Watch Live: Mark Attanasio and Marc Lasry at WSJ Sports | WSJ

Mark, Mark, thank you. This is our variety show of today. We are going to first talk about Milwaukee a little bit. Otherwise, Jason was going to kick us off the stage. But I actually want to take it to Hawaii where some things happened around 20 years ago. Mark, could you tell us a little bit about a conversation that you had with Mark Lazy that kind of maybe got the juices flowing a little bit?

Yeah, Emily asked me when we were prepping, you know, how I met Mark. And I knew Mark through Wall Street. We sort of were often in the same investment. Although we didn't really know each other. So we were at the same vacation place. I think it was 2005, might have been 2006. And first thing he said wasn't talking about a distress position. He said, 'You own the Brewers. You want to know all about?' and they knew a bunch of the other investors and wanted to just talk about the Milwaukee Brewers in sports.

Interesting. Do you remember this conversation, Mark?

Jason's still here, I think.

There was something that Mark did for you early on, right, after you bought the team, that kind of ingratiated you, I think, a little bit to the city. Can you tell us a little bit about what this moment was?

So were you like training for this? Did you guys like a coach or something?

Okay. You did not fall everybody through. You're sitting here today.

You're not loving it. I love that. I love that. And so, so lovely of you. Before we move past Milwaukee, I have a very important question which is part of the Brewers the sixth inning. There's some serious stuff going on with Clemens Racing Sausages. And I just wanted to know how did you figure out your order and was that important to get gravitas with local politicians or like the loyal team fan base? Mark.

Yeah. Our racing sausages when I first bought the club with our group was the single largest selling item in our retail store. There's the good news and bad news was the plush toys for the racing sausages and so we had to do a little better than that in retail but it shows how it's loved and that dynamic with the race around by the way it's a long run we often get requests can I run in the racing sausage is very hard to get that I have a little influence but from one foul line to another is quite a long run in a heavy costume and so not only the order but I think there's a way you can look at which costume wins more.

And aside from the Italian doing well, because I'm Italian,

There's something to the costumes and that's the today's on there hint.

Oh, all right. We'll be coming up to you after this session and learning more. I want to take it outside of Milwaukee for a little bit. Both of you have invested in golf. You've both made international team investments. Did you two ever golf together? Was the interest in golf? Were you both like longtime golfers or is this

Um

Yes. Because it's fast-paced. That's part of why you do it.

But that's why so many people do play. It's like you cracked the code otherwise you're in. You're in. I want to turn to Mark for a moment because I believe that your investment came about from some eavesdropping. Is this like am I on to something here?

I was on a committee with a couple of the owners including John Henry who's done an unbelievable job with Fenway in taking PGA to the next level. And I was listening to the conversation and the complexities with what was going on with LIV and PGA and the players and was trying to work my way into the conversation which he and their owner really had no interest in what I had to say about golf because like Mark I don't really play nine holes four times a year maybe. And so then John called me up and he said, 'Well, when you said that would be an interesting investment, were you serious?' I said, 'Well, sure.' 'Well, would you invest in that?' And I said, 'Yes.' And at that point, he said, 'Well, you know, I've been working on this for, I think it was six months, and we'll send you an investment package if you're interested.' And that's how that initiated.

When you have a situation like that that's very complicated, a little hard to understand, there's a lot of moving pieces.

I think the complexity creates opportunity. And certainly, you've seen that in your investment business. And a lot of people don't have the energy to do the work.

Maybe it helps in some ways that you're neither of you were such big golfers yourself where you could really take an objective look at it and see.

I think it was more the part of that it was complex.

Yeah.

And that you knew it was a process and at the time the PGA was having a moment of could LIV take over and people were worried about that. So you had a price that was distress.

I remember those moments. My husband was freaking out.

Yeah.

I want to just quickly ask about TGL because you have mentioned that the initial TV ratings on ESPN surpassed expectations. I'm curious when the league's current broadcast rights deal comes up for renegotiation, do you think TGL is going to capitalize on the streaming wars?

How so?

Yeah. I think the goal was something like 250 and then it ended up being closer to 500.

Good low expectations there. All right. I want to go across the pond for a moment. I don't know if either of you ever expected to invest in a large European sport soccer franchise. Was that on your sheet at any moment? Mark, let's start with you.

So, one of the things you find when you own a sports franchise is all sorts of opportunities find their way to you. And it's a nice place to be in. Well, interestingly, now, yes, the huge wind at your back. When I first invested, it was looked as though I was going to get distracted from my investing business at Crescent Capital. And then a lot of folks thought, 'Oh, you got a lot.' They'd look at Crescent's assets and think we had a lot of money and they had a lot of losses, especially in European football. So things sort of found our way to us and probably looked at three to five seriously before Norwich City came up, which was also a reverse inquiry. And it fit perfectly because the market, the city, the franchise, the ability to compete all look like the Milwaukee Brewers to me.

And just, you know, Mark talked about nice. It's Midwest nice in Milwaukee and people in New York City are really nice.

And you're trying to bring a little bit more of the baseball analytics and seeing if you can apply that to European football. How's that going so far? Well, there's a general aversion to analytics in all sports actually more so now not so much in baseball but in others. And so it's somewhat of a new paradigm. A lot of the bigger clubs have analytics groups. In fact, we bought an analytics group and Sarah Rudd used to be the head of analytics at Arsenal. Nobody listened to her then. And so you have to I think the key is to match the analytics with the coaching style. We saw in the match yesterday with England and Argentina two different coaching styles and an outcome that resulted from that. But in any event, we've got 52 data scientists in Milwaukee. We take what we did in building our system to help build the Norwich system and we call the Milwaukee system the Keg and the system in Orange Canary.

I like that. And I believe you're a debt investor in Ipswich. Is that right?

Debt and equity.

Okay. And have you guys not been at a game opposite each other yet?

No.

And that might. Yeah.

Well, if Ipswich keeps going. We bought hoping to bounce back and up. Ipswich actually does bounce back and up.

And interestingly, those two clubs are crazy rivals. Crazy.

And so I'm probably going to lose some cred in Norwich looking saying that we're friends here.

I'm so sorry I have you two there. I believe they call you the American over there. And I'm just curious, have either of you watched Ted Lasso or Welcome to Wrexham? Yeah. What were the thoughts? Like was this a prep for any of the investing?

It's more tribal if that's described that way. And it is cradle to grave. I spoke at an investment group like this in the Middle East and one of the production people wanted to meet me and I was surprised and I guess his father had just been buried and you could see he had a Norwich badge and basically showed his birthday and I think it said cradle to grave on his. And so yeah, it's almost 10 months of the year and it's what brings everybody together. The passion, one of the great things which I think we both see sports brings people together in a passionate way that really nothing else does anymore globally. And it's one of the reasons as an investor, it's got a wind at its back.

Yeah.

And it's one of the reasons as an investor, it's got a wind at its back.

Absolutely. Especially in the world we live in now. I want to take us from across the pond to hyper local US. I'm talking minor league baseball. Mark, you're up. You have invested in a number so far I believe minor league baseball teams. As I was preparing for this session, I read about the Montgomery Biscuits where they actually shoot hot biscuits into the crowd during the games. Did you know this before you bought the team?

I told him that was crazy. I mean, there's so many gimmicks and fun things about minor league baseball, not just the names, but I'm genuinely curious if you've talked to Mark about the Nashville Sounds or the Biloxi Shuckers, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers or the Wilson Warbirds, which I have learned all have feeders into

Okay. So Mark can't get that one.

Have you two talked about any of the other teams together? And how many?

Not yet this.

Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, it is. Gets shot.

Those are hard to find, especially today.

Yes, the Bucks was low. Just saying. Just saying. Okay, I want to look forward a little bit and you know we're talking about sports bringing people together. The Olympics, the summer Olympics are going to be in LA in 2028. You are on the committee. I do need to ask, we are the Wall Street Journal here. Are we done with the Casey Wasserman drama?

Guys, we're having so much fun here. Come on. Come on.

So,

All right, we'll talk more backstage. Just kidding. Okay, I want to talk briefly. Mark Lazy, you've said recently, I think, that we are in the first inning of sports investing, that there is still so much more to go. Obviously, everyone here is interested in this topic. I was surprised to hear you say first inning. Why do you think that?

Mhm.

We've got a private equity session after this. Yep.

Well, it's certainly a healthy liquidity tool. I think it's a challenge for sports leagues to regulate the influx of capital and the amount of influence they have versus the current league rules. So most leagues now like we have I think the NBA's benchmark is 20% for a fund. Ours is 15%. You can't get to the valuations that you're seeing most families can't and to be a control owner in MLB you have to have at least 15%. So if a team goes for $4 billion as the Padres just went, that's a very healthy check for one family. So having funds like Mark's and others who especially when they're funds all the sports funds so far that have been approved by leagues you have to be approved not any fund can just invest in a team. And so you've got Mark not only ran a team he ran a team to a championship in a small city. We're still trying to do that. Small nice city. But sure it's healthy because when I first bought the Brewers, first of all, you walk in and you get everybody applause, right? And then Commissioner Selig says, 'Congratulations. That's the last time you'll get an applause from this group.' And he's right about that. And then Jerry Reinsdorf told me, 'Congratulations. You just did the second most difficult thing to do in the United States. You bought a major sports team.' I said, 'What's the hardest thing?' He said, 'The hardest thing is to sell a major sports team.' So now you can create liquidity through these funds. It's very favorable, but there'll be a mistake somewhere along the way in one of the leagues with the funds having undue influence and because funds have to get returns for their investors and we are, when you own a team, you're really the steward for a community and your responsibilities go well beyond even winning and well beyond whether you make money or not. Are you a responsible member of the community? So, as chair of the investment committee, how do you try to manage? You said it will happen no matter what, but are there certain things that you're looking for or the committee looks for to try to tamper that down and not get to that point?

Well, yes. So, to be clear, the ownership committee considers who comes into the sport. We invest the league in owners money. And so, for example, we invested in Rawlings, the baseball. And interesting, when we did that, everybody said, 'Oh, now baseball's controlling the baseball.' Well, you know, and so whenever there's an extra home run hit, they think we're juicing the balls. Just it's amusing, but

All right, no juicing happening. We've seen that happen other

We won't go there. We won't go there.

I want to look

We also invested in

In women's softball and I saw John Patrick Hall before perform. You just did my transition for I love this. We're going to get to women's sports. Why did you? So why women's softball?

Any number of reasons. Very similar to what I felt with the PGA. The best one to play against the best and there you have the best women in the world in that league and Major League Baseball was able to provide a boost with sponsorship and organization and frankly just getting eyeballs on it. So

You talked about golf. This weekend women's softball had over almost 600,000 viewers on ESPN. Well above their average, maybe three times. And the game was fun to watch. I have to confess I was a little surprised to see it was fun to watch. And we try to, on balance, we do like to if you have the next AI investment or you have something that's adjacent to baseball, we like to do that. And we're off to a very good start there. Any metrics, sponsorship, media, attendance, and quality of play. So, let's talk about women's sports. It's obviously been a bit of a theme running through the conference today, and we'll have more to come later in the day. Mark, you've said that women's sports is massively undervalued. What is on the horizon for you guys when it comes to women's sports?

We don't have one, right? Or you have a daughter.

They don't like it.

No, no, they do. It's not.

And the media rights, which you've talked about, are insanely higher.

So, you're renegotiating, are you getting in on this when WNBA, like where do you fit into this piece? I've heard you say it's like 3%.

Where are you in these conversations?

When we all see that the rights are going up by a lot, I hope you all remember the conversation here. That's all the time we have today. Mark and Mark, thank you for our variety show.