The New Power Play - A Sports Diplomacy Conversation with Mark Shapiro and Brian Rolapp

Good evening everyone. I'm David Bohagen, the CEO of Meridian, and I'm thrilled to see the energy in the room tonight. I really want to start by thanking our guests here tonight, including our partners at TKO Group and in particular Dean Garfield who helped get things kicked off here tonight. So, thank you, Dean. And there are so many leaders from business, government, and the theory at Meridian is you're all diplomats and we are thrilled that you're all here. I want to thank our actually Senate confirmed and other State Department diplomats as well. Sarah Rogers, Under Secretary, is she here yet? Not here yet. But we'll look forward to seeing her and she gave tremendous remarks today. Ambassador Monica Crowley, Assistant Secretary Kate Dylan's here with us tonight, Darren Bey at the US Institute of Peace, Rob Play, and the rest of the sports diplomacy team at the State Department. Thank you all for being here and thanks for supporting the important work at Meridian around the world. I also want to thank our presenting sponsor, that's American Global Strategies, and particularly my friend David Malipass, who's tall, but I don't see him in the room. Yeah, I saw him and his lovely wife Adele earlier. Tonight's conversation comes at a critical moment. We are in the middle of one of the most consequential decades in sports and history and so much of that is running through America. It's kicking off obviously with the World Cup across the entire continent. But what we're seeing with the UFC this weekend is unprecedented and really shines light on the cultural values of America around the world. So many fighters and so many golfers come from different countries around the world and that's the way that people experience their countries and how they experience America. And so again, everyone's a diplomat and in our 250th year hopeful can continue to build on the values that sports teaches whether it's resilience or whether it's making sure there's sportsmanship or courtesy. All those come together in what we're talking about tonight in diplomacy. It's more than competition. It's also connection. There's nothing that pulls people together like sports. You can be sitting next to the people that you're rooting for with your country in a way that you wouldn't get together in other formats. And it really helps diplomacy work, right? There are times in the world where countries aren't talking, but athletes and sports and cultural figures are. And it's part of what we call here open diplomacy. So that's why we're especially pleased to convene tonight's program tonight. There are so many people who are shaping the future of sports which is shaping the future of the world and truly building a more peaceful and prosperous world. And I want to thank you all for being here. So I get to welcome to the stage three panelists tonight. John Iran, the sports correspondent at Puck, Brown Rolap, the CEO of the PGA Tour, and Mark Shapiro, the president and chief executive operating officer of TKO. So let's give them a round of applause.

Well, this is a real treat having these two on stage here. But Mark, I want to start with you because Kirk Herbstreit is a famous college football announcer, pro football announcer, and he had a post on social media at the end of the Knicks game last night where you were jumping around like a little kid. And as we're getting ready to talk today about the power of sports and what sports can do to bring communities together, describe what that was like.

And I can't emphasize this enough. I've covered you for 25 years. You've been in the business for a long time. You were last year Puck said that you were the executive of the year for sports. You've seen it all and still something happened with a team that you don't even particularly like that much and you're jumping around.

When was the last time you jumped around at a golf tournament or NFL game?

Last time I jumped around it was when Mark asked me to do this panel with him. That's probably the last time.

So the idea of this panel is really to talk about the globalization of sports and sports as a unifier. As you look at international markets and as you look internationally, what are the types of things that you're looking for with the PGA Tour?

Well, I think anyone in the sports business looks for exactly what Mark is talking about. I can't think of any other thing other than sports that is a universal language. You don't have to speak a language. You understand human competition. All the things that Mark talked about. I also think what sports has and golf has is there's a meritocracy to it. And I think golf is one of those sports where it's like you eat what you kill. It's one stroke over four days. And sports is one of the places on this earth where people can look at it and the best actually come to the top. And that's a universal human interest and emotion and that's where the stories come from, right? The stories come from the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. And so that's why sports in general is just international and universal which you can't find anywhere. So there are lots of things that we look at when we look at tournaments internationally. We have a great partnership with European tour. It is an international sport. People play all over the world. But I think what translates even if you don't play the sport is the things that we're talking about here. I was at the NFL for 23 years and we played football games in London and all these other places. There's not many football fans in London, but they understand human competition and that's extremely interesting, especially in this tech heavy AI world where what's real, what's not. I'll tell you what's real. What's going on on the field or on the course with human competition that's just increasingly genuine for people.

UFC, WWE, they've gone international completely, right? What are the things that you're looking at market to market to make you say that that's the market that we want to go to?

So it sounds to me one of the words that I've heard here today several times is sports diplomacy. It sounds to me like you see an opportunity, a good business opportunity, you take advantage of the business opportunity and the diplomacy comes after that. Brian, when you think of sports diplomacy, what do you think of? What does that mean?

I think it's using sports to certainly further your business interest. Sports is probably one of the best businesses on earth for all the reasons we're talking about. It's authentic. But it's also what Mark talked about. It is one of the only places where people can actually rally around something that they have in common. And that common may be affinity for a team, affinity for a sport. It might be cheering on human competition but that's what diplomacy is and sports can do that. The original diplomacy in sports was the Olympics which is over 100 years old and that's what it was about. It was about can we put aside whatever political issue, whatever geopolitical problem we have and unify around a healthy competition and I think that exists in all sports. The PGA Tour is mainly centered in the US but you look at our membership and I think close to 40% are non-American and growing. 40% is a big number and growing all the time. And you're seeing the best golfers in the world, whether they're from South Africa or the UK or Spain, finding their way to our tour. But that just gives it a much international flavor. So I think diplomacy is about finding something that unifies everybody, which is why I think when you see controversy in sports, you always see when politics eek into it, there's an adverse reaction to it. And there's always debate about it. And I think when you look at sports fans, it doesn't matter where they are politically. What they don't like is when you invade sports with politics. This is the one place I can go. This is the one place I can turn on the television. This is the one place I can go to a stadium and feel unified. Do not bring whatever political issue. And every time that happens, it eeks into it and it takes away from the authenticity of the sport. And I think sports fans don't like it. I don't care what side of the aisle they're on. I don't care what their political affiliation is, but they want that to be a place that this is where we go to unify. And I think for the sports industry, it's important that we keep that.

Let me give you another example of that closer to home. So all day today I spent all day on the hill just meeting different people. And I was walking to my next meeting. There was a staffer there and he asked me like what did you think of the game last night? I'm like oh my gosh they were the Knicks were down by 29 points and I can't believe Fox tried to take a layup. He should have pulled it out. And he goes, "No, no, no. I'm talking about the congressional baseball game." Which by the way, I happened to watch Sports Center and somebody made an amazing play in left field who was a senator from somewhere. I don't know where it was, but they put that on the top 10 just to make somebody feel good. But then every meeting I had, there was a member of Congress who showed me the bat he had from the game last night and we were meeting with Democrats and meeting Republicans. The point is even there, which I would guess, I'm not an expert, is probably the most political place on the planet, they were talking about sports and they were talking about playing with their colleagues from across the aisle. So that's a small example, but multiply that by 100 million. And that's what sports is. And Mark's going to have an amazing event this weekend. And what sports fans don't want to hear about, they don't want to hear about ballrooms. They want a sporting event. And I think that's great. And when you talk more about that globalization, I think it also goes hand in hand with the strategy of if you build it, they will come. It's not just that you will put an event on in another country and they will come. They might. Sometimes it's just curiosity and the novelty, but ultimately if it's good competition, right, and there's real good rivalry, then it expands. It starts to grow. It starts to bleed. Everyone wants to be a part of it. Everyone starts training. You start developing, you put money into it, you invest in it and it goes to another level. And then when you start having the athletes reflect the fans, the countries meaning Yao Ming in the NBA, right? Victor Wembanyama on the San Antonio Spurs, right? When that starts to happen, Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers, well then you're really globalizing the game because now you've got rooting interest back home for their player who's on the American stage here. Am I correct, Brian, in identifying a trend here? Today's the first day of the World Cup. And of course, the World Cup's been around forever as of the Olympics, but the National Hockey League had its four nations, the NBA for their all-star game decided to do an international competition. There seems to be the PGA of America but the Ryder Cup, I'll take it every year. It's every two years but it's a fantastic event. Are we seeing more of this? And if so why? And if no then it's a very short answer to a long question.

No, I do think you're seeing more of it. And the reality is it's just frankly a better business plan. Nobody cared about the NHL All-Star game when it was East versus West. And I might even venture, I can't speak for hockey, so this is speculation. I'm not sure the players cared about it. One of the best sporting events I ever saw in my life was the US versus Canada gold medal game at the Vancouver Olympics. They were all NHL players and they were playing harder than any NHL playoff game I'd ever saw because they're playing for country. And I think when you see country affiliation in sports, when it matters to the athletes, it matters to everybody else. And I think you see that in the Ryder Cup. I think you see in the President's Cup, which we have as well, but it is different, it's bigger. And so I think that's why you see it. I'm not surprised the NHL has been trying to figure out how to make that more meaningful. They just did that and all of a sudden guys like, "Oh, I'm playing for my country." You got it. I'm going to go out there and leave it all on the ice. I think that matters and I think it matters to fans. I also think it brings in fans who aren't normal fans of the sport because the Olympics does that. How much figure skating have you watched since the Winter Olympics? I'm guessing zero. But somehow it's on prime time television during the Winter Olympics because it rates really well, rates really well because people like to cheer for their country. It's natural emotion. So I think you always see sports leaning into that and I think there's going to be more of it.

Kali would not have put that on the record there. I want to ask about Dana White who is coming up next. You know, I just did a story in Puck about 10 years ago. It was MMA was illegal in New York. And this weekend, you're going to have something on the White House lawn. When you bought UFC, could you envision where it is right now? How did it get to where it is?

Made a bad decision.

Yeah.

Mark Shapiro is such a pro. You took us down to 0.0 on the dot.

The producer. I'm mesmerized. Two of the smartest people that I cover. Can't thank you enough for joining me up here. Thank you.