Alexis Ohanian: Investing in Chelsea Women, Building Athlos, & The Power of Sport in a Social Era (Ep138)

23:23And it's the reason why we're not asking any of them, hey, can you make sure to post this? The reason they're talking so emphatically about Athlos is because they genuinely love what we're doing. I think part of it's because they're, they feel like owners. And do you see those brand dollars turning up? I did a WTA, right, tennis, in some difficult times at the moment financially. Yeah, I saw that headline. I was actually shocked. I went into it. And go, I mean, it's a conversation in itself. But if you actually break it down take an investment spent investment trying to bridge a gap between prize money rather than develop the overall proposition to try and build some more of that value i then looked at from the commercials because as you will know better than anyone else female tennis players the most marketable athletes yes right from from the females and actually just whether you're putting sex gender into it at all or not six brand partners for the wta 18 for the ATP not a single specific brand partner like female brand for that so we often hear brands want to show up for women's sport yeah does that actually convert and and if they're not converting what are you doing differently with Athloss that has been able to get them to sign up to get Tiffany on to go and do some really cool stuff for example so I it's funny on the one hand I should know a lot more about how the WTA is structured I've had some conversations about this and look I if I'm, you can fact check me on this later.

24:46I think one of the challenges the WTA has is the fact, now I guess the ATP has it too, but let's play this out. The WTA doesn't own those Grand Slams and the Grand Slams operate each autonomously. The reality is, okay, I don't doubt that those athletes are very much in demand. It's clear that the athletes individually have been able to get those deals done. My suspicion is the WTA doesn't have the assets that are able to get sold to those brands for those athletes because they have so much autonomy that like, you know, they get to decide what they're putting on their torso or what's in the, you know, the patch they put on their jersey or their outfit, you know, their box, you know, now coaches are selling branding.

25:30I mean, I have worn a few portfolio company hats, full disclosure in the player's box, but But you're seeing all this other inventory that they don't actually control that gets sold. And then I think the biggest challenge for all sports, not to just pick on the WTA, is none of them own their distribution on social, right? They all pay a tax to Zuck or they pay a tax to me at Reddit or they pay a tax to X to reach their own fans. And, you know, no one has, I mean, look, pick on the NFL. No one actually opens the NFL app every morning. And it's one of the best leagues, best businesses in the world.

26:03No one's like, oh, well, I'm going to start my day. let me open the NFL app because we have so many better products for getting that content. I think that can change now that software is a commodity. There's no excuse. Every one of these leagues should be sitting down and having a hard conversation about why don't we own distribution to our fans? Why when the Knicks win a championship, do they only reach probably 10 % of their fans on Instagram? Like those are Knicks fans. Those are fans of the Knicks. They're not fans of meta. Like they, they, the fact they don't own that relationship is nuts, but software now being easy to build, I think they can take that back if they actually shipped high quality apps, if they've made a great user experience.

26:38There's soft ways to claw it back. With Athlos, because the athlete business is so underdeveloped, most of these players don't have agents. Most of them, like they're just, it's very hard. There's only a handful that really make like even like seven figures doing the job with brand deals included. So it's a sport that has not had an investment. So it gives us a chance as a league to say, OK, one, we're going to own all of our races. So we will have control of that experience. So if Cash App comes to me, if Tiffany comes to me, we can give them exclusivity, not just at New York and London, but even for the next city we do or the next three cities we do, et cetera.

27:15And so we have more control. That top down control means we have to do more of the work where, you know, the WTA doesn't need to actually make sure that, you know, the US Open happens or Wimbledon happens. So there's a cost to it and there's a downside to it. But I think long term, the upside of it compounds, especially because we're building it with software at the heart of it. So like we will understand all of our fans. We will have that direct relationship to them. And that fan data is valuable. The relationship to our athletes is valuable. And so those are all things that we're hopefully able to bridge a lot faster than the older leagues because we have the control, but we have software to scale it.

27:53You've been driving success from an ownership perspective from a financial perspective in women's sport for a good few years. Was that always something that you believed you could do? You were married to one of the most successful sports people of all time, not just female. You have two daughters. Yes. Where's the balance between what you do, building good business versus the inspiration, maybe that was the bedrock of it, the seed of it coming from home and what you'd seen? It's so interesting. I knew the business of women's sport could work, certainly because Serena Venus proved it. And again, in America, tennis is, well, in the whole world, tennis is as much a woman's sport as a men's sport.

28:34In the United States, I would say it's actually slightly more of a women's sport because Serena and Venus were so great, right? We've never had, the American men have had, you know, we had Sampras. We've had really great, I love you, Andy. Roddick's great. But like Serena and Venus dominated and then they dominated in a sport, no offense, were like they didn't really belong and changed the culture of it forever. And now tennis looks the way it does because of their success. And then we're all better off for it. So when you have that kind of transcendent excellence, especially in a country where we like, we love the underdog story.

29:07We love the outsider story, right? They reshaped it and then they proved the business model behind it. She actually tried to talk me out of starting Angel City because, which is the worst thing you can tell me, because that just makes me want to do it more because she had seen firsthand how broken all the infrastructure women's sports was. And she was like, you don't understand. Like, it's not going to be like, oh, you're starting a startup. You can just build like you're going to have to deal with a lot of institutional baggage that doesn't exist in tech. And she was right. And, you know, you can look at the owners of the NWSL when I started Angel City and the owners today, and they're almost all different people now.

29:39And and that was a change that needed to happen. So you could have sort of, you know, people who wanted to build enterprise value in a different mindset. So I think for sure it, it, it proved that there was a business value to it. It was literally one of the first things I did when I left Reddit in 2020. So there was a part of me that I think was very galvanized by the fact that I could prove that after 15 years of building this one thing, and you know, Reddit's had a pretty significant effect on the world, that I could do it again and also do it in an industry where I had no background in industry was totally different.

30:13And make a significant enough dent as well. And I feel like since the success of Angel City, obviously we've seen a wave of investment now in women's sports. And it was like a toxic idea. I had so many investors try to talk me out of it. I had so many people say, this is the dumbest thing you'll ever do. Like it is very satisfying to me to have proven all of them wrong and to have been so blessed to have done it so quickly after leaving Reddit. It's like the ultimate fuck you. So yeah, all of those things, have felt very good. And yes, having now two daughters, it was one at the time. Sure, I love the idea.

30:46It's not just marketing. I do love the idea that they wanted to play sport that they could get paid what they're worth for it. And women's football by the time Olympia is 18 will have salaries that, I mean, it's already starting to with these million dollar contracts that are reasonable for a professional athlete. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I went to Stamford Bridge in 2019 with my wife, the first time Chelsea women played. They played Tottenham. Beth England scored a goal from 25 yards out. You had candy floss and popcorn stalls around it. You had a DJ at halftime. I've been to Stamford Bridge a lot of times in my life.

31:18Nothing like that. My wife, as we came out, said, God, I wish I'd had that when we were growing up. She loves football. Absolutely loves football now. I came out of that like, wow, okay, that needs to change. We now have a daughter. I want women's football to succeed more than anything in the world because Willa is not going to be able to grow up and play football if women's football doesn't succeed. she's not going to be able to look at it as a potential career as a fan so when we look at the criticism that you can put what i never want to get into is you can't criticize women's sport because it's women's sport you have to be able to look and say is the sustainability is the structures of it correct yeah and with some of this in football i'm really interested in you know with chelsea for example the structures in our system they're trying to oh look at that london's blue london's blue for those of you that can't see the inside of alexis's jacket is blue it's blue chelsea blue not just i specifically told my tailor that is chelsea blue and it's actually funny uh uh so my my guy charles is a chelsea supporter so when i asked him for this he was so delighted charles in london i didn't know this yes yeah savile rome i'm not around this country with this football we have struggled i think to decouple men's and women's football and the mindsets around one is tribal one is a different product yes we have had successful euros and World Cups, they're moments, built on moments.

32:40There is then, do you turn up on, men's football is built on mad people turning up on a Tuesday night in a wet and windy place going to Grimsby when they live in Southampton. We have to build the right structures to make women's football successful and I worry that we try and copy far too much of the men's game to achieve what they do because if men's football was designed today, not 160 years ago, it would look different. I agree. I agree. And it's, well this, I think this speaks to the, it's so cliche in tech but the first principles thinking is I think so important here with the women's game.

33:10It is a different product. And I think the advantage of America only having one soccer culture, which is women's, because our men are so bad, is that it is so easy for us to embrace it as a different product, because we don't compare. The average American, if you say, think of the best soccer player you can think of, probably thinks of like Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, like this generation of Americans who just whooped the world's ass and won everything. Because we think of soccer as a women's sport, and our women are great at it. And so when you're being shown, this was my whole thinking back in 2019, it was like when you see Alex Morgan, who is the star of a women's national team, most famous women's soccer player of her generation, you don't think, oh, well, she's not as good as insert guy playing soccer, because you don't even have a concept of a man playing soccer in America, an American, because it would be just not that great.

34:03Landon Donovan is what I think of. I mean, again, love Landon, but like, again, especially I don't know about other countries, but certainly in America, we are so coded. We want greatness. Like, like if you can just say this is 10 toes down, the greatest to ever do it. And they're American. I'm like, all right, cool. I don't care what the sport is, but I love it now because it's an American kicking ass. All right. So this is the American exceptionalism, sort of how we frame sport for better or for worse. And then you all, on the other hand, you invent the sport. It is so coded with men because of the legacy of all the great men who played it.

34:34that the first thing to get that, that this is that first principles thing part, the first thing you have to figure out is how do you rewire people who are just default going to think about football and think of their favorite man playing it. And this was sort of the WNBA problem for a number of decades where again, you would just sort of default compare someone and say, well, why can't Candice Parker do that thing that Michael Jordan does? Well, it's because Candice is a different human. The sport is a different sport. Yes. It's still basketball, but the way I think of it would be like F1 versus a Formula E.

35:03Like, yes, they're both cars that go really fast, but one's an electric one and one is gas and they have similarities, but they're different vehicles. And no one is sitting here being like, wow, why can't we see a Formula E car race an F1 car? Cause you just know like, that's silly. Like they're just different. You might see it once for a novelty, but like, you don't think that's not a reason to not watch Formula E and it's not a reason to not watch F1. They're just different vehicles. And so women are different. I don't say the vehicles, but they're biologically different from men. And that is okay.

35:31And the reality for women's sport is when you talk to these athletes, it's so funny. The last thing they want is charity. The thing that they want is actually people who are playing, you know, they're playing a zero sum game. If you're not good enough, no matter how many followers you have, at some point you're not playing anymore. And, and ironically, on the sort of business side of the house, folks were not playing these zero-sum types of games. They were just sort of like looking at it as a thing or, again, like you said, trying to apply the men's way of doing it to the women's. And so what's different about the women's game, and we saw this in the States with, you know, even in LA, we had such a breadth.

36:10I mean, LA is a really big, really diverse city, but we had a wealth breadth of some of the wealthiest Angelenos, but also some of the most working class Angelenos coming to games. We had a ton of diversity in terms of sort of ethnicity and background. And also probably the biggest theme is families. I think Emma Hayes had a great quote about the difference between men's football and women's football being like adrenaline or cortisol. I'm butchering it. We're going to have to find the actual quote. But like you watch women's football and it's, it is a delight because it's still competitive. I'd argue because they don't flop.

36:40It's even more competitive than the men's, but it's not a, there's no toxicity to it. And don't get me wrong. I like as an American football fan still to this day, like I was probably part of the problem with a lot of tailgating and a lot of drinking in my like 20s and 30s. But like, it's just a different energy and being able to bring your kids to a space where they get to see athletic excellence, where they get to see incredible competition and where you can kind of relax. Like you don't have to be tense about having young children there is a delight as a parent. And that's, that's the kind of storytelling, you know, it's funny we do a bottomless brunch at the bridge now.

37:15And so you have, you have a very different energies. We have groups of women who are just having a good time. No, no, no. I mean, but the target audience for this are groups of young women who just want to have a great time. Again, see athletic excellence, have some drinks, which is another thing. It's funny, you can't serve during the men, but you can serve in the WSL. And again, why? Because again, it's adrenaline versus cortisol. The fans who come, men as well, who come to a WSL match are We're just bringing a different energy. So we're allowed to have a bunch of drinks. It's not a problem.

37:47And again, I think if you can just register that these are, even though they're both playing football, they're two fundamentally different sports. So build that way. You built a club, right? The biggest and the best NWSL club. The thing I loved about it, it's separate, right? First of all, so it's its own brand. Hard to do here. I know. But London City Lionesses are doing it and Shao Kang's doing a good job. But you had an environment which you were in complete control of from a brand perspective and a marketing perspective, speaking to that audience, you then come in and you see an opportunity in Chelsea, which is not an individual team.

38:23It is part of a brand of which - Huge, great legacy. Massive, right? Yeah. Massive. And look, let's not, the women's team has been hugely successful. Great, terrific case. Amazing. But you're coupled. So the difference between you being able to operate freely and being able to do fully what you want has that been something that you've had to learn how to work within the confines of you know so i had had a conversation i was like two three years ago with a bunch of premier league like owners presidents um and and it was basically like a fireside chat where they were asking about the angel city story and very intentionally saying like how do we make women's football a thing here in a much bigger way because i think this is after the first time the lionesses won i think it had been the first time and and i was it was actually after the second time when i was to get involved with English women's football.

39:14Because now, like that was such a cultural tipping point where it's like a bunch of kids going to school proud that the women brought it home twice. Like, because you follow the youth, right? That's where the energy is, that's where your future sports fan is. And so that felt like the moment. And so to the credit, these teams were asking the right questions. And the number one thing was, because then I asked some questions, and when I learned that the women across all teams were basically on the same level as the under 18, the boys, that was the answer. I'm like, guys, like if you have you just think of any organizational chart, if you have your women and the team that supports the women on the same level as the boys, obviously you're not giving this proper support.

39:52Anyone who ends up doing a great job down here gets promoted out to go work for the men. Like so your organization is hosed because any great person will just leave like you're you're hamstringing this organization. And so, you know, lawyers do their thing and and basically get the women's team out. as a separate entity, give a president who has full autonomy over that women's club, make them the sort of ass on the line, like have them be the one responsible, who wake up every morning to build an organization under them to just promote the women's club. And Chelsea was one of the first to step up and do it.

40:29And I think Baydad and the crew there had a very good instinct to spin it out. They hired an amazing president, Aki, who's done a great job. And so when I saw that deck and that pitch, it was very clear, obviously, with all the brand on legacy. But then to see that they had spun it out, to see that they had brought in great leadership like Aki to lead it, who had her own team. And, you know, there's still, you know, there's we have our new front of kit partner in Circle. Like there are still shared resources. But I think just about every other part of our kit is actually totally sold or exclusively sold by the women's team.

41:02And so in time, as we build the brand, as we build all of that, more and more will live fundamentally for the women's side. Playing at Stanford Bridge. Well, that was a huge shift this year. That's big, right? Yeah. And I spoke to the athletes quite early on and just asked them, like, hey, what do you want? Like every one of them I met, I was like, hey, what's the most important thing? And that was the number one thing they all said. They wanted to play at the bridge. And so now the responsibility is on us to say, okay, how do we work with the WSL to get the best possible timing? Scheduling is actually a huge thing.

41:31Again, the fan of women's football is just a different fan from the fan of men's. And so, you know, what time of day and what day you play on matters, especially if you're trying to coordinate a family. Yes. And so this is now the new challenge, which is, again, working with the league, working with the men's league, which obviously gets priority in a lot of these stadiums to try to figure all that out and then make sure we're filling that, filling Stanford Bridge up. The price captured a lot of attention. Basically, your investment would have valued the club, correct me if I'm wrong, around$200 million.

42:02Yes. Yeah? Yep. When you're doing that part of an existing entity, how do you value something that sits within something else? And you as a businessman who has done deals in sport and obviously a very good head for raising and deploying capital outside of it from an investment perspective as well, what does that come down to? So you can do a little bit of the math on, I mean, well, okay. You're looking at ticket sales, obviously historically right smaller venue so you've got to be able to say okay how much can this grow how much is this you know selling out a few thousand when you're at capacity is like one thing but like how much can this grow you know you look at merch you look at merch sold but also that all these numbers are ultimately are sandbagged because you have to believe that they could be so much greater if you have a larger venue if you have a team dedicated to making merch for your women's club right it turns out women wear different clothes than men shocking I know.

42:55And it turns out that like you can actually do far more in retail with a women's club than a men's because women control household spending. They don't just buy clothes for themselves. They buy the clothes for the kids. They buy the clothes for their husband. So you have you see these numbers and you're seeing them, you know, and you feel like they're fairly sandbag to what they could be. But the biggest one is brand. And so you have to kind of, you know, honestly, you're looking at things like social media following. You're looking at the same metrics that, again, I think Chelsea has more followers on Instagram.

43:27The Chelsea women have more followers on Instagram than every WNBA team combined, which is the biggest league in America for women's sports. So you look at a number like that and you're like, oh, like that's valuable. And that's something I can, you know, pretty quickly calculate the value of as if it were just any other sort of influencers Instagram account. And so you start drawing those lines on revenue and you can make a reasonable assumption for what things are worth. because again, social media, this is the free market of attention. The reason why, we were talking about this off camera, like the reason why so many of these creator-led media brands are so formidable is because you all have to sit in silence when you start for months or realistically years before anyone cares about who you are.

44:08And you just have to be refining your craft every day. You have to get a little better at interviewing, a little better at clipping, a little better at editing, a little better at everything. And every establishment media entity is sort of sitting there in front of the camera and just knows like, great, I have a job tomorrow. And that forge, that forge of fire is why it's just so damn formidable online. And so anyone who's built a following in social has proven out they've really made something people want. And so genuinely, the follower count of Chelsea Women's Football Club on Instagram was one really compelling metric to say, hey, there is something here that captures attention and it sustains attention.

44:43And it's a brand that if it's living on its own, we can sell you know very valuable deals on and you know i i couldn't have predicted just how quickly you know just in the last i guess two years since buying into the chelsea women you've seen these valuations really explode but if you've seen the headlines now about where the chelsea men's club is worth based on some of the sales going like you know feels feels good feels good community that's what's been about right right whether it's whether we're talking about technology whether we're talking about your sport i mean that plays to the heart oh absolutely and it's it's wild because it's an echo of the 15 years I spent building Reddit.

45:19And, and also people warned me when I was getting into sports, these owners were like, Oh, you hope you get a thick skin. Like, you know, being a sports owner is really hard because you hear about it from fans all the time. And I get that. I see it. I live it. But also having built Reddit and spent 15 years being told that you're an idiot by your community, you get a thick skin. And so actually I've found the transition to sports very easy. It's actually much nicer. But it's also like the communities that we have in sport, right? The communities are driven now by experience because in a world of AI where you can't trust anything that you see and everything's automated and all of this, we're going to seek these experiences more and more.

45:51We're going to seek that interaction that you can get, whether it is an athletics meet, whether it's going to a tennis match, whether it's on a golf course walking around, whether it is going to a football match. This is the anti-AI bet where every other form of entertainment, television, film, music, the entire business model is going to get reimagined because of this tech. but like you could have a pixel perfect finish line of keely hodgkinson and if it didn't actually happen it's irrelevant it's never going to no matter how perfect assume the technology gets so good it's indistinguishable but if it didn't happen no one's tweeting it no one's posting it no one's sending it to their dad like it doesn't matter and that's the durability of of sport in this ai age and to your point every screen is only going to get more addictive you know the the slop is only going to continue to grow.

46:41I already, I talk about dead internet theory all the time. Like so much of social now is just botted. It's fake. It's not real. And where we will find sustenance in a world of like junk food and addiction is like high protein quality real things. And IRL in real life is the easiest, simplest way to prove that. My instinct is like, oh, the next four or five years, I really think the next 12 months, 24 months, it's just going to continue to ramp. because I know on the tech side, it just continues to get better and better, which means more and more of what we see on these screens is going to be worse and worse.

47:16And we're going to seek out real shit so much more, whether it's in a group chat or whether it's around a dinner table or whether it's in a private room conversation. I just want to talk about golf quickly. Because I love golf. The golf community is mad passionate. Now it's digital to the extent where creators and fandom online, YouTube golf is insane, right? You've got TGL, which has been creating all of this new experience, right, within golf. And you own one of the TGL teams, one of the best TGL teams. You got from - Recent champion. Recent champions. Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood. Let's go.

47:49Morikawa and Tagala. Yes, and Sal Tagala, yeah. Why? What did you love about it? Because it was different from some of the other investments, as we've just talked about. You focused on women's sport. Yeah, I know. Well, when I took the pitch, it was actually, so I'm on Tiger's foundation board. he had called, this was like, I guess five years ago. It was right at the start of announcing tomorrow. And he was like, do you know about live? And I was like, eh, not really. And he's like, well, we're building something to compete with them. And it's this league. I like, I want you to take the pitch.

48:15And I was like, okay, cool. Like, I'm not going to turn that down. So, uh, you know, you can't know. And, uh, and I take the pitch. My first question to the tomorrow sports guys was, well, can you do women like add women to this? And I'm really excited. And they were like, well, we're going to do it at some point. Don't worry, but we're starting with the men because we have a PGA Tour relationship. And so I did it kind of not grudgingly. I was, look, I was excited to do it by the first team LA, but, um, but I was very excited from the women came in and I've, I've just bought the women's team for LA and we're, we just announced actually the schedule today.

48:44So we're going to start off the first ever season of WTGL this, uh, this year. And, and I'm sitting here going like, this is a sport I have never played. I have never watched. I might see a highlight on ESPN or on Twitter when, you know, something happens in an important, event, but like, I don't know anything about the sport. It's not for me, but I love the idea of golf in front of a, like a live raucous crowd. I'd see these clips from, um, waste management. And I was like, Oh, I was like, this feels fun. Like this feels like a sport I would watch. And so they pitched me on that. And I liked that element of it.

49:22And in particular, the idea of like having these guys mic'd up and letting them be humans, which is not something the PGA tour really lets him do was interesting to me. And then, you know, the bear case and, and in prime time in a format that was only a couple hours, like I, I think I do a very good job imagining myself as like an average American sports fan, because I grew up really only watching NFL. Like I'm a stereotypical American sports fan where it's like, I'm aware of other sports. I love sports generally, but like the NFL is my God. And that's what I grew up playing and watching and loving.

49:51And so I was like, can I imagine pitching my dad who raised me like this to watch TGL, who, again, he has no interest in golf. Obviously, he knows who some of the big names are. And I was like, well, yeah, because it's only a couple hours of his time. Again, it's in a format that feels fun and exciting, and they're jawing with each other, okay? And it's the best in the world. And then the bear case for it was, like we were saying, this is a chance for the world to see Tiger for another 20 years beyond when he has to schlep around a golf course. And people will come to South Florida for that forever, not to mention Rory and all the other guys involved.

50:25And so that was the excitement. Then, of course, we get the heartbreak of the arena collapsing right before the season was supposed to start. So they postponed it, which was the right thing to do. Build a real, like, solid arena. And then after the first match, I was like, okay, I think there's something here. Something happened, I think it was midway through, was it the first season? It might have actually been the second. There was a moment when on the sim, because that was also the big question. like plenty of hardcore golfers were like when they heard sim they would just default to thinking like some janky little sim in a little like basement but you know this is the largest one ever made and when you're watching it on tv you don't really register it because of how it's shot and they've done a great job producing it so it feels big and rich and and and like like real um but my biggest question was will these guys like feel some kind of way about it it's never going to be like winning a green jacket but like will they care that'll matter and when we lost at at the end of the first season, and we really, we had a great first year, and our guys were pissed in the locker room.

51:30Like, they were really pissed. That was a great sign. I mean, I wasn't happy that we lost, but I was like, okay, they care. Like, the fact that they cared as much is a great sign. And then they came back and obviously won it last year. But there was a moment last season where, I forget who it was, might have been him. There was a, it was like a par three, and it was a hole-in-one. Justin Rose, was it? Was it? No, Rosie had an albatross. I had an albatross, sorry. I got you, Rosie. Actually, that was a good example too. Okay, so there have been a couple of these key moments where a big deal golf moment happened that was on the sim.

52:05So from the golfer's point of view, they're hitting a ball into a giant screen and either, let's say, Rosie's albatross. His reaction was as real and emphatic as if it was out on an open-air course. and that for me was the moment where I was like, oh shit, like this really matters. Like they, like they obviously, again, it's not like the masters, but they don't think it's some bullshit thing. Like they really care and you don't lose your mind off of something that doesn't feel real like that. That's not, that's not acting. Like it felt real. And do you remember last time, I think you said, if a sport doesn't have an opportunity to go viral.

52:39Yeah. That's why I don't, that's why I'm not a pickleball guy. Yeah. I love it. But I look, I look for the viral moments. But it's that moment, right? Because that, I saw that was everywhere. Yeah. And the celebrations. Yes. There's something about the reason the Ryder Cup and the Soulhunt Cup. I don't know if you watched it. Of course I did. I mean, the girls. I don't know if you sat the girls down in front. Allison had the best comeback. So she's on our women's team. Allison had the best comeback, I think, in history. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a team dynamic. And based around region or nation, right?

53:07Country or I guess continent. But like you're finally getting these guys and gals out of the shell of like, I'm a solo golfer. I have to be psychopathically locked in. And they thrive in it. And then the question was, could they thrive if they're not playing for flag and country? And the answer is unequivocally yes. Because there's something else that kind of, there's the team dynamic and it's freeing. Like that's the other crazy thing. Now that I've started, I mean, I take my daughter every Sunday for golf lessons. She's very good. Have you started playing? No, I have clubs. I've gone like twice.

53:43I try to go with my buddies now once or twice a year, and we're just, well, I'm terrible. They're better. Does Sirena play? I got her a set of clubs. We did one lesson together. You wouldn't be surprised to know that she's a natural at swinging sticks. But no, neither of us really actually play. But I've watched it now, and I've seen it now up close, and I've done a couple of rounds of golf. And what I realized was like, the nature of what happens on a golf course when you're playing with some friends or even some strangers is so much more fun than the PGA tour and LPGA let golf feel in production.

54:21And I get it again. It's like I, you know, again, I think part of that is the energy. That's look, what makes Wimbledon special is that it is the most serious sort of platonic ideal of tennis. What makes the US Open so special, it is basically the opposite of all of those traditions. And so I think you need the, you need both sides. And so I think the fact that the PGA Tour and LPGA are so constrained with how they let these athletes live. But then the reality of, again, aside to these athletes we can show on TGL that actually makes them feel like humans, that actually makes them feel like the guys and gals you'd be on the course with where they're talking shit and where they're just, like, it's so much more fun.

54:58And I think you need that, you know, that actually is, that tension is where the drama is. Because the elite performance in the structures of golf are very much about, I said, the silence, the respect. It's a gentleman's game. You've had it in tennis. Yeah, yes. It's the same thing. Mike, the tennis players up like some of the slams that are doing in the weeks beforehand. Yes. It's a completely different side. You nailed it too when you talked about YouTube golf, you know, coming out of COVID. That was something that tennis, for whatever reason, didn't really happen. And instead you see Padell and Pickle sort of grabbing some of that aura.

55:31But like, I mean, it is, to see what Bryson did Like, I mean, it's crazy because you're looking at him running a YouTube playbook that's not terribly inventive. It wasn't like they were doing anything revolutionary, but he was the first to really lean into this kind of storytelling and let himself be a full human and delighted people. Built up overnight a massive fan base and a massive audience. And it just makes you think, like, my goodness, if they just let more of this happen, and this is something we're certainly aspiring to on the TGL front, think of how much bigger this game could be. And I mean, LeBron's got a golf channel now.

56:08I think Kevin Hart's starting well. It's incredible to see also that intersection because it's also a sport that lends itself so well to amateurs playing with the best in the world. Like no one's going to watch tennis, you know, with me playing against the best in the world or any random business person. And, you know, good on Bill Ackman for signing up and getting out there on the court. But like there's such a skill gap that it makes it horrible to watch. It's the best crossover, the best arena for sports people to connect in. Yes. For people to connect in. I remember last year, I think it was the Miami Grand Prix.

56:41They did a build-up, as part of the build-up. And it was Carlos Sainz and Tom Brady, I think. Love it. And what was the medium from which they were having a conversation? Golf. On a golf course. Yeah. So you have best NFL player, current Formula One driver, golf course. Oh, the sky's the limit. I mean, it is crazy. And I'll say the last part that I have to get into, like the part that I'm most excited about with this WTGL season starting isn't just that we can raise the profile, these awesome women who are very, very compelling, right? It's that we're gonna get the chance to have sort of crossover exhibitions, right?

57:21I am so excited to see LA Golf Club men, LA Golf Club women, but I'm also excited to see them together on a team. Golf is such a unique sport because you can actually truly, very easily have men and women playing together under the same team. And again, I want that highlight, right? I want to see the banter between Tommy and Michelle. And I want to see them debating a whole. And then Michelle being like, no, no, no, I'm going to do this instead. And Tommy being like, all right, good luck. And then her syncing it. And then again, the viral clip of them celebrating. And that, because that is a moment that will melt people's brains because they've never seen it before in a professional setting with the best of the best.

57:58Give them something to aspire to. And then the little boys and little girls watching are like, oh, cool. I can cheer for a boy doing this. I can cheer for a girl doing this. Great. I don't want your team to kill me. So I will say, look, thank you so much. Honestly, I know you've got a mad few days coming in. And you came here from Downing Street, right? Yeah. Excuse the suit. Yeah. No, it's nice. And I'm very pleased we were after Downing Street, not before it. Credit, credit to, look, the British government has been leaning in a big way for supporting Aflos, but then also a lot of big tech initiatives that are coming here.

58:29So you all are definitely a part of the narrative. I think that's very clear. pushing the support of European excellence in tech. So keep it up. Thank you so much, Johnny. Yeah, thank you. Thanks so much to Alexis for stopping by straight after a much less important trip to Downing Street. We've had a lot of conversations about the business of women's sport in recent weeks. Most of it comes down to the poor execution of strategies that aren't even geared to creating real success. Well, in our view, at least, in the first place. If Alexis was in charge of it all, I think you'd have a lot more confidence.

59:02What he has created and recognized from a value perspective is undeniable. Few people put on a better show if you saw Athlos on Friday. But it's more a question of whether the wider ecosystem can rise as fast as he wants to travel. Let's see. But I think you'll agree that his passion and belief for it is infectious. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the show. Now, if you want to see more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube or any of our other social channels across Instagram and TikTok. And of course now, Substack. There are more snippets to share and bite-sized chunks to consume. And whilst you're there, please do like, subscribe and follow the show.

59:35As you'll hear from your other favourite pods, it makes a huge difference when bringing you the best guests and conversations from around the world of sports, which is, of course, our endless aim. Thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next week. As this episode is brought to you by Airwallex, I wanted to share a piece of content created to announce Airwallex's partnership with Arsenal earlier this year. Fans, players, Henri, Spike Lee, with partnerships now having a huge content impact, this is one of the best you'll see turn your video on or watch it separately from the link in the bio who's this new arsenal partner then air wallace air who air wallace is an aina to b2b financial platform what built-in spend control non-deliverable forward no can we please just watch the match

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