Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss Exit; Cain CEO Jonathan Goldstein Talks Sports Investing

0:01Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcast Radio News.

0:30A bulletproof business. Racing's unique because there is absolutely no reason why we can't compete with the guys. Come on, is pro pickleball real? Are people really going to tune into this? If you're playing money ball with a huge bag of money, you're going to be really, really good. Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We explore the big money issues in the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr. And I'm Damian Sasso. Vanessa Perdomo will join us later in the show. Coming up, we'll check in on the sports betting space with BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt.

1:02And we'll hear from Kane co-founder and CEO Jonathan Goldstein about his firm's stakes in the sports world. All that and more is on the way on the Bloomberg Business of Sports, but we start in the college ranks. The big headline this past week was Lane Kiffin's controversial move from Ole Miss to LSU. It was a big headline, Michael Barr, but not as big as five-star quarterback Jared Curtis from Nashville Christian flipping from Georgia to my hometown, Vandy Commodores. Let's go anchor down. See, man, now you've drooled on the scripts and everything, man. Randall Williams, our very own Bloomberg Business of Sports reporter, man, is also here to join us.

1:48You got to join in on the chat, man. None of what Lane Kiffin has done over the course of his career has surprised me. He's an agent of chaos in the chaotic world of college sports. And I think everybody wants to chastise him for these different things. But when athletes can up and leave and enter the transfer portal and be paid and coaches have long been able to switch jobs or be fired with payouts, I think this is just the world we live in and everybody needs to get over it. More now on the latest in the college ranks. We welcome Ben Portnoy, college sports reporter at the Sports Business Journal.

2:23Ben, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. What's going on, guys? Thanks for having me. So let's get into it. I mean, I mean, look, talk to us a little bit about the drama that's going on in Mississippi. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. You look, Lane Kiffin is someone that drama follows no matter where he is. It's whether it's good, bad and different. Right. And I remember talking to some folks and some friends, you know, right when Lane got hired at Ole Miss. And, you know, the conversation was basically and I said it then was, you know, this is basically going to go one of two ways.

2:54It's going to go up in smoke in four years because it doesn't work or it's going to go up in smoke in four years because Lane leaves and does so well. And he goes somewhere else in the exit. It's going to be, you know, fiery. Right. And here we are. And so I think, look, the way that it's worked right is that, you know, Lane is leaving Ole Miss in the middle of a playoff run to go to LSU, a place that, you know, he thinks he can go win a national championship, essentially. I think it's an interesting dynamic at play when you have these coaching searches that turn into these high profile conversations and how they fit into the media narrative.

3:22Ben, nice to talk to you. My question for you is pretty simple. There's a lot of people out there who say, oh, this is that he is a victim of the schedule of college football. The transfer portal and these coaches, hirings and firings all play into this decision. I wonder how much you factored that into this while also Lane being a simply chaotic character in the business of college sports? Yeah. I mean, look, like at a very base level, right? Like Lane is chaotic. And I think we can all agree on that and the ways that he's gone out. We talked about the Raiders, right? We talked about Ole Miss is the most recent one, you know, that doesn't even mention, you know, him being fired on the tarmac at USC.

3:59And so, so there's that, like we can set a baseline there, but I think that, you know, Nick Saban was on talking about the calendar a little bit. Kirk Herbstre was talking about, that Wayne should be allowed to coach through the playoff and that this is a problem with the calendar and all of these things, right? And I think that, frankly, that argument is completely disingenuous. I think that in my view that you have a college sports calendar that operates on the university system, right? So college sports leaders might be ticked off about how the calendar operates, but short of going and changing the semester pro you know programs at every school in America like good luck fixing that because that's just how this works right these are tethered to institutions of higher education and so I think that um you know look yes is the is the timing not ideal absolutely right like this is not a great situation that Lane is having to leave a team in the middle of a playoff but you know there's like a pretty simple solution to all of this and that's that he would not take the LSU job and he would coach Ole Miss so I think that like this is sort of a thing that has come up a lot.

5:03But I think that, yes, the calendar is broken. It's got its issues. Like there is no question that like the football calendar and the academic calendar are sort of at odds, so to speak. But I think to say that this is not essentially entirely out of Lane Kiffin's doing, I think, is kind of disingenuous, generally speaking. But then, Ben, before we dig into five-star quarterback Jared Curtis flipping to Vandy, let's talk about Sports Business Journal. I mean, You've just partnered with Bloomberg through our new subscription bundle. It gives our audience access to both Bloomberg's business reporting and SBJ's industry-leading sports coverage.

5:41And if you're listening, you probably have already guessed college football. I mean, the season's nearly over. And there's going to be some talk after the playoffs as to what it looks like for the 26-27 campaign. I know you've written on this extensively. You know, SEC Commissioner Sankey prefers this 5-plus-11 format. The Big Ten prefers something different. Trent, talk to us a little bit about what you think comes next as we get through this season and look to next. Yeah, how much time you guys got? I think that, look, I mean, I think, look, the college football playoff is going to continue to be a conversation.

6:17And there's been a conversation about whether to expand this thing beyond 12 teams or go to 16 or, you know, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petiti has pushed the idea of as many as 24 teams. That conversation remains ongoing. Like the people I've talked to, that remains ongoing. Those four commissioners from the Big 12, the ACC, the SEC, and the Big 10 are essentially the ones in charge of that. But ultimately, it's going to be Greg Sankey and Tony Petiti who have to agree on that, given the weighted voting structure of how that works. There, in theory, was a deadline of early December to have a decision on what they would do for 26-27.

6:50Naturally, they blew past that deadline and have moved the deadline to about four days after the national championship in January. So whether anything gets done between now and then, I will say I have my doubts. I've talked to some folks involved in some of these conversations. And, you know, there's not exactly optimism, I would say, that anything's going to get done and that anything would change. But I would say, like, there's some important caveats with this. So, you know, as it exists right now, the 12 team format, you're in kind of a tight window as far as where you can put these games. Obviously, you're going head to head with the NFL.

7:21That's a conversation with the first round games. If you were to expand to, I mean, let's play it just 16 teams, right? Like the understanding is there's a clause in the ESPN deal that would trigger a renegotiation given that you're adding essentially a couple extra games. If it expands to, I believe, 14, which had been kicked around a little bit, it wouldn't trigger that clause. So that's an interesting piece of this of like ESPN is already paying billions of dollars for this property. Do they really want to spend more on it? Realistically, probably not, right? But what are they getting out of that as well is an interesting piece of this as well.

7:55So, again, like I think these conversations remain ongoing. It's still a question of like, is 12 teams right? Is 16 teams right? Is 24 teams right? Like where you could build this out. And, you know, the concept, as it's been explained to me, would be, you know, you have 24 teams in the playoff. But instead of where you have traditional championship weekend games, right, the conference championship games that we're heading into and all of that. toward the end of the postseason that instead you would have essentially play in games and you would have, you know, high level conference matchups in that last week of the season.

8:28So I think that becomes an interesting conversation piece to all of that. And how do you reimagine championship weekend? I think that's going to happen regardless. But I do think that it's definitely tethered to what happens with the CFP as well. Well, Michael Barr at 14 teams, I mean, that means Vandy's a shoo-in. I mean, if we had 14 teams, Vandy's going to the college football playoffs right now. I mean, not everyone like our friend Ben Portnoy went to Indiana and has Mendoza quarterback and number two team ranked in the nation, right? Oh, that's what you do. I was going to say, I watched a lot of really bad football in my four years.

9:01This is pretty crazy. I wonder how you view the NCAA as an organization today. I mean, if you look 10 years ago, 15 years ago, they were responsible for suspending coaches and really enforcing the rules. But now in a lot of my group chats, everyone's like, the NCAA needs to do something when not long ago they were being villainized for saying, oh, they're not paying athletes and deservedly so. But nowadays, it seems like this is a free market economy. And as everyone, you've heard this term just as much as I have. It's the wild, wild west. And the NCAA doesn't really have the governance that it used to.

9:32Talk to me about the role that they play in college sports today, because it doesn't really seem like we're hearing as much of the power shift that they had years ago. Yeah, I mean, look, I think right now, the way that college sports is set up, I think the Power Four conferences ultimately have sort of the absolute power, quote unquote, over the ecosystem and what shape it's going to take, generally speaking. And most of that driven through football. As it relates to the NCAA, I think, look, like you've taken this entity that for such a long time was involved in, you know, investigations and, you know, punishing coaches and all of those things.

10:09And they're still sort of in that game a little bit as it relates to, like, academics. You saw them hand down a pretty significant penalties to Michigan over the sign-stealing scandal. Both of those things are sort of independent of, you know, limiting player payments and things like that. It's a little bit of a different scope. But I do think there's an interesting conversation of, like, what is the NCAA's role moving forward? And what do they look like? Like, certainly they're in charge of running championships for a lot of these sports. That's a really important thing, right? Like, someone needs to run the Division I cross-country championship, right?

10:43And that's not a knock on cross-country. Just pick a sport, right? But I think there's a lot of folks that would say and, you know, conversations I've had with people who talk about whether there needs to be someone else running the men's and women's basketball tournaments, for example, which are run by the NCAA. You know, there's some criticism of, like, hey, we could run these better or, you know, we could make more money off of these if we ran them a different way. or whatever that might be. So I think that you're seeing the NCAA shift from what was once sort of judge-dury executioner to something that's a little more managerial is probably overstating it.

11:17But I think that they're trying to figure out what that role is. And I think you've seen, again, like the Power Four has sort of their tentacles on a lot of this. The NCAA changed their governance structure entirely to basically give those leagues weighted voting on a bunch of their committees up and down and to slim things out and essentially a way to simplify things, but also that would grant them more power to operate more freely within the ecosystem. So I think that it's a group that's in flux. I think that, you know, certainly like the staff at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis is thinner than it has been previously.

11:56And I think there's a lot of folks there that are wondering like, hey, what does this look like moving forward? And I think it's a little bit of a moving target. But I think that as this moves to a more professionalized model, there needs to be someone in the center of this running things as sort of a central hub. But I don't know that the NCAA actually becomes that, right? Especially as it relates to college football, which is its own entity entirely. But basketball becomes kind of the infliction point for a lot of that. Ben Portnoy, college sports reporter, Sports Business Journal. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

12:29We really do appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. This was great. Really appreciate it. And remember, for our audience, Sports Business Journal has just partnered with Bloomberg through our new subscription bundle, which gives readers access to both Bloomberg's business reporting and SPJ's industry-leading sports coverage. Up next, we turn to the gaming industry with BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt. For Damian Sassauer, I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

13:01This 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. I'm Damian Sassauer. And I'm Vanessa Perdomo. Prediction markets like Calci and Polymarket are making a big push into sports, and some new startups are joining the mix, too. To take us through the latest in the sports betting space and whether prediction markets could present a real challenge to the traditional gaming platforms is friend of the show, BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt. Adam, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

13:41Well, thank you for having me. It's always great to be here. And joining us for the conversation is another friend of the show, Bloomberg News global sports reporter Ira Boudwe. We're talking the chief executive officer of BetMGM. And, okay, let's get the big elephant out of the room in the first place. A lot of these scandals that have come down here with the latest in baseball with Emmanuel Classe and Luis Ortiz. And then their NBA scandals, you know, that's going on as well. Has it hurt BetMGM? So I really appreciate you starting light, Michael.

14:27Look, the answer is it has it's these kind of scandals are bad for sport or bad for the industry. It's bad for everybody involved. And our focus at BetMGM is responsible gambling and sports integrity. and I feel like we need to stay focused on highlighting the bad actors and the legal regulated model for sports betting now today does that. So the legal market basically, it brings transparency and it's the only way to protect players and to make sure that games are fair. And so, you know, what do we do? BetMGM helps to bring integrity to sports games. How? by partnering with leagues, with regulators, and with data providers to bring transparency, to detect suspicious activity, and to promote responsible gambling.

15:24So we don't want to see it. It's bad for everybody involved. But on the positive side, has it impacted BetMGM negatively or BetMGM is still showing up? And the answer is BetMGM is still showing up. We've had one of our Last week, in fact, was one of our best weeks in the history of BetMGM. Adam, while we're on this subject of that, and obviously as we're looking at how those things can be regulated a little bit more, can you tell us about how prop bets are going to be? Is there more restrictions going forward and how sportsbooks can kind of do more on that side in order to stop some of these problems from happening?

16:03Yeah, look, the problems that are happening are as a result of the involvement of bad actors. The role of the legal sports betting market is to bring transparency to these types of involvements. And my core concern is, number one, players like player props and these kind of milestone markets. You know, for example, we've seen growth in our milestone markets for players to achieve certain milestones in games, points, rebounds, assists, you know, in the NBA as an example. Now, the concern I have is to the extent that the legal market says they're not allowed and players like it. Where do players go?

16:57Players go to the illegal offshore markets. The bad actors aren't going to disappear. What we want is to bring transparency to all of the activity so that the bad actors can be exposed and we can protect games. We can protect players. It is interesting, though, that the leagues have convinced the major books, I believe including yours, to add some new, very narrow targeted restrictions around single pitch bets and under bets on the lowest paid NBA players. You see those as useful ways to kind of curtail match fixing and manipulation? Who are our partners? The leagues and our regulators. And so as good actors, if you like, we will comply with wherever we get to.

17:47But your specific question, will these be effective? Certainly in the regulated market, they will be effective. Unfortunately, alongside that, as I've said, there is the existence of the illegal market where the risk remains. You guys are setting up a mobile site in Missouri. Tell us more about that. Yeah, this is the news of the week. So we're very proud. We're very proud to bring our award-winning sports book to the state of Missouri and basically expand our legal regulated sports betting offering. Missouri represents our 30th market. So this is an elegant milestone for BetMGM. We now reach 50 % of the U.S.

18:36population with our sports and gaming products. And in Missouri specifically, we have our mobile offering alongside our new, brand new, and looks great, BetMGM Sportsbook at the Century Casino and Hotel Cape Girardeau. Yeah, I'm really interested in how you guys, you know, when you're activating in these new spaces and how that's all playing into it, especially as we look at prediction markets and how they're coming into play in these spaces where sports betting is illegal. Can you tell me about that when you're talking to states where in legislation where they haven't passed sports betting yet and now that there's prediction markets in that space kind of competing already?

19:21Yeah, well, we see the legal regulated sports betting framework as the best for bringing the product to sports bettors in a state. We don't see prediction markets as meaningful long term threats to our business, to BetMGM. A few reasons for that. Look, the majority of our revenue comes from iGaming. That's the first point. And that second is because we only operate in fully regulated states where these platforms haven't gained meaningful share and we don't expect them to, we feel pretty good about where we are. And one moment for the reason we feel good about our role or the dominance of our offering in legal states is because from a consumer's perspective, our offering and value proposition is just better.

20:16You know, we have more range, more betting range. It's easier for a player to bet what you want to bet at the size you want to bet and in the combination of markets of your choosing. It's just a better total experience. And by the way, being a customer of BetMGM is more rewarding than participating in the prediction markets. Now, your point is important, which is, well, what happens in the states which aren't yet legal? Well, we're working hard to ensure that legalized sports betting expands wherever possible. And we see the launch in Missouri as a further positive step in that direction. some of your competitors seem to be looking at a model maybe of trying to do both where they're in some states where they have licenses they operate as regulated sports books and in states where there is no online sports betting they operate as prediction markets did you give that any thought and why wouldn't you want to try sort of that dual approach yeah look we are monitoring this very closely and and by definition therefore we have given this extensive thought and look there developments every day, every day, new information to consider and recheck our previous analysis.

21:33And the guiding principle is this. Legality and our relationships with state regulators are key for us. And our state regulators have been clear on their interpretation of both current law and their regulation. And, you know, recent rulings like the Nevada classifying Calci's sports events contracts as gambling show that regulators are clear on their interpretation of the rules and the law. And frankly, so the legal system is confirming that position. And so, you know, our focus remains on delivering best in class experience in regulated markets. And so we will continue to monitor every day. And so, but at this point, participation is not an option for us.

22:23It's interesting. It sounds like you don't anticipate that these markets will necessarily persist in the current form offering sports contracts over, you know, as the legal process plays out, you think they may not be able to operate as they are now? Well, we, our analysis, which is shared by, you know, mid-30s attorneys general and consistently by our regulators is that the prediction markets in sports, sports prediction contracts are frankly illegal sports betting. And so, you know, until that changes, you know, that's, I don't anticipate that will change, you know, with progressive rulings as the one in Nevada has set a precedent for.

23:17We have more of those. I think we'll see that actually the scope of prediction markets should narrow and sports should return to being the domain of the states and tribes. Adam, one of the things, you know, I want to talk about before you go is the trends on women's sports and betting in that space and how that's grown. And I'm curious from your seat, do you see it almost as this, you know, now we're in a space where it's WNBA offseason, it's the women's soccer offseason, but you can, you know, there's other spots like ice hockey, volleyball, softball. In these emerging women's sports, do you see it as almost like a chicken and the egg where they need to become more popular before they're, you know, a bigger, given a bigger platform on your site?

24:05Or if you make them more available for betters, will that help grow the sport, do you think? That's a really interesting question. One of the reasons why we've seen such explosive growth in interest in women's sports is because of the quality of players and the star appeal. You know, we've had really emergent women athletes that capture imaginations of fans. And it's that fandom that drives engagement with our product. We can spin up markets. We can make available markets, events and markets really pretty simply, you know, quickly. But we do want to follow where the demand is. And the thing that drives demand is the core of the thing that drives demand is interest in the sport.

25:00Adam, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Our thanks to BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt. Up next, we talk to the co-founder and CEO of Cain, an alternative asset manager specializing in real estate that's seeing big opportunities in the world of sports. For Damien Sassauer and Vanessa Perdomo, I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

26:04We'll be right back. 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. I'm Damian Sassauer. And I'm Vanessa Perdomo. Kane is an alternative asset manager specializing in real estate that's seeing big opportunities in sports. That's right, Michael Barr. Kane has over a billion dollars invested in sports, including stakes in Chelsea FC, the Dodgers, the Lakers. I mean, I think they do stuff in cricket. I mean, certainly they're one of the largest commercial real estate players on the planet.

26:42I think we have a lot to talk about. Joining us to talk about the firm and its sports interests is co-founder and CEO Jonathan Goldstein. Jonathan, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Thanks a lot. Great to see you. What a great smile to be greeted with. Well, Jonathan, let's give our audience a little bit of color here. I mean, Kane is one of the world's most venerable global real estate investment, but more development companies, right? But, you know, you're also a director for Chelsea, right? Premier League. And you also have some other sports and media interests. I'd love to hear about that.

27:15You have a$1.2 billion portfolio, which has a lot of other stuff. Swingers, St. James. Talk to us about that sports portfolio. What are your eyes on? When I started the business with Todd Bowley, and Todd's obviously, you know, well known to most people as a global leader in sports, both with the Dodgers, the Lakers, Chelsea, etc, etc. So obviously, you know, plays to my interest in sports when we're in business together. And we spent some time in the, you know, from when we joined up in business from 2014 onwards, looking at the Premier League. and that resulted in 2022 with the consortium that Todd led to to buy Chelsea Football Club along with Clear Lake and you know Todd is the chair and you know I think the success of the last 12 months has really begun to show the you know the fruits of the strategy that the team there has put together and all credit to them for everything they've done and ending up of course in the US by winning the Club World Cup back in July at you know at the stadium Met Stadium which was a Great experience for everybody, along with President Trump, of course.