Athletes Unlimited CEO Jon Patricof Talks Softball, Washington Commanders President Mark Clouse

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2:01This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports, where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barnes. I'm Vanessa Perdomo Maglione. And I'm Randall Williams. Coming up today, we are going to be talking about Formula One with Racing Bulls Formula One team CEO, Peter Baer. We are also going to be speaking to one of the co-founders of Athletes Unlimited to discuss their recently wrapped up second season of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League. But before all that, Randall is actually joining us from the Bloomberg D.C. Bureau, where he got a chance to speak with Washington Commanders President Mark Klaus in a Bloomberg Newsmakers Fireside Conversation.

2:40Yep. Mark and I chatted all things commanders, including their new stadium, which is estimated to be worth$3.8 billion if completed. And they make that mark. It'll be the second most expensive stadium ever built. But of course, they have four seasons to play or three or four seasons left to play at Northwest Field. We talked, of course, about the team name. We talked the business of the NFL's international aspirations and how Roger Goodell hopes to build out a 16-game international package. So it was a wide-ranging conversation. Mark was great. Let's take a listen in to Randall's conversation with Mark Klaus, president of the Washington Commanders.

3:18Mark, thank you for doing this. It's been about 18 months since you took the job a little over that. We met at the NFL League meeting last year. Remember well. Somewhere on the West Coast. But for those of you who don't know Mark, Mark is, before he was in the football business, had a very prevalent past in the food industry. That's right. And so when the commander's role, team president opened up, what piqued your interest about it? That seems like a dramatic shift from food, team president. Well, other than being, you know, probably every 12 or 13-year-old boy's dream to work on a sports team, For me personally, there were a variety of things.

4:01And first of all, I should say, loved, feel very lucky to have been able to spend the time I did with the Campbell's Company. And that journey was an extraordinary gift. And I was lucky enough that I had a great successor there, ready to go. and thinking about the next chapter, my life and so many things in my life have revolved around sports. And my perspective was in this next chapter, I wanted to try to go do something different, but I wanted to be able to bring some of the things that I had learned or that experienced in turning around businesses or transforming brands. And I couldn't have found a better owner in Josh Harris and what Josh has done consistently, what his vision was for the commanders.

4:55I don't think there's any mystery. We were a team in transition on a lot of different levels. And that opportunity to come into sports, but also bring some things to the table that are relevant from my past, I thought was just this perfect mix. And so I went through a very rigorous interview process, as Josh does most things in his business life. But I think the combination of those areas, as well as the evolving world of sports, and I'm sure we'll talk about that more, made for just really a match made in heaven and to be happier. Based on your previous history, what is the biggest difference that you find between corporate culture and team culture?

5:41Well, I tell people a lot of times it's been kind of like 50-50, right? 50 % of this are things that I know very well. Like the business is kind of the business. It's not a particularly complicated business model. It doesn't mean it's simple, but it's not particularly complicated. A lot of the organizational demands of what you're trying to do to set clarity of direction and build culture, very, very consistent. But there are some things that are quite different. I affectionately say to people sometimes that there were many people that like soup. These guys love football, right? And it's a different level of passion.

6:23And that makes for this kind of added, I think, level of responsibility, I would say, or this, you know, at least for me personally, feeling like, you know, the things that we do, we've really got to get done right. And, you know, as it relates to culture, I honestly think there's more alike than there is difference. You know, this was an organization that had gone through some tough times. And I think in many ways we started kind of at the beginning again, reestablishing what the purpose and the values of the organization was going to be. Would never have come if I didn't have that alignment with Josh, who's got a very clear view of how we want to do things.

7:04And it's exactly the way that, you know, I believe we should be doing it. And so establishing that for an organization, you know, you evaluate the talent. Do I've got the right people in the right chairs? A lot of really, you know, credit to Jason, who had the job before me, certainly brought in some really talented folks. And so for me, it felt very familiar. Most of my career on the business side has been spent in businesses that were in turnarounds. and a lot of that playbook we applied here. So probably from a cultural standpoint, I'd say more similarities than differences. Interesting. A couple of years ago when the commanders, Jayden Daniels had been drafted and the commanders were riding high, I wrote this story that said the commanders are the most exciting team in the NFL.

7:52And I talked to Josh about it and I talked to some season ticket holders, I talked to some fans. And one of the fans that I spoke to said, the previous ownership was the previous ownership, but it feels like Josh owns the team on behalf of the fans, and it feels like he's one of us. Can you speak to that side of him, maybe the passion that Josh has about this team? Yeah, I think, you know, there's no mystery in how Josh and the broader ownership group has approached the team. I think they've been very, very clear that this is more than just about a business, right? Obviously, putting a product on the field, the hiring of Adam Peters and Dan Quinn were great first steps in the right direction, obviously drafting Jaden.

8:36And the commitment to investment in ensuring that winning in championship football is part of what we're bringing to our fans is obviously paramount. But I would also say that the things that also make fans proud of their franchise is also very important to Josh. So, you know, how we reflect on the heritage of the team, how we treat our legends, how we engage and interact with the community, all of that has been elevated as a very significant priority in the agenda. And, you know, to be perfectly honest, we had some work to do there. Rebuilding trust in those relationships in some cases were very important.

9:21But from, you know, day one, the clarity that Josh has had on this. And, you know, I think it's born from, you know, who he is. But it's also born from the fact that he grew up here. This, in many ways, is his team. Like, he grew up as a fan. He, you know, treasured moments where he was going to the stadium and to the game. And I think that responsibility shapes a lot of his thinking. but I will tell you in watching him more broadly across the business world, he brings very similar values to those businesses as well. And that's something that I really admire. And, you know, as someone who's working for him in that ecosystem is really encouraging.

10:05So let's stay on business. And sponsorship, I think, is something that is really important to NFL teams in terms of the revenue that they're able to bring in. And it's no secret that before Josh Harris' time, the commanders, the value of the commanders had decreased over time due to a multitude of situations. But since then, I believe there was a report last year that came out from The Athletic and ESPN that said the commanders' sponsorship revenue was in the top third of the league. What has your conversations or what have your conversations been like with these sponsors who are now, once again, excited and being welcomed back into the stadium?

10:38Well, not that we're competitive or anything, but we are actually in the top 10 now. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. We've come a long way from where we were. No, we're, I think, you know, again, I approach this through a couple different lenses. The first is recognizing that building trust with our partners was really important. And so spending time better understanding, you know, what their concerns were, what their opportunities were, was a big part of our outreach. There's no question that improved performance on the football field helps. Those things are certainly part of the, you know, kind of the algorithm.

11:16But we want to also be able to control the variables that we can control. And so, you know, part of what's helped me a little bit is I sat on the other side of that table for many, many years in the food business as a client. And so what we've tried to do is adapt our model on sponsorship from what used to be, and it drove me crazy, are these very pedestrian conversations on how many signs do I get my name on? No, what we want to understand is what a business's goals and challenges are. We want to establish a strategy where we're able to address those goals or those KPIs. And then we want to hold ourselves accountable.

12:01So I'll sit down with our top sponsors and we'll reflect on the past year. What were the goals we agreed upon? Did we deliver upon that? Yes, great. Or no, what did we need to do differently to adjust? And so what we're trying to do is differentiate ourselves at the same time we're recovering from a period where we weren't performing at the levels that we want. And, you know, I fully anticipate being in the geography we're in, the team we have, and the vision that we've got going forward, that, you know, being in the top 10 is a great, you know, measuring stick. But, you know, we want to chase that number one, those guys down in Dallas.

12:44We want to go after them. And they've set a great bar for us, but I think we have the ability to compete in almost every aspect of the business with the best-in-class teams. What area of the business do you think has the most room to grow based on your first 18 months of the job? Yeah, I mean, there's no question that, you know, one of the things that great teams have is this loyal season ticket member fan base, right? And you have to earn that. Like, you don't just get that. Like, you've got to, that's a combination of what you're doing on the football field, but also the experience for our fans when they come.

13:24And so when I look at where we started from relative to other teams, we were well behind. And so a lot of my energy has been on trying to rebuild that season ticket base because my feeling is, you know, those are our most committed fans. Those are the folks that are investing the most, you know, hard-earned money on the experience. And that's why you see a lot of our marketing and what we're doing geared toward them. That's a part of my conversation with Mark Klaus, president of the Washington Commanders. You can hear more of it now on the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast. Get that on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Business app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:03Coming up, we switch gears to talk about a true summer sport, softball, and how it has the potential to be the next big women's sport. That is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports for Vanessa, for Dumbo Maglione, and Randall Williams. I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports, Bloomberg Radio around the world.

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16:31This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr. I'm Vanessa Perdomo-Maglione. And Randall Williams, he is on assignment in Washington. Now, let's dig into a rising sport growing extremely popular at the college level with a new path at the professional level, softball. This year, the College World Series was the most watched ever, with Game 2 of the championship bringing in 2.2 million viewers. To talk more about how softball is growing at the collegiate and professional level, we are joined by John Patrikov, CEO and co-founder of Athletes Unlimited.

17:07John, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. I am always excited when you talk about women's sports because it is growing like a weed. Well, great to be here with you. And thanks so much for making the time. And it is indeed. It's still very early days. And there's a lot to talk about and a lot of opportunity still left to pursue. And we couldn't be more excited at Athletes Unlimited for what's happening in softball and beyond. Yeah, I mean, we'll get into the whole thing. I do want to take a step back quickly. I want to talk about softball because you just wrapped up the second season of Athletes Unlimited Softball League.

17:41But taking a step back for people who don't know what Athletes Unlimited is and where you started. I mean, you started investing in women's sports before the industry really took, you know, took heed. And back in 2020, you saw something there and you started Athletes Unlimited, but then you invested more into softball. So can you tell us just about all of that and how the softball league came to be as well? Absolutely. So we launched Athletes Unlimited on March 3rd of 2020. Great time to start a business. Right before COVID. Great timing. And we kicked off really with a huge belief in the opportunity around pro women's sports.

18:21We launched in softball and then we added leagues over the coming years and other sports. And in 2024, we were then operating a portfolio of leagues. We really saw the sort of sport of softball as the place where there was the biggest untapped opportunity. we decided to double down in a very big way. And we announced the launch of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which ended up playing its first season last year, 2025. And we've just completed our second regular season last weekend. And honestly, the growth has been meteoric. The stakes in women's sports have grown. The required capital has grown.

19:01The expectations of fans, sponsors, athletes have grown. And that's all great. And, you know, We're excited to have been one of the first and earliest to kind of see the opportunity. And this journey, I think, has prepared us really well for this moment. We've learned a lot. We've made a lot of, you know, we've done a lot of great things. We've also made some mistakes. And you always learn from those mistakes as well as from those good things. And so that's prepared us incredibly well for this softball season, which just concluded, and really to record numbers on all fronts. And ultimately, it's about driving and building a huge business.

19:32And we couldn't be more excited for where we sit. We're talking with John Patrikoff, CEO and co-founder of Athletes Unlimited. And I want to get your reaction. We were talking about this off mic, but billionaire Larry Tannenbaum, he owns the Toronto Temple. He's focusing on women's basketball after selling his stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment for the equivalent of about$3.1 billion. And a lot of it is because he is seeing growth in revenue in the WNBA. with the average franchise, and this is cool to say, is now worth$427 million. John, you know, back in the day, you wouldn't even see 50.

20:17Absolutely. I mean, back in 2020, WNBA teams were selling for$10 million. NWSL teams were selling for two. It's been dramatic. Franchise values have grown. I think truthfully catching up with where, you know, a lot of the data pointed in that direction even back then. I mean, you could see big audiences tuning in when these games were on broadcast networks, when they were getting the type of promotion and investment. And it's a virtuous cycle. And, you know, investors, Larry is usually ahead of the game. You know, he certainly was with MLS and other sports investments he made. And I think obviously, you know, him and many other investors are also coming in now.

21:01And I think that just shows that it's still very early days. I think in the sport of softball, we have a unique situation with Athletes Unlimited. We are a single entity. We own and operate all of the teams. So there are six teams in our league. And we and Major League Baseball, who's our co-investor, along with Marc Atanasio, Reed and Nolan Ryan. And we have a great group and we are really set up not just as owners of teams, but also the owners of the league. And that gives us a lot of opportunity and a lot of control over the future of the sport. And we look at the WNBA and the NWSL and, you know, we think we're, you know, the next, you know, great women's sports league that are out there and great to be in great company with them.

21:46I think that's such a great point. And to what Michael was saying, kind of just about the growth of the WNBA and seeing these franchise valuations at the way that they are. but years ago the WNBA had this problem that I feel like is kind of going on with softball right now just in the way that it's so popular at the collegiate level right we used to see women's basketball so popular at the collegiate level but they weren't able to translate it to the WNBA so right now women's college softball is one of the fastest growing you know college sports it's so well watched this year's college championship got two million viewers in game two so it's continuously growing and that's obviously what you must have saw when you decided to double down like you said and make the athletes unlimited softball league so tell me how you get from the college viewership and translate that over to the professional game because i think that's that's that wmba model right following in those sorts of footsteps yeah absolutely so um well we have just concluded our second regular season and just to give you a sense of kind of where we are You know, our viewership on ESPN increased over 183 percent over last year.

22:56So our final game this season, we played our championship. We had best two out of three set. Our first game of that series was on ABC. The first time you had ever had a pro softball game on broadcast television. We did 732 ,000 viewers. Game two then was on ESPN. And we are just really crushing it on all fronts. But you're absolutely right. A huge part of the strategy is leaning into and working from the momentum that exists in college softball. So our season started June 9th, just a few days after the College World Series finished. We had over 50 games on ESPN this season. And they are an incredible partner.

23:44ESPN is an incredible partner. Major League Baseball has been an incredible partner. And then with college softball momentum as well. One of our most successful promotions was our golden ticket moments where we actually handed out golden tickets to players after a regular season game and surprised them that they were going to be drafted into the league. and it went viral and these amazing moments. So we really lean into the college audience, but we also really have worked very closely with MLB to work across all the MLB platforms. And then ESPN, who's been probably the biggest supporter of this sport at the college and pro level, and they've just been awesome partners to us.

24:19That, you know, number that you said, 183 % over, you know, the year one for you guys, what do you think that it was that you've seen in that growth? Was it just the visibility? Was it just awareness that now it's the second season? People know about it a little bit more. Or what did you do, do you think, to garner that type of growth? Yeah. So, I mean, I do think, you know, the momentum builds and it does snowball. And that's certainly a reality. I think that we had, you know, with 2025, you know, we kicked off. We launched the season in June. What really we had then, you know, after we concluded season one was an entire off season where we really didn't pick our foot off the pedal.

24:57We had our college draft. We really leaned in with MLB. We had a presence at spring training across the country. And then we have also moved towards now a city based format. So we went from four teams last year in 2025 that were playing basically a touring model. This year we went to six teams and they were all situated in home markets. And we played in, you know, we have six teams, one in Portland, one in Austin, one in Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. And we saw the kind of feedback from local fans really just off the chart. And that, I think, is another big push. And as we look ahead to the future, we clearly are thinking about, you know, even further expansion.

25:40Softball really is a national sport. It plays really well in certain geographies in the country, but it has fans across the board. Portland's probably the biggest surprise. People don't typically think of the Pacific Northwest for softball. And we had sellouts across the board up in Portland. We had 23 sellouts across the country for our games. And we saw fans come out everywhere. So this is a national sport with a lot of momentum. And, you know, I think for any league, you know, you really have to pull every lever here. And for us, having partnerships with MLB, having partnerships with ESPN, leveraging college softball, it all kind of feeds together to create, you know, that virtuous cycle.

26:20We're talking with John Patrickoff, CEO and co-founder of Athletes Unlimited. And this is the just blunt cut to the chase question with a big growth now in women's sports. What in the hell happened? Why it has taken so long for that to take place? You know, it's a reality, I feel like, in business across the board where there is evidence often out there. There's data. And honestly, it takes a few entrepreneurs. It takes a few people to be ahead of the curve and pay attention to it. I mean, I do want to say that this has been a long time coming, right? I mean, Title IX is now over 50 years old.

27:03You've got the W that's been out this now for 30 years. I think were the beneficiaries of all that of that work that's been done. But I think live sports is growing. This category is growing generally and societal kind of views of of women and opportunity have all changed. And then finally, I think from a business standpoint, the rise of social media. I mean, what what is one thing that is a huge tailwind for women's sports is that we all know how important individual athletes are, you know, them connecting in their fan bases. And these women athletes are absolutely incredible storytellers. They absolutely are incredible both on the field and off the field.