The Ari Emanuel Experience

24:52I don't consult for him. I don't get paid to do anything. You don't?

24:55Matt Belloni:No. You didn't help him move his animation deal from Apple to Netflix? When it was just not, when he was not a Paramount beforehand. Beforehand. Oh yeah, I represented him for 10 years. Okay. Yeah, something like that. But then you just sold him UFC for$7.7 billion. Yeah. You don't think it's weird to be on both sides of that deal? I don't represent him anymore. Okay. He made a transaction for his company. I don't represent him anymore. Okay. And I had multiple bids for it. Okay. Do you think he's made money on that deal so far? You'll ask him. You'll do this with him. Some point. Well, the great thing is now he's going to have 200 million plus Pluto people on service.

25:41And I think that's good for the UFC. And a bunch of our other assets.

25:46Matt Belloni:What are your conversations with David like these days? He's not in the book. And I know you say it's because the book ended before all this started. But you're a pretty big voice in his ear these days. Right. What do you hope he does on day one? with these two studios well i think he's he there's definitely gonna be some cost savings but i do but i do think i don't know how they're going to get to any of that because i haven't looked at but i do think the cto he brought in from facebook is incredible i think it's probably the first time that a tech enabled company is going to come to bear um i think he's the service is going to be able to handle long form and short form he's going to make which has been reported i'm not saying it he's he's going to make 30 movies theatrical release which is great 45 day windows adam aaron other people have like endorsed that he's going to make 170 series he's going to probably as big a budget or bigger budget than most people 30 billion dollars he's he's a guy that has a lot of energy, loves the business, not a financial transaction.

26:57He's in it because he loves it. And I think that's only good for the creative community. And I think at CNN, he's going to put, even though there's controversy with the ADs all, you know, AGs, excuse me, all over the world about the editorial board, he's actually asked to, he would, you know, kind of cover economics if there was a lawsuit. I mean, I think he's doing all the right things. And so I think he's going to bring the two companies together. It's going to be one of the big four. I think that's only good.

27:31Matt Belloni:Even though thousands of creative people, including many of your agency's clients, have been vocally against this. You know, change, hopefully there's one of the things in the book. Change is scary. Really scary. I find it less scary but of course it's scary for me too doing something new it's always scary because I knew what that was what do you mean I gotta adapt and change and think and get out of my comfort zone yeah everybody's gonna have to get out of their comfort zone and over time we'll figure out who's right I think change is inevitable and that's not a bad thing sometimes change is bad and we can look at the political environment and sometimes it's not I think he has all the right, David has all the right intentions of what to do with Paramount, which is good for the community.

28:25Matt Belloni:And he'll survive this politicization. People want to work. You're putting clients there even if they are opposed politically. Yeah. Is that true about AI as well? The change element? Your good friend Jeffrey Katzenberg was on this show last week. Oh. And he was talking about - I didn't listen to that. You did? Did not. Did not. Okay. I'll send you a copy. Please don't. he was talking about how the industry needs to embrace AI. That's his new pitch that he's selling? He sees himself as a bridge between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Take Jeffrey out of it. What is that line? You know, if you believe that, I'll sell you a bridge and whatever.

29:10Matt Belloni:By the way, he says he doesn't remember the whole Lakers tickets. Oh, really? Okay, great. He did not steal your Lakers tickets. Oh, yeah. You're willing to double down on that? Hello, he lies. Okay. Yeah. I had J.R. talk to Jason Lublin. There's a lot of people that were in that town. You thoroughly investigated the Lakers tickets theft issue. Yeah. And it was confirmed that Jeffrey stole your tickets. Well, he tried to. Yeah. Here's what it is, right? He definitely didn't pay us. As David Greenblatt said, he definitely, who represented Jeffrey Lange, didn't pay our package. he definitely and marty edelstein got them with lon rosen before other tickets helped get them before other tickets there was a letter from patty glazer whatever he might not remember it he's old it's okay okay but some people in your book here's the great thing here's the great thing is the horrible thing about jeffrey is you know quibby i mean you know didn't understand what was going on in the marketplace and you know he's a guy that represented that he had president biden's ear was raising all this money to do whatever karen bass and then when it was all over even though a bunch of us were screaming from about biden about his confidence early before him and he was saying no i've talked to him no i'm i'm dealing with it no i can get i can right not that i needed to get through him jeffrey was a chief fundraiser you know he had his ear and he could and then when the election was over i don't want to talk about it anymore like perfect jeffrey like it doesn't benefit me anymore all this was about really my benefit not about the situation he just threw up his hands i'm done with politics right and i just think he's now doing this AI thing with, actually a pretty competent guy.

31:09Suja, his partner. Yeah, he's really competent. Yep. I would say to you the following. Probably the Chinese, through illegal means, are the best at video. Because...

31:24Matt Belloni:So how does the US compete? So he's now going to go and annoy all the studios, as he does well, and try and get them to make it legal, like make it the best and that it's official, right? So that there's some payments. I'm assuming, I don't know this. And I look forward to the studios getting his annoying phone calls, trying to convince them. But it's really all about Jeffrey. And all of his transactions are only about Jeffrey, not about any of the situations, which is the upsetting thing. This is not a Jeffrey podcast, but it is interesting that you've managed to make up with some people that you have feuded with in the past and others you have not.

32:04Matt Belloni:You know, you and Irving Azoff seem to be friendly now, and you had that very public email exchange. I was a complete idiot. Complete idiot. That was a great day when those emails went around. I mean, it was just moronic of me, and I was stupid. But you've also had feuds with people like Barry Diller, and, you know, obviously you are friends. It's not a feud with Barry Diller. I'm not in a feud with Barry Diller. I disagree, again, in this situation, unlike what Kim Master says. JR talked to Michael Rapinoe, other people on the board. My recollection was my recollection, which was more of the facts.

32:43He lost the tax argument, which then enabled Michael to have.

32:47Matt Belloni:This is when you were on the board of Live Nation. Yeah, and so Barry is completely misrepresenting it because other people were there. It was a big board. And great. You know, I don't, I mean, has Barry been an incredible executive throughout his career? Incredible. right is he now inconsequential in the media business yeah completely has no i mean he said that the movie business was over last time i checked the box office pretty good like like and then when he said the movie business was over he wanted to buy paramount like what the fuck are we talking about he also wants to buy cnn if it's for sale he wants to be relevant it's not happening anymore how do you prioritize your calls i roll the calls i know you do but I come in the office and I roll the calls.

33:35Here's how it goes. Family, associates. You call family at four in the morning? No, no, no. Who's on my phone sheet, right? I roll the calls.

33:46Matt Belloni:I understand, but in the morning when you start your day. When I start. You've got a sheet. You've got a call sheet. There's people. I don't have a call sheet in the morning. I have kids on the East Coast. I have brothers on the East Coast. I have clients on the East Coast. I have clients in Asia. I mean, in Europe, clients and friends in the Middle East. I kind of start rolling calls. But I'm talking amongst your clients. Like you've got Rachel Maddow. You've got Tyler Perry. You've got Aaron Sorkin. You've got Martin Scorsese. You've got Pete Byrd, Wayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg. Yeah. How do you prioritize?

34:22Matt Belloni:I've always wondered that about you. Yeah. If you're balancing all of these clients, that's how you get fired. when you don't call a client back before you call somebody else. Right. How do you manage that? I call everybody. And you have these 30-second conversations. Listen, today it was Pete Berg, Tyler Perry, an Aaron Sorkin situation, Guy Ritchie. It just is. What's the worst firing situation you've ever endured? The one that hurt the most. They all hurt. Charlize? Every single one of them because it exposes that you failed. So it's not one. Every single one of them hurts because who wants to realize that you failed?

35:12And when you fail, it's painful. Hopefully coming out of the failure, you're like, okay, I can't. This is where I have to tweak and this is where I have to get better. I think I've done that more than not. I know it's shocking. People fail.

35:32Matt Belloni:Is there a client when you were fired, it was a relief? Thank God. No, it was always a failure. That's not true. I know a lot of reps who are like it feels like a burden off of them. They should be sitting here. You're asking me the question. I'm answering the question. You just don't want to hear the answer. I do. i do i can say if i don't believe you i i have enjoyed everybody i've represented difficult times not difficult times and the times that i have lost clients it's because my fuck up not theirs i've had the pliver of being in business with them and it didn't work out that's my fault is private equity in sports a good thing i think what private equity is trying to do like i'm egon my partner has bought into the uh rate raiders yeah yeah and i think he got a great price and he's been an incredible partner to mark and mark and him are really great together and i think he's added value and marks i think it's incredible i don't really understand all of it but here's what i would say to you it's it's i think it's important for it because i don't think you can get the value that I think these things are worth in teams.

36:46I think at times, I think it's because they don't understand where to play because they do believe in this concept that you need to be in, um, alternatives to AI because the opposite of AI is not a data center. It's live and it's kind of a conversation in life. And they're monopolies. They're, they are, they are

37:03Matt Belloni:a cartel sports leagues. They are legal cartels that operate for the benefit of the owners. I don't define it that way. I think everybody's getting benefit. But at the end of the day, I think they're investing because they believe there's going to be an increase in the price. And I think where sports is going, I think they're right. And you think that's infinite? I don't know if it's infinite. You just said that with your assets, they will never lose value. Here's what I'd say to you. When we started the business, movies, television, it all, and that wasn't true then. it's not true now. And I think sports is still going to increase in value just because of what we said about what's going on with AI and live and et cetera, and where the streamers are going to need it to be.

37:52Matt Belloni:What's the most concerning thing about the entertainment business? I hope, because I don't know this to be true. I think through COVID and kind of my, like I should be the parent, I'm the person supposed to be saying this. I'm actually happy that CA is doing what they're doing with Brian because I think it just bodes well for us. But I don't, we're not, we weren't able, I think it's getting better now. People are in the office now to mentor a lot of people. And so leadership coming in, I think, both on the studio and movie, and it's a little bit more difficult. And I think that's concerning. And I think - There isn't another generation coming out.

38:34Yeah, and I hope, I don't really know. So this is just, I don't want to be a generalist, but I have one son in the business, my son, Ezra. He goes back and watches a lot of movies, watches TV show, consumes a lot. I'm hoping that generation starts doing that because I think it's important to understand the history to go forward. That's not such an ingenious statement. It's a normal statement. But I hope that happens and I hope they're reading a lot and doing all that. on the studio side, on the TV side, and on the executive side, and the producer side.

39:07Matt Belloni:True or false, you once paid your head of communications $10 ,000 to run a marathon because you thought he was overweight. Yes.

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40:37Matt Belloni:We're going to do a lightning round. Whoa. I thought this was. No, no, no. This is going to be... Have you enjoyed this? Yeah, why not? I've owned it. You are 10 times better than almost any other executive I interview because you fight back. You have interesting things to say. It's not always the same canned answers and you aren't afraid to go there. Okay, listen, I always love the conversation I have with you. Well, we're not done yet. Okay, great. Lightning round. Let's do it. All right, so the lightning round is very simple. Quick questions, quick answers. You can pass if you want, but don't pass.

41:11Matt Belloni:That's a wuss move. Okay, most interesting response to the book so far. was from this lady who, because of Entourage, named her kid Ari. Oh, my God. And it was the craziest thing. I sent him a book. You have a great name. I'm trying to get her number. It was insane. You just met this woman on the street? No, no. She texted. Oh, sorry. I'm not supposed to follow up on these questions. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's not lightning. I know. Your biggest failure. uh when i broke up with my wife and my first wife my second wife your second wife and um didn't realize i mean i was just in a horrible place one thing you cut out of the book and why well there's a bunch of stuff i cut out of the book but you had a it was too long what's the one thing most interesting thing that you cut out of the book and why probably the storyline around can't.

42:08Matt Belloni:Bob versus Bob. Are you team Iger or are you team JPEG? They were both great to me. They were both great to you? Both. Okay. If you were CEO of Disney, what's the first thing you would do? I think he's doing it. He's trying to fix the tech's portion of that business, keeping the rest of it running. I think the executive he's put in place are incredible. Dana's incredible. Alan Bergman, the teams are great, but he's fixing the tech, which needs he's got to ramp it. One time you have accepted the first offer. We accepted the first offer with a little bit of tweaks from Egon Durbin. When he first, when Silver Lake first invested.

42:48Matt Belloni:Yes. And why? It was a great offer. He was fair. He's a really fair guy. He's an incredible executive. You were afraid a little bit to push back. We did. Patrick and I did after talking to Nitin, but it was a really fair offer. And it was an indication that he actually understood our business, understood our value. Do you really believe that Elon Musk is a First Amendment free speech absolutist? Yes. And I don't like it all the time. How can you possibly think that when his website X uses its algorithm to promote a certain kind of speech? Knowing him, talking to him, I don't think you really understand the algorithm.

43:33but maybe you know more than I know. I don't think that is the case.

43:37Matt Belloni:You think that it doesn't promote? Only do that, no. Okay. I disagree with a lot of it. And he and I have had this back and forth. It's just that your other client, Aaron Sorkin, just wrote a whole movie. That's actually a social network. That's what I'm saying. That's Facebook. I understand they're different platforms, but they are both chasing the same engagement. And Aaron Sorkin's movie is about Facebook. It's Facebook tweaking its algorithm to promote anxiety and anger and all of the things that X also promotes. So you cannot take what's on Facebook and then equate that to Elon. You can't do that.

44:17Matt Belloni:You think Elon is more responsible with X than Meta is responsible with its platforms? I'm not saying that. Here's what I'm saying. I have had conversations with Elon when I disagree with certain things that are happening on platform. And sometimes I can influence it. Sometimes I can't. But we get into that conversation. I don't have the same relationship. I know Mark, right? He likes UFC. We've talked, right? I don't have these same conversations with Mark. Would you be supportive of Elon becoming an investor in Paramount? That's David's decision. But would you be supportive? That's the question.

44:49What does that mean? You mean, would I buy stock in Elon? Do you think it's a good idea? If Elon is putting in$5 billion,$10 billion, a billion dollars, would I ever buy stock in Paramount? Is that what you're asking me? That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, do you think it's a good idea? The definition of support would now be because it's a public company buying stock.

45:07Matt Belloni:David calls you. Ari, what do you think? We're thinking - He's not called me. I'm creating a scenario. I can't imagine him where he calls me. I'm not that smart. This is a cop out. No, you're past the lightning round. You think it's a good idea. This is not - I believe you think it's a good idea. You would like that. I'm not saying whether I think it's a good - That's David's decision. All right. I don't want to press this on this. Great. Thank you. Can we get to lightning round now? How much did Ryan Reynolds make on his gin? A lot of money. Number, please. I don't know. I don't remember. Like, what the fuck does that have to do with a lightning round?

45:40It's a lightning round. It's not.

45:42Matt Belloni:How often do you eat probiotic worms? Every day. How much every day? I take a bottle a day. This big. True or false. An assistant travels with you and has the probiotic worms in a little briefcase. False. Who feeds you the worms? I take them myself. When you travel? I do it. I carry them. I pack them. Okay. Do you feel it? This is more than 12 on a lightning round. Do you feel it inside your stomach when the worms are at work? No. Biggest payday you've ever negotiated for a star? You want the number? Yeah. I'm not telling. Give me the name or give me the number without the name? No and no. Give me the number without the name.

46:20Matt Belloni:No and no. Can I take a guess? No. I'm not going to even respond. Okay. One client you'd steal from Bryant Lord. I actually like all my clients. No, no, no. But he has great clients. One client you'd steal from Brian Lord. I don't know who he represents. Nor do I care. You know clients that have been with you. I don't know. Who's the ideal buyer for TKO? TKO. Now, someday it'll be for sale. No, it won't. No? No. You don't think a big media company? No. Paramount? No. Comcast? No, not for sale. Amazon? Never. Why? Why would it be? You're an agent. Everything's for sale. Here's the great thing. in 2016 Egon Durbin Mark Chabron myself Patrick saw where sports was going saw where the streamers were going at the time people thought the value we were crazy to pay what we did when we bought IMG the crazy that we paid the two cheapest acquisitions of all time in the sports space with as my son Leo says to me Thursday is baby Friday dad with AI probably Wednesday is going to be the baby Thursday.

47:29There's going to be more free time than ever. People, if we grow at 3 % GDP, we're going to have more money than we've ever had with AI. In my opinion, and I agree with that. Take all the bad things that could happen.

47:40Matt Belloni:Annihilation out of the picture. So you're sitting in a situation that there's going to be more time for people to consume entertainment or social animals. Go out, go to sporting events, consume sports. Sports is the greatest reality show. Right. Of all time. Owning sports assets. Now people are trying to own teams. We don't own four leagues. It's an incredible asset. Yeah. It's ownership rather than the client leaving at night. The value is only going up and to the right. And so Egon Durbin, myself, I mean, there's no chance that that's happening. Zero. All right. Would you. This is 14. This is, I have two final ones.

48:29Would you advise a smart young person to become an agent? Yeah.

48:34Matt Belloni:Today? Yeah. You would? Yeah. You get to see the landscape. You understand how things transact. But the business is so different. It's so hard for people to do what you did. Okay. It was hard back then. Like this whole conversation is like, I don't think you actually have read the book. I have read the book. Here's the great thing. The thing that it's not mentioned in the book. It's so hard. It was hard then. It was very difficult because it's time. It's still hard, but there's huge success that can happen. Yes, it's true. But there was a safety net in the business before, and it was cable television.

49:12Matt Belloni:It was everybody. Now it's volume. You're right. There was packaging. There was secondary markets. There was syndication and station groups. I understand that, which made the whole thing tick. That's why the writers made a bad deal. They should have made it five years before. There were DVDs. Yeah. Now it's streaming, and that is going to become very valuable. There's going to be a lot more of it. So the economics has changed, but the volume is going to take over for where it didn't have it. You think so? Yeah, I do. So the death of the packaging business is not going to be the death of the agencies.

49:46No.

49:47Matt Belloni:Last question. If you were going to do a sequel to the book, how would you start it? My relationship with Matt. with me yeah for real i just said it i don't believe you okay don't believe me i'm not writing a second one no so it doesn't matter you know iger said that and then he's doing a second one do you worry that he might screw around with your laker tickets no i have my laker tickets he's told you that no i i have it in agreement that unless jeffrey comes in again and tries to take them jeffrey's life goal i'm sure to steal back those tickets. All right. Thank you for doing this. Thank you.

50:27Matt Belloni:The book is excellent. Thank you. Did I make you uncomfortable? No, you made me uncomfortable? Did I? Fuck no. I enjoyed this. Okay. This is like my dinner table with my family. I know. I have a Jewish mother also. Yeah, great. Maybe probably not as overbearing as yours. My mom was overbearing, but beautiful. Yeah. My mom never put my report cards on the refrigerator to make fun of me. Maybe that's why you're not as successful as you wanted to be. My report cards were good, though. Okay, mine weren't. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that's the show for today. No call sheet. I want to thank my guest, Ari Emanuel, producer Craig Horlbeck, our editor Steve Allman, and Stefano Sanchez.

51:01Matt Belloni:I want to thank you. We will see you one more time this week.

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