Mellody Hobson's Game-Changing Investment in Women's Sports

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All right, so here we are Bloomberg invest Downtown Manhattan. You're back in the heart of the city. Man Melody Hobson. She has quickly become one of the most influential people across the sports world.

She's got a new fund.

There's no surprise to me that she now has entered the world of sports, and she's building a world class team.

So Denver Broncos and the Denver NWSL team. She's in League One volleyball Chicago White Sox. She's all in on sports like we are. Let's go talk to Melody Hobson.

Let's do it cool.

All right, thanks everyone. I should point out I think we're getting people post cocktails.

So let's let it rip. Okay, it's good time.

Well, welcome everyone to this very special edition of The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly, featuring the incomparable Melody Hodson. First of all, I should say you race down town because you do so much for the Bloomberg Empire. You're part of the Bloomberg philanthropy sports. So thank you for your service and we're happy to have you here in this platform as well.

Thank you for having me.

One of the really fun things about prepping for this, and this happens with a lot of our shows, is one of us. Usually this guy knows the guests previously.

Yes, we know each other.

Tell us this story.

Well, it was really interesting. Hi, Melody and High it was I don't know, maybe fifteen years ago. I was still playing with the Yankees and we're playing the White Sox and mutual friend introduced Melody and I and I emailed her and I said, may I come see you for an hour? Have an hour right before the game, and I especially maybe be out of town or busy. She's running a big firm, and she said, of course,

Okay, let's first of all start off there. Alex Rodriguez calls you at a war and says, can I come and see you?

Yes?

Right, everyone excited in the office, of course, and he does show up and he's like, you know, the Adonis there walks in is like, oh, nice to.

Meet you, Melanie. We don't need any live with this.

They were excited.

I was excited, but we ended up having this phenomenal conversation about investing and the stock market and a whole host of things, and of course he was very, very impressive.

So I'll stop there.

John Rogers started our firm, Aerial Investments, and we are one of the oldest minority own firms in the country. And he's one of the longest running stock pickers in our category, which is small cap value. And he started the firm, but it became mine along the way. I mean, I have to tell you it's a unique thing in terms of how much I loved it and how much I loved working with him, and how much I wanted to be there.

I've only had one job in my.

Entire life, which is at Ariel, and I've worked there since I graduated from Princeton. And supposedly you have eleven jobs in your lifetime, I've only had one. And I'm the only person in my graduating class of eleven hundred people who's had the same work phone number since I graduated from college.

Wow.

So obviously I like it there. I'm very loyal.

But what I would say is that John and I I knew very early on that he was extremely special, that I had found a person who was going to bring out the best in me without changing who I was, and who was a sharer. He played team sports and he shares. And so we are co leaders of a real which is very rare. I don't understand why there aren't more co CEOs, but we are co leaders, and I think it works because we are complimentary and our skills were very different. We have different parts of the

We love each other. We really do.

He's like my brother. Jamie Diamond calls me his work wife. I'm like, hmm, brother, But we do share you know our lives are sort of back and forth. If he asked me for something, it's a done deal, and if I ask him for something. And even in our worst moments, John said something to me once when we had a tough conversation and kind of a fight. He was like, Melody, remember one thing. I know you want the best for Ariel,

Wow.

Love that.

I always want the best for the deal too.

Okay, thank you.

So you mentioned something really interesting which gives us a nice segue into a lot of what we want to talk about, which is the team sport. Now, I'm not sure anybody predicted that not only would you go into sports, you would pretty quickly become one of the most influential investors, like straight out of the gate in professional sports.

How did that happen?

A long and winding roads.

Okay, what I we're here for. We're here for the journey.

We've had investments in sports over the years. We've owned Medicine Square Garden as it evolved into various versions of itself. But that investment goes back to twenty eleven We bought that stock during the basketball lockout when there was right before Lynn Sanity, remember Jeremy Lynn. When they were doing this retrofit of the garden. It was way over budget and people were very skeptical of the name. And we're value investors. John went and visited the garden and he said,

A media a media business interesting.

And then personally I crept into sports so secretly, and Alex knew this. I bought into the Chicago White Sox years ago, but I swore all the owners to secrecy.

I said, you can never talk about it.

I told the commissioner because I didn't want anyone to confuse it with Aeriel. And then John Rogers had been a longtime owner of the Chicago Sky from two thousand and five when they came to Chicago. And then for me, the news around me in sports was when I bought into the Broncos.

Why they're great businesses.

You realize the uniqueness of these assets and the value that is being created in these businesses, and the fandom and the sponsorships and the media rights. All of it very quickly became clear to me.

Wow.

And I then realized and had someone say to me about a year you're in fifteen months ago women's sports. And I'd been doing a little bit in women's sports as well, quietly WNBA investment and then also League One

How that gap is narrowed.

Affordability of women's sports very expensive to go to some of the games that are out there, especially in the big cities. The women's attendance and the women's games often are more affordable for families, and it's unbelievable and an unbelievable experience because the women are so talented. And then, of course you saw this inflection point. You saw the NCAA Finals last year with Caitlin Clark five million more viewers for the women's finals than the men.

And then we've seen it in so many other areas.

Think about the Olympics and the big names, no disrespect, lots of amazing athletes, but some of the women were the biggest names.

And I just said, we're going to drill.

Down on this and ultimately saw a real opportunity and I said, go big or go home.

Always let's do a big fund in this area.

I do have a follow up on that melody because I've been studying you and John Rodgers for years and you have your turtle, which means you guys are patient and you're selective and when you see a big pitch,

I love this question so much.

So, first of all, I talked about our early beginnings. We're investing in undervalued, small and medium sized companies that showed a strong potential for growth. That is women's sports. I call it the small caps of sports. The most valuable women's sports team today is worth two hundred and fifty million dollars and that's Angel City.

That was bought by Bob Eiger and Willow Bay.

The most valuable men's sports team is the Dallas Cowboys that's worth eleven billion dollars. There is a dramatic difference between two hundred and fifty million dollars and eleven billion, which is why I'm calling them the small caps small caps because smaller companies tend to grow faster, and we say the big guys it's going to be harder to grow the way they've grown in the past. But the women have a big trajectory of growth in front of them.

So this is where value meets growth.

And so the first big deal that you do, I believe, is expansion in the NWSL. The Denver team, a market obviously you're familiar with, walk us through that deal. I mean, we've interviewed several NWSL owners, including in Chestin over the at BFC. We both know will Obey very well and her investment thesis and Bob's on Angel City. What was the case here because those expansion fees, while yes, on a dollar per dollar basis low, those expansion fees have

Okay.

So this came to us in a very unusual way. So after the Broncos deal, a lot of people have just come to me on sports just personally thinking, you know, maybe you would look at this. Lots of teams, lots of opportunities. So I'm giving a speech in Florida at a conference. Two people come up to me. At the end of the speech. We have not announced what we're doing in sports, and we just have this skunkworks group working on this sid side of aerial.

We hadn't even told our firm.

So there were only two or three of us working at maybe three working on this.

So two people came up to me.

One said, I'm trying to do a WNBA expansion team and the other said I'm working on an NWSL soccer team.

It was just fortuitous because I.

Knew what we were working on, right. I followed up with both of them and Denver. We started to do the research.

On Denver.

We looked at, first of all, the market, and we looked at the demographics of the market, which seemed to be very, very favorable to women, think outdoor. We also looked at the socioeconomic you know, the average income in the city that was favorable to season ticket sales. We learned of the locations of a potential stadium. We did a lot of work on why do we need a stadium, why wouldn't we And then we saw the stadium made sense.

So you're in soccer when it comes to this fund Where else are you looking? Is this slee team stakes? Is that the ecosystem? Like, what's the what what sort of the window of the three buckets?

We start off with major League Sports, so owning teams. Then we've you know, obviously accomplished that first with Denver, and we're looking in other areas. We'd like to also be in Europe, by the way, not just in America. The next bucket we have is we call it emerging leagues and junior sports.

Okay, the junior sports.

Is a powerful business because of the you know, the number of young people and the family's commitments to sports is huge, huge. And then the last areas we see is related or ancillary businesses that benefit or grow through the growth of women's sports.

Aerial is one of the top tier firms in the country around the world. Right, and John and you are both world class investors. But if I'm an institution and I'm coming to Area and saying, Okay, what do you guys know about sports? One? I know you're building a world class team, but how do you source deals? And are you confident that you can get enough deals for area and for your investors?

Well, first of all, I have to tell you what we're saying right now, is Jason Wright, who's running this for us, who's a super strang, huge superstar. Everyone's asking me, how did you get Jason? Jason, if he were here, he would tell you the fish are jumping in the boat. Sourcing deals is not our problem. One of the reasons that I think we have a distinct advantage is that the leagues want gender and racial diversity and ownership.

Notwithstanding the mood of.

Some of the conversation that is going on in our country, if you're starting women's teams and leagues, it would be great to have some women and people of color involved, And I think they see that that's a priority.

It's really important.

And then to be able to go in with the resources and at scale, I think is very very helpful. And I think they see a couple of things with us, which is different if you're starting a team from scratch like Denver Jason Ran the Commanders has that experience. We bring operating expertise to the conversation where you don't have to learn trial by error. So everything from recruiting the leadership, it's this recruiter and it's this person at this firm.

Or you're building a stadium and you've Jason has had that experience.

So this operational excellence is highly valued and that I think is that is being sought after. I also think our brand and reputation is helping people to come to us where they say they have access to lots of people, relationships that might mean sponsorships, that might be a whole host of things that we can lean into and help in the growth because it will be in our best interest.

And so let's talk about Jason Wright for a second. You know, this is a name, just to give the audience who doesn't know who he is, a little bit of backstory played in the NFL seven years worked at McKenzie.

Partner youngest partner at mackenzie.

Exactly, then goes to run the Washington Commanders.

No slouch, first black president of an NFL team in one hundred and five years, right, And.

If you can run the Commanders in that era, are you doing something.

You can There's there's nothing that can surprissfully?

Yeah, very successfully.

So what are the conversations? How do you get to him? How does he get to you? Like, how does that come together?

Okay, He's on a panel at a conference that I'm hosting and we have presidents and CEOs of teams Set Marshall, Kevin Warren.

Dallas, Maverick, Chicago Bears like these are.

So and Jason is there and all of a sudden, I am listening to him and I am I've been working on this project. It's September, and I was like, I got to get to him. So I go up to him at just an event like this, and I said, I need to spend time with you. And he's looking me like I have three heads and I'm very aggressive at it.

And by the next.

Week we are meeting in New York and I said, I have this idea and I know you are very much in demand, and I had heard he was leaving that was public, and I said, I think we're going to do something that is literally a game changer, and I think you would be great working with us. And so we spent a little bit of time going back and forth, not a lot.

Actually, you'd be shocked.

And within a few weeks he hadn't totally committed, but I kept tossing him things.

I'm like, what do you think about this? What do you think about this?

So he just was working.

I'm not sure how Josh here feel, but occasionally I'm like, look at this, what do you think? And within just a very short amount of time, he signed on. And I told him, I said, I can't tell you how committed I am to this, and I can't tell you how hard I'm going to work. You're going to You're going to look through and find the best opportunities, and I will find the money. That is the deal that we have. So I'm our chief cheerleader and fundraiser. I like that, and he's our quarterback.

So mentally, one of the things that our audience has probably not been able to see a pitch. I recently had a drink with Rob Walton, your partner, and he's thrilled to have you. Obviously you make a great partnership by the Denver Broncos. I'm sorry, Denver Broncers. My question is what was it about the pitch when you heard it that you said, I must Was it the p and L was forecast? Yes, the Broncos? Was it the forecast?

Was the growing math on again?

Yeah?

Tell us a little bit about what got you excited.

The initial call came through and it said, would you ever consider investing in the Broncos?

Honest answer, I said no. I said no.

I was like, why no, I'm not going to do that, you know, I'm so busy and no. And then my friend Kasey Wasserman and Jeffrey Katzenberg cornered me at a breakfast and sat down at a table because both were very close to Greg Penner, who I knew very well. We run a board together, and they said, Melody, you're actually you are the person to do this. And so you know, I'm sitting there and I'm being very open and I'm like, maybe I don't see something, and it wasn't.

So that became the hook. I was like, wow, that would be so great.

And wait, explain that how the idea.

That the athletes could be helped and that there could be a conversation about a financial literacy in a different way.

That was something that was really really appealing to me.

And then we started to do the work on the opportunity and the financial aspects of it, and I saw how compelling it was. Now at the time, the Waltons made it clear, sorry, Penner Walton's we're buying the team.

I mean they were like, we're buying the team, and it was like, no.

Matter what, and they kind of cleared the debt right.

Like the team.

So you know, you're sitting, you know, writing sidecar with someone who's like, we're buying the team.

And you're like, okay, we're buying.

And first of all, I knew Greg and I knew how talented he was, and I knew Carrie.

I'd gotten a no Carrie.

I met Rob first over Zoom and this is such a great story. So Rob and I in the phone, and you know, they have to like me and I have to like them because this is real money and we're in business together and and hopefully it'll be a multi generational asset. I'm on the phone with Rob and I said, you know, Rob, he explaining to me how much he loves cars, and I was like, my husband loves cars, and you know, he loves cars more than anything.

And he was like, I have two of them.

Quick flex.

So George I go to.

I say, George, Rob Walton has two bird Cage Maseratis and George is like, well they throw one in with the investment.

That would be that would be a never before seen you know, little sweetener for a deal.

We had so much in common, and that also I felt like I was working with people of high integrity, which was really important to me. You don't spend your whole life building your reputation and your brand to go down the drain because of an affiliation. And that affiliation, I was like, these are best in class business people, philanthropists. They are low key, you know, extremely low key, and as a result of that, it fit. And I said

This isn't why we're doing this. We're doing this.

You know, I'm going to be an investor and I'm excited to do this. And we have our ownership meetings with Lewis who I brought in.

With us, Lewis Hamilton.

Yes, Lewis is like a little brother.

And I said, you know, you should consider bringing Lewis, and you know, considering the number of followers that he has and he loves sports and.

He's global sporting legends.

And then Condy Rice obviously is a legend in a different way as the first black woman Secretary of State, a football nuts, her.

Father was a coach.

You know, there was so much there that you glued us all together. And it's been just it succeeded my expectations and financially it's been a great investment.

I'm glad you mentioned Lewis because, first of all, and I hope I have this right. I read something a couple of years ago about how you were one of the first calls that he made or he took after that fateful race and Abu Dhabi. You and I say this, You know, sitting alongside this guy, you have had access and relationships with some of the most interesting and influential athletes in the world.

What have you learned from them?

So, first of all, it wasn't a call. We were in Abu Dha.

Oh you were there.

So this was a debate George and I had back and forth. Lewis and I are very very close, and I met him in his rookie season and we really He calls me sis, and I call him sir little brother, and so literally even in our emails, sir little brother, he calls me, says, we.

Debated going to Abu Dabi. It's the last race. It's they're tied, remember.

Exactly, Lewis and Max Vers, they're tied.

It's you know, this is the potential eighth championship never been done before. The seventh was Lewis's tide with Michael Schumacher and George's like, I'm.

Like, should we go or should we not go?

He's like, there's nothing worse than your family showing up when you have to work.

No, we should not go. I hate that idea.

And I was like, maybe we should go, And so we came up with a decision that we would go, but not.

Tell him that we were there.

Oh wow.

And so the reason that I wanted to go is, I said, it's not if he wins, it's if he loses. I said, we're only going that we're going in case he loses, but we're not telling him we were there. So the team put us in a special spot. He never knew we were there the whole weekend, and it was only when he lost that we thought he had won.

Remember it's the last half of the last lap.

We're like, you know, and he loses, and we go to his room, you know, and he's devastated as you would be, and doesn't quite understand what has happened. It was a very important moment because that was when he went and shook Max's hand. And George had this famous quote that I've told people where he said heroes are bigger than champions. He's like Lewis went to hero status in that moment, because that is hard for anyone to

He said, you choose not to. Wow, And He's like, can't is not a word you use. You choose not to. He said, your.

Language is very important, Melody, and you have a young child. You choose not to. So I looked at him, and I said, well, I choose not to you. But it was a moment. And then the second thing he taught me, he said, I only talked. He only speaks positively to himself in his head, and that was something that's a hard thing to do. He's like, melody, only speaks positive to yourself and your head. Never give up, you don't use, can't, and you only speak positively. So in the worst of moments,

I'm like Lewis would get up.

We give us an example of his discipline.

Lewis's discipline I mean from every morsel of food that goes into his mouth. But not in a way that like it's about him. It's just something I have noticed. I know it from being with him, how specific he is about everything, certainly his workouts, his intensity around things that he do. Like play a game with him, you know he's going to kill you. But the discipline of just there is no settling and there are no excuses ever.

Oh?

I went nine miles And you're like, you know, you've had three hours of sleep or whatever it is. And so he's, you know, just he's so he has to because he has to be in such good.

Form to win.

So in starting with Ferrari this season, he's like, sis, I want to be in the best shape of my life. So he's been running all these mountains in Colorado, I mean hard, hard, and he's just you know, he's committed to being his best self.

Yeah. I mean it's interesting too.

Just sticking with Lewis and that sport for a second, it must be such an interesting window for you, not just into him as an athlete, but into watching that sporting business just explode as a me America. In America, it obviously was a global sport. It is really like leveled up because of what in America. Change everything in America when you look at something like that, what needs to happen in women's sports, Well, I.

Think that's part of it, the media piece.

But what Drive to Survive did, which was so brilliant, It personalized all the athletes, and once people got to know them, they loved them. I mean they already loved baseball players, and but the America especially didn't know those athletes, and they went deep on the personalities and the experience and for a sport that is far away, middle of the night, all of those things they bonded the audience. And I think that is coming for women's sports in a big way.

Besides the fact.

That the women are excellent in social media and so they can curry that kind of influence and use that to the benefit of the sport in a very different way.

It's coming and you can just see it.

I mean you've seen that with the Link.

I mean, the Links are an incredible brand, in part because the players are so engaged and they're really good to I mean, you know they were in the final there really are.

I mean we've won four titles, we almost won a fifth. We lost to the Liberty here in New York. But everything Melody is saying is exactly right. They're more engaged in social media. We have a huge following.

And you can see the interest in the athletes, the waiting at the locker room, right, you know, the outfits, the whole thing. The personalities have come through, and I think that they were always there, but they've broken through with the media interest in a different way in the last few years, and that votes very, very well for all of the sports.

I do have a question if you don't mind how transition to place you sit on the show. You sit on many boards, you know, JP, Morgan, Star, others. I love the story how you always sit next to Howard Schultz, who's one of my favorites, and you thought that made you a better investor. But what makes you or what makes anybody in the room a good director?

They ask questions.

I feel very strongly about that great directors and I worked really hard on this. I always say I want to go to every board meeting with two original questions, not rhetorical original, and the questions lead to hopefully breakthrough ideas. In a boardroom, making statements puts people on the defensive, especially if they feel somehow you're you know, finger wagging

It's the follow up.

I always say it's the secondary, intertiary questions that come from that first question. I think it leads to breakthroughs in boardrooms. And I've worked with the boardrooms i've been in. The people are extremely collegial, and the teams that are the management teams certainly want to win.

So I have a secondary question, you have a tertiary. The secondary question is and I love this because I was never the best student, but I always tried really hard, and I always thought about how do you hack the system? While you do your homework, you stay in the front row. I mean, when you don't have it, you have to kind of figure it out. My question to you is why was it so important to sit next to Howard? And what lessons did you learn from that?

Yes, I've told this story that I've been on the board for twenty years.

And what are twenty years for?

That?

I know, right, it's unbelievable, the stock performance, everything, even with the bumps along the way, tremendous lesson, great lessons in both vision and humility. Really amazing, amazing, amazing experience where I learned so much. But one of the things I did from the very first board meeting is I sat to Howard's right in a boardroom.

Where everyone changes seats all the time. I made it like, you know at home, you have your chair.

Sure, well that was my chair, even though the board members, the other board members sat in different seats. So there's a funny story. Mary Dylan joined our board. She was running Alta at the time now she runs Footlocker. Great great person. Her first board.

Meeting, I walk into the boardroom, She's in my chair.

Oh boy, oh.

And I'm like, and I know Mary from Chicago, Like, she's in my chair. And so I literally took a chair. I put it next to Howard and I said, everyone moved down. Now. Everyone said like why Because one of the things about sitting next to him that I wanted to absorb was what did he react to in a board meeting, and so if someone spoke and said something, I would note like why is he writing now? Like what was said that he thought was important? Or how

And he suddenly looked at me and he was.

Like, I said, I wanted to be next to the power, and I wanted to be next to the vision, and I wanted to learn from it in every conceivable way.

That I could.

Wow, that is awesome.

You know you said something a little while ago about Jason Wright, and you know that sort of he had a lot of opportunities, I would imagine, and the Broncos story that he told is an interesting example of this too.

A lot comes your way.

You've been incredibly successful as an investor, as a director, as an executive.

When do you say no a lot.

I've had to get better at that, Okay, Warren Buffett, we idolize. I know you are very close to him, and we're Warren Buffett disciples at Ariel and I remember once reading a story where he talked about what real wealth is and he said, real wealth is a blank calendar.

Whoa.

And then my husband, I think some people know I married Yoda's dad. My husband, Yoda's dad, George does not take meetings, and any meeting that he wants, it's on his terms. He doesn't and he's like, you fly around the world, You're doing all this stuff. Why do you do that? It's so foreign to him. And he was the one who taught me, like, the most valuable thing you have is time.

That is the most valuable thing.

And he has a thing on his desk that says an ounce of gold.

Won't buy a minute of time. You know it, just it.

You know, time is the most valuable thing. I think people I've come to believe people overvalue money and undervalue time. And so as a result of that, while there are tremendous opportunities that have come to me. And remember I grew up with nothing, nothing, youngest of six evicted, phone could disconnected, lights turned off. I mean, everything you can imagine happened to me as a child, and that probably led to the hunger and drive that I have in a major, major way. So I wouldn't be me if

So, Melie, you mentioned Warren Buffett, I've been such an enormous beneficiary of great mentorship and friends. My father wasn't around. He left us when I was ten, left my siblings. Similar story too. As I resonate with your story as being evicted and food stamps and all of that, and I think it's helped me with my grit and my determination threw my ups and downs. You mentioned in an interview that I saw a while ago about one of your mentors, Bill Bradley, the NBA Hall of Famer, and

Yes, so Bill is very important to me. He's really become a surrogate father. He walked me down the aisle when I got married. There's that's a whole another story. I met him when I was seventeen years old and trying to decide between going to Princeton and Harvard, and because of Bill, I went to Princeton. Wow, and how he took an interest in me. And John Rogers went to Princeton as well, of course, And I've graduated from college and I would go and visit Bill at his office.

What is he trying to tell you?

And he says, you know, you could suck the oxygen out of a room if you're not careful, And I was like okay, He's like, and so we want to, you know, you want to think about how you can you be a you know, whole and thoughtful person. I said, well, how do I do that? He says, I don't know, So he just throws it back at me. And so I'm sitting there thinking, what is he seeing me? Why is he saying this? You know that corner of thing.

On the street crying. Don't cry yet, No, I don't cry in front of him.

I've cried in front of him plenty of times, but not in that one. Go down to the bottom of the street, I'm crying, and I'm like, okay, what is he telling me?

And what could I do to not be what he's saying I could be?

And so I decided at that moment that I would always, in every encounter take an interest in the other person first, to take all of the energy off of myself. So if you have spent any time with me, and you have, I will ask you so many questions about your two.

Girls, or about your life.

Or anything like that, so I can invest in the other in person and they don't feel that I am sucking up the oxygen in the room. People appreciate you taking an interest in them. So it is it is authentic. It is not some tactic and is not a manipulation. For me, I learned so much from I mean, it could be the person who picks me up in the lobby, going to someone's office.

How long have you worked here? Where do you live? Out of school?

Where did you go? I mean lots of things like that. People really do like you taking an interest in them, and you learn stuff. And so that pushing me in that moment really changed how I show up for people, and it led to my whole belief about asking questions instead of making statements.

All right, so we're going to end up by asking you some questions rapid fire, so we'll bounce it back and forth.

What's one word to describe your deal making.

Stuff long term?

What's more important? Your gut or data?

Gut?

Who's your dream deal making partner?

Jason?

Jason? Who?

Right?

We have?

He said deal?

I mean maybe i'd made deal.

The besting is John on tops of public Companies?

Okay, melody.

Question number four, What is the best piece of advice you've ever received? On deal making or business.

Don't ever make an important decision based upon money.

What's the worst advice you've ever been given?

Make yourself seen or heard.

There's a good one. You're ready for this one. What's your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation?

I will survive.

What's the most important trait you look for in a board member?

Ethics, smarts and.

Team player? Timplayer They can get along with the other people in the room.

You can only watch one sport for the rest of your life. Which one is it?

F one?

Whoa Okay, that's the first time we've gotten that.

Yeah, okay.

What team do you want to see win a championship more than any mine? Whichever one that may be. Because now you've got a few.

This has been incre Thank you for having me a.

Thank you.

The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals. The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly. This show was produced by Anna Mazarakis, Lizzie Phillip, and Stacey Wong. Original music and engineering by Blake Maples. David E. Ravella is our managing editor. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly, Brendan Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Andrew Barden, Kelly Leferrier, and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head of Podcasts.