Alex Rodriguez Talks MLB's Collective Bargaining Deal & Sports Investing

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Carol Masser, Tim Stedevick. Life here at Bloomberg invest in downtown New York City. So happening just a while ago right here at Bloomberg invest a live taping of the hit podcast The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and BLOOMBERGS Jason Kelly. They were sitting down with Alex Waxman, the CEO of Sixth Street. Alex Rodriguez, as you know, of course, chairman and CEO of A Rod Corp. He's also co owner of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA's Minnesota Links,

I'm doing great, good to be here. Good to see you guys, Well, good to see you.

Tell us a little bit about Alex Saxman and the taping for The Deal.

Incredible story.

I mean, his background, and he spent ten years at gold Masax and he basically ran a thirty billion dollar fund in which they can invest in any asset class, which really gave him a competitive advantage. He's now brought that over when he co founded sixth Street two thousand and nine. They have over one hundred million dollars in AUM and he's really deep in sports. He's done investments

So I'm curious about the opportunities that he sees right now. And you know, obviously he's taking advantage of the new rules about being able to buy into different leagues, which is a whole conversation that we could have. But what really excites him when he looks forward, I.

Think a few things. I think markets, depending on what team, what leagues, what league, the leadership of the three leagues. Fortunately for us we have you know, Adam Silver, Roger goodowin football, and Rob Manford all very established, very top tier commissioners.

So all that's good for him.

And I think when you look at the NFL, the combination of appreciation in cash flow is something that's very very unique in sports.

You don't have usually both of those.

So aggressively, so I think he's really concerned and not concerned.

I would say this baseball is an interesting situation.

I think baseball is the best opportunity to invest today. I'm a concern by nature, So I would invest right into the teeth of this collective bargain agreement. Why Because I think you can buy at very, very attractive multiples

So will there be a labor stoppage after this season?

I hope not.

I don't know, but I've talked to members of both sides of the aisle and they have said meaning owners and players, and they're both dug in pretty pretty strong, so is what you're saying.

So I don't know.

Would that change your view on investing in baseball.

No, I would invest in even heavilier into it because as you have more noise, as we've seen in the public markets in the last couple of days. You have volatility where you have apprehension, I think you have opportunity.

And the multiples.

If you could buy a baseball team in four or five multiple versus other sports that are trading in mid teens, I think that's an opportunity.

Would the players ever agree to a salary cap? You think?

I don't think so. I don't think so.

But I think I don't want to comment into that because I have friends on both sides. But here's what I would say. It should be a mentality about grow the pie as big as possible. How you guys divide it. That's a separate conversation. Yeah, but you know, going back to Marvin Miller when he started the union for Major League Baseball, which has always been very, very strong and highly regarded and the owners, there's been a lot of

Why does it seem like baseball has the most issues with labor.

I think it has a lot of Oh yeah, yeah, I mean the history is very strong. Marvin Miller was the head of the union, he started it. Then that went to Don Fear for many years is a great, great leader, and then Michael Wiener Tony Clark and now they have a different situation right now. But it's been that way tim since I was involved. I remember every time CBA came it was it was a battle and

So do you think about do you think about the collective bargaining differently now that you're an owner of a of a sports team.

That's a great question.

I think think overall, like ninety percent of my thoughts is still the same as you want the sport to be healthy, you wanted to grow, you wanted to collect more fan base, and you want millions of people watching every day because it is a great sport.

And the World Series this year showed us that when.

You have the right product, you have the right market, you have the right superstars in Vladimir Garrero Junior and Shohei o Tani, that you had fifty three million people watching when you include the US, Canada, and Japan, which to baseball still works.

Yeah. And when there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of opportunity.

So when you know you talked about, you're right, sports is vying for all of our attention with so many other things. So when you think about investing, how do you think about like, how does that play into where you want to commit some money?

Well, you want to mote right, think about this. Take the NBA. If you're a real estate investor and there's only thirty beach front properties in the entire world, yeah, boy, you would look do anything to own one of those.

So scarcity is a big deal.

When you look at the TV deal that just was signed eleven years, when the first year of eleven years for seventy seven billion, that's something that is easy to underwrite, easy to understand. So you like to invest into that, you know. And then when you think about the global growth in the NBA, you know, twenty years ago there's probably less than three percent of the league was global athletes, meaning born outside of the US.

Today that numbers ballooned to thirty five percent. Right when you look at Europe.

Second most popular sport in Europe the NBA basketball and is a forty five billion annual business and we only own one percent of that. At the same time, you have four hundred million people playing basketball in China.

Yeah, three hundred million playing in India.

So the global scope, you can say from the American sports NBA could be number one.

That's pretty impressive.

We always love it. When we get to uh, let's talk to you a little bit, they're.

Gonna yell up.

Yeah, we've got to go.

I'm gonna go thirty seconds. What's on your night table? What are you reading? Oh?

You know what I do is I love podcasts, So you do?

What do you listening?

I love The Founders is one of my favorite.

And uh, what's the one that I'm the one that's like three and a half hours I'm acquired. Acquired is fantastic. I love those guys. Three four hours, I love it.

And how many hours are you watching Bloomberg?

I watched it a lot, Okay, and you guys do a great work.

But thank you you as well. Alex Rodriguez, chairman and CEO of A Rod Corp. And so much more, And of course check out the deal with Alex and of course Jason Kelly can find it on Bloomberg Originals