You guys ready? We are. All right, let's do this. Josh, you've had quite the last few months: Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, now new arena. How exciting is this new spot?
It's incredibly exciting to be able to do this with our partners at Comcast, with Brian, and to bring the greatest arena in the world—which is what it will be on the lake—to the city of Philly, and to create incredible fan experience, incredible concert, hockey games, basketball games. Like, what fun, right? And so looking forward to it and obviously looking forward to the season and seeing LeBron and Jaylen and Tyrese and Paul George and Joel on the court. Let's go. It's going to be a fun season.
It's going to be a lot of fun. And Brian, for you to have this new arena on the grounds of the Spectrum, and it even looks like the Spectrum a little bit from the outside—futuristic. How special is that to have this place pay homage, to honor the Spectrum?
Well, you walk in this building where we're sitting, and Ed Snider built it. And of course, Ed Snider built the Spectrum. Really an inspired idea by Josh and his team. We're happy to and proud to bring to life the largest private investment in Philadelphia's history, do it on the site of the Spectrum. You're absolutely right: the design team was tasked, "Make it feel intimate, make it feel retro but super modern." And at the same time, we both went to Penn where the Palestra—fan engagement. Think about it from the fan perspective and make everything really better and unique, and the experience that you and your family will remember for your lifetime. So we're really, really excited for today, the launch of this journey.
I remember walking into the Spectrum as a 10-year-old kid with my grandfather. I remember Dawkins bringing the backboard down, and Moses Malone and Andrew Toney, and the championship series. And so to honor Philly basketball, but also create the best or most modern arena in the world, what an opportunity for us and the city. I'm humbled to be part of it.
Describe what it's going to be like for fans to walk in to this new arena and the feeling of being in the seats for a Flyers game, for a Sixers game, for a WNBA game, or even a concert. What is it going to feel like?
Well, first of all, you're going to walk up the Rocky steps to get in. So, how about that? And then look, you're going to walk by retail and drinks and food. There's 16 levels of hot dog, I found out. You're going to see a lot of—yeah, you're going to have that feel. My whole thing is I remember being a 10-year-old kid and the impact of walking into the Spectrum, with what that did to me, right? And the sense of excitement and almost bewilderment that I felt when I listened to—it was an incredibly loud arena—and watch some of the exploits of the best players in the world. I think that's what we want to accomplish.
Yeah, for you, what do you think it's going to feel like? The fan experience to walk into that arena, to feel a Flyers game, to feel a Sixers game.
So, I'll start back with my first young memory was the Flyers playing the Russians. My uncle took me to that game, and the Russians walked off the ice and the Broad Street Bullies did their thing. There was that sense of community, that sense of shared experience. That's what makes live sporting events and concerts so unique in our society. You drop your political differences, drop everything, and just go experience something together.
To do it in a home with this much thought and this much new intimacy, I think if there's something we're trying to create, it's to make the experience for both hockey and basketball fans feel like you're right part of the action. And if you're at a concert, you're in it. And the technology is just part of it: how you park, how you arrive, how much the lines are, how quick can it be that you get serviced as a customer. These are all the things that the teams have been working on and will be working on—talking to fans, talking to neighborhood. And it's the evolution of the sports district, the next evolution. Looking back at what it looked like back in the Spectrum days, it's changed a lot. This is that next great chapter. I think people will just get goosebumps. I hope that's the goal.
We're stewards, right? We're stewards for the city. Our job is to create or to enable the same memories that we had for the next generation, right? And that's what we're trying to accomplish.
Yeah, and when you talk about the technology, nowadays there's huge Jumbotrons, and you guys have one here at Xfinity Mobile Arena. When you talk about the technology, what are some things that you think are going to stand out, if we're even there? Because I know there's still a lot of work that has to be done.
Well, look, first of all, just the ultimate: the Sphere in Vegas. Now turns out you can create those light shows, and we already have, thanks to Comcast Xfinity. We already have some of that, but you're going to be able to do that. You can create the sound—it's going to be the loudest. The seats, it'll be the closest seating pretty much at every level for a hockey/basketball arena. The level of food and experience there. So I think all of those things: sound quality, the way the Jumbotrons are laid out. There's so many different things that are going on in terms of the technology of how you deliver sports content to fans.
And how hands-on have you two been with this? Have you been touring other arenas and other stadiums? I know some of the contractors and some of the companies that are working with this have built the Linc and have built SoFi Stadium and Barclays Center. Have you guys been touring and going, "We want this. We want that"? Has that kind of been the process?
What's been really exciting is how well the two companies, once we got together, have been able to just galvanize each other to go for even greater heights and imagine new things that one wouldn't think of without the other. So sticking together was a big part of why this day is possible. Building on a foundation where you have a lot of the infrastructure ready to go is another way we can really leverage things. But we have had fun, whether it's Dan Hilferty or the teams that Josh has built in his Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment organization and bringing all of that to bear. We have gone and looked at every single new arena here and in many cases abroad, and just what you said: what works, what's right for Philly, what's not right for our town, trying it out, doing surveys, all sorts of things, and tasking the designers. I've had the privilege of working on the Comcast Center, the Comcast Technology Center, with some of the best architects in the world and designers.
And it's a journey. We're underway on that journey, and we're showing these first renderings of what can be possible, what it'll mean to stimulate our economy, create jobs for the city, and memories for the fans. I'm really proud of Josh and the team for making this day possible.
Every new arena—Five Guys, Chick-fil-A, kind of the Clippers arena. At the end of the day, one of the funnest parts of my week is sitting there and trying to figure out what's this week going to look like, what food are we going to put in? I literally was tasting food at the US Open, which does a great job, by the way, last night. And so—
You got to bring them to Philly here?
Exactly, exactly. You're basically inviting 20,000 people into your living room. It's no different than building a house other than it's a lot bigger, and every detail matters. So you got to be really on it. You got to be on your game, and you got to be thinking about all the different types of fans and their experience. That's ultimately how you approach it. So it's a big, important responsibility, but it's a lot of fun.
Can you tell me how we got here? You guys obviously were looking and felt very close to building an arena in the city. How did we get here to where we're now together—Flyers, Sixers, WNBA—building it here at the sports complex?
I think it was a no-brainer once we all came with the North Star of what's the best thing for the city. At the end of the day, coming together with a company as good as Comcast, and building an arena that had hockey, basketball, and concerts all in one, and where you could concentrate all the private investment and all the technology and all the innovation in one single place made a lot of sense. So I'm so happy about the partnership and being able to work with such a great company.
Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual. We may have started with different visions, but we've ended up, I think, with a better vision than either of us could have done on our own. Really excited to build on the legacy of the Spectrum, and do it here in Philadelphia, and do it with Josh and his team. They are world class in what they did this summer with what you started with. All the talent that's going to be playing in Philadelphia this year is an example of we're going to build on that. We've got some great momentum with the Flyers in the playoffs last year, and super excited now to just take all that work together and do it for the best for our fans and for our city.
This new arena privately funded the whole way. How important was that to both of you that you're not asking taxpayers and your fans to help flip the bill?
Well, whenever you build an arena, you're making your case to the city, right? And you have to say to the city, "Hey, this is a huge ROI for you." And obviously us putting up all the money made that a simple conversation, but also we're working with the mayor and her staff to make sure that all the other things—the thousands of jobs, the billions of tax revenue, all of the things that make this important for the city—come together. So for sure, us doing it ourselves was a big deal, and that it wasn't going to happen otherwise.
