Out and about in New York: when sport crashes into entertainment with MLB and the Harlem Globetrotters

0:04Hello and welcome to another edition of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast. the podcast by leaders in sport for leaders in sport. My name is David Cushnan. I am the content director here at Leaders and I am talking to you from the heart of Midtown, New York City, where I've been this week for a number of events that we have been running along with our friends and colleagues from Sports Business Journal. It has been quite a week. Lovely weather up until a few hours ago when the rains have started falling. We were here earlier in the week for our Attention Seekers workshop. This is our Sports and Entertainment Media Insiders series.

0:49We held the latest edition of that for 40 or so hand-picked sports and media executives at Proskauer's offices discussing winning content formats. A very good but entirely off-the-record discussion. Then we decamped here to Chelsea Industrial in Midtown for Force New York SBJ's Sports and Entertainment Conference, exploring where sport meets fashion, lifestyle and culture. We've been holed up here for a couple of days, a couple of really fascinating days, some great content, some great people. I'm going to say some great vibes as well. And we're going to reflect on some of those vibes and assess what we heard, what we saw and what we felt about it with a few of our guests in a few moments time.

1:33And the Sports Business Awards have also been taking place this week. Wednesday evening, SBJ's big night of stars and celebration here in town. So it's been a big sports industry week in these parts. The Knicks, of course, in the NBA playoffs. The Subway Series, Yankees-Mets has been happening as well. plenty going on and plenty of good people around as well. On this podcast, we are going to reflect on Force in particular, and you are going to hear from a trio of experts who have been buzzing around on stage and off over the last couple of days. You will hear from Usma Rondowler, who is Major League Baseball's Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of Global Partnerships.

2:24Usma was on a panel earlier today, Wednesday, explaining how the MLB approaches cross-industry collaborations in the fashion space, in the food space, gaming, as well as music, what that looks like here in the US, but also what that means for international games, how they're promoted, and for international fans. Then we'll bring in Keith Dawkins. Keith was an absolute dynamo on stage. He might have been my favorite participant at Force this week. The president of the Harlem Globetrotters, a traditional storied organization. But Keith, who has a history at Viacom and Nickelodeon, was brought in three or four years ago to essentially reinvent the brand and turn it, as he says, from a touring show, a mere touring show, into a beloved global entertainment brand.

3:18And so he will be explaining how he has done that and what that looks like as the Globetrotters approach their 100th year anniversary next year. And then we'll try and sum up sports relationship with fashion as it stands here in 2025 with Daniel Yao Miller. Daniel really at the forefront of writing about observing the intersection of sport, fashion and culture. He wrote a really good piece a few weeks ago about the Met Gala and its increasing importance for sport recently. He'll be talking to us about some of the fashion sessions that he was involved in and watched here, notably a starring performance from Kyle Smith, the NFL's fashion editor, who is a fascinating character and a man who essentially pitched and created the role that he's now in at the NFL.

4:04the NFL with its helmets off strategy, helmets up strategy, looking to forge deeper relationships in the fashion space and deeper relationships with high end fashion publications. So Daniel will help us make sense of all of that. So that all to come. But first of all, I had a chance to catch up with Osmaron Dowler, MLB's chief marketing officer, straight off stage after her session a little earlier today, Wednesday morning here at Force. Osmarondala, great to have you with us. You are just off stage from what I'm going to call a star performance at our Force Sports and Entertainment event. How did you find it?

4:47I thought it was fantastic. I loved your description of it, star performance. I'm all in on that. Good stuff. Now, I was looking at your job title. Yes. Or could I say job titles on screen? Because CMO and SVP of Global Partnerships Sounds to me almost like two jobs. Is that the reality? It is two jobs, but we have a very, very competent team. We have competent teams on both sides that sort of help make everything come to life, both on the marketing side and on the corporate partnership side. It just sounds like you're getting a tremendously scary amount of emails. I am. I'm not going to lie, getting a tremendously scary amount of emails, but we work through it.

5:26Good. And of course, you're midway through a busy season. Yes. Plenty going on. Exciting season. Very much so. And you've been here obviously talking about the relationship between sport and other sectors, entertainment, music, fashion, food. And from an MLB perspective, that all seems to be hooked around your MLB life. Is it right to call it a platform? Yeah, MLB Life Platform. It's our culture marketing initiative that really leans in on our fan passion points and what our fans care about outside of baseball, but where we can talk to them in areas of interest that they have and bring them into the MLB fold and really talk to them about baseball as a whole.

6:08And how is that developing? And I suppose, what is your approach to moving into some of these sectors? Because everybody, it's been a constant theme here during the last couple of days, is looking, I think, for experts, looking for expertise, looking for credibility in all these different spaces. How does MLB approach what is quite a big task? Yeah, I think that the way that we look at it is we're really rounded in five pillars that we feel are authentic to our sport as well. food, fashion, music, gaming, and art. If you think about music, for example, like we are one of the major sports that has music that's such a big part of our sport.

6:49Our players have walk-up songs, so we really want to lean in in that space and really tell that music story both across our entire season, but what are the ways that we can really create buzz, impactful musical moments? And we have one of those coming up with our Bristol Motor Speedway Classic, the Speedway Classic. we partnered with Tim McGraw to really headline a concert there. So again, what are the ways that we can create sort of that humming moment throughout the season across these different verticals of food, fashion? And then what are the ways that we can create those buzz moments that really come to life around our other big scale events and initiatives that are happening, whether it's All-Star World Series or special events or international games?

7:26Do you have a favorite of the five verticals? Do I have a favorite of the five verticals? That's a really, really good question. And are you allowed to say? I don't I you know what I will say I don't know if I'm allowed to say but I love the fashion space I think it's innovative it's different I think it's so subjective what you think looks good on somebody might not be what I think looks good on somebody so I think that there's so many opinions there but that's the beauty of it is that we can lean in with the creativity of it all the one we haven't really touched on during these couple of days maybe one for a future programming note to myself is art.

8:00But that is, I guess, a particularly interesting area. Yeah, for us also, a great example of that, quite honestly, is we have games, international games in Mexico City, for example. And so and we have a presence in Mexico. And so we've recently partnered with I actually don't even know if this is public or not, but I'm just going to share it with you. But we're partnering with an artist in that is native to Mexico to really develop the new theme art and creative and design for our international events in Mexico City and in Mexico. So really, again, authentically leaning into someone that is an expert in that space.

8:37Art is such a huge part of sort of Mexican culture as well. And really making sure that we're doing that through the lens of baseball in that market in a way that culturally resonates. And just finally, we touched on it in the session, MLB internationally, obviously, you have a huge fan base outside the US, increasing number of games outside the US as well in very different markets. And you were talking about the differences, both in terms of those specific markets, the specific approaches in Japan, in Korea, for example, versus what you are doing in Europe. Yeah, I think that, first of all, we are a global sport.

9:14We've been a global sport for decades. Just this past season, sorry, just this past opening day, we had 200 plus players represented from 18 countries, which is incredible for us. And so we want to lean into that aspect of our player storytelling as well. To your point about us marketing our game differently, baseball is familiar in Asia. And so we want to make sure we're playing up sort of what baseball represents to that market. They have incredible talent coming out of Asia, too, that's playing in the major leagues. In Europe and in places like India, for example, baseball is not that familiar.

9:48So India is a growth market for us. And it's a place where, quite honestly, we're drawing some parallels to cricket and what the sport of cricket represents and seeing if we can sort of use that as a way to creatively, you know, tap into that fan base to bring them and introduce them to baseball. I know you have to run. We always like to sort of try and sneak into the professional lives of people that we talk to. I mean, give us a flavor of how the rest of your week's shaping up. Is it meetings? Is it spreadsheets? What are you focusing on? It's spreadsheets. Well, no, it's not spreadsheets. It's meetings.

10:21It's events. It's getting out there, talking to people. It's nice that, quite honestly, you guys are having this event right now because it brings a lot of people into New York. So selfishly, we don't have to travel. So everyone comes here so we can bang out a bunch of meetings, a bunch of coffees, a bunch of things like that. Perfect. It's raining outside. We will let you get on your way. Thank you. I appreciate that. Take care. Keith Dawkins, good to see you. Good to see you, sir. Two minutes off stage after what I'm going to call a dynamic presentation. Thank you. It was fabulous. CEO, president?

10:53President of Harlem Globetrotters. President of Harlem Globetrotters, who I've just discovered are a beloved global entertainment brand. The world-famous Harlem Globetrotters. And that was really the thrust of what you were talking about on stage, because we all know the brand. Yeah. But I'm not sure we all know the brand as you described it in all its glory. I would, I would, uh, interesting you pick up on that. I say to people, um, the Harlem Globetrotters have a 94 % brand awareness around the globe. There's no one that I've met yet. Who's like, Hey, the Harlem Globetrotters, you heard them?

11:26No, I haven't heard of them yet, but that's different than having a relationship with the brand. So when you ask them more deeply, like what do you know? Some will say, Oh my gosh, metal arc, lemon, curly Neil. I go, by the way, you know, it was about 40 or 50 years prior to that. They go, really? You guys are that old. If I ask them who their current stars are today, they're like, Hmm, I don't know. But someone's like, wait, I've seen them on TV now, right? So this idea of can we shape the thinking? First, we had to reshape the thinking internally before you can do it externally around we're not a tour.

11:55The Globetrotters didn't become almost 100 years old. 100 years old in 2026 because they're a tour only. They became that because they are a beloved global intellectual property. When they were at their heights, 70s and 80s, they were on a Scooby-Doo lunchbox. They were on Wild World of Sports. They were on TV. They were doing guest appearances on the biggest late night talk shows around the globe. They're traveling the globe. They're meeting the Pope, right? It was a simpler media entertainment marketplace, but they were occupying all those different spaces, right? And we've kind of lost our way for the last 20 or 30 years.

12:25And so we're just trying to get them back into the place of really being part of the culture and the fabric and of the consideration set of the audience. People talk a lot about reinventing brands. Is that how you would sort of characterize it? Or would you go a different route? maybe a reintroduction because it's not a rebrand. It's not a light switch. It's not a launch. It's not any of those things. But it is a strong, calculated, thoughtful reintroduction of the brand. It's been out of sight, out of mind for many because they haven't had a way to experience and touch the brand other than if they went to some of its 250 tour stops around North America and the other 150 around planet Earth.

13:05For those folks, they've had a touch point with the brand. It's a lot of people on planet Earth. That means a lot of people have not connected with the Globetrotters. You might pick up my accent as a British one. Beyond the US, where are some of the markets where the Globetrotters really resonate? I know you've got many stops in many places, many cities, but are there particular markets? Yeah. So when I think of, so we're everywhere. Let me say that, right? So all throughout Europe, UK, of course, all throughout Europe, Northern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Asia. We just recently relaunched in South America, African continent, north and south.

13:43Deep resonation in terms of Australia and New Zealand. We play there every other year. I kid you not. It's like as fast as we put second sales, as fast as we're sold out. Deep love of the Globetrotters, deep understanding of basketball. We've been there consistently with no stoppage many years, so it's there. Different parts of Europe, Italy, France, Germany. Again, UK. just when you think about the global Canada, by the way, I forgot, you know, I mean, North America, but when you think about, let's use the Olympics example. When you think about Tony Parker, right out of France and the Canadian team from SGA of Oklahoma City, Steve Nash, Andrew Wiggins, these are all playing in Canada or Canadian athletes.

14:27Dirk Nowitzki, Germany, sport is global. So I don't confuse it with football. not the American football, right? Your football, the number one sport on planet Earth, right? But basketball is a global sport. The NBA has done a great job with that. The Globetrotters were actually globalizing the sport before anyone was. And so we resonate everywhere. And it's pretty special to see that. You're very much ahead of all this curve that we're talking about at this event, at Force, the growing relationship between sports and entertainment, very much the originals. You talked in your presentation about, and we shouldn't probably underestimate the touring business because it's enormous.

15:05It's enormous. But as you made the point, you know, that touring business can continue to build, but you're now amplifying the brand, the story around lots of other touch points. Talk about a couple of those. I mean, you talked about merchandise, consumer products, content as well. How are you approaching all of those? Yeah. So our consumer products bucket with, you know, like merchandise living under that for years, the only way you could buy a Globetrotters T-shirt or a ball, you had to go to the tour. So one, you're missing out on massive revenue opportunities by not being at retail. I would argue even more importantly, you're missing out on massive just marketing, consumer touchpoint opportunities, brand affinity opportunities by not being in whatever retail experience or e-commerce experience that someone wants.

16:00Content's the same thing. Content's everywhere. and we've decentralized content in the way where it's not just these four or five gatekeepers who never, right? Everyone is a content maker, social media and the internet, right? Has made it available to all of us and we need to be living in those spaces thoughtful. We have such great stories to tell about our brand, about our players, around our individual athletes. They're digitally, socially native, right? So being in all those places are, again, they're consumer touch points, they're new revenue, January 10th point, but they're also just forced multipliers on each other, right?

16:35They just, they just, rising tide raises all boats. You spent, was it 17 years at Nickelodeon? 17 years at Viacom. 17 years at Viacom. And 14 of those at Nickelodeon. Yeah. I am assuming that you have been able to take a lot of what you learned there, the expertise you gained there and apply it to some of what you're doing now. Is that the case? Yeah. It's almost shameful where I go up there and it's almost like, you know, I'm presenting to people. It's like, it sounds so original. I'm like, no, I'm just trying to take the best practices playbook from these brands that have been wildly successful.

17:06And I was just a young pup that they invested in and gave me opportunities to run a few channels and stuff there. I'm trying to take the best of those worlds, but also not live in the past, right? And continuous learning. And what do we see next? One of the reasons why I'm here today, right? Because it's not just the opportunity to talk and present, but there's thought leadership at this conference. There's people to be inspired by. There's people who are doing things differently or leaning into new marketplaces or forging new pathways. And it's continuous learning. And how do we leverage that to just amplify all that we do?

17:40Nobody listening to this will be surprised to hear that sponsorship, partnerships was a big part of your presentation as well. And that's a key part of the mix. A lot of options for brands out there. It's a busy market. You showed some maps of certainly the media universe that were busy what is a brand getting if they align with partner with the harlem globe trotters yeah so i'll say two things so one to the sports side of things um and this has been going on for a few years but when people were worried about in the cable world of cord cutting in the streaming world even of like okay there's too many choices and platforms and the cost was it right sports has been a driver of eyeballs and of live and of being there, right?

18:25And the media rights are astronomical to sports. I would argue what's a big check for the Harlem Globetrotters is a smaller check for those gatekeepers to write, right? And they still get the great sport adjacent programming. Aside from that though, they also get, there's no bad stories that go with the Globetrotters. It brings everyone together, eight to 80. It is goodwill ambassador. It's joy and hope and possibilities and bringing families together. And while that sounds like all hunky-dory, but from a research standpoint, which has been going on for years of co-viewing amongst audiences, which is another driver of sport.

18:57It's the thing that brings the families together and they can watch together and participate together. I would argue that Globe Charge is the best. It's not even a nice to have. I know I sound biased here. I feel like it's a must-have for these platforms who care about sports, care about entertainment, and care about a shared co-viewing audience. One of those relationships that you pulled out was almost inevitably sesame street yeah talk to me about the power of the sesame street brand and what an alignment with them does because actually argument that it's maybe the most powerful brand in america yeah well i'll say this about sesame not to reveal too much news you know we have a bunch of friends who are former nickelodeon folks who work over there so from a best-in-class content makers um who are former nick jr executives who are over there phenomenal uh they just set the world on fire again with their netflix deal so i'm super excited for them that they're able to um uh move into that space and keep that just really no different than us i would argue a powerful beloved global brand um alive and they represent the type of storytelling um part of our audience that's important um and i think there's a great alignment with us the type of things we could do with each other as just one example of uh a powerful content collaboration you just revealed this week um some of the visuals around your 100th anniversary 2026 give us a you know teasers about what you've got planned over the coming sort of 12 months yeah so basically all the categories that i outline like the power of our tour the power of content the power of our kind of licensing and merchandising our consumer products lane our csr efforts um just think about we are super charging all those lanes so lots of deal flow and stuff that we haven't announced yet um that we're creating down the licensing and merchandise area, new categories that we've never been exposed to that are consumer-facing that are really powerful, reimagining and rethinking our tour with all of our tour partners in terms of how we deliver that product out to the audience, new ideas with Spalding, who's our official ball partner, in terms of what that 100-year anniversary ball should look like and how that's going to play out both for the consumer at retail and also in the game, new licensing and apparel partners and new CSR efforts.

21:06So just a bunch of things that I think will or we hope will not just celebrate in a proper way um the past present and future of the harlem globe trusses but also set us up for another hundred years of success and if we're having this conversation in five years time right what what are we saying about where the harlem globe trusses have come to what they've become yeah i mean listen i in my what i kind of what gets me out of bed in the morning i lay in bed at night i want every person on planet earth this sounds daunting, but I want every person on planet Earth to have a connection point to the Harlem Globetrotters.

21:39And right now in that tour only model, you don't. So five years from now, if just and we feel this already, but more and more people are just like, I feel like I'm hearing about Harlem Globetrotters everywhere. I'm seeing Harlem Globetrotters. You know, my kid has that backpack or just something. We'll see that in the bottom line. But that's more satisfying to me. I really truly want um to get to a place 50 years from now i know you said five but it's like you can't you're going with a 50 year yeah that you can't talk about the history of the holland globe charge without this moment of what we're doing right now this moment in time right we're setting the stage building setting the seeds for you know i hope not just short-term growth but long-term exponential growth of the brand perfect appreciate you doing this keith thank you daniel yao miller good to have you with us.

22:27Usually I introduce guests myself, but I'm really keen to understand how you describe yourself at dinner parties or social functions. That's a great question. Depends on the function, but for this purpose, I'd say I'm a sports culture and fashion journalist and editor. And I have had experience working as a reporter covering major industry companies like Nike and Adidas. I've covered industry trends such as like sports increasing convergence into the world of fashion, interviewed athletes, CEOs, executives, and get the chance to speak at amazing conferences like Force as well. And in many ways, the perfect person to have with us at Force to sort of try and make sense of a lot of what's been discussed here over the last couple of days.

23:17Fashion has been one of the big recurring talking points. We had Kyle Smith, the fashion editor at the NFL on stage. And you moderated a really fun session yesterday afternoon. Tell us about that. Yeah, that was one I was really looking forward to. It was with Kristen Ustierk and Kimberly Alula. Kristen's an incredible designer who kind of blew up after Taylor Swift wore one of her custom jackets to watch her partners, to support her partner who plays in the NFL. And that was like the culmination, as Kristen said, on stage of like, not just one, two, but five, six years of hard work and kind of like dedicated work on her side, really pushing the agenda, similar to what I've been doing on the editorial side, but really pushing the agenda from a design perspective on why there should be a greater sense of fashion or a different sense of fashion in the world of sport and specifically sports merch and fanware.

24:13And I think like what she was really banging on the door about was kind of elevating different ways fans could shop in arenas, in stadiums, without just wearing a simple jersey. So like her kind of signature piece is the custom jersey jacket. And this is the, I guess, the trend that we have seen on both sides of the Atlantic and actually would be interesting your thoughts as to whether there are differences in how these sport meets fashion relationships are being forged in Europe versus the US. And we've seen a number of collaborations. And we had a session yesterday where you and I were talking about some of this stuff for our Leaders Club members.

24:54And one of the topics of conversation was teams, leagues increasingly looking to start their own labels, their own, I mean, their own sort of fashion houses, essentially, certainly produce their own lines and what they should do in-house versus outsourcing to experts. I mean, what is your assessment of that bit of the relationship at the moment and how do you see it evolving? Yeah, I think when it comes to teams and leagues, I think a lot of them are still a long way off from fully embracing the potential, the cultural potential that fashion brings and the kind of wider exposure that fashion brings.

25:35But I think we've seen a lot of early movers do really well in kind of bringing in-house expertise from the fashion world. So, for example, you mentioned Kyle Smith, the NFL's fashion editor, who's done an amazing job in forging his own path within the NFL. And now he's being recognized across the world of sports at conferences like this because he really stuck his neck out and said there is a genuine argument and business case, more importantly, for incorporating fashion and higher aesthetic of design and style into the way sports teams, leagues, and athletes themselves communicate. And I think we saw the same thing, like we discussed yesterday about Arsenal and how Arsenal really made efforts not just to kind of like collaborate on a hands-off basis with the fashion industry, but bring designers like Labrum London, Fodde Dumbuya, in to work on collaborative collections.

26:25They had Labrum design this season's away kit, which I was hoping we're going to win the Champions League in and didn't happen but that's fine and really just kind of like building those closer connections to the fashion industry rather than just saying oh we want to work in fashion we're going to just do this one-off and leave it at that. And Kyle's role we talked about at NFL fashion editor very interesting job title in itself sounds like he basically created the role almost and he pitched for it to Tim Ellis the CMO of the NFL, and in Trombetta, who was on stage with him yesterday, who looks after influencer marketing at the league.

27:03And we have seen this run of teams, leagues, hiring creative directors, very often from the world of fashion to sort of, I guess, take a look at what the opportunity is. And in terms of, and there will be many, you know, teams and leagues who are sort of looking at that role now as a pretty key one in the future growth of their franchise or their league. What do you think are the primary skill sets for that kind of role? Is it just knowledge of the fashion space or is it something more than that? Who should they be hiring? I mean, like you said, it's definitely the case of knowledge of the fashion space and the fashion industry, I guess like industry is so intricate, but I think it's uniquely relationship based and it's all about the level of access you can have.

27:55And there's such a complex web of PRs, brands, designers, independent labels, agencies that really make up the ecosystem of fashion. And then that's even before you get to navigating something like Fashion Week, where all of these things are all coexisting in one space. And I think hiring someone like Kyle, to use him as an example, who is a former stylist, I honestly think that's the best kind of skill set because stylists are used to working with talent. So the athletes and you've seen Kyle didn't really have a background in sports or knowledge of football at all before he worked in the NFL, but he seamlessly built up relationships with players like Joe Burrow and took them to fashion weeks just because they could bond over that kind of like connectivity to that world and he could help them navigate the fashion industry.