David Levy is the Reason You’re Watching March Madness

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0:29Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. All right, this is Alex. I think it's fair to say for both of us, one of our favorite times of the year, March Madness. It all just gets so exciting. There's so much at stake. I was thinking about this for you from a personal perspective. You've got a daughter at Michigan. You've got a daughter going to Chapel Hill next year. I bet you are you sitting up a little straighter now? Also, you have to sort of pay attention to college basketball for your day job as the owner of NBA and WNBA teams. But are you excited? I'm very excited.

1:02And don't forget, I've been on the board at the University of Miami for over 20 years. So I like my chances. I have three lottery balls. So a decent chance to be happy after March. The other really fun thing about March Madness, which I dragged you into a couple of years ago, and I think very happily, is Bloomberg Brackets for a Cause. This is a contest that we have done, a charity contest. This is our 11th year. I used to do it with our now-retired chairman, Peter Grauer, who's one of yours and my favorite all-time people. He's a Tar Heel, by the way, as you know. People like you pledge$20 ,000, fill out brackets for the men's side and the women's side.

1:41You pick a charity. I believe you're playing for Boys and Girls Club, which I think is very near and dear to your heart. And anyway, if your brackets are the winners, you get all of this pool of money. It's more than a million dollars that is at stake every year. And it goes to some very deserving charities. And you're playing alongside some incredible people, Gary Cohn, Jenny Johnson, Don Cornwell, John Gray. I mean, lots and lots of super interesting people, Dina Powell McCormick. So the competition is fierce. but happy to have you back on this. I'm so excited. I love it all, except every time you ring about something is you want my money, and it costs me thousands of dollars, but it is for a great cause.

2:25What's funny about this week's episode is David Levy was the perfect person to talk to to kick this off because what we will watch over the next couple weeks on television is really a product of work he did decades ago when he was at Turner Sports, really creating the March Madness media template. But I have to think that's something you look at as you think about media for basketball, because it's kind of the gold standard. Well, absolutely. And David Levy's had an incredible career. He's a great communicator. He's very resolute about his opinions. But when you look at unique properties, unique deal structure, he did it with a TNT-CBS combo, which was at first hard to follow.

3:06But he explains very clearly of how it did it, the structure, the finances around it. it was pretty awesome. And look, there's nothing like March Madness. Everybody follows a little bit like the Super Bowl. And it's so cool. Totally. And, you know, it's over a course of a couple of weeks. I mean, the productivity drops as everybody's looking at their brackets and watching, especially as the games kick off. No hope for my Georgetown Hoyas again. I mean, I was barely a tween when they were when they were actually the last time they were actually good. So David Levy, he's now gone on to be the founder and CEO of Horizon in sports and experiences.

3:41And, you know, we take we take a pretty hard turn over the course of this conversation away from basketball and into pickleball, naturally. I mean, it's fascinating to hear him talk about, you know, the media potential there, the star players that are coming on board. We had a lot of fun with them. Yeah. And look, I think when you describe David Levy's career, his great relationship, Adam Silver being one of them, and he does not take no for an answer. He figures out a way. How do we think outside the box and how do we land at a yes? And he did that exactly with TNT and CBS. And I'm really interested to see how his next venture works out.

4:19Yeah, exactly. He's got a great Shaq story that he shares. So that's a deep tease, as we say in the business. All right, coming up, David Levy, the founder and CEO of Horizon Sports and experiences.

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5:09Welcome back to the DLM. Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. We are so excited to have David Levy with us. He is the CEO, co-founder of Horizon Sports and Experiences, has an incredible history and legacy in the media world. David, Alex and I talk about this stuff all the time. We're heading into March Madness. It's the perfect time to talk with you because you're the architect of so many big deals. First of all, just great to see you. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you both, Alex and Jason. Happy to be here. All right, let's talk about March Madness because Alex and I are both huge college basketball fans.

5:48You and I have some beef, Georgetown versus Syracuse, but you're clearly winning that battle. Yeah, I don't know anymore these days, but yes, we do have a slight advantage over the years. Yes, exactly. But talk to us about March Madness and the media side of it, because you were the architect of a deal that probably stands as one of the most seminal in the sports media landscape where you get two competitors together in a way that really elevates what we see on TV. So give us the backstory there. Yeah, this was a landmark deal that I don't think will ever be replicated again. You know, it was taking two different media companies with very, very different cultures and combining them to form one company or one opportunity to showcase this incredible event.

6:41So you're talking about Turner, where you were, and CBS, just to set the table. Yes. And it was a bunch of different circumstances that led to this incredible deal. and Sean McManus, who was the architect on the other side of this equation. You know, what was happening at CBS at the time, they were at the eighth year of an 11-year deal that at that moment in time, they were not making money from. And in fact, they were trying to figure out a way to possibly drop March Madness from CBS. And that was more corporate than I would say Sean and the CBS sports team who love and breathe that product. It was getting down to maybe money-making decisions.

7:23At the same time, March Madness, the NCAA, was interested to thinking about maybe expanding to 96 teams. And they were out in the marketplace sort of seeing were there any other opportunities to get the other side or the incremental games on top of what CBS was doing. And that's when I got a call from Greg Shaheen who at the time was representing the NCAA, seeing if Turner had any interest in the property. And since CBS was sort of in this unusual stage of, should we keep it? Should we not keep it? Sean and I sat together and said, listen, is there an opportunity for us to do this together? And my first comment to Sean was, listen, as long as that's not a cable deal for Turner and a broadcast, and you got to go back into the early 90s and 2000s.

8:17This was actually 2000. This deal was struck in 2010. The first year we aired it was 2011. Back then, there were a lot of deals that were called cable deals versus broadcast deals, where cable would get the early rounds and broadcasts would get the finals and semifinals, or cable would get Thursday, Friday golf, and the broadcast would get Saturday and Sunday. And I said, we're not going in in that way, Sean. If we're going in, we're going 50-50. meaning that Turner will air the semifinals and finals every other year or something of that nature. And he totally got it. He said, I get it because he wanted to keep it with CBS.

8:53And he knew without a partner, he wouldn't have gotten it done. And I knew I needed CBS because I don't think I would have gotten the NCAA to put all the games on Turner and not have any broadcast coverage. So there was a win-win on both sides. Yeah. And then we had to sit down and talk about sharing talent. Was Charles Barkley and and Ernie and Kenny going to be able to be on the air? And then we had to think about the broadcast trucks. Right. You know, and union versus non-union trucks. It was a very complex deal that in the end, the most important thing that Sean and I said from the beginning was we need to think of the consumer first.

9:33Because prior to that, 2010, CBS did regionals. That means if you were on the West Coast, you saw the games that CBS thought you wanted to see. And if you were on the East Coast, they did the games at the East Coast they thought they wanted to see. And the idea that we pitched to the NCAA, which obviously worked, which was let's air all the games on all different channels, which is unheard of. And at some point, Jim Nance had to say, we have a blowout game here on CBS. Go to TruTV and watch this. It's going into overtime, Syracuse versus Georgetown, so to speak. Right. But we were telling people to leave one channel, which is unheard of.

10:15And the reason was because all the money was pooled under one umbrella and split even. That's incredible. I mean, David, that's I was telling Jason off air that I remember how confusing that was because you had Grand Hill, you had all these broadcasts. I've never seen that before. It's truly groundbreaking. But, you know, Adam Silver once said that, you know, David Levy is a media executive, basically wizard and a visionary. Right. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. And you're synonymous with big deals and big, big superstars, whether the Shaq. Right. Was this something that you had from day one, the ability to put deals together and attract the best talent in the world to come work for you?

10:54I was dealing with negotiations at a very young age, whether it was working in flea markets. I played club hockey at Syracuse and had to go raise money for the club hockey team and always trying to deal with organizations and people. But no, I didn't realize where I was going to end up. I started out an advertising agency called SSC &B and figured out very quickly that being on the ad side wasn't going to make as much money if I was on the sales side. And so, you know, I got on the sales side very quickly and was hired by Ted Turner in 1987 and stayed with Turner Broadcasting for 33 years. I left in 2019 with many different jobs, obviously one of them being the president of Turner Sports.

11:39So, you know, being in that uprising cable days when, you know, Ted used to say, you know, cable is cool. And then, you know, Ted having the vision, to be honest with you, to buy the first NFL Sunday night package, which launched TNT, working with David Stern and the NBA. We had the NBA on TBS with the Hawks and we moved it into a national package when we got the NBA overall and putting it on TNT. So it was just being a part of an organization and learning from the best, I would say, golden gut man in the business, which is Ted Turner. Well, that's exactly where I was going. I mean, I've been a huge fan of Ted Turner for so long.

12:23talking about a visionary, all the great things that people are doing today. He was doing 40 years ago with the Superstation, with the Hawks and the Braves. What are a few things that you learned working for Ted? It's a great question there, Alex. What I learned from Ted is this, you need to have a golden gut. You need to actually go with your gut. Yes, everybody can give you the data and you should take the data and you should get the understanding and you should understand all the good, the bad and the ugly. But at the end of the day, your gut's going to tell you whether you should do it or not.

12:53And I will tell you a lot of Booz Allen's and consulting firms told Ted not to launch CNN, that no one would watch 24 hours of news. He did it anyhow. And so he thought things very differently. So I live by that and I learned from that. And I knew the best way, the only way we could do this deal was with CBS. Yeah. And when we were negotiating with the NBA for all those years and dealing with David Stern and then Adam Silver, you know, we had to come up with creative ways. We were, Turner was always the underdog, right? It's easy for ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN. And Turner, we had to scrap harder and think outside the box, you know, and figure out ways to work with them.

13:45And the NBA, one of the ways we did that was when we formed NBA Digital, you know, a profit sharing business with the NBA. And we helped develop League Pass and helped build out all of their NBA Digital products at the time. And that was a way for us to be different than our competitors that wouldn't be doing that. Yeah, which was way ahead. Yeah, I mean, Alex, you obviously know this intimately now, being in the NBA and WNBA business, but that obviously that league pass was a game changer and so far ahead of its time. You know, one of the things on the on the talent side, David, that that we have to talk about because, you know, it has become so celebrated and oft imitated and never quite duplicated, which is the NBA on TNT.

14:30And, you know, those four guys, that combination, you know, everyone who's in our business, the business that all three of us are in, is constantly searching for that sort of holy grail. One of the most interesting stories I've heard about you is putting that massive piece that is known as Shaquille O 'Neal into that mix. Tell us that story. Well, first of all, you know, I can't take credit for that show. That show happens on its own. It's magic in a bottle. And each piece is important piece of the puzzle, including the executive producer, Tim Kiley, which I think without Tim Kiley, that show doesn't doesn't perform the way it performs today.

15:14But, yes, we had Kenny or EJ and Charles. So Kenny, Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley, just for, you know, those who aren't, you know, so well acquainted. And they were Emmy Award winning. And we would rotate that fourth seat, you know, whether it be Kobe Bryant sitting in it or whoever at the moment was most important at the time. And then Shaq retired. And everybody was like going after and figure out who can get Shaq. And of course, ESPN at the time and still today, I mean, you can see that ESPN actually took the inside the NBA show. So they knew they had a less superior product than what was airing on TNT.

15:57And I knew they were going to go after Shaq in a big way. And I knew they were going to pay him more. But my team really wanted him. And so we flew out to L.A. But the uniqueness of that meeting was I didn't just bring the Turner Sports people. I brought Warner Brothers. I brought my true TV people because I knew he was in detectives and wanted to do maybe some unscripted type programming with them. I brought animation with me in case there was cartoons. We were talking about our whole company as a whole, and we were going to open up the moment for that. But the key line that I think you're talking about, Jason, is what was I going to open up with?

16:35And I couldn't figure it out until I was going up in the elevator. I walked in, we all shook hands and I sat down and I said, Shaq, there are people that want you and there are people that need you. We don't need you. I already have an Emmy award winning show. This is going to be a big risk for me, but I'm here with all these people because I want you. And I think you're going to be very successful. And he goes, never in my life have I heard anybody say they don't need me. it was uh it was a very good opening line and it's been memorialized many times and Shaq always reminds me when I see him he says I don't need you I want you so David that's the hot corner over there all the way on the left if you're watching the show let's go to your first baseman your anchor over here with Charles uh Charles has told me look I try to retire a few times but David Levy wouldn't let me yeah he will come out to Arizona and bring me back.

17:33Why is Charles so magical on TV? It's simple. It really is. It's authenticity. You know, I mean, I would have owners calling me at night, weekends, and the same, you know, I don't like what Charles saying. And I don't, and I always said back, I said, is there anything he miss said from a standpoint of wrong? Is anything factually wrong? And if it was factually wrong, I could go back to Chuck and say, you are factually wrong. But I paid Chuck for opinions. And that's what he was giving, you know. And I mean this, you need a great ringleader, right? Ernie's one of the best ringleaders I know in the business.

18:15He would let conversations go and miss segments in his show if they needed to. And that was allowed, you know, under my leadership and Tim Kiley, because, you know, good, great conversation should never be cut off. Most studio people go, you know, they're in this great conversation and the host will say, listen, we'll get back to that later. But in the meantime, tomorrow night, right, if it was a great conversation, we might blow out commercials. Okay. Yeah. And the point was, you can't let great television not succeed, right? And not be there for the consumer. So Ernie was the ringmaster. But he also, in case Charles ever got in trouble, which, you know, We all know he's said a few lines, but we all kind of raise our eyebrows to.

19:00Ernie may go back and say, Chuck, now just to make sure I'm clear, what you really meant was this. So he may catch either Chuck or Kenny or Shaq in something and make sure that it was handled in a live television rather than the way social media attacks some of the commentators today. Yeah.

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20:04So I have to say, you know, as we're talking about talent, David, and, you know, you're a star maker in a lot of ways. And one of the most fascinating things I've watched you do over the past few years is get deep into the business of pickleball. It is not something that that I really saw coming. I think, you know, Alex being I'm currently down here in South Florida as well. You know, you can't go 20 feet without hearing or seeing a pickleball court. And yet it feels like it's at this catalytic moment with the participant game, the professional game. game and I've kept an eye on it only because of the the star power that you've been able to bring in.

20:48Former guest on this show Maria Sharapova I believe was involved a couple years ago. You've got Andre Agassi coming back. Tell us what you think happens next with the game of pickleball and why it's essentially investable at this point. Well let me start off by saying you know three years ago I started an agency with my partner Chris Weil and our other third partner Bill Konigsberg, a company called Horizon Sports and Experiences. And we wanted to build out a different type of sports marketing agency, one that would also invest in IP, create IP, and be a little bit unique in that space. And we wanted to focus on a few areas that we thought were white space three years ago.

21:29Women's sports, which obviously now everybody is understanding the ROI eye on what's happening on women's sports. We looked at Formula One and ways to get our clients into Formula One. We looked at racket sports, soccer and golf. So let's go into racket sports. Overall, we felt that tennis was going to be back on the rise, which I think you can obviously see from what's happening with the ratings again. And then we saw the rise of pickleball and the participation. But going back to my Turner days, when I launched the match back in 2000, I think it was 18 tiger versus phil nine million dollars winner take all pay-per-view golf event talk about being outside the box that was about star power yeah so thinking like that and thinking about the pickleball space i wasn't sure whether pickleball was going to be a televised sport but i knew that i put the best brand names in racket sports and the first one was agassiz and Roddick playing McEnroe and Chang, okay, all slam winners playing for a million dollar purse live on ESPN at the Hard Rock Casino, I knew I'd have something because the participation was up and I had the brand names and it was authentic.

22:49People want to know that there's money on the line or something on the line. And so what's coming up in April is our fourth slam, believe it or not. And this time we're taking the number one pickleball player in the world. And if you're living under a rock, you don't know her, but her name is Anna Lee Waters. She just signed with Nike. Okay. So Nike did a deal with her. She signed with Franklin Rackets and she's won over a hundred events. She's 19 years old, rock star, and she's playing with Jeannie Bichard and they're playing against Agassi and James Blaine. And it's winner take all, men versus women, mano a mano.

23:29And there's no change in rules. There's no nothing. And it's a million dollar purse. And this will be a real interesting event. It's going to be on primetime on ESPN on April 15th. I don't know whether pickleball in general is going to be a televised sport, but things like destination programming like this will. All right, Alex, last question to you. You're batting cleanup here. All right, David, what is the future of college sports? How does it look like for you? I mean, college athletics is going to be it's almost like separating football and basketball out from the rest. Yeah. You know, the NIL marketplace today is really changing college athletics to the point where there are athletes today that may consider not going pro and actually staying in school.

24:17And I saw that. And let's use your women side of the equation. the name of Luth right now, but the number two pick in the WNBA draft last year was going to be a woman from Notre Dame. Olivia Miles is the player you're talking about. Olivia Miles. Thank you very much. And she decided not to take the number two slot in the WNBA, number two pick. She decided to stay in school for a fifth year and then go into the transfer report. So she didn't even stay at Notre Dame. She left and went to another school. Listen, for the NBA, you're not in the first round. If you're in the second round, you may make more money staying and have a better chance of more getting better, possibly more recognized, staying in college and not take second round money.

25:04Now, I don't know if that's bad or good, to be honest with you. You know, maybe the NBA doesn't want these second round people coming out. Right. And this is a way that they can mature more and become better players. I mean, you're seeing it right now, even at the college level for the high school. You have coaches like Rick Pitino publicly out saying, if you're a high school kid, don't call me. I'm not interested. Like they can look in Division II, Division III schools and find a better, maybe a better point guard. That's already been shown. Think how much a young Alex Rodriguez could have made a Westminster Christian without ever even going One of the Seattle Mariners.

25:43David, I needed an agent like you, I would have been just fine. Yeah, exactly. You know, just to answer, to finish up, I think college has a big question mark on it. I think there's going to have to be some guardrails somewhere along the line. But right now, it's the wild, wild west. And if you can raise money and you can have your NIL and your rev share, schools like Ohio State and Michigan, you know, they're going to continue to stay dominant because of money and revenue. Yeah. All right, David, this was super fun. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you, guys. Take care.

26:16Thank you, David.

26:22The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly. And this episode was made by Alexis Haught and Stacey Wong. Will Connolly is our video editor. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers are Ashley Zingaro and Amy Keene. Additional support from Rachel Carnevale, Nick Silva, and Elena Saus Angeles. Thanks so much for listening to The Deal. If you have a minute, subscribe, rate, and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us. I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.