#252: David Levy, Co-CEO of Horizon Sports + Experiences – True vision takes guts

0:00If we were to start over from scratch and you were able to start a sports marketing company today versus what you did 15, 20 years ago, what would you do differently? And that was our secret sauce is we didn't have any legacy. What separates the people who spot big opportunities from the ones who actually make them happen? Well, you're about to find out. Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be. Today, I'm talking with David Levy, the co-CEO of Horizon Sports and Experiences and the former president of Turner Networks.

0:38If you ever wondered who put the madness in March Madness, it's David. He forged the landmark deal that let fans watch every NCAA tournament game across all the CBS and Turner Networks. And it took the popularity of the tournament to a whole new level. These days, he's betting on innovative formats like the Pickleball Slam and Unrivaled, which is a three-on-three women's pro basketball league. And behind all of it is a big vision for the future of sports, media, and live events. But here's the thing. Vision isn't just about spotting these opportunities. It's about having the guts to act on them.

1:17And in this episode, you'll see how to trust your instincts on those big ideas, back them with confidence, and then lead people to making it all happen. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, David Levy.

1:35Here you are, you've come up in the traditional cable world. I got to ask you, how many streaming services do you have at your home now? Well, I'm one of those guys that, unfortunately, I probably don't even know how much I'm paying for all of them. but I probably have six of them that I'm, I'm either paying for or got for free with some other connection or some other promotion. Uh, you know, you get, get your phone, get a free Hulu or something like that. I have them all and I love the content. So, you know, I'm a junkie. Yeah. Well, what's your favorite and why, if you had to pick one streaming service, which one would it be and why?

2:11Ooh, it's hard to pick your favorites. You know, it's, uh, it's in my business. I love all my friends. But I think it really depends on, it's almost program by program. You know, what's funny about this business, you know, history kind of repeats itself. You know, we unbundled the bundle when, you know, we started going to these streaming services and now all the people want to re-bundle the bundle because the streaming services cost so much. Why wouldn't we just re-bundle everything back up into the cable business? I think it's program by program for me. Right now, stick on Apple TV. I'm deep into Mobland, which I believe is on Paramount+.

2:47So there's a few here and there that I bop through. And depending on the program, that's why I have them all. Yeah, I'm into Mobland too. You know, that was amazing. Guy Ritchie's got a good model. He does. You know, I can't wait to dig into how you lead. But first, I want to take you back to your beginning, David. You know, what's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today? You know, I played hockey, which is a team sport, and I thought I was good enough at some point to make the pros. But then you realize as you get older, everybody's a good hockey player. And when you get to college, they're really good hockey players and they're all captains of their own teams.

3:26But I think playing sports and working with people and finding ways to win and finding solutions to challenges was all part of my building of my character, I guess, and how I learned to lead. And I ended up being the captain of my hockey team and captain up in Syracuse for the club team. So I think it stems to playing sports early on and learning to deal with people and finding solutions to challenges. You know, after college at Syracuse, you got your start in advertising sales in New York, as I understand it. You know, what did that experience teach you right out of the gate? When I was at Syracuse, I graduated in 1984.

4:07My senior year, I figured out a way to actually get a job and turn around and have that job be credits that made credits to help me graduate school. And the job was working for an advertising agency called Oakmont Advertising. From there, I ended up getting a job in New York at an advertising agency called SSC &B. I worked for a woman named Elizabeth O 'Brien and Gary Carr, and I loved it. It was great being in the city, but of course, I was thinking I was making$9 ,000 a year. That's what they were paying back in 1984. What was interesting, though, was I realized very early because the job I had at SSC &B was an assistant network buyer.

4:50The funny thing about that was they put me on the cable business because they didn't have a lot of cable money back then. and there were probably only seven networks. And, you know, one of them was Superstation TBS and MTV and Nashville Network, I think was around there and USA Network and things of that nature. And I realized very quickly that I wanted to be on the other side of the desk and I wanted to be on the sales side because the sales guys made all the money. And I figured out really early that this agency job wasn't going to make me much money at$9 ,000 a year. So within a year and a half, I left and found myself in the sales side of the business.

5:29So I went over to a company called Cable Networks, Inc., which is kind of another funny story. You know, as I went around trying to find a sales job, every sales company I went to, whether it was MTV or ESPN or Nashville Network, they all said the same thing to me. They said, listen, we like you, but go get some sales experience and, you know, then come back. And so I went to this company called Cable Networks, Inc., which was John Kramer, who came up with, which was local cable sales. That's right below a pregnant aunt as far as where it was in the cycle. You know, I mean, this wasn't the days of cable where they had NFL football and Major League Baseball, right?

6:09This was the days where it was PK karate and slow pitch softball and reruns of Sanford and Son. But local cable was, and the guy, John Kramer, was just about to say the same words. He's just about to say to me, you know, go get some, and I said, John, don't tell me to go get sales experience. I said, let me ask you a question. How am I ever going to get sales experience if nobody's going to give me a sales job? And he ended up saying, you know what, you're right. And he hired me. And that's how I got into the sales side of the business. And you end up at Turner and you work your way up the ladder there.

6:41You're there for 30 years and you become president of the company. What do you think you did differently as a leader that allowed you to climb the ranks like you did? There's a few things here and there that I think are important when you think about leadership. Number one is surround yourself as you move up and as you get new jobs. Make sure the people that replace you or the people that you are managing are equal or better than you, but have different types of skill sets. The only way you kind of move up as a leader is you make sure that you're replaceable and that someone can take your place.

7:21If you hire people that are not as good as you, then your bosses and your boss's bosses are never going to move you out because they don't want to lose whatever you have built. So the best thing that you can do as a leader is to actually surround yourself with very talented people. And that allows you to move up in the ladder. And I think I always made sure that I surrounded myself with really, really good people. The second thing is, you know, I always tell people, you could always lead people that report to you, but the great leaders are the ones that can lead people that don't report to you.

7:56So not only do you have to lead in a horizontal type of situation, but you have to spread out, you know, vertically as well. I'm assuming vertically is where, you know, and spread out horizontally in the sense that you need to lead people that don't report to you. And that's when you know you're truly a great leader. And I always try to figure out how to work with different divisions and different opportunities and to work within the company, not just at Turner, but with HBO and with Warner Brothers and try to find ways to work with our partners. And I thought that was very important to make sure you lead it, you know, from a horizontal way, not just vertically up and down.

8:36And then lastly, as I started to acquire things or we looked at buying new assets, to me, I always wanted to be an insider, not an outsider. A lot of leaders sometimes wait to see how other things react or does it work or doesn't it work. I remember early on at Turner in our sports division, when I came back from running international, I came back to run Turner Sports. And I got a lot of experience overseas with digital content and digital video on phones. It really wasn't here in the U.S. at the time yet. We were still dealing with Motorola Razors and very barely even texting at that time. That was back in 2002, 2003.

9:22I started buying up digital sports rights that at the time, no one really even cared about because there wasn't much digital content running on phones at the time. And so I might have overpaid a little bit in certain ways. We also started a digital sports sales division, which in the early days were not very successful. We bought NASCAR rights that were way too expensive. I bought some PGA tour rights that were probably too expensive. And I was able to cover it on other parts of my division. But I learned a lot about the digital business while I was managing those properties. And that allowed me to understand how to buy the next property.

10:05We worked with the NBA, and that deal was very successful. And then the NCAA, when we did the NCAA with CBS, that was very successful. So learning from the inside, actually making some mistakes, yes, overpaying here and there, but then knowing where I knew what I had to do to solve those issues. And I think that was very important as well. So those are some of the learnings, I guess, that I would stand by as my career at Turner. You know, when you were at Turner, the media landscape was just shifting so fast. And it still is. I mean, I don't know of any industry that's continually, you know, dealing with so much change.

10:44What have you learned about adapting and staying on your front foot in an industry that's constantly just shifting? I think there was a book that says, if it ain't broke, break it. You have to constantly look at what's ahead and what's happening and be at the forefront. You know, I thought sports rights were going to be a big part of the future of content because there are passionate built-in fan bases around sports properties. And we made a conscious effort of going after some of the biggest sports rights, not just in cable, but in television. And so being in the forefront and aggressively doing that, we were the first to go after large movie packages because I realized that there are big movie fans, whether you're a Star Wars fan or a James Bond fan.

11:43You know, when those movies come up and they repeat often on many of our channels, they're just fans that people will tune in and stick. They're very sticky when you're a big when you're a Star Wars fan, you're flipping through the channels. I called collision viewing when you're just going up and down the channels and you find a Star Wars movie and you happen to be a fan, you're going to get locked on it or a Rocky movie or something like that. So we bought big movie packages. We understand. I mean, Ted Turner taught me very, very well. Content is king. That's what he said. No matter what the device, no matter what the distribution platform is, as long as you have great content, you will find viewers.

12:17Hey, everyone. It's Kula from How Leaders Lead. And a couple of years ago, we did a survey of all of you podcast listeners. And in it, you told us that you would like more of David's point of view on some of the topics that he talks about with the guests that he interviews. And in case you didn't know, we have an episode that does just that. Every Monday, we release an episode called Three More Questions with David Novak, where I put David in the hot seat and get his point of view and his take on some of the concepts that he talks about with the guests that he interviews. It's a great way to get learnings from David and to hear about his experience leading young Brands, a company of over 1.5 million employees.

12:56So if you haven't subscribed to the How Leaders Lead feed, wherever you get your podcasts, do that now so that you never miss an episode of three more questions and so that you can get coaching from David himself. You know, speaking of great content and also going back to the one of the points you made earlier about the importance of of leading horizontally, you know, not just the people that report to you and managing up and down. You know, you helped pull off probably one of the most groundbreaking media deals in the history of sports when you teamed up with CBS and got the NCAA March Madness tournament.

13:33You know, the thing was so popular, you know. Tell us a story about that and the biggest lesson you learned from it. That's a landmark deal. That's probably something that I'll always be remembered by in our relationship with CBS and Sean McManus. That deal, you know, first of all, the other thing I truly believe and I think is really, really important is culture beat strategy all the time. If you have great culture, I think it will beat strategy day in and day out. Yep. If you have them both, obviously culture and strategy, it's a home run. And, you know, what was very interesting about our relationship with CBS is CBS had a very, very different culture than Turner Broadcasting.

14:14Um, they were far more, what I would say, more traditional, um, and, uh, a traditional media company versus what I would say more than aggressive modern, uh, media company. But we also knew that, you know, Sean and myself knew that one and one is going to make four on this particular. And if we could find a way, um, CBS at the time, uh, was losing money on the tournament. Um, they had a couple of years left and they were in the tournament went out in the marketplace to see if there was going to be any other partners. I got called from a gentleman named Greg Shaheen asking about would I be interested in having some type of package and what would I be thinking about.

14:56And, you know, as I went through the RFP and I realized very quickly that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to need a partner and probably a broadcast partner because I didn't think the NCAA was going to put all of their games in one foul swoop on a cable network. I just think that, you know, I think I needed at that time, and it was back in 2010, that it would be great to partner with CBS. But I said to Sean out of the gate, I said, I'm more than happy to partner with you. And I was also talking to Fox at the time. And I said to Sean, but I don't want to have a cable package. This has to be a 50-50 partnership, meaning I'm going to have the finals and semifinals every other year, and we're both going to go after this together.

15:43And, you know, he heads and haws maybe a little bit, but at the end, he realized that he didn't want to lose the NCAA package either. And so he realized he needed a partner because the idea we came up with, which was unheard of at the time, was to put all the games on live at the same time. And so what we did is we let the viewer, the consumer, be the control of what game they wanted to watch. Prior to us doing this deal, and it started in 2011, CBS did regionals. So if you lived on the West Coast, you saw West Coast games or what CBS thought you might want to watch. And if you lived on the East Coast, you saw East Coast games and so forth and so on.

16:25And they did some cut-ins, but all the games were running at the same time, but you couldn't see them all. So this was taking TBS, TNT, True TV, and CBS and having all four games run simultaneously at the same time. And then even more dramatic and still today is when there's a blowout on CBS. You know, you got Jim Nance saying, hey, we've got a blowout game, but look what's going on TBS right now. Now, switch to your TBS channel. Now, the reason why he was able to say, go off of my channel and go somewhere else was because the way we structured this deal was a true 50-50 partnership. And it didn't matter where a commercial that ran on TBS or a commercial around CBS, all the dollars fell into one big pot.

17:09So all the revenue streams were just divided 50-50. Oh, it's a great idea. I should have known that, but I didn't. But it makes subtle sense. So you found the big win-win. Yeah. Now, the only thing that wasn't divided 50-50, which made it very profitable and still is very profitable for Turner, was we kept out two areas. CBS was able to keep its retrans and its local avails. And we were able to keep all of our subscription revenue. So subscription and retrans were out of the deal. But every other revenue stream, whether it be digital or whether it be concert series or whether it be anything else, was all divided 50-50.

17:50And it's still today. And that was a landmark deal in the sense that I don't think it ends till 2032. Wow, that's amazing. And, you know, for the people who aren't in the industry, what's a retrans? Retrans is where CBS, with all their local stations, get paid a subscription, a retrans, meaning retraining the actual signal, and are paid by the cable operators for that signal. Well, you had such an incredible run at Turner. You're in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, and you're viewed as a genius in the industry. What led you to make the decision to step away from Turner? Turner, I'm pretty unusual maybe in this day and age.

18:39I stayed there 33 years. Ted hired me back in 19, I think, 87. I saw the merger between Time Warner and Turner. I saw the merger between AOL and Time Warner. And then I saw AOL leave and Time Warner take its ownership back. Then I saw AT &T buy Time Warner. And then I saw, you know, I actually left after, I say, two years under that regime. And so, you know, listen, I went through a lot of different mergers and acquisitions and takeovers, a lot of different bosses lifting styles. But after 33 years, you know what? We accomplished a lot. You know, I had a great run. And, you know, at the time, John Stanky was reorganizing the company and actually folding a lot of positions and a lot of different opportunities under different roofs and different functions.

19:35And, you know, to be honest with you, there was nothing that really excited me and what was going to be. And I said to John, let's, you know, let's shake hands and, you know, and this is your baby. It's time to move on. No regrets. I had a great run. No one stays at a company 33 years. At the end, I was running basically all of Turner except for the international division and the news. And I was ready to try something else. And here I am today. Then what was it, David, that made you go out on your own and start up Horizon Sports and Experiences? Bill Konigsberg, who runs Horizon Media, owns, not runs, owns Horizon Media.

20:15And I've been friends for many, many years, probably 30 plus years in the business. And he called me up and said that he really wanted to grow and blow out his sports marketing company. At the time, it was called Scout. And it was a smaller company. But, you know, Tomasak had just invested in Horizon Media. And they wanted to grow their business. and he was finding new ways. And he realized the sports business was going to be something that had a lot of growth potential and asked me to run it. And, you know, we went back and forth and had some conversations. And I said, Bill, you know, I think the best way for us to have this relationship is you spin out Scout into a new co, provide equity and some, you know, some investment dollars and so forth.

21:05And I'd be interested in doing this. But as a partner, not as an employee. And to Bill's credit, he called back and said, hey, would you do with a partner? And I said, you're my partner. He goes, no, no, another partner. And I said, who? And he goes, Chris Weil. And I go, I love Chris. I've known Chris for 25 years. So the three of us went out to Montauk and spent a couple of days together and banged out what the roles and responsibilities are, because we all know sometimes co-CEOs don't work. I would say almost 90 % of the time they don't. The way we constructed this, which is putting what Chris's skill sets are in what he did at Momentum for 20 plus years as the CEO of Momentum, probably one of the best, largest sports marketing agency in the world, and what a job he did there.

22:00If you took Chris's Rolodex and my Rolodex, or that's an old word, we can say our contact list, and merge it together, there'd only be about a 20 % overlap. And so we constructed the agency that way. Chris manages the brand consulting side, experiential activation side of the business, and I manage and oversee the IP, ownership and creation of IP, the sales sponsorship sales division, as well as our media consulting division. So we kind of have our separate roles and responsibilities, But then we roll up into one big organization. And of course, we help each other out when needed on both sides of the equation.

22:41Dave, give me, you know, share sort of a high level overview of your business, this company, and that you're responsible for as the co-CEO. So, you know, we thought about this in a big way. We said, listen, if we were to start over from scratch and you were able to start a sports marketing company today versus what you did 15, 20 years ago, what would you do differently? And that was our secret sauce is we didn't have any legacy. And so we were able to build something that we thought would be very interesting. And so we have three pillars, I guess, that we focus on. One is our brand consulting activation experiential side of our business, where we have clients like Proximo and PayPal and Venmo and Paramount Plus and Sentinel One and Cogson and New York Life.

23:28And we handle all their sponsorships, all their experiential and activations. We help them with league and team negotiations, jersey patch negotiations, as well as anything else they need us to do. And the other two pillars we have is one is ownership and creation of IP, which that's very unique and different. and you mentioned it very early on, our Pickleball Slam, which is now in our, we're going to announce very shortly our Slam 4 event, which I think is going to be incredibly good. Where we had in our first, we had Agassi, McEnroe, Roddick, and Chang play for a million dollar purse. And then we brought in Steffi and Maria Sharapova.

24:13Sharapova and McEnroe played Steffi and Agassi, which was fantastic. And then our third one had Jeannie Bouchard and Roddick play against Steffi and Agassi. So all great events, all real events with real money on the line and obviously bringing the best racket players in the world to play against each other. We then realized very early that women's sports was going to be a huge growth opportunity. And that was two and a half years ago when we jumped in a little bit before the Caitlin Clark phenomenon happened. But we kind of sensed it was going on. We also knew that World Cup was coming and a lot of other, and the NWSL growth and so forth and so on.

24:53So we invested in the Women's Champions Classic, which is we own the marks, the rights, and logo. Our partner in that is Fox. And we went after Connecticut, and we signed Connecticut to a five-year deal, figuring that was the best women's basketball brand name in the country. We didn't have them locked. I'm not sure the event would have been as successful. And we're having our second event this coming December 20th. So we invest in our own IP, and then we also invest in other IP and leagues, but on strategic basis. So Unrivaled, HS &E invested in the league itself, but we also did their media rights for them with Warner Brothers, and we are the agency of record for their sponsorship sales.

25:37So really a nice relationship in that tremendous league that I think after its first season was hugely successful and was only going to go up, in my opinion. So we invest and own in IP and we create IP. And then we also have a sponsorship sales division that sells all this IP. We also sell other leagues and teams IP if it's the right mix for us, which we've done. Like right now, we're representing the Pro Paddle League and help them with their sponsorship sales. So we don't own any of the PPL, but we do do their sponsorship sales for them. And then lastly, we have a nice media consulting business where we help people with go-to-market strategies, media rights.

26:24I just did a, I worked with DAZN recently with their Club World Cup rights where we negotiated with Univision and Turner to have those games air on the Spanish language, Univision and so forth. So I helped DAZN with that. We work with top-ranked boxing. We work with the NBA. So we have a nice client list in helping them either with go-to-market strategy, sponsorship sales, or media rights. So, David, that's like you cover the gamut in the world of sports. What do you find to be your biggest leadership challenge? Just making sure we stay ahead of the game, making sure we bring in the right talent.

27:05You know, we now have 91 employees and maintaining that talent and making them feel like they're a part of this growth company. I think that's very, very important. working with Chris, making sure that we're both while we were running around doing, you know, our own responsibilities, but making sure that we're still running a company as one company and making sure that we think about our employees. I think the most important thing is making sure your employees are happy and that they feel like there's growth opportunities. And we happen to be very lucky right now. We're, I think, in the right genre.