00:00Look, I was born right here in New York City, 1975, in the shadows of Old Yankee Stadium,
00:05the house that Babe Ruth built. And I come from humble beginnings. And, you know, we were lifelong
00:11renters. And as a young man, I said, boy, if I can ever trade places with a landlord, I will.
00:16Because we had to move every 18 months. And that kind of inspired me to one day be on the
00:22other
00:22side of that trade. And I had an opportunity about 10 years later, in my early 20s, and it's
00:27when I made my first real estate investment. And it was just a small duplex. And then we sold that
00:32for double. And we did it again and again. And now over the last 25 years, we've acquired more than
00:3820,000 keys multifamily. And it's been a good business. It definitely has. You've looked up
00:44to people like Warren Buffett to Magic Johnson. What's some of the best advice they've given you
00:50or something that sticks out in your head? I think what Warren Buffett has taught me is, you know,
00:54stay in your circle of competence, right? Don't be wide and shallow. Go narrow and deep.
00:58And what are the two or three things you do really good that you have a competitive advantage?
01:02And then when I was playing, he would say two things. Be the best baseball player you can be
01:06and be a gentleman because reputation is everything.
01:08There you go. Words to remember. So you expanded beyond real estate. Your portfolio
01:13has grown so much. What do you look for in an opportunity?
01:19Well, I mean, the one constant today is change. And things are changing faster than ever.
01:25When you look at AI and how it's transforming business, some for the good, some for the bad.
01:31But we do three things at A-Rod Corp. We do real estate, which is our legacy business.
01:36We do sports. We own our two franchises in Minnesota, the Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx.
01:41And then we own part of about 30, 35 companies in which we made investments, most of a minority,
01:47some majority. But we look at companies that we have an opportunity to help more than just our
01:53capital. Do we have a great passion for it? Do we understand it? And can we actually bring value
01:58to the founders? And that's really what we think about it. And obviously, we want to buy at the right
02:03price and buy really good businesses. Now, you've had so much success, but you've also had some
02:08setbacks and you've been very open about it. Your docu-series, Alex versus A-Rod, incredible series.
02:14You really opened up in there. Even maybe there were some business transactions that didn't go
02:18quite the way you wanted. How do you handle those setbacks or what lessons have you learned from
02:23them? Well, I think, look, when I just turned 50, right? And when you've been around a while,
02:31hindsight is always easier to go back and go, oh, I wish I didn't make that decision or that decision.
02:35But I think you have to lead with it. And, you know, my mistakes, whether it's been in baseball
02:42or anything else, you know, where I used to be ashamed of it, now I've had a great opportunity to
02:48turn the lens inward, do a tremendous amount of work over the last 10 or 15 years. And I lead
02:52with it
02:53now. And I just lay all the cards on the table. But learning from your mistakes and then being able
02:59to play offense in the future, it's worked well for me. Excellent. Yankees opening day around the
03:06corner. What does this current team have? Does it have the DNA to be a championship team? Or maybe
03:12what are they missing? Well, I think they're going to get some health back. You know,
03:17Garrett Cole coming back is huge. It comes down to a few things. It comes down to great pitching,
03:24good defense, situational hitting. Obviously, the Aaron Judge elephant in the room is he's 34.
03:29So that window starts closing at some point. So if you're the Yankees and you're the fan base,
03:34you want to capitalize on one of the greatest players of our generation to be able to collect
03:40the world title. And the key is, as you get to October and right before the playoffs,
03:45is they call it the two H's. You want to be healthy and you want to be hot. And hopefully
03:49they can do
03:50that this year. What do you think about robot umpires entering the season this year? What's
03:55your take on it? How is it going to change the game? You know, you can make an argument that
03:59can
04:00make it better. Right. But I'm a big proponent for umpires. I think umpires are in many ways,
04:06they're underpaid. They're underutilized and underappreciated. I mean, if you think about an
04:10umpire referee in sports, you have, you know, you have nine players from each team screaming at you.
04:16You have both managers. You have two catches that are not happy. You have hitters that are not happy.
04:20But at the end of the day, when you have some of the great umpires that I've been around and
04:24I've
04:24been fortunate to, to work with, uh, and I can think of over a dozen of them, they make the
04:30game
04:30better. They control the pace of the game. Uh, they're a big part of the game. And I just think
04:35we can't really forget how important they are because it's still a human game played by humans.
04:40Yeah. They get a bad rap. I think so. And, and, and they're very, very good. I mean,
04:44if you think about an umpire who may have to call 300 balls and strikes and you miss five,
04:49they're going to scream at you for 50, right? So I, I'm a big believer in umpires. I'm a little
04:54bit old school there. Okay. Uh, let's take you from baseball to basketball. You joined the ownership
04:59team behind Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx. Um, the, the landscape is changing for sports
05:04management, ownership, kind of going away from the, the family owned business. How do you think,
05:10I mean, big money involved as well. How do you think, um, it's going to impact sports or
05:15particularly the sports fans? Which part that the fact that you have institutional capital coming
05:20in? Correct. Well, it's interesting because, you know, this happened a little bit after COVID.
05:24And I remember six street made a big investment into the San Antonio Spurs. And that was like a big
05:28wow moment. Um, I think it's a great tool. I think you still have to have guardrails,
05:33but I think so far for the NBA has worked really well. NFL is now dipping their toe in where
05:38we can buy
05:3910% from institutional capital. That's also going to be very interesting to watch. Um, and I think for
05:45baseball where it is right before a big collective bargaining agreement negotiation, it'll be
05:50interesting because I do think that right now I'm a contrarian by nature is the best time to
05:55invest into a baseball team because of all the, all the unanswered questions in is very fluid right
06:03now. People don't know what's going to happen with the CBA. Are you going to strike? Are you not
06:07going to strike? Um, there's a lot of moving parts. What happens to regional sports networks is
06:12Rob Manfred going to try to bundle them all the, all of them, just like Roger Goodell has in the
06:16NFL. And it's worked out beautifully for them. So because there's so many questions is a good time
06:22to buy at a pretty decent multiple. And there's been a lot going on in Minnesota itself. I mean,
06:27you've had the ice agents on the streets. Um, how do you talk to the team about this? Cause
06:32obviously they're going through a lot mentally, um, as well through all this. Yeah. You know,
06:36it's, um, very, very sad time, uh, in Minnesota for, and for the people there that have to
06:43endure so much. Um, the one great thing about sports, it's the time that we can all agree
06:48that we can all wear, you know, the color blue for, for the Timberwolves or purple or whatever
06:54color we're wearing that night. And it unifies people. You know, we have 20,000 people every
06:58night at our game. We have a game tonight and it's just great when you have 20,000 people
07:03cheering for one team, smiling, hugging, uh, not asking political questions, not caring
07:09about political issues, but really caring about, can the Timberwolves win tonight? Can
07:13Anthony Edwards score 35 points? And I think the Timberwolves and the links have been a uniter
07:20and really a great medicine for the people of Minneapolis. And I have to talk about the
07:24deal. Um, Jason Kelly, your partner in this, uh, what can we expect for the next season?
07:29Well, we have some incredible guests, which we're not ready to announce yet, but the first
07:33three seasons have been really great. Jason Kelly has been a dream partner. He's a great
07:37quarterback. I call him Tom Brady. Um, and we have a lot of fun. We have some incredible
07:42guests and now we having really, really prominent people calling us to say, Hey, can we go get
07:47on the deal? Which is really exciting for us. Have you learned anything from this show business
07:52wise? Oh, I've learned so much. I mean, really is a masterclass. When you see the type of people,
07:56both men and women, uh, from all walks of life, from all walks of fields of, of business
08:01and sports, uh, they just give you some incredible gems, some great nuggets. And if you young
08:07entrepreneurs must watch TV because you can learn so much in a matter of 30 or 45 minutes.
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