Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
Speaker 1: His name is Alguido and he is the president of
Speaker 1: the San Francisco forty Niners and chief executive officer at
Speaker 1: Elevate Sports Ventures. I only wish we had more time
Speaker 1: to continue this conversation. This was absolutely fascinating. He has
Speaker 1: an amazing background, uh, both as an athlete and as
Speaker 1: an executive. Um. He really did some amazing work, uh,
Speaker 1: not only at the Dallas Cowboys, but with the San
Speaker 1: Francisco forty Niners, helping them to create what is really
Speaker 1: a unique sports stadium in in all of professional sports.
Speaker 1: The technology that they developed right there in the backyard
Speaker 1: of of Silicon Valley for enjoying sports, enjoying a facility, uh,
Speaker 1: is really there's nothing like it anywhere else in the country.
Speaker 1: Elvate Sports Ventures puts a lot of time and effort
Speaker 1: into finding new technologies, finding these things, commercializing them, and
Speaker 1: being able to share them with other sports facilities and
Speaker 1: other teams. It's really a fascinating conversation. If you're remotely
Speaker 1: interested in sports technology venture capital, you're gonna find this
Speaker 1: to be really intriguing. So, with no further ado my
Speaker 1: conversation with al Guido. I'm Barry Rihults. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio today. I have a
Speaker 1: special guest. His name is al Guido. He is the
Speaker 1: president of the San Francisco Fornia Niners and he has
Speaker 1: a fascinating career in both sports and business. He was
Speaker 1: a wide receiver for the Powerhouse College of New Jersey
Speaker 1: before joining Comcast Spectacres owned Philadelphia Flyers and seventies six Ers.
Speaker 1: He moved to the Cowboys front office. During the building
Speaker 1: of the A. T and T Park, he joined Legends,
Speaker 1: a well regarded UH sports consultancy formed by the Dallas
Speaker 1: Cowboys and the New York Yankees, to help open the
Speaker 1: new San Francisco forty nine er Stadium. The San Francisco
Speaker 1: Forny Niners Stadium was named the Sports Facility of the Year.
Speaker 1: He was appointed president of the forty Niners at the
Speaker 1: ripe old age of thirty six. UH named to Sports
Speaker 1: Business Journal forty under forty. He is also a guest
Speaker 1: lecturer at Stanford and You See Berkeley. Al Guido, welcome
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg. Thank you so much for having me. It's
Speaker 1: for pleasure. So you've had a really fascinating career and
Speaker 1: you're you know, do you shave you? How? How old
Speaker 1: are you now? I'm thirty eight right now, thirty eight,
Speaker 1: So president of the forty niners. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: a few of the projects you're working on, uh that
Speaker 1: are really quite fascinating. But I have to begin with
Speaker 1: a really interesting story about you being accidentally blind copied
Speaker 1: on an email and you said that was the email
Speaker 1: that changed your life. Tell us about that, no problem.
Speaker 1: I went down to interview with the Dallas Cowboys for
Speaker 1: job that was titled at the time, sales manager. I
Speaker 1: was the vice president of sales for the Phoenix Coyotes.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what the job entitled. I got caught
Speaker 1: up in the title and the pay and not actually
Speaker 1: the project, which which was a mistake. I'm sure we've
Speaker 1: all been there. I didn't handle the interview real well.
Speaker 1: I was. I answered the questions right, but you know,
Speaker 1: you have that sinking gut feeling when you right where
Speaker 1: you're just like, you know what, I missed that one.
Speaker 1: So I get home to Phoenix, I wake up the
Speaker 1: next morning I got an email in my inbox. It says,
Speaker 1: you know, Al was great, you know, polished, certainly knows
Speaker 1: the job, you know, not sure is the passion. There's
Speaker 1: a family situation back in Phoenix, and so you know,
Speaker 1: if we don't hire him, we're gonna have to reopen
Speaker 1: the search. Well, obviously I knew I wasn't supposed to
Speaker 1: be copied on this email. So this, by the way,
Speaker 1: that reminds me of the Curb your Enthusiasm accidental text, right,
Speaker 1: the text by accidents, So they blind they copied you
Speaker 1: by accident with Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones, Charlotte Jones, the
Speaker 1: entire Jones family. And uh, you know, you're sitting stew
Speaker 1: for a little while. Your first you're kind of pissed,
Speaker 1: right then you then you decide you're gonna write the email.
Speaker 1: Then you delete it and you write it again. And
Speaker 1: I just essentially I responded and said, hey, if you
Speaker 1: guys don't hire me, I think it'll be the worst
Speaker 1: mistake the Gallas Cowboys ever making their franchise history. And
Speaker 1: you also, we're up front, Hey, I know I wasn't
Speaker 1: supposed to be copied on, but I'm glad I was
Speaker 1: I think it changed my life. I mean, if I wasn't,
Speaker 1: who knows, I would have done my follow up call.
Speaker 1: I would have sent my thank you cards, doing all that,
Speaker 1: you know, all the stuff you do when you try
Speaker 1: to land a job. But for me, everyone says, hey,
Speaker 1: it took a lot of guts, and I just feel
Speaker 1: like I had no other choice. And and so when
Speaker 1: ten minutes later, Jerry, Jerry calls and says, you know,
Speaker 1: he says that that took a lot of guts. He
Speaker 1: didn't use those words, but that took a lot of guts.
Speaker 1: But I respect it and like it. You're hired just
Speaker 1: like that. That was the accidental email on purpose. So
Speaker 1: I think this is a new NFL, a new NFL strategy.
Speaker 1: It sounds like something uh Belichick created. Here's what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do. Um so tell us about what the job
Speaker 1: was like at the Cowboys. What did you do for them? Uh? Look,
Speaker 1: it was a game changer for me. I mean, we
Speaker 1: we went down there to open up a facility, you know,
Speaker 1: called Jerry World at the time now a T and
Speaker 1: T stadium. No one had ever thought about doing it
Speaker 1: the way that he was about to go and bark
Speaker 1: right the size scale. The building was being sunk down
Speaker 1: fifty feet, which, by the way, is an amazing architectural feature.
Speaker 1: Someone who's been to a lot of stadiums, you walk in,
Speaker 1: You're in the middle of the stadium. It's not like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I gotta walk up or down a
Speaker 1: thousand yard do you like? It just feels for a
Speaker 1: giant stadium. It feels so accessible. And then those immense screens,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. The screens were the largest in all of
Speaker 1: sports at the time. The trusts were the largest and
Speaker 1: heaviest in the world. I mean, you could fit the
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty inside of Cowboys Stadium. That's sending up
Speaker 1: standing up. That's how crazy it was. And then on
Speaker 1: top of that, what we were doing on the sales
Speaker 1: and revenue side. Just to give you a context, personal
Speaker 1: seat licenses in the NFL have been around for a
Speaker 1: long time. There's probably twenty teams now that have them.
Speaker 1: The largest PSL campaign in NFL history was the Carolina Panthers.
Speaker 1: They raised about a hundred and fifty million. With the
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys we did over six hundred million, and so
Speaker 1: it just changed sports forever. And and we did that
Speaker 1: and had a ton of success. From there, we launched Legends,
Speaker 1: the Yankees and the Cowboys, basically the two most successful
Speaker 1: franchises in each of their respective sports. You got it.
Speaker 1: Randy Levine and Steven Jones and Jerry Jones and came
Speaker 1: together in the stuy and Wrenner family. They wanted to
Speaker 1: do Legends as a food and beverage company, you know.
Speaker 1: So they formed this entity and Goldman Sachs was the
Speaker 1: third party. They formed this entity around food and beverage.
Speaker 1: That was the only vertical that they were interested in.
Speaker 1: Then they decided, you know what, we can get into
Speaker 1: the sales and we said, hey, we can do this
Speaker 1: sales consulting stuff. Because everybody keeps wanting to know how
Speaker 1: we did this down at Cowboys Stadium, So let's stop
Speaker 1: and we'll tell you. So what's since you instead of
Speaker 1: giving away free advice? So we created Legends. The forty
Speaker 1: niners were our first client. So I moved out to
Speaker 1: the Bay Area in late two thousand nine. I was
Speaker 1: on the ground in two thousand and ten as the
Speaker 1: Legends employee. Stayed there untill two thousand and fourteen as
Speaker 1: a Legends employee, and then the York family um brought
Speaker 1: me on board full time to run the team and
Speaker 1: roughly yet roughly two thousand fourteen, right before we opened.
Speaker 1: And that's the new in San Francisco and new Leli Stadium,
Speaker 1: because you come on as chief operating operating officer run
Speaker 1: obviously all the business vertical for both the team and
Speaker 1: the stadium itself. What happened is when Jerry decided to
Speaker 1: do the PSL campaign the way he did, it changed
Speaker 1: sports financing in the NFL forever. Right, if you if
Speaker 1: you just go thirty ft for a second, most sports
Speaker 1: stadiums built in the late nineties or early two thousand's
Speaker 1: were some form of private and public partnerships, right, tax
Speaker 1: revenues were going into these, which has always been a
Speaker 1: contentious today a very contentious and there's really, honestly, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of appetite anymore in the world today
Speaker 1: for taxpayers to pay for billion dollars stateis right, you're
Speaker 1: a billionaire, you own a team that's worth three or
Speaker 1: four billion, build your own stadium because the economics and honestly,
Speaker 1: the economics have changed. Right if you you know, if
Speaker 1: you go back to the late nineties in the stadium boom,
Speaker 1: where the Ravens came on board, the Steelers came on board,
Speaker 1: the Eagles built a new one. They're all they were
Speaker 1: all roughly three right. Very different from a financial Now
Speaker 1: you're talking a billion too. When we were in Alice
Speaker 1: a billion, four in San Francisco four and a half,
Speaker 1: the five billion in l A. I mean, the risk
Speaker 1: portfolio on these projects is dramatically increased. And so what
Speaker 1: wound up happening is how how you finance those projects
Speaker 1: changed and and that's why, look, we have the forty
Speaker 1: niners business. I'm also the CEO of Elevate Sports Ventures,
Speaker 1: which is a sports consulting firm that's literally built to
Speaker 1: handle this space because the game has changed relative to
Speaker 1: how sports franchises view their brand and how they monetize it.
Speaker 1: So you play bowl in college, you uh, you operate
Speaker 1: as a business person in the industry. You grew up
Speaker 1: a fan. How do you reconcile those three different roles?
Speaker 1: Do they ever get confusing in your head? Well, every
Speaker 1: time I walk into a venue now, it's a little
Speaker 1: different than when I was a kid. Right when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was looking for wherever the popcorn
Speaker 1: was and the and the soda that my dad would
Speaker 1: buy me later in life, good beer and a hot dog.
Speaker 1: Now I probably walk into a venue, I look at
Speaker 1: the signage, I look at the concession areas, I look
Speaker 1: at the arena operations, all the content. So it's changed,
Speaker 1: but I still got that fandom. I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: doubt that's why I love sports right because it's it's
Speaker 1: the one place where you can sort of get away
Speaker 1: from your day to day life. The emotion and the
Speaker 1: passion that people have around their sports teams. I still
Speaker 1: have that day to day. Um, I just probably look
Speaker 1: at venues a little differently. So let's talk about venues.
Speaker 1: You work with the forty Niners to build Levi Stadium.
Speaker 1: These big projects are notorious for being late and over budget.
Speaker 1: This comes in on time and and practically under budget.
Speaker 1: How did how did you manage to accomplish this unbelieable
Speaker 1: visionary and Jed York got out in front of the
Speaker 1: stadium design. We we had a building that was design
Speaker 1: probably two years before we even put a shovel on
Speaker 1: the ground, which was great for us. Is that not typical?
Speaker 1: There's always changes? Yeah, I mean you that is always
Speaker 1: last minute changes. I mean we used to joke that
Speaker 1: we wanted to kick Jerry out of building Jerry Jones
Speaker 1: out of his building for the six months leading up
Speaker 1: to stadium opening because he was constantly making changes. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it's what makes them great, what makes
Speaker 1: Jed York great. But we had a great construction team.
Speaker 1: We were lucky and in the tech side because we
Speaker 1: we built Levi Stadium on three pillars fan experience, sustainability,
Speaker 1: and technology. Being inside the Bay Area. We had the
Speaker 1: world's greatest, greatest technology partners. Facebook just went I p O.
Speaker 1: We literally hired the person who built the Facebook infrastructure
Speaker 1: to build our stadium infrastructure. So we came along in
Speaker 1: a really good time. Um, you know, the financing world
Speaker 1: was really good. Our team was starting to come along
Speaker 1: and starting to perform. So a lot of things went well.
Speaker 1: But I gotta say a lot of it is is
Speaker 1: I give credit to Jed York and the York family.
Speaker 1: So you come on board as chief operating officer, and
Speaker 1: then last year it was it last year. You get
Speaker 1: promoted two years ago, two years ago, two years ago.
Speaker 1: How did your role change? What are your job responsibilities
Speaker 1: today versus then? Well, they change, They didn't change very much.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, what I would say is
Speaker 1: we've grown in nature. So you know when we set
Speaker 1: out to build Levi's what I say is, we're a
Speaker 1: sports and entertainment company that also plays football, right because
Speaker 1: the building itself. You don't build a one point four
Speaker 1: billion dollar stadium and only hosts ten or twelve games
Speaker 1: and it makes no sense, right, So twelve if you lucky,
Speaker 1: that's right. So we've now incubated a technology company. We
Speaker 1: have four We've done forty investments in the last two years.
Speaker 1: We have a restaurant concept, we have physical therapy centers
Speaker 1: that are not forty niners. We have forty niners, fitness
Speaker 1: gyms that are branded underneath our watch with a gentleman
Speaker 1: who used to run twenty for our fitness named Mark
Speaker 1: Master off its so co branded for fitness gym. So
Speaker 1: we've taken our vertical instead of looking at the three
Speaker 1: pillars of revenue like every team right suite, sponsorship tickets,
Speaker 1: we of course we have those for us. It's why
Speaker 1: can't we take our brand and expand outside of our footprint,
Speaker 1: inside of technology, inside of land development, and so for me,
Speaker 1: my role hasn't changed much outside of the fact that
Speaker 1: the company has grown tremendously over the course of the
Speaker 1: last two years. So here's the pushback for that. You
Speaker 1: have a fan base that lives and does with how
Speaker 1: well the team is doing, and they're fairly loyal group
Speaker 1: um because once Montana and Rice retired, you know, I
Speaker 1: would have that would have been the last year saw
Speaker 1: me for a while, but they stuck with the fort
Speaker 1: in Us for a while. Do you run the risk
Speaker 1: of deluding the brand, of changing the fan experience? Because
Speaker 1: if you go to a game and it's a close
Speaker 1: game and they lose, you're dejected, but you know it's
Speaker 1: still part of the fan experience. If you go to
Speaker 1: a restaurant and you're not happy and it's forty nine
Speaker 1: ers logo, do you go to a gym and there's
Speaker 1: an issue, you don't quite have the same control of
Speaker 1: that fan experience. And it it that has to be
Speaker 1: a legitimate risk, isn't it. It's it's a legitimate risk
Speaker 1: that every stadium arena owner needs to ask themselves that
Speaker 1: they're designing the building right. It's and I think that's
Speaker 1: the pillar and the vision that we look through right
Speaker 1: or the lens, I should say, is let's not do
Speaker 1: things that take away from the hero feature. And the
Speaker 1: hero feature in my mind is the play on the field. Right,
Speaker 1: If everything else is just additive, meaning if I could
Speaker 1: get you two in and out of the stadium faster
Speaker 1: because I use technology, you would say that's great. Right.
Speaker 1: If I can make the building safer because of the
Speaker 1: mobile ticketing platform and knowing the data, you'd say great.
Speaker 1: If I could deliver food and beverage to every single
Speaker 1: seat in the building, which has never been done before,
Speaker 1: we did it Leavi Stadium, where the world's fastest pizza
Speaker 1: delivery company will deliver something to your seat in less
Speaker 1: than eight minutes. To me, it's what are the convenient
Speaker 1: things that you want as a patron inside of a
Speaker 1: venue that's gonna make you keep coming back? And you
Speaker 1: know what I can give you those I'm not going
Speaker 1: to take away from what I grew up as a
Speaker 1: fan loving. Right, don't change the game on the field
Speaker 1: or give me too many bells and whistles that distract
Speaker 1: me when I'm watching the game. I'm watching the game.
Speaker 1: But in football, as you know, we got a six
Speaker 1: hour time frame from the time you leave your house
Speaker 1: to the time you leave that parking lot. Four of
Speaker 1: those hours of the game window. Inside of those four hours,
Speaker 1: only twenty eight minutes of live sports. So are you
Speaker 1: telling me you're gonna be disconnected from the world from
Speaker 1: the rest of that time. No. Now, Look, NFL is
Speaker 1: different than baseball, different than the NBA. So what I
Speaker 1: would say is what we built is perfect for Levi's
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. I'm not suggesting that you should
Speaker 1: just dump it into some other market. I think you
Speaker 1: gotta build for each market. So how do you measure
Speaker 1: the success of the organization. It has to be more
Speaker 1: than just win loss record. It should be I mean, look,
Speaker 1: the goals of a football team are to win the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl every year. That's not the why or the
Speaker 1: purpose right to me. I measured success obviously by our
Speaker 1: wins and losses on the field. But in football it's
Speaker 1: a tough business to be in. Right, fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the teams you make the playoffs don't make it the
Speaker 1: next year. You know, generally speaking, three core things make
Speaker 1: you a consistent winning for football organization. Right, continuity that
Speaker 1: within your front office, your ownership, your GM, your coach
Speaker 1: a coach. Schematically that gives you an X and O's advantage,
Speaker 1: and we like to think Kyle Shanahan is one of
Speaker 1: the best in the business on the offensive side of
Speaker 1: leisure and then pretty simple a franchise quarterback. And so
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about the a f C,
Speaker 1: there's been three quarterbacks that have participated in in you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the Super Bowl. In the a f C side,
Speaker 1: you've got Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger, Sprinkler
Speaker 1: and a couple of Joe Flacco's over the last seventeen years. Right,
Speaker 1: So just tell you what you need. On the business side.
Speaker 1: For us, it's all about fan experience. Where we rank
Speaker 1: in the NFL. Obviously, revenues are a big component of
Speaker 1: it because we want to stay competitive with our other
Speaker 1: partners in the league. And we've gone from a bottom
Speaker 1: tier revenue team in the NFL when we're at Candlestick Park,
Speaker 1: which is hard to believe the five times Super Bowl champions,
Speaker 1: being the bottom of the NFL and revenue, to now
Speaker 1: being a top revenue team with a massive global footprint
Speaker 1: that's arguably second or third in the line of the
Speaker 1: NFL based off where you are. There has been so
Speaker 1: much news about sports over the past few weeks. We
Speaker 1: have to discuss some of that, and we'll get to it,
Speaker 1: but I have to talk about the new venture that
Speaker 1: the forty Niners launched with some partners called Elevate Sports Ventures.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about what's happening with that.
Speaker 1: So I'm super excited to announce as part of Elevate
Speaker 1: Sports Ventures, which is a consulting, sales and marketing consulting
Speaker 1: firm working with landmark sports properties arenas stadiums, we have
Speaker 1: now brought on oak View Group and a gentleman by
Speaker 1: the name of Tim Lawicki, who is a titan in
Speaker 1: this industry. He built a g He was the president
Speaker 1: of Maple League Sports Entertainment. Oak View Group for the
Speaker 1: last two years has been spending time building arenas in
Speaker 1: the facility management space, and they were looking for a
Speaker 1: partner on the sales and marketing front to run all
Speaker 1: of their operations. So today I'm excited to announce that
Speaker 1: partnership and to tell people that we will be operating
Speaker 1: the new NHL Seattle Arena that hopefully is going to
Speaker 1: come online, which we get good news on June. Waiting
Speaker 1: to hear a new HOW team coming to Seattle. And
Speaker 1: when that happens, the new stadium gets built with the
Speaker 1: help of elevator. Well, you know what I'm I'm super
Speaker 1: excited about. We didn't have to build a new stadium.
Speaker 1: What we what we're doing is we're spending about seven
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to renovate Key Arena. You're almost building
Speaker 1: a new stadi. Yeah. And what I would tell people
Speaker 1: were kind of in your backyard, right. So for those
Speaker 1: listeners who might be a New York sports fan, think
Speaker 1: about what happened to Madison Square Garden a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, right where they kept the historic nature of
Speaker 1: the garden, but they've redesigned and reimagined everything. I will,
Speaker 1: I will be grudgingly admit it's a significant improvement. And
Speaker 1: I'm one of the people. I'm a long suffering Knicks
Speaker 1: fan who want to see them level that dump and
Speaker 1: put up a new one. But I have to admit
Speaker 1: it's gotten significantly better. I would agree, and I and
Speaker 1: I think if you look at KI Arena in Seattle,
Speaker 1: right for all the history around that, for the concerts,
Speaker 1: I mean, you talk about a music venue. So we
Speaker 1: we've hired a populous oak View group is funding the
Speaker 1: entire project. We are running the sales and marketing on
Speaker 1: behalf of Todd lie Wicky, who is now the president
Speaker 1: of that team, who used to be the chief operating
Speaker 1: officer of the NFL. So we're beyond excited to announce
Speaker 1: that we're also bringing on another partner, Live Nation and Ticketmaster,
Speaker 1: the world's largest content company and ticketing business. We feel
Speaker 1: as if we can bring oak Views facility management properties
Speaker 1: and they're consulting along with our sales expertise, combined with
Speaker 1: the content and the technology that Ticketmaster will bring to bear,
Speaker 1: that we feel like we can work with any sports
Speaker 1: property across the across the globe. So that raises an
Speaker 1: interesting question. You have UM legends out there. This is
Speaker 1: essentially the same space. How many new stadiums are going
Speaker 1: to get either built or refurbished. Is there enough business
Speaker 1: for this sort of UM company or is it consistently
Speaker 1: the bottom what's call at sevent of teams need help
Speaker 1: in monetizing what they do. So it's I would say
Speaker 1: there's parts of it that are similar UM. To answer
Speaker 1: your question of whether or not this is a big
Speaker 1: enough business, thirty billion dollars is being spent or has
Speaker 1: been spent in building, stadium renovation, designs development. So I
Speaker 1: tell you this is a big space. Sports business is
Speaker 1: only growing, There's no question about that. Our our key
Speaker 1: differentiators from what they do there are a food and
Speaker 1: beverage company and a sales marketing consulting firm. O v
Speaker 1: G is putting capital risk. They're funding these properties when
Speaker 1: they go into it. Right there, They're they're putting the
Speaker 1: money down. O View Group is funded by Tim Lewicky.
Speaker 1: Obviously irving A's off used to be the x CEO
Speaker 1: of of Live Nation and Dolan right the MSG properties
Speaker 1: and then uh Tim also took on some money from
Speaker 1: Silver Lakes. So we are actually putting capital at risk
Speaker 1: and then going in and managed on behalf. We're not
Speaker 1: just a fee based consulting firm, which is similar to
Speaker 1: what that's what Legends does. I have nothing but respect
Speaker 1: for them. I work for them. They're tremendous people. I
Speaker 1: think there's enough to go around in this business. We
Speaker 1: think we have a vertical and an offering that will
Speaker 1: reimagine this sports marketing consulting space. And I think given
Speaker 1: just that we've been in the market ninety days, we
Speaker 1: now have a client every single sport. That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: So you've answered the question. I was gonna ask about
Speaker 1: what do these consultancies do, but you hinted at something
Speaker 1: else I have to talk about. You mentioned the technology
Speaker 1: in Levi Stadium. What do you think is going to
Speaker 1: happen in terms of digital interaction and augmented reality and
Speaker 1: just the entire fan experience combining technology and and enjoying
Speaker 1: the game. I think this is the best time to
Speaker 1: be inside of technology and sports, and they're all sort
Speaker 1: of coming together at the perfect It's like the perfect storm, right,
Speaker 1: and you guys are really in the sweet spot of that, right,
Speaker 1: And and it starts with let's just at the core
Speaker 1: of it, it starts with safety. If you think, unfortunately
Speaker 1: about the vents that are going on in our world today,
Speaker 1: the incidents in Manchester and that arena a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, it's becoming clear that fans now understand the
Speaker 1: importance of the digital footprint, the tracking mechanism. Right, if
Speaker 1: you went to an airport, you would have never thought
Speaker 1: before that, hey, I could just give you my airplane
Speaker 1: ticket and you could go jump on that plane. But
Speaker 1: that's how nobody checked you on, right, And that's how
Speaker 1: it's worked in stadiums forever, but that that time has
Speaker 1: to end. So once you take the utility functions of
Speaker 1: the technology right, and what I mean is your tickets
Speaker 1: and your parking, great, but then what do you do?
Speaker 1: Do you even enter with a ticket or do you
Speaker 1: enter with biometrics when you get inside the stadium forgetting
Speaker 1: VR right of putting a goggle on? What is your
Speaker 1: a R How are you using your AI, within your
Speaker 1: chatbots and your services to you know, to make sure
Speaker 1: that you can communicate with seventy thousand fans. So to me,
Speaker 1: this is part of the why we created the venture
Speaker 1: arm and invested in all these technology companies because the
Speaker 1: game is changing. You we've talked well, I'm sure we'll
Speaker 1: talk about gambling. How does that work? In venue? How
Speaker 1: do the how does the mobile footprint right? How do
Speaker 1: you how do you where to each venue? You know?
Speaker 1: How do you interact with fans? Given where technology and
Speaker 1: content is today? It starts with building the infrastructure, which
Speaker 1: is why to your last question is is there enough business?
Speaker 1: All of these people are either building new or renovating
Speaker 1: to get themselves updated with the current needs of the world.
Speaker 1: The news flow has just been NonStop. Have to talk
Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court decision legalizing state betting on sports.
Speaker 1: If I'm the NFL, I have to be salivating thinking
Speaker 1: this is an enormous revenue opportunity. I think they're twofold.
Speaker 1: Everybody understands the revenue opportunity. The concern is the integrity
Speaker 1: of your game, right and and so what I think
Speaker 1: the NFL, when I know the NFL is stated in
Speaker 1: Roger Goodell is look, we're gonna follow this. The most
Speaker 1: important thing is the integrity of our game. We would
Speaker 1: this to come down at a federal for the federal
Speaker 1: government to take a perspective on this and not necessarily
Speaker 1: go state by state. Well, I think it's that that
Speaker 1: ship is sailed given the Supreme Court decision. It may
Speaker 1: unless there's congressional legislation, correct, and it sounds like there's
Speaker 1: going to be either way. Your point is well taken. Look,
Speaker 1: I think it's here. It's coming. Um, it's already coming.
Speaker 1: And the question becomes, you know, Adam Silver is already
Speaker 1: out there saying he wants one per cent of all
Speaker 1: wages placed on the NBA. Look, don't yeah exactly, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's exactly what's going to happen. But
Speaker 1: there's no question our i P is valuable in the NFL.
Speaker 1: I am a firm believer that gambling and fantasy sports
Speaker 1: grows our fan base long term. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: would argue that what fantasy football has done for the
Speaker 1: NFL makes people tune in on the broadcast, makes people
Speaker 1: you know, follow each individual player. So to me, I
Speaker 1: view this as an unbelievable positive down. The next question
Speaker 1: is how do you roll it out? Right? Do you
Speaker 1: go to the English Premier League round where you literally
Speaker 1: have cash boxes in every single stadium in arena and
Speaker 1: they're making bets intro game that will they make the
Speaker 1: penalty kick? What will they who scores first? It really
Speaker 1: is an amazing yeah. And if you think about football, right, football,
Speaker 1: outside of horse racing, is probably the easiest sport because
Speaker 1: can you imagine the amount of prop bets, the downtimes
Speaker 1: that every quarters, the kickoffs, the the you know, the
Speaker 1: coin flip. Right, Other sports generally probably that happened a
Speaker 1: little bit more faster paced, don't have as many of those.
Speaker 1: So look, trust me as a person that operates, I
Speaker 1: got a couple of hats, but you know the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Fognars business. Of course I'm interested and I am
Speaker 1: tuned into what is about to happen on the integrity
Speaker 1: side of the sport. There's no question that you have
Speaker 1: to think about it. Right. Match fixing has happened in
Speaker 1: the world, and so you know you have you have
Speaker 1: to at least understand how this is going to be
Speaker 1: regulated within your sport and outside of your sport. Um
Speaker 1: but I look, I I view it as it's happening.
Speaker 1: It's coming, we need to get ready for it. I
Speaker 1: think long term it's going to be a positive. So
Speaker 1: that's my take. Let me put on my market guy
Speaker 1: hat and address integrity. So the way you make money
Speaker 1: fixing sports is having a long shot, unexpectedly win and
Speaker 1: being on the right side of that. Now, in Europe
Speaker 1: where they've had sports gambling for a while, when an
Speaker 1: unseated player in tennis beats the number six player and
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty big purse, that immediately generates an investigation.
Speaker 1: So and it's the same thing happens in in the market.
Speaker 1: If there's an unexpected takeover of a company and there
Speaker 1: was some gee, why was all this stock option activity
Speaker 1: three days before this takeover. It's a red flag. You
Speaker 1: can actually use gambling as a way too. There's a
Speaker 1: temptation from the various people to abuse it. But the
Speaker 1: market can allow you to actually operate, to maintain integrity,
Speaker 1: to do the game. Yeah, I think you can, and
Speaker 1: but the examples you brought up are scary. You know,
Speaker 1: think about this, right, A football game might be harder,
Speaker 1: given that you know, one on one matches, it's a
Speaker 1: fairly easier thing to do. But look at the Tim
Speaker 1: donnehee situation right in the NBA. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a player. It could be a referee, It could
Speaker 1: be a replayfully, you know. So you know, my thing
Speaker 1: is you never want that in your sport because I
Speaker 1: do think that that would ruin you know, ruin pieces
Speaker 1: perceptions of whether or not it's a fair game. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned replay. Let's talk a little bit about a
Speaker 1: basic football question. What the hell is a catch? I
Speaker 1: remember when I was a kid. You caught the ball,
Speaker 1: you maintain control, You hit the ground, and you still
Speaker 1: have control. It was a catch that seems to have
Speaker 1: gone away. Like I'm with you. We we finally changed
Speaker 1: this rule this year. We were all frustrated by this
Speaker 1: rule inside the league. I mean I you would sit
Speaker 1: in again, I'd sit in games, whether in our venue
Speaker 1: and other venues. And you just like what you said.
Speaker 1: I mean when I grew up, right, I knew exactly
Speaker 1: what I thought it catch was he use control of
Speaker 1: the ball, that's it. If it scored it out when
Speaker 1: he hits the ground, it's not the whole like football move,
Speaker 1: not foot what is a football move? And uh, I
Speaker 1: think we've gotten to the point right now. You know,
Speaker 1: catch two feet on the ground, that's it, right, And
Speaker 1: if you you know this year, I think the Jesse
Speaker 1: Jameson thing is Jesse james right, the extended over the
Speaker 1: goal line of Pittsburgh. Obviously you know when the ball
Speaker 1: then hits the ground, it moves that that's now a
Speaker 1: touchdown when it when it wasn't a catch before. Like
Speaker 1: it's not making Jerry Jones feel any better that Dez
Speaker 1: Bryant's catch in Green Bay is now catching wasn't a
Speaker 1: catch then? And look, I it's it's it's easy for
Speaker 1: everybody in the audience today. This is where I think
Speaker 1: technology is both good and bad. Right when you and
Speaker 1: I were growing up, HD wasn't there. You couldn't slow
Speaker 1: mow these things down. It's a difficult sport. Every sports
Speaker 1: a difficult sport to ref But even you know, even
Speaker 1: when you slow it down millisecond by millisecond, you actually
Speaker 1: create this fake thing. You have to look at it
Speaker 1: all right, So here it is in real time, and
Speaker 1: here it is slowed down a little bit, but you
Speaker 1: get a distorted viewpoint with these super duper slow mos
Speaker 1: and ultra HD. That's not the real world. You might
Speaker 1: as well be looking at, you know, nanoparticles. At that point, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're sort of paralyzed by all the replays and analysis
Speaker 1: and everything else. And I think you're right. You can
Speaker 1: push it too far. Right. You have all this technology
Speaker 1: which then allows you to do all these things and
Speaker 1: slow it down, But then it's paralysis by analysis. So
Speaker 1: you get to a point where, holy smokes, it's still
Speaker 1: just a game. Can't we just can't we just referee
Speaker 1: and it should really not be there, shouldn't be lawyers involved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think we're I think finally we're simplifying it
Speaker 1: this year. This coming year, the new rule will be intact.
Speaker 1: I hope that it reduces the amount of discussion because
Speaker 1: you just don't want that right. You want the discussion
Speaker 1: to be X and o's should have a should coach
Speaker 1: went for it on fourth down? Punted? Gone for two?
Speaker 1: That's what you when you're walking as a fan, right
Speaker 1: when I look, when I walked out of games with
Speaker 1: my father, my mother, the whole debate was should we
Speaker 1: have done this? Should we have done that? It wasn't
Speaker 1: Was this a catch or not right? It wasn't taking that.
Speaker 1: I'd haven't really even thought about the referees at that
Speaker 1: time unless they throw a flag on holding or pass interference, right,
Speaker 1: the subjective calls. But you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: you want people leaving talking about the game, not the referees.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about and and we caveated this before,
Speaker 1: but I'll repeat it. Al is not speaking on behalf
Speaker 1: of the NFL. This is his opinion, so he is
Speaker 1: not making broad declarations on behalf of the league. But
Speaker 1: as long as I have you here, let me ask
Speaker 1: you about celebrations in the end zone. Okay, I have
Speaker 1: always thought that that penalty was sort of weird. You
Speaker 1: have this unsportsmanlike conduct. If someone is being a jerk
Speaker 1: and taunting somebody you could throw a flag at them,
Speaker 1: but somebody hasn't a using play, and they in a
Speaker 1: big game and they score, why not let them celebrate
Speaker 1: dance a little bit. What's the problem with that? To
Speaker 1: be there's there should be no problem with it. And
Speaker 1: and thankfully the NFL last year allowed back in the
Speaker 1: touchdown celebrations because look, whether it's funny or I mean,
Speaker 1: people called us to no fun league, and I think
Speaker 1: you can become that a little bit. And to me,
Speaker 1: I think it removes that connection from a fan to
Speaker 1: a player to a team. And and if you look
Speaker 1: this year and obviously the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles,
Speaker 1: not only were they known as a really good team,
Speaker 1: they were probably known as the team that was most
Speaker 1: you know together because their celebration, their touchdown celebration, their
Speaker 1: interception interceptions. They were doing dances out on the field.
Speaker 1: And I go back to our history at the forty
Speaker 1: nine is whether it's the Dion Sanders dance, the Marten
Speaker 1: Hanks chicken, at some level you remember those moments because
Speaker 1: of them, right that fans love it. Fans. What I
Speaker 1: what I tell people is and you're seeing it now
Speaker 1: how it plays out on content, right, everybody watches the games,
Speaker 1: but the content that gets the most engagement is when
Speaker 1: you get behind the mask, right or underneath the hood
Speaker 1: and you learn about these people as as as as
Speaker 1: human beings. I mean, look at Tom burst time right
Speaker 1: on the Facebook. You know how many times people get
Speaker 1: an in depth look at how time Brady lives his life.
Speaker 1: We need to do more of that as a franchise,
Speaker 1: as a as a league. All leagues do because you
Speaker 1: want people now want a connection with their teams on
Speaker 1: a much deeper level than just wins and loss. That's right,
Speaker 1: Brady is what fifty three fifty four and he's still
Speaker 1: in there playing amazing. Look, it's an amazing story. I mean,
Speaker 1: however old he is, I mean, he's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest ever do one of the greatest ever. So the
Speaker 1: celebration is one thing that's an easy question. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about again more news. The we just heard about kneeling
Speaker 1: um and the new rules the owners have issued. I
Speaker 1: was in the impression that those sort of penalties if
Speaker 1: you kneel you'll be fined, are covered by the contract
Speaker 1: between the league and the players Association. Do I not
Speaker 1: understand that correctly? Now, what seemingly what came down here
Speaker 1: was that the NFL will find the team, the team
Speaker 1: will decide to discipline their player on their own. Now,
Speaker 1: they give the player the option of staying in the
Speaker 1: locker room during the national anthem instead of kneeling. What
Speaker 1: happens if a dozen players don't come out? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're creating a possible all right, Now, there's a new
Speaker 1: scenario here, you know, remains to be seen. I would
Speaker 1: say we we at the forty niners, we've obviously dealt
Speaker 1: with this for for a long time, right, because why
Speaker 1: would it affect you more than anyone else? Our former quarterback,
Speaker 1: I should say, Colin Kaepernick started the movement, and look
Speaker 1: what I what I would tell you on this Our
Speaker 1: owner UM abstain from voting, was one of the only
Speaker 1: owner owners to do so. I think about it in
Speaker 1: this way, right, what we need to somewhat in this
Speaker 1: country and in this sport move from protest to progress.
Speaker 1: Our owner UM has donated over ten million dollars the
Speaker 1: last two years to impact social causes inside of the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. We've seen our police, UM and our communities
Speaker 1: grow a deeper level of engagement based off those things,
Speaker 1: you know, do I what I kneel for the national athem,
Speaker 1: No right, UM, but I do believe that there's underlying
Speaker 1: issues in the world, and we as a community at
Speaker 1: the San Francisco For and Honors, believe that we should
Speaker 1: be in those discussions. And uh, it's sort of our
Speaker 1: job to be a good community partner and steward. And
Speaker 1: so we're gonna keep working with our players. UM. I
Speaker 1: can't speak for what every other team is gonna do,
Speaker 1: but for us, you know, we know that our players
Speaker 1: are not just there for the sixteen or eighteen or
Speaker 1: nineteen games they play. They're they're an employee of ours,
Speaker 1: They're a fabric of our community. Their kids go to
Speaker 1: schools in our area. So for us, it's find out
Speaker 1: what they're are passionate about, help support him in that cause,
Speaker 1: Help educate and make people aware of the things that
Speaker 1: are going on in the world, and put money, um
Speaker 1: back into the community to affect change in a positive way.
Speaker 1: We have been speaking to al Quido. He's the president
Speaker 1: of the San Francisco forty Niners. If you enjoy this conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure and stick around for the podcast extras. Will
Speaker 1: we keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all things uh, sports,
Speaker 1: business and football. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions
Speaker 1: right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: You can check out my daily column on Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at Rid Holts. I'm Barry Ridhults.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Al, thank you for doing this. I
Speaker 1: wish we had more time. I know you have a
Speaker 1: busy schedule this week. UM, let's let's just do a
Speaker 1: quick speed round. I want to talk to you more
Speaker 1: about you and not just about sports, gambling and Colin Kaepernack. So.
Speaker 1: So in the five or so minutes we have left,
Speaker 1: let's plat through ten questions really quickly. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: This will be a speed round. Most important thing people
Speaker 1: don't know about your background or about you. I grew
Speaker 1: up a blue collar family. Father was a truck driver,
Speaker 1: mother was administrator. Um. Unfortunately I move thirteen times before
Speaker 1: I was seventeen years old, bankrupt, two homes. So, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, my my parents did everything they possibly could
Speaker 1: to to give me a good life, and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: unbelievably fortunate for it. Tell us about your early mentors.
Speaker 1: My father from a work ethic perspective, um, you know,
Speaker 1: my mother from a loving perspective. In the business world.
Speaker 1: You know, I say I have three. Jim Vanstone taught
Speaker 1: me this business at the Philadelphia Flyers and seventies six
Speaker 1: chat Estis with the Dallas Cowboys taught me how to
Speaker 1: be a leader and build great culture. And Jed Yorke
Speaker 1: taught me how to be a visionary and an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: and think outside the box. What players, businesspeople, sports figures
Speaker 1: influenced your approach to thinking about the business? Wow, players,
Speaker 1: sports figures, um or business people, business people, I'll say
Speaker 1: a partner of ours who have come to really love
Speaker 1: the CEO of S A P. Bill McDermott has become
Speaker 1: a great friend. I love his sort of corner store
Speaker 1: Delhi to the corner office, the way that he runs
Speaker 1: his organization. Uh. From a culture, management, leadership perspective, it's
Speaker 1: good to know at that big of a company the
Speaker 1: little things still matter most. Um and the SAP the giant,
Speaker 1: the giant. Yeah, because I just think that at his
Speaker 1: core it's all about leadership, vision why purpose? To me,
Speaker 1: by far and away, he's one of he's been one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. That that's interesting. Tell us about some
Speaker 1: of your favorite books. What what do you read? What
Speaker 1: do you find interesting, sports, non sports, fiction, non fiction, whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm a big, obviously business book reader, but I'll tell
Speaker 1: you my passion is in the Simon Sinek is a
Speaker 1: tremendous friend, executive coach. His start with Why Book for
Speaker 1: Me sort of changed it all, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: then and then Leaders Eat Last was a tremendous opportunity
Speaker 1: to learn from the military. I think, to take military
Speaker 1: practices and put him in business world. So he's been
Speaker 1: an unbelievable mentor. But both really interesting names. What do
Speaker 1: you find most exciting about what's going on in the
Speaker 1: world of sports business today? I think that sports business teams, brands,
Speaker 1: leagues are branching out into other areas. Is the most
Speaker 1: is is to me. You know, you've got the NBA
Speaker 1: doing e sports, You've got the NFL looking into development,
Speaker 1: pretty's overseas. These these brands are becoming global brands. Their publishers,
Speaker 1: their content creators, their storytellers, right their sales and marketers.
Speaker 1: They've you know, there are incubators and innovation and technology
Speaker 1: it's not just a sport anymore. What do you do
Speaker 1: outside of the office for fun? I got three little
Speaker 1: girls at home. UM, so my wife would tell me
Speaker 1: if I do anything outside of take care of my nine,
Speaker 1: seven and five year over that too much. I love
Speaker 1: to play pick up basketball. UM. I enjoy a good
Speaker 1: golf round, although I haven't played in quite a while.
Speaker 1: Tell us about a time you failed and what you
Speaker 1: learned from the experience. Well, I, UM, I went into
Speaker 1: a job opportunity with the Lakewood Blue Claws, a single
Speaker 1: a affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, and Uh, I wasn't
Speaker 1: as prepared as I thought I needed to be. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a layoup job for me. Um. I
Speaker 1: didn't show up with with my A game is what
Speaker 1: you would call it. And I and from there on
Speaker 1: out I made or that there was never a time
Speaker 1: where I didn't show up with my A game. Recent
Speaker 1: college graduate comes up to you and says, I'm interested
Speaker 1: in the career and uh, in the business of sports.
Speaker 1: What sort of advice would you give them? Grit and perseverance.
Speaker 1: It's not an easy world to get into, but once
Speaker 1: you get into it, man, work your tail off because
Speaker 1: it is the best. In my opinion, it's the best
Speaker 1: job vertical you could be in. And the other thing
Speaker 1: I would say is be a sponge. Learn inside and
Speaker 1: out how these businesses operate. It is not as simple
Speaker 1: as a movie theater. Don't just focus on the ticket
Speaker 1: someone buys. Focus on how the don't focus on the
Speaker 1: end result. Focus on how, the how, the how the
Speaker 1: how they got there. And our final question, what is
Speaker 1: it that you know about the world of sports business
Speaker 1: today that you wish you knew a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago when you were beginning. Normally I say thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: but with you, I have to say a decade ago
Speaker 1: when you were first getting uh getting involved in this business.
Speaker 1: My largest learning curve is to deal with the political specter.
Speaker 1: You know, I think as a business person um rational
Speaker 1: thought generally always prevails and in the politics world that's
Speaker 1: not the same. And so to understand people's motivations is important.
Speaker 1: I don't say that in a negative way. I just
Speaker 1: think that you need to understand in every conversation what's
Speaker 1: important to that to those people, and politics and private
Speaker 1: don't always align. Under understood. We have been speaking with
Speaker 1: al Guido. He is the president of the San Francisco,
Speaker 1: forty niners. If you enjoy this conversation, be shure and
Speaker 1: look up an inch, ight down an inch on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com, Apple iTunes, overcast, wherever finer podcasts are sold,
Speaker 1: and you can see any of the other two hundred
Speaker 1: or so such conversations we've had. We love your comments,
Speaker 1: feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. I would be remiss if I
Speaker 1: did not thank the correct team that helps put together
Speaker 1: these podcasts each week. Taylor Riggs is our producer, Booker
Speaker 1: Medina Parwana is our audio engineer and producer. Michael bat
Speaker 1: Nick is our head of search. I'm Barry Results. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.