Knicks Unite New York City in Finals Win, Draws Massive TV Audience

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2:05Bloomberg 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 Vanessa Perdomo-Maglione. And I'm Randall Williams. Michael Barr is out this week. Coming up today, well, we obviously have to talk about the historic NBA finals that the Knicks closed out in San Antonio last week. We'll also be speaking with the Panini America CEO about the iconic World Cup sticker book and talking to Olympics gold medalist Shawn Johnson East about the work she is doing with the Special Olympics. That's straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

2:40But first, let's talk about the New York Knickerbockers. joining Randall and I as our colleague on the Business of Sports team and friend of the show, Business of Sports reporter Ira Boudwe. Ira, welcome back to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Ira, was this the most significant NBA finals we've seen in such a long time, or does it feel like that just because we're in New York? I think both. The Knicks are a signature franchise, one of the most important in the league, one of the most valuable in the league, but also I think even to my surprise being in the city as it was unfolding is the degree to which this team unites the city.

3:19I mean, a lot of people have remarked on it, but it's really the one team where everybody almost can get behind them. You don't have the split you do with the Yankees and the Mets or the Jets and the Giants. And so it really was, I think, just a great moment for the city. And so I do wonder, where were you when the Knicks won the championship? Were you in the city? Were you at home? Did your children react? Did your wife react? Tell us about where you were. It's not a very exciting story, but I was, so my daughter was playing in a lacrosse tournament. Surprise, surprise, youth sports figures in this story.

3:52But I, so I was in a hotel room when she was asleep and I was watching it basically alone. But there were a lot of parents down there in the same boat. And a lot of them I discovered later were in the lobby. Yeah, I was going to say, why wouldn't you go to the hotel lobby bar? I know. I didn't want to leave my kid alone, but I probably should have. We did watch the beginning all together, you know, so that was fun. But yeah, for the very end, I had to do it parent style. So I do wonder from your perspective, why do you think there is as much noise around this finals as there has been? Is it because the games are good?

4:35Are you looking at this under the microscope and saying like, well, this was unique and this is the one time thing in which ratings are good and a conversation about the NBA is very healthy? Or do you think that this is going to continue into next season? I think it's mostly a kind of a unique or unusual moment. I think anytime you have these long droughts, that drives interest, right? It's just a pent up demand, 50 plus years of waiting, 50 plus years of waiting and a major market, right? We saw this with the Red Sox in 04. You saw it with the Cubs when they finally broke the curse across sports.

5:14These things just are incredibly compelling. And then I think also you had the fact that this matchup was basically what everybody kind of looks at as a dynasty in waiting. You know, the San Antonio Spurs have the future star in Victor Wimbanyama. They are a young team. I think everyone was a little surprised that they got this far this soon. But they are also a compelling story in their own right. And so it was just kind of a perfect storm for the league. But I think there is a sort of carryover from that, right? A lot of people who maybe were casual fans got reengaged or got pulled in by this story.

5:53And so maybe next year they start out with a little more interest than maybe they have in the past. So it can't be bad for the league. I want to pose this question to Randall also because we're all colleagues here. We're just chatting away. Randall, Ira had mentioned there the curse breaking of it all. and you recently wrote a story about how fanatics, you know, how the Knicks became the top-selling championship jersey team there. Is it because of the drought, do you think? Or is it because of these big, long moments? I think it was because of the drought and because of the team. This is the first time the Knicks have not been the villains.

6:31If you are watching from, I'm not from New York, but I live here now, but it's very easy to root for them. Jalen Brunson is a likable star. Carl Anthony Towns is a likable star. They're supporting cast. They don't really have a villain the same way that previous iterations and next potential championship teams did. Like you think about what happened when the Jalen Brunson, I believe, was in game three when Wemby shoved him. There was nobody did anything about it. And I'm not sure that that would have happened on Patrick Ewing's team. And so I think that's part of it. And then another part of it is the fact that they just got their get back on the court.

7:04Like some of the flagrant fouls that were happening, they just ended up winning the games. Like they lost game three and then came back from 29 in game four and then came back, I believe it was down from 15 in game five. And so sometimes their fighting back was just on the court. And I think Knicks fans, because of the fact that the drought was so long, it resonated in a way that I don't think I've seen a championship resonate with a market since LeBron and Cleveland. That's really interesting. Ira, I'd love to get your take on that as well, because obviously a lot of the times we talk about stars and faces and the league needing things like that.

7:41But can stars be positive? I mean, like there's the thing of do you need a villain to make it compelling as well? Yeah, I think what's interesting about this Knicks team, obviously Brunson, if anybody, is the face, is the face of the team. But it's really was both on and off the court kind of a collective. Right. I think you can see Carl Anthony Towns has a pretty high profile himself. And just in terms of, you know, OG was the hero in the comeback. So you just had it spread around both in sort of the contributions that they bring and in sort of the profile of the team. And I think that's unusual.

8:21I probably haven't seen it quite like that since Detroit back in the aughts. But and I think given that it's New York City, that works. Right. And I think Brunson has enough star power, but he's also like a kind of a quiet, like workman like personality, which fits with this team and the city. But I wouldn't put him as like, you know, an international superstar yet. Maybe this is when he becomes that. So it just was, I think, you know, different than than a team with like a Michael Jordan, you know, where there's the guy. And I think that is not always a recipe for fans to get engaged. But in this case, it really was.

9:00Well, that's exactly when I asked Randall, can Jalen Brunson take this and now become the face of the league? Or is this really just king of New York? I think he becomes the king of New York. I think it's very, very difficult for American stars to become international stars like basketball players. Generally are more popular in terms of the number of stars, but less popular in terms of peak popularity. Do you think about Michael Jordan and the dream team? And even when Kobe was around and LeBron and KD and Steph, their popularity is at an all time high. And I think that there's a couple of things to attribute that to.

9:39Number one is that there's no dynasties. There is no dominant team right now. There have been eight different champions in eight years. And so what does the next true superstar, global superstar look like? I do think that it looks like an international player, whether that be Victor Wambinyama or whether that be Luka Doncic. We are going to throw the Joker's name out of this because of the fact that he does not participate. He doesn't want it. He doesn't want it. He does not participate in the conversation. So I think that value to Jalen Brunson being the king of New York is bigger than anything that he could possibly ask for.

10:11And there's the age part of it. If he was doing this at 23, I think that the ceiling is a little bit higher. But at 28 or 29, whatever, however old he is and going to be turning the corner on whatever the rest of his career is going to look like. I think being the king in New York is about as much as you can ask for. That's a pretty good title either way. Yeah, it's not a bad spot. And I think just to piggyback on that too, you look at Steph Curry, he had a thing, right? He changed the game with the three-point shot, launching from 28 feet before that was a thing. And that was very exciting to casual fans all around the world.

10:47And he was like this, you know, little slim guard who took over the league. I think Brunson's game is amazing, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to highlight reels in the same way. It doesn't necessarily have that signature element. He's all about shifty, getting people off balance, working in the mid-range, reading the floor. If you're a basketball purist, it's a delight to watch, but it doesn't necessarily make for an amazing highlight reel. He's a classic New York City, New York, New Jersey, New York point guard in that he's gritty. He's likable. He's quiet. He has an edge to him. But that means a lot here.

11:26I think that if you think about the global names of Michael Jordan and Kobe and so many other players, like what are their moments are often personality driven. And I don't think that, you know, I'm not criticizing Jalen Brunson's personality here, but I don't think that that is what you took away from this finals. It's just like, my God, he's a dog. And that's enough for New York. Right, for sure. I would just like to point out there that Ira said he's amazing. But that conversation around our desk clump the other week proved very different conversation for you, Ira. You were saying, I don't know what makes him so good, but you did say he was great.

12:04Well, I do. It is. I've started to figure it out, right? But, like, if you watch him, he's not the most explosive. He's not dunking on people. He's not the rangiest shooter. He's not even the quickest guy first step, right? None of those things that you would associate with the guy who's the one A on a championship team. He's not the biggest. And yet he gets it done. I think that's what's amazing about him, right? Is just it's I think what it is, is next level knowledge and reading of the game and next level footwork and just really great touch. And obviously the nerve, right? You put those things together and that's that's kind of the recipe for him.

12:41But it's it's you know, I think for a lot of people and myself included, it's not readily obvious. Right. You kind of got to study it to figure out how is he getting this done? Thanks to our good friend and colleague, business and sports reporter Ira Budwe. Up next, we are talking about the other big sporting event that is taking over New York and across the continent, the FIFA World Cup. That's straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports for Randall Williams. I'm Vanessa Perdomo Maglione. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

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15:06Capital One, what's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy for details. Capital One, N-A member FDIC. This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We re-explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Vanessa Perdomo-Maglione. And I'm Randall Williams. Michael Barr is off this week. Randall, right before the kickoff of the World Cup, I caught up with Panini America CEO Mark Warsup about their iconic sticker album that they've been distributing since 1970. And this is one of the last cycles that they will distribute it because of the fact that Fanatics will become the official distributor with FIFA starting in 2031.

15:48We talked about that and how Panini is planning for these to be really special and what their plan is moving forward. Let's take a listen to Vanessa's conversation with Panini America CEO, Mark Warsaw. Mark, thanks so much for joining the Bloomberg Business of Soccer. It's so great to have you here. You know, the World Cup is upon us. It's crazy that it feels like here in the U.S. we've been waiting for it and waiting for it. Now it's here. I mean, how is it for you now that, you know, everyone's talking about the sticker books? It's time for that every four years. Tell me about preparing for this World Cup.

16:21Yeah, I mean, for Panini, we've been doing the FIFA World Cup since 1970, and the preparation never stops. I mean, you know, the moment the previous World Cup finishes, we start planning for the next because, you know, we're buying rights to national teams, player rights, obviously working with FIFA, analyzing how the previous tournament performed, how we can improve it, what marketing tactics. So for us, it's an ongoing thing. But now it's finally here. Obviously, the excitement is off the chain, I would say. And our task now is just to execute and keep up with the demand. Yeah, absolutely. So let's go back a little bit to the history.

17:04Like you said, it was started in 1970. For people who don't know kind of the history of the sticker book, can you give us a little bit about that? Yeah, so the first official FIFA World Cup for Panini was 1970. The Panini business was founded in Italy by the Panini brothers. It originated as a newspaper distribution business. They'd placed some collectible images of soccer players into the newspapers to sell more newspapers and seeing that the images of the football players was more popular than the newspapers, So the business transformed to doing sticker albums and collectibles without the newspaper and the newspaper distribution.

17:48So the very first collection that Panini launched was in 1961, which is a collection simply called Couchatori, which in Italian means players. And it was an Italian soccer collection. And then since then, you know, branched into Europe. Obviously, it became a global phenomenon. The first FIFA World Cup was in 1970. followed the very similar pattern to what it is today you buy the album you buy the sticker packets you peel the the sticker back off and you would use the adhesive paper to stick the images into the book obviously in 1970 all the images and photos were in black and white so we actually hand-painted each of those stickers to add color to the sticker so that they weren't black and white photos.

18:37But the concept has remained the same because it's such a sound winning formula with collectors and fans of soccer around the world that the concept remained the same. Obviously, the images have become sharper. There's more information in the album now. There's digital aspects to the collection, but the backbone has remained the same. So, yeah, I mean, if it remains the same, but you still evolve it every year, would you say? Every iteration, do you still evolve it somehow? How is this, you know, when you go into different markets, is it specific to that market? Or because it's a global product, do you kind of keep it the same everywhere?

19:14So the general concept is the same, but we do do varying different formats of the collection around the world. So, for example, one way we've evolved for the U.S. market specifically is that, you know, the base collection is the same. but we've injected some color parallels of some of the stickers that have become a chase element. So to kind of take the sticker collection to the next level, similar to the U.S. train card collection. So there's blue parallels, red parallels, purple parallels, orange parallels, a black one-of-ones. So, you know, someone is going to find the one-of-one of each of the individual stickers that are in the collection.

19:59You know, if you're lucky enough to find the black one of one of Mbappe or Messe or Ronaldo or Jamal or Pulisic, you know, those stickers could be worth, you know, a significant amount of money. So don't peel them. Well, you know, even a lot of trading card suppliers within the marketplace have adapted to the sticker collection market and have formed some of the plastic top holders that you can put the stickers in to keep them pristine and in mint condition. But yes, I would say if you find a black one-of-one, perhaps not stick it into your album, put it in a plastic top holder. It could be worth a lot of money.

20:35We know that the black one-of-one from four years ago, for example, of Massey sold for over$100 ,000. So be sure to put it into something that keeps it in good condition. Yeah, absolutely. So as we're talking about how it's evolved since 1970, was the collectible market the same than it is now? or has it evolved with it or has it always been so closely tied to trading card collectibles? I mean, it's always been a mass market collection. I would say the one thing that has evolved from a collector standpoint, not necessarily the collection itself, is that, you know, those children that collected in 1970 are probably still collecting today.

21:15So it's evolved in as much as it's no longer a children's activity. you know grandparents and parents who remembered collecting when they were a child their world cup album then or now collectors there's people in offices who are trying to fill albums together so it's become a much wider audience and you know the collection itself obviously the images are sharper now we try and change the design every four years the way that the stickers look the information that's on there um so the collector base has evolved and we've we've evolved with it in terms of our offering. For example, you know, there's now digital versions of the collection that you can collect online.

21:53It's housed on the FIFA website. You can get codes within the sticker collection itself. And also through buying Coca-Cola product, there's codes that you can use to enhance and collect the digital collection. So tell me a little bit about, you know, how the U.S. market is, you know, adapting to this. I mean, we're not really seen as a soccer market, right? So how has demand been here for the stickers? So the very first FIFA collection we launched, I would say, on a large scale in the U.S. was when we opened our office here. We opened our office in the U.S. in 2009 in Dallas-Fort Worth. And the 2010 collection was the first large-scale launch that we'd done for a FIFA product.

22:39By large scale, I mean, you know, good solid distribution, good marketing effort behind it. And we've seen growth every year since. I mean, obviously, soccer in the U.S. has grown phenomenally just in itself as a sport in that time frame. But even this World Cup to last World Cup, and we would consider the U.S. a large market now, even within the group of markets that launched the sticker collection. We've already distributed twice the volume of what we did previous World Cup into the U.S. market, and the tournament hasn't even started yet. So, you know, the fact that the tournament is being staged here has opened people's eyes.

23:22And I think the other big thing that we'll see different this year vis-a-vis previous World Cups is that, you know, when the tournament starts, I think we'll see an uptick in sales and penetration of the collection. Whereas in previous tournaments, you know, most people try and fill the book before the tournament starts. but you know when the tournament starts and the eyes that are on it will bring new collectors i think to collecting stickers that haven't collected before why do you think that is like do you see data that's you know behind that trend that you see that you know people yeah i just think that you know because soccer is still growing in the u.s and you know it's not primarily the number one sport in america when the tournament starts and it's all over tv and the games are being staged in the U.S.

24:10I think people who would not necessarily be focused on a World Cup that might be in Brazil or Russia or wherever it may be staged will, you know, it will open their eyes to the tournament. There'll be more fanfare. People will attend games that perhaps never attended a soccer game before. And I think it would translate to collecting the sticker collection. One of the big things about the sticker collection is the community aspect behind it. There's meetups, you know, people are trading to get, you know, to fill out their books. Tell me more about that and was that always kind of the ethos behind the sticker book yeah it is because you know when we do it unlike the u.s hobby market where there's super super rare ones and it's you know it's impossible to get a complete set um you know although we have these color parallels all the base set is printed in equal quantities and and the the aim here even for us is that everyone fills their book we want everyone to fill their book they'll have a world cup keepsake and then And obviously you'll come back four years knowing that it's achievable to fill it.

25:11So part of that is this community aspect. And, you know, we always view the start of the World Cup when we launch our collection because it builds the excitement in the lead up towards the tournament. And there's swap events taking place all over the country. And there's various different types of events. Some of them are, you know, just local people posting and getting together and creating their own event. other events are organized retail events where everyone will go to a walgreens on a saturday for example and they'll swap outside and then there's events that panini ourselves are organizing and promoting on our if you go to our website we have a soccer hub you can put your zip code in and where your address is and it will tell you where the closest swap event is so you know we encourage it because we want people to fill the book um so and it's all about community all about community.

26:03And when you go to one of these swap events, you'll see that, you know, the diversity of soccer fan and, you know, the diversity in age as well from little kids all the way to, you know, grandparents collecting together. Do you think, you know, obviously, one of my colleagues had told me that he hasn't been able to find one for his son right now. And we're in the New Jersey, New York market. Is that market specific? Or do you think, you know, are people still going to be able to get a new book, you know, as the tournament goes on? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're continually delivering on a daily basis.