← Bloomberg Business of Sports
Bloomberg Business of Sports
WNBA's New Season Begins; Ted Leonsis on Capital One Arena Renovations
00:38:39
Loading summary
Transcript103 lines
- [00:00]
Michael Barr
The FIFA World Cup 26 is coming to North America. Get closer to where business meets the beautiful game with a hospitality package featuring premium seats and entertainment. Get closer to wins on and off the pitch. Register interest@hospitality dota.com Interest your next product.
- [00:20]
Damian Sassauer
Launch is coming fast.
- [00:22]
John Carter
Don't let billing slow you down. Legacy systems can't handle usage based billing. That means your team is stuck gluing.
- [00:28]
Damian Sassauer
Code together, piecing through spreadsheets and running.
- [00:31]
John Carter
Ad hoc queries just to figure out what to bill. With Metronome, you can roll out new pricing in minutes instead of months, whether.
- [00:38]
Damian Sassauer
It'S usage based, seat based, or a hybrid model.
- [00:41]
John Carter
Visit metronome.com to see how companies like OpenAI and Anthropic launch billing as fast as they launch products. That's metronome.com Hiscock Small Business Insurance Knows.
- [00:52]
Thayer Laviel
There is no business like your business across America, over 600,000 small businesses, from accountants and architects to photographers and yoga instructors, look to Hiscox Insurance for protection. Find flexible coverage that adapts to the needs of your small business with a fast, easy online'@hiscox.com that's his c o x.com there's no business like small business. Hiscox Small Business Insurance.
- [01:22]
Damian Sassauer
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is the business of sports.
- [01:30]
Michael Barr
The business of sports can be intimidating.
- [01:33]
John Carter
Or hard for a starter to break into.
- [01:34]
Damian Sassauer
We really appreciate when our owners are actually there, you know, with us through the journey.
- [01:38]
Ted Leonsis
Teams, ours especially, have been very intentional.
- [01:41]
Thayer Laviel
To diversify at all levels of the company.
- [01:43]
John Carter
I think we're in the golden years.
- [01:44]
Damian Sassauer
For the NFL and college football.
- [01:46]
John Carter
Our demographic reach has continued to expand.
- [01:49]
Thayer Laviel
This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform for sports fans.
- [01:54]
Michael Barr
Sports valuations are rising.
- [01:55]
Ted Leonsis
We'll see when they peak.
- [01:57]
John Carter
You don't have to be the best.
- [01:58]
Jason Kelly
In your sport to make a whole ton of money.
- [02:02]
Damian Sassauer
Bloomberg Business of Sports From Bloomberg Radio.
- [02:08]
Michael Barr
This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. Michael Barr, along with my colleagues Damian Sassauer and Vanessa Bernamo. Coming up, we'll hear from Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted Leoncis. We'll get his thoughts on the growth of women's sports and progress on renovating Capital One arena in the heart of DC.
- [02:28]
Ted Leonsis
We're bringing almost 3 million people a year into our building. We have one of the busiest buildings in the country and we have to make sure that people have kind of wow factor that they feel really, really good about that experience.
- [02:41]
Michael Barr
We'll also learn about NOAA Basketball. It's a data company that uses advanced technology to get real time feedback to players. All that and more is on the way. But first, the new WNBA season is just getting underway and it's starting coming out of one of the most successful years of all time. Here to talk about what's next for the WNBA and the recent rise in popularity of women's sports is Fer Laviel. She is the managing director of the Collective. It's part of sports marketing agency Wasserman and focused on women's sports. Thayer, welcome to the Bloomberg business of sports.
- [03:22]
Thayer Laviel
Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.
- [03:24]
Michael Barr
Well, let's start because we are just now into a very young WNBA season. Hooray. Last year was one whale of a year for the league. How can they build up on this success?
- [03:40]
Thayer Laviel
I think they already are building up on this success. They have a new franchise, the Golden State Valkyries. They have Toronto Tempo coming up shortly behind them next year. And there's a lot of great news coming out of the league. I think they could not have ended on a higher note with the championship that they had. The parade in New York, 28 years in the making.
- [04:00]
Ted Leonsis
The New York Liberty are WNBA champions.
- [04:07]
Thayer Laviel
Ellie the Elephant, always a fan favorite and just so much innovation coming out of the league.
- [04:14]
Vanessa Perdomo
The Collective worked on a study with Deloitte on bridging the gap in investing in women's sports. And it pointed out that 80% of decision makers have increased their investment in women's sports over the past five years. And you know, the collective started in 2019. I'm curious how you've seen, you know, those conversations change over time with brands and sponsorships. Like how much easier was it to sell things for the Golden State Valkyries than say, Angel City was five years ago?
- [04:41]
Thayer Laviel
Well, to be fair, we weren't the ones selling for Golden State Valkyries. But I will say that we've seen a huge influx of brands coming into to women's sports full stop. And the WNBA is certainly proven and the Golden State Valkyries have certainly proven to be an incredible investment for any brands coming in. What we've seen though is what's been interesting is not only that you've had these non endemic brands coming into sports. So for the first time ever, you're seeing, you know, cosmetics and beauty care products coming in, which seems like a natural, but for many years in the past, they've never, you know, entered into the sports space. So this is an exciting time to be in women's sports. It's also a time when women's sports is really galvanizing new methods of marketing, new methods of finding and loving up their fan bases, if you will, on the early stages. And so it's been an exciting moment to witness all of these brands and all of this new investment coming in. There's obviously still lots of room. So for all those brands out there listening, we welcome all of your investment into the, into the leagues, all this.
- [05:49]
Damian Sassauer
New investment, all these new brands. Yet the average WNBA salary for the 2024 season was just $147,745. Your average player makes less than a woman's pickleball player at 260,000 per year. I mean, Thayer, what is up with the disconnect and what is going to change it?
- [06:05]
Thayer Laviel
Well, I mean, it's still a business and I think the NWMBA has, you know, they're in the middle of a collective bargaining year and they have an incredible commissioner who are working hard, along with the team at the WNBA to be able to achieve more for all of the players and the teams and leagues themselves. This has been a long, steady climb for this league and for, you know, the players coming up. I think it's still a business. And I'm not sure. I'm not an expert in the pickleball league or what their salaries are, but I trust in the leadership that we have within the existing sports space to really deliver more and more as this league continues to grow.
- [06:46]
Damian Sassauer
Well, there you're right. It is a business. And so then I have to ask you this question. Why is the Connecticut sun selling at this point? Because the business of, the business of women's basketball seems to be just at the precipice of blowing out, you know what I mean? With the new media deal that's going to get struck in the next year or so, you would hope that there'd be a lot more revenue to go around. I'm just curious, without speaking about the Connecticut Zone specifically, because you're not close to that situation, what is it going to take here? Is it going to be striking new deals with the Amazon Primes and the Apples of the world? Is it going to be something bigger than that? What do you think is going to move the needle here for women's sports and the Women's National Basketball association in specific?
- [07:25]
Thayer Laviel
Well, I would say that the women, the women's sports as a whole has been, you know, has really found its footing over the last five, six years in terms of viewership, attendance, you know, merchandise, sales, sponsorship on the rise. All of that has been positive markers. Media rights have gone up significantly across WNBA and nwsl, which in this country are, as we would call them, the more mature leagues, even though they're far, far behind their male counterparts, which I do think needs to be continued. Continue to be pointed out because it's not necessarily a fair comparison to say, well, you're not necessarily where men should be. There's no comparison that should be made there. You know, the WNBA has, or the NBA has 50 years on the WNBA. So we need to look at the, the leagues in and of themselves and what needs to, to be able to help them grow as bits and parts. It's not one fell swoop is going to come in and one TV deal is going to fix all the things, or one sponsorship deal is going to fix all the things. There are many different ways that women's sports are different than men's sports. And those ways need to be articulated and also need to be invested into. It's everything from innovating around women's health, which, you know, there are owners that are really leaning into that, like Michelle King. It's everything from investing in the fan experience and driving forward on getting people into the building, from like Claire Si and the Liberty to the Valkyries. And there are many other teams, obviously the Aces, et cetera, that are doing that. And then there are ways to look at how to engage in viewership to social media, to pushing forward and advocating for the women as players and as individuals. And women as players and individuals need as much support as their men counterparts, but a little bit differently because they actually can also give birth to humans. And so they need to make sure that they're supported to that end in a different way. And so that all of that leads to a little bit of a different lens on it, but also one that is a great opportunity for brands and, and companies to come in and be in a support mechanism to this, you know, industry in these leagues.
- [09:36]
Michael Barr
I used to be from the old school, from if you were in the owner of a team and someone says, well, when do you make money as an owner? And I used to say, well, when you sell it. But now with private equity, that's kind of changed the whole landscape. How does it affect women's sports today with private equity?
- [09:58]
Thayer Laviel
Well, I mean, that's such a great sign. It's fantastic that private equity is coming into the sport. I think it's a great nod to the fact that women's sports are being seen as really viable businesses that will deliver great returns on investment. So I think That's a positive, you know, but it is a business. And so there are differences, I believe, in investing in a women's sports team than investing in a men's team. Today we did a report last year with RBC that really dove into this, particularly in the NWSL and the WNBA and looked at specifically the types of things that these teams really need, which are, you know, when you're investing in a women's teams, you might need to over rotate as a, as an owner to be looking at this more as a startup in some ways. So how can you lend more of your contacts, how can you lend more of your connections and technology? How can you look at delivering on different facilities or different programs that may not, that may already be accepted within the men's space? But because women's sports is not as far as advanced in some ways that these owners, oftentimes, in these ownership groups, oftentimes can come in and be real partners in growth, which is an exciting.
- [11:12]
Vanessa Perdomo
Opportunity on that same pathway. When we're talking about, you know, ownership and private equity and roi, things like that in the study, you know, there's an argument that brands should use different metrics for evaluating women's sports sponsorship roi. What are those different metrics and why do you think that these properties need to be treated differently than men's properties?
- [11:33]
Thayer Laviel
I think for now, what we're looking at is, and the way that we think about this is, and not going into the details of all of the ways that we at Wasserman will value and look at, you know, property valuations and the different elements that go into it, but you know, it's largely based on impressions and engagement. And what we really feel like is that in the women's game there are other metrics that can be considered which will help up value those teams to be able to give them more of a leg up and provide more backup to charge more for those sponsorship assets. And so that might be looking at things like in the case of the team report that we did with RBC, we looked at 40 different variables that went into what made up revenue. And that was everything from how you look at things across operations, how you look across the market itself, how do you look at things across team performance? And once you're able to go into those 40 different variables, you're able to really analyze those in and of themselves, which then become levers that you can plus up. Obviously we want to make sure that those are defensible, that's defensible math. But that you're able to start to plus those things up and so that these teams can start to build on themselves without having to just rely on viewership numbers or attendance numbers which may not be where where they need to be in order to charge more. So we start to look at how do you actually what are the other assets that you can start to value and how do you do that?
- [12:59]
Damian Sassauer
Thayer, you've worked with, among others, Pepsi, Microsoft, Diageo, American Express, you've seen it all. And you know, putting yourself in their shoes, I mean, you've been in their shoes before, right? What data points do you believe they haven't seen yet that makes the case for women's sports? I mean, it's playing off of what Vanessa asked you earlier. Is there anything that they haven't seen that they're asking you for that can help them make more informed decisions about where to invest along the vertical?
- [13:27]
Thayer Laviel
I think what we see to be unique to women's sports today is the loyalty of of women's sports fans. So we are just breaking news. We're just about to come out with another report and one of the key findings of this reports is around looking at women's sports fandom. And one of these key stats is that 50% of women's sports fans first identify as women's sports fans before a team, before a league, before a player, before and yeah, before any of it. I would say truly that the women's sports fan base is one to not being messed with or undervalue in any way. In fact, I think there's more value put on that.
- [14:07]
Michael Barr
Our thanks to Thayer Laviel for joining us. She's the managing director of the collective with the firm Wasserman. Up next, we turn to a company that's harnessing data to help basketball players improve their shooting. For my colleagues Damien Sassour and Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world. The FIFA World Cup 26 is coming to North America next summer. It's the ultimate celebration of sports and culture and an opportunity to elevate your company. Get closer to where business meets the beautiful game with a premium hospitality package. Build partnerships in the best seats and suites. Achieve goals over world class food and beverage. Get closer to wins on and off the pitch. Register interest@hospitality.FIFA.com Interest Join Bloomberg in Houston or via livestream on November 4th for the Future Finding the Opportunities. This 2025 event series will examine how companies are investing in their businesses to create efficiencies innovating their products and services and improving the customer experience. This series is presented by Invesco key register@bloomberglive.com futureinvestorhouston that's bloomberglive.com futureinvestorHouston this is.
- [15:34]
Damian Sassauer
Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
- [15:38]
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 along with my colleagues Damien Sassour and Vanessa Bernommo. NOAA Basketball is a data service provider that uses machine learning to give real time data and feedback to basketball players. Here to talk to us about the tech and how it could help basketball players improve their shooting is NOAA Basketball CEO John Carter. John, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of sports.
- [16:10]
John Carter
Thank you. Excited to be here.
- [16:12]
Michael Barr
Well, you've got a product out there and it's ahead of its time. When you first introduced it about Noah Basketball. Tell us all about it, please.
- [16:21]
John Carter
Well, that's an understatement. We, you know, we started over 20 years ago and it was, it was an interesting run. I tell people all the time. I'm not sure people cared that much about what we were doing until around 2017, but we, we went around, we did barnstorm gyms basically to sell enough systems to keep the lights on if you want to think about it that way. And the tech got better and there was a generational change in players and coaches. If you go back to 2005 when we sold our first commercial product, you know, there was no cloud, there wasn't, you know, very limited as far as cell phones and smartphones and those type things. And the old school coaches weren't big fans of tech, especially when it comes to shooting. Shooting is they generally don't like to have their players messed with, so to speak, or things like that. But fast forward 20 years and we have 28 NBA customers and most all of your, your major brands in college basketball use our tech now. And thousands of high schools and today's generation of players, they grew up with tech in their pocket and we've made it really easy for them and we have the data to back up what we're doing and, and why it works and how it works.
- [17:43]
Vanessa Perdomo
So explain to us a little bit about how it works, what, what it does for player shots and why they finally were bought into the idea of no basketball.
- [17:52]
John Carter
Yeah, so, so our system basically tracks the basketball and we collect and give feedback on three particular high definition metrics that you can't see with the naked eye. The first thing is trajectory or the arc of the shot, as most people in basketball refer to it. And we. We measure that as the entry angle coming into the rim. We have found, through collecting 700 million basketball shots, that the perfect entry angle is 45 degrees. That's where things. All the physics lines up in your favor. And so if you think about trajectory, that's the, you know, one of the biggest issues we see, especially at the. At the youth and high school level, as players are all over the place on trajectory. And so what our system does when the ball gets to the rim, it'll verbally tell you, it'll say 39, 38, 52, whatever. And so the beauty of that is that players aren't really changing anything with their shot other than the release point of the basketball shot. So just think about their arm angle. They're perfecting the release high, the release angle, and perfecting the. Which allows them to perfect the entry angle, which gets them to line up the physics in their favor. And you absolutely will see more shots drop if you're shooting in the mid-40s. And we have proven this every way possible, and it just absolutely makes a difference. And so the biggest thing I found, whether it's with mba, college, you know, high school, wherever, once they have some success with it, then everybody buys in and. And it starts spreading throughout the team.
- [19:30]
Michael Barr
Damien. I guess Shaquille o' Neal could have used this when he was on the free throw line. It was like a straight arrow going in.
- [19:39]
Damian Sassauer
I'm surprised he didn't say Mitch Robinson, Michael Bartlett. Here's the. Here's the reality. John Carter. You need to take me back to 2011. You need to take me back to LeBron James. You need to take me back to Dwyane Wade. That statue would not be in front of the. Of Miami's arena were it not for you and your, you know, Noah basketball program fixing him on the free throw lines. Talk to us a little bit about how you started, how you got NBA, these NBA players to even find you figure out that you had this product that worked, and then obviously take you forward to today's success.
- [20:13]
John Carter
Yeah, well, obviously you read some of the D. Wade stories way back when from the Heat or you found that somewhere.
- [20:19]
Damian Sassauer
I did. I dug that up, John. I did my homework.
- [20:22]
John Carter
That's impressive, Damien. But, you know, the. The biggest thing was, you know, we didn't, you know, I'm no former NBA player or anything crazy like that. We just did it through hard work, you know, and just building relationships. We build a relationship with this High school coach which introduces us to this college coach and then this college coach introduces us to this NBA assistant coach and, and just work that for a number of years to get in those doors. Those doors don't swing open easily, as you can imagine.
- [20:53]
Damian Sassauer
Yeah, no, and the product, if I'm not mistaken, it's somewhere in the order of, let's say, I don't know, at the low end, 4,000 to what, $6,000. So yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a product, right? I mean, you got to be out there guerrilla marketing and getting in people's faces, getting in coaches faces, players faces. I mean, do you have a staff? How do you do that?
- [21:10]
John Carter
Yeah, so, so to that, you know, back then in the early days, we did not have a staff. It was primarily me. You know, today, you know, we, we have a reasonable sized staff and you know, we have six full time salespeople and, and you know, we, we make our rounds. We, you know, we, we do a lot of marketing that we have, have not done in the past. When we were just focused on college and NBA teams. We didn't do any marketing. It was all personal relationships, you know, feet on the street and reaching out to people, making our way into doors, doing demos and, you know, begging coaches to bring players in so that we could demonstrate the product to the players. And, you know, and it took some time and, you know, several. It was a little bit of a perfect storm. So number one, the tech got better. You know, this, the product, the things that we do today compared to what we did in 2011, totally different. Okay. And that's because sensor tech has gotten better. A lot of that's been driven by driverless cars and robotics and animation or automation and things like that. So that was a big piece of it. Also along the way, as you guys well know, the game has become about shooting threes. The game has become about shooting. And so that, that really helped us in a big way. And then as I mentioned earlier, having the next generation of players that really grew up with tech and believe in tech, all those things together and we look up and suddenly we've got, you know, almost the entire NBA and WNBA for that matter, using our tech.
- [22:40]
Damian Sassauer
I mean, where does it end, John? I mean this technology, can it be used in volleyball? Can abuse in golf? I mean, my golf game needs some work. Michael Barr knows this. I mean, talk to us a little bit about what comes next for you, for the company.
- [22:51]
John Carter
Well, so we're still a basketball only company today. We have done some things in volleyball, and there's certainly some other applications. But our focus right now is on, you know, we've been focused on the MBA and college market the last few years, and we've been waiting for tech to get a little bit better and a little bit cheaper so that we could really go after the high school and middle school market in a significant way. And so. And we. We introduced that product this time last year, last summer, and that product is flying off the shelf. This is a product that you can start with as little as $1,500, you can install it in 30 to 45 minutes, and your high school team is up and running. So it's. That's been a huge breakthrough for us. And again, it was about waiting for the sensor technology to get to a point that we could do the things we wanted to do easier and cheaper. And so we have those. So we're really focused on the high school market right now in a significant way. We are. Also, since this product is so easy to install and has so little bit of a very small support pie, we're now starting to explore international sales.
- [23:55]
Vanessa Perdomo
With your technology, you're basically proving, right, the things that we've heard a bunch of times that sports and basketball is really just math and geometry. Is that right? Like, would you hear a player shooting a ball and be like, oh, I was three degrees off there?
- [24:09]
John Carter
There's so much math going on in an athlete's head, and they don't even know it. You know, for example, when do I accelerate, how do I stop? They do all of those things. There's math going on at all times about taking that risk to try to get that steel. You know, there's. You're exactly right. Math is all around us. And, you know, I'm an engineer, so I love it. But you can scare people away if you go in and lead with, this is all about math. And people say, well, there's the door, because it can be a little bit intimidating to people. And so we've actually spent a lot of time simplifying our message, simplifying our product. You know, we use something called splash in. In a. In a significant way. And so we tell people when they're in the splash zone, something that even NBA players love. We have this. When you get your arc, your depth shot, depth in the basket is a big deal. And then we also measure left, right, consistency, and where a player shoots the ball straight and not. And when they get all those things in a particular zone, we give them a cha ching.
- [25:10]
Thayer Laviel
Nice.
- [25:11]
John Carter
And that seems like such a silly thing. But NBA players love the Cha Ching, college players love the Cha Ching. And so it just lets them know that they had everything in the right spot and it gamifies shooting a bit for them. And, and we've also, another thing that was a, was a big deal is that, you know, we've now added in our latest product where you can have your music playing in your earbuds and getting the Noah feedback all at the same time. And that makes, it makes a difference as well.
- [25:36]
Damian Sassauer
Well, John, you know, I, I find it so interesting that you mentioned that start. Stop that suddenn measuring that has become the new thing, I think in sports. If you're reading the same stuff I'm reading, right? I mean it used to be can you run the fastest 40, can you bench press 200 times? I don't know. But now it's measuring a lot of these characteristics that you could never measure before, right until the technology was there. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts. What comes next in sports measurement and athlete measurement? What are you hearing out there?
- [26:07]
Michael Barr
Sure.
- [26:07]
John Carter
Well, let me tell you what we're doing now, which is exactly going down the path you're mentioning here. So we're a shooting company. We focus on shooting. We don't focus on defense and all the other things. We, we focus on making more shots and winning more games is kind of our slogan. But something just like you've seen, you've all seen this with golf or baseball where they're doing motion capture analysis to understand all the body joint angles and, and understanding that fully, that's an easy thing to do. In baseball, as an example, you get a bunch of cameras pointed at the mound, you get a bunch of cameras pointed at home plate. And you analyze this data, you find all these things out and you find things that are good or bad. In basketball, other than the free throw, there's no two shots that are the same. And so we have now built a fully automated motion capture system so that we can look at all the joint angles, all the inverse kinematics, all all the velocities, everything throughout the shot motion. And we can collect that data in, in practice gyms. We already have this installed at two MBA facilities and we'll install probably another eight or 10 this year. And so we will start understanding. And everybody wants to know what's the perfect shot. We know the physics of the perfect shot now with great certainty. But I, even though I feel like I'm a pretty good shooting guy, none of us really know the things from a body mechanic standpoint that will kill your shot or the things that if you do this, this and this, you've got a much greater chance of success. You talk about golf, you know, there's some of that type tech that's already out there where you can, you know, turn your phone or whatever, and it will. And you can use AI to determine what you need to change from a golf swing standpoint. And we're going down a similar path from a basketball standpoint. And because of our tracking engine and all that, we can automate it where other companies can.
- [27:59]
Michael Barr
Our thanks to NOAA Basketball CEO John Carter for joining us today. Up next, we hear from Monumental Sports CEO Ted Leoncis. For my colleagues Damien Sassour and Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Around the world.
- [28:22]
John Carter
There are two kinds of people in the world, people who think about climate.
- [28:25]
Thayer Laviel
Change and people who are doing something about it. On the Zero podcast, we talk to.
- [28:30]
John Carter
Both kinds of people, people you've heard.
- [28:32]
Damian Sassauer
Of, like Bill Gates.
- [28:34]
John Carter
I'm looking at what the world has to do to get to zero, not using climate as a moral crusade.
- [28:40]
Thayer Laviel
And the creative minds you haven't heard of yet. It is serious stuff, but never doom and gloom. I am Akshat Ratty. Listen to Zero every Thursday from Bloomberg Podcasts on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else.
- [28:51]
John Carter
You get your podcasts.
- [28:54]
Damian Sassauer
This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio.
- [28:59]
Michael Barr
Thanks for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports Week. Explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr. Recently Bloomberg original chief correspondent Jason Kelly and our own Vanessa Perdomo had an opportunity to catch up with Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO and Washington Capital and Wizards owner Ted Leontes. They covered a variety of topics, including progress on renovating Capital One arena in D.C. let's take a listen to that conversation, starting with his thoughts on the growth of women's sports as the WNBA season gets underway.
- [29:33]
Jason Kelly
All right, Ted Leonce, it's great to have you here with us at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. So much going on across the sports world. But we're talking to you on the eve of the WNBA season starting the Washington Mystics getting back after it. So much has happened in the world of women's sports and women's basketball. How do you approach this season and what's the vibe going in?
- [29:54]
Ted Leonsis
I think we started a real movement last year. It's incumbent on everyone, every part of the ecosystem, WNBA to keep that momentum going. You should never Ever take for granted that you'll have this kind of growth in this moment. And I think everyone is very focused on being in alignment and keeping it, the momentum happening.
- [30:17]
Vanessa Perdomo
Ted, you've been an owner in the WNBA for 20 years. You know, when you bought the team back in 2005 and it was separate from the Wizards deal, you obviously saw something then. Did you see what the potential was for as we see it right now, or what was the potential you saw?
- [30:31]
Ted Leonsis
Yeah, I was always disappointed and surprised that women's sports wasn't the growth engine. Growing up on the Internet, seeing the demography of who was getting online, where the purchasing was made, there's more women than men. I have a son and a daughter. I participate equally in both of their academics and sports. And it just seemed that it made sense that women's sports would be growth. And it also seemed to be the right thing to do as well, for equality and for just driving more value. But then you look back and you go, thank God for title IX. Thank God. It wasn't until the 70s we went to Georgetown. Georgetown didn't have women graduates until the 70s. So, you know, we have to step on the gas and take advantage of this. This moment in time. I also think Title IX and the athleticism of the women, that was something that I always felt was underplayed. The game was played fundamentally, very soundly, but below the rim. Now, these women, they're great athletes, right?
- [31:50]
Michael Barr
Yeah.
- [31:51]
Ted Leonsis
And so we're finally starting to see the media reporting on the game like it's professional sports, not like it's a charitable effort doing the right thing in the right way.
- [32:02]
Jason Kelly
Right. You mentioned value. You paid around $5.5 million.
- [32:06]
Ted Leonsis
I paid $10 million.
- [32:07]
Jason Kelly
$10 million. Okay, so $10 million. $10 million.
- [32:10]
Ted Leonsis
20 years ago.
- [32:11]
Jason Kelly
Okay, 20 years ago. And now we're talking about. Some of the news this week is that the Connecticut sun are going up for sale, either minority stake or maybe a majority. The numbers being kicked around there, $200 to $250 million. Does that feel right to you from a valuation perspective? How do you see valuations going from here?
- [32:32]
Ted Leonsis
Well, I look at. We have Monumental Basketball. So you have the Wizards, we have a G League team, the Go Go. We have an NBA 2K team. But monumental Basketball, where the Mystics are located, they're sharing facilities, they're sharing some of the real estate. And basketball teams in big markets are 10 to 12 times revenue. So I look at it. So that's the impetus to grow revenues that also be good for the league, that'd be good for the players. So if we can be a growth company, 30 to 40% kind of growth per year. Yeah, really, really important. We've gotten better media deals, ticket prices are going up. Once you sell out and then you have a playoff team, your renewals increase. So it's going to follow the same kind of pattern that the NBA, the NHL has done as great indoor sports. And my bet is that, you know, these teams can get to 20, $25 million in revenue on average.
- [33:38]
John Carter
Right.
- [33:38]
Ted Leonsis
And so if you have a 10 times multiple on it, that's how you get to a quarter billion dollars.
- [33:43]
Vanessa Perdomo
You know, you talked a lot bear about growth and then facilities and things like that. And now a few mystic games a year being played in bigger arenas. Last year we saw a few games played at Capital One and because of the renovations they'll be played at different arenas this year. But because of the growth of everything you're seeing home record home games are sold out. Right. But the Care First arena is only 4,000 person capacity and that deals until 2037. So how do you grow revenue and grow business when you're, when you're stuck in that arena?
- [34:10]
Ted Leonsis
Well, short term there's nothing I can do about it. And we right sized those buildings for what the reality of the attendance was. We were playing in a 20,000 seat building and selling 1500 to 2000 seats. And when you're in a big city and you're a union shop, I mean that's what happened with msg, why they had to move. It's very expensive to run the building and open it up and then you lose revenues when you don't have the dates and you can have a Bruce Springsteen concert, let's say. So our goal was always, let's try to have a 5,000 seat ish arena for Monday night games against maybe an opponent that doesn't have the kind of rivalry experience. And then use the big building for playoff games, camp days, big games. And that's still the plan. Eventually though, I can see us. We'll figure out a way to put some other programming in CARE first and when we can sell out all of the games in the big building, they would deserve to be in there. And you know, that's one of the benefits I think of our strategy of owning the venues, owning the networks. We were the really the first WNBA team to have a practice facility and an arena. We use the wizard chefs, we use nutritionalists, we have the same platform. We want to build platform. And the women really appreciated being Treated the same way as an NBA player was separate facilities really, really mattered to them. And I think, you know, they'll excel in care first, but it's our aspiration to have 20,000 sellouts for the women and for the men on an ongoing basis.
- [36:02]
Jason Kelly
All right, let's talk about the arena, because this is one of the big projects going on across the country. Although now down in Washington, you're a little overshadowed by your friend Josh Harris coming in and building this new stadium. But the arena, it was a monumental pun intended deal with Mayor Muriel Bowser. You stay at Capital One. $800 million, I believe, between the two of you going into this. What's the status there? What's the timeline? Has anything changed in that regard?
- [36:32]
Ted Leonsis
No, we're kind of ahead of schedule. We broke ground. There's a ton of work that's going on right now. The Caps are in the playoffs. As soon as the playoffs would end for us, hopefully in a month or so, we basically will have a thousand people on site doing an incredible amount of work. If you came by, the Wizards locker room doesn't exist right now. It's been destroyed and it'll be redone for the next season. The amount of suites that are being built, the new kitchens, the new bathrooms, I mean, it's going. And that was our intent. It's going to take three off seasons basically to, you know, we have to rebuild the plane while it's flying. And we're working with Clark Construction, Gensler. They're really doing a fantastic job and we're a little bit ahead of schedule.
- [37:25]
Vanessa Perdomo
Why is it so important in this day and age to upgrade, you know, the arena? Obviously, we're seeing a lot of people doing that, obviously private equity coming in for NFL teams to create new stadiums. But if you're, you have your stadium, it's operating 300 plus events a year. Why does it need to be upgraded and so fancy?
- [37:45]
Ted Leonsis
It's not fancy. It's. It's the functionality. To start, we need better kitchens. We need better training facilities for the athletes. And I think I kind of stack ranked them. We need our players, our coaches, our staff to have the latest, the greatest, the best. And when you're constrained by the amount of real estate, we're going from 900,000ft to 1,600,000ft. We're adding a ton of space, and it was unique for us because we were landlocked, if you will. We couldn't go up at all because of the height limitations in DC And I couldn't go down because the Metro was there. And I hate to say we got lucky that the mall next door went out of business and someone bought it and we were able to do a big lease deal with them. And that's given us the elbow room to innovate, to add value for the players and the coaches. And then as we move up the second year and the third year for the fans and that's better sight lines, that's more dining capability. That's a reimagination, if you will, on how people get into the building, get out of the building, more look of the interactivity, on why does the building have to be dark 18 hours a day? That's always blown my mind on these facilities. We put a cage to lock people out of the building when these are such iconic and important buildings for businesses, for fans, for tourists. And so we want the opportunity in a way to reimagine a front door, if you will, for downtown and to make this a portal. We're bringing almost 3 million people a year into our building. We have one of the busiest buildings in the country. And we have to make sure that people have kind of wow factor, that they feel really, really good about that experience.
- [39:48]
Jason Kelly
So as we wrap up, you know, one piece of your portfolio that I know you would love to add, and you've talked about it a number of times, is a baseball team. Is that still in your mind? And how likely do you think that is?
- [39:59]
Ted Leonsis
You know, ESPN yesterday announced its new streaming service and it's surprisingly called ESPN. And it's $29 a month and they have 46,000 hours of live programming a year. And the reason for that is you want to get scale. You want to get as many subscribers as you can. It's expensive to get a subscriber. You don't want them churning off what all of us who are struggling with the local media landscape. That's why we bought our rsn. We wanted to control the destiny. Just like we want to own the building, you want to control the scheduling destiny. If you only have winter sports, you only have one team and you get someone to subscribe. Well, when the season ends, they're going to cancel, right? And now you have the great expense of having to get them again.
- [40:52]
Jason Kelly
You're a longtime long term investor and we like that about you. Thanks for joining us.
- [40:55]
Ted Leonsis
Thank you.
- [40:55]
Michael Barr
That's Monumental Sports and Entertainment CEO Ted Leoncis speaking with Bloomberg Originals, chief correspondent and host of the Deal with Alex Rodriguez, Jason Kelly, along with our own Vanessa Perdomo. And that does it for this edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Thanks for joining us. Tune in again next week for the latest on the stories moving big old money in the world of sports. You are listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.
- [41:31]
John Carter
This is Tom Keene inviting you to join me for the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. It's about making you smarter. Each and every business day. We bring you a recap of what happened to overnight in Europe and Asia. The day's economic data and complete coverage of the US Market open. We cover stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, even crypto, all the information you need to excel. Bloomberg Surveillance also brings you the analysis behind the headlines. We do that with lengthy conversations with our expert guests, the smartest names in economics, finance, investment and international relationship. We do all this live each and every weekday, then bring you the best analysis in our daily podcast search for Bloomberg surveillance on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen on the east coast, listen at lunch and on the west coast when you wake up. That's the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast with me, Tom Keene, along with Paul Sweeney and Lisa Mateo. Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts.