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?
No, I do because I just loved sports and back then the opportunity to meet somebody who owned a team was actually kind of rare. You just didn't bump into people who owned the team. So, the fact that he owned the Brewers, even though it was a Milwaukee and who would ever go to Milwaukee, I did.
Jason's still here, I think.
I know. But it was, it actually was really cool. So, for me, it was a pretty unique time.
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?
Yeah. So, for those of you who don't know Mark, in our business, it's kind of rare to find someone who actually is just nice and is a good person, but is also really smart. Like, you normally don't have that. Normally you have people who are really difficult and are really smart. And so when I bought the team, one of the things he did that was super kind was said, 'Hey, would you like to come out and throw the first pitch to a game and we'll introduce you to Milwaukee?' And
So were you like training for this? Did you guys like a coach or something?
No, I played baseball in high school. I didn't really think it was that complicated to throw a ball. So I never really thought of it. And then you come to the stadium and everything. And my son who's there says to me, 'Hey, be careful. I hope you've practiced.' I said, 'Practice wood. I'm just throwing it.' And he goes, 'You're on a mound. You're coming down. Whatever you do, don't fall.' I'm like, 'I'm not going to fall.' And he goes, 'If you do, it's really embarrassing. Like, it's not going to look good for us.' And I was like, 'Okay, thank you.' And actually you were walking out to the mound and everybody's cheering and it's great and they have this huge screen and you see yourself on the screen and I'm like, oh, should I be nervous? And you get there and thank God it all went well. I was able to throw it to the catch.
Okay. You did not fall everybody through. You're sitting here today.
But I didn't throw it hard because I was worried. So, it was one of those like...
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
I don't golf as much. I just thought it was a great investment. All right. We're not talking about like how far your drive is going or anything. No, I think it's very rare to be able to invest in a league and it was the first time you could invest in the PGA and I think for at least for me, that's what was interesting about it and then I was able to do that and then from there we ended up investing in TGL. We bought San Francisco team but I thought it was a pretty interesting investment.
Yes. Because it's fast-paced. That's part of why you do it.
And then my boys make me watch the Open and the Masters and everything. But yeah, I think golf is phenomenal. It's just I'm not that good. So why would you play something you're not?
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.
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.
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?
100%. I think at the time they thought everybody thought the ratings would be around half a million. They've been somewhere around 750 to a million. And what they've got is a loyal following. And that's the hardest thing to get in sports. So, baseball average baseball games a million viewers, average basketball games a million five, two million. Hockey's around 600,000. So if you can average where the majors are, you want to be for a media company you want to own that and for us that means we're going to have higher media rights.
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?
Okay. And have you guys not been at a game opposite each other yet?
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?
No, I don't think for the investing. Look, I think it's just very different. I think owning a team in Europe, especially a football team, and the reason for that is the fans, it's a religion. It really is a religion out there and people get very upset if you do something that they don't approve of. Whereas in the United States, you're a fan, but I wouldn't say it's a religion. So it's and these rivalries are over generations. Like you saw the news with Argentina and England. I was kind of shocked to read about how much the teams didn't like each other. They've only played each other three or four times and yet in the World Cup. But these are pretty serious rivalries. And I think when you go to Europe and you're investing out there, you've got to get used to the religious fervor that people have for their teams.
