Tom Garfinkel on Miami's Sports and Entertainment Boom

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Hi everyone, welcome to the Deal.

I'm Jason Kelly alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez. Coming up on the show this week, Tom Garfinkel. He runs basically everything in Miami that you don't run. Alex, we're talking about F one, We're talking about the Miami Dolphins, the Miami Opened.

So much going on in his empire.

But first we got to talk about some really big stories in the sports world this week starting. I have to start here because this is one of those as soon as this starts happening over the weekend, you're my first call, You're my first text.

These bats man, What is going on with these bats?

These torpedo bats? I mean, what a story. People thought that somehow the Yankees were cheating and that they were using these like big alpha bats whatever with big heads and it was helping, and you know, somehow the Yankees were getting some type of an advance that wasn't quite kosher. Well none of that is true. I mean basically, bats they have a maximum kind of weight and maximum limb They can't be longer than forty two inches, and how you distribute that weight in a thirty four to thirty

So Aaron Leenhart is the guy. He used to work for the Yankees. He now works, i believe for the Miami Marlins. He's an MIT brainiac who loves baseball. He came up with this concept. It's about redistributing the wood essentially, right, But like, how does that make a difference for you as a hitter.

Yeah, that's a great question. And then the question is where do you take that weight from to add it to more closer to the label. Now the label. As for you know, fans at home that don't play baseball, I've never used a wood bat. If the ball hits near the label, which is kind of closer to your hands, it's a broken bat and the ball is going to go nowhere. And you've seen bats, you know, shatter all

Helps your power. Okay, dumb question. How come somebody hasn't done this before.

Because there's not a lot of Mit guys like this gentleman Aaron walking around figuring this stuff out. Yeah, it's a brilliant thing. Now. There's versions of this that have been out there, not quite like this. I mean, when you saw it on social media and Michael Kay mentioned it like twitter it up, I have thirty people text me and call me and like, what's going on with this? Is crazy? The next controversy. But it was, you know, nothing like that. But it does look very odd when

I mean it also is interesting. I mean, you know, this is a business show. We think about deals, we think about you know, transactions and people, you know, gravitating to a product or not. I mean, what better advertisement than three pitches, three home runs Opening Day Weekend by the New York Yankees. I mean, seriously, you can't make that up.

You can't make it up. And then the irony is you have Aaron Judge who hits four home runs in the course of two games, three in one game, but he's not using the bat. So yeah, like, okay, which one is it? Right? Yeah, that's right.

That's a really good point.

All right, So let's talk a little bit about Opening Day Weekend. I mean, I can't even begin to tell you how distraught I am, at least initially as a Braves fan. They as we're recording this on Tuesday, they haven't won. They've yet to win a game. This is a great team. They just got rouped on the West coast, first by the Padres, then by the Dodgers. Like, what are the storylines that are emerging when it comes to

Well a few things. I think it's just from a baseball centric comment, not to say the obvious, but the Yankees are not going to go one sixty two and zero and the Braves are not going to go oh in one sixty two.

Okay, thank you for assuring me.

And while Aaron Dreds is on pace to hit three hundred and eighty home runs, he's probably not going to do that as even as great as he is. But I think, Jason, the one thing you have to focus on is the explosion and potential revenue for the Mets. This is really has been so far a home run deal, no pun intended for Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, because if you look at Jersey sales, memorabilia, ticket sales ratings are all going very very aggressively up into the right.

That's the one Soto effect.

That's the Juan Soto effect exactly, and a very much underrated move. Is also he also brought back Alonzo to protect him. Yeah, Peter Alonzo, Yeah, yeah, Pee Alonzo. You have Lindor, you have Soto, and you have Pee Alonzo, which is really nice. I think the Braves are going to be a juggernaut again. I think, you know, just patients, it's always very difficult. And I've done this a couple

I know, yeah, I mean, listen, two great teams in New York is never a bad thing. With apologies to all of our listeners, you know, in cities across the world. But I mean, man, when baseball is really hitting in New York, there's nothing better, all right, So let's shift sports before we get onto Tom Garfinkel. And actually this

What do you make of that?

Well, the gifts keeps on giving for NFL owners. I got to tell you, it's an incredible business, one that other owners from other teams around the world are very envious of. And look, out of the top was a one hundred television you know broadcast. There were like, you know, ninety five of the hundred, right, and the other college football or something like that. So football is the king

Yeah, it's funny.

I was talking to a former media executive this morning and she was saying to me, this is the nightmare scenario if you are on the media side of the business, because you don't want to give this right. You do not want to give this clause to anyone. But if you're dealing with the NFL, you have no choice because

And it's hard to believe that you have over one hundred million people watching the super Bowl and some of these forty or fifty million for some of these playoff games. And they're still growing. And I think the reason they're growing is they're just getting better at their craft. They're getting better at television. They really think about being an entertainment business first, not a foot football's just the mote. But they're really the greatest media company in the world.

Us, and we'll take a show whatever you want because we know it's good for our business.

Well spe give watching programming.

Note for our listeners out there, you can now watch us and see these two handsome faces just talking back and forth with our guests. You can go to the Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel and watch this episode and coming up Tom Garfinkel again. He is the king of Miami. I mean, I guess the other king of Miami. Two

Great to be here, Thanks, guys, appreciate you having me.

All right.

I was joking Alex that this guy is like the hardest working man in Hollywood. But you know, Miami is the new Hollywood. Everything's happening down there. You guys saw it before before anybody else. I mean, Tom, give us a sense of what's going on these days with you. I mean, all year is your busy season, but this is an especially busy season for you.

It is. Yeah, this is a very busy season.

Wrapped up the football season moved on to the College football semi championship game. Then we have our big Dolphins Cancer Challenge bike ride here. We raised over fifteen million dollars this year to fight cancer. Then we prepare for the Miami Open, and we have the Miami Open tennis tournament going on right now, and then preparing for the Formula One race in early May. Right after the race, we'll have a Shakira concert and a Post Malone concert, then Club World Cup.

So a lot going on here.

So Alex, I'm going to actually ask you a question that I then wanted to turn to Tom, which is like, what the hell is going on in Miami?

I think, how did this all happen?

You grew up there, You're the longest standing Miami resident of any of us.

Like what happened down there?

You know, I'm not sure what the heck's happened down here? But I had dinner with Tom a few years ago, and a mutual friend hosted at a small private dinner. And when I was hearing Tom explain all the things that a he was working on, which was a lot, but he gave us a little preview of what was

Well, we have a lot going on.

But you know, we had about twenty seventeen eighteen, we had about twenty six major events we do here at the stadium, about a million one point four people that would come through here. Now we're doing i know, forty eight major events two point three million people, so the calendar is pretty full, you know, all of them. I think I think tennis formula one.

Obviously.

The most important thing we do here is the Dolphins football season. We host the Miami Hurricanes for their home games, their college football games.

We have the Orange Bowl.

Here, we have the semi this year, we have the National Championship coming in twenty twenty six, the Club World Cup this year, the FIFA World Cup hosting seven matches next summer.

So you had a fun never stops here.

I like to say it's maybe the only place in the world where, you.

Know, we try to create something.

Steve and I have this vision for global entertainment destination and trying to create something where the most talented people in the world could all come to perform.

And when you think about, you.

Know, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Messi and neymar Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, your greatest players in the NFL, college football artists like Shakira or jay z and Beyonce et cetera, et cetera, have all performed here.

Taylor Swift this past fall.

It's a very unique thing that all of those people have been on our site in one place, and I think we may be the only place in the world where that's the case.

Tom.

I know Alex is going to want to talk in a few minutes a bit about your work in baseball, but before we go back there, we're always interested in sort of like that initial deal. You know when you and Steven Ross get together and you know, you sort of circle around each other, and you know, you're a big hire, he's a big name. Like, how does that deal happen? How does that come about that you guys formed this partnership.

Well, Steve and I actually met first.

I interviewed for the job in two thousand and nine and I was with the Arizona Diamondbacks at the time, and we were introduced, and it's kind of a longer story, but one thing led to another, and I actually we pulled out of the process and went to the San Diego Padres. At the Padres, I had three owners in four and a half years. There was an interesting situation there. I learned a lot, had a great experience, and then was fortunate enough to reconnect with Steve and come here

So that's kind of where it all started. We met, we kept a relationship.

I came to work with them, and we just sat down and started collaborating and both share this desire to do things differently, to think big, and fortunately he's allowed.

Us to do it.

Yeah. So Tom, following up on Jason's question, I mean, we love great partnerships here and this seems like a match made in heaven. When you think about Steve Ross, is his background over fifty years in real estate, a true savant, as blue chip as they come. And then with your background, with your global experience on sports, media, entertainment, building these great platforms. How is that conversation? Is that a weekly conversation? Do you ask it for advice? Does he ask you for advice?

Yeah? A little bit of both. At Ebbs and Flows.

I mean, we'll have a week where we talk three times a day, and then maybe we don't talk for a week.

Steve is a visionary.

He's first of all, I think Steve's just a really good guy. Like he's the kind of person you enjoy going to dinner with, you enjoy spending time with.

He makes you laugh, You want to spend time with him. He's a good person. He treats people well.

So I think it all starts there, and then we just kind of enjoy each other's company, you know. And he allows me to argue with him and fight with him a little bit and debate because we're always just trying to get to the right conclusion of things for the business and to grow things. But yeah, it ebs and flows in terms of how much time we spend together.

In the country. He's all in on it. It's quite a thing to watch. It's amazing. He's doing incredible things.

So let's talk about that for a second. I'm glad you went there, Tom, because I sort of joked about this at the top. But there has been I mean, this has been well documented by Bloomberg and everyone, this massive economic boom in South Florida that you just described, and Steven Ross has obviously been at the white hot

You know, when we think about this place again being a global entertainment destination, what we do is so much more than selling tickets.

We really focus on impacting people's lives. You know.

I think when the pandemic first happened, Steve called and he said, you know, so.

Many people are going to be hungry there.

We need to put, you know, a food program together, and we need to feed people. And we went and we got local restaurants who would have went out of business and kept them in business with over three million dollars from Steve personally and from the Lennard Foundation where we went and bought meals and did a thousand meals a day initially intended to be for three months and we ended up doing it for over a year for local residents in Miami Gardens.

And that was really Steve's initiative.

So there's so many things that we do here to try to help people's That are the fifteen million dollars to fight cancer. Just this year now almost one hundred million dollars we've raised for Sylvester Cancer Center at the Versus to Miami through the community of people that participate in that, and so that's a big part of what we do. I think what we do is put on events that in today's world, that is, you know, people are isolated, people are lonely, people are stuck on their phones,

Exposure to otherwise.

And so we do things with STEM programs and with community ticket program and everything else to keep the community involved. But the culture migration here, what's happened in Miami, I say it's a curator of culture really for the rest of the country in some ways the rest of the world. You think about sports, but music, fashion, art, the hospitality industry. It's a center of culture really for the rest of

So Tom, obviously our viewers know a lot more about the NFL and the Miami Dolphins obviously one of the one thirty two blue chip franchise in sports, around the world. My question to you is, you've had multiple years where you've broken records in revenue, whether it's ticket sales or team revenue. But for listeners and viewers at home, you

To answer your question directly, Alex, every year, really for the past several years has been a new record in terms of ticket revenue thanks to our great fan base and the renovation of the stadium and all the things that we've done. So this year was the most we've ever done. I think we were a third in the NFL. Actually, it grows ticket revenue this year and the weekend of the race, the ticket revenue is more than the entire Dolphin season.

Just to put it in perspective.

Wow, my god.

Wow, it's quite an incredible thing.

And you know, Formula one has just continues continues to grow here in the United States.

Now, I'm not suggesting it's a.

Bigger business than the NFL by any means, or the NFL is the most relevant, most important, maybe cultural phenomenon in the country, even beyond sports. That's not what I'm suggesting by any means, but I do think that you know, Formula one racing here in Miami and International City, bringing it here to the United States. You know, people come out to the race for a great event, and then they fall in love with the racing and then they become fans of racing.

Tell us at a little bit about that decision and that deal, Tom, because becoming a promoter for a Formula one race is not something anyone takes lightly. It's a huge commitment. It's a you know, ten year commitment. I believe in your case, you got to build some infrastructure. You have to have this partnership with Formula one and the FIA to sort of do all this. Talk to us a little bit about those conversations between you and Steven when you're like, okay.

Like we're going to do this.

Was it a hard decision? Did it feel risky? Like what was the sort of the tenor of that at the moment.

Well, Steve is first of all, he's just he's amazing, because I'm not sure he really even understood what it was when it first the process first started it's like, let's bring a Formula one race.

That's great. Maybe let's do it, you know. So and then we went to the race in Montreal.

This was back in I think twenty eighteen, and we were driving a hawk away from the racetrack afterwards, and he looked at me in the car he said, I had no idea how big a deal.

This is, Like, are you sure you can do this?

Wow?

And I looked at him and I said, yeah, yeah, we can do it. We can do it. He said okay, And he said okay. And that was it.

And why did you think it was a good business? I had worked in most Yeah, you had worked in motorsport, yeah.

Previously in my career, and I knew what Formula one was. I knew a lot about it.

I had relationships and things throughout motorsports. And I actually when I first got here in twenty thirteen, I drove my car out one hundred and ninety ninth Street, out in front of the stadium, and I thought to myself, well, this is a racetrack, you know. And I had always had this idea to want to build a racetrack around a stadium. I don't think street races in the United

We're getting ready for a race and building a racetrack and everything.

Else, and we can control that and contain that, but when you're doing it in city streets, it's very difficult to do. And so I knew putting it around a stadium made a lot of sense in a lot of different ways, and had a vision for that. I think Formula one we first met within seventeen eighteen ish.

And they wanted to put it downtown Miami.

They wanted the blimp shots of the yachts and these things, and the TV.

Shots, and you know, there's a lot of challenges.

I mean, you get twenty thousand people in and out of there for a heat game and there's traffic, and so I don't know how we're going to get one hundred thousand people in and out of here. You're disrupting all these businesses. You have to take things, put them back up. You've got the heat, you've got the port, you've got residences, you get all these things where you're

That no other racetrack has.

And by then we had in twenty nineteen, we had done the tennis tournament for the first time, so we had kind of proven we could create this oasis that wasn't a parking lot anymore. And I think their biggest concern was, we don't want to have a race and a parking lot. And so once they understood that we were going to create something really unique and different, they.

Got on board.

And then we were negotiating, and then COVID hit and then that delayed it, so it really took four four and a half years to get the deal done. When Stefano came on board Stefano dominic Aale the CEO of Formula one in January of twenty twenty one, we got on a couple of zoom calls and hammered out a deal actually pretty quickly, and by April of twenty one we had it signed and the first race was in May of twenty two, so that was an eleven month thrash by the time we had it signed and started moving.

So Tom, you have this incredible platform you and Steve have built. And when you think about just zoom out and look at the hold Coe, and you look at Team Cod Dolphins, and then you look at real estate code, how beneficial has it been to be able to control own or control the site as almost a blank canvas as you're talking about cones and this versus if you didn't have control of the real estate. How much smaller or how much bigger is your business Because you control the real estate.

It's significantly bigger. That's a great question, Alex.

You know, having worked at other stadium environments, fall park environments where it's owned by a municipality, you have a lot more constraints, you have a lot more restrictions, you have a lot more process to go through the get things done, and so owning the site, owning the stadium is a big difference maker. But because we own it means we can do a lot of you know, just

So let's talk a little bit about football if we can.

That is the crown jewel the Dolphins obviously one of the most storied franchises in the National Football League, which, as you rightly said, Tom, is like it's the big cahuna of global sports.

You know, it is the.

Envy of every league that's out there. Talk about what's happened in that business. Lately and specifically around ownership and the decision to sell a stake to be one of the first to participate in this you know, new institutional capital program.

How does that come about?

What?

What's that process like?

Well, I think that's been a longish process as well, you know.

I think the NFL, Roger and then all the owners membership are very deliberate, very thoughtful about these types of things. They take their time wisely so, and I think structured over a period of time a very smart sort of you know, way to start that process. And so there's sometimes unintended consequences with these types of big decisions, and I can assure you that group of people has tried to, you know, think through all of them before doing something, and I think that's wise.

The process itself, you know, was pretty easy.

I don't want to speak for Steve, but having you know, been along the process with him, I mean again, he's he's very.

Passionate about what he's doing in West Palm Beach. He's changing lives, he's changing a city.

And the evaluation was high, certainly a lot higher than he paid for it. And so the opportunity to generate some liquidity when debt markets are expensive to generate some cash flow to both invest into West Palm Beach and to potentially invest in more sports assets.

Moving forward as well and grow.

The sports assets here in South Florida and other places, something that he was trying to do. And look again, what he's doing in West Palm Beach is he's trying to really create the most livable city in the country. And I don't think he's very concerned at the stage of his life about the.

Profitability of it. He's genuinely just not.

Unlike the tennis tournament here when he called me and said the tennis tournament might be leaving Miami, let's let's keep it here and do it at the stadium, he's trying to do the same in West Palm Beach. So I think pulling some money off the table was really about having that liquidity to reinvest back into these types of products.

So, Tom, a lot of our listeners and viewers are enormous sports fans. Some of them would love to be LPs to an NFL team, whether you know some of the new volleyball leagues or you know, you name it. There's a lot of people saying that there is a bubble in sports in valuations. Where do you stand in that is it? And why or is not? And why why not?

I don't believe there is. And the reason is that it's simple supply and demand, alex.

I mean, there's constraints, supplies, scarcity, principal thing. These are very desirable assets, the NFL especially, and when you have more people that want to buy them than there are

And so Tom just just back briefly to sort of the transactional nature of the sport. You know, this notion of institutional capital coming in. You're very familiar with that at You've seen the sports world from so many different angles. Ares Capital Management, I believe is one of your partners. Now, what does that look like, because you guys are one of your one of only two teams so far who

Like? What role has this played for you so far?

Well, We're very lucky. Areas has been fantastic.

I mean, you know, the folks at Areas that we work with are a part of discussions that we have about growing the business and growing the enterprise, and so you know, they're very collaborative partners. You know, this isn't how you think about private equity. This isn't you know, they come in and buy something and then you cut the number of pencils you have in have cut all the costs, and then flip it in seven years for more money.

It couldn't be further from from that stereotype.

I think, you know, these are people that are interested in growth. I think they see that the NFL is you know, maybe the safest asset class you know in the world in terms of the likelihood that it's going to go down is probably smaller than any other investment you can.

Make and so they understand that, they see the upside. And then they've seen.

Sort of the management discipline we employ and the consistent growth we've had in both revenue and profitability, you know, every year for the last decade, regardless of other things that have happened in the world. So they saw that, they invested in that, and they've just been fantastic partners.

Do they have tremendous access to capital.

Obviously we have conversations with them as partners about potentially doing more things.

So, Jason, I got to tell you the first time I heard about Tom was through a mutual friend that Tom and I have a gentleman by the name of Jeff Morad. So it's Scott Boris, and then it was Jeff Mooread in the World sports as an agent, and then he crossed over to the dark side and became an owner with the Padres in Arizona, and about.

Two d went he went to the good side, the.

Bright side, the bright side. You know what's interesting is that on twenty twelve or so or thirteen, maybe you know, Jeff says to me, the most talented guy out there is Tom. And he's a young guy. He's up and coming, but trust me, this guy's going to take over the world. And I was like, okay, whatever, whatever. You know, Tom's still a young guy and he's you know, kind of you know, still cutting his teeth a little bit. But boy,

Jeff, you know, Jeff's a great guy, and he was one of the first ones to see what was happening in Formula one and made a big investment in McLaren Racing, right, you know, back maybe four or five years.

Ago, which was a very wise decision at the time.

Defending champion McLaren right, and.

They just won one of the first two races of the years.

Yeah, exactly, and current leader and constructors.

Yeah, that's right. I learned a lot from Jeff.

But I learned you know, negotiation is sort of Jeff's strong suit, and so participating in several negotiations with him, how he's able to position deal. You know, I would come with sort of a strategic analysis of a situation, Here's what I think it's going to be, Here's where I think it's going, Here's what I think we should do. And he said, well, what do you think is you know what's the right number?

And then I tell the number and tell them why, and he.

Then and then he would go and negotiate the deal, and I'd write along with him sometimes.

But I learned a lot in terms of, you know, listening first.

You know, if you listen during a negotiation, you're going to find out a lot people tend to want to talk, and I think if you listen first, that's that's hugely important.

And just not you know, being careful with your word choice.

And careful with your body language and got everything you're doing. And the negotiation is telling the other side something I personally, I'm sort of a I believe in when when deals work out the best and if you do those things over a period of time, you're able to do more deals, develop a better reputation. Trying to win a deal is

Three different parties throughout that.

You know, at one point it was one person and another point it was another person. In the end it was Stefano and and there was different models that were being used, you know, for us to be a promoter.

There were different financial models.

There's different ideas about downtown or here, there was different ideas about.

What it could generate or not generate.

And so I think being consistent throughout that process, and I did walk away a couple of times. You know, it's kind of what that deal doesn't work for us, We're not going to do that. There have been deals that I've gotten excited about, worked hard on for a year, done the diligence, gone through the process, and in the end the deal wasn't the right deal. And so you know, I'd tell Steve or you know whatever, like this isn't the right deal, we just need to walk away and

And so Tom, you know, we mentioned baseball.

And your experience there, and you guys talked about it a little bit. You know, I do wonder as someone who has this pretty broad portfolio in sports, it's like, do you guys think about, you know, investing in different sports? You know, does baseball make sense? Or there are challenger leagues out there? I mean, you you have been you know, fortunate, and this is not an accident that you're in some

Sometimes?

Yeah, we're looking. We're looking at all kinds of different opportunities. I think it's less about specifically. I mean the sport matters, obviously, but I think you know, the market matters, The geography, the context of the situation, the brand, what you're walking into, the control, the degree of control anyway, all of those

Are you talking about the Dolphins?

We have Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Columbia, Argentina as our global markets in this Global markets program. Well, you know, we have a Brazilian tennis player out here today Fonseca.

We've had Alcoraz out here from Spain.

We've got you know, Carlos Signs driving in Formula One. We've got you know, La Liga matches, We've got World Cup, FIFA World Cup. We've got like I mentioned, Shakira, Carol g Bunny play of concerts here.

And so we've really expanded our data.

Capabilities and our data initiative to collect data on all the individuals that buy tickets from us and come here and where they live and what they do and what they like. And so I think there's more a more strategic relevance to what we're trying to build than just here's an opportunity, let's buy into this this team or that team in this board.

That's what I think.

It's how does it tie into what we're trying to do with the rest of the enterprise and how we're developing and growing people, and how we're developing and growing certain capabilities, whether that's you know, stadium designed for revenue and fan experience versus you know, to win design awards, whether that's operationally what we do with taking up and down tennis and Formula one, and what we do on this campus which is pretty complex, whether it's sponsorship sales,

Of those things. It is interesting to think about, and Tom, you and I got to visit a few weeks ago in Miami, and I was intrigued by this idea, This notion of you know, this very diverse demographic that you guys probably have a not just a window into, but like really hard data about that is probably the envy of a lot of other organizations in terms of being able to cater to them, you know, not just in an individual sport or an individual artist, but you know,

Is that fair?

I think it's very fair.

You know, it's the fastest growing segment of the population in the United States. You know, the world is shrinking, So from a global perspective, I think there are people that live in Latin America that may have a place in Miami or a place in Madrid or both. And so Madrid in Miami are very kindred, you know, cities in a lot of ways.

I was just there a couple of weeks ago, and you know, there's.

A lot of things happening in Madrid is a vibrant, booming city as well.

It's beautiful, it's clean, it's a fantastic place.

And so when you think about the synergies between cities like that, and then you think about Sampaulo or Mexico City, and you start tying these things together through sports, entertainment, hospitality, you know, and how we bring people together, I think it starts to become an interesting business.

All right, So we're going to wrap up with our lightning round. This is our favorite part. We get to ask you five questions. We go back and forth really fast, and so just you know, drop the first thing that comes to your mind. I'll start, Alex, then you can pick up. All right, Tom Garfinkel, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received on deal making or business?

On business, I'd say it's, you know, always be learning, always be learning and growing and never thinking.

Who's your dream deal maker? Not named Steve Bross, it would have.

Been Steve.

Alex, I love it.

Man.

You know, there's a person named Kevin Copton who have tremendous respect for Kevin was an original partner Cline Perkins and has become a friend and mentor. He's the kind of person that if I had him sitting next to me and to her deals. I know we're going to make good deals.

That's a good one.

What's the most nervous you've ever been?

Probably fifth grade when this kid challenged me to fight after school, and the whole day I had to wait and know that I had to go after school and the whole schools.

Gouldn't be there, and I had to get in a fight.

What happened?

He punched me in the face, and then my lips started bleeding, and then I wasn't nervous anymore, and I did Okay.

You took care of business. I like it.

Speaking of fighting, what's your hype song before you go into a big meeting or negotiation?

That would be Tupac when we write.

Oh, good one.

What's your advice for someone listening who wants a career like yours?

Be willing to make sacrifices, work really hard, you know, always be learning and create value. You know, you get started. First of all, there's no perfect job. But when you do, you're gonna have to make sacrifices. You're gonna have to work hard.

That's really really good advice, all right, Tom Garfinkel, great to chop it up with you, Vice Chairman, President CEO of Miami Dolphins, hard Rock Stadium, managing partner of Formula One, Crypto dot Com, Miami Grand Prix. He's got his fingers a lot of pies. Alex Rodriguez, your neighbor. You guys are making it all happen down in South Florida.

Great to be with you, guys. Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you, Tom.

The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was made by Anamazarakus, Stacy Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Amy Keen is our editor and Will Connelly is our video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers are Kelly Leferrier, Ashley Hoenig, and Brendan neonham Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel Carnivale and Elena Los Angeles. Thanks so much for listening to the Deal. If you have a minute, subscribe,

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