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News, sports works, live events work. It's glue, it's sticky, it's trash, it's high engagement, it's rooting interest, it's rivalries, it's young, it's sports betting as part of the ecosystem. So they're multitasking like it's a winner. That's where you want to be.
So Alex, back in September, we talked with Mark Shapiro and it was a massive day. I have to say it was funny too, because he came in hot, he came in buzzing, and you know, understandably he had been at the New York Stock Exchange that day ringing the bell for TKO, a brand new company. So WWE and UFC coming together, these are two of the biggest brands in sports and entertainment. And I think that's a notable element here because not only is he the president of TKO,
he's the president of Endeavor. When you think about the organizations and the people and the partnerships that have had a profound impact on sports, entertainment, culture, media and the money that is all around it, no one's bigger than Endeavor. I don't think this in a lifetime of deals This could have been one of his biggest.
Maybe the biggest, and as far as impact, I mean, think about this is like putting the NBA and NFL together, Yeah and calling it TKO or whatever. It was a massive day and something that a lot of people didn't think could be done the art of the impossible.
They did.
So.
One of the best things Alex about catching Mark on this day was this was the first time he could really talk about all the nuances and all the inside politics of this deal. And the characters are unbelievable. Ari Emmanuel, of course, the CEO and found of Endeavor, Mark's partner. He talks about how he first met Ari. That's a great story, but he also talks about how these and
you alluded to this seemingly never coming together. People came together, Vince McMahon, Dana White combining their companies into this entertainment sports behemoth.
Yeah, Jason, when you think about the personalities that you just mentioned, it just tells you a little bit of Mark Shapiro's superpower, which is getting a lot of healthy egos into a room that have strong views and somehow he got them all to play with the same jersey.
And also Mark Shapiro himself. I mean, this is a guy who has his fingerprints all over what we know as modern sports media. When it comes to ESPN, he headed programming there, and then he has profound influence on the media at a time when you know, well, media is upside down. It's never been more disrupted, probably since the invention of the television. When you think about streamers, you think about the broadcast networks, and you think about sports and entertainment as part of that.
He's got some key decisions to make. You know, he's clearly.
One of the chief architects here.
I mean what he's done in media landscape. Became a to ESPN as a young wonder child, right, Yeah, he discovered Stephen A.
Smith, Right.
I call him a five tool player in business, and what that means is he can do it all and then some. On this episode of The Deal Mark Shapiro.
Since we talked with Mark Shapiro, the private equity firm Silver Lake revealed plans to take Endeavor private for thirteen billion dollars. Additionally, a former employee sued WWE and Vince McMahon alleging abuse, sexual trafficking, actual assault, and negligence McMahon, who has since resigned from WWE and TKO, denied the
allegations in a statement. TKO said the matter predates it's executive team's tenure at the company, that it takes the lawsuits quote horrific allegations very seriously end quote, and is addressing the matter internally.
All Right, Mark.
Shapiro, huge day, you're here with us. How are you feeling right now? What does it feel like to close this deal?
Blur?
It's just a blur. I mean, it's you know, a long journey to get here. But in the space of what two and a half years, we've launched two public companies, rang the belt twice the New York Stock Exchange. You know, usually you don't do that even once in your life, let alone in this short span. So you'd like to take a little time to smell the roses and enjoy it. But it's been it's been a hectic day, all right, So take.
Us back on this deal.
I think we can agree the audacity of this deal, because I think it's fair to say, like this was a marriage that made sense, but the question was could you pull it off?
Take us back? I think there's two seminal moments. A couple of years ago, we drove to Stanford the old WWE offices. Nick con had just started and Ari and I. Ari mostly did the talking, and we basically told Vince why we thought we should come together whatever that was going to be. That wasn't necessarily a separate public company at the time, maybe it was just an acquisition of WWE. But everything was on the table. So Ari makes a lot of the pitch. I think he's excited about it.
I'm not sure everything comes out as clearly as he wanted it to come out. And we leave there and Vince has zero interest. That was it.
How long was a meeting?
The meeting was about an hour and it was forty eight minutes of us talking and explaining why this marriage made sense. And that was it. It was over. Now fast forward to somewhere in the last year, we go out to dinner of the Mark Hotel restaurant, you know, at the hotel, Vince, Stephanie, Nick, We make the pitch again in a more casual social setting. Is this private room, Mark, private room? Okay, expensive, private room? Worth it? Yeah exactly?
Ari and I didn't eat much. We were doing all the talking.
Well, Ari never eats much, but we'll get to that later.
That's a disaster, ye, But the energy is still there, so you're good. I thought we have a very good presentation all off the cup. I mean, it's planned what we're going to talk about, but we're not. It's not we're shuffling papers or anything. But can we get to a deal. And you know, everybody's excited, and Stephanie asked some great questions. Nick asked some great questions. Vince says nothing. We leave the meeting now all of a sudden, now
a couple weeks later, maybe it's a month later. I got my dates wrong here somewhere, and now Rain's been hired the Merchant Bank to put it up for sale, which brings me to seminal moment number two, which is our meeting at Rain when I know we're getting this right. So a lot of due diligence, a lot of back and forth, a lot of questions, a lot of papers, numbers, analysis, strategic analysis, et cetera. You name it. We go to Rain and we basically tell the Endeavor story, about the
Endeavor Flywheel, what we did for UFC. Remember we bought this call it four plus billion, but it was making one hundred and sixty one hundred and seventy million, and now you're talking about a division doing six seven hundred million dollars. I mean three x in the space of you know how many years here.
You wrote the playboat base through.
You got it. Now again you're back here. We're with RAIN. We're going through the story. Media rights, what we can do in analytics, social content, sponsorship and global partnerships, product licensing with IMG, what we can do there, expanding international direct to consumer. I mean, I'm telling you I walked out of the meeting. We're getting it. Mark.
Was there a moment something you or already said that? Vin said, Ahah?
Mostly events. Remember IMG owns produces stages, licenses eight hundred events a year, from food to fashion, to art to golf, tennis. I mean all over the globe. There's something going on. And when we took him through how we monetize those events. No dissimilar by the way to a wrestling match for a weekend or wrestle Mania, and how you turn on those different levers. This isn't just about media rights and sponsorship.
I mean that's negotiations, that's relationships, it's what you do on the other levels of monetization that really sets you apart as a unicorn.
What's Dana saying about this and how much do you bring him into the tent because this is going to dramatically affect his life.
That's right, Dana is the greatest partner ever. I mean, he's just a killer in rock ste he is. I mean, he just gets it done. I mean I remember being his I'll remind you I wouldn't put the UFC on the air. I was one of those guys that was like, oh, too dangerous, too much of this, too much blood on the mat, We're not ready for it. Plus, who's my boss, Mickey Mouse? Right, there's no way ESPN was gonna be comfortable with me putting on UFC. But I also had
an issue with it. And now look at it. It's mainstream, it's a major, right, we're monetizing it everywhere. Champions are household names. We went to Dana saying, we think one plus one equals five. Are you on board for this? And Dana said, listen, early on, there was no bigger guy in my face than Vince McMahon. Yeah, as I was trying to build this like he was at every corner, stopping me, obstacle roadblock. I've been to WrestleMania and he's
been to my fights. And you know what, if you guys tell me this is going to be all that when we put him together, count me in. I trust you guys.
All right, Can we talk about Ari absolutely? All right?
Oh, one of my favorite subjects.
Yes.
Look, we're both from Chicago. He's a little older than me, but we really didn't know each other. He went to one of my rival high school's Nutrier, and I was in Glenn View of Glebrick South, and we were on a plane going from New York to LA before he flew private. You're in first class, you know, it's two one two in first class, and I'm in the one and he's in the aisle of the two. So he's next to me, but there's an isle in between us. And I used to use those cross country trips to
work on what's called the President's reports. Michael Eisner and Bob Bieger would have every area of the company every month give him a President's report, you know, which is like basically your top ten priorities, your top teen bolts, which is hard for all of ESPN and ABC Sports, But I used it as a real communications tool for the overall company. You want to know what's going on with the company. You want to know the focus, you
want to know the priorities. Read the president's report. And so that's what I would do, And I'd spend those whole five and a half hours, and I typed like this, I'm fair by the way very fast, so it doesn't matter, and I don't make a lot of mistakes. Still going like that, I peck the entire time. It's like five hours. It's dark now, and somewhere like forty five minutes or an hour from landing, Ari asks the guy sitting next to me. He gets up and I see him now.
Remember it's very dark, but he's on the other side of the Eyeley goes around and he whispers in the guy here, guy's here, but I hear, and he says like, can you get up? Move over there? Oh my okay, And the guy says, excuse me, and all of a sudden he backs up all Ari goldish and says, what don't you understand, Get the fuck up, get over and
move into my seat so I can sit there. Okay, First of all, be arrested these days, right, Yeah, But also the guy actually does it instead of saying the guy gets up ari, he sits down, crosses his leg, turns through, he goes, what the fuck are you doing? And that's how we met. Wow, that's how we met. And that's a fast friendship. Oh, we're both from Chicago.
We know a lot of the same people, have the same likes, Cubs bears, you're both Cubs fans, story telling, right, similar personalities, and so we got off to a fast start.
Mark, going back a little bit to TKO, you have a company, two companies now inside of TKO. They're both juggernauts on their own. One of the things that's really interesting about when you combine UFC and WWA. By the way, I was a massive WWE fan with you know, going back to the whole Coogan days and all Machio Camato on Randy Mayow. My question to you is over a billion fans right combined. I actually think you guys in their early days of how do you serve that consumer?
Twenty four to seven, three sixty five, there's so much upside.
That's right, So we know we're still building a lot here domestically, but yet there's a lot of international growth for the WWE, and using IMG and the Endeavor platform is the underpinning to get it out there, to make deals, to get you into new territories all the time, in good programming windows on the platforms that matter absolutely key to that growth.
Could you ever see integrating both into one mega event, like one event? I still remember Wrestlemingia, which is you know, that's right, win Hulk Hoogan, that's right, the Giant, and I do I.
See it potentially as a one event. Potentially, although there are two different audiences. WW is Middle America. It's the show's coming to town, a lot of kids, and it's a slice of Americana. The UFC as an international flavor, right, it's college age and up. It's a big betting sport. Also it's gender neutral because we have a lot of female champions round and Rossey is one of the biggest stars ever to come out of the UFC. And ultimately Brazil,
South America. I mean it's you know, it's it's a monster, Canada, Australia. I mean, these are good places to be so I think that there's an opportunity to bring them out Together's opportunity to event, and maybe there's an opportunity to launch your channel with them together. Remember, the WW has its own network, which Peacock now licenses for two hundred and fifty million bucks the Yankees model. Yes, yes, exactly right.
We at the UFC have done our own proprietary so we've got a strong sub base that we sell direct to consumer, that could flip flop, that could merge. I think it's all up in the air right now. At the same time, not all the answers are here. We're gonna have to wait till some things play out here, and fortunately we have time because the WW deals are not up until October.
Coming up, we discussed how Mark rose from a production assistant to become a key executive who brought ESPN into an entirely new era, plus media rights, and how sports and entertainment have radically changed over the past decade. So let's talk media because you know a little something about that.
That's where you started your career literally as a production assistant.
If we have that right, like, we don't need to go all the way back, let's actually start here. You said it very well. The media space is upside down disrupted, all.
Sorts of.
A mess.
How do you describe it right now and how do you like not just survive, but thrive in a world that looks like this.
I think when Charter. First of all, yes, I've been in the media space for a long time. Let's remember I was in the chair when Chrissy Evert turned the table on Jim Rome. Wow, I was producing that show.
Just for the record, so I'm dating myself back to ninety three, but that was my literally first gig in the producer chair, and so I was there for the beginning of ESPN two when they didn't even know it was going to work, let alone how many channels there are now, which of course led to this big fight with Charter. I think when Eiger talked about the new deal with CHARTERI hit it on the head, which is, first of all, we want to be there for the
sports fan. That's what matters most, the consumer options choices. But you have to toggle it right now. You still have everyone loves to beat up Linear. I get it, the cords being cut, et cetera, et cetera. Last time I checked, it's still in sixty five million homes. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of eyeballs. That's a lot of traction. Viewership's going up. You saw the numbers on the ratings on the NFL and college football for week one of the twenty three to twenty four season.
I mean through the roof sports works, live events work. It's glue, it's sticky, it's traction, it's high engagement, it's rooting interest, it's rivalries, it's young, it's sports betting as part of the ecosystem. So they're multitasking like it's a winner. That's where you want to be. And right now, no matter where you are, stranger things or sports, you have to have enough content and to fill the linear pipes while they're still there, while you can still mine them
and monetize them. But at the same time have enough premium content. And it must be premium in order to get the pickup on streaming that most of these companies are looking for. And that's why UFC has been so strong for ESPN Plus. And I don't say that in an arrogant way. I love ESPN Plus, I love their library, I love a lot of the soccer and some of the other properties they play, but they sold it to us as you're going to be the anchor tenant. If you're willing to put the UFC we're keep in mind
they were in less than ten million homes. We were getting more out of being a pay per view with di RECTV than going through there. But if you're willing to make that sacrifice, we will market you and cover you so strong that you'll grow, and then as we grow, it's a win win, and that's exactly what's happened. But you have to be willing to put your premium content. Not like NHL regular season. Do you think a lot of people are tuning in to see the Columbus whatever
NHL team a regular season man? ESPN plus? No, Maybe in Columbus maybe it's playoffs they are, but regular season is different. There's just a lot of volume and tonnage. That's not a slam on the NHL. There's no urgency. If you take your premium and you put it there, the audience will follow. And we were willing to do that.
But let me tell you it was a gamble. And when we started, when we made that deal, keep going back to that word, right, sponsors were not happy, like we're the ratings, Well, ESPN plus doesn't they're not doing ratings, Well, we can't pay you what we committed to because we don't even know who's seeing your products. We signed up to be a sponsor when you were on Fox Fox broadcast, and now you're buried on ESPN Plus where you got
to pay a ransom to have a subscription. We want a rebate and we had to manage all those sponsors.
And so, as someone who's going to have to going back to a deal negotiate for media rights over the next few years and now in even larger fashion, how do you approach that deal making in a in an environment that is so uncertain you don't know what buyers are going to be. ESPN is I think it's fair to say diminished at this point, who knows what its future?
Is?
Still the best brand in sports though.
Right, So what do you do, like, how do you approach that? How do you sort of marshal the forces inside your shop to take on a landscape that is dramatically different.
Well, let's start with the fact that the streets all they care about is the price. Yeah, so you're balancing that as a public company, You're balancing that was with what's best for your brand, what's best for your product, what's your neighborhood look like, what other properties are around you are on your channel, your platform? What's the long term commitment from the company? Right for how many months were we hearing or ESPN is going to be sold off?
ESPN is going to be spun off under Bob Japik. Oh, maybe maybe Igur will do it, maybe you won't do it. So you have to think about all of that and then how it changes. But obviously, if you're the NBA or the UFC, you want the best partner, you want the best marketing partner. But you're looking to monetize your rights and we're no different.
So Mark, I want to talk a little bit about you and your career. Sometimes we have a lot of young listeners, entrepreneurs, viewers as well. I didn't go to college. You went to the University of Iowa, right. You have a gazillion IVY leaders that work for you. But you started, and I think our viewers would really like to hear this. You started a production assistant ESPN. In a few years, you're running the whole content. How do you do that?
Why do you do that? What advice can you give to our young listeners?
Look, obviously there's some luck involved there, and I'm not saying that to be humble. You can't. You can't script that. Fortunately, I had mentors executives that saw something in me, that had an eye on me, that said, this is a guy we want to bring along, and when I deliver,
they rewarded me. That's rare. And if you're not at a company where people are where the executives, the leaders, the managers are investing in their people like that, succession, planning for the future, trying to identify the future stars of tomorrow, investing in them and then bringing them up the ranks, nurturing them, you should get out of there. I mean, that's just the bottom line. So I had some success with a Sports Century project, which was the
precursor to thirty to thirty. It to Emmy. It won a Peabody, our first Peabody ever at the company. It's so interesting. So there's an executive meeting that takes place behind the scenes. Sports Century is coming to an end, twenty five million dollar profit winner for ESPN WOW End of the Century, Big one hundred Hours, chronically the best of the best in sports stories, journalism, highlights games. I oversaw the whole thing at twenty six years old, and
they made money and it's it's a critical winner. Now what do we do with this guy? We have a young star I can say this now, right, yeah, yeah, And they have a meeting and one guy who's very high up, very high up, says he's going to be one of the best game producers ever. Let's let's put him on games. His personality I've seen him in the truck live, that's where he should be. And another says what he's talking about, Like, here's what he just did.
He sold this whole project. He brought in general motors, he was the storyteller, he drove the narrative. It was profitable and it was critically acclaimed. We got to grow the Classic Sports network, which is now called ESPN Classic. Let's put him in charge of the network. President of ESPN says, there is no president of networks. I'm the president of all of that. We don't have an individual president.
I don't even know what that means. So the head of advertising, the head of affiliate sales are reporting him, and they're like, and the guy says, the guy who suggested it says, no, they're not. They stayed reporting the affiliate adds us and we just tell him to figure it out. We'll work across the aisle, make it work. Let's just just go for that. And the guy says, I'm telling you, you can produce one today football for us one day if we ever get that, and the
guy turns to him. I got to say, whole story from George Boden Iron Steve Bornstein, we're running ESPN, and he goes, you're gonna stick this kid in Boise, Idaho doing the C game when he could be running a network and we could be building him as a future executive because as a game brought producer, you're not starting at an any level. You're gonna go to Boise. I'm
going back to Iowa City here. So George and Steve listened to the old man that wanted me in these hips, and they put me in charge of Classic Sports Network. We were in twenty four million homes by Hooker, by Crooker. I worked with the different groups and the different teams without trying to be threatening. I learned I fell on my face. I had to submerge my ego, you name it. I mean, I didn't have direct they weren't direct reports. I was across the aisle. But we sold the story
and quickly we were in seventy million homes. And now with the success and that set me up for the rest of the plane at ESPN.
And so what happens from that? What does that set you up to do?
ESPN was really a challenge time visa VI rating. Keep in mind, and you've seen them, just speak with Charter, ESPN's getting anywhere from eight to ten dollars a sub on your cable bill. Wow, that's how much is thrown up. ESPN's makes their whole business. Yes, there's the ad stream, but their whole business is the affiliate revenue stream. That's the big money. You got to keep that going. And there were a lot of cries at that time from the MSOs, we can't do this anymore. ESPN has to
go a la card. How funny is that, because that's what streaming is, it's olive art. They have to go all the card, and they were trying to get Washington to dictate it. And Disney spent a lot of money on lobbyists and regularly to help them fight that off. Because ESPN and Disney were scared, if we go all the card, we're not going to have eighty to one hundred million homes. How many people are going to sign up? Exactly? By the way, history repeating itself is exactly what they
are right now. How many people will sign up when ESPN actually goes direct to consumer? Right, it's twenty nine nine and thirty nine ninety mark just for a viewers, just to catch them up.
You have over one hundred million subscribers and about eight to fifty bucks. Right, that's eight hundred and fifty million dollars per month, the ultimate cash, that's right, that's right.
At that time we were about yeah, ninety three million, I mean, and maybe they were at six bucks then, but it doesn't matter. That's as one million million. It's the train that drives. You think you're getting ESPN two for fifty cents a sub You're not without ESPN, right, you think you're getting ABC. You think you're getting ABC Family which is now free Form Disney Junior ex It's all on the backs of ESPN. So it drives the truck and the engine for everybody. That's the business model.
It's absolutely brilliant. And by the way, they're so good they can do that you can can't afford not to have ESPN. They don't want to go all the card, but the ratings are in the tank. They had lost NASCAR and their ratings were going down. So the President says, we got to do something bold. We we got it. We got to make a change here. We need original thinking, we need original programming, we need we need new leadership.
And they turned to me to say, we want to bring you in to run all of programming.
And how old are you at this point?
I was thirty one, wow. And I remember they'd taken me out for a walk in Central Park, kind of like the father son. Yeah right, father is arm rom me. You got it out because basically they were gonna pay me nothing and I had no leverage, of course, and it would be like, dude, this is a gift, like no one does this. And they put me in charge of programming. The first things I wanted to do was launch a show called Part in the Interruption, Wow, which ended up being huge for us. And I wanted the
NBA in Wimbledon. Wimbledon because it's just summer programming. We needed a lift up. It's prestige too, it's skiff any product. And the NBA because it's the NBA, and when we got those, our fortunes changed. We went on an eight quarter run of increase ratings year quarter over quarter, year over year. No one could argue with the strategy. It was how much can you bring in for We'll see.
I was just with Adam Silvery yesterday, Ari and I were having lunch with him, and are you and I I went to dinner last night to celebrate tko int REOs. Oh wow, And I said, Adam, guess we're going for dinner. That's where I took him and David Stern to sell them on the NBA coming to Esbo. I'll never forget that city. We don't have a package for you. We're on Turner and NBC. Split the Turner package, split the Turner package. Whatever scraps you got for us, we'll take it.
Or if you want to move the finals from NBC ABC, we'll do that. That's where that whole thing got hatched. And so when you brought that back to the bean Counters, well, the NBA all that tonnage, high quality tonnage, right, Kobe Shack, big players, big personalities, and what that would mean for SportsCenter and other properties were trying to get and that was the beginning of a new run, and it silenced the cable operators. It wasn't any more. Hey, you know this is bs ESPN charging too much.
We must have Yeah, so Mark, there's some critical decisions that get made at ESPN around that time during your tenure. Let's talk football. Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football. We feel like we know it now. It is not what it always was.
Yeah, take us back. It's funny, you know, I mean obviously Monday Night Football was even bigger than it is today. Yes, right, the Howard Cosell days come on and for years and years and years it was under there, and then it was handed off to Al Michaels and those Jackets. Remember you had the Yellow Jackets and the old days with Gifford and Cosell and Andy Don Meredith and then Al came on and he had different partners and that led up to Madden. It was a sad day when ABC.
I mean, that's an institution, ABC, Monday Night Football, the song the Music Institution, halftime highlights with Cosel. It was a sad day for the company when they lost Monday Night even though it went to ESPN. But this is the art of deal making right, Sometimes it is just luck. You can be as strategic as all you want, you can data analytics and form relationships, and sometimes timing optics, it just doesn't fall for you. Here's the situation, Steve Bornstein.
He comes to us and says, we want to negotiate a renewal right now for Sunday and Monday night. I talked to Eiger and George Bodenimer and we don't need to our windows not up. We're not doing that now. I go back to Steve Mark, you should do this now. If you don't do this now, you will be the last one in and you won't have the control. You won't be able to dictate where this goes. You come in first, you got first mover advantage. You want to hold us to our window. We'll end up negotiating with
the other guys first, and you take your chances. So we kind of have it like we don't open it up, but let's at least talk about what it would be, and we really want to have continue with Sunday night and continue with Monday night. And at one point Bornstein throws out a number which is like I don't know one four for the two one point four billion to keep them, which is a big increase for ABC and ESPN, and Iiger says, I can't do that now. Iiger's in
line to get Eisner's job. Disney is hurting right now. Remember there's a whole vote to get eisnern sheryld A is a revolting you know, Eisner, who was the fair haired prince for so long, could do nothing wrong. Disney's in trouble. Iiger potentially is going to succeed him, but they're going to look outside. How much is Eiger to blame for what's going wrong with Eisner? So he's got a lot of optics and politics to play, and I don't think it's in his best interest to go to
the board and say I want to open early. Here's the kind of increase which is unprecedented. Now it looks like peanuts right right. And so he says no, to which I was like, we may not get another swing. This is not a bad deal for the combo. Can't do it and we turn it down. What happens They go renew their deal with Fox and we end up losing Monday Night Football. Yes, it moved to ESPN, and
that was like our saving grace. At least we got aver ESPN, which is the cash cow, but we lost it for ABC and we end up paying one point one billion just for Monday Night. So for a few hundred more million a year earlier, we would have had both and we would have had been able to dictate the path the nights, the network whatever. Instead were left with one on Monday Night for one point one billion, which is ridiculous. And remember would have been one four
for the two of them. Yeah, right, okay, and with no schedule anything. I mean, they give us the worst schedule because we were a cable right. By the way, Bob went on to be one of the best deal makers of our time in business, Pixar, Marvel, I mean, Star Wars, Lucas, the list goes on, right, It's extraordinary what he's built at Disney, but for different factors at that time, he couldn't endorse that deal.
Andy Mark, you're so young at this, say, what makes you think that one point four billion is a good deal or a fair deal for the whole Disney fan family.
I'm living in breathing sports media rights every day in my job. He's not to be fair. It doesn't matter how much older he is, or wise or age. I'm in it. So this is it's a checkerboard game, right, this is chess. I know this is going to happen. Whether he couldn't move it, or he didn't want to back me, or he didn't believe in the or not, whatever it was, you know, it's ultimately a tough play
and you kind of live and die by that. And that was the beginning of the end the ABC Sports as you remember, the why world of sports at ABC.
So Mark, you mentioned Bob Bieger, Jason and I are both big fans of biger Icon obviously, absolutely, can you share with us maybe one or two lessons that you learned because you had a front row seat to his management? What an opportunity.
Yes, and there are some other turns there that could have happened, and I'll explain that. Here's just as I saw her first of all, I mean central casting, guys, we all know even today. I mean it's just like invented to be mister CEO. I mean, looks the part charismatic, very convince and seeing, very persuasive, very charming, very bright, surrounds himself with good people, takes chances, sports, entertainment, personalities, relationships. I mean, honestly, he's the model CEO, right, And he
came up through sports similar to me. He came up through the ABC sports ranks, and he moved around and TV and film, and he just he has the package. And I remember telling him I wanted to do scripted programming at ESPN. And what do you mean, we do live events, we do studio shows, news and information. We want to go original programming, game shows, docs, films, scripted, what do you mean scripted?
Like?
Ultimately that was Playmakers, right, that was the serious He backed that plate. And not only did he back it, he looked at every script. We're talking about the COO of Disney. I turned in every script and he gave script notes for every episode. It was a massive hit. By the way, Playmakers was the third highest rated show on ESPN after Sunday Night Football on Saturday night College football. It was a monster. It was all anyone ever talked about.
It won the AFI Award. I mean, it was incredible and Bob was totally hands on, his fingerprints all over so there was no job too small. So I tell you, when everybody talks about oh, two hands on or two granular or two in the weeds. Who's to say that? Who says that Bob Iger gets up at three in the morning. Practically he's working out by four, he's in the office by five. Maybe I got it wrong by an hour, but trust me here and any time I would send him an email or a call, it's an instant.
Are you just sitting by your desk waiting? Like? That's who he is. He's on it. He leads by example. He inspires people. You want to get behind him. And that's the takeaway. And that's one thing about leadership and doing deals and running companies, Like you can be a great boss, but do people really want to work for you?
Are they inspired? There's a difference. Are they inspired by you? Yeah, they might listen to you, maybe it's out of fear, maybe they perform, but will they really follow you into battle that loyalty? Do they have your back? Do they believe in you? And having that gift to inspire people, That's not something you can teach in Harvard Business School very rare.
So when you think about Metea writes across especially the major sports and you know you talked about you have talked about the NBA, the NFL, MLB. How do you parse out the value of rights going forward because these are sports that are on different trajectories at this point.
Look, it's it is about, especially today with streaming. Let's just take ESPN for example, right, not picking on them, but they, I mean, they're the best when they go direct to consumer. When they when they flip the switch, they're going to be basically taking the linear feed of ESPN as you know it, which will still exist because it'll probably keep going, but they're going to put it
on streaming. So now you can stream the channel, not ESPN Plus which is SVOD, the actual channel, and maybe ab'll to have stuff there that isn't on the linear feed, we'll see or tiers or whatever it might be. In order to make that work, the money they're going to be foregoing from losing subs and ad revenue on the linear, they're gonna have to charge a hefty price. That's what this is all about. That's the models that are running. What do we have to charge for ESPN as a
standalone channel on streaming? And there's a lot of articles out there and there's a lot of you know, rumor and gossip and speculation. Is it twenty nine nine nine? Is it thirty nine nine? How many people will actually pay thirty nine to ninety nine for a month? Is it ten million, twenty million, thirty In order to make right, to balance it out, The only way you're gonna get there, whatever the price is, is premium content. The only way. You have to be so disciplined that you know, we're
not going to carry that secondary sport. We're not going to carry that tertiary sport. We're not going to carry that studio show that may be good, but it doesn'tun deliver. We have to stick with the tried and true what's gonna bring people to table, and NBA is one of them.
If I'm going to get my games and my playoffs on that channel, if I'm gonna get NHL playoffs on that channel, if I'm gonna get NFL on that channel, if I'm going to get UFC or dare I say, wwe first, take pardon the interruption, take the stuff that mad that really matters, and invest in that, and you have to just cut the rest. And that's hard to do, and that affects a lot of lives and livelihoods. That that's the only way you're going to get that number.
So premium content wins. And one of the reasons we feel so strong about UFC and WWE, and I'm not saying this to be self serving, this works for a lot of other sports is because we're the full calendar. So if you can get premium content that goes eight months, ten months, let alone US twelve months a year, scheduling, flexibility, nights hours, two hours, three hours, library programming, that makes you invaluable.
This has been incredible. We could talk to you for three hours, four hours forever. We really appreciate it.
Thank you so much. We really enjoyed it. I'm not sure where it starts or stops because I just enjoyed talking to you guys, and you're your titans of business yourself, so I appreciate the time.
Thank you, Marigo. It was awesome.
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