovo.com where PCs are up to 50% off. That's Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.
- [15:08]
Malcolm Gladwell
Hello. Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast smart talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and I asked him how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive. Yeah.
- [15:56]
Michael Barr
Wow.
- [15:57]
Malcolm Gladwell
So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smarttalks.
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Ben Portnoy
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Vanessa Perdomo
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This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
- [17:02]
Michael Barr
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr.
- [17:09]
Damian Sassauer
I'm Damian Sassauer.
- [17:10]
Vanessa Perdomo
And I'm Vanessa Perdomo.
- [17:11]
Damian Sassauer
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are making a big push into sports and some new startups are joining the mix too.
- [17:18]
Michael Barr
To take us through the latest in the sports betting space and whether prediction markets could present a real challenge to the traditional gaming platforms is friend of the show, BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt. Adam, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of sports.
- [17:36]
Adam Greenblatt
Well, thank you for having me. It's always great to be here.
- [17:39]
Damian Sassauer
And joining us for the conversation is another friend of the show, Bloomberg News global sports reporter Ira Budway.
- [17:46]
Michael Barr
We're talking the chief executive officer of BetMGM and okay, let's get the big elephant out of the room. In the first place, a lot of these scandals that have come down here with the latest in baseball with Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz and then their NBA scandals, you know, that's going on as well. Has it hurt BetMGM?
- [18:14]
Adam Greenblatt
So I really appreciate you starting light, Michael.
- [18:23]
Look, the answer is it has its own these kind of scandals are bad for sport or bad for the industry. It's bad for everybody involved. And Our focus at BetMGM is responsible gambling and sports integrity. And I feel like we need to stay focused on highlighting the bad actors and the legal regulated model for sports betting. Now today does that. So the legal market, basically it brings transparency and it's the only way to protect players and to make sure that games are fair. And so, you know, what do we do? BetMGM helps to bring integrity to sports games. How? By partnering with leagues, with regulators and with data providers to bring transparency to detect suspicious activity and to promote responsible gambling. So we don't want to see it. It's bad for everybody involved. But on the positive side, has it impacted BETMGM negatively or better still show showing up? And the answer is bettors are still showing up. We've had one of our last week, in fact was one of our best weeks in the history of BetMGM.
- [19:36]
Vanessa Perdomo
Adam, while we're on this subject of that and obviously as we're looking at how those things can be regulated a little bit more can you tell us about how prop bets are going to be, is there more restrictions going forward and how sportsbooks can.
- [19:54]
Do more on that side in order to stop some of these problems from happening?
- [19:58]
Adam Greenblatt
Yeah, look, the problems that are happening are as a result of the involvement of bad actors.
- [20:09]
The role of the legal sports betting market is to bring transparency to these types of involvements. And my core concern is number one, players like player props and these kind of milestone markets. For example, we've seen growth in our milestone markets for players to achieve certain milestones in games, points, rebounds, assists in the NBA as an example. Now the concern I have is to the extent that the legal market says they're not allowed and players like it, where do players go? Players go to the illegal offshore markets. The bad actors aren't going to disappear. What we want is to bring transparency to all of the activity so that the bad actors can be exposed and we can protect games, we can protect players.
- [21:09]
Ben Portnoy
It is interesting though that the leagues have convinced the major books, I believe, including yours, to add some new very narrow targeted restrictions around single pitch bets and under bets on the lowest paid NBA players. You see those as useful ways to kind of curtail match fixing and manipulation.
- [21:31]
Adam Greenblatt
Who are our partners? The leagues and our regulators. And so as good actors if you like, we will comply with wherever we get to. But to your specific question, will these be effective? Certainly in the regulated market they will be effective. Unfortunately alongside that, as I've said, there is the existence of the illegal market where the risk remains.
- [21:59]
Michael Barr
You guys are setting up a mobile site in Missouri. Tell us more about that.
- [22:05]
Adam Greenblatt
Yeah, this is the news of the week. So we're very proud, we're very proud to bring our award winning sportsbook to the state of Missouri and basically expand our legal regulated sports betting offering. Missouri represents our 30th market, so this is.
- [22:25]
An elegant milestone for BetMGM. We now reach 50% of the US population with our sports and gaming products. And in Missouri specifically we have our mobile offering alongside our new brand new and looks great bet, MGM Sportsbook at the Century Casino and Hotel Cape Girardeau.
- [22:47]
Vanessa Perdomo
Yeah, I'm really interested in how you guys, you know, you're, when you're activating in these new spaces and how that's all playing into it, especially as we look at prediction markets and how they're coming into play in these spaces where sports betting is illegal. Can you tell me about that? When you're talking to states where in legislation where they haven't passed sports betting yet and now that there's prediction markets in that space, kind of competing already.
- [23:16]
Adam Greenblatt
Yeah.
- [23:19]
We see the legal regulated sports betting framework as the best for bringing the product to sports bettors in a state. We don't see prediction markets as meaningful long term threat to our business to BetMGM. Few reasons for that. Look, the majority of our revenue comes from iGaming. That's the first point. And that second is because we only operate in fully regulated states where these platforms haven't gained meaningful share and we don't expect them to. We feel pretty good about where we are and one moment. The reason we feel good about our role or the dominance of our offering in legal states is because from a consumer's perspective our offering and value proposition is just better. You know, we have more range, more betting range. It's easier for a player to bet what you want to bet at the size you want to bet and in the combination of markets of your choosing, it's just a better total experience. And by the way, being a customer of BetMGM is more rewarding than participating in the prediction markets. Now your point is important which is? Well, what happens in the states which aren't yet legal? Well, we're working hard to ensure that legalized sports betting expands wherever possible and we see the launch in Missouri as a further positive step in that direction.
- [24:52]
Ben Portnoy
Some of your competitors seem to be looking at a model maybe of trying to do both where in some states where they have licenses they operate as regulated sportsbooks and in states where there is no online sports betting they operate as prediction markets. Did you give that any thought? And why wouldn't you want to try that dual approach?
- [25:12]
Adam Greenblatt
Yeah, look, we are monitoring this very closely and by definition, therefore we have given this extensive thought and look, there are developments every day, every day new information to consider and recheck. Our previous analysis and the guiding principle is this legality and our relationships with state regulators are key for us. And our state regulators have been clear on their interpretation of both current law and their regulation. And you know, recent rulings like the Nevada classifying Kalshi's sports events contracts as gambling show that regulators are clear on their interpretation of the rules and the law and frankly say the legal system is confirming that position. And so you know, our focus remains on delivering best in class experience in regulated markets.
- [26:09]
And so we will, we'll continue to monitor every day and so but at this point participation is not an option for us.
- [26:18]
Ben Portnoy
It's interesting, it sounds like you don't anticipate that these markets will necessarily persist in the current form offering sports contracts as the legal process plays out. You think they may not be able to operate as they are now?
- [26:33]
Adam Greenblatt
Well, our analysis, which is shared by.
- [26:39]
Mid-30s Attorneys General and consistently by our regulators, is that the.
- [26:50]
Prediction markets in sports prediction contracts are frankly illegal sports betting. And so, you know, until that changes, you know, that's I don't anticipate that will change, you know, with progressive rulings as the one in Nevada has set a precedent for, we have more of those. I think we'll see that actually the scope of prediction market should narrow and sports should return to being.
- [27:24]
The domain of the states and tribes.
- [27:27]
Vanessa Perdomo
Adam, one of the things I want to talk about before you go is the trends on women's sports and betting in that space and how that's grown. I'm curious from your seat, do you see it almost as this? You know, now we're in a space where it's WNBA off season, it's the women's soccer off season. But you can, you know, there's other sports like ice hockey, volleyball, softball in these emerging women's sports. Do you see it as almost like a chicken in the egg where they need to become more popular before they're, you know, a bigger given, a bigger platform on your site or if you make them more available for bettors, will that help grow the sport, do you think?
- [28:06]
Adam Greenblatt
That's a really interesting question.
- [28:09]
One of the reasons why we've seen such explosive growth in interest in women's sports is because of the quality of the quality of players and the.
- [28:20]
Star appeal. You know, we've had really emergent women athletes that capture imaginations of fans, and it's that fandom that drives engagement with our product. We can spin up markets. We can make available markets, events and markets really pretty simply, quickly. But we do want to follow where the demand is. And the thing that drives demand is the core of the thing that drives demand is interest in the sport.
- [28:55]
Michael Barr
Adam, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
- [28:57]
Adam Greenblatt
Thank you for having me.
- [28:59]
Damian Sassauer
Our thanks to BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt.
- [29:03]
Michael Barr
Up next, we talk to the co founder and CEO of Cain, an alternative asset manager specializing in real estate that's seeing big opportunities in the world of sports for Damian Sassour and Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
- [29:46]
Ryan Reynolds
If a Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't shop around. Just go directly to the source lenovo.com, you'll find exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business like the ThinkPad X914, Aura Edition and Yoga 7i 2in1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source. Lenovo.com where PCs are up to 50% off. That's Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.
- [30:17]
Malcolm Gladwell
Hello Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast smart talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, CEO Arvind Krishna, and I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive. Yeah, so we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smarttalks.
- [31:34]
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- [32:11]
Ben Portnoy
Missed the top headlines on Bloomberg Radio. Get the latest news when you want.
- [32:15]
Damian Sassauer
It updated continuously throughout the day with Bloomberg News. Now Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app and anywhere you get your podcasts.
- [32:26]
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This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
- [32:31]
Michael Barr
Thanks for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world. Sports I'm Michael Barr.
- [32:37]
Damian Sassauer
I'm Damian Sassow.
- [32:38]
Vanessa Perdomo
And I'm Vanessa Perry Kane is an.
- [32:41]
Michael Barr
Alternative asset manager specializing in real estate that's seeing big opportunities in sports.
- [32:47]
Damian Sassauer
That's right, Michael Barr Kane has over a billion dollars invested in sports, including stakes in Chelsea fc, the Dodgers, the Lakers. I mean I think they, they do stuff in cricket. I mean, certainly they're one of the largest commercial real estate players on the planet. I think we have a lot to talk about.
- [33:03]
Michael Barr
Joining us to talk about the firm and its sports interests is co founder and CEO Jonathan Goldstein. Jonathan, welcome to the Bloomberg business of sports.
- [33:14]
Jonathan Goldstein
Thanks a lot. Great to see you. What a great smile to be greeted with.
- [33:18]
Damian Sassauer
Well, Jonathan, let's give our audience a little bit of color here. I mean, Kane is one of the world's most venerable global real estate investment, but more development companies. Right. But, you know, you're also a director for Chelsea, right? Premier League. And you also have some other sports and media interests. I'd love to hear about that. You have a $1.2 billion portfolio which has a lot of other stuff. Swingers, St. James. Talk to us about that sports portfolio. What are your eyes on?
- [33:43]
Jonathan Goldstein
When I started the business with Todd Boehly and Todd's obviously well known to most people as a global leader in sports, both with the Dodgers, the Lakers, Chelsea, etc. So obviously place to my interest in sports when we're in business together. And we spent some time in the, you know, from when we, you know, joined up in business from 2014 onwards, looking at the Premier League. And that resulted in 2022 with the consortium that Todd led to, to buy Chelsea Football Club along with Clearlake. And, you know, Todd is the chair. And, you know, I think the success of the last 12 months has really begun to show the, you know, the fruits of the strategy that the team there has put together and all credit to them for everything they've done and ending up, of course, in the US by winning the Club World cup back in July at, you know, at the stadium, Met Stadium, which was a great experience for everybody, along with President Trump, of course. And, you know, that that's led to other interests in sport that, that we have, you know, enjoyed. I mean, Swingers is a great, great business. It's down in New York, down in the Nomad region here and as well as in Vegas and in the uk and we're about to open in Boston and, and, you know, whilst it's not obviously mainline sports in the same way, it plays to the same issues of experiential and playing to people's interests and enjoyment of life and providing, you know, a multifaceted experience with carnival and fun fairs in, in the. In the experience as well, which is great. And you know, the thing that I think we're most proud of and most excited about, Todd and I would be the St. James. We built this facility outside of D.C. in Springfield, Virginia. And it's an extraordinary facility run by two great guys, Kendrick Astron Ashton and Craig Dixon. Over 400,000 square feet of sports, just pure sports. Everywhere you look is a different sport, from hockey to a field house to basketball to gymnastics to golf simulator to an aquatic center, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And Kendrick and Craig have led that with great distinction over time. And what we're seeing is that there is a huge, huge desire in the marketplace for this fusion of performance, of wellness, of health, of experiences.
- [36:00]
Damian Sassauer
Well, Jonathan, isn't that really what Cain's done? Not just in sports, but really in real estate as well? I mean, I'm looking at the various different projects that your firm is. I mean, from the Delano Hotel to, I mean one Beverly Hills to this new Raffles in Boston. I mean, it's all about building brands around experiences.
- [36:17]
Ben Portnoy
Correct.
- [36:17]
Damian Sassauer
And that seems to be something class A, from class A office to hospitality that you and the folks at Kane are really, really pride yourself at. So give us a little bit of what you're sniffing. I mean, you're involved with the one Beverly Hills in la. Talk to us about the ramp up for the Olympics, the development you're seeing going on there, especially on the heels of the wildfires. I mean, what's going on on the ground?
- [36:37]
Lowe's Advertiser
There's.
- [36:38]
Jonathan Goldstein
Look, we're very proud of what we're doing in Beverly Hills. It's market leading, there's nothing like it. And I think you're right in picking up the fact that we've approached the marketplace from a slightly different perspective in that we've approached it simultaneously from the asset level, but also from the brand level. So we were the first investors in Amman. We were followed by PIF from Saudi Arabia and then a group from Abu Dhabi together with obviously the, you know, the chairman and controlling shelter of Vlad Doronin. And we've also done the same with the Delano. We haven't just said we want to own the real estate in Miami beach, we own one third of the brand. And what that does is it, you know, you have to get inside the experience of the customer and you have to understand what you're delivering to that customer as if it were you. Please, you know, don't buy a hotel that you haven't gone and stayed in, you haven't lived in yourself.
- [37:32]
Damian Sassauer
Right.
- [37:33]
Jonathan Goldstein
And I think it comes back, back to a philosophy that I've had since I was a kid. You've not lived your Life until you've walked in the shoes of the other man. And I think that's the way we've approached our brands, that's the way we've approached our hotels as the user. Understanding what people want from their real estate, understanding the experience that they would want, which fundamentally is the experience that we would want for us and our families and our friends. And I think what we're doing in LA is exactly that.
- [38:01]
Michael Barr
Well, you've got world class sports facilities in more than 30 sports. I mean we're talking like some big time facilities. Which leads me to not only you can you use that for sports, but a lot of the facilities for like concerts and things like that. I'm sure that has been used as well, correct?
- [38:21]
Jonathan Goldstein
That's right. I think that when you look at the, the facilities today around the world that are being built, they have to be multi purpose, they have to be multifaceted because it's great to have the anchor if you're an NFL stadium of an NFL, you know, team. But if you look at SoFi and the way that SOFI is innovated so many times a year and you know, Jason Gannon, who helped develop that for Stan Cronky is now the president of Chelsea and he's a great guy and helping build the vision for next vision of Stamford Bridge in Chelsea. But I think it's really important to understand that we're in the entertainment business and we're not just in the entertainment business when the teams play, but we're obviously in the entertainment business, you know, 365 days a year.
- [39:03]
Damian Sassauer
Well, Jonathan, now you speak in our language, right? Because we know all about the mixed use around stadiums and arenas. You know, we've had plenty of guests that are involved in that space and you know, just, you know, From Baltimore to D.C. to Buffalo to, to New York City. Well, it's points Queens, right. I mean, talk to us about New York City. I mean with the casino licenses that are coming out and what can and what you are most focused on. I mean, I got to imagine this is just a huge opportunity for you.
- [39:27]
Jonathan Goldstein
We haven't got involved in the casino world.
- [39:29]
Adam Greenblatt
That's fair.
- [39:29]
Jonathan Goldstein
That's not been our world. Okay. What we are believers in is New York City. Okay. And so we've just acquired the Dominic Hotel down in, you know, the edge of soho, on the edge of Springs, beat the old Trump soho, which became the Dominic. We've acquired that and we're going to rebrand it over the next day, 18 months to Delano Soho, keeping that theme of what we're doing, of the brand and, and the user very much in our minds. So, you know, New York City has an eclectic, has a wonderful array of experiences for people to enjoy and we're seeing great growth in that. We're just actually finishing an office block between 6 and 7th, which is also doing very, very well. And I think there's a huge future here and we continually and will continue to invest in New York City.
- [40:12]
Damian Sassauer
Well, let's move on to something that's near and dear to Michael Barr's heart. Cricket. Right, Michael Barr, you love cricket and the Trent Rockets. I mean, and more importantly, you know, the hundred. Talk to us about the hundred and your involvement there. The short format cricket that, you know, is kind of taking the world by storm, you know, and obviously Michael Barr, you know, you know, in sports, gambling, cricket is real. It's nice stuff.
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Michael Barr
Right. There's gambling going on in here. I'm shocked.
- [40:36]
Jonathan Goldstein
So if you, if you take a step back, okay, so Americans have a view of cricket whereby you play for five days, no one knows what goes on, and then there might not be a result of the game. Right, and what does it all mean? And what are all these acronyms? LBW and all this stuff stands for Leg before we. And what has happened over the course of the last 15 years is that led by, you know, the Indian Premier League, the world of short form cricket has transformed itself. Yeah. And when you look on a broadcast basis, the IPL is second only to the NFL in broadcasting rights. Value per game.
- [41:15]
Damian Sassauer
Per game. Really?
- [41:16]
Jonathan Goldstein
Per game.
- [41:17]
Damian Sassauer
Interesting.
- [41:17]
Jonathan Goldstein
It's a, it's an eight week tournament and you know, it leads the way behind the NFL, which obviously is the global leader. And what we've seen is you've seen huge value uptick in the value of the franchises out in India. And five years ago, the English Cricket board started up their own competition called the Hundred, which is not the same as the Indian Premier league, which is 120 deliveries. 100 by its definition is 100 deliveries. And speaking to my American audience, I would just equate it to say, let's assume you have a baseball game where each side gets 100 pitches and your job is to score as many runs off that hundred pitches as you can.
- [42:00]
Michael Barr
That's a hell of an idea. I like that.
- [42:02]
Jonathan Goldstein
And that is what the hundred is. You have 100 deliveries. That's all each side. So the game is over in two and a half hours. It's very simple. Who scores the most runs off the hundred pitches?
- [42:14]
Damian Sassauer
Well, Jonathan And Michael Barr, for our audience, let's just put some numbers around this, right? If you look at average annual value, meteorites, I'm talking here, the NFL, it's the NFL's world and we're all just living in it. It's 12.4 billion a year. But IPL, I had no idea. I'm just looking right now, top 10, $1.2 billion a year, average annual value. That puts it right in line with Surya, Bundesliga, the NHL, you know, so I had no idea.
- [42:36]
Jonathan Goldstein
You have to look at it on a per game basis.
- [42:38]
Damian Sassauer
Remember the Premier League, this is, this is annual. It's not a per game.
- [42:41]
Jonathan Goldstein
Premier League has 38 games.
- [42:42]
Damian Sassauer
Yeah.
- [42:43]
Jonathan Goldstein
The Indian Premier League, the tournament stage, I think, has 14 games.
- [42:46]
Damian Sassauer
That's it. Yeah. I mean, that's an unbelievable opportunity that, I mean, unbelievable. I mean, right, Michael Barr?
- [42:51]
Michael Barr
Yeah. I tell you, as I think about it, just when you put it in that perspective about cricket to baseball, that's a hell of an idea in baseball. Tell you one thing, you wouldn't have pitchers being accused of wasting pitches by throwing something in the ground in baseball because everyone counts. That's a wow.
- [43:12]
Damian Sassauer
That's why Raffles calls Jonathan when they want to build a hotel in Boston.
- [43:16]
Jonathan Goldstein
I think the whole thing about sport is creating those experiences that are just not replicable.
- [43:24]
Michael Barr
Yeah.
- [43:24]
Jonathan Goldstein
And, and when you talk about broadcast rights, I don't think anything detracts from the live experience of being in these stadiums when, when, when, when magical things happen and we all live our lives and we've all got our highest moments. I actually couldn't make the seventh game of the, of the World Series, but I could imagine watching Rojas coming up at the top of the ninth and hitting that home run, you know, and what it also talks about. There are so many life lessons to learn from sports. What does it tell you? Every member of the team is important. Yeah, yeah. You've got your amazing, you know, goats in Ohtani.
- [44:00]
Ben Portnoy
Yeah.
- [44:00]
Jonathan Goldstein
But your number nine batter, he can make a difference.
- [44:04]
Damian Sassauer
Absolutely.
- [44:04]
Jonathan Goldstein
And don't you forget, and I think that that's a great life lesson for all of us, that we're all on a team and we are only as strong as the weakest part of our team.
- [44:14]
Michael Barr
Jonathan. Oh, my goodness. What a pleasure to talk with you, sir, on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We really do appreciate it.
- [44:22]
Jonathan Goldstein
Thank you for having me.
- [44:23]
Damian Sassauer
Our thanks to Jonathan Goldstein for joining us. He is the co founder and CEO of Kane International.
- [44:29]
Michael Barr
What? And that does it for this edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Where'd the time go for my colleagues Damian Sassauer and Vanessa Perdomo? I'm Michael Barr.
- [44:38]
Damian Sassauer
Tune in again next week for the latest on the stories moving big money in the world of sports. And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on all your favorite podcast platforms.
- [44:49]
Michael Barr
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports Bloomberg Radio around the world.
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Ryan Reynolds
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