‘The Great Re-bundling’: Can The NBA Secure A $100 Billion Rights Deal?

Forbes

Michael Schreiber, the CEO of Playfly Sports, a sports marketing and technology firm, joins Forbes senior writer Jabari Young at the Nasdaq MarketSite to share his insights on the rapidly changing sports media landscape. Schreiber also expresses confidence in the NBA’s ability to eventually land a groundbreaking $100 billion media rights agreement.  Established in 2020, Playfly Sports handles media rights for NBA, NHL, MLB teams and college programs, including the University of Nebraska and Penn State. Schreiber indicates that Playfly Sports has expanded to nearly 1,000 employees, mainly through acquiring in-house Fox Sports marketing divisions in 2020 to establish the company.  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00It's the great rebundling, it's more and more people watch content on mobile devices and Ditch Cable

00:06will introduce you to the company that says they're in position to take advantage of it all

00:09and challenge some major competitors in the process, taking you inside the world

00:14of sports licensing and media rights right now at the Nasdaq.

00:20Hello everyone, it's Jabbar Young here at the Nasdaq Market site and I am joined by Michael

00:24Schreiber. He is the CEO of Playfly Sports, a marketing agency that leverages professional

00:31collegiate IP. You see those small icons that pop up during your games to show little ads,

00:37GMC, Toyota. Well this guy, he helps sell them all, naming rights, media rights, all of that stuff.

00:42Michael, welcome to the Nasdaq man, I appreciate the time. Thank you for having me here, this is

00:46amazing, I really appreciate it. Well no problem man. Well listen, as we're here, we'll go deep

00:50into your company in a second because you have such an extensive background, I can't wait to

00:53dive into it man. I always love talking to you about the business, but we're here at the Nasdaq,

00:57right? Give me a stock, something that you've watched, something that you may have owned that

01:00did well for you. Talk to that young investor, what should they be looking at? Sure, well I think

01:04what you can see when you get to sports media is the trend towards streaming. So streaming,

01:08streaming, streaming. One of the coolest stats that I've seen recently is that when you look

01:13at the breakdown of consumption of media, streaming is now the largest. So it's about 37%

01:20according to Nielsen, 37% of all consumption. When you strip that back, cable is now about 30%,

01:27broadcast is about 25%, there's another category. So streaming is number one now in terms of

01:32consumption. So take that back to your question in terms of stocks, tell me who one of the biggest

01:37streaming players is in the marketplace, right? You can name Amazon, you can name Netflix getting

01:43into the sports game, right? And you can keep going. Even Hulu, which we can get into as part

01:46of my background, is the founding of Hulu. But ultimately that category is an area for growth. So

01:53I'm not giving any investment advice of course, but if I were to say where to think about the

01:58future, it's definitely streaming media and streaming media of sports, which is very different.

02:03Yeah, well are you bullish on the FUBU TVs of the world? Because that's, they are a public

02:07company, right? And this is their background, streaming, especially sports. Would you say

02:12that that is something that you? Yeah, they're a hybrid. They're a hybrid between the cable bundle

02:16and streaming, right? If you looked at those stats, they're probably in the streaming stats

02:19from that perspective. But they are a hybrid, so it's really interesting to see. But they focus on

02:24sports, right? There's them, there's the new product, the joint venture between the media

02:28companies that's creating a competitor to FUBU. So there's a lot of interest in that. And the fact

02:34is, is that the live sports content drives that bundle. So FUBU's onto something,

02:40this JV's onto something, and you're going to see that continue to happen. There's a ton of content

02:45out there, but live sports content is the premium, it's the top, it's the pinnacle. And we can talk

02:50about those fans and why it's the pinnacle, not only for viewership, but for marketers. Yeah,

02:54absolutely, man. Listen, it rules the world, right? It's why the NBA just landed $75 billion.

02:59I think I broke that, but I'm not going to say it. They don't ever give you the credit,

03:02so you got to take it away from them, you know? I like it. But listen, man, before we go, and again,

03:06cable, your background and establishing Hulu as well. I always like to, when I talk to you,

03:11I always like to start off with one of your favorite quotes from Mark Cuban, right? You

03:14learn to sell, you can learn to do anything. Why is that your favorite quote? I never asked you that.

03:18Yeah, well, so selling is always part of business, right? Whatever you're doing, right? It's not

03:24actually selling a product. You could be selling an idea. Starting PlayFly Sports, I had to sell

03:29the idea to investors to give me capital to build the business. Even on a daily basis, you're talking

03:36about whatever it is. A lot of times right now, it's about, for me, it's building culture. We've

03:40gotten pretty large at this point, about a thousand people, and it's about making sure we're selling

03:44the dream and the inspiration of what PlayFly Sports is all about to our people, and having

03:48them make sure they sign up and understand what we're building, because it's not easy. It's hard

03:52work. So selling continues to be my daily life, no matter what part of the business, whether it's

03:58actually selling a product or selling that inspirational view to my teammates. Well,

04:03sell me on PlayFly Sports, man. I think I know what it is. Again, this is a company that was founded

04:08in 2020. Our good friend, Ike Richman, called me up and says, hey man, you got to meet this guy

04:14in September 2020, and it sells regional and national advertising to the regional sports

04:19networks, better known as RSNs. They have a consultancy division, so you handle naming rights

04:24and digital media rights for teams. A college business where you guys are competing against

04:28the Laird Field IMGs of the world, and based in Devon, PA, and you just said about a thousand

04:33employees. Long-term creation, or best commercial practices. That's what you guys have. Take me

04:40inside of this company, man. Exactly. Did I explain what it does correctly, and what else do you have

04:44to add? I don't know if you need me here. That was pretty good. I mean, listen, I follow this company very well, man.

04:48Everybody in the business, all the teams know about PlayFly. You handle all their media rights,

04:53but how does it make money? What are you thinking about, and for somebody who wouldn't

04:56know about this business, how would you explain it? Great. Well, thanks for that. I appreciate it.

05:00Yeah, the interesting thing is we started the business in 2020 when there were no sports

05:05being played, so one of the lines that I love, and really the way I think about it is, and the way I

05:09got my investors in at a time when no sports was being played, is that really sports are forever.

05:14Pandemics are temporary. Sports are forever, and if you think about it, that's sports fan. You get your

05:19sports fandom on average from 0 to 17 years old. Everybody does, and you keep it until you die,

05:28right? And if you think about it, there's only a few things that are that certain. Death, taxes,

05:31and sports fandom. Yeah, yeah. Right, and you know, when you even, when we polled people using

05:37PlayFly Insights and said, okay, what are the most important things in your life? Obviously,

05:41friends and family came up first. Maybe, luckily, friends and families came up first,

05:44but sports fandom came before jobs, pets, a whole bunch of other things. Sports fandom. So,

05:50it just tells you how important that is. So, I wanted to build a business that utilized that

05:54fandom. Not only national fandom, but local fans. Sports are not, you're not really, you don't really

05:59have fans of national things. You have fans of teams, local fans. So, that was the pinnacle.

06:05I wanted to build a business around that, and that's what we did. What we have now at PlayFly

06:10Sports is the largest sports marketing gateway in the country. We're mostly U.S. We're starting to

06:15look outside the U.S., but what we do is we help brands and teams matchmake. So, in essence, we

06:21take all of the activity that a team's got, whether it's their media, whether it's TV or

06:27streaming, the biggest growing category for PlayFly Sports, or whether it's their in-venue or their

06:32activations that they have on site. All of those can be set up and create a network effect so we

06:38can sell them to the biggest advertisers. For example, one team isn't going to be able to sell

06:43to the largest advertisers in the country, and one advertiser, a big national advertiser, isn't

06:48going to be able to get to every team. So, we do that. That's what we do. That's the cornerstone of

06:52PlayFly Sports, that gateway. We sit in the middle and create that network effect between all those

06:57brands. So, when you see that bug on the screen, when you see that ad on the jersey, most likely,

07:02we helped create, in some way, that network effect to get that brand onto that jersey and get that

07:08revenue flowing. So, ultimately, the brands can get in front of those fans, and we call them forever

07:13fans because, ultimately, as I mentioned, you never lose your fandom. Yeah, absolutely. How does it make

07:18money? I mean, I'm assuming that you take, you know, obviously, the fees and associated with all

07:22of these contracts that you do to help leverage his IP and make money in between, almost like the

07:27new middleman. The coolest thing about what we do is we only make money when everybody else wins.

07:32Right. So, when the match happens is when we make the money. So, ultimately, if we can get the brand

07:38to activate with the team, and if we can get the team to help the brand, ultimately, that's when

07:43we get paid, and we get a rev share off of the experience that, off of the transaction that

07:47happens that we create. So, we do it through exclusive rights. Sometimes, we're the exclusive

07:52seller of the inventory. Sometimes, we're the exclusive partner of the brand, and then we do it

07:56on non-exclusive basis a lot of times, as well, where we actually see the opportunities and help

08:00everybody. But, ultimately, the size that we are now managing most, some partnership with most of

08:06the pro teams in the U.S. and the top athletic departments, we have this ability to see the whole

08:11sports ecosystem in the U.S. Yeah. So, we can actually see where the opportunities lie, whether

08:16it's for a team or for a brand. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unless your competitors are your agencies

08:20like CAA, XL, Octagon, right, Wassermans of the world, and, you know, again, the Lerefro IMGs.

08:27When you look inside the business, though, right, again, sports marketing, you and me talk about

08:31this all the time. You hear your pundits, right, that this is a business because you guys sit in a

08:35very interesting seat within the ecosystem because there are teams like the Yankees who may not need

08:40PlayFly because their brand speaks for itself, but then maybe the team like the Pacers or something,

08:45they may need PlayFly because, again, you guys, you got to expand their brand, but then you hear

08:49about the other side of it, right. You're promising these guaranteed rights and then you get caught up.

08:53I mean, Lerefield found themselves in 1.1 billion dollars of bad debt because they merged and, you

08:58know, caught up in that. So, you have these huge guarantees at the top, right, and when you

09:02have that much guarantee, like, how do you still be able to make money in the middle?

09:06It's a great question. So, I don't want to speak to any competitors directly, but you can make

09:12bad financial decisions for your company in terms of creating situations, but the fundamentals of

09:16the business aren't necessarily bad. At the ultimate range, you structure a deal to get

09:22exclusive rights that you think you could beat over time. So, you're making a bet based on your

09:26company's capabilities, nothing else. Not about the industry, it's about your company's capabilities.

09:30If you think you can create better rates, if you think you can create more fan data off of

09:36these elements, if you think we can create more value, more growth over time, we do. We use fan data,

09:41we use sponsorship best practices across the industry, we have this visibility between

09:46college, pro, high school, and youth where we can see all of it. So, ultimately, when we make those bets,

09:52we, on pretty much a majority basis, are figuring out how to make money. Now, it's not day one.

09:59The cool thing about this strategy is you're willing to take a bet day one and you start

10:03making money maybe day two, day three, and day four, not day one. So, the ultimate goal here is to continue

10:08to build and show progress over time and then come back to all these partners and show them,

10:14and they see it over time, all the success, all the brands that end up on their jerseys, on their

10:18broadcasts, whatever it might be, and ultimately they sign up again. And as you renew over time,

10:24those relationships get stronger, those commitments are less required.

10:29Yeah, yeah. Well, if I was to say, if you give me an example, the deal out there that I always

10:34look to is the 15-year, $300 million deal with University of Nebraska. Sure. That deal, right,

10:40on the whole, somebody sees that and they say, okay, Playfly has promised Nebraska $300 million

10:46over 15 years. How do you make money and what must you make in order to maybe see that return

10:51on investment? $330, $350? What money do you have to make to avoid that span of 15 years?

10:56Yeah, it's a great question. When you have public universities you do work with.

10:59Yeah. Your numbers get out. Your numbers get out. It's part of the requirements. That's exciting and

11:04interesting part of the whole industry, especially the college sports industry, is the public

11:08element of the largest players like Nebraska. So, Nebraska was really an organization, and there's

11:16many others that we have a structure with, that was just trying to think a little bit ahead of

11:20where the world was. College sports is changing. I'd love to dive into all the changes here if we

11:25have time around college sports. It's a wild time in college sports. The one thing we all know

11:30is that every year going forward in college sports is going to be different. That's the

11:34only thing we know. Everything else is probably going to change in some way or another. Nebraska

11:39saw that. They were willing to push the envelope. They committed a whole bunch of flexibilities

11:43going forward in terms of allowing us to be innovative and try new things. I'll give you

11:47one example here in a minute. So, we saw all of that innovation and flexibility and we said,

11:52that goes into our business model. That goes into our growth plan, and you can see

11:57when we build our models how we're going to exceed that big number that you referenced,

12:02and we're going to exceed that significantly, not only for our own benefit because we get a

12:06revenue share of that exceeding, but for Nebraska's benefit because they get a revenue share over that

12:10big number too. So, ultimately, that type of partnership is what we look for. I'll give you

12:14one example. So, Nebraska, a year after we struck our deal, worked with us and created actually one

12:22of the largest, sorry, still the single largest women's sporting event in the history of the

12:27United States. That's right, yeah. So, they took their amazing volleyball team, women's volleyball

12:31team, put down a court in the middle of their football stadium, Memorial Stadium. They put

12:3692,000 people in that stadium. That's bigger than an NFL stadium. That was epic. Now, remember,

12:41college stadiums are bigger than NFL stadiums. So, larger crowd than an NFL game, sitting there

12:47watching the amazing volleyball. We had flyovers. We had new sponsors come in. That type of innovation

12:54is how you get paid back for those things, and you need a partner as well to do that,

12:58and Nebraska was that partner. Yeah, I can find a volleyball team if you can promise me 90,000

13:02people to put in the stadium. I know I can, man, but listen, you hop in the news, right, into your

13:07company, and again, we'll dive back into just how you built in, and you know you had to use some of

13:11your own money, and you have investors, Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the main investors,

13:15but some of the moves or one of the major moves that's going on right now in your C-suite is that

13:20you passed over to CEO Helm, to Craig Sloan was in your company, and you're taking the executive

13:25chairman role, right? What was the decision behind that, and how does that conversation go? Because

13:30a few months ago, me and you were hanging out, chicken and pizza, and all of a sudden you were CEO, and now

13:34you're executive chairman. Yeah, yeah. So, we're doing a transition this fall. Thanks for

13:38bringing that up. Yeah, it's exciting for me, and for the whole company, and our investors. What

13:42we've done, so we are about to hit our four-year anniversary, so we're still a young company. We

13:46built our company through acquisitions as our original consolidation base. Yeah, you used the

13:52cheat code. Yeah, exactly, when I talked about selling, right? Not only do you sell to get the money in, you have

13:56to sell to talk someone into selling you their company, right? So, but ultimately, to put this

14:02company together, we did that during COVID four years ago, and we've been in startup mode, and startup

14:07mode is very different than industrial mode. Startup mode, when you think about it, it's you got

14:12to move fast, everything's off the cuff, and you got to go as fast as possible, and we wanted to, we wanted

14:17to go faster than our competitors, better and deeper than our competitors quickly. So, we've been

14:21running solid for a sprint for four years, and as we come up on our four-year anniversary here in

14:26September, we've now got big enough, bright enough, and focused enough to have institutional management

14:32set up for our company, and that's what I've been doing over the last year, and Craig has been helping

14:37me as the president of the company, setting up amazing leaders in each of our different divisions

14:43to really be owners of those categories, everything from our media division to our properties and

14:48exclusive rights divisions, etc., to now have this institutional management. It actually allows

14:54Craig to level up and take day-to-day management running this large company that we have now,

15:00and it allows me to step into that, back, really back into that business building mode

15:05that I started in when we were in startup mode, but ultimately becoming an institutionalized CEO,

15:11I couldn't spend enough time on. So, it's a great setup now. Craig runs the company, amazing

15:16operational leader and sports marketing leader with 30 years of history in this space, and now me

15:22as a business builder leader coming in and thinking about things about our next growth opportunities,

15:27more M&A strategies, thinking about capital markets, and all these elements that are going to make our

15:33company continue to grow as fast as we have in the first four years. Yeah, well, four years as a CEO,

15:37right? I mean, this is not your first stint. You were at Altice USA, the cable giant, getting to that in

15:41one minute, getting to your background, but what's the biggest positive surprise that you had as a CEO?

15:46You know what? It's our culture. People rally around inspiration, and if you can provide that

15:53for them, that's something that I didn't expect. We started the company with two big culture

15:57challenges. One was we started the company in COVID. Everybody was at home. You couldn't get everybody

16:01in the room and rally around and say, here's what we're going to do today. Couldn't happen. The other

16:06is because we're a consolidation play, we were buying cultures. We bought companies with our

16:10own cultures and put them all together. So two challenges there. So the biggest surprise is

16:15that we could create this culture in the world of the challenges, and actually now

16:20we've won best places to work from two major trade organizations in the sports industry,

16:25and people really believe in the charter of building this company and being part of something,

16:30right? If you think about it, what we're building, and you mentioned a set of amazing brands that

16:35you put in our competitor set, and those companies have been around for 20, 30, sometimes even more,

16:41right? We've been around for four years. So our teammates believe in what we're building and

16:46are part of it, and it's part of their legacy in addition to mine. So that's the most surprising,

16:50exciting thing for me. And with positives, there are negatives. What's the biggest negative surprise

16:53you had as CEO? Was it the family that you couldn't spend a lot of time with your kids? Yeah, you know

16:57the fun thing about, yes, so working so hard, but the cool thing about what I've done is I've

17:02integrated my family into my work life. So the family part is tough, but I'll take my kids and

17:08when I have to go to sporting events, come with me, right? When I have to fly too, and it

17:12sounds like a chore to fly to the Final Four. No, that sounds like luxury. Yeah, but come with

17:19me, right? And then even so, the actual name of the company, when I was sitting there, my kids

17:24were in COVID school, virtual school, sitting at home doing middle school, you know, in another

17:28room. I'm sitting there working on developing the company. At lunchtime, they came over and we

17:33picked the name of the company together. So we created the list, we went to one of the domain

17:37sites, available, nope, available, nope, playfly.com, available. Wow. And my kids and I picked the name

17:42of the company. So trying to involve yourself with your family was so important for me because

17:46I'm working so hard and they see it, but they're part of it. They're part of the journey. They've

17:50seen this whole arc over the four years. So that just makes me proud. And it's one of those legacy

17:54elements that is now embedded in my kids when they think about what they're going to do for

17:58their job. So it's just exciting for me. Well, speaking of kids, man, you almost have to

18:01dive back into your background, right? You grew up in Baltimore. You always tell the famous story

18:05that at age 10 years old, this guy wakes up, right? And then you find out that the Baltimore

18:11Colts had dashed, right? They're getting out of there. And that was just devastating for you at

18:15age 10 years old. You remember that moment, man, which kind of fueled you to kind of take on the

18:20role it is. Flashback to that, man. You get home and you're just so happy and all of a sudden you're

18:25sad. Yeah. So the Colts, they left in the middle of the night. The crazy thing is when we talk

18:30about sports media or media in general, the way I found out as a kid, I got an evening newspaper

18:36dropped on our doorstep. Evening newspaper. Baltimore Evening News, right? Yeah, there you

18:39go. Evening Sun. Evening Sun. So that just gives you a sense of how quickly media is changing. But

18:46ultimately, yeah, as a kid, I was a Colt, all of my Halloween costumes. And I didn't understand

18:52the business of sports. I work in the business of sports now, and it really has led me to that. But

18:56I didn't understand the business sports. I understood the passion, the fan passion,

18:59because I was sitting there as a 10-year-old just crying about the Colts. Like, how could the Colts

19:04leave? That doesn't make sense. What does that mean? I thought they're part of Baltimore. How

19:07are they able to leave? So as a kid, you start understanding and learning about the business

19:12of sports. And that's really one of the driving forces that's led me to where I am today. And

19:18it's kind of interesting, actually, and just to stick with the Baltimore concept for a moment,

19:21even the Baltimore Orioles, which is dear to my heart as well, went through an amazing ownership

19:25change here recently. But I get to work with some of these amazing people. So for example,

19:30as that matchmaker, as that sort of natural gateway in sports marketing, we released a huge

19:36campaign with PNC Bank to be the opening day sponsor this year for baseball. And we did it

19:42with none other than Adley from the Baltimore Orioles. And we did this amazing, it's actually a

19:49really cool campaign that we structured. We did two custom spots with Adley and PNC. And so I get

19:57to not only have these memories from growing up, but now I get to pull my own fandom into the

20:03business and work with the Orioles and some of their amazing all-star players. Well, I mean,

20:06listen, you get over that at 10 years old, and then you go to Virginia for college.

20:12And you get your, what was your major there? It was business. Business, right. You leave college

20:16in 2002, and you have this ambition to go work for General Electric because they own NBC and you

20:23want in at NBC. Why did you want to work at NBC? What was the draw? So it was interesting. And

20:27when I was thinking about my career, I started to think about a little bit more altruistic in

20:32terms of, I know I'm going to work hard. I'm a very sort of motivated, lean forward type person.

20:37I'd rather work in things that I really enjoy and versus work for things that are just money

20:43oriented. And so I thought about that and I said, what do I enjoy? Sports and entertainment.

20:49So I started thinking about that. I said, okay, everything's a business. I learned this. The

20:53Colts left town when I was age 10. Everything's a business, including sports, unfortunately,

20:56for my 10-year-old self. So I said, all right, I want to work in that space. That's what I'm

21:00going to do. So ultimately, I focused in that area and had an amazing opportunity

21:06to work for General Electric. And I asked them if I could work in their NBC Universal. Actually,

21:11it was just NBC at the time. We bought the rest. That's right. In my 10-year. But ultimately,

21:16it was a dream come true. I got to work in the pop culture, the entertainment and the sports world.

21:22And I was working very hard, but got to do something that I love. Yeah. And you helped

21:26that company establish streaming, right? Vancouver Olympics, you were testing that

21:30streaming out. And that leads you to a very dear time in my heart, right? When streaming was free,

21:36we would be getting it and downloading CDs. And then those when the companies were like,

21:39hey, whoa, we're giving away free content or people taking it. And then you guys,

21:46Comcast, Disney, you guys get into that connection where you develop Hulu and you have a big hand in

21:51that. What was your whole job? How did you develop this amazing streaming platform that

21:56everybody uses today? Yeah. Thanks for the question. It was a really wild time. So the

22:01interesting thing was a lot of content was getting stolen through whether it was the BitTorrent type

22:07sites and those types of things. Borrowed, Mike. We were just borrowing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

22:11It was a pretty big impact to a IP-based company like NBC Universal. And ultimately, trying to

22:19figure out ways to get consumers content in an easier fashion was the goal and a way that had

22:24business models that made sense for us. Now, I was digital transformation. And when you're

22:28digital transformation for a company that makes tons of money on the big screens, whether it's

22:32a big TV screens or the big film theatrical streams, I got a lot of hours on my back and

22:37our team's back because we were the ones trying to figure out how to make content available on

22:41all these new platforms, which is making less money at the time. Yeah. So but we were trying

22:45to figure out where the future was going and making sure we're set up for the future. One of

22:50the big opportunities at the time was, hey, we could put content on NBC.com. When I started,

22:55it was a programming grid. NBC.com was a programming grid. So think about that. Yeah,

23:00this isn't that long ago, right? It's amazing how quick the market has changed. But ultimately,

23:05starting to put content on, OK, well, how do you figure out windowing? Starting to figure out,

23:08OK, well, what if we make it available broadcast content only, which is free over the air,

23:13make it available for seven days, start creating these concepts that then

23:18some of the currency players like Nielsen started accepting and allowing with these windows. Well,

23:22once you had those windows and the free content, then you said, OK, well, it's really putting it

23:25on our website, the best distribution opportunity and starting to think about, OK, what's actually

23:30a bigger distribution opportunity? Well, it's the aggregation of content. And that's been proven

23:34time over time. Again, cable's the best example of aggregation of content. Right. When you put it

23:39all together in one package and offer it to people, it's a much it has much more scale effect

23:43than anything else. So how do you do that? Well, we can go and we called some of the biggest

23:48tech companies in the country at that time. And I could say some of the names, but you laugh at me

23:52because some of them don't really consider themselves as big tech companies anymore or not

23:57even around. But ultimately, we called and said, do you want to license our content? And we tried to

24:03stimulate a big license where we at NBCUniversal would license. And then the hope is that maybe

24:08they would call the other companies and license their content that fell on deaf ears. People

24:12laughed at us based on the numbers of the licensing fees. So we ultimately decided that it was time to

24:19do it ourselves. So we created a joint venture to put a whole bunch of content from our company

24:25and from a number of other countries on one website. Disney as well. Disney as well. Yeah.

24:29And it actually started with Fox. So it was an NBC and Fox joint venture. Disney came in a year

24:36or two later. Okay. So they were they played a little bit of a wait and see game and then they

24:40came in a year or two later. And then you have, you know, Hulu, right? I mean, Hulu was born. Yeah, crazy.

24:46And then from there you left and you go to Altice, right? The owner of Optimum and, you know, one of

24:50the largest cable providers in all the U.S. and you expand their North American operation. And you

24:56spent a few years there. What's the biggest thing you learned at Altice USA? Yeah. So Altice, I got

25:01to experience my first entrepreneurship versus intrapreneurship. So Comcast acquired NBC,

25:08went to Comcast, helped build their digital platform. So now everything in your

25:12living room is on your TV. So I got to do the Hulu experience, the Comcast experience. They

25:16were all intrapreneurship, building new businesses inside of a large company. Great experiences,

25:21great companies. Altice, a French telecom, was coming in and buying assets in the U.S. and

25:26creating a new company. They bought Cablevision. Yeah, exactly. Cablevision, Suddenlink. And they

25:32were business building, entrepreneurship style. So I got to come in and help them build the

25:37business. Totally different experience because it was a full build. It was an entrepreneurial

25:41experience. I joined the founding management team as the chief content officer. I had news networks

25:47underneath me. I had a whole bunch of different elements related to the company and how it was

25:51run. So I got to do business building, which is totally different than intrapreneurship. That's

25:57right. So it actually stimulated my entrepreneurial interest, which has now led to what I've done at

26:02Playfly Sports. And climbing that ladder, right? I mean, if you're an executive and you're climbing

26:06that executive ladder in corporate America and you have ambitions to be a CEO or be an entrepreneur,

26:11like what advice would you give that executive right now? I mean, because there's a lot of people

26:15out there that may be sitting on ideas. They don't know how to execute them. They don't know how to

26:18communicate them, but they're in the middle of that corporate ladder. You're trying to head up or

26:22maybe head out. What would you give them? Because you've built your career. You started at General

26:26Electric, went to Altice, and now you're CEO, executive chairman of your own company. Yeah,

26:31thank you. Thank you. It's really about risks. Risk. And you've got to be willing to take a risk. So

26:38a lot of times you have to leave a really good job and that's hard. Wow. So talk about, right,

26:46and a lot of conversations with my wife about what we were going to do. I'm going to leave this job

26:51that pays a lot of money. I'm going to go do something new that doesn't pay as much money,

26:54but has a good amount of equity involved in it, right? Making those decisions, taking those types

27:00of risks is how you a lot of times get that opportunity. Even internally at a company,

27:04you may get an offer that says, hey, come over here and run this for us. And you're like, oh,

27:08I've never done that before. That would be a risk, a personal risk. Take the risk. My opinion is that

27:14the risk is how ultimately you end up with those rewards, whether it's climbing the ladder,

27:18starting new companies, building equity, moving from a worker class to an owner class. You got

27:25to take the risks. It doesn't just happen. It doesn't fall in your lap. You have to actually

27:29make the move. And that's hard. Even if you're transitioning between a job, let's say you're

27:34not working somewhere anymore and you're looking for the next job. It's tough to go take a job that

27:39would have less cash compensation and more equity compensation because that's a risk.

27:43Take the risk. Yeah. Yeah. Would your business parable be, you know, that you got to see? I

27:48always heard this phrase, you know, never let a crisis go to waste. And what that is in business

27:53is that you got to see opportunity in the middle of a crisis. And here you are. Right. Again,

27:57sports completely pause at that particular time. We start to see we're starting to come back on

28:02air at that point. But, you know, nobody's really trying to go in in Fox Sports. They get out.

28:06Right. And then you see this opportunity again, not letting a crisis go to waste and you go and

28:11buy their in-house properties. Right. That we're making money because Fox Sports had owned the

28:16regional sports networks and you go and buy those businesses. And now you combine them. Right. So I

28:21say the cheat code. Right. Because you're not really a startup in a way. You guys just went

28:25and combined a whole bunch of businesses to create Playfly Fox Sports being one of those major

28:29businesses, their home team sports. Right. I mean, like, how do you what made you do that? What makes

28:34you see this opportunity in a crisis? Yeah. So it's interesting. One thing that was happening

28:40in both college and pro sports is the industries were changing. So college sports, the athletic

28:45director was turning much more from an administrator to a sports business person. And they didn't have

28:50necessarily the support infrastructure to do that. Yeah. They don't want to do it. Yeah. And

28:54and so we started seeing that. I said, that's a huge opportunity for a services company to come in.

28:58The same in pro sports, a little bit different. This pro sports were the

29:02franchises were getting traded at a really high rate to new money. These were entrepreneurs,

29:06business runners versus family offices that have been in that, you know, their owning teams for

29:11100 years. Right. So that was a whole different mindset. They're used to bringing in service

29:15providers and consultants and all that to help them drive their business. So you're seeing both

29:19waves in pro and college happen at the same time. And you start thinking about my experience in

29:24media and looking at teams, whether it's a college or pro team as a media company.

29:28Right. They're focused on an audience. They're focused on getting in front of the audience,

29:31building their fan engagement and then selling access to that audience. Right. That's a media

29:35company. Yeah. Right. You don't think about it because they're focused on winning on the quarter

29:38of the field. But when you come from my background, you think about it as a media company.

29:42And if I can put that filter in front of each of these organizations and help them think more like

29:47a media company, we can succeed as a service provider. And that's exactly what happened.

29:51So I went and looked for those assets like the Fox Sports assets, even outgrowth of CBS,

29:56out front sports that we bought that all had elements of that service provider mindset to

30:02pro and college sports, putting it together and putting that vision together that teams can think

30:07like media companies. Yeah. And that's really how we started. Yeah. Well, now and then you leave

30:11right after you leave Altice, you have to take your own money to go and then you have to get

30:14investment from, again, Sinclair, as well as Access Holdings down in Baltimore. How do you do that?

30:20Because, again, you know, for that person that maybe wants to go and try this themselves,

30:23do you have to is it you go to your kid? They want to see a business. And I'm sure they want

30:28to see a nice pitch deck. But what do you have to convince them of? Because, again,

30:31RSA is a tricky business. Well, one thing is to have an idea. And a lot of people have ideas.

30:38Taking the next step is really important. Speaking of the risk, putting it on a page.

30:42So it sounds elementary, but literally putting together a pitch, a PowerPoint, whatever software

30:49you want to use, putting together a pitch and walking through a business plan is the most

30:54important thing you could do, even if it's something that you want to start in 10 years

30:57from now, five years from now or next week, put it down on a page. Right. So when that takes from

31:03a big risk to a medium risk, because once you have a story that you're telling and going back

31:07to the everything sales, the Mark Cuban line, once you have that storytelling on a page,

31:13that's something you can start showing people. Once you start showing people, people understand

31:17it. Once people understand it, you get them on board. Right. That's the same with investors,

31:21teammates, customers, clients and partners. I want to hit the lottery for 100 million.

31:25All I got to do is write it down. You can try. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I mean,

31:31listen, you again have all of this experience in the cable business. Right. And you know what it

31:36takes to run a streaming business. You help create Hulu again. And you always call this area in the

31:40great rebundling. Right. And I'm assuming as me and you always talk about this, you look at the

31:45media business today. Right. All of these sports teams and franchises and leagues, they're getting

31:49paid all this money. Meanwhile, you have people dropping cable. They're going to streaming

31:53platforms that the mobile carriers, they're they're profiting. Right. I don't know. People

31:58see like you can get Netflix through your mobile carrier for free. Netflix has ads now. Never

32:02thought I see today. Right. As now and sports and sports. Right. WWE NFL coming over. I mean,

32:08this is a very interesting time. Again, you call it the great rebundling. Break that down. Like

32:13what are we seeing in the media business? Because every day is something new. Yeah,

32:17it's pretty cool how it's happening. So the cable bundle, if you go back 10 years ago,

32:22the cable bundle is the ultimate package of content. It had everything. Right. There was

32:28no breaks in the armor. HBO was only accessible through the cable bundle. You can only get your

32:33live sports through the cable bundle. Everything was behind that wall. Right. Probably 15 years

32:38ago, maybe. But ultimately, that was the greatest package of all time. Now, what's happened is

32:45we've seen that breakdown. HBO goes outside of the package. This that you name it. Netflix comes to

32:51being. Hulu comes to being. All these elements have changed over that time period. And what

32:57you're seeing now is everybody saying, hmm, there's a lot easier to distribute and sell content at a

33:03high rate in that old cable model. So what you're now starting to see is anybody and everybody,

33:08even the most powerful and most interesting packages like a Netflix, are starting to think

33:12about how they rebundle, how they get distribution. And ultimately, everybody, what they're really

33:18doing is saying the cable model was the most efficient, is the most efficient. How do I look

33:23more like that? How do I get support? So you'll have a lot of these major brands call up a major

33:28carrier and say, well, you're distributing connectivity. Can I be bundled in? And ultimately,

33:34getting distribution, they're probably taking less dollars for being in the bundle and the same,

33:38which is a sub fee. If you go back to a sub fee on the cable service, you're getting 50 cents

33:43to distribute the network. The network's worth a lot more than that, but you're getting this

33:46amazing distribution boom right away. So ultimately, you're starting to see that.

33:50You're seeing it from a distribution level, so the big streamers doing partnerships with broadband

33:55and wireless, and you're now starting to see it within the big streamers. So for example,

34:00Netflix taking on sports, but even Amazon and a lot of their investments, you talked about the

34:04NBA deal that you broke. Ultimately, Amazon is a big partner in that grand rebundling. They're

34:10putting sports inside of their bundles, right? A number of those companies are doing that. So

34:14ultimately, not only is there inside intra-bundling happening, and then there's

34:19external bundling happening. So ultimately, we're all navigating back to that same place.

34:23So that's what I call the grand rebundling, because really the most effective thing is for

34:28all of that to be bought at once, right? If you think about it, if you look at your home and with

34:32your family and see, oh, well, I have two subscriptions to Netflix, I have this, I have

34:37that, and you really look at it, you're like, you know what? It might be more efficient to pay that

34:4185 bucks a month to my cable provider for all of this stuff in one. So ultimately,

34:46that's where we're navigating, because it is the most efficient. So it's pretty interesting and

34:50exciting. So we're going to see that happen. I say the next, it's not going to be a one-year

34:55thing, but over the next number of years, we're going to ultimately see something that looks a

34:59lot like the cable bundle. Scare me a bit, though. Who suffers in all of this? Because you've got

35:03the churn. Obviously, your consumers are going to go in and out. I do that all the time. I'll

35:06drop one, I'll drop the other. I'm ready to drop Paramount right now, so I can go back to Disney,

35:10maybe. It's that churn, but scare me a little bit. What are we in danger of seeing if you still

35:17see all of this fragmentation in media? Because content's all over the place, and quality is

35:22suffering. It is, it is. So what you're going to see is, you're going to see a lot of these

35:26companies come together and consolidate. M&A. M&A. Can they get past Linda Kahn, though, right?

35:32Because she's saying, no, we're not doing all this. Maybe, maybe. But that is what you're going

35:38to see, is you're going to see that these individual services can't do it alone. And what

35:44is that? That's re-bundling. So ultimately, it's the M&A that's going to happen. It's the

35:51the most powerful distributors of connectivity, still cable providers, interestingly enough,

35:55and wireless providers, are going to be able to have this moment where they can say, okay, well,

35:59let me take all these streaming services and bundle them together. But ultimately, you're

36:04going to see some of the smaller guys fall off. So there's probably the long tail of streaming

36:10services that just aren't going to be able to sustain. They're not going to be able to make

36:13enough money to sustain. So they're going to go away, and you're going to see the mid-size to the

36:17big-size consolidate. And you can even see it, even in this joint venture between the major media

36:23companies, even though they're not merging their companies, they're merging their content. So it's

36:28all happening over time. So really, you're going to see the long tail go away. You're going to see

36:33the mid and short tail consolidate. And how do you benefit in all of this? You're the, again,

36:38you're right in the middle of it all. Yeah, we're the constant. We're the advertising. So there's

36:42always going to be a game played. There's always going to be a fan watching, and there's always

36:45going to be a break for an ad. So ultimately... More than a new zone ad. They got $75 billion.

36:50They got to have a whole bunch of breaks to get their money back. Yeah, yeah. Put an ad on it,

36:54right? So there's ads on the jerseys now. There's ads on the courts. There's virtual ads. Because,

36:58I mean... To get in the arena, you might have to go through an ad, right? You got to walk through

37:01this ad to get in here. Well, talk about Baltimore in the 80s, where we were talking about before,

37:04when I would watch an Orioles game, and I looked in the outfield, there were no advertising. That's

37:08right. You look in the outfield now, in a Major League Baseball stadium, you'll probably see

37:1240-plus sponsors. I get a headache all the time. I hope not, because that's what we do, but...

37:17Well, not when I'm watching a game. When I'm watching baseball, all the ads out there is

37:21crazy. But good work, man. We're ready to close out here. Again, $75 billion ZNB is getting,

37:26and still kind of closing or finalizing that deal, so the number's still not finalized yet.

37:32But again, when you look at this league, very prominent league, and your fans score data

37:38insights that you release all the time, you predict that the $715 million that they get on

37:43the outside of the USA, that's what their US media rights is worth on the outside of the USA. But

37:49again, $75 billion, and LeBron and Steph Curry are on their way out. What are you seeing from

37:53this league that still gives them that high value? They have the highest level of international

37:57stars, and they have the largest growth globally. So what they're doing is they've created pop

38:02culture in the US via star-powered sports. They are the largest in star-powered sports, the NBA.

38:08So they've done that in the US. They're doing that globally, which is really interesting.

38:11There's only a couple sports that can do that globally. Soccer, of course, football. Global

38:15football is another one. And one that we don't talk about a ton in the US, but it's cricket.

38:20So it's interesting, when you look at the sports that are globalizing, those are the biggest three

38:24sports that are globalizing when it comes to team sports. Cricket, soccer, and basketball. And the

38:30NBA is sitting right on the cusp there. So the stars may not be American-born, but they're huge

38:36global stars on this planet, and that's really important for the NBA. You don't think that'll

38:40impact them at all? Because I'm talking to some NBA execs, they say, hey, who's their next American

38:44star? I got Anthony Edwards, right? But again, if you don't have the American star, do you kind of

38:48isolate your base? Well, not really, because the NBA is built for star power, right? So you don't

38:53have a helmet on, so you get to see everybody's face, right? It's a five-person roster, so it's star power,

38:59right? It's not 11 people on the field, right? And ultimately, it's this opportunity

39:05for these players to become part of pop culture. So I don't actually think the NBA is going to have

39:10any issue creating more stars. It's part of the whole fabric of that league. Not only that,

39:17but as you mentioned, the Play-Fly fan score and part of our thought leadership, we actually

39:21analyzed all the leagues. The NBA is still the youngest league and the most diverse, right? So as

39:27the country continues to get more diverse every year that goes by, the one league that's going to

39:31take advantage of that is the NBA. Yeah, can you see them surpassing 75 and getting over the 100?

39:36Oh yeah, yeah. I think they have one of the biggest growth opportunities, and put

39:42women's basketball right there next to it. We haven't talked a lot about women's sports, but

39:46big area for Play-Fly sports and a big area for the industry. I think that's sort of a little bit

39:52of an unsung hero in that media deal. First million dollars, man. How'd you make it? How

39:56did you spend it? Anything you would do different? Sure. So I think my biggest

40:05sort of connection to making compensation was thinking about the entrepreneurship work that

40:12I did and putting myself and my face, which was risky, against projects. Hulu, when we started it,

40:18was called Clown Co. by the media, right? So there's risk, right? When you start moving up and you talk

40:24about moving up in your career, you're doing things that I mentioned arrows in my back from the big,

40:29you know, senior execs who are making, you know, all the big deals. We were making the little deals

40:33at the time on the digital transformation side, so you had to be willing to take those arrows.

40:38And that's how my compensation and my role continued to grow. So it was really taking

40:45that role, taking those arrows, being able to build those new businesses inside a big company until I

40:49got the shot to leave and start building companies myself like at Altice and Play-Fly. Yeah, so you

40:54made your money, your millions with the compensation from the bigger companies, and then you spent it

40:58what? I spent it building my own company. Building Play-Fly. So if you ask where my first tranche of

41:04capital went, it went to start building my own company. Wow, wow. Play-Fly. Was your wife mad?

41:09Like, are you really going to take this money and put it into this company? So when you mentioned

41:13to wrap it all back to the beginning, selling, so I got to sell to my wife too. And you sold it to her.

41:18Wow. I'm sure she's smiling now, right? Everything is good. Listen, Black Business Month in August,

41:23I say what is or who is someone that you admire in the black community from a business perspective?

41:28Doesn't have to be famous, but you know, someone who really made an impact maybe on you. Yeah,

41:34so I got to go to South Africa last summer with my family. And we saw, and I've seen it through

41:40some popular media, but we saw the connection between the black and white community in

41:47South Africa and how they use sport, and really Nelson Mandela specifically, how they use sport to

41:52connect the community. And I just felt it was just something that I got to see in real life there.

41:59And I didn't really take it in fully as an American without seeing that and experiencing

42:05that on the ground in South Africa. And it really brought back a lot of the division that we have

42:09in this country, and how we're using sport to bring community. And I love that. I think there's

42:15so much more to build on using sport. We have so much division, not just racial division.

42:20We have so much division in this country. I mean, there's been big political news as well

42:25that's creating more division in this country. But ultimately using sports to bring people

42:29together and create communities, that is something that I think we're not doing enough of. And I

42:34would say Nelson Mandela and what he did and the risks, going back to risks that he took

42:38to bring those communities together using sports. I think we have a lot to do and learn from that

42:43in the U.S. Yeah, absolutely. I always say you want to kind of get some perspective,

42:47better perspective. Just look abroad. I mean, they're doing some great things in other countries.

42:51They may not be as rich as we are, but their innovation because of that is just there.

42:56Get you out of here on this, man. Good to great. And I think that you're probably

43:00the best person to answer this. And again, we always talk about this when we talk sports business.

43:05And I appreciate the time at the NASDAQ. Thank you. But what's the difference between a good

43:09streaming platform and a great one, right? Now, when we talk the great, I always say

43:14Jim Collins' best business book. So good to great streaming platform. Which one is,

43:18how do you tell the difference between a good streaming platform and a great one?

43:21Yeah, well, I'll tell you the one that tells me what I like, which is a weird thing. But

43:28ultimately, programming services were meant to develop different angles to be able to address

43:36different people. Right. So that's why there's so many cable channels. Right. If you think about it,

43:41there's women focused content, there's men focused content, there's for every different

43:46type of person in the U.S. Ultimately, there's probably a channel at this point

43:50for it. So now when you look at streaming services, the streaming services that get

43:54you the right content at the right time are the best. So it's interesting when you start thinking

43:59about it and the services that are doing the best right now are actually social media.

44:04So social media is learning your habits and presenting you with content that you like

44:10more than any other service. There's a great recommendation engine on some of the big

44:13entertainment services, but social media, I would say, and some of the big social media players,

44:17whether it's the Instagrams, TikToks of the world, are actually programming better than

44:21anything else that's out there. So I think we have a lot to learn from how they're presenting

44:25their content and how they're programming back to us. So I would say social media right now is

44:30presenting the best future for streaming because of the way they present content that you want.

44:35They present me Orioles content. They present me sports business content. They present me

44:40inspirational quotes and every once in a while a comedy clip because I'm a big comedy fan.

44:45They know me. Yeah. Wow. Streaming. I mean, are you scared? I said, scare me a little bit.

44:49It was early. Now you scare me a lot. Telling me that social media is doing it the best.

44:53I thought you were going to say YouTube or Forbes.com, right? Maybe that. But now you're

44:58saying social media, man. Michael Shriver, Playfly Sports. Thank you so much for the time,

45:02my brother. Thank you. I appreciate all the insight that you always provide, not just on

45:06the show, man. But again, I got a question. I always call you up and you definitely answer

45:10the phone, man. So I appreciate it. And much success in your new role as executive chairman.

45:15We'll build some more companies. And I tell you, stay away from the play agencies. I know you were

45:18looking to shift there, but don't do it. Just stick with the marketing. Absolutely. Appreciate

45:22the time. Thanks, Jabari. I appreciate you being. This is amazing. Thanks for having me here.

45:26No problem. See you next time. Thank you for watching.

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