00:00Tell us a little bit about Alex Swaxman and the taping for the deal.
00:03Incredible story. I mean, his background, he spent 10 years at Goldman Sachs,
00:07and he basically ran a $30 billion fund in which they can invest in any asset class,
00:12which really gave him a competitive advantage.
00:15He's now brought that over when he co-founded Sixth Street 2009.
00:19They have over $100 billion in the AUM, and he's really deep in sports.
00:24He's done investments with all major leagues.
00:27He's done the San Francisco Giants baseball.
00:29He's done the Celtics and San Antonio Spurs in basketball.
00:33And he just bought a minority stake with Jonathan and Robert Kraft with the New England Patriots.
00:38Fascinating and great, great conversation.
00:43So I'm curious about the opportunities that he sees right now.
00:47And, you know, obviously he's taking advantage of the new rules about being able to buy into different leagues,
00:52which is a whole conversation that we could have.
00:55But what really excites him when he looks forward?
00:58I think a few things.
00:59I think markets, depending on what team, what leagues, what league, the leadership of the three leagues.
01:05Fortunately for us, we have, you know, Adam Silver, Roger Goodell in football, and Rob Manfred,
01:10all very established, very top-tier commissioners.
01:13So all that's good for him.
01:15And I think when you look at the NFL, the combination of appreciation and cash flow is something that's very,
01:20very unique in sports, you don't have usually both of those so aggressively.
01:24So I think he's really concerned.
01:27Not concerned.
01:28I would say this.
01:29Baseball is an interesting situation.
01:30I think baseball is the best opportunity to invest today.
01:35I'm a contrarian by nature.
01:36So I would invest right into the teeth of this collective bargaining agreement.
01:40Why?
01:41Because I think you could buy a very, very attractive multiples, and you're making, I think, two very safe bets.
01:47One, that the CBA will get better, not worse.
01:50Right?
01:51And the second one is that Rob Manfred would take a page from Roger Goodell and consolidate all the regional
01:57sports rights
01:58and make it more into national rights.
02:01And you get an expansion of multiples.
02:03So will there be a labor stoppage after this season?
02:06I hope not.
02:07I don't know, but I've talked to members of both sides of the aisle, and they have said, meaning owners
02:14and players,
02:15and they're both dug in pretty, pretty strong.
02:18So maybe, is what you're saying.
02:19So I don't know.
02:21Would that change your view on investing in baseball?
02:24No, I would invest even heavier into it.
02:26Because as you have more noise, as we've seen in the public markets the last couple of days, you have
02:32volatility.
02:33Yeah.
02:33Where you have apprehension, I think you have opportunity.
02:36And the multiples, if you could buy a baseball team in four or five multiple versus other sports that are
02:43trading in mid-teens,
02:44I think that's an opportunity.
02:46Would the players ever agree to a salary cap, you think?
02:48I don't think so.
02:49I don't think so.
02:50Should they or no?
02:52I think, I don't want to comment into that because I have friends on both sides.
02:56But here's what I would say.
02:58It should be a mentality about grow the pie as big as possible.
03:01How you guys divide it, that's a separate conversation.
03:04Yeah.
03:04But going back to Marvin Miller when he started the union for Major League Baseball, which has always been very,
03:09very strong and highly regarded.
03:10Yeah.
03:10And the owners, there's been a lot of conflict over the last five decades.
03:14So how do you bring it together to say, let's work together to grow the pie as big as possible?
03:19Why does it seem like baseball has the most issues with labor?
03:22I think it has a lot of...
03:23Am I right with that assessment?
03:24Yeah.
03:24I mean, the history is very strong.
03:27Marvin Miller was the head of the union.
03:29He started it.
03:30Then that went to Don Feer for many years, who's a great, great leader.
03:34And then Michael Wiener, Tony Clark, and now they have a different situation right now.
03:40But it's been that way, Tim, since I was involved.
03:44I remember that every time CBA came, it was a battle.
03:47And somehow or another, you figure it out.
03:49But I will say that this is the most important year for baseball and labor talks in the history of
03:55the sport because of how many attractions we have out there between Netflix, YouTube, Bloomberg, you name it.
04:02There's just more assets that everyone's fighting for the consumer.
04:07So do you think about the collective bargaining differently now that you're an owner of a sports team?
04:16That's a great question.
04:20I think overall, like 90% of my thoughts are still the same.
04:24You want the sport to be healthy.
04:26You want it to grow.
04:27You want it to collect more fan base.
04:29And you want millions of people watching every day because it is a great sport.
04:33And the World Series this year showed us that when you have the right product, you have the right market,
04:38you have the right superstars in Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
04:42and Shohei Otani, that you had 53 million people watching when you include the U.S., Canada, and Japan.
04:47Which is pretty incredible.
04:48Football still works.
04:49Yeah.
04:49And when there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of opportunity.
04:52So when, you know, you talked about, you're right, sports is vying for all of our attention with so many
04:58other things.
04:59So when you think about investing, how do you think about, like, how does that play into where you want
05:03to commit some money?
05:05Well, you want to moat.
05:06Think about this.
05:09Take the NBA.
05:11If you're a real estate investor and there's only 30 beachfront properties in the entire world.
05:19Yeah.
05:20Boy, you would do anything to own one of those.
05:22So scarcity is a big deal.
05:25When you look at the TV deal that just was signed, 11 years, won the first year of 11 years
05:29for $77 billion, that's something that is easy to underwrite, easy to understand.
05:33So you like to invest into that, you know.
05:36And then when you think about the global growth in the NBA, you know, 20 years ago, there's probably less
05:41than 3% of the league was global athletes, meaning born outside of the U.S.
05:46Today, that number's ballooned to 35%, right?
05:50When you look at Europe, second most popular sport in Europe, the NBA, basketball, and is a $45 billion annual
05:58business, and we're only on 1% of that.
06:01At the same time, you have 400 million people playing basketball in China, 300 million playing in India.
06:06So the global scope, you can say, from the American sports, NBA could be number one.
06:11That's pretty impressive.
06:13We always love it when we get to talk to you a little bit.
06:16All right.
06:16They're going to yell at me.
06:17Yeah, we got to go.
06:18I'm going to go.
06:1930 seconds.
06:20What's on your night table?
06:20What are you reading?
06:21Oh, you know what I do is I love podcasts.
06:25You do?
06:25What are you listening to?
06:26I love The Founders.
06:27It's one of my favorite.
06:28And what's the one that I'm, the one that's like three and a half hours.
06:33Acquired.
06:34Acquired is fantastic.
06:35That's pretty cool.
06:35I love those guys.
06:36Three, four hours.
06:37I love it.
06:38And how many hours are you watching Bluebird?
06:40I watch it a lot.
06:41Okay.
06:42And you guys do a great work.
06:43Keep it up.
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