TKO Group chairman, founder of Endeavor and also Mari and everything else they have going on. Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro.
Business suits.
Suits. Go.
Good to see you. Suits. Good to see you.
How you doing? Well, for sure.
Yeah, I know. I know. Ari was super excited to see what you were going to wear, Mark. I want to let you know that Ari was hoping that you would show up in a full suit. Instead, you have kind of like the business cash sport coat kind of undershirt.
Got to look good. Here for a luncheon, you know.
He doesn't have the half zip quarter zip.
I'm fully caffeinated. I'm ready to go.
Ari Emanuel, by the way, is Ari Gold from Entourage.
Okay. We talk about this every single year. I think that does need to be stated. And now that I know him as an avid Entourage watcher from before, I know Jeremy Piven is a very good actor. I think writing that was probably pretty easy. Okay. I assume following this guy around, it kind of is what it is. Ari, you've moved into sports in a big way. Obviously, you as well, Shapiro. You kind of cut your teeth, I believe, in the sports world. Ari, moving into sports in such a big way. Formerly of just Hollywood, now you still have Hollywood, but you love live sports. You're in it. Why? And what has the trajectory been from the last time we spoke to you about what sports is up and to the right with these streaming platforms?
You know, he didn't even mention that I've taken on this experiment called Pat McAfee, an actor. I mean, this guy just finished Tulsa King.
Whoa. What? Yeah. Bunch of episodes.
That's not prime time news. Actually, breaking news already.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Shout out to the entire Stallone family. That was a good time. It has been fun.
You got to do four episodes this guy.
All right. Okay. Come on.
Out of the bag. I don't know how that's supposed to go. I think you're just pissed off.
I don't give a... Yeah, we know. We know you.
Is he cutting you Ari Gold deals? It's like, are you getting big deals?
Oh, yeah. You know how it goes. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. Huge. Yeah. You know, we're building the platform.
Yeah. Of course you are. Back at stage one. It isn't on.
You have to pay to be... Yeah. Exactly. It's kind of how it feels in your guys.
No, listen. We kind of when we bought IMG realized where sports, where the distribution business was going, and realized the value of live sports. That was in the representation business when we were IMG. And then we realized that we had a lot of the infrastructure to handle owning a sport. And we started out with bull riding and then we moved and acquired the UFC. Both went very, very well. And then when we saw a possibility of just a pure play with UFC and the WWE, we kind of moved very quickly to that. And now TKO is what it is.
Yeah. What it is is awesome and we're very appreciative. Obviously is a huge part of our world. WWE, UFC, everybody we know has to do business with you. Sorry. Gets to do business with you, which is obviously two different...
Well, they get to do business.
Yeah. With Mark Shapiro. Okay. So, Mark, let's talk about this. Honestly, you two great tag team especially for TKO. You ran ESPN before we...
Yeah. With George Bodenheimer and Steve Bornstein. That was kind of the lineage there.
What year was that? What years were those?
I left there in 2005. Wonder because I started, I mean, as a production assistant way back in, you know, '93 was like the beginning.
Okay. So you are OG ESPN.
Now you're super suited with TKO and Mari and everything else.
I've always been super suit just to be clear.
Okay. What is the business like right now for you? What is like projections of what should we be investing? What sport do you think is potentially going to come along?
Look, I'll tell you this. Just the experiences and events business is a good place to be. Whether that's a Mari or that's a TKO or that's properties we have touching talent at WME, by the way, William Morris, it's just folks want to be out. Youth wants to be out. Shared experiences, communal, get the phone going. They all suffer from FOMO. Like we're playing right in the sweet spot of where it's going.
Okay, so let's talk about you being super suit having all the information. Why does the football run everything? 96 of the top 100 things were football, both college and the NFL. Why do you think it has become such a live sports but also football being so dominant whenever it comes to attention and captivating folks?
Look, both of them just have such storied rivalries, right? There's rooting interest. It's very provincial, college. You got a lot of small towns and like that's their life. I went to school at the University of Iowa.
Damn right. There we go. Iowa City, like that is the pro team for the entire state. And you have that across the board with a lot of schools. And of course the NFL, you know, dominates so much. They've done a great job with the schedule spreading it out to different platforms. Prime Time going streaming before anyone was going streaming. So like they're in a good position, but I would just tell you, Pat, sports overall is in a great position because it's not a passenger.
I mean, this is one of the great... This is like he's got this down, doesn't he? He's like the greatest politician of all time.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that with you here. Yeah, but think of that, every all other content, there's a lot of passenger content. You go see a movie, you watch a TV show, you get excited, you laugh, you cry, but it's a passenger experience where sports is a participant experience.
But also live, whether it be live events, live music, live. Yeah.
You can't get around how great live is because you just never know. And in a world where, you know, you're just scrolling, you have to pay attention.
And you know what enhances all that? Sports betting. Oh, I thought I was going to say weed, but yes, I agree. I do agree that sports betting does. You talk about sports being the greatest. Obviously, we appreciate that you guys have done so much for sports and getting in sports world. When sports are great, cities are great. Welcome back, Chicago Bears, bro.
Yes. How about that? Huh? He's a diehard. We should have got him into the Bears.
Don't you think we should have gone for two?
Watching the game, I thought so. We were actually sitting watching together. I said they're going to go down score and they're going for two. I was shocked that they didn't go for two.
He was there. I'm going to tell you right now, we were both there with our three sons sitting out. What was it like, 2 degrees for the entire game? We had a box with our family and we sat out in the elements.
Had to. By the way, let me just say something. So, they get the touchdown. The crazy, we go down, all the boys, which know each other, hugging crazy each other. Then he doesn't go for two. For me, I don't know about Mark and his... I almost lost it. I mean, I couldn't believe that we were not going for two. I mean, I was...
But you're at the 50. You're at the 50 and all you need is a field goal. You don't need to make that long throw to DJ. Just...
No, they get in field goal.
Okay. This is exactly what we were hoping this would become. You guys breaking down a game that doesn't matter. You're not in the Super. I always have some questions for you. Go ahead, AJ.
Yeah. For I guess Mark first and Ari, I guess. How do you...
No, no, I get first. Bill, you're right.
Mark and Ari, right? That's going for me. Yeah. You guys have to fight that you guys. But I guess you guys like for you kind of have to forecast the future. How people consume things? How they watch things? I guess what does 5 to 10 years look like from now? And how do you find a way to feel, hey, this is where everything is moving? Who do you trust? You guys, just you two.
Well, we have a lot of good banter back and forth. But look, we just like you, we try and you guys are so knowledgeable. I mean, I watch a show every day. You touch culture, you touch entertainment, you touch sports, you're all over the news, you have all kinds of guests on from all walks of life. And that's really what we do, right? We're reading, we're in touch, we're asking questions, we're making phone calls, we're taking trips. I mean, he's traveling up around the world all the time, whether he's talking to current investors or soliciting new investors and just trying to stay one step ahead. It's tough, but that's the business.
Yeah. That's why he's Ari Gold, honestly. That's why you are Ari Gold. Every streaming platform is going to get into live sports bigger. Feels like Paramount Plus is making a big push right now.
Yeah. I mean, they have with us bull riding, our new boxing business, and UFC. They have football. I mean, they're in it big.
Who else? And also, is Apple TV ever getting in, do you think? How come?
Okay. Yeah, they got the pinnacle.
They've had some baseball. They've done...
Oh, yeah. They had the MLS, too. A lot of things. It's going to be interesting. I would actually like to know, I'd like to know Mark's answer on local when depending on what happens with the local broadcasts and where he thinks that's going.
You're talking about Bally's, then it became Fanduel, right? And then Main Street. I mean, that's a tough place to be. Think about those revenues. Those owners had those local rights and those RSNs and that's gone. So, it's all messy right now.
I think we know the guy running that. I think he used to work somewhere else.
Debbon has a question for you guys.
I got to ask you. All right. See, I got top billing here. Thank you very much. What's been your favorite? Because I got caught up watching one of the Rushmore's. I want to say two or three days ago was the boxer.
The boxing Rushmore, which was great. I learned a lot about boxing. I didn't really know as a casual. What's been your favorite one to shoot?
Um, well, I loved Tom and Peyton.
That was incredible. I loved the one on bands with Jimmy Iovine and Rick Rubin. And I loved Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham talking about, we just finished it, who would be on Rushmore if they weren't president. That was unbelievable.
Shut up. You called me up and said, you know, I learned a ton. Okay, that was our lowest rated one. That was the lowest one we had.
Maybe somebody was on some other stuff and you were like into it at one point.
Well, listen, it is a good show. It is a good show. Rushmore is a great show. And we just finished boxing and we were just down in Nashville. We did country music. That was...
Yeah, we took the show on the road.
Debbon. Did you just jab Debbon live? Debbon's guy in the back. Guy in the back. Loves country. He does.
Pat, can we talk boxing for one second?
This is a big deal. Congratulations on Zuffa. That's a big deal. He's doing a bumper right now. This isn't any self-promotion, but to your question, AJ, like where's it going? What's next? What's hot? Like boxing is a big opportunity for us, right? We got Dana White and Nick Khan driving this. Where's there's a lot of history of fights that should have happened that didn't happen. Corruption, pay-per-view, closed circuit. I mean, like, it really went away. Yet, it's been around for a hundred years. So, if we can make a UFC a boxing, think of that. Really a closed league. We're signing 200 fighters right now. Consistent fights, weight divisions that you understand. We're already on Paramount Plus and we're about to announce some international deals. This could become the next behemoth force.
And how close are the international deals?
Very, very. Well, we should be announcing something next week.
Congratulations to Netflix.
No, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO. OKAY, we're going another way. I like that. I like what you're doing. Yeah, but when we did the big event for Netflix and there was at Allegiant, there was 70,000 people.
Canelo Crawford, you realized kind of boxing is ingrained in every... I think that business for us could be as big as our UFC business and our...
