Eli Manning Eyes NY Giants Stake; WNBA Star Jewell Loyd

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0:30going to be really unlocking the streaming platform for sports fans. Sports valuations are rising. We'll see when they peak. You don't have to be the best in your sport to make a whole ton of money. Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr along with Damian Sassauer. Vanessa Perdomo will join us a bit later on in the show. Coming up we'll We'll talk about the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces and star guard Jewel Lloyd on her family office venture. It's not about money. It's really about the impact, healing and ownership.

1:09I think our mission is to really help families, founders, communities build generational power and aligning that with capital and purpose. Plus, we'll hear from the commissioner of Major League Pickleball, Samin Awani on Pickleball's growing popularity. All that and more straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. But first, Eli Manning is working to put together a bid to buy a stake in the team. He won two Super Bowls for the New York Giants. Here to take us through what we know is friend of the show, Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Randall Williams. Randall, welcome back to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

1:46I appreciate you all for having me. Well, we got a couple of things to talk about. So I'm going to start, first of all, with let's talk about Eli Manning. And now Eli Manning's thinking, hey, you know what? my old team. I wouldn't mind owning just a piece of that. Tell us about that. Yeah. So the Marin Tish families put a 10 % stake up for sale. That's what the number has been reported originally by the Sports Business Journal. Eli has long said, I think it was on CNBC earlier this year, that if there was one team that he was going to own a piece of, it was going to be the Giants. It's sort of a no-brainer here that he's thrown his name in the hat to buy at least a piece of that 10%, maybe not the full thing, but part of it for sure.

2:26So talk to us a little bit, Randall. I mean, what are the Giants valued at here? Is it something on the order of what, $8 billion? I mean, so 10%,$800 million, walk me through the numbers here. I mean, would Eli carry a substantial stake in the team? I mean, would he have at least some sort of say in how the team is managed? What are your thoughts there? I think a lot of it is to be determined like if you think about the way that the miami dolphins and and uh stephen ross were able to get to 8.1 billion and then jeffrey laurie and the eagles got to 8.3 and new york is bigger than both of those cities just from the market perspective i would imagine that the giants would go for more than both of those teams um or at least a stake would go for both of those teams um in regards to what eli and his position within the giants is going to be it really depends on what the Maris wanted to be.

3:18I mean, the Giants obviously haven't had much success over the last decade. Eli surely could come in and provide some football analysis the same way that Tom Brady is doing for Mark Davis and the Las Vegas Raiders. I was just going to get into that because now if this goes through with Eli, he's going to have the same problem that Tom Brady had because both are technically in the booth. Well, of course, Tom Brady, we know he's in the booth, but Eli and his brother Peyton, they have the the Monday night cast where it's still they're broadcasting are they going to run into problems just like Tom Brady I'm not sure I think that that's a good question and I think the NFL will definitely be meeting about it for if if Eli you know if Eli's bid does go to the point where they have to approve it I think that you know some of the people that they're talking to on the Manny cast aren't active players as well as you know the the people that they're speaking about during the games or most of the time are playing.

4:13So I think it's a little different, but there might be some owners in the NFL who look at this and are like, absolutely not. I want similar rules on Manning is that there are on Brady. So we'll have to see in the months to come. Well, Manning is obviously very close with both the Mara and the Tish families. He played for the team for 16 years. You know, Randall, do you think that when he goes to actually sign on the dotted line and take his stake in the team that he dresses like Chad Powers, puts on a big mustache, pretends like he's a walk on a Penn State University? But no, I mean, let's switch gears a little bit.

4:41I mean, it's a great story, but you know, the real story for me, Michael Barr, the Washington Commanders, I mean, they are getting to play in their own stadium again. Talk to us a little bit about that, Randall. What's the word? I think that Josh Harris and what he has done with the team is simply remarkable. I mean, if you remember the state of the Commanders just three years ago, just the worry that other NFL owners that Roger Goodell had just because of Dan Snyder, and then Josh Harris buys the team. They're not very good in year one, but then, you know, he, he, he, uh, commits to saying like, okay, we're going to get better.

5:13They draft Jay and Daniels. They hired Dan Coyne and they put a good front office in place. And, you know, they have this miraculous season and, uh, you know, along the way there is stadium talks. Like that's the number one thing on his mind. The product on the field was taking care of itself, but the stadium thing was not certain that he was going to be able to get RFK stadium. And the fact that two years later he has, he has a deal is just insane. Well, I mean, think about that, Randall. I mean, Josh Harris. I mean, you're absolutely right. Roger Goodell. I mean, they had written it off under the Snyder years.

5:42And then Roger Goodell, and I didn't even know this, he's been in D.C. He's been lobbying the government, you know, for what now to walk me through this, because I didn't understand. So the RFK site was controlled by the federal government and not D.C. And what needed to happen was it needed to change hands. Is that right? Yeah. So in December, they voted to I think it was Congress voted to shift it from the federal government to D.C. And then Joe Biden or former President Joe Biden signed it in on one of his last days in office. So this was miraculous that this happened. And then, of course, you have these months that come.

6:14It's some, you know, let's say 120 days later and you have a deal. But do you think about the way that other stadiums and teams and local governments have to make these deals? It normally doesn't happen this quick. The fact that, you know, the mayor is sitting there, you have Josh Harris, you have Roger Goodell, who are all committing the, you know, it's 3.8. I'm sure it will get to$4 billion to a stadium. I'm astounded. I think that what impressed me the most was, well, first of all, they came out with a statement. You know, they played until the mid-1990s at the old RFK, which, you know, Old Man Bar, I remember that, you know, ingrained in my head.

6:57And what impressed me, though, was here's Joe Theismann, and he's making the announcement on the video. Hey, this is going to happen. And one of the things that he mentions is that, you know, we're talking about more than just a new stadium. We're talking about a food hall and all the other amenities. Yeah, the way that the plan is right now, it'll be the second most expensive stadium ever behind SoFi. And anyone who's been to SoFi, SoFi is a palace. And I think this stadium very well could be the exact same. I mean, what a lot of these owners are looking at is that if you get a new stadium, you put a dome on it, And now all of a sudden you can host the Super Bowl.

7:38And I can assure you that if slash when this stadium gets built, it's 2025 today, 2035, there might be a Super Bowl in Washington, D.C. Well, you know, Randall, now you're there, right? I mean, here's what I don't understand. Why only 65 ,000 in capacity, right? I mean, isn't East Rutherford, isn't MetLife 82 ,000, 83 ,000? I mean, you know, why not go for the, you know, Ann Arbor 100 ,000? I mean, like, are those teams, do they not make financial sense? I guess I'm curious. Or is it a size, a space issue? I mean, is it not big enough to handle that kind of size? I'm just I'm wondering out loud here, Randall.

8:09Any thoughts there? I think it's more so a cost thing. I mean, you want to make sure that the money you're putting into it provides the best experience possible. And it isn't always a guarantee that the more people you have, the louder it is just because you're adding voices in there. It really depends on like if you go to a Chiefs game at Arrowhead and you go to a Packers game, like the environment of these stadiums is different because the culture of each team is different. In regards to the commanders, I think that when you put four billion dollars or three point eight or three billion dollars into a stadium and it's going to put sixty five thousand and it's going to be a state of the art arena.

8:44I'm sure the fans, when they get there, are going to lose their mind, not only because of Jaden Daniels playing, but also because they have a three billion dollar stadium. I'm going to add an addendum to that, and I think there is another reason why. I'm from the old Detroit Lions era of the Pontiac Silver Gnome, and it had about almost 80 ,000, 90 ,000 seats. And a lot of times, maybe more than that, and a lot of times it didn't sell out, which means if it didn't sell out, you were not going to get local coverage. The game had to sell out for that to happen. And I'm wondering, you know, if you keep it down to 65 ,000, you could sell it out easier.

9:24I think so, too. But I think that when you have Jaden Daniels leading your team based on his rookie season alone, I mean, God willing, he's going to be a superstar quarterback in the league for another 10, 15 years. But he's going to pack out that stadium regardless of what happens. I don't think they're going to have any trouble. And Josh Harris, I mean, he's been a wonderful owner for D.C. So if you if, you know, things go awry in D.C. and you trust you have an owner that you trust to build a team all over again. And I mean, it's truly remarkable what he's done in, you know, 730 days. Well, Randall, you know, one last thing for our audience.

9:57I mean, let's crystallize this. I mean, the project is expected to create, get this, 2 ,000 permanent jobs, another 14 ,000 jobs during construction. And over 30 years, direct spending on the project may surpass$15 billion for the D.C. metro area. So, I mean, that's pretty unbelievable. And look, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, Josh Harris, you know, a friend of the show, John Facitelli, I'm going to shout out to him. He's going to be busy here, right? He used to run real estate for Josh Harris and Harris Blitzer. So, you know, I got to believe, you know, there's going to be a lot of contracts, a lot of people involved with this.

10:26It's going to be great for the city of D.C., right, Randall? Yeah, I think so. I mean, the number one thing that the city of D.C. wants is the Super Bowl, of course. So, you know, you get a Super Bowl, you get a new stadium, and then you host the Super Bowl. Everybody in D.C. is going to be losing their minds. Yeah, and you mentioned about, I know we're starting to run short of time, but you mentioned about Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. And she's been pushing for this for, you know, a long time. And like you said, you know, it's, they could have lost the whole thing to Virginia. Yeah. But they didn't.

11:01And good for them. I mean, because she really stepped up to the plate in this one. Forgive the pun. Yeah, she did. I mean, Harris is committing like two point seven billion himself or Harris and the commanders are committing. Excuse me, committing two point seven billion. And you have the city of D.C. that has one point one billion. That's a lot of money. But if you think about it from the percentages, that's roughly 75 percent commanders and 25 percent the people of D.C. And that's a good deal for a$4 billion stadium. If you think about what Chicago is doing and where the Chiefs are, and I'm sure there's going to be some other teams that are going to face stadium issues somewhere down the line.

11:39This is a great deal. Yeah, the only thing I guess I could think about that might be a negative, but I mean, kudos to Harris. I mean, if there's anyone who could figure this out, it's him. But all of the Washington, D.C.-based office space right now with the government layoffs post-Doge, I wonder if that'll... Maybe that means now's the time, right? to capitalize on the fact that real estate's cheap, right? So, you know, Josh Harris, man, kudos to the commanders. I mean, and Jaden Daniels, I can't wait to see him running. And I mean, Randall, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the turf they were playing on, I forgot the name of the stadium where they've been playing.

12:10Wasn't that like voted the worst to play on by NFL players like over the past three years or something crazy? Yeah, I think it's Northwest Field or Northwest Stadium after it was renamed from FedEx Field. And it's never been popular. I mean, you think about some of the things that have happened there over the past couple of years. There's Jalen Hurst is walking into the locker room. The guardrail falls. You have the pipe that burst. And the team said it was rainwater. The fans said it was sewage. Like, that stadium is a dump. And they won't be there too much longer, though. I forgot all about the guardrail falling down, man.

12:40Yeah, that's all my – yeah, you're right, man. Thanks to Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Randall Williams for joining us. Up next, we turn to the world of pickleball for Damian Sassauer. I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

13:02This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports where we explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr along with Vanessa Perdomo. Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports with Major League Pickleball driving around$50 million in revenue in 2021. not including revenue generated by individual teams. Here to talk to us more about the league and the growth of pickleball, we welcome Major League Pickleball Commissioner Samin Adwani. Samin, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Appreciate you having me, man. I tell you what, now, see, here's old man bar coming through.

13:45I know, Vanessa's like, oh, God, what old stories are you going to tell now? Now, when pickleball first came out, I'm like, oh, that's cute. You know, this is a cute little sport. I don't know if it's going to pick up steam. And then pickleball said, shut up, Bar, because this thing just took off like to the moon. That's right. That's right. I mean, in some part, we've had a lot of success because so many people are playing. And the question was always, come on, is pro pickleball real? Like, are people really going to tune into this? And then, like you said, we're sitting in this office, and you clearly know about the sport.

14:23Vanessa clearly knows about the sport. I'm the commissioner of Major League Pickleball, so it's here. And I think more than anything else, it's come faster than any of us anticipated. And a big part of that has been the fact that we've had influencers and high-profile people really lean in and kind of say, hey, we believe in this thing, too. I used to work for Kevin Durant. I convinced the guy to buy a pickleball team. And we actually had him out playing. He's not, you know, he might not love that I'm saying this. He's not very good. But he got it. He understood the sort of belief that, hey, it can have old people and young people and they can compete and have a chance to sort of showcase some of the things that they loved about team sports growing up.

15:05I mean, you mentioned KD, right? And then it's LeBron and it's Tom Brady. How does it happen that way? And are all those profiles and all those people the reason why it's been able to grow so fast and sustain itself? I don't know if it's the driver of it growing. I think the real root of it growing is the amateurs playing. And just the fact that, you know, post-COVID, for all intents and purposes, you know, Pickleball didn't exist before the pandemic. And now it's sort of exploded in this thing. Tell that to gym classes. Okay. I had to play in high school. No, and I think what's interesting and fun for us is the people that are leaning in kind of represent in some ways the diversity of the demographic that's playing.

15:46And so when you have Jewel Lloyd and KD and Tom Brady and Gary Vaynerchuk all kind of believing in a thing, it's sort of representative of what's happening on the court where you can go out with your grandparent or the four of us can go play. And within 10 minutes, like we'd be having a nice competitive match. Well, Samir, I'll tell you this. Just the fact that my country club up in Greenwich, Connecticut, Tamarack, is converting two of its tennis courts into pickleball just tells you everything you need to know. And I'm seeing it everywhere. Now, riddle me this. What needs to take place in order to get real buy-in from the youth, from colleges, from the next generation so that we can kind of feed in to a professional pickleball league?

16:23What are you doing? What efforts are the Pickleball Association making in order to make that happen? So for us, a big focus has been launching our junior PPA tour. And the thought there is, look, sometimes the universities and the NCAA, they're kind of like last movers. Like you got to show them that there's a bunch of people that want to do this and then they'll sanction it. Right. And they'll turn it into sort of a division one sport. And so our focus was, look, we're kind of going faster than anyone anticipated. I mean, you know, in terms of growth and how quickly the sport is, is sort of taken up, you know, participation at the youth level.

16:55And so we said, let's launch the junior tour. And if it turns into, you know, varsity sports or it turns into an NCAA Division One sport, great. That's the outcome that we all want. But we're able to move at a pace that allows for us to be able to kind of own and operate that tournament. And these young kids, it's amazing. They're on their phones following their tour ranking points. Oh, I just beat my friend, you know, Riley, 11-9, and I just jumped him in the rankings. I mean, it's amazing to see how into it they've become. I'm amazed by how many big name investors, and you were touching off on it earlier, Drake's also in it.

17:29The other Michael Jordan with a B in it, he's also there. There are a lot of key investors that have picked up in this sport, and I just see it growing and growing. And the funny part is, you go on Drake's Graham, he's posted about him playing pickleball. He plays. He plays at his place out in the Caribbean, which is unbelievable. Another really big player is Jamie Foxx. The guy has three courts in his backyard in L.A., hosts high-level games. So I think it's one of those things, again, where if you were young and competitive and you enjoyed that competitive spirit, this is kind of an outlet for you and a way to do that longer into your life.

18:11So, Samir, let me ask you this. You know, franchise valuation, you know, you hear about all these stars, all these, you know, you know, big high profile names that are investing in these pickleball teams. But, you know, in order to get the profitability, like, you know, how are they thinking about this? Like, how do you value a pickleball team? Like, what goes into it? You know, what's the pay like? Talk, walk us through that. So the players are earning over$30 million in aggregate to be a pro pickleball player. So the average player makes north of$250 ,000. And some people say, well, that's not very good for your P &L.

18:41Okay, sure, but indulge me for a second. What you're able to do when you allow them to earn that high of a living is they're able to do it full time. And so all of a sudden, our 150 professional players are able to host camps and clinics and do appearances and come out to 20, 25 tournaments a year as we're traveling all around the country. So the thesis was if we let these players do it full time, it in turn will benefit the pro game. So your valuations and franchise point, the unique structure with us is we operate kind of two distinct brands. We have Major League Pickleball, which is the team format.

19:13And then we have the PPA Tour, which is the tour format, kind of like golf, tennis, et cetera. As an investor, you get both. So you get a chance to sort of have a part in the upside of pro pickleball as a whole. I think we're going to learn more and more. Is it the tour format that works? Is it the team format that works? Is it both that work? And, you know, we'll get that one plus one equals three. But we're excited about the fact that people are all in on pro pickleball as an investor and they then get to see and partake in kind of the parts of it that they enjoy and like. From a financial perspective, I think we've benchmarked this as, look, there's 20 million people playing.

19:48Every other sport that has 20 million plus people playing, golf, tennis, baseball, soccer, basketball, all have multi-billion dollar sports properties that sit at the top. So I genuinely believe if you were to sort of benchmark this off of that theory and say, hey, how do I just turn doers into viewers? I think pickleball could see itself as having a ceiling as high as that. Really interesting. And I want to talk about the MLP and the PBA. You just touched on it. It's the first year that they're coming to that. You guys have come together and we'll have the whole season together. Tell us how it's going to be different than it was before.

20:23Yeah. So, you know, the thought last year was let's just stand this thing up and get it going because there was a merger at the beginning of the year. The tours were kind of fighting and there was a tour wars and we kind of came together literally a year ago today, actually. And so the thought was, look, there's some shared efficiencies in operating two tours. Let's put them next to each other. Let's run the PPA one week and then sort of the MLP the week after in the same market. Turns out it was hard to squeeze that much juice, let's say, out of one city. There wasn't that much demand for it.

20:53So going into this year, we said, let's bifurcate the seasons. Let's put the tour and have it run fall, spring, August to April. And then let's have MLP own the summer because, as many people know, in sports who follow it closely, there's not a ton of competition in the summer for team sports. So MLP running April to August actually starts tomorrow. So a little shout out, a little plug. MLP Orlando kicks off then. And it's exciting for us because we then get to build those storylines, build sort of that momentum. And it culminates in the finals in New York City in Central Park. And so we hope that that condensed season will kind of lend itself to a better viewership product.

21:28So you can actually stay tuned versus that ebb and flow that we had last year. See, and now I'm going to mess with Vanessa's head. So this is – I want to bring this conversation up. Could you see Vanessa as – because she played just big time soccer when she was at Duquesne. Well, now she's got a busted wheel. Yeah, now I have a broken foot, but let's take that out of the equation. Could, Vanessa, could you see yourself playing pro pickleball? Because you're talking about a quarter of a million dollars a year. Right. I mean, I'll try anything for a quarter of a million dollars a year. No, I mean, I think it's interesting because I actually, you know, we've done a story on this with our show, Next in Sports, and I got to play with Anna Lee Waters, who's the number one player in the world.

22:1416-year-old, you know, at the time. Playing with Andre Agassi next week, yeah. At the time, she was 16. I mean, she, I mean, kicked my butt. So we don't need another explicit there. She kicked my butt. But it was really interesting, you know, seeing someone her age decide to play pickleball instead of tennis. And I think that that's what we need to start seeing more, right? It's the junior players, like you were saying before. They need to pick up pickleball instead of tennis because it is a different sport. And, you know, I think once that is, they see the way. But she's leading the way already.

22:44And she's making really good money. So I personally probably couldn't do it now. But maybe a couple years ago, if I started before my 30s, I probably could have. Well, Samin, let me ask you this. Anna Lee Waters, it's rumored she made somewhere on the order of$3 million last year, right? And now she's taken, smartly, Andre Agassi as her doubles partner, right? And so talk to us about more of that, about the integration of tennis and pickleball and how that can kind of fuel all of this interest going forward. Yeah, I think to date it's been a little bit of like a mini rivalry, right? Tennis people are like, oh, I don't know about pickleball.

23:19Pickleball people are like, let us play on your courts. Come on, don't choose me. Yeah, right, exactly. And I actually think long term, that's like a really naive view to take because it could be super synergistic. Like just think no farther than where we are today, right? The U.S. Open facility is effectively empty 49 weeks out of the year. The idea that we could bring pickleball to that event or excuse me, that venue and sort of participate in everything that's amazing that they've built with the stadiums and the facilities and all of that great stuff, I do think there's a long-term opportunity for us to be synergistic.