Pablo Torre Finds Out - The Sporting Class: Cooperstown Prom Kings, WNBA Protests & What Owners Want

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Our semi-regular roundtable on sports business reconvenes for expertise from the boardroom: David Samson takes Pablo behind the scenes of Ichiro's viral joke about him at the Baseball Hall of Fame, then John Skipper translates the math from the ESPN negotiating table to the Unrivaled cap table the looming strike over WNBA salaries — and team valuations at large. Plus: foreskin, poppycock, psychedelic pastel paisley, pandering to the people, talking with your eyes... and a haberdashery version of pre-determinism.• Subscribe to Nothing Personal with David Samsonhttps://www.youtube.com/@NPDS• From Pablo's Substack: We're One of the 100 Best Podcasts of All Time (Allegedly)https://www.pablo.show/p/were-one-of-the-100-best-podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Pablo Torre, and this episode of Pablo Torre finds out is brought to you by Remy Martin 1738, Accord Royale. Exceptionally smooth, cognac for all your game day festivities. Please drink responsibly, because today we're going to find out what this sound is. Your whole career, your whole wealth is based on capitalism and the way you made money for yourself and other people. And now you sit here and say, you know, losing $11 million a year, big whoop, your asses, that went up by more. Right after this ad. People are wondering where we've been.

It's been a while. Hello, John. Hello, David. Hi, Pablo. Really? That's the timing we're going to have today. Same sweater. How many Mississippies was that before you say hello?

Hold on you're making fun of my sweater? I'm not making fun of your sweater. Can we visually describe the scene here right now? Am I going crazy? Well, John's in an old Navy-striped shirt that I assume he wore in elementary school. And it fit me. It's the best I can come up with. John looks European.

He looks like he should be peddling a bicycle with a baguette in the basket. And a beret? David looks like what I see when I'm on mushrooms. Wow. That's a bad trip. I think it's a great trip. It's a good coat. But a bad trip.

I'm just suggesting. This is a bad trip. Just suggesting that when I take mushrooms, I'm not looking to have visions of my friends. Well, if you look deeper into this, you might see childhood. So this is a blazer that is,

I have not worn yet. How do you describe the pattern for people just listening to us? It's Paisley. It's pastel Paisley. It's a pastel Paisley.

Psychedelic pastel Paisley. Well, those are all words that you could use to describe it. It's just, this is an important show. Since we've last been here, you're a top 100 podcast of all time. Of all time. All time.

And this is... John doesn't even know. I would assume. John was literally somewhere else. I would assume with a bullet. John has been traveling the earth, and I have not seen him since the last show we did. And yes, I am happy.

I know. He looks refreshed, rested. You have no anything, you have no bags under your eyes. I just think we should get down to business because we have two months worth of stuff to talk about, and we only have one episode. I know. And I just feel it's important to get John when we can get him.

I do want to point out that that jacket, I think, is a, habadashry version of predeterminism. I resent and do not resemble anything that says and means habadashery. I don't view it. I was focused on the... It's actually the model who wears this on the Robert Graham website is extremely good-looking. I was simply pointing out that before you attribute any motives for wearing this particular,

particular jacket, you have told me multiple times that it is complete happenstance. This is new, though. So when you buy a new jacket... Where on the... Top of the cube. No, I get to put it anywhere I want. So I put it in the Thursday spot. Wow.

See, I didn't know that either. Well, so you're God. You're predetermining when it's coming up. When it's a new blazer, it's not in the rotation. Therefore, it gets put into, and I get to place it. It's sort of like the choice you make when you play a game. Like when do you drop like the third ball or like in a pinball? When do you do it when you have multiple pinballs?

And I want to do it because Pablo's show is one of the best podcasts of all times. What top 100 I hear? I heard that too. Yeah. So you put that in the queue to correlate with this day? With this recording. Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

You guys fist bump each other. I want to acknowledge that when it comes to all-time greatness, I'm not the only person with an update on the, the immortality front. Because David, John, well, you were somewhere with a gallivanting, gallivanting in a foreign land, and I was in the minds podcasting. David was in Cooperstown, and someone else noticed. And to the Miami Marlins, I appreciate David Simpson and Mike Hill for coming today. Honestly, when you guys call to offer me a conference, for 2015.

I have never heard of your team. Fantastic. Oh, my God. I was going to ask whether the Marlins had won a World Series. We had. So he had never heard of a team that had won the World Series. He had also at the time had been 8 for 41 against us. Just throwing that, I mean, just in case there was any question.

Were you holding a counter rally for one of the most decorated and no doubt Hall of Famers? in the history of sports. I love Ichero. And here's what I was warned. I did not know what he was going to say, nor did I know he was going to actually say my name. What I did know from Ichero is, hey, I can't wait for you to tell me

whether you like my speech. And that was the only clue I had. I thought of calling you to see if you could find a copy. Oh, yeah. Because getting the copy prior, you would have known it's all English, except for one Japanese sentence said to, uh, Hideo Nomo, but the rest was all on English. And maybe you would have found out what the

joke was going to be, because there were many jokes because he's a funny guy. After the ceremony, we're taking photos and I look at each row. You're a special guest of each row. We should spell this out. Yes. For all of the insulting, like with us on the sporting class, we actually invite you to do this with us. I don't, yes, thank you. I don't just show up. This is not exactly convenient to just show up, Pablo. Although maybe in the future you'll make it even less convenient than this, but I don't know how that's possible. So, yes, I was a guest of Ichero, and I was there with Mike Hill,

and he and I were instrumental in extending his career because he played three years with the Marlins, John, after his career may have been done. And we ended up striking a great relationship, and after the ceremony, after this, which became the hit of the... Viral immediately. Immediately, Ichero looked at me and I looked at him and I did one of these, I don't know what to do

because I do a lot of bowing. There's a lot of talking with your eyes to Ichero. And I just looked and I went, and I gave him a little wink. You're talking with your eyes? This is this like... Haven't you ever done that? What does Newt say in Bull Durham? He's doing a lizard thing with his eyes?

I just think it's important to communicate however you need to communicate. And I wanted him to know because he didn't want to. me to hear it before, but wanted to make sure that I was good. It was lovely. And I was very good. Good. My name was called out in the Hall of Fame acceptance speech by the greatest player maybe ever.

It's him with a strong, strong hairline. Ichra? Yeah. He's an ageless. By the way, he is a style icon. He is not ageless. It's gray. It's strong gray.

Distinguished. Distinguished. He could still play. I told him that this weekend. That if I were still running a team, he'd be one at 26. He prepares as much as anyone else. I feel like that is both a great compliment to Yitro and a great insult to your general managing ability.

He won a World Series. It was a great weekend. Being surrounded by greatness, which I sometimes feel like in this room I am as well, but I like being surrounded by greatness. And when you see Sandy Kofax, when you see Juan Marshall or Tony Perez, Carlton Fiske... Did you wink at Carlton Fisk?

You don't really talk to Carlton Fisk. You don't talk to him with your eyes. There's certain rules. with Carlton Fis. Because he had that mask on the whole time, so you really couldn't communicate with your eyes. The way you can talk to Wade Boggs, easy, easy. Very easy talk to you.

You just have to bring a beer. You bring a beer to him. Or 70. You can, he was. Who was the MVP of Hall of Fame weekend? How do you not say each row, but in terms of appearance. The prom king of All-Star Hall-Fame? Having Sandy Koufax there, 89 years old.

And he's, you know, and also the specter of Roy Samberg passing away very soon after he ended up dying the next day. Was it well known? Was it known that he was very ill? Yes. The idea that this is, and I was, when you told me that you were going, I was very, as a fan of baseball, jealous because it feels like a fantasy camp kind of experience. But then you also realize that it's like the thing that all of the Hall of Famers actually genuinely want to go to. It's kind of part of the point of being in the Hall of Fame. it makes me laugh even more at the idea that there you are just winking to people.

Well, each of the others I spoke to. And I got to introduce, I got to have a father moment that I don't know if it works. What does that mean? That I brought my son who grew up around baseball, but then I was introducing him to Hall of Famers who had not had the chance to meet who weren't playing necessarily when I was in baseball. And he brought a friend. The friend was very impressed.

My son seemed less so, which may have been more a, function of my fathering in general versus that specific weekend, though I don't know the answer. And I can't ask him. Yeah, yeah. I just let it go. But it was a special weekend, and I would only tell you that if you have an opportunity

to go to Cooperstown and to witness, the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown to me shows the history of our sport, and I've been to other Hall of Fame. It's just a better Hall of Fame. You're saying if you have a chance to get shouted out personally by Ichiro Suzuki on Hall of Day weekend, you should take it. If you can.

As always, very relatable advice from the sporting class. What we do here is something that I've genuinely been looking forward to, by the way, in a predetermined fashion even, because there is a topic that I think of you guys specifically about as I'm watching another topic course through the internet discourse. And this was about another special event in the summer sports calendar. It was WMBA All-Star Weekend. And the story there, John, was essentially player protest, player complaints about bleep you pay me. I mean, that was not literally what the shirt said, but it was basically what the shirt said.

A lot of players saying amid CBA, essentially pre-negotiation, that we need more money. It's finally time. Has there ever been a negotiation where one side doesn't say we need more money? I think that's the baseline of a negotiation. Well, actually, it's both sides saying they need more money.

It's true. I want to give you less so I can keep more. Yeah, the players were out of hand during that all-star weekend. But the fans were also chanting, pay them throughout the arena. And that's, by the way, also a bit different, right? And so this is a story. We have talked about fairly glancingly in the past, but I want to set up who we have here to talk about it

because John Skipper was the president of ESPN when they were negotiating the media rights deals for the WMBA, which is sort of like Russian-nested doll, Russian nesting dolled inside of the NBA rights deal, as you've established before. John now is a part owner in Unrivaled, which is a key player in the whole question of leverage that the players have against the WMBA. And David has always been a skeptic of all things, labor. That's incorrect.

As management. I'm not skeptical. I'm just aware of what it is that both sides are trying to accomplish and the ways in which they do it. So, John, this argument, this seeming consensus among the players with the fans noticing a way, wait a minute, hold on. So the league's highest paid player is on a three-year deal worth about $700,000 total. I mean, this is part of why unrivaled was formed. I want to disclose that again.

This is not immaterial to the debates. So how do you begin to think about this out loud? Well, I think it understandable and comprehensible why the WNBA players are anxious to get paid more money. What they do only three. 300 people in the world can do, right? They play at the highest level. They look across the arena, across town, and see their male counterparts making $60 million a year,

an individual player, contracts $400,000 or $500 million. They then use faulty reasoning to look at their attendance, to look at their attendance, a number of fans, social followers, and go, well, we're a substantial minority fraction of what the NBA is, so the salaries should correlate to that. And it has almost nothing to do with the ratings. That is the most specious logic going on. Oh, our games get, I make it a million viewers, the NBA games get two and a half. Well, there's two. wouldn't have to want, right? The answer is no. That's wrong. It doesn't work that way. What

matters, these are businesses, right? They are, in the WNBA's case, it's an aggregated team business, but they have revenues. They can only pay the players' salaries from those revenues. In many cases, they don't have... They've taken losses, John. They haven't even paid them from the salary. Well, I was going to make the distinction between gross revenues and net revenue because many of these teams still lose money, even paying only $70,000 for a rookie, only $700,000 for the best player in the league for three years. So I get it emotionally, psychologically. I even get it logically.

It's just the delta between what the WNBA owners, including the league, and what the players think the next CBA is going to uncover is huge. Everybody does the math of, oh, you used to have $60 million million, right? Now you have 200 and somewhere between $200 and 250. Oh, salary is going to go up four times, right? And they don't even, I would assume that most of the players would not consider a $2.8 million over three years or a $210,000 rookie maximum as where they would like to be. It's even higher. And by the way, the shirt said, pay us what you owe us, is my recollection.

And that always made me smile because that is a term of art when someone says, you owe me money. That's got to be the basis of an agreement where someone has not done their side of the bargain. Because there is no way in the history of labor and management where there is a systematic way at a bargaining table. you say, by the way, you owe me this. So give me this and this agreement because you owe me from last agreement. That is not in the history of how it goes. I would love to have gone to ESPN

during negotiation and say, John, you owe us because you underpaid the last deal. So please do better than you need to for this one to make it right. It's literally ridiculous. That's only the first part of their position. I did hear that about 683 times. How'd that go?

Did you give in? No, I, ignored it. Right. So. But, but, okay, hold on. I want to parse, I want to parse the saber rattling, the shirt rattling, right, which is trying to frame the debate in a way that, of course, the fans who are chanting pay them might be able to jump on alongside them with. I want to get to just the question of how the math actually works, right? So what is clear to me is that, of course, you're not looking for a dollar for dollar equivalency with the NBA. That would be insane. But I believe it's not insane. The tennis players, they're doing, they have the same prize

money in tournaments. They fought for equality. So the thought is, why aren't we fighting for equality in women's basketball and men's basketball? They do it in tennis. So it's not insane. It's just, it's not realistic. So I suppose that I am here to put my thumb on the messaging scale. I would say, do not argue for that. That's very unrealistic, borderline insane. But instead, as a matter of percentage, like, let's talk about just percentage, right? Not raw total dollars, but just what would be fair for the players to request as a matter of a percentage of the pot. So where does that bring us when, you know, again, the landscape of women's basketball is now quite different, right? Before WMBA players in the offseason, if they need to make more

money, they go to Russia or Turkey or wherever overseas, wherever John was hanging out in the last couple of weeks. Now, they go to Miami. They go to Unrivaled. And here's just some of the basic math on that is John Unrivaled was paying page beckers, you know, $350,000, $400,000 for a single season, a season that's way shorter, eight to ten weeks, right? John's chewing ice. This is a negotiating technique. What do you do? Did you hear it? Yes.

Do you not like ice chewing? We're in the middle of a show. Sorry, I was trying to step back. Matt Coco kept saying get closer. So the I am an ice chewer If I have an ice and a glass I chew We're doing a show The financial

I just think of this as a conversation Among friends I don't mind the ice I do want to get back though From the ice crunching to the financial crunching What does this do, right? So okay, the players can say We're going to go to one rival

We're going to go to this operation in Miami I play 10 weeks I get more than I would make In a year for a fraction of the time So now there's a plausible threat, right? And athletes unlimited is out there too, but they pay way less for a shorter, even shorter season than unrivaled. So anyway, I'm saying, like, they go to the bargaining table in real life. And what's the actual debate here, do you think?

Well, first of all, I do, as you appreciate your pointing out, the conflict I have. The salaries we pay them make sense within our business model. The greatest differential is we don't have arenas, we don't have big office running the league, we don't have but 40 some players. We're not paying for 15 players. We're paying for six for six teams. So the WNBA collective bargaining agreement has to follow the same rules we followed, which is they have to look at their business and figure out what is an. a reasonable amount of that money to pay your players. If I were there, I would be thinking about trying to tie it to a salary cap to league revenues.

Then you can say, we're all in this together. A percentage of league revenues. Yeah. And I believe the percentage of revenues that the NBA players get is 51. Call it anywhere between 48 and 51, but here's the problem. and we cover this on sporting class, what exactly is the revenue for the WMBA? Because the argument that the owners are going to make

and they're going to make it correctly is that that TV revenue that you're trying to count all in as just for you, that was a gift. And you and I can disagree about this, but it was a double-edged sword when it was announced what the WMBA deal was going to be. The Russian nesting doll of WMBA living inside of the NBA deal. There was no separate WNBBRA.

NBA broadcasting deal was part of the NBA broadcasting deal. We talked about it on the show. The reason they pinned a higher number to it is that you wanted everyone to seem like, oh, the WMBA is healthy, everything's looking good, there's momentum. The downside of overestimating what the deal was, which you disagree was overestimated, but I don't. The downside's this, that the players now think, wait a minute, where's all this money going? And the answer is John touched on it.

There's tremendous overhead for the WMBA. There is no profitability. and on top of that, any profitability that comes, the owners want to use it to pay down debt that was accrued to support the league for the decades when it was at a loss position. So you don't want to take the money that you get in and give it to your employees.

You want to take it and give it back to the banks in order to lower your debt and try to make your money back. Well, hopefully you don't want to give it to the banks. You may have to. You'd rather... You should keep in mind that the nesting doll occurred in an environment.

Do you know when David Levy and I negotiated the NBA deal in 2013, I don't know, 13, give or take for 2015 through 24? You don't have any bidders for the WMBA there were? Hold on, let me count. Let me see if I have any fingers and toes. I'm going to go with zero.

No, there's one. You? Yeah. Okay. No, no, I would have paid the money. and more if I had to bid for it separately. So I do not believe, I think the nesting egg thing has been good. Would you have taken it if you didn't get the NBA?

Yeah. Sure I would. We were in the business of having a lot of sports and a lot of ours. We had the women's college basketball tournament when we did not have the men's college basketball tournament. So, yeah, we would have taken it and we would have paid at least as much as we paid within the NBA. And while the NBA, NBC has it within their NBA deal,

there are other deals made that are outside and only have a women's component. I do know that several people have suggested that Adam and I suppressed the price. It's wrong. They would have, in the free market, they would have, they had no bidders. That is how much the league has grown and gotten there. I do think that the NBA establishment, because remember, the league owns a piece of all of teams, so there, oddly enough, could be considered to have a bit of a conflict in this arrangement. Yes.

And by the way, they own buildings, they own teams, these are all the entanglements that are really hard to isolate. Even if it means that they don't solve all of their making money problems, they should solve their equality problem by saying, you're going to make the same over certain amount of years, you're going to get the same disbursement of revenues the men get. That's how we can be equal. By percentage. But how do you say what the revenues are?

In the NBA, it's far easier. It may be far easier. Hold on, but we should explain this. I have a business solution. Get a fucking math genius. An auditor would work. Hold on. Let's draw up that LinkedIn posting.

We need a, You need a math genius to help the WMBA. I just think that the reason why you're in for a labor stoppage is the expectations of the players, not unlike in baseball. It's just unrealistic in terms of what they're hoping for. Well, it's the, it is the expectations of the players with the short-sightedness of the establishment, which is going to try now to make all the owners solvent,

get them making money. The money owners. The horror. Forget the horror. people are paying lots of money for the valuations. And that's how the WNBA owners are eventually going to make money. So they're sitting there complaining about I lost $11 million last year. Boo-hoo.

There's not any poor guys who own teams, first of all. And they are already getting $400, $500, $600 million valuations so they can lose $11 million a year the way Mark Cuban did for a long time. and still be in a revenue-producing business, and that is buying your team, holding it and selling it for a huge multiple. It's really amazing that you were ever in the corporate world, because if you went to... Well, I kind of never was.

You kind of really were. I've been to the show. He's the most socialist, capitalist capitalist and sports business. If you went to Bob Eiger and said, listen, I understand that my division is getting crushed. And we're going to need a distribution here from your division, but don't you worry, we're buying stuff that if you sell it, you're going to get all your money back.

What would Bob Iger say to you? Well, the Walt Disney Company is not analogous as a business to a sports league at all. I don't agree. Damn, there was some spice on that at all. No, no. Well, that's out. At this point in the world, if you buy a sports team to live on the money you make from that team, Do you dress like a schlep on purpose so people can think you're some sort of plebeian?

It really makes me, the reason I'm tired of it, Pablo, is that people may get the impression that John has the best interest of the man in mind because he's so concerned. Wait, which man? Exactly. And so my issue is that your whole career, your whole wealth is based on capitalism and the way you made money for yourself and other people. And now you sit here and say, you know, losing $11 million a year, big. Your asset went up by more. Yeah, I don't have any concern for the billionaires who own teams and are losing pocket change on a WNBA team. It's fun to count other people's money. I've never met a billionaire who looked at his losses as pocket change.

No, I did. And I find it astonishingly. Have you ever met one? No, and I find it astonishingly obnoxious. Until you were a billionaire. And then you wouldn't find it obnoxious. It is obnoxious. Okay.

I can't argue with you. Do you know why casinos make more money on poor people because the rich of you are, the less you gamble? I don't gamble at all. Exactly. No, I just, I don't have any. It's the same as when rich owners want the government to subsidize their stadiums. So this is the point I think. I can't debate all this.

I know, we're debating literally the fundamental tenets of sports business, which is to say it's all. always the unholy amalgamation of rank capitalism and also socialism when convenient. This is the whole point of how you protect yourself as a very rich, wealthy person with lots of power in a club that you need to buy into. That's how this goes. And so, of course, these tensions exist. Anytime you have a business, you have to understand the nature by which you're going to make money. And there are different ways. You're not buying a sports team at this point. to make money on the earnings every year. Mark Cuban famously said,

I'd rather lose money and win than make money and lose. I introduce you now to the Miami Marlins. Who? That is not. No, we ended up losing money way more years than we made and we didn't win,

which is the worst plan ever. And did it change the owner's lifestyle? Yeah, what did you sell that team for, David? So the answer is it did not change. his lifestyle. And did you make all of that money back from the sale? You bet your sweet bippy he did. So who's to feel bad for them? You don't understand. I'm not asking for the violin plane. I'm not, I'm asking you to not pander to the people thinking that you are them. That's all I've ever asked of this show is for you actually to acknowledge that you're not, where have you been

for the last six weeks? So I have to be heinous in order to keep. Let's talk about the WMBA because I'm losing my mind. I kind of like this, actually. Keep loyal to your class. I didn't grow up in that class while that will make you angry. I did not. No, but you spend more time talking about how you grew up, you know, the way I grew up, an SAT tutor, that was for the rich people.

Okay. I did. We finally got the David Simpson. I am guessing you had a tutor. I did not have a tutor, and you may think that's posturing, but I did not. Because you couldn't afford it. Right. I know.

And I continue to hold those values that... Your kids didn't have tutors? No. Nice. Because the SEC doesn't matter. Oh, sorry. It doesn't. It doesn't.

He has an answer for everything in order to keep the lie alive. I love this. I know you better than the audience does in this instance, and you continually trying to trick them with your positions. Today, it's bothering me because, A, conflicted and we can talk about unrivaled in the conflict that exists with the labor negotiations and that there are people from unrivaled who are negotiating with the wmBA's players and what a great position that is and the nightmare that could be if adam silver wakes up one day and says you know what

i don't really want unrival to be around and what would happen then which isn't going to be an interesting part of the negotiations oh boy that is the that is the fifth amendment gesture we're No, it's the cover the mic while he choose ice moves. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. A very different amendment. Look, I want to get to that, though, because something that Gabby Williams, who is a WMBA All-Star was saying at All-Star Weekend, was the WMBA wants to box out unrivaled

and athletes unlimited and these competitors and they still don't want to pay us what we deserve, right? And so two things are happening that I want to sort of merge in terms of the argument here. One is, what does team valuation mean when it comes to? what you pay, the players who arguably are responsible for a lot of the value that is increasing in those valuations. That's one argument we're having. The second argument is, if you're the WMBA, what do you think of the fact that unrivaled is around and trying to, you know, basically take advantage of the fact that all these players feel like they're vastly underpaid and objectively have a pretty strong argument?

So what does that mean objectively? They had a pretty strong argument. I think that if you were to show anybody what a WMBA player makes, forget that. If you were to ask them, what do you think a WMBA player makes? They would all imagine a number that is over the reality. So what? I mean, you say objectively, now you're back to the, because ratings are up, because there's a lot of to do. In this case, I have a fundamental agreement.

with my friend David, which it has to be in the context of the business. It's not, you don't deserve, like I would say, given my politics, teachers deserve to make more money, do they? Yeah. Are they going to make more money? No. So I don't know what this concept of deserve means. You deserve what you can negotiate, right?

And that's all you get. I'm simply saying that the owners and the league should have the foresight to understand that they're all got a payback coming. When this works, these teams will be worth a billion dollars. So I may have a dismissive manner, but it does not come from my dismissing anybody. It comes from wishing that those people could have more foresight beyond the, oh, I'm losing, money right now. Did it change your life? Jeff Bezos, does sucking up to Donald Trump change his life if the Amazon stock goes down because of the Washington Post? It does not. That is so mischaracterized. His responsibility is to keep the stock going up, not just for him, but for all the institutional

investors, for all the individual investors. That is what they, they're investing their money. His job is to increase the stock price. Of course it benefits him, but it's a public company. You're benefiting the investors. It may be a public company, but even as a public company, you should have the foresight and the responsibility go. There are things that are more important than my next quarterly earnings report. The First Amendment should be one of those.

Should Disney not have done layoffs? No, it's not quite. Were you against Disney layoffs, which were, there was a quashing impact on stock price. The company was losing money. Therefore, they did layoffs. No, I was not against layoffs. I am against the Walt Disney Company doing a settlement on a frivolous lawsuit by this president in order to curry favor because they think that will be good for the stock. I don't think that's good for the country, and you're supposed to have some things that rise above your ability to have money you can't spend.

Well, this is kind of where we can take our Thanksgiving. dinner argument back to the rundown of the show, right? The question that all of these teams are facing that these unions are facing is what leverage do we have? Is it an emotional, moral appeal? Which it feels like certainly underpayment to many? Or is this the cold hard math in which, by the way, you risk a further rift among the players? Why does the WMBA want unrivaled to go away? And if you spoke to Adam, forget the fact that they're friends, forget the fact that John's involved. Why do you want your competition to go away? Because competition, when it's good, can have a negative impact on your ability to do business in the way you've been doing it and to have the margins that you've been having.

If unrivaled or when unrivaled becomes a true competitor to the WMBA, true, there's a different cost structure, true they're not unionized. There's a to Z differences. However, if you're the WNBA or really the NBA, you don't really want unrivaled around. because it has a deleterious impact on your business and on the way your business is perceived. Yeah, I would argue that's wrong. It actually has increased the visibility. Look what it's done for Nefisa. It's increased the visibility of the players.

It's made more people, women's basketball fans. We don't play during the same season. We're not competitors to them. These two leagues can coexist forever. And it's fine. I don't see any problem with that. The problem here is a lack of vision on both sides to say, let's actually use this moment of momentum to build something. And let's build it together.

You're not going to get your magic overnight 10x salary, but you're not going to get to abrogate your responsibility to pay these amazing athletes by pretending that you bought the team to live on. And if you look at the math, they should all be building team valuations because that's where everybody gets paid. You think anybody who owns an NFL team, there's a couple, there's a few owners who still are sort of hanging around, but for most of them, it's a trophy that they bought after making a lot of money doing something else. And they enjoy it so much more than whatever else it was that they were doing, making money, that it's worth it to them.

Nobody does. I go to all these conferences where they try to do valuations for sports teams and based upon X times earnings, and it's just bull-h-h-it. It's not how anybody makes money. You have an example here, though he will not admit it, which is a wo-begotten franchise down in Florida. That always struggled despite great management. it struggled in that market

with that sport to make money and if the collective bargaining agreement cannot be so that the most difficult franchises in the league can solve their financial problems it's got to be a vision of how do we make this

a billions of dollars franchise if they don't have that in mind they're going to set themselves back and the league is trying to protect these semi-owners, and they want it both ways. Everybody would like to be the NFL. It seems like money and the valuations go up. That's the only sport, I think, where that's pretty much the occasion.

Lots of English Premier League teams lose money, and they don't care because they want to win. They care tremendously. Earlier this week on Nothing Personal, Pablo, I did a segment on Steph Curry, who did an interview and talked about he wants a piece of the pie. He wants equity because the valuations have gone up during his career. And I wanted to respond to him, which is that how come you all have a collective bargain agreement where your salaries are tied to revenue, not valuation?

If you're so interested in valuation as a concept, then why didn't you bargain that? Why didn't you negotiate that? I haven't thought about this before. And the reason nobody does is because it's total poppycock. You would never have an agreement where, In the history of business, forget sports, where, oh, there's an enterprise valuation that could be based on myriad factors, including irrationality and ego, and we're going to tie cost of labor to that? It's crazy to me, but John's arguing WMB. James are now worth $600 million, maybe a billion dollars, have the foreskin to pay him.

Forcite. Well. Edit that out, please. No, we're keeping that. That feels like a beyond Freudian slip. The foreskin. Look, the. I was just talking about a brisk before it starts.

which is why that was in my head. When he said horror, I was like, horror? By the way, it's a good question to ask Steph Curry. The answer to his question is he's not willing to forego his earnings. He wants to get paid today, and that's his right. But if I was the league, I'd say fine. If any players would like to take half of their money or give up half of their salary and take a piece,

We, the league, we'll take 10, I'm making it up, I know it's not feasible, we'll take 10% of all sales, profits, and we'll distribute those to the players who decided they want to be in that business. Sure. They don't want, they don't want, nor need to be in that business. They don't need to be in that business. And by way, I wouldn't do that if I was one of them. I'd take the money, invest it in something else, but why would I wait for it to happen? but to ignore the fact that that's there and just pretend they have to operate like businesses like all other business they have a specific part of their economic reality which is unlike

almost anything else other than art and a few other sort of esoteric things by the way art they don't tie it to the labor to art you don't go to a painter and say we'd like you to take 50% all day It's just a different business to pretend that that shouldn't enter into a smart discussion you're having with the players, which is they should say they're not going to because I know how they work. They'll say, and they already did this clearly and pissed the players off. They went and said, well, you need to understand how hard it is for the owners. They've invested. They're still not making money.

They should say all that, but they should say, guys, we have to take a long-term view of this. You're not going to get what you want right now. We're not either. We're going to give you more money than the math would conjure. Yeah, then the fucking math genius might suggest. Yeah, exactly. Got to cut that out. There's three swears in the shawl.

What are we doing? I assume we're not bleeping poppycock. That feels, that's not a swear. At least half okay. I'm assuming we're not leaping ice. But that is, it is so much an important part. I was like, are you going to Trump thing again? No.

By the way, if you had a secret poll and asked, all the owners, why they bought a team, there would only be two answers. Trophy, and I'm going to sell it someday and make a whole bunch of money. You think people buy a team. I want David's thoughts on that. And go into an analysis of nobody buys a team who can't afford not to make money on it. It's just not accurate. It's really not.

So especially now with the valuations that you're seeing. So let's just talk about the Washington commanders. When you have a base that you're now in at $6 billion, and you have private equity money in and you've got other people who are interested in ROI. You cannot run it irresponsibly on an annual basis. You just don't have the capacity. You don't have the debt capacity and you certainly don't want to pump in cash. Josh Harris is not calling his investors and saying, hey, we need 20 million from you because of losses this year.

He's just not doing it. I don't believe I've suggested they should be run irresponsibly. therefore they should be run responsibly, which equals profitably. Not necessarily. I view those as synonymous when it comes to a business. It is irresponsible to be operating at a loss. But to be clear, though, right? Beyond sports teams, there are many businesses, certainly in Silicon Valley,

that are being run at a loss because there is some vision for a long-term massive success. You say at a loss, they've got a sources and uses of funds. They've raised money with an understanding. that for the first three years, you need a runway for R&D, you're going to lose money, and then either we're going to write off the investment, the company goes away, or we're going to find the cure to cancer, and we're all going to be rich. It's all part of the original plan. No one.

Have you done a business plan, Pablo, where you say, hey, we have no path to profitability? I mean, other than... Well, other than the one I'm sitting at. I would like to compare myself to Open AI, by the way, which is absolutely explosively growing... revenue while also struggling on the balance sheets. So I must point out. David is so proud of himself.

David has given me like a pitch down the middle. I know. All right. I'm going to clear up. He said, he said, you discover the cure for cancer and get rich. So that is a capitalist who thinks that the motive for curing cancer is to get rich. Wait, what's the other reason again? I can't remember.

Save lives. I forgot about that one. Thank you. Thank you. Like, I've never had anywhere of my family dying cancer. I didn't say that. Again,

I get it. It's like a fraudiest. It's like a Freudian slip. Hit the pitch and move on, John, that's the key to great entertainment. Just hit it and then move on instead of talking about hitting it. I would like to brush both of you off the plate for a second. That's the difference between sports media and sports.

We talk about the pitch. That's true. The question of valuations, God, there's so much happening right now, and I'm trying to keep all the threads in order. You got this. Do I? The question of whether team valuations are just bullshit, right? So you're describing, like art to John's analogy,

you're describing a very precious thing that everybody deeply cares about, in which the full monetary upside can only be realized at a point of sale, right? And that could be driven by all sorts of things, who's sold right before you, is some other external thing happening? Is there a asteroid? Many things can impact. Stay planning. Is death?

Kids arguing. It's not, as much as a math genius might say, this is the formula, there are many variables that cannot be controlled, is the reality of the sports valuation business. So, when it comes to trying to price it out at a CBA negotiation, is it the question of agreeing on a math genius, a fucking math genius? What are we doing here? It never comes up, John. It just never comes up.

It never comes up. In a bargaining table. Of course it does not, because the one side is worried about getting paid now. And the other side is trying to hoodwink the guys on the other side of the table that, oh, my gosh, we're having a tough time. Both sides have the audited statements, John. I don't know what world you're talking about. The Players' Union has the audited statements of the teams. It's right there.

I'm suggesting that the core economics of a sports team are no longer about annual earnings in a report. They're about the valuation of teams. Is unrivaled about annual earnings and profitability? Or is part of your business plan saying profitability when we sell unrivaled, whether we sell privately, whether we take a public, that's when we'll get paid. Like lots of startups, we are not investing money. to take profits out of the profits. We are taking money. We are putting investments in

in the hope of a financial transaction that we'll benefit from. So you have no path to annual profitability. We broke even this year and we'll make money next year, but nobody would have put the money in to take a division of the dividends and we are planning for a financial transaction.

I understand the word salad, and I think it's great. I'm asking a separate question. Are you telling me that you would have been able to raise money for unrivaled with pro forma financial statements that showed annual operating losses? Yes. And for an extended period of time... We have actually done better than that.

For an extended period of time. It wasn't part of the initial raise. No, we had a short business plan, not a long business plan. People bought into the vision. People bought into the vision. It's an amazing thing what he's not saying, which is that when you raise money, you have a cap table and you have a certain amount of money that you bring in. And then that money, there's sources and uses.

The sources of the money is investors. The uses of the money is we're going to use it to fund operations. We're going to use it for a capital investment by renting or building a stadium space or a studio. We're going to have this much in equity we're giving away. It's all got to be part of a financial plan. You're paying and attracting players. So you believe Bob Iger and Willow Bay bought a women's soccer team at a valuation of a billion dollars based on a ROI of running that club

and passing that along to their... I actually believe Willow Bay responded to that and said that they bought it because it was in short commuting distance from her house. That doesn't sound like a hard financial... Hard financial calculation. It's my point. I don't even know. Is that a joke?

I don't even know. And there... And there, I believe you are dealing with enlightened owners. who understand they're one doing good, two, they can afford it, and three, they're going to sell it for profit someday. Okay. And that's all they care about. Are we going to frost Nixon each other anymore, or are we back to hanging out?

There's nothing but love. How much you sell Marlins for? They were sold at an enterprise valuation of $1.2 billion. Nice. Based upon revenues, past revenues? Certainly not. So based on nothing to do with the brilliant job you did, running the team. Yeah, no, it did have something to do. You won on Borough Series,

no. It had nothing to do it. No, it had to do with... It had to do a supply and demand. Yes, exactly. Which is why I wouldn't pay a banker to sell a team, because anybody could have done what I did. I take no credit for selling the team one, two. You've noticed publicly I've never taken credit for it. I laugh about it, but I don't say that I'm a genius banker. I say that we had an item that other people wanted, and when you have more than one buyer for something, the price tends to go up. Which brings us back to the difference between WMBA negotiations before, and the ones that are about to happen. They are happening.

Well, excuse me, the ones that are actively happening, privately and publicly. But I suppose, near the end here, much like the business plan that John described, we are not here for a long time, but we are here for a good time. And so thank you both for doing us. And none of us have made any money.

Not with that attitude. Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumenello. Our studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by NGW Post, theme song, as always, by John Bravo, and we will talk to you next time.