Yankees President Randy Levine on College Sports; Washington Commanders Co-Owner Mark Ein

0:00Bloomberg Business of Sports is brought to you by HPE, bringing you the self-driving network, a network that's self-optimizing, self-healing and self-protecting and only continues to get smarter. Learn more at HPE.com slash networking. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful.

0:46Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChachiPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next. The next opportunity. The next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has worked with independent agents to help protect businesses, homes, valuables, and more. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next. It's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict.

1:26Let Cincinnati insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. This is the business of sports. Our aim is always to leverage the global appeal of football. Having representation in college sports is even more important than pro. 10 % of Americans now claim soccer to be their favorite sport. We estimate the youth sports audience has$3 trillion in spending power. The nature of baseball is it is worldwide and it is global. I'm very happy for the WNBA and how the NBA has embraced them. Sportsbooks are not going anywhere and sports betting is only growing.

2:12We 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 Michael Barr. And I'm Randall Williams. Vanessa Perdomo-Meglione is off on assignment this week. Coming up today, we are speaking with one of the limited partners of the Washington Commanders about their expectations for this year, along with the overall business of the NFL. And later, we will also be speaking with the founder of the first women's professional baseball league in over 70 years.

2:47But first, we are joined by Bloomberg News Higher Education reporter Janet Lauren. Janet recently took the stage at this year's Bloomberg Power Players to discuss the state of college athletics with Randy Levine, president of the New York Yankees and vice chair of President Trump's Saving College Sports Roundtable, and Candace Story Lee. She's Vice Chancellor of Athletics and University Affairs and Athletic Director at Vanderbilt University. Let's play a little bit of that conversation from on stage at Power Players recently here at Bloomberg World Headquarters in New York. We're at the precipice here.

3:21What I'm going to say isn't my argument. These are facts. The facts are that if this bill isn't passed, the system is going to collapse. Every day you read about each university, and she'll be able to tell you, losing$100 million. UCLA, Maryland losing$100 million. Rutgers. And where are they getting the money? They're getting the money from their endowments, which should be going to education. They're getting the money by raising fees on their students. And there are not enough donors to sustain this system. So you're going to have a total collapse. And the question is going to be, do you want college sports to be minor league, baseball, the NBA G League, the USFL, or do you want there to be student athletes?

4:07And I think what happened with LSU has crystallized the problem. And Candice, what is your take, especially as a member of the SEC? Yeah, so I am a proud, we are proud members of the SEC. I'm not going to comment specifically about LSU, but I would affirm what Randy said, that I think that this situation, which everybody's been following and you're right to ask about, this situation does highlight the need for a national framework with a set of rules that everybody will follow. Everybody has clarity around what they are. They are enforced. That's the most important thing. In the SEC, we're competitive and we're proud to compete at the highest level.

4:46The goal for all of us is to retain those opportunities for young people. And so we are appropriately at a crisis point and thus the need for a federal solution. And I just would point out, it's not just LSU, There's a story today right here in New York, St. John's University. Great tradition of basketball. Have seven players, seven, who play professional sports or are now playing in college. It's not right. So why do you think the Protect College Sports Act is needed? Candace, do you want to talk about what is the most important issue you think needs to be addressed in the bill? Sure. I'm happy to start.

5:23you know again the need for a national framework is glaring and and congress can provide that framework so what we have right now is a lot of the disruptions are coming because if if somebody does not want to comply with a rule or if there's concern about a rule then there can be a legal action taken that undermines and what coaches and student athletes want is to understand what are the rules of engagement and then hold us to that so first i'd say the the protect college sports Act would focus on a national framework, which we need. We need a hard cap as it relates to third party NIL. You know, we thought the House settlement was going to provide that, and it has not, for a variety of reasons.

6:01And so a hard cap for third party and true NIL and truly understanding the market and having the data to define a real market is needed. I think there are other really important parts of the bill, like a commitment to a broad-based athletics program. But I think preemption of state laws, hard cap, true enforcement system of third-party NIL and the national framework. That alone makes the state of college athletics much more stable than it is today. Randy, take the issue of the transfer portal. Would you have free agents in baseball every year? No. I mean, there's no professional sports that allows you to be a free agent every year.

6:43And that was, in my opinion, the fatal mistake that the NCAA made by not appealing that West Virginia case that allowed for the transfer portal. And people don't really understand the consequences of it. What's happened, let's take two examples. University of Michigan just won the NCAA basketball tournament with five transfers. And the coach, a world-class coach, left because he couldn't deal with the system. He couldn't recruit. He said, if I'm going to have to do this and deal with free agents, I might as well go work in the NBA, which he did for a lot more money. And what's happened here is that you have this transfer portal and you have a system of unregulated, quote, so-called agents.

7:35because in professional sports, agents are regulated. They're legitimate, 5 % fees, no more. Here, anybody in this room can be an agent. You get 20, 25 % fees. And what do they do? They go where the money is. They don't deny it. Hey, we'll get you into the transfer portal. We'll get you a better deal. And guess what? 40 % of them never come out of the transfer portal, and they're left with no scholarship, no school, nowhere to go. It's horrible for the student athletes. It doesn't work. And I've talked to a thousand student athletes in the course of the presidential task force. And I think I found two, two of them who like the transfer portal.

8:18They want to be student athletes. They want teammates. They want the college experience. That's a little bit of Janet Lawrence conversation with New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Vanderbilt University's Candice Story Lee recently at Bloomberg Power Players. You can catch the full video now at Bloomberg.com slash videos and on the Bloomberg Business app. For more on that conversation on the future of college sports, we welcome Janet Lauren herself. She's Bloomberg's higher education reporter. Janet, how did Randy Levine find himself in a college sports commission for the president? That's a very good question.

8:54And that's one that I asked him. He has known the president for many decades, both being New York guys. And he also had a connection with his university. He went to George Washington and he was a longtime trustee there. And he had responsibilities as a trustee with athletics. So it was something the president asked him to do. And he said, yes, I'm happy to help. Now, off the top of your head, who else is in this roundtable? because it isn't just Randy Levy and they have a stacked list of names. Nick Saban, his co-chair was Ron DeSantis, who has a couple of football powerhouses in his state, Florida and Florida State.

9:41And we can certainly go through the list. But yeah, there were a lot of big names on this roundtable. And one of the things that the roundtable was trying to do was to help legislation. And the legislation cleared a hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday night. It will go for a vote. It's not clear when the House will vote. I think it's going to be after the midterms. But there was a resounding vote in the Senate to at least advance the bill, 74 to 24. And in this world of very few bipartisan efforts, that's a pretty resounding vote to say, yes, we should move forward with this bill. Yeah, you're right.

10:25I mean, they're going to have to vote after the midterms because the House is now on recess. So that's when that vote will take place. But something that was interesting to me in your article, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Republican, of course, former head football coach at Auburn University. He said the legislation goes too far toward a federal takeover of college sports. Can you comment on that? Well, I think the main thing that the bill is looking to address is the transfer portal. And right now, you basically have free agents. Everybody's a free agent. You could transfer somewhere every year of your college career.

11:03and that may be great for the players who are getting more money the colleges say there's no stability coaches they have to construct a new team every year you saw that with indiana and they won the national championship and you also saw that with michigan basketball they won the national championship and completely transfer that the team was was based on transfers but then you Michigan lost his coach and he went to the NBA. It's like, who wants to deal with this? Because there's so much change. You're dealing with agents. You're dealing with, still, these are young athletes. And then you're dealing with the donors because they say, look, I just gave you a couple of million dollars and that walked out the door.

11:48I'm not giving you more money. It's really interesting. I do think that there does need to be some sort of regulation because, as you said, if you're a donor giving schools money and athletes money and then the athlete up in transfers. I remember Troy Aikman, who's I believe he went to UCLA. He talked about this with a quarterback that he paid and then that quarterback then transferred. And that is I don't know if abusive is the right word, but the system is not functioning as it should. The transfer portals is, of course, used for athletes if they're in a bad situation to go somewhere else and potentially get playing time.

12:23But what it's being used for right now is, of course, you know, jumping from school to school to school and potentially getting paid more and more and more. And I do wonder the perspective of some of these people who are on the college sports commission, as well as President Trump's viewpoint on workforce mobility, because that's essentially what this is. Although the administrators and head coaches wouldn't call these college athletes a workforce, that's, you know, it would be like someone jumping and working from Apple to Microsoft to Amazon over and over and over again because they're getting paid more.

12:52And I wonder if this is meant to restrict pay as well. Well, your analogy was spot on. There's something else in the bill that's working its way through the Senate. Right now, schools can share revenue. It's about$21.5 million as a cap. But in the bill, there is a retention pool. It would double that amount of money to almost$50 million. And that would allow for retention money to be paid for these players to stay. And they're hoping they could stabilize that somewhat. But then again, it goes to, well, where are these schools getting the money? Certainly, there's outside NIL. there's donors, but there's now this whole arms race.

13:40And I have a story about this now, about the stadiums. Randall, you've been writing about the NFL stadiums. And the colleges say, well, we can do that. We want that money too. So they're building and renovating new stadiums. The lead was a stadium with the University of Kansas, where David Booth, big finance guy, alma mater is University of Kansas. It's giving them$300 million to help renovate the stadium and create a district with entertainment, conference centers, etc. that will generate more money. So that's another trend. And everybody, everybody wants the money. Our thanks to Bloomberg Higher Education reporter Janet Lawn for joining us.

14:25Coming up next, we are speaking with one of the limited partners of the Washington Commanders about the start of the NFL season. That is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. For Randall Williams, I'm Michael Barr. You are listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports, Bloomberg Radio around the world. Bloomberg Business of Sports is brought to you by HPE, bringing you the self-driving network, a network that's self-optimizing, self-healing, and self-protecting, and only continues to get smarter. Learn more at hpe.com slash networking. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done.

15:01ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode, available on plus and pro plans. Hey, our ride's almost here. Are you ready?

15:40Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago. I just dropped the video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch go bananas with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone. All at once? Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to T-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network. Okay, multitasker. I see you. Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. It's awesome. Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload. That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile. So many reasons to join T-Mobile.

16:21Find yours at T-Mobile.com.

16:26fastest based on analysis by ukla speed test intelligence data of national speed score results incorporating 5g download and upload speeds for the first half of 2026

16:37this 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 barn and i'm randall williams vanessa padomo maglione is out on assignment this week september is that beautiful time of the year when football has come back into our lives and here to talk more about this season is one of the minority owners of the washington commanders mark heine mark is a venture capitalist and is a stakeholder in many different sports franchises including the washington commanders english premier league club leeds united and the baltimore orioles now full disclosure michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg Radio, is part of the group that owns the Baltimore Orioles along with Mark Ein.

17:26Now let's welcome into the show, Mark. Hello. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports. You are an American venture capitalist and sports entrepreneur, and you are a limited partner of the Washington Commander. So what is that like? Wow. Well, it's great to be with you guys. And, you know, when I grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a suburb of Washington as a young boy, the two things that mattered to me the most that I cared the most about in life were the tennis tournament where I was a ball kid and going to the football games for the Redskins with my dad sitting in section 320 row five seats, 19 and 20 and watching that team.

18:11And fast forward to today, being the owner of the tennis tournament, being one of the owners of that team, and especially with being involved in the project to bring the stadium back to that old site, it's hard to put into words what that means. It's honestly, I wake up every day thinking how grateful I am that life's turned out this way. And also what a big responsibility that we all have at all these events to make sure that future generations of Josh Harris's and Mark Gynes have the same amazing memories and experiences that we did. There's so much going on in D.C. Of course, the stadium's being built there.

18:53I believe D.C. is hosting the draft next year. Talk to me about your excitement for the city in general with all of these new things happening. Yeah, and that's always been, I've been involved in different forms of sports ownership and being involved pretty deep in running them for it's now been it's almost been 20 years and and my biggest joy and my motivation in all of this is what it does for our community almost all of it has been in dc where i grew up as i said now i live um and you just see the power of sports and i've seen people talk about that a lot today but i i saw that from the very beginning of my world team tennis involvement in 2007 in Washington and just what it means to bring your community together around sports.

19:40And now, you know, the NFL is the pinnacle and its games are the biggest sporting events in America. And then these tentpole events, amazingly, the draft, which will be on the National Mall, probably get a million people. And there's the feeling of, it's just such an amazing feeling to have a role in running and creating these events that bring so much joy and you create memories for so many people. And as you said, we have so many of those things coming up here in DC. Talking with American venture capitalists and sports entrepreneur, Mark Ein. And I want to talk about tennis. You founded the Washington Castles of the World Team Tennis.

20:25Tell us more about that. Yeah. So that was when I talk about my beginnings of my sports ownership. I started the World Team Tennis team in Washington. World Team Tennis was a league that was started in the 70s by Billie Jean King. And there never had been a team in DC. A friend of mine played in the league and told me how great it was. And I sought out Billie and her partner, Alana Kloss. And we started talking about bringing a team to DC and it came together. And we did that for like 12, 13 years. It was amazing. I learned so much because it really was a startup and we had to sort of bootstrap it.

20:59And I had to roll up my sleeves and really learn the sports business from the ground up. We had a lot of success. We built these iconic stadiums. We built one in the middle of Washington where the old convention center site was. We built an amazing one on the waterfront now where the wharf is. We even built one on the roof of a building at Union Market. And I learned so much. It's interesting. You know, Bob Kraft, similarly, his first sports ownership was owning the Boston Lobsters in World Team Tennis in the 70s. And he and I have talked about it. And he had the exact same experience starting his sports ownership through World Team Tennis and through something where you really get your hands dirty and you roll up your sleeves and are involved in every element of it is an incredible grounding for whatever you do.

21:48And I feel the same way. Really proud of what we did then and really grateful for everything I learned there that now we can apply to these other bigger sports businesses. And Mark, one of the things that was a subject of discussion when the U.S. Open was happening was the fact that some of the biggest stars in it, of course, Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz, ended up playing a match that went on until 3.30 in the morning. And I wonder, from your perspective, as someone who's invested in tennis, who runs a tennis event, what is your perspective on just some of these events going later into the evening?

22:26Yeah, I was at that match and it was one of the great and it was one of the greatest, most compelling matches I've seen in all really that I've ever seen. But in recent years, the quality of the tennis and the matchup and with Ben's power and Carlos's creativity was extraordinary. But even I, who loves tennis as much as anyone, couldn't stay past 115. I had to go home. And it made me think a lot. It's been a topic for a long, long time in tennis. At our event, we've changed the schedule meaningfully so that we don't have these really late nights. Usually in tennis, the late nights historically came a lot because of rain delays.

23:08And that would be the reason. Today, obviously, with covered stadiums, that's not the reason it's scheduling. I absolutely think it should be changed. I don't think there's any good that comes from playing matches in the middle of the night. And I think it's solvable. And the French Open also has introduced night sessions in recent years, and they have one match. and the downside of one match, there's a bunch of issues around that, including if the match isn't that good, you have to think about men's matches versus women's matches because women's matches can be shorter. But I think if you're going to do a men's match, you do one match and you have a doubles match, maybe as a backup that if that match is short, you put that on stadium.

23:57If that match goes long, you put it on Armstrong on the second stadium. When you have a women's match featured, you could do two matches or you similarly could do a women's match and a doubles match. But setting up a men's and women's singles match in this day, just given how long these matches go and the fact that so many nights at the U.S. Open went to the middle of the night, I just think it has to change. And I think there's a lot of ways to do that. We're talking with sports entrepreneur Mark Ein. And I want to give a shout out to some of your accomplishments. Back in 2009, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty presented you with the key to the city for the success of the Washington Castles and also you were inducted into the USTA Mid-Atlantic Tennis Hall of Fame in 2012.

24:44A tip of the cap to you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm, as I said earlier, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to get to spend my time on things that mattered so much to me as a kid and now matters so much to so many people in my town. And those recognitions are nice, but it's really the result of getting to work on amazing events with amazing people. And Mark, we'd be remiss if we didn't ask you a baseball question. Of course, you're also a limited partner in the Baltimore Orioles. And I wonder from your perspective, a lot of the conversation around this season is around salary cap and minimum floor spending.

25:19And just as an investor in a baseball team, how do you prepare for a potential work stoppage? So I should say I'm less involved in that team than I am in the other things, the tennis or in the football. But I also, David Rubenstein is the person who hired me when I got out of business school. Oh, wow, small world. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the reason I got to move back to D.C. because in the business, my core business, my day business of being an investor, it really was the only place in Washington. So I've always been grateful for David for hiring me and bring me back to my hometown. And so, first of all, to work with him is a huge joy.

26:01The other ownership group, Michael Arregetti from Aries, is fantastic as well. And it's a great group of people. And the Orioles were my team as a kid. We didn't have a team in D.C. and I grew up in Maryland, so I love the Orioles. So, again, just another amazing experience to be able to do it. When I went into that, there was a couple of things. First of all, it's a very long – I took a very long-term view. I mean, my base case is none of these things ever get sold and I own them forever. So, if you're going to own something for that long, you're always going to have times where you're going to have issues you have to deal with, which could be – I mean, we've seen in recent years pandemics and labor stoppages and all kinds of things can happen.