I'm Emily Chang and this is the circuit.
Oh all, no needs to run. Your fates have already been sealed.
I'm about to meet the inspiration for this character in HBO's hit series Entourage.
Yes, Sie, I'll be bed, I've been great, I'm back, and you're fired.
I know you've said you never paintball of the office, but what was the closest thing.
I know you're not going to believe this, but I really didn't watch a lot of them, only because it gave me such anxiety. I was trying to build a business. We were the smallest player. When people didn't play fairly with us in the sandbox. I didn't put up with that that much, even though we weren't the biggest player. So I was aggressive, That's all I'll say.
Super Agent and Endeavor CEO Ari Emmanuel is one of Hollywood's biggest powerbrokers and has built a reputation for saying what he thinks and getting what he wants.
Over the past four decades, the.
Straight talking deal maker has built a multi billion dollar empire with its tentacles in every corner of the entertainment industry, including fashion, TV, live events, sports, and the arts.
Full disclosure.
I've been a client of Endeavors for fifteen years. This unique business model has placed Endeavor at all sides of the negotiating table, re envisioning what it means to be a leading player in the entertainment industry.
I always thought that live sports and television, that there was going to be more distribution, and content was going to be more valuable, and brands were going to become more valuable. It's proven to be true.
Emmanuel's career is a series of big, risky bets on the future of content and distribution, and more recently, he made what may be the biggest bet yet. In twenty twenty three, he snapped up WWE and merged it with the UFC to form a combat sports juggernaut. Tko I talked to the media mogul about his gamble on fight entertainment, the shifting landscape of TV in Hollywood, and what's next
for his company as it prepares to go private. Joining me on this edition of the Circuit, endevor CEO Ari, Emmanuel.
Ari, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you.
Nice to be here.
We started off in the Mailroom, which is a write of passage for talent agents? Was the goal always media mogul or did it surprise you?
Well, I actually was talking to one of my sons about this. I was making fifteen cents a mile in the mailroom, and before I got out to Los Angeles, I was living in New York working for a gentlem with my name of Robbie Lance. And you'd read about people out in LA and whether it be Mike Ovitz
or David Geffen, and I was always intrigued. Came out, went into the mailroom CIA and learned the business, and I just loved it, even though it was difficult, and so I didn't really think about where it was going. I just went and just kept them going straight and kept then doing what I do, whatever that is, and it just things happened, and so I have a lot more plans now, but back then it was just like I want to be my own boss. I want to
do this thing. And one thing led to another. There's a famous line that David Geffen says, just get in traffic and get hit. So that's what happened.
When you look back on your upbringing, and I know you have so many crazy stories about growing up, so many fun stories. Is there like one secret thing? What is the thing that made you you?
My parents gave me a great upbringing. They enabled us to make mistakes, they enabled us to be curious, They didn't program us all day long, and then as you went out, you kind of then picked up your own skills and built on the foundation that they gave you. So I don't think that there's one thing. But you have to work hard, you have to be curious, you have to have endurance, emotional endurance, and those are just things that take time. Hopefully I'm doing it with my kids.
But curiosity and those things I said are kind of the secret sauces that if you talk to people and everybody puts their own little spin on it, are required for somebody to be successful.
So over the years, you've represented the biggest names Oprah, Scorsese, Charlie's, the Rock Trump. I'm a client as well. How did repping these big name clients day in and day out prepare you for the sort of high stakes game of running endeavor?
I will say the representation business gives you great skills about how to talk to people, understanding the nuances underneath certain things that are going on. And I think that's Hollywood. And then when you start raising money in the private sector, then when you go public, you're just using those skill sets that you learned in those original stages for those stages. So I learned over time. I was not perfect at the beginning, but you know, I'm pretty candid with people.
I'm not a wallflower. I just kind of act the way I want to act. I think I'm a pretty honest guy. I'm pretty upfront guy. Sometimes that steers people, they get a little ruffled, but that's kind of how I operated the business, and that's how I've operated both businesses. And when you're trying to build a business, you have to be pretty intense. When you're trying to break things up and kind of create new businesses, you have to be pretty forceful and not get deterred if you have
a vision for it. You know, those are things that you need to do when you're putting projects together for clients or trying to sign a client. And so I just use those skill sets that I had as an agent and move them over. Difference from when you're a television agent because you have to put things together to being a talent agent or a director's agent because then the projects are coming to you most of the time, and you're kind of choosing as opposed to putting projects together.
You're a power broker now in sports and entertainment and media and art. How do you decide when to up the annie go all in versus let the chips fall.
Well, here's the perfect example. We had just bought the UFC. I think our investors were nervous about what we were spending on this building. The first day I walked around, they took me to the far end of this building and I saw a building across the way. Now we were figuring out where we're going to put bathrooms here? Can we cut back, where can we save money? And I said to everybody, well, we have to buy that building.
And I think everybody freaked out. And I said, I want to put the second camp there, as we have the first camp here. I don't want Dana traveling all over the place for the Contender series and the Ultimate Fighter. I wanted house in one place. That took about a year of negotiation and everybody trying to convince me not to do it, and thank god we did it because it saved us during COVID. Now did it completely pencil out. No,
but did it not? It was right on the edge. Yeah, people thought I was crazy and so, but we did it.
You're the inspiration for Ari Gold. I was a super agent and entourage. I know you've said you never paintballed the office, But what was the closest thing.
I know you're not going to believe this, but I really didn't watch a lot of them, only because it gave me such anxiety. But I was back then really crazy, So I think the whole thing of me being a little crazy, I didn't make a call during any marriage counseling. I saw that episode.
You didn't slap anyone across the.
Fame, No, I didn't do that. So I didn't watch a lot of it to tell you exactly, Oh, that one was real. I mean they did ask me certain stories at the beginning of seasons, and I told them how they ended up. I don't know.
Yeah, Well, what's one crazy thing you did that you'd be willing to.
Share in my real life?
In your real life, I want the real Ari.
You're going to have to ask other people for that, because I actually don't remember. I was crazy. I was, you know, I was. I was trying to build a business. Back then, there was ICM, there's really Morris or Cia, there was Uta, and there was us. We were the smallest player. You didn't fight over price, and so I didn't let a lot of things when people didn't play fairly with us in the sandbox. I didn't put up with that that much, even though we weren't the biggest player.
So other people can probably say things that I was. I mean, I was aggressive, that's all I'll say.
You started the agency above a burger joint with a few colleagues in Beverly Hill, and you went on to just build and build and build this empire by dozens and dozens of properties. Now, as part of this go private deal, you have to sell some stuff. So give us a sense of the strategizing that's happening, because you are always playing a long game. What will Endeavor be when this is all said and done.
All the businesses, whether it be TKO, whether it be Endeavor, and all the assets and are great businesses. What remains doesn't remain will play itself out over the next couple of years. I guess I don't really know the timeframe, and so whatever is left I'm going to be around for whatever doesn't, I'll probably be really sad.
Why didn't Endeavor work as a public company.
There's no straight line to success that doesn't happen, and in every situation you're always learning something. The one thing I did learn at the beginning of Endeavor, Wall Street wants a clean, easy story conversation. I don't think they understood, and I didn't do a good job of explaining the story of what Endeavor was, as how it touched all aspects of entertainment, and so TKO is now really clean story. There's sports entertainment, and now Endeavor will be what it's going to be.
When you bought the UFC, people said you were crazy. Right, the value has since tripled. Right, What do you say to those people now?
Oh, I don't really care what those people say. I really don't. I always thought that sports and television, that there was going to be more distribution and content was going to be more valuable, and brands were going to become more valuable. It's proven to be true. There was a lot of tough times because when we had to make our new deal, Fox sold themselves to Disney. They were not open for a while at and t he
was trying to buy Warner Brothers. That got held up and we were stuck, and so there was nine months of like really emotionally physical tough times like yeah, but then you know, it kind of came to fruition that we the deal we did with ESPN and they've been incredible, and so I feel really good about where we are now. I feel really good about where we are with the WWE and that situation and what's happened there and where that whole TKO is going. I try to teach my
kids this. I tried to teach the employees that it's about not how many punches you can throw, It's about how many punches you can take, and it's about you know, even though you love something, it's tough, and endurance is an important quality for anybody now running a public company, starting a business. And so I've built my endurance up.
You've brought the UFCNWW together now in this massive twenty one billion dollar deal. What's the vision and how does it all fit together? With a talent agency.
So TKO is live Sports, the whole league fifty two weeks a year, pure play, the representation business at EDR is all the other assets that had already existed before we pulled the UFC out, and that is the representation business.
So they don't necessarily need to work together.
No, they do. There's things that we do do, but that does what it does and TKO does what it does, and so it's clean and so easier for the street to understand it on the TCO side. And so that's kind of the two businesses.
So on the TKO side, you're kind of running fight club. How do you feel about that.
I don't think it's a fight club. I remember watching the WWE when I was WWF actually when I was young. Paul's done an amazing job at the WWE with Rossmackdown, Ples and xt And UFC is a sport that Dana created over thirty years ago, didn't exist his vision. It's now a global sport. You don't really have to explain the rules of the UFC to anybody in the world. And we'll grow more sports out of the UFC, more
sports like what. I don't know, you know, I don't know the sports that are out there right now that we would do. These two are occupying a lot of time. But if you could create the UFC, I'm assuming there's other things that we can create and kind of get into. There's nothing on the horizon right now. This is enough for us to do right now. If we do what we do, and I think we're executing really really well.
Settled a massive anti trust deal brought by UFC fighters, you're on the hook for three hundred and fifty million dollars in settlements. UFC fighters, I believe, get like twenty percent of league revenue, and for the NFL and the NBA baseball it's more like fifty percent. Good things change.
Here's what I would say to you is, you know, if you look at our how much we've increased at fighter pay plus all the services we provide with whether you're here at the PI, at the performance institute, healthcare, food, et cetera. We're not like team sports, so we are individual sports. I mean individual fighters. There's no team sports like the NBA or baseball, So there's a difference if you comp us to those sports or on power or above.
Some of these guys don't have the best reputations. There have been some serious allegations. There's this element that outsiders see of a sort of hyper masculine culture. Do you want to evolve any of this.
There's always been a fight game. Every sport has had difficulty with their athletes. Nobody's perfect. There's some athletes that are great. In team sports, we have incredible fighters. If you want to go through every sport and every fighter or every football player or every basketball and things that have gone wrong, that's not what I do for a living. I think all in all, our fighters are really good. People have families, want to feed them. This is support they chosen.
Dana White Heat of UFC, Vince McMahon form our CEO of WWE. How do you approach working with such colorful and controversial characters.
Well, the good thing is I had a long relationship with both guys on the representation side, and when you have guys that are visionaries and take whatever comes through on the cases. With Vince McMahon, who's no longer at the company, they understand kind of the heartbeat. And now Paul Triple H is running that he's been a superstar. He understands the stories. He's created incredible storylines for us.
You guys have to give them everything they need to do what they need to do, and then do all the business stuff around them and make sure that they're supported as much as they need to be supported. And if you do that, you get greatness. The skills I've learned maybe at the talent agency side have helped, but now we're partners. And so that's how I look at it. You just have to let the talent and they get those guys are talent, do what they do, and support them with all the things that they need.
President Trump made his first public appearance at a UFC match. This was after being convicted, and he shows up at UFC matches quite often. Is the UFC now part of the culture war?
Here's what I say to you. He was the first person to help the UFC way back in the day with Dana. He is the first person to enable them to put on a match. And Dana said this, and he stayed the whole time. And the one thing and the great thing about is he's a very loyal friend. He's been loyal to me. I've been loyal to him. He's been loyal to the President. The President has been loyal to him. And again, Dane is the head of
the UFC. He gets to make those decisions. I think Dane is just a loyal friend that this guy enabled this sport to start. So there you go.
You signed a multi year, multi billion dollar deal with Netflix to stream WWW. How big is the Netflix lift going to be for wrestling and how big will live events be for Netflix?
You can see that Netflix wants to be in the live sports business in live period. They've done it with stand ups, etc. Ros. They now have two NFL games, they have US, so live I think is a crucial play for them and where they want to go with
advertising in their AVOD service. And for us, you're with the biggest streamer in the world over the last twenty four years that I've been in involved with the WWE, when it was on Spike and we moved to USA and then we moved back to Spike and the fans follow, So they'll follow, I think, to Netflix and that will
be great for Netflix. There's a huge chunk of the audience that are ww fans that are not right now based on our research, Netflix subscribers, and if they capture a portion of those, it's a huge win for them and a huge win for US.
Big tech is coming for sports. I mean it's not just Netflix but Amazon and YouTube. Do you see a permanent shiftier in sports rights from cable and traditional networks to streams.
Well, I think you're going to have a mix. So the NFL made a ten year deal the ability to cut back after seven. I think you'll see with the new NBA deal, you'll see a linear play plus a streaming play, and if it ends up at Comcast Warner Brothers or Disney or Comcast Disney and Amazon, there's going to be a mix that all of us that are in live sports do.
The UFC's deal with ESPN is coming up. You were pictured cage side with Netflix co CEO Ted Sarandos. Is it coming to Netflix?
No? No, I mean listen. ESPN has been an incredible partner. First quarter. We'll see of next year, that's when we first when we can start. We would love to be back at ESPN. They have been incredible to us. Bob Iger has been incredible, Jimmy's been incredible. So we'll start then and move forward from there.
What about a splintered broadcast deal like the NFL's on multiple platforms. Could that work?
The difference is they have games on Thursdays, Sundays, Monday night. We have a Saturday night viewing habit, so it's a one night affair. I don't think a breakup probably is in the cards. It will be with one place my sense of it. Could you see see it possibly with the pay per views? I don't, but I don't. I mean, I don't know the end result yet.
You rep. Tyler Perry, who put an eight hundred million dollar expansion of his studio on hold because of AI. Just how dramatically is AI going to reshape entertainment and will there still be superstars?
So I think he put a pause on it just to see where the world's going. He's got an unbelievable studio. I don't think right now. If you look at AI actually the physical energy required to make movies and TV shows at the length quality you need, you're going to need a lot of power. Is that two years away, three years away, five years away. I don't know, but it's coming, and I think it's There's going to be some dislocation there with people and services, whether it be
custom designers, makeup, artics, et cetera. Remember AI is ones and zeros. You're still going to need creative people. You're still going to need act There's going to be dislocation, but people that create IP I think you're still going to need and so as things progress, that will happen. As relates to breaking new stars, one of the most important things I think for that is the movie business. And I do think the movie business is coming back.
I was going to ask and movie is going to stick around.
I mean, if you think about the world and you just said AI and COVID happened, and we're kind of now at four day work weeks. So the weekend starts Thursday night. If you talk to Blackstone or other people, offices are not as filled on Fridays. So if the weekend starts Thursday, that means there's a third more revenue that people have to do something Thursday night. Some people stay home, but some people will go out. And so one of the things activities I think they're going to
do is go to the movies. And you see a bunch of movies now starting to work in the summer. So I think the movie business canna be fine. There's gonna be a lot of other things that have to happen in the world, and so that's my sense of how ai is can affect stuff that then in a positive way, it is going to affect our business in the entertainment world.
There's strong anxiety and discontent in Hollywood that people aren't spending like they used to. Is this seasonal or is this the end of something?
Well, I don't really feel that if you just step back, you're in a little bit of a dislocation with the traditional guys that have moved into streaming. So, as we talked about, you have the linear business, whether it be cable or broadcast, really going down. They're having to transition
to streaming. You have the three streaming guys continuing to do what they do, the four players in the streaming wars on the traditional guys that have moved into Warner Ours, Comcast, Disney, and now Paramount have got to make the adjustment that takes time. They're getting beaten up because they're making the adjustment. If they would stay where they were over the long term, that would be a problem for them. And so over time this is all going to work itself out. You're
probably in to two year kind of down period. But they also realize that if they don't have new content, whether it be sports on their ab outside or movies and television nonscripted, that they're not going to build their services that they need for the future.
More and more celebrities are launching their own businesses and doing side hustles, more endorsements. What's it going to take to be a real player in this new world?
I think it's both. You're sitting in a situation where, Okay, we just talked about linear and that not a lot of people are watching. So brands have got to figure out a way to through stars. It used to be they did commercials on television. Now they need their social followings at the high end. So there's going to be places for commercials and sponsorships, but then there's going to be places for stars to own stuff and break new stuff just based on their awareness on social and that's
the same thing true with social stars. So it's just an evolution of kind of the environmental effect that's happening on the linear side.
Do you ever look at your career and look at it as one sort of big, long, ultimate fight.
I don't look at as a fight. I just it's kind of funny. I'm not a rear view mirror kind of guy. I'm just right now doing what I do. Whatever happens based on thoughts and research and studying what the next thing will be. It will be. I don't really contemplate it that much. I'm not nervous about, oh did they do this right? Or you know what happened here? I don't do that.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? And the biggest piece of BS I.
Was always working. I mean I was working all the time and through a lot of work on myself life. You know, I went through a tough time in the renegotiation health for the UFC, came out of it, worked on myself a lot. Jeff Bezo said to me, he gave me a great thought. He said, when you're on the field, be on the field. When you're in work, do it. When you're not on the field, don't be on the field. And it used to be in my life and you couldn't do this, You couldn't keep this pace.
I was always playing chess in every situation. One it wasn't enjoyable. I didn't want to live my life like that. And two it was exhausting. That's not joyful. And so that was an incredible piece of advice and it has helped. I'm not perfect at that yet, but I'm getting a lot better.
How long do you want to keep doing this. I mean, you're healthier than most twenty five year olds.
Well, here's what I would say to you is, I'm still enjoying it. I love my life. I'm lucky, I'm privileged. I've worked really hard for it. And if I'm still happy, it's still giving me curiosity and I still feel the energy to do what I'm doing. I'll be doing it. The minute that it's not, i won't be doing it. And the people that are working with me are incredible.
So I don't think there's anybody better than Mark Shapiro, Andrew Schleimer, Richard Wis, and Christian I could go through all the executives we have at this company, and they have stepped up, and so it makes my life a lot easier to do the things that I like to do. And if that continues, I'll be around. In the minute they want me out, I'll be out.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Circuit.
Please watch the full episode for a closer look at how Ari Emanuel built his sports and entertainment empire. I'm Emily Chang. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Emily Chang TV. You can watch new episodes of the Circuit on Bloomberg Television on demand by downloading the Bloomberg app to your smart tv or on YouTube, and check out other Bloomberg podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you lose. Listen to your shows and let us know what you
think by leaving a review. I'm your host and executive producer. Our showrunner is Lauren Ellis. Our producer is aduena Otira. Our editor is Alison Casey. See you next time.