Chief Operating Officer, President & Director, TKO Group Holdings
Watch Live: TKO President Mark Shapiro at WSJ Sports | WSJ
TKO President and COO Mark Shapiro sits down with WSJ's Jason Gay to discuss how TKO is reshaping live entertainment and ...
About Mark Shapiro
Mark Shapiro, President and COO of TKO, participated in two public events in mid-2026. At a Wall Street Journal Sports event on July 16, Shapiro discussed TKO's role in live entertainment. He described attending the New York Knicks' 29-point comeback in Game 4 of the NBA playoffs as a memorable live sports experience. Shapiro stated that TKO's event at the White House for the nation's 250th birthday was a "one and done," calling it a "smash" but adding that the company would not repeat it because it was expensive and they were "first mover." He also said that increased discretionary time from AI would strengthen demand for live events, asserting that "sports is at the epicenter" of physical aggregation. At a Meridian International Center event on June 18 focused on sports diplomacy, Shapiro said that sports and entertainment provide a "shared cultural language" that allows people to "get away" and "connect." He described TKO's strategy of using AI and social chatter to identify local interest before bringing events to a city, adding that the goal is to "drive economic impact" for hotels, arenas, and restaurants. Shapiro stated that TKO's approach is not about politics, but about business opportunities. He also noted that sports benefit from simplicity, using the example of mixed martial arts where "one is going to get knocked out or submit and the other is not."
Transcript (118 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
Man, that was real. That was a real intro, buddy.
M
Mark Shapiro0:03
We are here. You know, the reason why I was so excited to hear that you had agreed to come here is that I've listened to you give interviews sometimes live on stage and you mix it up. You stir it up, Mark. You know, you're not like some wallflower. I like to give it to you straight.
I
Interviewer0:20
Well, let's start here. You were front court, front and center for the most seismic sporting event in the last 50 years of New York sports history. Maybe since the Reggie game, maybe. You were courtside for game four, the crazy 29-point Knicks comeback. Tell me what that experience was like because we're going to get into what makes sports this live experience so indelible. You had every emotion under the gamut there.
M
Mark Shapiro0:53
Yeah. Look, I'm from Chicago originally, and I grew up a lovable loser. Yeah, Chicago Cubs fan. And in 2016, after 100 plus years, I got my dream come true with my son. My oldest son was with me and saw the Cubs win the World Series. To have a rinse and repeat of that was insane. And I'm not obviously I didn't grow up in New York. I go to a lot of Knicks games and I'm a fan of all those players and their stories. How could you not be? But there's nothing like an event of that magnitude at Madison Square Garden. I mean, the true mecca of arenas and stadiums for that matter. So to see that place light up like that was just extraordinary.
I
Interviewer1:32
I don't want you to rat anybody out, but please feel free.
M
Mark Shapiro1:35
Who left? Did people leave?
I
Interviewer1:37
No one left.
M
Mark Shapiro1:38
This was not an NBA finals with LeBron and the Miami Heat.
I
Interviewer1:42
29 points. Larry walked out.
M
Mark Shapiro1:44
Larry David wasn't walking out like
I
Interviewer1:45
No. No. Well, hold on.
M
Mark Shapiro1:47
All right. Larry David, who WME represents a client, wanted to walk out very badly. Now, he's a lifelong Knicks fan to be clear. Yeah. And he was in a lot of pain. And I think he muttered a couple, "Get me out of here. Get me out of here." He wouldn't get out of his seat. He wouldn't break even half a smile. He was incredibly inconsolable. But I will tell you, I walked over to him at one point and said, "Larry, I was here earlier in the playoffs." Yeah, when the Knicks were down 22 to the Cavs, which is one of the greatest comebacks and he goes, "This isn't the Cavs." So, it was something to see. And then he was crying when they won. I mean, he and Johnny Mack next to each other. They were just elated.
I
Interviewer2:32
You saw new sides of people's personalities that night. I think it was just kind of remarkable. This world you occupy now with TKO. I want to ask you, you are coming off a pretty mega weekend in Las Vegas where you reintroduced a major star in MMA with Conor McGregor and it didn't go very well. I mean, Conor reinjured himself. He had been out of the sport for about five years and he reinjured I believe it's an ACL. I don't know if that's confirmed.
M
Mark Shapiro3:01
Nothing's confirmed.
I
Interviewer3:02
But it sort of underlined what makes sports great is you really just don't know, right? It sucked that night, but this stuff is not scripted. And what is it like to experience that on the other side of it where you just got to feel it's just a bummer all around?
M
Mark Shapiro3:20
No. Look, but by the way, isn't that what's great about sports? I mean, it's not always the cheers and the exhilaration and the celebration. A lot of times it's just as visceral. It's because it's a sad story, right? It's a depression. It's a we lost, we didn't get our revenge. I mean, in that game, the 29-point game, one of the reasons the Knicks turned that around is the first half, they couldn't stop complaining about the call and neither could the Garden. I actually thought something bad was going to happen. I told Adam Silver this, I know he was here earlier, like some fan was going to jump off and hit a ref or something. Oh gosh, it was that bad. And apparently or reportedly at halftime, Mike Brown told his team, "Stop complaining about the calls and play basketball." And that's what needed to happen. But that's what sports makes you feel. And I would just say in an era where we have political division and constant stress and information overload, sports is really a shared cultural language. Yeah.
I
Interviewer4:23
Where we can connect, we can mentally escape, we have a sense of belonging, and if you do it right, it really sustains emotional well-being. So, it's a great place to be right now. This is so interesting to hear you talk about this because at the same time we have this totally divergent economy based around artificial intelligence and it's developing ways in which we're going to outsource human connection to machines. Do you think that in some ways what you're doing is kind of counterprogramming all of that? Look, I think and this brings in the William Morris part of my job because you're feeling it in all walks of life and all businesses. You're feeling it in Hollywood and you have different players that are nervous. Writers, actors, am I going to be replaced?
M
Mark Shapiro5:08
These are existential worries. These aren't like, oh, I haven't had a hit in a couple years. There are a lot of businesses that you simply cannot replace a human being. You can't replace soul. That's really what it is. And I will tell you that this really pertains to live events in sports because at the end of the day, you have a 4-day work week. You have AI that's going to
I
Interviewer5:32
Wait, wait, wait. 4-day work week. Is everybody on that?
M
Mark Shapiro5:35
That's not at our company, but let's call it what it is globally. And that's by the way, it's less in terms of when they come into the office, right? COVID has changed everything and the bottom line and maybe the pendulum needed to swing a little bit, but it has swung too far and we're all working on it. But what it will do is it will increase discretionary time. And in increasing discretionary time that will increase solo digital consumption, individual consumption. And you know what that does after a while? That will strengthen the demand for physical aggregation. People, audiences, fans, consumers, they will crave physical aggregation. And there's no substitute for live events. Sports is at the epicenter.
I
Interviewer6:15
Yeah. I mean, we already saw this quite a bit, haven't we? With the incredible boom in concerts coming out of the pandemic and the pent-up demand that was there for these shared communal experiences. Just on that issue, what do you think about the hot topic of pricing, ticket pricing? Concerts have gone from, you and I probably went to a few MLY cruise shows for 25 bucks, right?
M
Mark Shapiro6:39
I didn't do MLY.
I
Interviewer6:40
All right.
M
Mark Shapiro6:40
You too, though. I went to a lot of YouTube.
I
Interviewer6:42
Okay. So, probably didn't cost you more than 50 bucks for a U2 ticket and now it's much more of a destination type event. It's a travel event for many people who go to another city to see this. Is that market sustainable? I mean, obviously there was this pent-up demand for it. Do you see that leveling off at all?
M
Mark Shapiro6:57
It's supply and demand.
I
Interviewer6:59
Sure.
M
Mark Shapiro6:59
It's storytelling.
I
Interviewer7:00
Sure.
M
Mark Shapiro7:00
It's superstars. And if the event, the players in the event, the story behind the event has enough demand.
I
Interviewer7:08
Yeah.
Is there potential?
M
Mark Shapiro7:10
I think it's kind of absurd the whole World Cup thing. I have to be honest with you.
I
Interviewer7:12
The pricing.
M
Mark Shapiro7:13
No, no, I don't. Actually, if you don't like it, don't go. You can't afford it, don't go. Watch it on your TV. It's for free and it will be a very good experience. It's not the same as being there, but we, as you know, we own On Location inside of TKO. So, we are the official hospitality and experiential world for quite a while.
Yeah. And we package all of these experiences. And I can just tell you, I was talking to Jay Williams, ESPN and the former Duke basketball guard who we also represent, full disclosure, but who I know was here today, and he was behind stage and he said, "Look, I went out and bought tickets for my wife and myself for Sunday."
I
Interviewer7:50
Yeah.
M
Mark Shapiro7:50
I'm going through On Location because it's something I don't want to miss. Sure, that's what it is. If you want to wait for the Odyssey till it's home and free on whatever streaming platform it's going to be, you can wait. But if you want to be first, if you want to be water cooler talk, if you want to be the one that doesn't have FOMO, you're going to pay and you're going to pay a premium.
I
Interviewer8:09
But Mark, I'm in the media. We want to complain about everything. Okay? Give me a break here. I mean, we were sitting out.
M
Mark Shapiro8:14
I thought we were talking about six weeks out. You know, everybody was sitting there. You're absolutely right. Complaining about the ticket prices, predicting swaths of empty seats.
I
Interviewer8:23
Hotels are empty.
M
Mark Shapiro8:24
Hotels. Yeah. And obviously that has not borne out. There have been some empty seats here and there, but by and large these stadiums have been packed, very noisy, very passionate. Did FIFA kind of crack something a little bit here?
Look, they crushed it. You have to give Gianni a lot of credit on that front and his team Matias and just up and down the line. They know what they have and they brought it into the US and of course Mexico and Canada into these fantastic stadiums with all these accoutrements and a terrific time zone for the US obviously which drives chatter. Let's not forget that. And they got lucky also. You always have to have a little luck that the right teams, England, US, Mexico, Argentina, these teams won, they advanced, and it's absolute lightning about it. And I'll tell you, I'm a part owner of LAFC and MLS, and they just nailed it so much that it's going to ultimately bleed into more success for Major League Soccer. I mean, great production, great talent, great storylines, great venues, and the fans ate it up, and it was so diverse. Yeah. I went to four games. I'm going to go on Sunday. But walking in, I mean, the US is a melting pot. And these social clips of "hey, the US isn't so bad" and "look at I can get a gallon of milk." Just really good for us.
I
Interviewer9:42
And I will say as somebody who's gone to a bunch of games too, kids, lots of kids, lots of families, which is not something you see at lots of sporting events often, and not a lot of blowouts in the games that matter. I mean, the England game yesterday was sensational. I wanted England at the end of the day. Yeah. And I was saddened by it and I called my wife to check in and she couldn't talk to me because she was so upset and you know Messi's done it again. But great. That's what it brings out. That's what sports brings out. That kind of flair and it brings out argument and argument sells.
I want to bring you back to the UFC to talk about an event that you had a very unprecedented event about a month ago now. UFC Freedom 250 which was the UFC event which took place on the south lawn of the White House. I was there. You were there. You had a better seat than I did. The word that I keep thinking is just surreal. I'd never seen anything like this. I mean, it really was this giant apparatus that was built in what, a month, on the White House lawn, and they pulled it off with a giant helicopter circling above us and all this crazy stuff.
M
Mark Shapiro10:46
Never hit us. Never. Not even a drop of rain. They told us the greatest meteorologists in the world,
I
Interviewer10:52
right,
M
Mark Shapiro10:52
from the military and the White House sat in a trailer for three days and predicted. And when I say they said it's going to rain at 2:16 tomorrow, it rained at 2:16. And they told us it's not going to rain the day before, it's not going to rain the day after, but it's going to rain non-stop in your 5-hour event. So, we were on the phone with David Ellison and Paramount. Are we moving it? Are we delaying it? And we got hit and we got hit with nothing. Look, you called it. Here's what I will tell you. Everyone was so concerned about policy and right and left and politics and are you a supporter of the president? Are you not? It was none of that. It was a total spectacle. And by the way, it was about as patriotic as anything I've ever seen. If you saw the stories and the features there.
I
Interviewer11:37
Sure. And you had the armed service members around.
M
Mark Shapiro11:39
We celebrated 250th anniversary. We had almost 1,200 members of the military there who are the most raucous in the crowd. And you just kept looking like to the White House like really in disbelief. Is that really our backdrop?
I
Interviewer11:54
I felt the crowd was a little quiet at first because they weren't sure if they could scream on the White House lawn and then by the end of it it felt like a fight.
M
Mark Shapiro12:01
The F-16s fly over and the B2. I mean, I really, you know, and it was just and we have a lot of truthfully a lot of talent at WME that we invited and like, well, I don't want to get into and we couldn't sell them on. It's not that. And if you watched it, you had some FOMO. You wanted to be there. There's no substitute for being there. And that's what also what sports brings.
I
Interviewer12:24
Take the clock back though to the first time you heard either it was Dana or Ari or someone say like, "Hey, we're thinking about doing a fight at the White House." Like, what went through your head? Were you like, "Oh, rock on. Let's do it."
M
Mark Shapiro12:36
Ari and I were sitting next to each other at one of our UFC big numbered events. Yeah. And the president was there. And by the way, to his credit, he never gets up. I don't know how he can't go. I have to go to the bathroom right now. Okay. Like he goes six hours and doesn't get up. Doesn't move.
I
Interviewer12:56
Mark, we're looking for a TikTok snackable content and you just right there.
M
Mark Shapiro13:01
It's very shareable. Please, it'll go viral just like the Stevens. Look, I'll tell you this. It was there. It was just kind of racing and everybody just wanted to get a feel for it.
I
Interviewer13:16
Yeah. I mean, and
M
Mark Shapiro13:17
And oh, I'm sorry. And what happened at the event was that he leaned over to us and said, "The president wants to do this at the White House." And you're just, what are you talking about? Like, croquet. He wants to do lawn tennis, lawn bowling. What? What do you mean? No, no. He wants to, he's a huge fan of the UFC. He wants to help us curate the talent, the actual fights, and he wants to celebrate 250 with an event at the White House. And immediately you're just thinking about, be honest with you, the business and the brand and the White House stage. Immediately you're like, if he's serious, we're all over that. Before you ever talk about cost or how you get it done or infrastructure or mechanics, you just immediately see this is going to be a stage like you've never had. And we said, tell him if he's serious, we'll follow up next week. Do you think it's a one and done or do you think it's
done? No. No. We're never doing that again. Never.
I
Interviewer14:08
But why do you say that if it was such a smash? Just it was a smash because it was a one and done.
M
Mark Shapiro14:12
It's listen, it's at the end of the day, it's still one massive event. We did it. Just like the Sphere. We've done it. We made our mark, right? I don't think there's going up from there. We were first mover. It was super innovative. Massive global audience by the way. And news outlets covering it. Wall Street Journal is covering it not just for sports, they're covering it for news and for business. So, kind of been there, done that, and it takes a lot to pull off. We got lucky with the weather. Let's not try and press our luck and it's expensive.
I
Interviewer14:44
But I don't believe this for one second. I bet you anything you guys are talking to NASA right now for UFC in space or Blue Origin or one of those.
M
Mark Shapiro14:52
Oh, that will do. Absolutely. Yeah. Bezos has our number.
I
Interviewer14:56
You have had many hats in the sports industry business and one of the most important ones is just the intersection of media and sports. I have to confess something here which is that I was a believer in the bubble. I thought that sports media was a bubble that franchises leagues were taking advantage of what was an incredible opportunity of a product that was in demand at a time when the business was in great turmoil and that things would resettle. It hasn't resettled it seems. And where's it going? I've given up trying to predict what valuations are going to continue to do in major sports.
M
Mark Shapiro15:29
Look, as a publicly traded company in TKO, that's been one of the challenges we've faced over the years. When's it going to stop? When's it hit a ceiling? Yeah. Right. When our valuations going to freeze and, you know, this pay and that pay and look, the truth is there is at the moment, right? We can't prognosticate forever. Yeah. But like there is no ceiling and just up and down the line name your sport, right? It's for all the reasons we've talked about viewership, sponsorship, marketing, countries that are looking for economic impact, so they're willing to pay or give financial incentive packages to bring your circus to town. There's just no stopping it. And we're launching stars all the time. Name your sport from the World Cup to I know Adam Silver talked about today, you know, WNBA with the NBA finals. There's new stars coming all the time. I'm now a small minority owner in the Las Vegas Raiders and one of the reasons I got in was, hey, do you want to do something like this? First of all, if you can get in the most exclusive club, I'll take it. If you're
I
Interviewer16:34
Is that the most exclusive?
M
Mark Shapiro16:35
I do believe it is in sports. Okay. And if you're lucky enough to be able to do it, you're looking at it, you're like, "Wait a minute. Las Vegas is a great stage." Yeah. It sells out every week because no matter what the casinos will fill it up and you have consumers and fans that hey let's go to Vegas to see the Bears play and they make it a group event, right? Sponsorship strong. Fernando Mendoza is the number one pick. He's going to be the quarterback. Tom Brady's part of the ownership group. Can he do it on that side of the fence? There's so many good stories that you just want to jump in. And that's driving valuation higher and higher. And you saw the Seahawks last week for sure, way above what anybody anticipated.
I
Interviewer17:11
For sure that was a jolt. Let me ask you a question about Fernando because he's sort of part and parcel of what is a new era in the college athlete. You watch him come in and how calm and smooth he is. Obviously an incredible talent but has something happened with college sports with the NIL and the quasi professionalization that's happened that these guys are kind of coming in as professionals into the league and the learning curve is not as steep I guess.
M
Mark Shapiro17:44
NIL is allowing athletes right or wrong to monetize their IP. And hey, NCAA or whatever conference, you're being paid all this money through sponsorship and media rights for these games and I'm a big star in those games. What, just because I'm getting a free education or just because of my age, I shouldn't get paid? And look, those are issues for others to solve at the moment. But it's definitely to your point it is changing the game in unforeseen ways.
I
Interviewer18:12
For WME. How much of an opportunity is that for you or is that just a crazy wild west of different states and rules and regulations?
M
Mark Shapiro18:20
No, it is all that and it's evolving and changing every day and you have to have a great legal team like we do. And because you have to stay on top of it, you can't run afoul of all that and states have their different rules, but at the end of the day, if you want to represent a young basketball player who has the chance to be the next first apron super max deal, you have to get in early and earlier, younger, and you have to be able to bring deals, brand deals or content deals to those eighth graders or you won't be able to sign them.
I
Interviewer19:03
Yeah. Yeah. Effectively, right? I want to ask you about, I don't want to mispronounce it. Is it Mari or so? And is Mari an acronym for
M
Mark Shapiro19:12
Mark and Ari? We're very creative.
I
Interviewer19:15
Who's the dumbest guy out here? This guy. This is specifically what we were talking about before. It is a real bet on the live experience. I think it involves everything from the Madrid Open, Miami Open, you got other things going, but just basically a bet on real life. Is it as far-flung as that? Are you guys going to take like what is the craziest pitches that you guys have gotten for potential acquisitions?
M
Mark Shapiro19:41
Look, our strategy is this is where it's all going. Live experiences if we as we've talked about are going to be more in demand. We are institutionalizing events built on scarcity and durable pricing power and that might be to your point the Frieze art fair which happens in different places around the world, contemporary art sales and fairs that are obviously selling art and we have some tennis and we have endurance and we have marathons and we have food festivals but it's all about community.
I
Interviewer20:13
And in some cases participatory, I mean like actually you're in business with the athlete.
M
Mark Shapiro20:18
Which is yet another reason playing back to sports why it works in sports you are not a passenger. You go to a movie and we're in the movie business. Like you're a passenger. That doesn't mean there isn't emotional transportation. It isn't visceral. It's going to make you feel something, laugh, cry, mad, whatever it might be. It's going to elicit emotion, but you're along for the ride and the ending is the same every single time. But in sports, there is no certainty of the result. And you're not a passenger, you're a participant. The crowd thinks they have an impact on the outcome that they can change the ending and that's just something you can't replace.
I
Interviewer20:58
There seems to be this boomlet of growth among events, lots of sports events that have both a professional component and a participant component. So whether it's like a marathon type of thing where you know I can train, I can join, and then you have a world-class field that's also competing at an elite level. You see this in cycling and endurance events of all kind. Do you see that as a potential
M
Mark Shapiro21:20
I will tell you this is what I see is the opportunity to monetize your media rights streaming or linear for just about everything these days. I mean, when I was running programming at ESPN back in the day in the early 2000s, you know we wouldn't even put the UFC on back then for various reasons, but even events like the New York City Marathon, right? Everything is in demand right now. You can create events made for TV. You can manufacture events and as long as you have the right participants and the right players, the right rooting interests, the right loyalties that have been bred. There's no telling what an audience will pay to be a part of it. Which is why you see Andre Agassi selling events in pickleball. I mean, there really is no limit.
I
Interviewer22:08
Andre Agassi needs a chair at every television booth at every Grand Slam. I think he's a terrific analyst. He's just, you know,
M
Mark Shapiro22:16
Fantastic. And I'll tell you, ESPN really hit it out of the park with Andy Roddick. Anytime you can get that, right? It's when you talk about sitting next to somebody. Yeah. Sitting next to Larry David at a Knicks event, it's entertaining and he's a fan, but sitting next to like a Daniel Cormier or a Joe Rogan, you're learning as you go. They're educating and they're making the experience better.
I
Interviewer22:38
You mentioned ESPN and UFC because eventually UFC would do an agreement with ESPN and be on ESPN for a number of years. And I remember talking to Dana White about it and him saying he didn't really understand what the ESPN fire hose was like until he saw it in action and the visibility and the attention and the general chatter through which the network could just get the word out. Going to Paramount it's a different situation and I'm curious to ask you, obviously Paramount is a very committed partner here. Is it necessary even to have that kind of firehouse anymore or do you have that now through social media and all these other channels that are out there in the world?
M
Mark Shapiro23:15
No, you have it. You do have it through social, but you absolutely want to be with a partner that not only knows how to market, but actually has the tentacles, the assets, the platforms, the funnels to be able to get the word out in the most fragmented environment we have ever seen. And ESPN is phenomenal. Keep in mind, we still have the WWE. That's right. We have it with Netflix, but we also have it with ESPN. And they are quite good at the Walt Disney Company, at marketing a brand, a platform, a story, a must-see appointment viewing event. And what we have found in a very quick way, we thought it would take longer, but what David Ellison is already building there at Skydance, they have assets to make the same kind of noise. And potentially if this gets done with Warner Brothers, they'll be something to reckon with.
I
Interviewer24:05
Do you have any sense for when they might go over the air with a UFC event?
M
Mark Shapiro24:09
We've, as you know, we've done some pieces of preliminary events, some simulcasting on CBS, but this was designed to be a subscriber acquisition and retention driver for Paramount Plus, and they're doing a really sensational job. And I will tell you this, the experience of logging on and watching, I had it this weekend. I couldn't go to the Conor McGregor fight.
I
Interviewer24:34
Oh, you weren't there? Okay. Yeah.
M
Mark Shapiro24:36
My wife's brother was getting married and he's 40 years old on his first marriage and there was no way out of this for me. And my sons who were very of course happy for him but upset, very upset they were missing this fight in Las Vegas. We went outside on their phone and just streamed it and it was an incredible viewing experience and luckily or unfortunately it was 69 seconds. So, it was over quick.
I
Interviewer25:00
So, it's a blessing for the wedding I think.
M
Mark Shapiro25:03
Yeah. But the card was unbelievable. I mean the card, remember with the PPV not just that, it's everything that Hunter Campbell and Dana White build underneath it.
I
Interviewer25:12
I would be negligent if I didn't ask you about the upcoming negotiations with the NFL and networks. They are kind of going back and revisiting existing deals, sort of preempted by the NBA redoing their new deals. What I wonder about is potential down the ladder impact on other sports and how do you see this shaking up?
M
Mark Shapiro25:37
Let me answer it this way. As a platform, as a streamer, as a media company, you want to have in your arsenal an arsenal of programming that will bring the greatest viewership and also strong demos and big-time engagement across the board, entertainment to sports, and as you mentioned, music. And the NFL has shown its ability to just keep climbing. Surprisingly to keep climbing and one matchup after another, one week after another and we always tease the commissioner that he must have a lucky horseshoe in the office because Taylor Swift, he's just always stepping into a good story that drives viewership. And so to answer your question, wherever that ends up, dividing it up, going early, same as the World Cup, this is premium programming. And live really is the infrastructure for premium in a digitized world. I mean, you and I are old enough to remember the NFL being a loss leader. It was not something, now it's, I feel networks are investing in the NFL. It's effectively survival insurance, right? It's like saying we are going to be around.
I
Interviewer26:59
I don't think anyone wants to take the chances of not having
M
Mark Shapiro27:01
Yes. Right. Exactly. And if you're building other programming and you're building other assets and you're launching a new Taylor Sheridan show, it sure is nice to do it on the backs of an NFL matchup.
I
Interviewer27:12
All right. Quick speed round stuff. Can't say a member of your family best person to sit next to at a game.
M
Mark Shapiro27:21
Depending on what the sport is.
I
Interviewer27:22
Oh, you want the athlete.
M
Mark Shapiro27:23
No, no, you, yeah, exactly. You want an athlete or a coach that can actually educate you on the experience because you can cheer all on your own to better understand the game. You want that expert.
I
Interviewer27:33
You were at the Knicks with Herb Street. How's his basketball knowledge?
M
Mark Shapiro27:36
He's a fan. I called him and said, "I know you're Mr. College Football and I know you're Mr. NFL because he does the Amazon games and I know you like sports of all sizes and ages and shapes, but having said that, the Garden playoff, you must come." I actually had to convince him and then he forget about it. I mean, he wants to go to every game next year, regular season or post.
I
Interviewer27:59
What's a sport that is terrific live or on television that you know the audience might be familiar with that you would urge them to if they have an opportunity to go or to watch?
M
Mark Shapiro28:08
The WNBA is coming hard. The WNBA's, look, I'm not so objective because we carried so much women's basketball, college basketball back in my ESPN days. So you get into these coaches and these players and you start rooting in Tennessee and UConn, whatever it might be, and now you just have so many formidable teams and so many really household names. I was looking at the WNBA All-Star rosters last night. It's extraordinary.
I
Interviewer28:33
You watch television now, you watch an NBA Finals game, there are more Caitlin Clark commercials than there are for any
M
Mark Shapiro28:37
I tell you, I got more excited about us signing Aaliyah Boston from the Fever than just about anybody else we signed the last couple years.
I
Interviewer28:46
Yeah, absolutely. If you had to last 8 seconds in the octagon or on a PBR bull riding situation,
M
Mark Shapiro28:55
We own the professional bull riding.
I
Interviewer28:57
You own, I've been to Madison Square Garden if you get the chance.
M
Mark Shapiro29:01
Must go. Super novelty curiosity. Set the soil on fire. You cannot believe it. That's not even close. That's actually your first bad question.
I
Interviewer29:09
Okay. Well, not even.
M
Mark Shapiro29:11
If I'm in the octagon, I'm running eight seconds. They're not going to catch me. And if I'm on a bull, I've broken a bone in the first eight seconds. So, I'm not doing that ever.
I
Interviewer29:21
All right, last question. You are driving cross country. I don't know if you'd ever do this, but you drive cross country with your partners Dana and Ari. Who drives and who controls the radio?
M
Mark Shapiro29:33
Oh, this is a great question. I'm driving for
I
Interviewer29:36
You're driving. Okay.
M
Mark Shapiro29:37
I'm controlling the radio.
I
Interviewer29:38
Oh, both.
M
Mark Shapiro29:39
And I'm refereeing the arguments. It's something that's a show and that is diners. We got to call Guy Fieri. We get that launched.
I
Interviewer29:50
Thank you, Mark.
M
Mark Shapiro29:51
Thank you.
I
Interviewer29:51
Appreciate it. Thanks so much.