Special Edition: Bloomberg Power Players New York

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1:24Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. This is the business of sports. Sports are the greatest unscripted show on earth. The next generation of players really grew up with tech and believe in tech. Your face is your ticket. Your face is your wallet. Your face is your access to a club. These are such iconic and important buildings for businesses, for fans. COVID was one of the best things that ever happened to golf. The NFL is a 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?

2:00If 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. Welcome to a special edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports, featuring some of our favorite conversations from Power Players New York. I'm Michael Barr. Power Players New York is an annual event held right here at Bloomberg World Headquarters in New York that brings together influential voices from the business of sports. Stick around for a conversation about the future of the NFL with Michael Arugetti, co-founder and CEO at Aries Management Corporation.

2:37As we think about just investing across the entire sports ecosystem, the NFL kind of checks every box, right? I mean, most other leagues that we've invested in, there's some risk that you have to box, relegation or lack of national media rights, But the NFL really sits at the top of the top. Plus here from Ross Bjork of Ohio State University on a flood of new money, rising student athlete power, and how it's reshaping the collegiate sports landscape. All that and more is on the way on this special Bloomberg Power Players New York edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports. Let's start with a look at the WNBA.

3:15The league suffered a bit of a gut punch this week when it was announced that superstar Kaitlin Clark would miss the rest of the season with a right groin sprain. But overall, the league is on an exciting trajectory. Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Randall Williams took the stage at Power Players New York to speak with Terry Carmichael Jackson, executive director at the WMDPA and two-time WNBA champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist Sylvia Fowles. Let's take a listen. Now, both both you and Terry have witnessed women's basketball and this growth, the popularity of it just surge over the last couple of years.

3:57You were part of that wave towards the end of your career. Terry, you saw it as well over the last five to six and really a decade long period of time. Terry, what has that been like from your spot? Oh, my goodness. It has been amazing. This is my 10th season. I tell her that all the time. I don't see how she do her job. This is my 10th season in this job. And I think at the end of each season, I kind of go back to the beginning when I was interviewed for this role. And Swin Cash, Tamika Catchings, you know, they were on the executive committee at that time. And they asked me, where do you see yourself?

4:38Where do you see this this union in five to 10 years? And I remember it like yesterday. I said, you know, we're going to value who we are as women's basketball. And we're going to value the fact that we're different and we're not going to like always compare ourselves to the guys. It's helpful to look over in their space and see what they're doing and how they're moving. But, you know, know who we are and just value different for exactly what it is. It is different. And to see that and to still be in this role and to see that happen and to see the women like Sylvia, these legends, you know, during their career be celebrated and be on these billboards and truly be household names.

5:21And I just love how you talked about, you know, the unity. We didn't talk about this backstage, y 'all. When she was talking about the unity and the power of the players, that is something. Yes, it is. That is really something. And so it's it's just been amazing. And watch out, y 'all. It's going to continue to be amazing. I promise we are in a labor fight. Wait, wait, wait. We're not there yet. Yeah, get to the labor talks on the business front, though. I feel like in the last four years, of course, when when the Aces and Liberty played that broke incredible records. And then you had last year's in the year and maybe that was 2023 in the year before that as well.

6:02they just keep topping themselves exactly what's it been like on the business front how have the calls changed i mean towards the end of your career this this was happening but what was it like as maybe the the visibility increased over time um it's phenomenal like i say it's something that we've been fighting for for years and so to have this platform now and send all this attention that these young women are getting um i think it's life-changing um so hopefully that it can continue from here and we keep pushing forward. Now there are brands jumping to be next to the league. I mean, you all were both, I assume, in Indianapolis for a WNBA All-Star weekend.

6:39I was not there. You were not there? Yeah. They were treating Indianapolis like it was Vegas. As they should. With that in mind, there was more branding in Indianapolis than I have ever seen at a WNBA All-Star weekend. I'll ask you, Sylvia, if there was a brand that you could have collaborated in during your time playing. Or maybe there's one that you're proud of that you did collaborate with. What would it have been? Would it have been a signature sneaker? Or what do you think it would have been? For those who know me, no, I don't think of myself. So I always think outside the box about other people.

7:12So my biggest thing is what can I give back? And the youth is very important to me. And so I would love to collab with anybody that's unity based around youth and taking care of the kids is something that I'll probably look forward to. Beautiful. Beautiful. Terry, what's been your favorite WNBA collaboration that you've seen? My favorite WNBA-PA collaboration has been with L 'Oreal. You know, we had players talking for so long about, where's our beauty brand partnership? Like, we're a women's league. Like, this is a no-brainer. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. Let's work on that. and had a conversation, had a relationship with an executive VP over at L 'Oreal and Lil Majid.

8:02And, you know, she called me one day and she said, how can we help? And I was like, wait, is this really happening? How like a brand is calling and saying, how can we help? Like, I don't have to pitch you. And she's like, no, I know who you guys are. I know what you're all about. We want to support. We want to pour into the players and we want to do it through a partnership with you through the union. And I was like, breakneck speed. Let me come over and, you know, and sit down and talk. And we did just that. So that has been a very meaningful one. I think that's really put us on the map and particularly meaningful for our members too, to see that we were listening to, you know, what they were talking about.

8:40And it's not just, it's beauty, it's skincare. It's like all the things, it's about feeling good inside and out. And I'm really proud of that partnership. I really am. But there's so many that we do. I don't want to leave anybody out. Farmer's Fridge, if you guys are ever in the airport, you see those vending machines, like it's real. It's good. Like you can go there. You can trust it. I promise you. That's just another example. Now we're on the subject of business and you are, I mean, one of the maybe five most important people in these WNBA CBA negotiations and maybe one of the two most important people.

9:13Map out to us what the players are asking for in this proposal and in these negotiations. negotiations. Yeah. Well, I'm going to go back to your question to Syl. You said, was she in Indy? I was in Indy. There was a meeting in Indy. I heard about it. Yeah. There's a, you know, I always start with this whole, you know, we don't negotiate in the press. And then I start talking about, you know, what the players are really after. I mean, but when they opted out, when the players voted to opt out of this 2020 CBA, they said really pretty clearly what was on their minds, what their priorities were. And it's top, one of the top priorities, what we say the main thing is the main thing, is a salary system that is tied to the business so that these players are paid their value.

10:06Right now we're in a system that if you look at it, it's not tied to the business. And so it's designed to undervalue them. As the business grows, they start to fall behind. And we've got to right that ship. And we've got a moment right now to do that. And it's not just like a moment, right? We've seen the growth. We were talking about their topping themselves with all the metrics that you all are watching, right? With viewership, with attendance, with jersey sales and on and on and on. They keep topping themselves. We see what Kathy and her team is doing on the league side to grow the business.

10:42And it's been 12 teams for forever, right? It has been 12 teams for forever and blink and it's going to be 18. And maybe on the way to 20. And this is no inside knowledge. I'm just saying it just looks and feels that way. Right. And so this is a sustainable model that because the players opted out of the the, the 2014 CBA to fix the business model, to get that, you know, on the track for the 2020 CBA. It's why we are here in 2025 fighting to make sure that this business really loves them back the way they have loved it, the way they have poured into it. We see it across in, in other men's sports.

11:31We can do that. We can do that in women's sports. And when we do that, you know, the women are going to win, the players are going to win, the teams are going to win, the league is going to win. Seems like a no-brainer to me. You mentioned All-Star Weekend. A couple weeks before All-Star Weekend, the league announced those three expansion teams, I believe it's in 2028, 2029, and 2030, a total of$750 million in expansion fees. Say that number again. $750 million in expansion fees. $250 million each times three, and you get 750. I was told that their first counter proposal came shortly after that.

12:12And there were a bunch of player comments about it. I think Satu Sabali had the most to say, or maybe the most powerful quote, which was that it was a slap in the face. So what was your feeling reading what the league sent you? Satu Sabali, first of all, is our co-chair of the CBA committee. She's pretty dialed in and she's pretty passionate about the work. What was my feeling reading the proposal? Sure. That we had some work to do. That perhaps the league and the teams didn't fully hear the players when we opted out and we had our first bargaining session. And so there were going to have to be more conversations to ensure that they did fully hear what the players said and what they meant.

13:02I'm clear. I work for them. I understand the mission. I understand the directive. And so we're just going to have to sit down and have more of those conversations, however hard they are. We'll just continue to do it, period. Sylvia, you negotiated or were part of some negotiations years ago. I believe that was in 2020. What were your negotiations like back then? Were you part of 2014? Yes. Oh, those two. Why do you say it like that? Yes, because it's intense, especially when you don't feel like you've been heard. But like Terry said, you're very passionate about something that you do. And with our job, it comes with any other job that's physical, mentally taxing, taxing on your body physically.

13:49And so we just want to be heard, but we also want to be seen as well. And so those negotiations was like very clear. It's like this is what we're standing on. We're going to stand on all one accord, making sure everybody is on the same page so our message will be heard across the board. That's WNBPA Terry Carmichael Jackson and two-time WNBA champion Sylvia Fowles on stage at Bloomberg Power Players New York, speaking with Bloomberg U.S. sports business reporter Randall Williams. Up next, more from Power Players New York on this edition of the Bloomberg Business of Sports. I'm Michael Barr and you're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world.

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16:33Let's take a look now at the college sports landscape, which has been turned upside down recently due to a mix of a flood of new money, rising student-athlete power, conference shakeups, and more. Bloomberg News higher education finance reporter Janet Lauren took the stage at Power Players New York to speak with Ross Bjork. He is the Senior Vice President and Wolf Foundation Eugene Smith Endowed Athletics Director at Ohio State University. Martin Jarman, the Alice and Nahum Lanier Family Director of Athletics at UCLA, and Nina King, Vice President and King Compton Families Director of Athletics and Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University, for a special discussion on what's next for college sports.

17:26Let's listen in. So, Ross, your team is the defending national champions. The Ohio State-Texas game was the most watched week one CFB game ever. So how is your job different from when you started? Are we done? Can we just shut it down? Are we good? You know, championship beat number one team, and I guess now we're ranked number one. So now we have the target on our back. You know, first of all, thanks for having us today and talking about college sports. You know, look, I think you, you know, in leadership, I think in anything, you know, you want to celebrate the moments, but never too high, never too low.

18:04So you have to keep this balanced perspective of the job's never finished, the journey's never finished. We have to keep pushing, especially in this modern era. So, you know, and I think a lot of times we can take the lead of our players. And our players that were returning off of last year's national championship team, we started putting up these pictures and these banners, national champions and holding up the trophy and all. And they said, hey, can you take some of that stuff down? Because we want our own identity. And so following the lead of our athletes, I think, has been a mantra for us to say, look, the job's never finished.

18:41We have jobs that we operate almost like a political campaign, churning, churning, campaigning, dinners, events, but we don't have an election day. We have game day, and there's a scoreboard, but as far as what we do in pouring into young people and building buildings and the NIL chase and the revenue share and the television world, there really is not a finish line because there's always something next. So that's how we're approaching it. And at Ohio State, we still have an upside in many ways on the business front. So we're trying to capitalize on all those things as it relates to winning that national championship.

19:17So you brought up NIL. Let's get into that right now. They can get the hard questions. So you guys are literally signing checks for revenue sharing agreements. Martin, how much have you paid out so far? Wow. She goes in for the hard ones. Well, before I answer that hard question, thank you for having us here. And it's an honor to be with you. You know, it's a new day. July 1st started the new era where you could share revenue with student athletes. At UCLA, we started August 1st. And as of August 1st, for the month of August, we shared$4.8 million. Wow. Out of our 20.5 million that's allotted.

19:59So a lot of checks were being signed in August and more to come. But it's exciting. You know, our student athletes deserve that. UCLA, we've always been a proponent of that. And so, you know, just how you manage that, how you make sure that we get we've been preparing for this for a while with the infrastructure needed to get all the student athletes information. We use PayPal and the Big Ten to make those payments and do those out. But it's it's a big undertaking just to be able to do that and kind of flip the switch and turn it on. Wow. Nina, how much do you think these agreements are going to have a role in retention?

20:38Might we see fewer people going in the transfer portal? That's the hope. First of all, also, let me echo my colleague's sentiments and thank you for having us here. And I thought the panel would be at least four hours for us to be able to kind of delve into some of these issues. But, you know, there are a lot of moving parts. And, you know, yeah, that's the hope. And for these agreements, they're structured. Every institution can decide how to structure them. And so and then even for us, between sports, they're structured a little bit differently. The term is different. And so, you know, across several sports that we're revenue sharing with, it's a lot of moving pieces.

21:21And when I was signing all of those, we finally got a stamp in my office so that we can get them done quickly. But, you know, we are looking to protect the university, you know, for these agreements, also to do what's in the best interest of the student athletes. But this is a business arrangement now with them. And so, you know, we we've got plenty of lawyers involved in writing agreements again to go back to protecting the university. But I absolutely think this is the right thing to be doing for these student athletes. I'm not going to tell you how many checks I've signed and how much they've totaled up to up to this point.

21:59But we are trying to be competitive in this space. So let me share some numbers. Between June and August, the amount of money distributed has been 80 million dollars. That's almost a million dollars a day and about 100 deals a day. What do you think of this, Ross? Is that the latest statistics? from the College Sports Commission. They just released that. So I think it's great that, you know, we've been asking for some transparency right around this. You know, look, I think it's awesome opportunities for our athletes. You know, what do we say about college? You go there, receive an education, prepare yourself for the next level, whatever that is.

22:36Maybe you can go pro, excuse me, in your sport. I might need that emergency water. We were joking about that and now it got me. You know, so I think it's an awesome opportunity to basically have these athletes have the opportunities that other students have always had. But in our world, we restricted it. You can't be in a video game. You can't use YouTube channel. You can't monetize social media. You can't, you can't, you can't. And now it's like, let's go full throttle. And so we're seeing these big numbers and some of it may be shocking, but in a lot of ways, it's a catch up phase in some ways because our athletes have been restricted for so long.

23:17So I think all of us that are sitting here, I think as we try to be competitive in the new world, again, how do we provide opportunities for third-party NIL? We're going to have the rev share cap from the university. That's going to be standard. But what does the third-party roadmap look like? That's probably the next sort of arms race in all of this. And again, it's all about what can the athlete be provided in this moment in time. And so we're all pushing towards that that new era so with all this revenue sharing a lot going to football basketball that leaves other sports maybe not with as much money so let's talk about olympic sports martin los angeles is hosting the olympics in 2028 the olympic village is going to be on your campus do you know how many medals ucla athletes have won almost 300.

24:10284 yes yeah that's a lot of change And we're already starting to see schools cut teams diving at Virginia, swimming and diving at Cal Poly. What is the risk to the United States? Are we going to have fewer medals after this big shakeup? So first, let me say we at UCLA, we have a proud tradition with our Olympic sports. You know, since 1928, we've had 436 Bruins make 661 Olympic teams. uh so that's i mean we're we're if we're not the highest we're in the top two uh in the country as far as producing olympians we have a phrase at ucla athletics champions made here it's olympians made here too so we take our investment in our olympic sports very seriously um that said you know the financial model has changed the realities have changed and um we're extremely excited to be hosting LA 28 and Olympics in 28 and having them on campus in Westwood.

25:12But there is a concern after LA 28 what programs around the country are going to do with their Olympic sports. You know, we're going to keep investing. We think it's very important to continue to produce Olympians, champions, and that's important. But at the same time, the financial realities are changing. And so, you know what we're talking about more is we need to really study in my opinion what other countries do as far as how they fund olympic sports and take those learnings from other countries and apply it to what we do here in the united states because i think we're going to be very strong la 28 i think the whole you know the whole country is going to get behind that and um casey washerman has done an excellent job he's a brewing with with all the planning and i think we're going to perform well.

26:01But there is a concern after LA-28, what does that mean? Is there going to be a cliff with Olympic sports? I don't see that obviously at UCLA, but I do worry about as a whole, our Olympic movement, if we don't figure out a better way to fund Olympic sports, because that's the issue. The issue is the funding model for Olympic sports. And I think that's got to adjust. So let's talk about the funding model. We keep hearing the idea of private equity? Is it coming for college sports? How would this even work? Nina? Can we call David Rubenstein back? I mean, I think he's the one that we need to be asking that question.

26:39You know, yes, the financial model in college athletics is stressed. The way that we are operating as a business model, I mean, you all, if we opened our books to you, you would think it's a joke the way that we are operating. And so we need to figure out how to build something more sustainable so we can support broad-based programming, you know, student-athlete opportunities to come to our campuses, not just to compete in sports, but to, you know, receive a, in my case, a Duke degree. And so, you know, we are exploring all kinds of revenue models, and that certainly includes private equity. In the traditional sense, I'm not convinced that it would work, but we're talking to a lot of folks to kind of figure out, are there hybrid models?

27:29Are there unique ways that we could do something to infuse capital cash into our athletic departments and into our universities? I mean, I think there are a lot of revenue opportunities on campus as well. And so how do we kind of create that synergy with campus to continue to build revenue? We are heavily reliant on philanthropy. But if we could have been raising an extra$20.5 million a year, we would have been. And so I don't think straight philanthropy is the answer. And so, like I said, we are exploring everything. And I think private equity is on the table for sure. That's Bloomberg News higher education finance reporter Janet Lauren in a panel discussion with Ross Bjork of Ohio State University, Martin Jarmond of UCLA, and Nina King of Duke University from Bloomberg Power Players New York.