IndyCar President Doug Boles, Prime Video's Sports Chief Jay Marine

0:00This is the business of sports. The business of sports can be intimidating or hard for a starter to break into. We really appreciate when our owners are actually there, you know, with us through the journey. Teams, ours especially, have been very intentional to diversify at all levels of the company. I think we're in the golden years for the NFL and college football. Our demographic reach has continued to expand. This is going 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.

0:34Bloomberg 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 and Vanessa Perdomo. Scarlett Fu is on assignment. Coming up, we are all about racing. Yes! The Indianapolis 500 is this weekend, and we'll get you ready for it with IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Bowles. Racing over the last few years has been really good here at the Speedway. There's a lot of tradition around the Speedway, the number of people that come back for generations and year over year.

1:11And we're beginning to build stars again in the IndyCar series like we had several years ago. We'll also hear from trailblazing NASCAR driver Catherine Legge. All of that and more is on the way on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. But first, Amazon is betting big that sports, with its Prime Video streaming platform, will carry it through. Its sports lineup touts New York Yankees games, NASCAR, boxing, and will add NBA games next season. And the crown jewel at the moment is the rights to NFL Thursday night football games. and Amazon, they believe that this year's slate of games will be its strongest yet.

1:50Joining us now to dive into Amazon's big sports plans for Prime Video is Amazon VP and global head of Prime Video Sports, Jay Marine, as well as Bloomberg News Media reporter, Hannah Miller. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me. This is a lot to talk about. I want to start, first of all, you guys got the Thursday night viewership. And I'm looking at this. I got a lot to say about this NFL schedule. But I'm going to start with the Thursday night schedule, which is a pretty solid schedule. You guys coming out the blocks week two, September 11th. Commanders at the Packers. Absolutely.

2:28This schedule is the best Thursday night football schedule we've ever seen. And it shows you the continued trust that the NFL has in us. I know we'll walk through it, but we have 10 divisional matchups. We start in Lambeau, as you said, with the Commanders coming. Huge Black Friday and Christmas games we can talk about. And then, you know, we have that little Detroit game versus Dallas. So you can decide which team's America's team. Well, Jay, let's jump right in. You graduated from University of Michigan. You grew up in Michigan. I sit here next to Michael Bar and all. Here is Detroit, Michigan.

3:06Week 8, Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Chargers. J.J. McCarthy against his former coach. Want it for you, Michigan Blue Boys. I mean, did you have anything to do with that? I mean, let us know right now. I'd like to take credit for that. I'd also like to take credit for the national championship. It was glorious. I did happen to be at the Rose Bowl and the national championship. Were you there? I wish I was, man. I wish I was at that Super Bowl, by the way, that we hope. See, I want to check the pronoun here so you all understand why. Jay, obviously also a native Detroiter in that area. And when we hosted the Super Bowl, I wanted so much to go.

3:52My best friend, he got to go because at the time he worked for Xerox. So he had to man all the Xerox machines. I said, man, how'd it go? Can I carry your luggage? Can I do anything for you, man? This has got to be, again, you've got, and Hannah, jump in here, with this schedule for the NFL is going to be very exciting for you guys. Yeah, like I said, we could not be happier. You know, when you look at our audience has been up almost 40 % from the first year of Thursday Night Football through to our third year. So continued growth in the audience. We have an audience that's eight years younger than an audience that watches NFL games on linear.

4:36And so all of that lines up with what the NFL is looking for. They want to reach newer fans. They want to reach younger fans. And this schedule reflects it. We have the Super Bowl champ Philadelphia Eagles twice on this schedule. We have Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen twice on this schedule. And Jay, it's a lot of divisional games, right? I mean, I've never seen a slate of divisional games like this coming at you on a Thursday night before. Ten divisional matchups. And those are so key because you know they're always going to matter and they're going to matter more because of the impact on the division.

5:08So really, you know, our whole team is ecstatic. Al Michaels is very happy. We had a lot of texts going on yesterday. The team is very excited. And Kirk's coming back also, yeah? Kirk's coming back. Just a great team. Our halftime crew with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Richard Sherman, Andrew Whitworth. They're a fun crew, but I think the younger audience has really responded to that. We've really tried to get people right off the field who are fresh faces. If you guys ever came to one of our games at a pregame, we talk about how many of the current players come up to these guys. It's nonstop. They come up to Sherm.

5:50They come up to Witt. Because they just got done battling with these guys a couple years ago, right? So they know the league in and out. And we're having a lot of fun. We can't wait to get going this year. Well, it's not just the NFL either, right? I mean, you guys had a pretty big year. I mean, let's talk about the NBA a little bit, right? And by the way, talk about Thursday nights. You guys are going to own Thursday night sporting, right? Because you've got the doubleheaders on Thursday. You've got the doubleheaders on Friday. We're talking basketball here. And I think you have some Black Friday sprinkled in there also.

6:14Not to mention six out of the next 11 NBA finals. That's some slate. Well done there. Exciting stuff. Thank you. The NBA is a big deal for us, big deal for the company. That's an 11-year deal, starts in the fall. As you said, just an incredible package of playoff games. We'll have about a third of the playoffs. Every year, we'll have the play-in games. We'll also have the in-season tournament. and we think that in-season tournament is just going to continue to grow and we have a bunch of ideas there. And we've introduced some of our talent there. We're going to have Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowinski, Steve Nash, Dwayne Wade, Candice Parker.

7:00And the chemistry I'm already seeing with that group is just fantastic. Dwayne's the best. Dwayne Wade is the best. Minnie Mello, I love that commercial. He's the best. And you know why Hannah is here? because this is No. 1 entertainment, especially for a dude like me, Anna. Yeah, well, I was going to ask, what are you planning on doing with the viewing experience on Prime for people? We saw NBC come out with all these changes that they're doing to Peacock for the NBA. You got graphic overlays, statistics, a mobile game coming out. What are you guys doing? Yeah, I think you're going to see a lot of innovation from us.

7:40We're going to take the exact same approach we took with Thursday Night Football. So for anyone who's seen some of the AI innovations we brought to Thursday Night Football and our alternative cast called Prime Vision, we've created something called Defensive Alerts, which essentially is highlights players that may blitz. But this is happening real time in the broadcast without latency. So when you work with Ryan Fitzpatrick, it's what a quarterback has to identify. And so we've rolled out a number of those on Thursday Night Football. But now, pointing to NBA, you're going to see that similar investment.

8:13And I think we have a pretty unique approach. We have a whole team in Israel of data scientists, AI experts, machine learning experts. This is kind of in our DNA. And the special sauce is really combining those people with people who know the game, like a Blake Griffin and a Jwayne Wade, combined with our production people who know how to storytell. You know, it's very easy just to throw a lot of data up on the screen. That's not super helpful. It's got to be concise. It's got to really advance the education of the fan and the storytelling. So you're going to see exact same approach we took with Thursday Night Football.

8:50And stay tuned for the details on that. Well, Jay, I'd love to stick with that theme of storytelling because your Amazon original sports documentaries are just unbelievable. Now we're talking Bye Bye Barry. We're talking Coach Prime. But what stories haven't been told yet? What's coming up? It's a good question. There's a lot more to be told. And I think, you know, what's interesting is sports are the greatest unscripted show on earth. And there's so much drama that happens and there's so much drama that happens behind the scenes that you can't really learn about until some time passes and people are ready to talk about it.

9:28And so and you saw that with Bye Bye Barry, for example. Now, you are a native Detroiter. I'm a native Detroiter. And I want to get to this schedule that we got for the Detroit Lions. Baby blue. Look, we got the second toughest schedule overall. And I don't even want to get into what the road game is all about. I am incredibly excited. But I'm with you. That is a tough schedule. It is a brutal, brutal schedule. And obviously, we've lost a couple of assistant coaches, fantastic coaches. But I trust Dan Campbell. We're going to get to the promised land sooner or later here. Well, Jay, I have to ask you, you know, because, you know, when I think of Amazon and what a beast it is, and, you know, I mean, in terms of just the company itself and what it does.

10:17And then I look at, you know, the suite of, forget about the NBA, forget about the NFL for a second. I'm talking one championship, premier boxing, I'm Champions League football in the UK, cricket, New Zealand cricket in India, Copa football. I mean, Brazil, I'm just looking at this slate and I'm like, how do you manage that? Like, what's your day job must look like? I mean, and are you traveling to these places and dealing with the local providers and all the, I mean, how does that all, I mean, what's your day job look like here? Well, I have a very fun job, first of all. Oh, really? My wife often says, they are going to pay you, right?

10:54I'm like, I think so. I think so. Listen, this is a childhood dream. I grew up playing sports. I love sports. No one's probably played or watched more than I have. And so I love it. And yes, we are really all over the world. In fact, it's interesting. We started our entry into sports in the UK. I was over there at the time, actually. And we started that with our entry into the Premier League. And that was around 2017. And really, it was the first major league that ever put any games on streaming exclusively in the home country. And that was only eight years ago. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, we've learned a lot over that time and we've built up the credibility.

11:35And now, as you said, we have Champions League in the UK, Germany, Italy. Wimbledon in Germany. I mean, this is crazy. Wimbledon in Germany. We have the French Open in France. We have soccer in LATAM. And so, oh, and we also have hockey in Canada. So what you're really seeing is we are focused on having the biggest tier one sports in every country. You know, and so it's less about having worldwide rights necessarily because fans live in one country per se. And there's only a few sports that really are worldwide. Now, NBA is one of them. They've done a fantastic job. And that deal is a worldwide deal for us that we're incredibly excited about.

12:18But all of that innovation and all that time spent is really why we've been able to have such a quality streaming experience, such picture quality. because we've been at this for a long time. And what we did in Europe was part of the reason that gave the NFL confidence that we could do that here. Our thanks to Amazon Prime Video's head of sports and advertising, Jay Marine, for joining us, as well as our own Hannah Miller. Up next, we'll talk to a NASCAR trailblazer, Catherine Legg. For Damian Sassauer and Vanessa Bernomo, I'm Michael Barr. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

13:00This 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 Damian Sassauer and Vanessa Perdomo. We're all in on racing the rest of the way as we get ready for the Indy 500 this weekend, plus a slate of big NASCAR races, including the Coca-Cola 600 trailblazing. NASCAR racer Catherine Legg will be competing in that race. And earlier this week, our own Vanessa Perdomo got a chance to sit down with her. Let's take a listen to their conversation. You're the first woman to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series since 2018, right?

13:44And, I mean, it's surprising. It's not surprising, right, given how female athletes have been treated over the last few years, right? But seven years. Tell me about your journey because you've been professional for a very long time. This isn't new, right? But tell me about your journey to get here. Yeah, a long time. You're aging me now. But I have literally driven everything in my career. Like I have one of the most diverse careers in racing. I've driven open wheel and electric cars and sports cars. And I did a handful of NASCAR races back in 2018 and I loved it. And I wanted to do more of it, but it's almost a different sport.

14:21it's not but it's a different paddock it's different people and i just didn't know how to like break into it per se so along come elf and um with the most wonderful partnership where they're truly empowering women right like they say it a lot of people say it these days and it's just a buzzword but they actually stand behind it and they mean it and we were going to do the indy 500 this year and we didn't get cars so we like we're pivoting to nascar and we went all in on nascar And so I feel incredibly fortunate that I have such a powerhouse company standing alongside me, you know, breaking down these barriers.

14:58And it is surprising that it's been seven years, but it's also, you know, it's a really tough business to be in. Whether you're man, woman, black, white, no matter what it is, it's really tough. So hopefully there'll be more following in my footsteps. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to get into that, you know, the partnership with Elf a little bit more. And because they were your partners also went in IndyCar before. And I listened to you on your podcast. You had talked about it and said, you know, the event last year that you did with them was one of the most rewarding of your career. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and on the partnership there?

15:35It really was. It was special. And I had no idea. OK, so going into Indy last year, it was the second year that I'd partnered with them. But they wanted to go do it in a big, splashy, cool way and really make a difference. Because like I said, they really do stand behind their company ethos. And so they're out there empowering all these women and some men by making them look and feel better. And then they say, OK, we want to do activations. We want a pink car. We want X, Y and Z. And I'm thinking, oh, goodness, pink car. That's so cliche. like oh they're girls driving the pink car it was the coolest thing that ever happened because what i've been trying to do for like 20 years of professional driving is rally the women and have this girl power movement and i tried supporting other young and upcoming female drivers and i do do that because i feel like without men and women i wouldn't be where i am today so i think it's important to realize that it takes both and um so we went into indie and they had this big activation where they saluted the women that had come before me you know janet guthrie lynnst james danica and really kind of like paid homage to them and to me at the same time and got behind all the women at the racetrack and for the first time ever the women fans were seen right because they've they've been a lot of sponsors on a lot of race cars but there's they were the first beauty brand yes and everybody can relate to elf right like so there was this massive like i don't know all the women got along there was no competition between them like team elf team katherine let's get behind the pink car and it was just this really cool thing that happened that I am really hopeful will happen on the NASCAR side this year because we're doing the same thing at Charlotte and they've got a big activation it's going to be slightly different it's going to be really cool it's centered around their jumbo power grip primer so it's like a teal car instead of a pink car it's beautiful and I'm hoping that the same thing happens with that fan base as well that you know they they all get just as excited as IndyCar did Yeah.

17:53I love that what you were saying there. And when you first started talking about, oh, no, pink car and the woman's driving the pink car. But that's I feel like what was happening for a while in women's sports was beauty brands weren't getting involved. And maybe even the people running the teams weren't asking them to get involved because they were like, oh, just because we're women doesn't mean we should have beauty brands. But the reality is you can have both the traditional, you know, sponsors, the beer sponsors, the airlines and all of that, but still have the beauty brands because you're speaking directly to your fans, to your consumers.

18:22Right. 100%. Yeah. And I think there's this, I don't know, misconception, let's say, in women's sports that you shouldn't be seen as women. You shouldn't be seen as feminine. and I was super guilty of it for the first 15 years of my career or whatever it was that I just wanted to be seen as a race car driver. I didn't wear makeup. I didn't want to be, I didn't want to play on the fact that I'm female and I still don't want to play on that fact. But I do think that I can be authentically who I am, which is I want to be feminine, right? Like who doesn't want to be seen as attractive or feminine or, you know, if that's what you want, then go for it.

19:00but I think there was this thing where you should just be seen as another robot or driver or in case of soccer like I don't know it's a sport we shouldn't be too girly and that's rubbish yeah absolutely and I love the way that it's changed too but it's like you said it's authentic some female athletes don't wear makeup but some like to completely do a whole face and go out there on the field and you can be amazing athlete and still be super girly super or whatever you want to be, but you know. Yes. No, I totally get it. And I think you should be able to do, you know, wear whatever you want to wear and feel however you feel.

19:36And I think that speaks to what has really unlocked, would you say, for women's sports and the growth in the last few years. It's finally speaking to women's sports fans as a separate entity almost, and they consume in a different way. Or how would you think about that? I think it's segregated. so I think if you look at it let's say the last decade has changed but before that it was just sports right there wasn't women's sports male sports but the women were not watching women's sports the women were watching if they watched any sport they were watching male sports and I think now they realized that the there are women's sports like women's soccer I had no idea how huge it was over here until I came over here and experienced it and you have the best team in the world right so I think that you have to get the women rallying around that and supporting it like the men support the men's soccer and there's absolutely no reason and I think you're seeing it a lot more now why there isn't crossover you know women watch men's sports or sports and men can watch women's sports and so I think that it's much more acceptable you know there was a I don't know a misconception again that women's sports was not as good as men's sports because they weren't going as far or shooting as much or whatever it may be but now you've got like Caitlin Clark with WNBA and like she's changed the game yeah changed the game and you get these people women's tennis you had like Selena changed the game and so I think that men aren't just watching it now to be like oh she's hot so I think it's really cool yeah that's awesome and as we talk about that and we're talking about the growth of women's sports as a whole one of the things I do hear though from a lot of people is how come there aren't more you know women drivers in Formula One and NASCAR and things like that as as they are now watching the WNBA and things like that so when you look at that do you think that racing has has more to do to catch up like how do you think there can be more women in racing so It's not, you know, seven years until the next person.

21:50I think racing is different. And I think racing is unique because there is absolutely no reason why we can't compete with the guys. It's not an outright strength or fitness thing, right? Like I am not going to bench what some guy can bench if we're both training the same. It's just physically an impossibility. But can I do the same thing 300 times, 3 ,000 times and do the repetitive thing and take the G-forces and everything else that racing takes? Absolutely, I can. And there's absolutely no reason why we should be segregated. And what's really interesting about racing is as soon as they did segregate the women, there haven't been any women turned pro.

22:29So if you look back to when I turned pro, there was there was like a handful of us at the time. There was Danica. There was me. There was Simona. There was Bea. There was there was like six or seven of us. and since then they've kind of either retired or like beer went and had babies um like they put the women in a all-female series called the f1 academy it was a w series transition to the f1 academy and because they're not competing against the best of the best they're competing against each other they're not getting as good as they could be if they were out there in the real world racing against the guys so i think that segregating us in that situation has made for this big gap that they're not going out and they're not turning pro there are no women in indycar right there are no women in the xfinity series or the cup series there are maybe two two, maybe two gold-rated women in sports cars.

23:30So why, what happened? And all I can think of is by putting them all together, they're not racing against the best of the best. If you're playing against the best, it makes you better, right? If you're anything in life, if you're competing against the best, it makes you better. So I think that they've done them a massive disservice. While I think it's great that it's opened the doors and it's highlighted women in sports and women in racing, I think that it should be like a year entry level max and then they should be supported against the guys to be able to be the best. Right. So I had spoken to one of the F1 Academy drivers who now has gone on to a next series and talked about, you know, she told me about one of her struggles was getting sponsors to get her time in the car.

24:13And I think that's something not a lot of people understand. Can you elaborate a little bit on that and how it's so important as a driver you have to get your own sponsors to get time in the car? And it really is one of the struggles to make it so high. It is. And I think that's another reason why women have struggled in the past. You know, we haven't had beauty brands like Elf come on board. And it's tough because you have to look at it like a business. Like it's not just about driving the car. You have to find partners and sponsors to follow you. You have to do PR and you have to do like all the things that surround it, which make it incredibly difficult.

24:52The guys have to do it, too. Right. Right. Like, let's be real. It's hard for everybody unless you come from an uber wealthy family and your dad can spend six million a year on an IndyCar ride. I don't know. I don't know many people who that happens to, to be honest. But I think it has been a bit harder. well it's gone for you and it's gone against you being female in racing because it's gone for you and that you get a lot more eyeballs because you get a lot more attention because you're an anomaly and it used to be like a gimmick which i hated i wanted to be more mainstream so in a way that helps because sponsors that come on board get way more bang for their buck because they get a lot more eyeballs and that's at the end of the day what you want the b2b the attention etc etc that's NASCAR driver Catherine Legg speaking with Vanessa Perdomo.

25:41Up next, we stick with fast cars and talk with the president of IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Doug Bowles. I'm Michael Barr, and you are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

25:58This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks for joining us on 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 and Vanessa Perdomo. The greatest spectacle in racing is this weekend, and it's looking to have a huge audience. The Indianapolis 500 will hit Indianapolis Motor Speedway with its grandstand sold out for the first time in nearly a decade, plus a local TV blackout that had been in place since 1951 was lifted, which will boost the TV numbers. Here to take us through all of the prep for the race and more is IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Bowles.

26:46Doug, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Well, thanks for having me. This is the best time of the year for me as we get ready for the weekend and the running of the Indianapolis 500. So I love your energy level kicking this off because that's exactly how I feel today is I'm just ready to get going. Let me explain. First of all, anybody that's going to call me, don't call me. Because I've got, first of all, I'm starting off with the Grand Prix of Monaco. And then, of course, the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500. And then we're going to finish it off with the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR.

27:24Doug, what an exciting time for racing, especially at the Brickyard. Yeah, you know, you captured it. It is an amazing day for racing. You can literally get up in the morning, watch an F1 race and tune into an IndyCar race, watch the Indianapolis 500, take a break for a few minutes and go right back into the Charlotte event, the 600 down Charlotte Motor Speedway. So, yeah, it's a fun weekend of racing. And it really is sort of that last weekend as we all roll into summer and just sort of that attitude we all have when you get out of winter and spring, especially in the Midwest and summers around the corner.

27:59But excited about the 109th running of the Indy 500. Of all those events we just talked about, you know, we've been around a lot longer than most. And it's pretty amazing just to see this place fill up with 350 ,000 people on race day. And just the way we all celebrate somewhere around the corner, certainly the race itself. Doug, I hate to go there, but it has been a busy week for you. Senior leadership, Team Penske, cheating scandal. Talk to us a little bit about what happened there. I mean, Joseph Newgarden trying to become the first driver to win three straight Indy 500s. Now he's a plus 1 ,000.

28:30And in the back row, talk to us a little bit about what happened this week, what the implications are ahead of this weekend. Yeah, you know, on our last qualifying to get into the Fast 12, so the fastest 12 cars in qualifying on last Saturday get a chance on Sunday to compete for positions one through 12. and in the technical inspection line where the car went through technical inspection that Joseph Newgarden car and the little power car both team Penske cars unfortunately failed the inspection and it was a part in the back of the car that that is a part that you are not allowed to modify in any way you have to use it as supplied and and the team had made some modifications to it and there's an argument over why the why the piece was modified the team says it was modified for for looks, you know, make it look better.