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Bloomberg Business of Sports
'The Messi Effect' with The Athletic's Paul Tenorio & SailGP's Andrew Thompson
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Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is the business of sports.
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Our aim is always to leverage the
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Paul Tenorio
global appeal of football. Having representation in college sports is even more important than pro.
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Andrew Thompson
10% of Americans now claimed soccer to be their favorite sport.
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Bloomberg Business of Sports Announcer
We estimate the youth sports audience has $3 trillion in spending power.
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Andrew Thompson
The nature of baseball is it is worldwide and it is global.
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Michael Barr
I'm very happy for the WNBA and
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Paul Tenorio
how the NBA has embraced them. Sportsbooks are not going anywhere and sports betting is only growing.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
We have a super team running this league and this league is here and
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Paul Tenorio
it's here to stay.
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Bloomberg Business of Sports Announcer
Bloomberg Business of Sports From Bloomberg Radio,
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Michael Barr
this is the Bloomberg Business of Sports with we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Mike Lavar.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I'm Vanessa Perniello Maglione.
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Randall Williams
And I'm Randall Williams.
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Michael Barr
Coming up today we are going to be talking about the goat of all goats, reigning World cup champion Lionel Messi.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
He's not here with us in the studio sadly, but we have the next best thing, the guy who wrote the book on him.
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Michael Barr
But first we are going to start introducing the start of the show With a little news blast and give context to the biggest headlines of the week. The Major League Baseball Players association has made their first formal proposal in collective bargaining talks with Major League Baseball. We know that these talks are not going to be easy for both sides. Randall, can you give us some context on what baseball is heading for for the negotiations this offseason?
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Randall Williams
Sure. So I'll start by saying that if you thought the WNBA and the WNBPA conversations around collective bargaining were tense, that I would imagine this is going to be twice as tense. And so the MLBPA made their first proposal. According to espn, the proposal included sharing more local television revenue. It can. It included a competitive balance tax for top spending clubs, a raise of a base competitive balance tax from the threshold from 244 million to 300 million, and so many other details. And of course, this is going to be a very, very long collective bargaining session. There is concern from both sides, really about a work stoppage. And really the principal issue is whether there should be a minimum spending requirement from owners or a cap. And if you ask, we talked to multiple baseball players throughout this year. They are allergic to a cap. It is fatal to them. They do not believe in it. And so if there is a cap, I would expect a lockout. And if there isn't one and there's a minimum spending requirement from owners, they're going to oppose that. And so what is the balance is going to be the instrumental thing that I think we're all going to find out, because baseball has tremendous momentum right now. If you think about the last couple World Series, probably the greatest World Series that I've ever watched, and the stars are continuing to grow larger, it's sort of a resurgence of baseball. And if there is a stoppage similar to the potential stoppage that could have happened in the wnba, that it could stop momentum. I know that both parties want to avoid that, but they have some issues to discuss first.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I was just going to say that, Randall. I mean, it's funny that these things both happen for the WNBA and the mlb, right when they're both leagues are surging. So couldn't be a worse time for both parties to start negotiating. One of the most important things that they have to negotiate. It's not a simple CBA for either of these parties. And I think it's because of the momentum that they're both having that mlb, the players have, you know, really hard ground to stand on. But the reality is that the spending floor is what that they would maybe agree to. But the cap is. Is Something I don't think they'll ever get to.
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Randall Williams
Yeah, I don't think a cap is likely, but it really depends on how long old owners are willing to lose money on a lockout and how long players can hold down on one. That's really what it comes down to. In the wnba, the stakes were very high, but they also had a lot of time. Like you have to think the WNBA or the WNBPA opted out of that collective bargaining agreement, I believe. And that was either 20, I believe that was 24. The end of 2024. And then they bargained for over a year. Baseball doesn't have that luxury. They're going to need to get the pedal to the metal and get something done or make some progress at some point so the games aren't lost.
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Michael Barr
Well, I remember the work stoppage back in the early 90s and man, it just killed the game and, you know, it took a home run derby with Sammy sosa and Mark McGuire and to least get some interest back. So I'm, I'm hoping we're going to be keeping a close eye on those negotiations throughout the year. Now let's talk some soccer as we are joined in the studio by Paul Tenorio. He is the senior writer at the Athletic and the author of the Messy Effect. Paul, welcome to the Bloomberg business of sports. This book, by the way, which is great, is coming out June 2, and I understand now why a lot of people are reading this book, because this man is loaded. He is $1.45 billion worth of money, according to Forbes magazine.
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Paul Tenorio
Yeah, well, that's certainly what he's done to the valuation of Inter Miami. And when you talk about what his impact has been in Major League Soccer, the short term impact, we have to start with the money. The money that is just phenomenal across the league of what he's done. The valuation of the team has more than doubled. The revenue has gone through the roof. More than $200 million in revenue. The first MLS team to accomplish that, the number one best selling Adidas jersey in the world, sold out stadiums across the entire league. Teams moving, you know, for example, Sporting Kansas City moving from their soccer specific stadium to Arrowhead and then selling out Arrowhead. So, you know, Chicago Fire had the most revenue in a single game ever playing against Inter Miami because Messi was coming to town. So this is the short term impact that he's had and it really is now about how do you take that and make a longer tail out of it? How do you make the messy effect last longer than just now when he's playing, because he's not going to play forever.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I love that. I mean, and how are they going to do that? Obviously, the World cup is this year. He'll be playing, you know, here in the US which is amazing. And obviously everyone will be able to see him, the US Team and all of that. But how do they continue the Messi Effect after the World cup is over?
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Paul Tenorio
Well, that's a lot of what this book is actually about. As much as I try to take people into the locker room, I try to take them into the boardroom in mls, because the owners are trying to make these decisions of what do we have to do in mls, in the league, to make it matter that when Messi was here, to take this moment and extend it. And I think a great example is David Beckham. When David Beckham came to the LA Galaxy, he changed the league. Not just because of his celebrity, but because they created a new rule, the Designated Player rule, to allow the Galaxy to sign David Beckham. And that rule changed the face of Major League Soccer forever. It allowed a big stars to come like Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Kaka and eventually Messi. So the rule was enacted by the owners. It's on the owners now to change the way MLS operates in order to make this league more competitive, more competitive in the domestic sports landscape, where you're competing with the NFL and the NBA, college Football, Major League Baseball, the NHL, more and more competitive in the global soccer landscape. Right? The economy that exists all around the world for this sport, they need to change the roster rules. And so from MLS's perspective, that's where the decisions are being made and still need to be made. From a Miami perspective, I think Jorge Maas has a really good idea about it. And again, it goes back to the example of Beckham. When Beckham signed an mls, they gave him in his contract this right, this trigger to have an expansion team. That expansion team became Inter Miami, which eventually brought Messi. Right. Well, what did it do for Major League Soccer to give him an expansion team? It kept Beckham's brand linked to mls. Still to this day, David Beckham, one of the biggest celebrities in the world, goes out and talks about how great Major League Soccer is. You can't pay for that. I guess you can with an expansion, right? Well, Inter Miami is trying to do the same thing with Messi. So what did they do? They gave him 10% ownership in the team on the first contract, more percentage into the team on the second contract. They built a new stadium. They name it the Lionel Messi stand, where the fans are in the stadium when he stops playing. Messi's brand is still going to be attached to Inter Miami because he's going to be an owner. And the longer that you can create that relationship in the mind of consumers, the longer that this is Lionel Messi's inner Miami, the longer you're going to get that messy effect, the longer you're going to get people that buy Inter Miami jerseys because it's linked to Messi, players that want to sign because they want to play for Messi's team. And so that's what Inter Miami has done. I think it's actually quite brilliant to say, and now Messi's bought in, literally 20% of the team bought in, saying, I want to grow this brand more. And it's a really smart business move.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Do you imagine Messi being an owner the way that David Beckham is very forward facing though? Do you imagine that he'll do that after his career is over?
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Paul Tenorio
No. You know, Beckham is a different beast. This is a marketing machine. I mean, you know, you still see him in underwear ads and, and cologne ads and all the different things that all the brands that, that he's touching still. And he doesn't mind getting in front of a microphone and he never has. When he came to mls, he did a whole day of interviews out on the field at Home Depot center, which was what it was called at the time, with every national news outlet. Messi has given one press conference since he arrived in 2023. He is an introvert. He doesn't like doing media unless it's media in Argentina with the people that he trusts and likes, or in Spain with the two newspapers he deals with. And so I do think that you, you're going to get less of the salesman, you're going to get less of the guy in front of the microphone. But that hasn't mattered for his entire career. I think that's one of the most alien things about Messi, is that he's so good at what he does, he's so good at soccer that people follow him even though they get very little access to him. And in a world where access matters more than ever, where you can follow what athletes are doing on Instagram and you can, they're all trying to have their own production companies and they're all LeBron's got, his shows. Messi does none of that, almost none of it. You know, his team puts him in some advertisements, but that's about it. And, and yet he is one of the most brilliantly popular athletes in the world. So will that continue after he's done playing? I think so. I think having the legacy of the greatest of all time is going to have a, you know, it's going to last. But it will be interesting to see how much he leans in, how much he's present, how much he lends his face, even sitting in the, in the stadium, to that part of it. And I, I think that what, what's interesting is towards the end of my writing this book, actually, after I filed the first draft of this book, when Messi, I got into the book, that Messi signed the contract extension and he goes down to the stadium and he's there with the other owners, Jorge Moss and Jose Mas and David Beckham and their families. And the stadium's under construction at the time. And they do a video of him signing his extension. And then the four owners walk around the stadium with their families. Beckham's parents were there, the Moss brothers brought their families, and Messi's family was there. And I think that's when it hit him. I think like the physical manifestation of his ownership, the stadium being built, like he knew like, I'm an owner, I'm not just a player. And that had been true since he signed. But to be standing in a stadium that you own a part of hits home pretty, pretty hard. And I think you've seen him since then start to maybe exert a little bit more control, a little bit more actively within the team right now. And, and I think it's because he enjoys the idea of being an owner. So I do think we might see him be a little bit more involved than than most people would guess just based on like, the history of how little he wants to interact.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
That was senior writer at the Athletic and author Paul Tenario. And you know what, there's so much more soccer to talk about, more about how Messi's changed the MLS and what this World cup is going to do to boost the sport in the US So stay with us because we are going to continue this conversation with Paul Tenario up next.
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Michael Barr
That is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports for Vanessa Perdomo Maglion and Randall Williams. I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Around the world.
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This is Bloomberg Business of Sports From Bloomberg Radio.
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Michael Barr
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Mike Lavar.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I'm Vanessa Perdomo Maglion.
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Randall Williams
And I'm Randall Williams.
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Michael Barr
We are back talking with Paul Tenorio. He is the senior writer at the Athletic and the author of the Messi Effect. To talk more about soccer in the US as the World cup is just days away. So let's get right back into our conversation with Paul Tenurio.
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Randall Williams
At some point when Messi does hang up his cleats, do you think he'll have a presence at the ownership level. Like, I remember reading about Michael Jordan in the 90s and when they were collective bargaining and all these different figures, whether it be NFL, WNBA recently, where players are standing at the podium and having conversations with owners, whether that be from the union side or from the ownership level, and saying, listen, guys, like, I understand you guys have a lot of money, and I respect your business acumen, but at the same time, I played in this league, I've made a lot of money in this league, and this is what's best for the league. I imagine that Messi could have a tremendous impact if he was speaking to owners in that way, but it doesn't sound like that is going to happen.
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Paul Tenorio
Yeah, I mean, I think the owner should be counting their blessings that Messi doesn't like to do media. Right. Because if he just came out now as a player and said, hey, this league needs to spend more, and I have in my book, he says it privately to Jorge Moss, what more can I do? Right. I'm feeling. I'm doing my job. I'm filling all these stadiums. We're driving revenue into the league that didn't exist before. And what are the owners doing with it? Right. Would it matter if he walked into the boardroom and said that? Absolutely. Absolutely it would. And, you know, I don't know what his role, David Beckham's, I think, gone to two board meetings, one recently that I was at. And of course, it has an impact. You know, those owners, they like to be around powerful people, and they like to be around celebrity athletes. Right. That's why they buy teams. They want to feel like they're part of the team. Right. And so, yeah, when Beckham walks into that room, you better believe that he's like a magnet, and what he says carries weight. And I would hope that Messi leverages that opportunity. And I think, you know, it's. It's something he should want to do. When you own a stake as big as he's going to own in the team, you should be saying what's best for the business. And who knows the business better than I do? I'm the one who played, right? But I don't know, I could see him, you know, maybe communicating through the Moss brothers. But I do think it's important when we talk about dynamics of boardrooms. I mean, personalities are very different in there. You know, the. The Philanthuts is not going to approach a meeting the same way. Jorge Mazdas, you know, he's. He's a Much bigger personality mas is. And. But when philanthropy shows up, you know, it's important. How do those owners interact gets you to the votes. It's almost like you're in Congress and you have to whip votes up. Right? You've got to create a coalition and start to build consensus. And I think that's where people like David Beckham and Messi can be really important. Because if you're an owner and Messi sits down with you to have a coffee and says, why don't you come vote with me? I think, I think he's got a good chance to bring some votes over to their side of the table. Hopefully MLS makes these roster rule changes before Messi has retired from the league. To your point of like, how do you get some of this bounce from the World Cup? How do you bring more players? You got to give the owners the freedom and flexibility to spend the money to bring them. And Messi is going to play in this World Cup. Maybe he's going to win two in a row. Maybe he'll pass Maradona, as you know, bringing multiple World cup titles to Argentina in his time. Don't you want to take that and bring more players to play while people are watching Messi? I think that's really important. We'll see if the league can get there. You know, obviously in my book, I kind of lay it out there to say this is the last step needed. And for the Athletic, I'll keep covering every single meeting and, and trying to see what these conversations are. But the reality is there's a CBA negotiation coming up, too. Don Garber is going to be out as the commissioner. A new commissioner is going to come in. Getting that decision right is critical. I mean, Garber's done an incredible job building the infrastructure of mls, bringing in expansion owners and building, focusing the money on stadiums and training grounds. But the next commissioner has to come in and know how to get a big media rights deal and how to move the product forward, how to move the soccer forward so that people say it's worth watching this. The same way it's worth waking up on a Saturday morning and going to the local pub and cheering for Arsenal or Liverpool and Manchester United or whoever. And. And so that's why I think the next two years coming out of the World cup are going to say a lot about what MLS future looks like.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I think the interesting thing is that you wrote an article recently about how this team has a completely different job than the 94 team did.
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Bloomberg Business of Sports Announcer
Right.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
The 94 team came in and they established the MLS and they kind of introduced soccer to, you know, to the US But I love that you said you compared it actually to the 99ers and what they were able to do and how they made the US believe in soccer. What is the job of this 26 team? You know, obviously, if they don't win, how far do they need to get to? And like Randall was saying, I mean, not a lot of them play in the mls. So how does them having success then translate to the US Soccer market?
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Paul Tenorio
The further this team goes in the tournament, the more it's going to kind of galvanize the country around them. Right the way. And that's where 99 was so crucial, right? A sold out Rose Bowl, Brandi Chastain scoring the penalty, ripping off her shirt. Everyone was watching that game.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
It was the greatest moment in.
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Paul Tenorio
It was incredible. It was incredible. And it changed the way people thought about soccer in this country. Not just with youth participation, but in general. Like, oh, we can have a really good soccer team, right? And then the men have not been able to kind of carry that legacy. They haven't been able to do what the women have done, and that's been consistent. So the further this team goes, the more they can start to change minds about men's soccer in this country. And then after that, the onus goes back to Major League Soccer. Okay, if you are able to make a run, how do you now change your business so that your product lives up to what the people just watch the World cup because those players are, when they play well, they have a high quality level. But you're going to see a difference when you turn on an MLS game versus what you just watched at the World Cup. They have to close that gap. You know, there's. I call it the perception gap. You have the actual quality gap, which is solved by money. Pour more money into the product, you can close that quality gap. But you have to close the perception gap too. Kind of casual sports fans to say, man, MLS is not real pro soccer. It's not the same level. I'm not going to pay attention to it. Die hard soccer fans say, MLS is not the Premier League. I'd rather wake up on a Saturday morning, okay, well, MLS is actually better than most casual fans think it is, but it's right on where those die hard soccer fans think it is. So how do you close that gap of the casual sports fan to say this league is actually better than you realize? Well, you do it by bringing more quality in. You do it by creating momentum and the national team is the start of that. The national team can create momentum where people say, all right, I want to watch soccer. I want to watch soccer. MLS has to take that and carry that momentum forward and put a better product on the field. It's really. I get frustrated sometimes covering this league. You can feel it. When I write my columns on the Athletic, I'm like, it's not that hard, man. People want to watch the best product that they can get. Put a better product on the field, and more people will watch it. And that's what MLS has to do to. And I think. But I do think there's a huge responsibility on the shoulders of this national team to build belief. That's not easy to do. You got to go win. You got to beat some big teams. You got to have iconic moments. That's what we all love as sports fans. You know, we can pick out games that we watched in whatever sport and remember those moments that stick with us. Maybe it's a big national moment, like Brandy Chastain. The other day, I was telling a story. My colleagues, we went to DC For a meetup, planning the World Cup. My uncle was there, and we're talking about going to an NFL game in D.C. at RFK Stadium. And I watched from behind the end zone. Daryl Green intercepted a Scott Mitchell pass, returned it for a touchdown, and overtime, they won. I can. I can remember the whites on Darrell Green's eyes getting big as he caught the interception. That's how close I was. And it stuck with me that sports. Can MLS start to create those moments that actually resonate with people. They're not yet.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
The biggest criticism with that and bringing in more talent is kind of what you were saying, too, before is that they have to just be able to get more players in because people say, yes, well, Messi's here. David Beckham came. They all came towards the end of their career. So getting bigger stars in. In their prime is the answer to that. Like you were saying, it's just changing the rules.
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Paul Tenorio
I think. I think so. And I think part of it is also this tension in this idea around competitive balance, which is. Is based off of the NFL model, which is not a sur. Because the founding owners of MLS are the Kraft family and the Hunt family, and they are NFL families, and they. And competitive balance has mattered to the NFL, but that's not the only way to do things. You know, the NBA has a lot of fans. Its competitive balance is not the same as the NFL. People still watch the playoffs, you know, and. And so Baseball, the same thing. You know, people like to root against or for the Yankees. And it's okay to have a big team that everyone loves or everyone hates. When the warriors were a dynasty, people were watching.
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Randall Williams
It's the Thunder right now.
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Paul Tenorio
Yeah, or the Thunder. You can root for them, you can root against them, but people are watching. That's what matters. And so, you know, you have to let go of some idea of competitive balance, but it's not mutually exclusive. Just because you're spending more money doesn't mean all of competitive balance goes away. MLS's ownership group 30 owners are some of the richest owners in sports. So, yeah, maybe Salt Lake is not going to compete in the same way as la, but that's true today. That doesn't change because more money is being spent.
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Randall Williams
I would also say sometimes it's better to have a Titan. And whether that be from a storytelling perspective, like you look at the dynasties and the people who knock them off, it often becomes, as you said, some of the biggest stories in sports is like when someone has gone to the finals of the Super Bowl. I mean, my. My comparison would be the Patriots went to the super bowl five times in a row. It felt like. And even. And when they were losing, I was rooting for that. But when, then when they were winning, it was agonizing. And I think when you have that emotional connection, it really, really matters for fans in sports.
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Paul Tenorio
Amen. And that's the argument that some of these owners are making in the board meetings right now, that it is okay to have these sort of powerhouse teams, Bayern Munich in Germany, Manchester United in England. You can go around and look at the, you know, the Yankees, the Dodgers, like these. We talk about these teams in a way because they were those dominant teams. And it. But it is storytelling. Sports is the best reality television we can get. And we like to root for the Giant and against the Giant. And you can, again, you can get people to care. And that's where I think MLS has to understand that going from a local product to a national product is. Yes, I understand the equation of. It's hard to fill seats in the stadium if you don't think your team's going to win. That's true. But it's harder to get people to tune in, to watch if you don't have an interesting story to tell. And every year, the stories change in mls. There's no consistency. There's no team that we see grow together into a dynasty and then fall apart. They're so intent on competitive balance. And the cap is so restrictive that these teams fall apart from year to year, and that's hard to follow for a casual fan. So what kind of story can MLS start to tell from the macro level about its own growth? And then in the micro level, season to season, can they start to have some teams that people learn to root for or root against that start to actually resonate globally or nationally? That's a big part of the future of this league.
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Michael Barr
Paul Tenorio, senior writer for the Athletic and author of the Messy Effect. The book comes out June 2nd. Thank you so much my man, for coming in and talking with us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports.
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Paul Tenorio
We appreciate it. Oh, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
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Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Our thanks to Paul Tenorio, senior writer at the Athletic and author of the Messi Effect.
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Randall Williams
Up next, we are talking about the fastest race on the water CLGP as they bring their boats into New York City this week.
- [28:43]
Michael Barr
That is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Michael Barr with Vanessa Pernomo Baglione and Randall Williams. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
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Paul Tenorio
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- [30:19]
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- [31:22]
Bloomberg Business of Sports Announcer
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
- [31:26]
Michael Barr
Thank you for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr.
- [31:33]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
I'm Vanessa Perdomo Maglion.
- [31:35]
Randall Williams
And I'm Randall Williams.
- [31:36]
Michael Barr
New York City, you've heard of that place? It's the place to be for sports this summer. We know the Knicks are in the finals for the first time since 1999. The World cup is coming in just a few weeks and this weekend coming into the New York harbor is Sail gp.
- [31:55]
Randall Williams
Vanessa, you recently spoke with Sail GP Managing director Andrew Thompson ahead of the race this week.
- [32:01]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
That's right. I spoke to him about how in just six years they've grown their business to now 13 teams, soon to be 14, according to Co founder Sir Russell Coutts and how they're adding new races and what markets they're looking to enter.
- [32:13]
Michael Barr
Let's take a listen to Vanessa's conversation with Sail GP Managing Director Andrew Thompson.
- [32:19]
Interviewer
So this is now, you know, this race has been on the schedule for a little bit now. How is this year going to be different than others?
- [32:25]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, look, it's been great to come back to New York City. You know, coming back here, you know, the city's on fire with sports at the moment. The Knicks are just having what seems to be an awesome season and you know, they'll be in the final soon. So yeah, look, I think we're looking to bring the show back to Governors Island. So, you know, our hospitality facilities are all on Governor's Island. The difference this year is that aspectator facilities are actually on boats. So we've kind of rented a fleet of I believe it's 15 pretty big boats. They can be lining a race course. So that's going to be quite, quite the spectacle on, on, on the, on on the bay out there and in front of the Statue of Liberty. And it's going to be, yeah, a huge spectacle to see all these boats lining, lining the race course. But then also, you know, we, we'll have 12 boats out there racing, but. And this year, this wasn't planned as such, but there's going to be a really strong breeze that's coming through over the weekend. So these boats are going to be absolutely ripping through the harbor approximately 60 miles per hour. So there's going to be a lot of action for the fans to watch right in front of them, right in front of them on the boat. So, yeah, it's going to be quite the spectacle.
- [33:42]
Interviewer
And this is the first year you guys are doing the boats as the grandstands. Right? Tell me about the decision to change that.
- [33:48]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, look, I think our racing is. Our product is stadium racing. It's kind of what we've, what we set out to do with crgp. And what I mean by stadium racing is bringing the racing close to shore so spectators can sit in grandstand or hospitality facilities and see the boats in front of literally kind of five meters away and the whole race unfolds in front of the spectators on the shoreline. And that's something that's never really been done in the sport of sailing before. And so that's, you know, it's a new concept for the sport. What we found last year in Governors island, we built our stadium facilities there. And to be honest, it was quite a logistical challenge to get spectators out to Governors island in the sense of they had to board a boat in Manhattan, the boat got them over to Governors island, then they had to walk through Governor's island to the tip of Governor's island to get to those facilities. And we kind of thought that, we kind of reviewed that and our view was actually people are getting on boats anyway. So, you know, we can actually provide a really good experience for people to observe the race and probably as close as they would be from the shore in any case. And, you know, they'll have the commentary, they'll have the broadcast on those boats, they'll have F and B on those boats. So, yeah, we took a view that actually that's probably a better experience for our fans here. And so, yeah, we took that decision and yeah, we expect the fans are going to have an awesome time.
- [35:18]
Interviewer
I think it's really interesting to be able to pivot that quickly. You know, tell me about how you guys use strategy and how you talk to the fans, how you, you know, how quickly you guys can pivot from things like that.
- [35:28]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, it's definitely something that we've focused on in the last 12 months. As we've matured as a sports property, really we're looking at how we can enter into long term deals with venues so that we have certainty about what's going to happen next year. And our goal is to have venue deals that run five, 10 years so that we can improve year on year. Really what we're looking to do is as soon as the event finishes, we get feedback straight away from fans, whether that's on site, but then fans will fill in online forms and kind of really tell us what they'd like to see improved. We review that as a management team, right the way to senior leadership in the Sir Russell Coutts and all of our management team are really reviewing all that feedback. And then we work with our events team to then come up with the event concept for the next year and really look at those improvements year on year that we can make. And also to make the event more efficient, make it run kind of on a, on a better cost basis for us. That's something that, you know, we want to make sure that we focus on too is how can we be more slick with our operations. So it's kind of internal review, external review, bring the two together. But pretty shortly thereafter we, we put the event concept together and it's kind of a 12 month cycle. So straight away we're into the planning of the event for the next year, we're into procurement of the event for next year. And really what we want to aim to do is actually put tickets on sale on the Sunday night of the event for the next year. So that if you've just been to the event, you can bang, get your early, early pricing for the next year and kind of move on from there. We're not quite at that stage yet, but certainly that's something we're looking to do.
- [37:11]
Interviewer
How different is each city's, you know, race and how often can you replicate, you know, what you have in New York to, to somewhere else? And are you looking to do that even?
- [37:20]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, fundamentally what we're looking to set up onshore is hospitality facilities which are long and thin. And you know, what we've seen in the past in sports or certainly in the sport sailing is, you know, people set up a rectangular hospitality facility and what we were observing was that all of our guests would go right to the shoreline straight away. So what we've done there is just kind of have a lot, much longer, thinner hospitality structures along the shore. And then next to that we have our grandstands which are again quite long and thin, but as we get more popular, they're getting higher and higher. And then also we operate a new product called Aveilla Beach Club, which is a much high energy kind of music, much kind of modeled on the French Riviera and those beach clubs down there and really bringing a fun atmosphere to our racing. So those three products are really kind of what we're looking to achieve at every race. So it's not. The geography isn't always the same. Every location that we go to, sometimes we're on a, I guess a greenfield site right close to shore. Sometimes it's a tarmac solution which is probably better for the set of our facilities. So yeah, fundamentally we have a standard set of products and we have to adapt them from time to time. But as I said before, we're looking to, for our operations to be produced on a much more slick basis so that we're almost standardizing how we produce them and then that allows our cost to decrease and frankly deliver a better product to our fans. So. So, yeah, but at the same time we also have the beauty of say our GP in my view is that we are going to these iconic locations. And so in a way that those differences are almost part of our product. So for example, in Rio de Janeiro, we're right on the shoreline with those products. Then we have Sugarloaf Mountain on one side and Christ the Redeemer statue on the other side. So the beauty of it is almost like a standardized product but in iconic locations that are, that are beautiful in their own way.
- [39:33]
Interviewer
Yeah, and you guys just announced Hong Kong and Rome that are rejoining next year. How do you choose the different, the new cities that they'll be adding on?
- [39:41]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, look, as I said, we're wanting to do longer term deals with all of our venues and, and kind of have definite dates where sales GP will be in a market in a certain period of time so that the fans know that, that there will be a Cell GP event on this weekend year after year. What we're doing at the moment is almost like announcing slots. So we have 13 slots for the 2027 calendar. And then, yeah, they're kind of, they're regionalized as well. So we have Asia Pacific, which is kind of where Hong Kong fits in alongside Perth, Australia. And then we have the Americas just announced San Francisco. We have New York and Halifax and Canada, as well as Rio de Janeiro. And then we announced the slots in Europe, which for 2027 is Germany, UK, Valencia and Spain and Rome and Italy. And then we move on to the Middle East. So we must do it in sections. Yeah, and yeah, it's really. The demand is certainly growing, which is good for us as a business. But yeah, I think over time we will add more slots as we get more efficient in our logistics and we can go to more venues. But yeah, we kind of, as I say, we do it on a regional basis. We work with. There's a lot of, I guess, inbound referrals at the moment in that there's cities who are kind of fighting to host this LGP race. That's great for us. And then we work with the host city really to kind of really figure out what they are looking to deliver now, whether that's kind of eyeballs on the harbor, whether it's, you know, kind of working with local schools and local communities to deliver sailing programs. So we kind of, we, we, we tailor our host venue commercial deals to those requirements and then, yeah, we kind of set the calendar from there.
- [41:30]
Interviewer
When you're looking, you know, in the future, when there's going to be a ton more teams, I mean, you know, Sir Russell had said that, you know, looking to get to 20 or 24 teams in the future, do you then
- [41:40]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
have to look at the venues again
- [41:41]
Interviewer
to see if all of the boats will be able to race together at that time?
- [41:45]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, for sure. It's, it's certainly a logistical challenge and really our technical facilities is quite a challenge because, you know, having in the future 20 teams all requiring the same amount of space is, is significant. And, you know, we're coming to iconic harbors around the world and, you know, you look at New York City here, there's not a lot of space around the harbor. New York, yeah, it's not very developed.
- [42:11]
Genius Operations Announcer
Right.
- [42:12]
Andrew Thompson
So, you know, we've got a great relationship here with the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal and we've, you know, got a great space here and that, that tends to be that type of environment work for us where we'll partner with a cruise ship terminal and there tends to be a lot of space on our harbor there. But yeah, we're looking at ways that we can improve our logistics. We're looking at some right now. We have to, for example, assemble and disassemble the boats in every location we go. So we're looking at how we can work with our partner DP World to provide a more bespoke logistical solution such that the boats can just go onto a ship and be loaded onto a ship without actually disassembling them.
- [42:52]
Paul Tenorio
Right.
- [42:53]
Andrew Thompson
Then we go to the next location and they'll kind of be crane straight off that ship onto the water. So that's certainly something that we're looking at. I think as we look at new markets, we're certainly looking at markets where we can add audience. And you know, kind of as you were saying before, you know, adding a Brazilian team last year was huge for our audience in Brazil. And then we bought a race into Rio.
- [43:14]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
Was it because there was already a
- [43:16]
Interviewer
big racing community there?
- [43:18]
Andrew Thompson
Yeah, I mean kind of we analyze our audience data and look at the growth in the audience. I think Brazil was certainly one of our markets that was higher ranked that didn't have a team. And so that was kind of behind our decision making there. And yeah, I think there's a number of markets out there that have that either have already a reasonable audience or the potential for an audience that we're looking at in the future.
- [43:44]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
That was Andrew Thompson, the managing director of SailGP.
- [43:47]
Michael Barr
And that is it for today. Thank you for joining us. Tune again next week for the latest on the stories moving big money in the world of sports.
- [43:56]
Vanessa Perdomo Maglione
And don't forget to catch our podcast on all your podcast platforms. And go to bloomberg.com to subscribe to the Bloomberg Business of of Sports newsletter to stay up to date on all our juicy insights.
- [44:06]
Michael Barr
And they are juicy too. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports Bloomberg Radio around the world.
- [44:13]
Randall Williams
But stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.
- [44:22]
Bloomberg Business of Sports Announcer
This message is brought to you by the Capital One venture X card. VentureX offers the premium benefits you expect, like a 3, $300 annual Capital One travel credit for less than you expect. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X Card what's in your wallet Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details.
- [44:51]
Adobe Acrobat Announcer
If you follow markets, you know the value of long term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But in life, even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. A fire, a loss, a disruption that demands immediate attention. When that happens, what matters isn't just what you planned. It's who shows up. That's where Cincinnati Insurance comes in. For more than 75 years, they've helped individuals and businesses navigate life's toughest moments with care, expertise and personal attention. Together with independent agents, Cincinnati Insurance focuses on relationships, not transactions. Their approach is grounded in experience, follow through and trust built over time. Bad days happen, and when they do, you deserve an insurance partner who understands risk, respects what you've built and is ready to help you move forward. The Cincinnati insurance companies let them make your bad day better. Find an independent agent@cin fin.com from coast
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