WrestleMania, Las Vegas as Sports City, Richmond Flying Squirrels

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2:04We have a super team running this league and this league is here and it's here to stay. 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 Vanessa Perdomo. Michael Barr is out this week, but joining me for this week's show is our friend, sports business reporter, Randall Williams. Randall's joining me because, as you can hear, my voice is in need of some help, and he's here to join me in studio because I just got married, and I have a little bit of a rasp to my voice. Woo! Congratulations, Vanessa.

2:38Coming up today, we'll talk baseball and why minor league teams are small gold mines for cities. Plus, it's the 10-year anniversary of Las Vegas' first step into becoming a sports town with the building of T-Mobile Arena. We'll talk with MGM Resort CEO Bill Hornbuckle about his role in getting that done and the growth of sports on the Strip. But first, it's WrestleMania 42 this weekend, and we got a chance to speak with one of the biggest names in the game, Charlotte Flair. We caught up with Charlotte at the Super Bowl in San Francisco back in February, and our senior broadcast producer and WWE expert, Sebastian Escobar, stepped in to speak with her.

3:13Sebastian joins us now to give us a little peek into his conversation with Charlotte, insights on the big event. Sebastian, WrestleMania is coming up this weekend. What do we need to know about it? Well, basically, it's WWE's biggest event of the year. It's like the Super Bowl for wrestling. to two night show. And this is where like all the storylines that culminated throughout the year kind of come together. And this is where like all the championships are decided. This is where like the storylines kind of come together. There's a bow at the end, you know. So for many fans, this is like the ultimate show of the shows.

3:48Tell me what people are showing up for. What are the storylines this year? Well, obviously the main championships are the Undisputed WWE Championship. you have Cody Rhodes, who's the current champion, going up against the 14-time champion Randy Orton. He's like a veteran in the game. He's been in it, in the company for over 20 years now. And the storyline is just like they were very good friends. And then at one point, they just stopped being friends, which is kind of like the culmination of most wrestling storylines, right? They just kind of backstab each other. And then you had Pat McAfee, who's like an ESPN sports host.

4:26and he got involved. But it's really confusing. The way I'm framing it that way is because that's kind of been like the crux of the WrestleMania storylines. It's been very confusing. And for a lot of fans, especially hardcore wrestling fans, it's alienating because it's like, why are we just randomly throwing people into the storylines? So now Pat McAfee got thrown into the storyline simply because he called Randy and now he's part of it and got involved. but we all know that it's just because he's part of ESPN and TKL works with ESPN and that's how you grab I guess the non-wrestling fans interested into the product.

5:07So this is the 42nd Wrestlemania. They're using big names other celebrities, random people like Logan Paul to get more people interested in the sport? Yeah and Logan Paul is like at least he's an actual superstar now and having celebrities as part of Wrestlemania has always been their thing. Mr. T was part of the first WrestleMania. Mike Tyson came on. So using big names to bring attention to the event has always been part of their marketing and promotion deal. But this time it just feels random. Jelly Roll is now part of one of the storylines. The famous Twitch streamer, iShowSpeed, is part of their storylines.

5:42It's like influencer marketing. Exactly. And TKO knows that. So they want to promote this product and get non-typical wrestling fans interested in the product. But at the same time, they're alienating the actual wrestling fans. Right. So it sounds like what you're saying is that you have two categories of fans. You have the fans who are diehards, and then you have the fans who are somewhat interested because someone they follow, like I Show Speed or Pat McAfee, is like, oh, what are they doing on WWE? Let me tune in. You don't think they found a balance yet. No, not yet. I think it's sporadic.

6:16and I think if you ask many of these diehard wrestling fans, they would probably say the same thing. But TKO right now, they just look at the money. Last year when it was in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium, they generated over$320 million. That's in gates, merchandise, promotions and everything. So they saw the money and they were like, you know what, we need to repeat that again. So the first mistake that they made was originally, WrestleMania this year was supposed to be in New Orleans and it got a lot of people excited about coming back to New Orleans. But then TKO decided, well, it worked so well in Las Vegas last year, let's just do it again.

6:52And for many fans, it's like, well, that's not what we're used to. We're used to it being a different city. Well, I'll have you know that one of the great things about WrestleMania this year is that Joe Jonas is going to perform. So everyone has that to look forward to. So now they bring you a non-wrestling fan into the product. It's working. Yeah. Seb, tell us a little bit about your conversation with Charlotte Flair. Yeah, so I was able to speak with Charlotte. This was at Radio Row right before the Super Bowl a couple months ago. And essentially just had a conversation with her about her road to WrestleMania.

7:24Because Charlotte Flair is one of the biggest names in WWE. She's a 14-time women's champion, and she's been in the spotlight almost every single year for this show of the shows. And we had a little conversation about how this year it's a little different. She's stepping out of the spotlight, a place that she's usually not used to. And now she's sharing the spotlight in a tag team match with her so-called best friend, Alexa Bliss. So-called? So-called, because, I mean, even though they're very good friends, it started at Royal Rumble, which is like the first premium live event before WrestleMania.

7:59And it started with them two as the first two opponents going against each other. And Charlotte, well, she kind of eliminated Alexa. And now they're teammates, so that'll be really interesting. So you said this time around she's sharing the spotlight with her. What else can we expect from Charlotte in WrestleMania? And what else did you talk to her about? Well, in terms of the conversation, we wanted to kind of take a step back from Charlotte Flair and focus more on Ashley Flair. Which is her real name. Ashley is her real name, her birth name. Charlotte being obviously her character. And one thing that she mentioned was her desire to get involved with more companies and start investing more in businesses.

8:38And we didn't get to it because this happened after our conversation, but a recent thing that she did was become a creative partner and an angel investor into this mental health awareness company called Self Cares for Everyone. It was like her first time becoming an angel investor and like using her money for advocacy. So it's something that she's been trying to branch out with and just kind of focus a little bit less on the wrestling product, something that she's dedicated pretty much entire life to. She is the daughter of Ric Flair, who is a very prominent name in the wrestling community. An all-time great.

9:11An all-time great. And so she kind of wants to start forging her own path. And she thinks that becoming involved with mental health advocacy is the way to do it. So let's take a listen into Sebastian's conversation with WWE superstar Charlotte Flair. So tell us a little bit about the storyline. what is Charlotte Flair's road to Wrestlemania looking like? So for the Royal Rumble this year, it was the first time I went into the Rumble with a friend. And then I was entrant number one. And then entrant number two was my ally of convenience, Alexa Bliss. So I had to really choose from either eliminating, you know, my bestie or looking at the Wrestlemania sign.

9:52But for me, like, our bond is like this. So I chose to like, all right, if we're going to Mania, we're going to do it together. So we kind of showed tit for tat. You know, she went for the Sister Abigail and went for the figure eight. But at the end of the day, it was like, no, let's do this together. So was her elimination an accident? It was definitely an accident. Yeah. I was trying to eliminate Nia, but Nia grabbed her last second. That's right. That's right. And there was a bit of an elimination with Lash Legend. Yeah. She's a big up and comer. How would you describe Lash Legend? She's a powerhouse.

10:20I'm excited to see what she does. I was a fan of hers while she was in NXT. I think she's changed a little bit now that she's aligned with Nia. But she's going to do big things. and she actually had the most eliminations of the Royal Rumble in Riyadh. Yeah, yeah. A powerhouse to be reckoned with, you would say. I might have lasted the longest, though. You're the Iron Woman of the Royal Rumble, for sure. So, Charlotte, you've been in WWE now for over a decade. I have. You mentioned a little bit about connecting with the fans, kind of transforming your character just a little bit creatively. So how's that process going for you?

10:54How would you describe it? So I actually think 2025 was probably the most character development I've had in a long time. You know, Lexi, Alexa is so popular where I've always been so dedicated or what's the word decorated or respected. So to see the pair, like I brought her to the dance, but she opened me up to the fans. It's been such a unique pairing. I'm just grateful for it. and to have the opportunity to step away from the title scene and be in the tag team title scene. And when I held up that title at SummerSlam, it actually felt like I was holding up a world title. So it's been great. That's fantastic.

11:36I'm excited to see what 2026 brings. So WrestleMania, perhaps another title shot maybe in the picture? Perhaps the tag titles or there's always Elimination Chamber. There's everything. All right. So stay tuned for that. Many opportunities. Exactly. So, Charlotte, we are Bloomberg. This is the business of sports. I want to talk a little bit about a business that you've partnered with in the past. That's Rockford. Your eminence designer, Julie Rings. So tell us a little bit about the creative process of hooking up with them and if there's anything in the future that you're interested in partnering with.

12:09For me, it's always been what feels organic or real. So I love my jewelry. My dad and I bond over watches. So the collab with Rockford felt very easy, felt very natural. I've invested it in an Indian chain of restaurants because I love the Indian culture. Interesting. Chaipani, which the second brand will be Batwali. There's a few pop-ups right now. I have another venture in the making, but it's kind of like one of those things that once they happen, you don't want to talk about it until it's happened. Okay. But just venturing out what that looks like. And it's entrepreneurial. Is that in the works?

12:50Do you want to invest in more companies? I really, like for the last two years, would love to invest in a female sports team. I think that would be like a big step for me. Yeah, that's become very prominent. Very prominent, yeah. Anything, any specific sports leagues you're thinking about? Whether it's a female basketball team or a women's soccer team, those are two that I've actually looked at. But I think that would be incredible, especially with what women's sports are doing right now. We've seen what the WNBA did this year. Yes, yeah, it's growing exponentially, so it's definitely a time to get in there.

13:19And you know how I feel about the women's division in WWE. Right, right. I mean, you brought it up to a big level worldwide. So, Charlotte, you know, WWE's premium live events recently moved to ESPN. You had Netflix original content. Shout out to WWE Unreal. The success of season one. Now we have season two. So from your perspective as one of the top performers, like how do you see these moves of like different streaming services probably shaping audience perspective? Like, do you think it fragments the audience or it brings different audiences? So I can only speak for myself. But what WWE Unreal did for my character, the fans had never seen me in that light before.

14:00So it allowed me to have that connection with you guys. So I'm grateful for the show. Our thanks to Sebastian Escobar for joining us and sharing that conversation he had with WWE legend Charlotte Flair. He's a senior producer for Bloomberg Radio. Up next, the CEO of MGM Resorts on the growth of Las Vegas as a sports city. I'm Vanessa Perdomo with Randall Williams. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio around the world. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, if there's one entity here and one here and one here and one here, if scaling your business feels like starting over, you need the Intuit ERP.

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15:55This 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 Vanessa Perdomo. Michael Barr is off this week, but I am joined by Bloomberg's Randall Williams. Las Vegas is one of the premier sports cities in the U.S. actively working over the last 10 years to establish itself with major franchises, hosting big events like the Super Bowl and their own race on the Formula One circuit. This all started with the build of T-Mobile Arena 10 years ago. Here to talk about the momentum that created for the city is MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle.

16:31So let's just get into it, because as you know, Randall has covered this story a lot, the growing epicenter of sports in Las Vegas. So tell us how it all started 10 years ago with the T-Mobile Arena. Nice to talk to you guys both. And Vanessa, really, if you think about it, it went back before that. T-Mobile obviously just hit its 10th anniversary. But the bottom line to the sports story is for us, particularly at MGM, you know, we always had the Grand Garden Arena. And it was for decades the home of some of the world's best championship fights. When you think about Tyson and Oscar de la Hoya, et cetera, et cetera.

17:08So we knew sports. We knew the arena business. We all wanted to grow the scale because Grand Garden sets up basically for about 12 to 13 ,000, depending on the event. And it wasn't large enough to get us into the next tier. And we thought that was important for programming, not only around sports, but around entertainment, etc. We looked to try to grow Grand Garden. It got stuck in infrastructure being too small and the surroundings around it, parking garages, etc. didn't make it possible. And so when we bought Mandalay Bay, we thought about potentially placing it there. And then ultimately, over time, came to an understanding with AEG that we would run the programming and we'd be the operating partner.

17:51they and us would be co-investors and we eventually brought Bill Foley on with the Golden Knights which is a little bit of a different story but we also ended up moving it from Mandalay to where it sits today which at one point was the corporate center and the center we built a city center on it and so for us you know we literally said let's build it and it will come and we didn't know what was to come we certainly didn't think hockey the arena was originally built to be NBA ready and was built to be NBA ready. But we really didn't have sights on the NBA team, nor a hockey team. And lo and behold, thankfully, Bill Foley showed up.

18:30And what that was all about, how that worked, that first year, obviously following the tragedy of 10-1, it pulled the community together in a way that it just hadn't been pulled together before. And so it was very exciting for us. And our basic belief went back to, we believed in sports. We knew what it did for Las Vegas. From there, it proved that Las Vegas could be a sports town. And then a bunch of other stuff, as you know, fell from that tree. Following up on what Vanessa said, I wonder, there have been so many different events, UFC cards, NHL games, and other things as well. What are your Mount Rushmore events that have taken place at T-Mobile Arena?

19:11Look, I think obviously the Stanley Cup would have to be Mount Rushmore. And obviously we we wanted two years ago and that was special for the community for the team and for all of us um i think we had a mayweather mcgregor fight in the early days and so the ability you know t-mobile for the first eight years of its existence was top five in terms of gross receipts i think it was one number one one year number two a year thereafter um and it wasn't the number of events it arguably was the scale of events and the quality of those events and so those are probably a couple that rise to that occasion.

19:47You know, we've had all kinds of other things, but those are probably the two that most notably stand out. We've had some amazing UFC fights. You know, T-Mobile is the home of UFC, which is great. We do four fights a year. They're guaranteed. Everyone's trying to sneak something else in. And so, you know, it's worked and worked well for us. Well, Bill, I'm curious, obviously, as you are the home of UFC and Vegas is very well known as a combat sport hub, but over the years as of their sports have come into play, Formula One, hosting Super Bowls, things like that. How has that changed the overall business, even if you aren't directly hosting those events, but how does it change the overall business for you guys at MGM Resorts?

20:29A great question. Look, and it has. When you own 40 % of the room inventory in the city, it's kind of hard. What happens in Las Vegas happens at MGM Resorts and vice versa. And so we took that philosophy obviously we couldn't put a legion stadium on our site anywhere but the fact that it's literally in our back door was important um obviously formula one's a three and a half mile track so we couldn't put it you know but but the way we worked with the community the way we worked with the state you know when originally with the raiders uh which was kind of being fostered through the las vegas sands and sheldon allison fell apart we and the convention center got behind the idea of wait a minute before this just goes away is there not a way to really make this happen we didn't want to own the team we don't need to own the team we just wanted to make sure the activity took place and so we did something that hadn't been done in a dozen years in any other community we got behind it with state money in a meaningful way uh created a stadium authority that now owns that stadium as well as a piece of the a's and we began to make these things happen as Allegiant came into play you know we programmed it originally for 24 events obviously the football you would know from UNLV games and some other activity it did like 46 or 47 events the first year was wildly successful and it gave us the confidence then to things like Formula One with same energy the same group clearly it gave us the confidence and we're excited by where ultimately the A's have ended up.

22:01And so for us, particularly at resorts where we kind of dominate the south end of Las Vegas Boulevard, you've got Allegiant, you have the new A's stadium, you've got T-Mobile, we have this golden triangle of activity and sports all in a mile of each other. And the convenience of it all has been amazing. I think it's one of the reasons we've gotten the Super Bowl back so quickly. Logistics, the way the town can accommodate 100 ,000 people easily, the airport location, et cetera, et cetera. Bill, I'm going to interrupt you right here and say that Las Vegas was a wonderful Super Bowl host city. It was fabulous.

22:38And I'm not saying that because I enjoy Vegas. I'm saying that from a journalist perspective of walking around, of taking Ubers, of being able to make all these different events. We just did time in San Francisco, and Vanessa and I have gone to several other Super Bowl cities, and they all have their own distinct hosting style. But obviously it depends on the municipality and where the local surrounding neighborhoods are. In Vegas, there is no surrounding neighborhood. Everything's right down the street. And I think that works beautifully. Yeah, it's been like with Mandalay Bay set up right there to be the host hotel.

23:10Logistically, there's no better place. And I think the NFL has recognized that. And I think you know this about Allegiant, particularly the Raiders story. 53 % of those seat licenses, they sold 60 ,000 seat licenses, which by the way, was 2X what we had originally programmed to out-of-towners. And so, you know, a guy in Chicago buys a seat license, he gets season tickets. He maybe comes twice, three times a year and the balance go out to visiting teams. And so when you go to a game there, it's fascinating. We're here with Bill Hornbuckle, MGM Resort CEO. Bill, now let's look toward the future because it's been well established that T-Mobile Arena is one of the signature arenas across the nation.

23:52I mean, with all the UFC events and of course the Golden Knights being there and so many other things, but there's something happening right now in basketball with Vegas being on the cusp of potentially getting an NBA expansion team. I've spoken to Bill Foley about this. He has said he's going to raise his hand. He has an ownership group that includes people that can buy him 10 to 15 times over again. Where does MGM stand in all of this with T-Mobile being a potential arena for an NBA expansion team? Look, we've been long in this pursuit. I think you know that we hosted the NBA game, the NBA, the All-Star game back in 07.

24:29We've hosted USA Basketball. We've hosted the Summer League. We brought the Aces here. We owned that team for a couple of years before we sold it to Mark. Probably too quickly, but that's a different discussion. We're all in on Adam. We're all in on the NBA. We think T-Mobile is right. I think we can be ready sooner than anybody else. We're prepared to let the team take on general ownership of the arena and step aside. Not completely. We'd like a seat at the table. And we're prepared to invest in T-Mobile to bring it to both the new NBA standard and frankly, to a different place, both commercially from a marketing perspective and ultimately a facilities perspective.

25:12Bill, how would you anticipate, you know, if the NBA comes to Las Vegas, as everyone's hoping and anticipating that it will, that now every major league will have a team within Las Vegas, whereas that's so recent, and so new, only really having their first team about 10 years ago. How do you anticipate that change? And how has Vegas changed as a sports city, going from really having combat sports, hosting events here and there, to having four actual major franchises call the city at home? A couple things changed. Obviously, with the passage of PESPA in 2008 in sports betting, it gave not only the leagues, but the NCAA.