The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Sporting Class: Inside the battle for Disney power; Was Caitlin Clark vs LSU a moment or here to stay?

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Welcome back to The Sporting Class! Meadowlark Media CEO John Skipper and Nothing Personal's David Samson are back with another episode with host of Pablo Torre Finds Out ... Pablo Torre! Something is cooking up at Disney. You may not have seen it or heard about it, but we did and it’s important. A proxy battle took place — let’s explain what that is and what this fight means for Disney. Buy into women’s sports. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Iowa and LSU. That women’s tournament game was massive for ESPN, was massive for women’s sports, and was massive for all sports! Plus, it’s time to talk Arod. Alex Rodriguez wants the Minnesota Timberwolves. Alex Rodriguez thought he was a day away from owning the Minnesota Timberwolves. Glen Taylor, who owns the Minnesota Timberwolves, has now decided that Alex Rodriguez will not own the Timberwolves.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Don LeBattor Show with the StuGuts Podcast. David Samson, John Skipper, thank you for coming on. Again, as always on the sporting class, Rich Guy OnlyFans as I like to say. I Feel like we'd earn more money if we were actually in only fans accounts, and I've shoes on I'm pretty sure I'm not getting paid for this show Actually, I think you're paying I'm not paying myself We're currently paying David to not show his feet on camera actually specifically before we get into what we're here to talk about today I want to point out in the world of sports business, on Poblatory Finds Out this week,

we have a giant story I'm very proud of. It's an investigation by a company called Hunterbrook Media. We interviewed the reporter on that story into Matt Ishbia, into the Phoenix Suns, Isaiah Thomas. All that stuff is over there. It's a bit of a live story. We'll cover it, revisit it as the days and weeks come, but I wanna get into what we are safely able to say today

because there is news that is, I think, underrated days and weeks come, but I want to get into what we are safely able to say today because there is news that is, I think, underrated when it comes to its influence on sports and the sports business economy. Because this Disney investor-shareholder meeting fight, there's an activist investor named Nelson Peltz, an activist shareholder, David Sampson. And what is at stake here, what has been resolved that we can say as we cover this story endlessly, the future of sports rights?

It's a proxy battle, and the reason why it's interesting is of course ESPN is owned by Disney, and Disney's a large company that has a board of directors. And when you invest enough money into a company, you feel like you wanna say in how it's operated. And so there are hedge funds that take positions in companies. There's individuals sometimes who take positions.

Nelson Peltz is an individual who loves buying big chunks of companies and then telling them how to do their job better by saying, I'll do it better. I wanna get on the board of directors and I wanna influence the future of this company. And Nelson Peltz did it with Disney. And ESPN was really his focus, thinking that we can do better here with ESPN,

whether it's to spin it off or whether it's to spin off the streaming network. We need Disney shares to perform better. And what activist shareholders do is they buy shares and they want those share prices to go up and they don't care about sports or... Well, in fact, you know more about this than I do. The Pelts went into this with the intention of accumulating shares,

creating some level of what he would call activism, but what other people would call interference in the running of the Walt Disney Company. He's doing it for the sole purpose of hoping that investors will believe him, drive the shares up and he'll make money and sell. I think what it means from yesterday. Hours, the way he just described that. What it means from yesterday doesn't mean anything. I never thought this guy had a shot at doing this.

Generally the overwhelming share of the institutional investors in Disney and all the mom and pop guy folks who own Disney because they have beloved feelings about it are going to support Bob Iger. He's consistently delivered with an exception of a very difficult 2022. And I don't think the, I don't think, this is part of the continuing discussion about should they sell ESPN. I've consistently said there's no reason to sell ESPN. Still puts off a lot of cash.

Sports is still very important. Why would you abandon that? This is, I think, an affirmation that majority of people think that the way Disney is running this is the right way to go. I've heard you tow the corporate line before, but this may be an all-timer, because you are absolutely having total disregard

to share price and the valuation and the fact that under Iger in the second time around, remember he took over after leaving because he wasn't happy with who he put in as his own successor, and now he's been back, the shares have not performed. This year they're better. They certainly are performing this year.

But you act as though what Nelson Peltz is doing and he's no saint. He is the original Richard Gere from Pretty Woman. That's what he does without having ever met Julie Roberts. He buys stuff and wants to tear it apart to see if the parts are more than the whole. Or he'll buy parts of a company, trying to get more of the company to get the shares up, of course to make money.

That's your summary of Pretty Woman's plot. I think so. Isn't that what Pretty Woman is about? I can't quite recollect and I also think that's probably territory I'm not headed into at all because we're no longer the days when I think it can be funny that you. I just am fascinated as to how David Sampson sees, of course, activist investing in the plot of Pretty Woman. But I digress, John, excuse me.

No, no, that was much more entertaining than anything I have to add at this point. No, I think what you added was exceptionally telling to me because Bob Iger, who is the CEO of Disney, he doesn't want shareholders getting up in his business. No chairman does, no president does. However, in a public company, there are activists. Nelson Peltz has done this before with other companies,

which aren't being run as efficiently as he would like. Right, now I would say there are two things, right? One is that of course it's appropriate in many cases for there to be activist shareholders because many companies have a better alternative and have been improved by that. In this case, I think what Nelson Peltz was suggesting would not have made Disney more valuable.

I think it potentially could have driven the stock up briefly, but I don't really think so. I think that I have no problem with activism. I think in this case he was wrong and the shareholders were correct in affirming that Disney is doing what they need to do, but they clearly still have some things to work through. It's a big win for Bob Iger. Let's make no mistake about it. And for ESPN.

So that's the interesting thing that I'm thinking about. Where is Jimmy Pettaro in this? So when these activist shareholders, when these proxy battles happen, you have to choose a horse. Now, Jimmy Pettaro could have chosen the Nelson Peltz horse. He didn't, but he could have. And it's what happens in the baseball world

and the corporate world in every company. It happens at co-op boards. Exactly right. And so Jimmy, there has to be a succession plan for Bob, which is what Nelson Peltz had really been talking about that he was concerned with. Well, and Nelson brings with him Jay Rizzullo, who was a former CFO, ran the parks at one point and was a candidate for the CEO

job and didn't get it. So he's, I assume bringing along, you'll understand this better than I do today, he's bringing along the CEO he would probably install. So you're asking the question of, gee, Jimmy theoretically could have done the same thing. I don't generally like to comment much on the people who are at my former employer, just out of respect, but Jimmy Batara's character would never allow him to do an uprising against Bob Iger. He is, you know, he's in the inner circle there. He and Bob are tight and it's not within, he could not have done that.

So I used to work at a place called Morgan Stanley and there was an inner circle and the inner circle was super tight until his concession plan became clear and then all of a sudden the inner circle was not as tight because people left who lost if there's three people as a candidate to succeed generally what happens is the losers in that fight to be CEO do not stay Yeah, you have not seen though any of the folks other now than Jay Rizzolo who have lost in this They've not caused issues. They've left That's the same thing, but we had Jimmy hasn't won yet and he hasn't lost he still could be a candidate

I'm the success. I think Bob has a very tight inner circle and I do, I would be surprised if anybody currently employed by the company did anything close to that. Can I just frame this around just how much this mattered though, in terms of the financial outlay to win an election like this, how would you estimate that David, the cost of this? It was reported that about 70 million dollars was spent and there were ads on podcasts that you told me about. Yeah, I was listening to the town, the Ringer podcast, and they played an ad about keeping the incumbent chairholder slate board slate intact. It was a presidential campaign and in the year that we have a presidential campaign and I've spent a lot of time a little

bit off the subject but I'd love to mention this. No, I wanna know your insight into. I love the concept of campaign financing, and I spoke to, and it's not a look at me, Louis, but there was an old Senator, his name was Kent Conrad. Kent Conrad. Of one of the Dakotas. North Dakota, I think. North Dakota.

And a brilliant man who- You're not so proud of that poll, by the way? You just winked at me. Amazing. That was, I thought it was more a twitch but okay And he always wanted to run a baseball team And so we switched jobs for a day and I was senator for a day and he was president of the Marlins for a day That is a oh my god on very good side

I'm only hoping there were no close votes in the Senate. I Learned about because he was very much in favor of curbing campaign financing, because that leads to a lot of issues. And I was thinking about it, that the reason why incumbents like it is because they don't want to limit. Incumbents want there to be no limits on what you can spend, because generally incumbents benefit from it. And so Bob Iger spent a tremendous amount of money

as the incumbent. To keep power. To keep power. Nelson Pelts spent money like Ross Perot style in an effort to, that's an old reference maybe that will be lost on our audience. I'm old enough to get it unfortunately. Okay, then I feel better about the reference.

Yeah, he was Admiral Stockdale's our running mate. It's tens of millions of dollars that Nelson Peltz will spend trying to get people to vote with him. Because what a proxy battle is, it literally is counting votes. If you own a share of stock, you get a vote. And so, like our elections, very few people voted.

And that's how Bob Iger, the incumbent, ends up winning. As well as my co-op word at home, similar dynamic. Maybe take it back to sports because what it does mean is that ESPN likely remains part of the Walt Disney Company. One of the groups of people I think should be happy that this proxy fight didn't succeed are the rights holders, right? Because this means ESPN is still gonna be right there

as part of the company. A buyer in the marketplace. Yeah, a buyer in the marketplace. I think it's still, I still think we have to watch because Bob Iger, while he's gotten a direct from the shareholders that he's gonna stay in power, I think it's clear to him when you look at the past and there've been many unsuccessful runs

by Nelson Peltz at Iger, and he's sort of done the heisman to all of them, but he needs to do something differently. And I think he recognizes that. And ESPN, while you say it never would be in play, I think that there's a scenario where it is in play. Yeah, my tendency is to think that ESPN stays there. They've been active, they just renewed

the men's college playoff championship, which by the way is sort of like winning a bet on a horse when it's like five eights of the way through. They won when it was five eights. Now they've won when it's six eights. I still hear people talking about 12 teams, 14 teams, 16. I'm not sure if they know what they've won yet, but they appear to have won the championship. So I was not aware, you think they bought the rights to no matter what the CFP is.

No, and I don't know that we need to get in here. I think it's a specific number of games is what they got. And I think that college football gets to go after other rights holders, though ESPN of course would bid if there were more games. No, I don't believe that. I believe they bought it exclusively. So they get every game no matter how many games.

That would be my assumption. Without having to pay more. I can't tell you that. I know I've read that exact thing, but I don't know why. That's what I would have done. You would buy the whole thing. You want to be the home, and they are the home of college football, but there's been a big dent in that when the Big Ten ended up in the hands of Fox.

So, but we could talk. I want to just put a button on this by pointing out that Nelson Peltz, this activist shareholder who tried to mount this revolution, is he just out of the picture now? I mean, David, you have, I believe you have an even more egregious look at me, Louie, here that I'm just waiting for you to drop

because Nelson Peltz's character. I don't think I can, it's funny though. Well, I just wanna know, what do you think he does next? I grew up in Nelson Peltz's apartment What was he there while you were growing up? Wait was that the problem? Certainly wasn't the solution rich guy only Content I keep getting confused with Norman fell remember Norman fell threes companies to roper. Yeah now I'm not

So whenever I think Nelson Peltz, I see Norman Fell's face. Nelson Peltz happens to be, has an amazing art collection. And he lived in an apartment on the Upper East Side that was bought by my mother and stepfather. And I went to high school with, Nelson's a Horace Manor,

and his kids were Horace Manors. And I was in class with his daughter, Brookeeltz who was one year older and he always had this reputation he was the father in the class who was this Titan but he's grown into a far more Murdoch type later in life but he left little things in the apartment that we found for years after. What does that mean? So it's little paintings I have this visual picture of little David Sampson swinging as a two year old underneath Monet's lilies. The most expensive bassinet.

I was seven. Seven? And they were de gas. What? So out of the bassinet by seven? It was Picasso, not Monet. Okay. It's okay for Nelson Peltz to love art.

It's okay that Nelson Peltz lost, but your question is a good one. He still owns all the shares. So is this a recurring concern? 100%. That's why to me, Bob Iger is not done worrying about it. Because Nelson Peltz didn't, when he lost the proxy battle,

he doesn't have to sell his shares. Bob Iger wants him to divest and sell to someone else, but it doesn't mean Nelson Peltz will. Yeah. Okay, well let's move on to what ESPN is doing this weekend, which is broadcasting a women's tournament that has hit records that are just unprecedented for women's college basketball

and arguably for women's sports in general, because the rating that just came out this week for the number of people who watched LSU versus Iowa was 12.3 million. And John, I just want to again, as the former president of ESPN, just a sense of how eye-opening this number was for you. This is an astonishing number. I mean, this number is bigger than NFL games on Amazon this year on the Thursday night games and by the way we had we had the poor Monday night

football schedule we had games on Monday night in this range. The fact that a women's college basketball regional final would attract 12.3 million viewers is spectacular. I mean it's an enormous increase ESPN has to be thrilled. They've got a great tournament coming up this weekend. The only is Caitlin Clark. Yeah, Caitlin Clark. You got South Carolina. You got UConn and NC State. As a Tar Heel it is painful to see the Wolfpack in both tournaments. But back to the ratings, it's enormous and I think they will do very very well this weekend and they're up in the range of big time

men's sports championships ratings. This is a bigger rating. I don't know David, wouldn't you like to get a 12.3 million viewers to a wild card game in baseball? It's a nightmare for Major League Baseball and the NBA. It outdrew every NBA game except for last year's deciding game five, it outdrew every World Series game. It's a total nightmare. And that is- A nightmare from the perspective of people who-

People in the leagues. If you own a team in basketball or baseball and you see this number for college basketball, women's college basketball, you're despondent. And you will publicly say that everything's great and you love the fact and gender equality and all these things. There are meetings happening right now trying to make sure. And Adam Silver, Rob Manford, believe me, he doesn't want his NBA finals outrated by college basketball.

Look, this is a spectacular event. You had Angel Reese, you had Caitlin Clark. One of the greatest games I've ever seen. Yeah, I don't think personally, but you know the owners better than I do. I do know the commissioners at U of I, I both know them. I don't think that Adam is bemoaning or Rob is bemoaning today, oh my gosh, this is a disaster. I think.

Disasters, to put it, they don't want to be, they're on every new show this week with everybody saying the same thing, which is this game outdrew the NBA Finals and the NBA World Series. It also drew in fairness every college football game last season outside of the playoff in OSU Michigan and the SEC Championship.

It's a phenomenon we should celebrate and by which not a zero-sum game I'm assuming you're getting a lot clearly and lots of we are new viewers in I mean if you go see if you look at The crowd although I think you were at the LSU. What do you think everyone in the world knows he was there? It's full. It's full of young girls who adore Caitlin Clark. You've got new fans coming into sports. I think this is a thing, there's no reason to do anything except celebrate this, including more people watching more sports is good

for all the primary sports. I would be more worried if I was a secondary or tertiary sport that people only have so much time to spend. They want to spend it watching baseball games. They're not going to not watch baseball games because they're watching women's college basketball games. I think this is a great phenomenon and I think we'll have big numbers this week. I'm not sure anything will beat 12-3. That was my next question was, does this feel like the highest watermark,

which will remain as such a peak or is this what? Kaylin Clark has to be in the final for there to be a chance to beat that. If she's in the final, they could easily, they could do 15 to 20 million viewers. So one of the things that I was thinking about is hopefully this is, again, I'm putting my league hat on and I'm a little not, I don't agree with you, John,

from my standpoint where I didn't say it was a disaster But it's just a talking point that we don't want any part of when we're involved in leagues You don't want the top on didn't I believe was the adjective beyond repair and so Caitlin Clark That's the only hope here is that she's the phenomenon not the women's college basketball You're rooting for yourself preservation in the hierarchy of sports ratings. Correct, which is what they are all doing. But I wanted to think about the business side of this and we're celebrating the 12.3.

So when negotiations come up and you're a rights holder and you're bidding for the women's tournament or for Iowa basketball or big 15 or big 17 coverage, the existence of Caitlin Clark who then goes to Indiana. Iowa basketball or big 15 or big 17 coverage. The existence of Caitlin Clark who then goes to Indiana. Let's pretend. The number one overall pick in the draft, the fever. Which I believe she'll go number one. I think the fever have already announced it.

They're already selling jerseys. Are you believing that this is a increase in the value of women's college sports or are you saying this is a one-off and I will not compensate you for the number that was achieved? Well, clearly, if you're the rights holder, you're gonna suggest that this is the new bar.

If you're negotiating with the rights holder, you can suggest, well, you're not gonna have any credibility to say, this is a phenomenon, this is gonna fall right back down and next year the WNBA ratings will be the same as it were. This is going to lift things. So the person selling the WNBA rights is in a better position to get more money and there'll be a little back and forth about how much, but you're not going to have any effectiveness

trying to suggest to the WNBA, oh, Kaylin Clark's not going to matter. The women's sports is not itself overall going up. It is. And by the way, ESPN just did the deal to renew all of the NCAA and the jewel within that deal, though there are very other good stones in there as well. But the jewel is the women's basketball tournament. They just bought that for what I think

was reported for $56 million of what they paid. That's a great buy. I think the women's- It included a lot of sports, but it didn't include the main ones. It was not football, it was not basketball. No, it was over $100 million. Maybe somebody can get it. I'd recollect something, 110, 112 hundred and that 56 or 60 of that was attributed to women's basketball. So this is what Charlie Baker said, president of the NCAA, they valued the women's basketball rights specifically at around $65 million annually,

or roughly 56%, as John said, of the meteor rights portion of this deal. And by the way, at this point, they're high-fiving and going, we got a great deal. Cause this is a, I don't remember how long it was, how many years it was. This is an eight year agreement, $920 million for the exclusive rights of 40 championships, including the crown jewel is Johnson. In the ninth year of that, it was eight year deal?

Eight year deal. Eight year deal. Eight year deal. That deal's $65 million and it's an average annual. So it's not exactly the same every year, but that's gonna look like a spectacular buy. I think this is gonna become a phenomenon a year after year from now. So that's a way to see where my head is

if they don't bifurcate WNBA and NBA rights, then the WNBA is exactly where it was. It's pretty much that simple for me. And I don't think that Adam Silver will do it, but he either will or won't. We're going to find out. The Dan LeBattard Show with Stu Gotts is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's time for a self check-in.

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Make grittas, a McMuffin and a large coffee A hamburger, cheeseburger, hot brown, hotcakes Vanilla corn shake and hot fudge sundae Ba-da-ba-ba-ba Don LeBattard David Sampson, weirdo Cause he was not He was not the fun substitute teacher who'd wheel out a TV and play a VHS

tape of Armageddon in science class. He was the weird one who would eat an egg salad sandwich while clipping his toenails into the trash can and ranting about Ronald Reagan. Stugots. The guy kept talking about how his ass was smooth, smoother than a newborn's cheek. He wouldn't stop bragging about his bare buttocks to me. This is the Don Lebatar Show with the StuGats. ["The Stugats"]

The fact that when you get the WNBA, you... When you get the NBA, you get... It's like ESPN-O Ocho I'm not sure whether our senior reporting on whether they are separating the right sales or not we're gonna find out because that's what I'm saying they have not been so far I am the last deal they were not the last deal was a was a package deal because the value was the NBA no there was value in both leagues. I'm not going to give you that one.

I know you're not. And by the way, the- Give me another reason why you wouldn't split them up. What is the reason why you bundled the assets? I paid, we paid real money for the WNBA, the previous deal, and we knew that the value was greater in the next deal. And I certainly cannot reveal any of the evaluations we did or what we talked about with the league,

but the league valued them as well, and they got a nice increase. Why can't you? You're a medal arc now. Can you give us an idea of what- It was not my decision, whether to buy them separately or together. They were, at that time, packaged together.

So you're at a silver right now. Are you thinking women's sports is at a place? This is where my head is regarding this story and these ratings, because people talk about the ratings as though this is the moment for women's sports. And I think those moments get manifested through monetization and there's an opportunity for that monetization coming up. Yeah. And I can't tell you that I have any familiarity with what's going to happen. In fact, in the last one, it may have been only ESPN that bought it as a package because the other TNT did not buy the WNBA rights. So they bought only NBA rights last time.

It wasn't granted up. And so there's some question, as you recall, is whether there was a desire to have it. Correct. We wanted it. So, and we may have wanted it enough to buy it exclusively. I don't think TNT at the time wanted to buy it. We are in different businesses. You need sports.

Yes, and we were also, we were committed to doing women's sports. And there's a, well, I know you will laugh and suggest, was it good business or not? We believed in it. We believed it was coming. And by the way, everything we spent is going to be, is going to be confirmed that it was smart

by this college women's basketball deal. This is the story. We invested in that. And that is why ESPN still retains the premier position, you know, for holding women's basketball deal. This is the story. We invested in that and that is why ESPN still retains the premier position for holding women's sports rights. Yeah, what's fascinating to me here is that this went from a thing that I think rightfully, David, look, you're not alone in suggesting that

there was almost a, when it comes to the business, the cold hard capitalism of it, there was a benefit to the WNBA hiding inside of the NBA deal, as opposed to having to subsist on its own. And now what we're seeing is this is not something, this is not a nonprofit. There's always this sense of like the WNBA,

women's college basketball, you care about it because that's what socially conscious people should do. And now what we're seeing is, oh, people are watching this because they actually wanna watch this thing. And that to me is, look, when I was growing up, I did not expect 12.3 million people to watch a game like this. It's just mind blowing on that level.

How many women's games have you watched tip to tap this season? This season? We know. Total. In the tournament, probably like a dozen? Oh, so that would put you on one end of the spectrum, I think that's a lot. I went to this game in person.

Well, you were. Because I enjoyed this. Oh, that's not why you went in person. Let's not, give me a break, would you? Are we good? No, it's burning up inside me that you want people to think that you went out of the game. The Rich Guy Only fans is you guys, not me.

No. You guys, not me. No. You guys not me. You guys not me. You guys not me. By the way, this is kind of not hard to believe. There's always an event that everybody secretly wants to be at, right? And it is an amazing fact that that event on this night,

when LSU played Iowa, that was the event that every sports fan would actually have liked to have been at. That is a remarkable thing. I want to, may I use this to slightly comment upon the Kent Bab story? Oh, sure. So, Kim Mulkey, of course, had complained, we covered this before, John, you had taken interest, and Kim Mulkey, head coach of LSU, preemptively attacking the Washington Post and its reporter Kent Babb about a profile, a piece, I should say an investigative piece seemingly that was about to come out. And we talked about that last time and it came out as expected.

It actually was quite a insightful, powerful 7,000 word look at the Kim Mulkey way. And it was pretty balanced I thought. It did acknowledge her success, it acknowledged the loyalty of many of the players for her, acknowledged her drive, her determination. I thought there was much to admire. She I believe objected to Kent contacting her family members but of course that's de rigueur. If you're going to do something that gives you insight into a person, you need to understand where they came from, if you can, who their parents were and that happened. So I just would tell you if you want to do some reading after this wonderful LSU

Iowa game, you can read Kent Bab's story in the Washington Post, quite good, and then Wright Thompson has another masterpiece on ESPN.com about Caitlin Clark. That is, if you want to understand Caitlin Clark and the phenomenon, where she came from, Wright spent an entire year in doing this story. And again, it's worth a read to really understand the athlete who right now for a moment and we should celebrate this and I know. Don't make me out to be the I hate Caitlin Clark guy. I never suggested that but it is a wonderful moment where the, this reminds me of the 99ers

right when the women's soccer team captured the imagination of the American public and had a domino effect that lasted beyond Just the blip of wow what a what a detention grabbing what caused that was that the the brandy? Great, just take my shirt off Well, that was at the end that was at the end that was the end The so no people tuned in that game had just short of 30 million viewers. So that is an astonishing number. That is still, I believe, the largest audience for a soccer game, men's or women's, in the United States. So, and by the way, you had the same thing happen with women's soccer that is now happening with women's basketball. Everybody

thought the 99ers was going to mean that the women's soccer league wasn't a media success. It wasn't. They've been struggling with this for about 10 years, but finally, it is starting to take off. The NWSL will see. I have no personal interest in the NWSL financially or as a broadcaster,

but you will see it doing very well this year, I think. Well, they had to clean up about a thousand forest fires of abuse and major issues within that league. So there was nowhere to go but up. It was either gonna fold or get better. Well, I think in fact it did fold, I think twice. Was not good. This is the third incarnation.

And yes, and of course, the perpetrators in most of those abuse scandals were not women. I didn't like the Kemp app story. I'll go on record saying that because I, when Kim Mulkey had her press conference saying that she hired the greatest defamation firm of all time, I thought there was gonna be this amazing article about stuff

that would blow my socks off. I didn't learn anything Well, I it's a big nothing burger. You learned some things just not the things that would have yeah I learned normal things she's she's she's drives her kids hard tough coach Bobby Knight style But you may have a problem with you see Geraldo's vault here. That's exactly what I saw. To use another ancient reference. Is that ancient? It is now. I'm sorry.

But because there was a promise of this is a takedown. By her herself? By her herself, and it wasn't that, which is both, I think, a credit to the reporter and to David, a massive disappointment. Yes. Because the expectation was far higher. You're looking for a little fight.

I wanted something. I wanted there to be some sort of lawsuit. I wanted her to stand up. I wanted there to be some sort of lawsuit, I wanted her to stand up, I wanted there to be an epiphany of some sort. It turns out she's just a tough-minded, old school, difficult to deal with, successful coach. Yeah, I wouldn't, I would put it slightly differently. Yes.

But you did learn why she's that way. You learned about her relationship with her father, Les, who left, you understand why she may have some initial distrust of people she doesn't know because she felt she felt abandoned. Daddy issues? Look I thought he did a good job. I didn't know that. I'm assuming. I didn't know that. But it's funny. I don't find- Boomstamongus does not have daddy issues. Right. So it didn't know that. But it's funny. Who's among us does not have daddy issues. Right, so it doesn't interest me. The idea that David is somehow

not impressed by you. We all own our daddy issues. Exactly. David, please, come on. No, that's the point. Exactly. So that's why it's not. I think it's possible Nelson Peltz was a little father figure for David. No.

The Jeffrey Lurie Nelson Peltz mental imagery. In the house, he felt the paternal spirit. He felt the ghostly presence. He felt the paternal spirit of a man willing to take on the mighty Mickey Empire. Beneath the painting of Saturn eating his child, I believe would be the... He was probably a hopper. Very good. Very good. A hopper and a skipper.

One before we hop and skip and jump out of here, I do want to, I do want to ask the question though about, and Coco helpfully has highlighted this, the idea that all of the ratings are up, right? Like, so I want to just contextualize this because of course there is a clear spike historically for this game and that is real as discussed, but Michael Mulvihill, who's the guy at Fox who does the rating stuff over there, he points out that this has been the most watched college football regular season ever, the most watched college basketball regular season ever, the most watched March Madness ever, easily, through the Elite Eight, men and women combined. And so why is this the accounting thing that we've discussed before David, which I need

you to remind people of, what's happening here? So remember the way they're doing it, it used to be the old Nielsen box, which no one ever knew what it was. It was actually, sometimes they'd call people, other times they'd have to click, like keep a diary of what they were watching, and all executives around sports would be dying waiting for the weekly Nielsen ratings that were a bunch of people we could never identify

other than their Nielsen families. And we felt like there was signs to it when we were on top of the leaderboard, and we thought that there was signs to it when we were on top of the leaderboard, and we thought that it was absolute horse hockey when we were not. Now, they're counting it in totally different ways, and we covered this actually, some of the fighting that went on

over how to count who's watching, but they're counting people who are now estimating bars out of home viewers, which to me is a great thing to count, but very hard to do. There is a shared interest in the people who measure the audiences with the people they measure them for. The big broadcast networks do not want the numbers to go down and they have consistently looked for ways to plausibly, not definitively, not exactly figure out how they could bring bigger numbers to the advertisers who in fact want them as well because they want to make 15 and 30 second commercials still and that's still

what this is mostly measuring because they make a lot of money on that as opposed to a return on investment little the little digital ad that shows up because you and I spoke about something and our phone heard and sold it to us. So they have smartly found ways to grow the audience. I don't believe suddenly there are vast numbers. I don't believe it's exact. As David pointed out, it's always been a sample.

You can't exactly say it. It's the craziest thing in the world. We always assume that it's real. And sampling. So we keep saying that 12.3 million people watched Pablo with Ted Lasso Monday night. We don't know that it was 12.3 million. I just wanna make sure that our audience understands that.

That's not the actual number of people who watch the game. It is the number by which companies pay marketing agencies who pay the broadcast networks, all who have a shared interest in figuring out ways that they can plausibly claim a bigger audience, but it's still a sample. It is, however, somewhat consistent, by which I mean something that did 10, something that did 12, three, something that did 15. The ordering is probably right. The proportion is probably right, but they're probably all counting people

who walked into a bar, ordered a beer, and walked out. That counted as a viewer. And I don't know how you'd count that person. So you mentioned a train of people who benefit from ratings, and it's an interesting thing to think about because what you're talking about with marketing and marketing budgets and buying ads and then you sort of glossed over the ad

that comes to you digitally, I spend more money as I sit here today with ads that are pushed to me. What have you bought David? On podcasts. What have you bought? Toiletry kits, blankets, luggage, chargers, you name it. Sounds like you're going somewhere. I'm going to send you some travel ads. But it's target ads and it's what every company wants. They want targeted ads.

They do. There is a problem because while there's that shared interest there in the new world You've got a couple problems. One is the tech companies can measure exactly they can which is scary for everyone On the other hand, they do not make It possible for any third party to accurately Audit that or count proprietary. So now you still have a funny problem. The marketers and the other companies and the marketers are dependent upon them to tell the truth. And of course, we of course would believe that too and understand that they would exactly

tell you exactly how many. And that's why you hear these weird metrics. Oh, 300 million minutes is how much such and such has been consumed. I'm like, well, what good does that do? Why do I need to know? Yeah, it's not apples to apples They will they will not lie, but they will they will use the data in the way most favorable to them Magazine, you know magazine business they used to count cards. They'd show you a card. Have you read Rolling Stone magazine before?

You'd say yes. They'd go, oh, reader. And then they would do a big survey that said Rolling Stone magazine has a million people who buy the magazine, but eight pass-along readers. So their total audience is eight million. The advertiser would pay for eight million. Did eight million people read that magazine very unlikely I would assume then playboy would be the number one because it was in every barbershop

So it was passed along to everybody always with playboy actually in those days They measured it by counting the number of fingerprints Thank you, I want to go full circle don't want to know anything else about David Samson's barbershop We started thank you with with little Matt Ishbia and one of the parts of that story was the Super Bowl ad. Yeah. And I was just thinking about how a company would defend spending five and a half million dollars

on an ad, on any ad. And we watched the Super Bowl and now the ads have QR codes and there's all sorts of things going on with Super Bowl ads. And Ishbia's ad specifically was about brokers and about the very thing that's on Publatory Finds Out. And how do you measure? How does a company who buys a Super Bowl ad measure?

Are they doing it for branding or for sales? And what happens is you tell your CEO it's branding because you can't back it up with meaningful direct sales from the... It's overwhelmingly branding. Now that UWM ad did have a mechanism where you could respond that they may have some ability to measure effectiveness. Right, go to this website. I'll just explain in the episode. But almost none of the advertising on the Super Bowl, all the advertising on the Super Bowl. All the advertising on the Super Bowl is brand halo, sort of uncountable benefit. They can tell you which ads people like. They can't tell you how many Buick's they went down and bought because they saw an ad.

But this is kind of, I mean, this is fascinating and it's an enormous topic. We don't have time for all of it, but it's the idea of advertising as a premise of like, what is the return on this investment? In the Super Bowl, it's easy because you say we're in the club of people with a Super Bowl commercial, but in reality, how many products did you move has always been? There's a, there's a very, always been the issue. There's a very famous ad guy. And I can't remember which one it was who said, I know that 50% of my money is

wasted. I just can't figure out which 50%. And that's because of the uncertainty of the measurement and that was also because if his target was men 25 to 54 he gets some data that suggests that this he was reaching 36% of people who's reaching was those now they do have exact data. That's the promise of the tech that David has been. Well we're a victim of that so the victim is this that as part of metal arc we all do reads I don't know if Paul Vittori is forced to do it in his but we're a victim of that. So the victim is this, that as part of Metalarc, we all do reads, I don't know if Pablo Torre is forced to do it in his show because his show.

I gladly do them. Do you? So we have codes, you know, Lebatard50 or Samson25 for some advertisers who advertise with Metalarc. And I always think about the number of people who actually put in that code is always gonna be fewer than the number of people who would have some brand awareness that, oh, they're a sponsor of Metal Arch shows.

But the way it's measured now is by who actually puts that code in that we all read. You go to Jake Creigh, buy a pair of pants, did anybody help you with this? And you can name Ted in the back or, no, I don't remember, no. And then it's a major thing if you name Ted of course because that is how you get credit for sending business in one direction

you know whenever I get asked on the way out if somebody's helped me I put David Samson why random retail stores I do the exact opposite I say I don't know that guy no connection best friends really barely friends I think of people all throughout New York City going he said David I don't know David Sampson, no connection. Best friends? Really? Barely friends. I think of people all throughout New York City going, he said David Sampson helps them. That guy who does nothing personal? You knew the name of the show.

That's a positive. So do all the people in retail outlets in New York. That's right. All the people who sell David Sampson his toiletries are raving about nothing personal. I wanna get though to another set of friends. Okay, this is Alex Rodriguez. This is Mark Laurie. And this was the team, the duo that was supposed to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves. We got 10 minutes to do this. So we'll be a little expedient, but there's a lot here, right? This is a much, it's about a majority owner in Glen Taylor,

who finally was supposed to exit stage left. And yet here remains the majority owner because what happened David with the story? He's an oxygenarian with no heirs. Just so we can be clear that this is, he could sell it into a foundation. The odd, I mean, he doesn't really wanna die with it. It just becomes complicated. So it makes perfect sense.

Not to him, of course. Well, he'll be dead. At that point, pretty simple for him. You're one of those guys? Yeah, pretty simple for him at that point pretty I'm gonna worry about that. You worry about it. I'll be dead I hate those there's no greater distinction between the two worldviews of these two rich guys than that one That would be dead. I was out of here David is haunting the universe. I'm just beginning to worry That's when it gets serious Anyway, octogenarian with no hairs.

So Glenn Taylor is gonna sell his team and he sold it for one and a half billion dollars in 2021 to Alex Rodriguez, who's always wanted to own a team. Except Alex Rodriguez didn't pay the one and a half billion back in 21, he was gonna pay it in installments. And then he missed some installment payments. And Glenn Taylor was very forgiving

over the course of the last few years, no problem. And that deadline got extended because in a contract, there's deadlines. You have to pay by this time. And you've dealt with contracts in your life. If you don't follow the letter of the contract, there are some people you do business with who say, don't worry about it, we're good.

And some people will say, hey, you're in violation. I'm canceling the contract. The people who say you're in violation, I'm canceling the contract, are people who don't want to do business with you anymore. Glenn Taylor doesn't wanna do business with A-Rod anymore because Glenn Taylor's team is now worth two and a half billion, not the one and a half billion

that he sold at 421. Just in that span of time, is it on? Just in that span of time. What exactly is an octogenarian with no heirs gonna do with the extra billion? It's a great question, charity I hope, and I assume, but he can, listen, he may live to be, like Will lived to be over 100.

Well, and he'd clearly need that extra bill to keep up the lifestyle. So the cryogenic chamber gets expensive. John Skiffer's view of owning a team is that he would send it out when he was ready to sell. He'd get bids and sell it to the lowest bidder. That's what you somehow, and you'd say, this is the right thing to do. You could maybe set the test for how you and I are different in that if I were 83, I would not care about an extra billion

if I had one already. It wouldn't matter to me. The only people who say that are people who don't have one. Well, that's true. So, I mean, I like that you say it, but it's just- Wow, that was just a true rap battle bar by David Sampson. That's like in a fencing match. That's just like, I got hit right here.

I'm done, I'm done. I don't mean to say it in that way. Because listen, half a metal arc, you're getting close. The repost was robust. It was. Okay. What's funny about- Rich guy only fans, this is what I mean.

What's funny about the fight going on is that A-Rod is trying to say, for the benefit of the fans, Glenn, sell the team because we're really good at owning the team. And look at how good the Timberwolves are this year. They're fighting for the number one seat in the Western Conference. But then A-Rod is going on every show,

but not on the metal arc, strangely enough, but every show, he did the South Beach Sessions with Dan. We're friendly with Mr. Rodriguez. Okay, so. They presented him with a painting of a centaur. Yes, yes. Then I'd like him to come on and discuss, he said, we're gonna fight whatever it takes,

five years, 10 years, 20 years, we will never stop fighting Glenn Taylor because he went back on his word. We will meet them on the mountaintops, we will cross the river. There is a speech like that somewhere. It's not New Rock, is it? Is it Churchill?

David Samson either inside of a tank or atop a horse. Yeah, one of those scenarios. I like the idea of being on top of a horse, but I can only say, whatever. Here's how this ends and why it's interesting to me. Because Adam Silver, I think of everything from the commissioner's standpoint. Adam Silver does not want the Timberwolves

to be sold to A-Rod at a $1.5 billion valuation. Because it's low. It is far better for him for the Timberwolves to be sold for more. So he is not doing anything to take a position that would favor Alex Rodriguez. He's taking the position of, hey, it didn't close, it didn't close, the Timberwolves are now not for sale,

maybe they'll be for sale again, but what he knows is when they are for sale again, and even if A-Rod is a buyer again, it won't be at the one five number. No. And that matters. Particularly since they have one of the best up and coming young players,

have two great young players. So their prospects for the next few years look very good. That's a more like a two and a half to three billion dollar evaluation, wouldn't you think? So that's what I do think. And that's why. And I'm still young enough, just to be clear that a billion dollars

would still make a difference in my life Listen, we're I'm working on behalf of metal arc Us and our 25 basis points are really working hard. We're established billion dollar bid we get will be the last We've established on this show previously that we will also sell all of our principles for a trillion dollars There's like escalating, escalating series of what we. I'm way lower than that. Yeah, and don't hesitate to call if it's like half a trillion. Just to check.

I think that John is making fun of how metal art gets valued and I take it far more seriously as I know he does that we're all doing these shows and doing what we do because we think that this is a billion dollar company. I am pretty sure the valuation went up somewhere in the neighborhood of a Saalbuck. How are people gonna respect us

when you don't respect us? Well, probably because possibly some of them don't know what a Saalbuck is because I think it's a bit of a old school term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh God. After you finish recording, John gets very upset because I think it's a bit of an old school term. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh God. After you finish recording, John gets very upset

and he'll text me on the side, things like, we're not rich guy OnlyFans. I've never texted that. He doesn't want to be associated like that. I've never texted that. So you gotta stop doing that. You keep ruining my weekends, Pablo. Stop calling me that.

I feel like people have really enjoyed the very broad appeal references to art that we've made all show today hopper and skipper Yeah, hopper and skipper So on this a rod story just to put a pin in that one It's it's gonna continue that the fight is so these guys but I want to say like this is the the fight like They're not allowed in the building like there, there's, I wanna get the... So, Glenn Taylor came out and said that all the things

that I was letting you do, A-Rod, because you were gonna be the controlling owner, like getting into the clubhouse and going in the back areas, you do not have to let your limited partners do that. We can't communicate with team execs anymore. We did not let our limited partners communicate with anybody. They couldn't call the GM.

The GM doesn't wanna take a call from a limited partner, and that's what A-Rod is. Limited partners can't walk to the clubhouse or walk behind the scenes to the kitchen area. What percentage of the club does he own, A-Rod? He and Mark Laurie have 40%. I would think you'd let the guys who own 40% come on back into the dining room. It's okay. That's why it feels like a fight. So that's why it's a fight.

And it's very limiting to be a limited partner, as you know. It's like being a limited shareholder in Disney. If you own 100,000 shares, you feel rich, but you have no power. Nelson Peltz, you get into the billions of dollars and all of a sudden you can do a proxy fight. As opposed to being a limited shareholder of Metal Archimedes, you get benefits like hanging out with David Sampson as he regales you with tales of his childhood.

On a horse. On a horse. See you later. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you both. Sorry for ruining your weekends.