Billy Beane on the future of sports

Billy Beane, Executive Vice President of the Oakland Athletics, joins Dan to discuss the future of sports.

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Transcript

DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.

[00:00:00] Welcome to Post Corona, where we try to understand COVID 19's lasting impact on the economy, culture, and geopolitics. I'm Dan Senor.

Today we sit down with Billy Beane, who became famous outside the world of sports when Brad Pitt portrayed him in the film adaptation of Michael Lewis best selling book, Moneyball. But long before the name Billy Beane and the term Moneyball entered into the pop culture lexicon, Billy was a well respected business executive, data innovator.

And talent recruitment genius inside the sports industry. Since March, Billy has been thinking a lot about how COVID will change sports. Why does this matter? Well, global sports is estimated to be a half a trillion dollar industry, depending on how you calculate it. And over the last few years, it's been growing skyrocketing.

Actually, that's until COVID made [00:01:00] its debut earlier this year. The sports industry at every level has experienced a shock to its core during COVID. It all just stopped and then tried to restart with uneven results. I mean, even right now we're living through, quote, the weak COVID crushed the NFL, as summed up by Andrew Beaton in the Wall Street Journal.

But there's also been a lot of learning along the way. So back to Billy Beane, who's been thinking a lot about what of these changes could outlive COVID. What have we learned during this time that we'll want to keep? How will sports be transformed? Since Billy is always thinking about what might come next, how things could be different, we thought it would be good to pick his brain.

This is Post Corona.

I'm pleased to welcome Billy Beane to this conversation. I can't think of anyone better. To have here than Billy, uh, Billy and I have a lot in common. We both love sports. We are both interested in the intersection of business and [00:02:00] sports. We both have children who are deeply involved in youth sports. And I would just say a number of people have commented that if there were ever to be a biopic made of my life.

That the, the character of Dan Senor would likely be played by Brad Pitt. So Billy, you and I share that and, uh, you know, it makes me even feel closer to you. So welcome to welcome to our conversation. Well, thanks Dan. It's quite an honor given your, uh, previous guest to this point. So I'm flattered that I get to play a part in, uh, in your new podcast.

All right. Excellent. So, let me, let's jump into it. First of all, just, just as background, Billy is the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations and, and a minority owner of the Oakland Athletics. Major league baseball team. He's also a minority owner in a couple of football slash soccer clubs, Barnsley in England and, uh, and AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands from 84 [00:03:00] to 89.

He played in major league baseball as an outfielder for the New York Mets, where he was a first round pick in the MLB draft. And, uh, he's also played for the Minnesota twins for the Detroit tigers, obviously for the Oakland athletics. And then he joined the, uh, Oakland athletics front office in. 1990 as a scout and really transformed the sport because of his, his introduction of saber analytics, uh, to the sport, which we'll talk a little bit more about later.

But Billy, I want to talk about how sports may be transformed for a long time because of the Corona virus. And I want to go back with you to March of 2020. So actually it was the week of March 8th. And I just want you to think for a moment, like where you were, cause that was the week, as you'll recall, that the Ivy league, it started with the Ivy league canceling its sports.[00:04:00]

But the NBA was still playing, and Dr. Fauci testified on Capitol Hill that week, and a congressman from northern Wisconsin, uh, asked him a question. Because at that point the NBA had decided, had, had, they were, I think they were playing with games with, in some stadiums they were playing games with no, in some arenas they were playing games with no fans, but they were still playing games.

The Ivy Leagues had canceled, and A con, this congressman asked Dr. Fauci, with no, no warning for this question, it's not like this professional sports leagues or the university, the NCAA was aware that this question was coming, he, he was asked, is the NBA, and I quote here, is the NBA underreacting? To Coronavirus or is the Ivy League overreacting?

And everyone just assumed, including this congressman, that the NBA was doing just fine. And it was the Ivy Leagues that [00:05:00] were overreacting. And what Dr. Fauci made clear in that hearing is he thought the Ivys had done the right thing and the NBA was underreacting. And there needs to be a pivot. And by midweek, the NBA season had been suspended.

You remember Utah, uh, Utah Jazz Center, Rudy Gobert was, as Ben Cohn from the Wall Street Journal called him, he called him the patient zero in American pro sports. Gobert tests positive in a game and they basically suspend all the games at that point. It was only supposed to be for 30 days. And then within like 24 hours, the NHL had suspended.

MLB announced that it was suspending. And then of course the big one at the time was the NCAA. Basketball tournament, which is a huge deal, right? People forget it's a billion, the NCA basketball tournament is a billion dollar business, just the tournament alone. And it canceled the NCA concert, all its sports, including for the, for the NCA basketball, men's basketball finals canceled for the first time since 1930.

So they had played every [00:06:00] year since 1930 and then, but through world wars, through, you know, all sorts of chaos, uh, during that, that century. And. And kept going and then that stopped and that was like a big wake up call. So you're sitting there, you're an executive of a, of a professional sports team. And your season is getting ready to start really.

I mean there was the, it was the um, spring training. What are you thinking that week? Is every, all the walls, Yeah. You know, those dates, uh, Dan, I will never forget. And actually for me, cause March 8th was actually a Sunday and, uh, and I'll go back to March 6th. Uh, at that time I myself was up, uh, giving a speech out of state, uh, we were in spring training and I had to fly up to Colorado to give a speech on a Friday night.

I spent the weekend at home in the Bay area and then flew back on March 9th. Uh, into Phoenix, uh, to rejoin the team for spring training. And ironically, I started to [00:07:00] come down with what I thought was a cold a little bit. I had a little bit of a, you know, just the oncoming of a cold, but I thought it was because of my travel schedule.

Uh, that was on a Monday. I stayed home Tuesday, Wednesday, telling my right hand guy, David Forrest, that, Hey, I'm a little tired today. I went to, uh, and, uh, I'm just going to work out of the house now. Uh, I sort of go back on that. When it was a Wednesday when you're talking about the NBA and at that time you really started to, uh, and again, we were in spring training, not that far, you know, not that far off from starting our season.

And I remember sitting there watching the game on a Wednesday and at that time. California, which was really one of the more, uh, aggressive in terms of starting to, you know, uh, prevent large groups together. And I was watching the Dallas Mavericks on TV, uh, and I, there was a sense of discomfort that I started to have when I saw the crowd because everyone at that point was starting to, again, starting to become concerned in large groups.

And then they broke in on the game that you're speaking about, the Utah game, I believe it was Oklahoma City, Utah, when it was canceled. Yeah, they were playing, they were playing the [00:08:00] Thunder. On the, and, and Rudy Gobert had. Had taken a test, and then the, I think it was the OKC's medical director, came running out on the court while they were just warming up.

So the fans, you know, they were like, came running on the court saying, this is a real problem. Gobert has tested positive. And that's, I think that's when things shut down. Well, what, they, they shut down that night from an NBA standpoint. Now understand, we were still in spring training and we had a scheduled spring training game the next day on a Thursday.

And you knew there was just this real momentum going on that a sense of unknown too, because understand at that point, you hadn't, you really knew very little about the virus itself in terms of, you know, uh, the severity, how easily it just, there's so many unknowns. So I wouldn't, and understand I'll, I'll, I'll get back to the sort of feeling this cold coming on in a second.

Uh, and I went into, uh, uh, Phoenix spring training and there was actually scheduled games. Uh, in florida and spring training and I was in my office watching these games and there was just sort of this sense of like [00:09:00] This is going to even baseball was going to be shut down anytime soon You can just feel the momentum coming from from the entire country Uh, particularly as it related to sports and sure enough Uh, I think it was by the end of that.

Uh, was it that that thursday or that? We, we, we baseball, we did shut it down and you shut down by the end of that. Yeah. And so I remember on Friday, it was a Friday afternoon, uh, addressing the team, uh, because even the team where there was a sense of anxiety, nobody knew what was going on, but there's also a sense of.

Hey, maybe this is going to be temporary, or maybe, you know, we're in a couple of weeks, we'll get back. And I remember addressing the team. So just, just so I can, just so you can paint the picture. So you're addressing the team. So where are you? Excuse me. In the locker room in Phoenix at our spring training site in May.

So you're with the team. Yes. In the locker room in Phoenix, Mesa, and you gather them all up and they're all scratching their heads saying, what is this Corona virus thing? And, and there's also, again, it was such an unknown. We didn't know if this was going to be a two week thing, if this was going to, right.

I mean, I know I can tell [00:10:00] you this, there was nobody in that room and. clue. I remember just saying, listen, guys, nobody knows. You know, one thing about baseball is that we got, we were getting ready to start the season and this hit us like a fire hose. You know, some of the other, you know, it was different parts of the NBA was about two thirds, three quarters through us and MLS soccer.

This was literally like right boom. We, we literally had no time to react. And in the end, I think baseball did an amazing job in getting through the season. But so nobody really knew there was a sense of like, is it going to be two weeks? Is it going to be a month? Because at the time the announcement was there was going to be a delay in the season.

And that I think we were going to, I believe the date that they're going to hopefully open was April 9th. That was kind of the first reaction. Cause again, nobody knew. And as we sort of look back now, we realized how unrealistic that was. And we knew that very quickly. But I remember telling the team, I mean, some of the players, Hey, can we come in and walk out the A's and I'm really proud of how we react as an organization.

We were very aggressive. We told the players we didn't want them coming. [00:11:00] Uh, at least initially to work out, we wanted to make sure we protected our staff. So we, we, we basically shut down our spring training right off the bat. And I quite frankly, well, I did what a lot of people did. I had a rental car.

Normally I would fly back to the Barry. My family was up here. Uh, I actually went to the grocery store and bought a whole bunch of. In fact, my wife kind of laughed at me when I got home because I had a rental car full of like dry goods and all this stuff. And I felt like I was back in the fifties, you know, uh, getting ready for a bomb shelter or the UK during World War II.

My wife actually looked at me, I had a, I really had a pile of just like dry goods in my car. And I, you know, uh, cause I'd driven up from Phoenix and then again, there was this, this sense of like, just unknowing. You know, and, and we were literally on hold and, you know, I'll sort of go back to me feeling this cold coming on now after a couple of days, I was fine, I felt fine, you know, as I came to find out later, and I can only make the connection to that date was, you know, major league baseball, we all tested [00:12:00] for the antibodies and I was, uh, I had tested positive for the antibodies in April.

And, uh, and, uh, so at some point, whether it was in or there, I had been exposed. I don't know, it could have been January. I had a pretty heavy travel schedule and, uh, in January and, uh, and in February as well. So we're all kind of figuring out when this actually came to the U S there seems to be more and more stories.

There was a belief that it was here earlier than we, uh, we thought when everybody thought like, Hey, it just came here in March. And I think that's probably unrealistic given what we know now. So. So again, we, we all came, we all came home. I say, came home to the Bay area. Players went to their homes and there was just a sense of waiting like everybody else and doing nothing for literally two weeks is, is sort of baseball.

Again, try to create some sort of, you know, plan based on information, which there was very little at that time. When you and I spoke at the time, our minds immediately wandered to the following question. There's going to be a sports content famine, right? Cause think about this. We typically at. At that time [00:13:00] of year, you have is, you know, you were in spring training, so you have the start of the baseball season, you have the wind down of the NBA regular season, getting ready for the playoffs, you have the Masters, there's excitement about summer tennis tournaments obviously peaking at, uh, at the, at, at the US Open, uh, in New York later in the summer.

There's a lot of sports anticipation, excitement, activity, all happening around that time. And it all shuts down. And we, and you and I were talking. At the time about, does this create an opening for other sports? Uh, because there's so much hunger for sports. And if we're going to live in a world in which it's, we, at that point, we had no idea what the prospects were for vaccines.

So if we're going to be living in a world where it's really hard to have tens of thousands of fans in a stadium and arena together, yet there's this. huge appetite for sports. Are there, are there going to be sports that we're not thinking of? And does that create a whole set of business opportunities for, for [00:14:00] sports that would seem obscure?

I mean, I'll give you one, one interesting stat. So I spoke to some of the social media companies that feature a lot of sports content. And if you kind of sum it up, they have about a hundred plus sports that the content of those sports are on. Their platforms, that's player content. It's highlights. It's actual full matches and games.

And if you, if you push the social media companies, they say, look, there's, there's basically the massive top five sports and then there's everything else. So the massive top five are, you wouldn't be surprised or saw in this order, soccer, basketball, cricket, American football, pro wrestling, and then baseball somewhere in there.

Although that there's not huge interest in baseball outside of the U S. And, and perhaps Japan. And then you have these other sports, like, what they call combat sports, like the UFC, which is growing on, on social media, and then all sorts of fitness competitions. But that's, that's basically it. Those are the big producers of content.

And then there's, call it 95 other sports that [00:15:00] you and I, or at least I, had never heard of. Right? So there was professional bull riding, huge on social media, you know, not, not considered a top five sport, the world surfing league. There's a sport in India called Kabaddi, which I'm not going to describe.

It's complicated to describe, but I encourage listeners to go. Look it up on, on Google. It's fascinating. There's all sorts of martial arts competitions. There's the Tough Mudder and competitions like that. There's darts in Europe. The UK in particular, darting is a big competition, a big sport on social media.

So there's all these other sports that Aren't the big five. They historically have not been able to develop a big audience, but because of technology and social media, they can aggregate a large global audience, but they don't need in person attendance for their business models to work. And you and I spoke at the time, does this mean we're going to see this like boom in these, what we think of as obscure sports because they don't require fans.

What's your thought on that? [00:16:00] Yeah. Well, I think it's your point. I mean, you know, at that time there was just this real. Void and entertainment as we sat at home. I remember, uh, having the TV on and it was early in the pandemic and most of the live sports were shut down and I saw a golf tournament on, and I don't normally watch golf.

I, I, you know, I play occasionally, but I don't sit down and watch golf. And I, and I came out of my shoes with excitement, the idea that there was possibly a live event going on. It was golf, a person with a boss on my television screen. Yeah, exactly. And I sat down and realized going to the guy that it was from the previous year's tournament.

So, uh, it was a huge letdown. And then in turn, uh, Uh, when there was, it was obvious that there was not going to be any live sports for a while. It was, there was two things I watched. I watched how the Germans handled the German soccer league, knowing that, uh, uh, you know, they, they seem to be at least have very much have a plan as to how they were going to try and open up the Bundesliga.

So they were [00:17:00] one of the first, right. And then they announced, ESPN announced, uh, that they were going to start broadcasting Korean baseball games live from Korea. And, uh, Korea actually has a very good baseball league over there. I, you know, know some of the American players over there and I couldn't wait for that to happen, you know, just to have something.

The rare moment that, that there's, there are Americans dying for the start of the Korean baseball season. Unbelievable. And, uh, and so to your point, I think, you know, the idea of. Of sports growing That didn't necessarily need an audience. I mean that opportunity certainly seemed there then Uh at the time and now understand part of that mentality too.

Dan. I think when we spoke is that At no point did anybody have any idea that there was the possibility of a vaccine maybe in December of this year It was a complete unknown the warnings were it takes years and years to develop that who knew? And so I think that also went into you know When you and I were spoken that like, you know, we start thinking of the opportunities I think as we sit here now, I think there's [00:18:00] some uh, you know anticipation and and hope that We at least can see the end of the tunnel as to, you know, this pandemic in terms of vaccine and creating a situation where we can actually get back to some normalcy in terms of fan attendance, but back then, you know, our, our desire for a live sport, our desire for, uh, entertainment that we didn't know the outcome.

Was driving us to sports, like the one you mentioned and then is it kadi? Yeah, I think and, and I think was surfing and things like that. Uh, because I think that darts, yeah, darts dart. Yeah. . Yeah. That one. Uh, you know, say for, uh, yeah, that one. I still have a hard time wrapping my arms around the darts being a sport until I watch Ted Professional bull riding PBR.

Yeah. Well, of course I watched Ted Lasso, uh, SS right school in, uh, in Dart. So I have a little more That's a great. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. I mean, in the bar, when he, when he beats the former owner of Richmond, uh, that's a fantastic scene. Yeah, it was a good plug for an amazing show for whatever it's worth.

But uh, uh, so, uh, uh, but yeah, I, I [00:19:00] think our mentality then Dan was we were just so desperate. I, I do, I am a little more hopeful. You know, now, as we sit here closer, you know, to the end of the year, what I'll tell you what that kind of needs to be said, American ingenuity never ceases to amaze me when they put their minds to something.

And the idea that we can get up in the morning the last couple of weeks and to hear these amazing companies. In such a short time and we're talking about multiple possibilities, you know, it just sort of makes you realize what an amazing country We have an amazing people that we have when they really focus on one thing because again back in april dan You know, we kept hearing it might take years We might never this might be something and now there's a much different narrative going on which to me Just is just a credit to the amazing people in this Uh in this country and the things they do and so and i'm thankful that I you know get to be You know recipient I couldn't agree with you more.

It's extraordinary just to watch all the resources deployed. It's just not one company, you know, we have multiple, multiple [00:20:00] companies that have focused and it's just incredible. I honestly cannot wait for the, the heroes of that side of the story over time to come out and the stories and the books that they get to write as it relates to their work on, on, on something so important.

So let me ask you one, one issue we deal with. On this podcast is we often wonder, are there trends already in motion that. would otherwise take a long time to play out. But because of, like you'd say, sort of taking 10 years of digitization, if you will, of, of, of digital progress, or digital innovation, or digital adoption, and taking, say, 10 years of it, and squeezing it into, you know, a few months.

Because everyone had to just, the economy was told to shut down, everything turned off, and people had to just Do everything virtually. And so there were already trends in place that just, and those trends just got like hyper accelerated because of the situation. And you're seeing [00:21:00] that with a bunch of the, of the tech companies in terms of how, how widely their products and services are being adopted, but on sports.

What's interesting to me is the traditional sports broadcast has been television broadcast in the U S has been on the decline and. And the, these other sports I'm talking about are, are building digital audiences and they don't have to worry about a trade off. Do I build a digital audience or do I still fight for real estate on television?

They don't have that trade off because they're really either not on television or if they were on television to some degree, they're getting pushed off television because, because The cable channels and the broadcast networks can't afford to pay them anymore because their business is changing. And so they don't have that trade off.

They don't have to decide, should we try to do both? Should we do a little more of this and a little more of that? They're only digital and what technology has enabled them to do is aggregate an audience globally. That is actually a real business in these sports [00:22:00] we've never heard of. They would have taken time for them to become major players.

And the reason it's interesting from a business standpoint. The average consumer of sports content on social media and the internet are in their early thirties now What's the what's the average age of a baseball fan? Ironically, I think it's exactly my age, which is not a good thing. I'm 58 years old and each year and again, this is one of Baseball's, I wanna say concerns, but one of the things that we we're trying to address is the average age, uh, of baseball fan is basically around my age.

And it, it keeps kind of escalating with my age, , uh, each year. Right. And, uh, and we need to make sure that, you know, we're like every business, listen, we're still in the entertainment business. Uh, we need Mm-Hmm. We need to make sure that we're attracting a, a new generation of fans. You know, part of that is the issue of, uh, you know, the game, the way it's played has been changed a little bit also.

You know, when you go to a sporting event now, even if an NBA game or a baseball game, particularly a baseball game, if you see the fans that a lot of them are multitasking, I mean, [00:23:00] it's not like when you and I were a kid, Dan, and we'd go to a game and maybe we actually physically kept score, you know, uh, we, we bought a program, we kept score, uh, that that's, that's not, that doesn't really happen as much anymore.

You know, people are doing a lot of other things during the event. Baseball lends itself to that in some sense, because You know, and, you know, which may be potentially down the road, you know, was a wagering, which is, you know, something you can do in Europe, uh, and possibility here and baseball lends itself to, to doing that.

But the fact of the matter is, is we in baseball, we, we have to make sure that we are, uh, attracting a new generation of, uh, you know, not just a fans, but consumers as well. And you talked about the international thing. Yeah. Baseball, you know, normally. You know, the assumption is, is, you know, you would expect a country to have to play the sport to be interested in it.

I don't actually believe that completely anymore. I think in some sense the whole world is somewhat of a voyeur. And you know, I look at the success of the NFL in, in London, the [00:24:00] uk, and they're selling a hundred thousand, roughly a hundred thousand people every time a team goes over on the weekend. And, you know, most in, in UK football's, uh, something that people watch, it's not something they play.

I mean, American football. Uh, and, and so I think it's up. To us as an industry, I think this in baseball, I've always encouraged it. We just need to get out there and have people view the game. Uh, we did that a couple of years ago when the Yankees played the Red Sox in London and the the game sold out, uh, the ticket prices were outrageous, I understand, but they sold out.

Now, certainly there was a lot of expats, uh, who attended that. But that was kind of how it was in soccer and football over here when, you know, uh, some of the bigger European clubs first came to the United States. Most of the people that went were expats. But as time has gone on, the exposure to the sport, now it's a lot of Americans going.

And as a business, us in baseball, I would say that other sports feel the same way. We, we need to get out there and, uh, you know, we were supposed to have the Cardinals and the Cubs play again in London, uh, and, you know, hopefully someday we're playing, we've played in Oakland [00:25:00] every, we've played three different, uh, uh, games in, in Japan are, are actually regular season games in Japan, uh, Japan very much.

It has an embedded baseball culture. Uh, so we do well there, but it would, I think it's imperative that we get out, uh, as a business and play games, you know, in, in Rome, if we can play them in Rome, play them in the Netherlands, which has a strong European baseball culture there and get out there just to sell our product, because, you know, to watch an A's game, anybody in the world can do it.

They can just hit their app. They can hit MLB app and they can turn on these. There's a lot of friends of mine from all over the world who do do that. We just need more of them, but we've just got to get out there. And one thing about COVID. Is that it is really interrupted all business travel, any sort of barnstorming tours, and hopefully we can get back to that more sooner than later.

You know, it's an interesting historical parallel. One wonders how European and, you know, global soccer became so popular in the U. S. It still has a long way to go. You know, as our friend Roger Bennett says, [00:26:00] soccer is the, what does he say, it's the future sport of America since 1972? Uh, But, uh, no, but, but it has obviously grown here.

There's a big audience for it here now, and he, he attributes it to the 1990s when people could suddenly start accessing Premier League soccer content on the internet. And, but for the internet, people wouldn't have had access to Premier League soccer. And then, and then it built, it slowly built an audience for it here.

And now, and now there's. There's real demand to your point, whether or not people play the sport initially or not. But, but I want to stay with that because youth sports is another one of these trends that has been in trouble for the, there's been a downward trend for like the last number of years. Now, it's been a steady trend.

It's not been a total collapse, but the, but the signs are worrying, worrisome. And there's a question as whether or not, because so many. Youth sports have been shut down during COVID. It's going to accelerate it. I'll give you, I'll give you [00:27:00] a couple stats. The Manhattan Institute has done a lot of, I'm sorry, the Aspen Institute has done a lot of work on this subject.

So the average child today spends less than three years playing a sport and typically quits. Uh, by the time they're 11 years old. This is, this is a study by, by the Aspen Institute. Um, on top of that, uh, in 2008, think about this, so a little over a decade ago, in 2008, almost one out of every two kids in the United States did some kind of, played some kind of team sport on a regular basis.

So almost one in two played team sports a little over a decade ago. This year, or over the past year, That number's down to 28%. So it's gone from almost 1 in 2 kids to 28 percent of kids age 6 to 12 playing team sports on a regular basis in, in, in the last couple of years. So the numbers were already coming down.

So I guess my first question is, why were they already coming down? And do you think the fact that COVID [00:28:00] is, and a number, I'm familiar with a number of youth sports leagues, team, team sports that have tried to function through COVID and taken all sorts of precautions and established all these protocols are now all shutting down because there's just these breakouts of COVID.

Is it, is it going to take this trend and further accelerate it? You know, I've got my own little bit of theory, and some of it's my own experience, uh, Dan, is that In fact, I talked about the baseball players. They, when I was growing up and again, this is, this is just my sort of observation, there's no science behind it.

Um, I grew up playing all the sports, right? There really wasn't the idea of special special specialization when I was growing up, save for, there was a few sort of. kids and where I grew up, we're sort of tennis prodigies. Tennis was the one sport and maybe swimming where you really had, you know, young kids who that's all they focused on.

But growing up in San Diego, football, basketball, baseball, the main sports during the summer, we did the summer sports and then we sort of put the glove away as soon as baseball season was over. What [00:29:00] you've seen again, this is my own observation. What you, there's a couple of things you have. Uh, going on now, you have, first of all, youth sports 11, ironically, become very expensive.

You have travel sports, uh, baseball has it, basketball has it, soccer teams have it. Yeah, between private coaching, interstate travel, these, these, these mega complexes, if you want to get special training, when you add all that up, you, the youth sports economy, according to Kendall Baker from, who, who writes a terrific sports newsletter for Axios.

He estimates 15 billion a year, a 15 billion industry, the youth sports economy. And, and that wasn't the case when I was growing up, you had the little league, you signed up for a little league where I'm going to just, uh, 25 to play a little league a whole season. It was over. You didn't have, you didn't have the specialization.

You just sort of merged into the next sport. Uh, what you, again, and I take baseball as a great example that young players coming up to you are apps. There may be less of them. But they are so good. And a lot of these kids, you know, the, the, the Bryce [00:30:00] Harper's and, and, and we get Machado's and they, that's, they start playing as young kids.

That's all they do. And they come up, they get to the big leagues at 19 years old. And what's interesting, the age of 11, what I find in baseball is a good example, is that you really start to see kids at about 11, 12, really separate themselves, the really, really good players. Become very evident when you go watch your, your, your son or your daughter's youth game, you can see, and the kids, you know, and baseball's interesting too, because there's a, when you're 11 years old and maybe your average size, and you've got a kid on there, who's a big kid who throws really hard.

That's can be an intimidating situation. When you've got the one kid in the neighborhood who throws way hard and everybody else, there's a chance that kid might hit you. If you go to a baseball, I don't speak for baseball. My son has been through the little league experience and he no longer plays baseball.

I mean, he wasn't really, really interested in that, but. You could really see three or four kids on a field in a little league program that were way better than everybody else. And, and there's a, just a real gap. And, and, and there's [00:31:00] a certain amount of discouragement that comes with that. If you're maybe a young, young player.

Uh, and again, this is my own, uh, observation and about 11 or 12, you really see a drop off and you see it in other sports as well, where kids start to separate themselves. And a lot of reason that happens is because they, that's all they may be doing. And they may, you know, some of it's natural ability, some it's just, they, they work harder.

They, that's all they do. And I start to see that happen at a younger age than when I was growing up. I had, you know, friends that I played with all the way up through high school that maybe they weren't particularly great athletes, but they had the ability to participate. But I see that participation ability happening at a much younger age, because you, you essentially have.

A lot of these sort of prodigies and a lot of sports that are just way better. And that can be very discouraging. Again, this is my own observation. Yeah. Listen, I think you also have a, um, a safety issue in some, in some sports, you know, whether, you know, concerns, uh, if you're, you know, I played popcorn or football, which was tackle helmets, everything at a very young age.

And, you know, as we start to, [00:32:00] you know, get more and more information, you know. Parents, as you would expect, have a concern about, you know, engaging in football at a young age, a contact sport, a heavy contact sport, and even into high school. So that's part of the equation. There are other things, as you mentioned, there's other e sports, there's other things that are, uh, become interesting to players.

Kids spending more time on video games. Yeah. Kids spending more time on, on devices, on tablets and phones. And, and then I think the cost of it, I mean, to our earlier point, this stuff is getting really, if you want to invest in coaches and training and training camps and travel for travel teams, it really could become cost prohibitive for a lot of families.

It's less of a community activity. Yeah. You mentioned it, Dan, that, you know, that industry, there's almost a, there's a private, you know, coaching industry in almost every sport, which did really didn't exist when I was growing up, say for, you know, Maybe a tennis instructor or something like that. It just wasn't a part of, uh, of my youth and growing up, but it's, it's an entire industry with a lot of sports and [00:33:00] it's great.

I mean, again, I go back to the point I speak for baseball. There's some amazing young baseball players right now. They're getting to the major or coming to the major leagues at 19, 20 years old, who are stars right away. Uh, and have been really good since the time they were six. And that's all they've done.

And as a result, they've, you know, we've got these great athletes, but this was an industry that didn't really exist when I was a kid. Let me ask you about, uh, you, you mentioned the players and all these talented players. So they're effectively the human capital of your industry. And I wonder how you think.

About how they think about how all this has changed their, their career path. I mean, the, you know, they've had less opportunities to play. And the question is particularly for younger players. They need that exposure. That's the, that's the bad news. Less up fewer opportunities to play just because games are canceled.

Canes games are postponed. The seasons are messed up. The good news is whether or not we've. We've learned a lot about the wear and tear on these [00:34:00] athletes, because COVID forced us to experiment with professional sports in a way that we never have before, like take the NBA bubble. So I saw this amazing study about the NBA bottle, bubble, in which the number of Injuries is way down.

This is from the um, the Run Repeat website. So a hundred, they looked at a hundred and seventy two games were played in the bubble in Orlando. Eighty nine of them were seeding games and then obviously the eighty three playoff games. So they analyzed the first eighty nine games. of each of the past five seasons corresponding to the 89 seeding games in the bubble.

And then obviously they also did the same with the five playoff, the five previous playoffs. They found the players in the bubble missed 28 percent fewer games due to injury compared to the average of the five previous seasons. The playoff injury rate in the bubble declined Over 30 percent compared to the average of the five previous playoffs.

So what's going on? We take all these [00:35:00] players, we put them in a bubble and we have them play out their season and the post season there. And they come out at least, you know, in no worse shape than they were in previous seasons. And one could argue in much better shape. So what do you think's going on?

Well, I'll speak from my own experience as a player and, and what we deal with here in Oakland, right? Uh, the first thing that's easy to identify when you, something like that, when you've got that controlled environment, you've got a consistency in your schedule, but most of all, you're in the same time zone and you're sleeping in the same bed every night.

Because I can tell you, like, I'll speak like, take the Oakland A's. We're playing on the far, us in Seattle, as far west as you can get. And we play nearly every, I say we, the players play nearly every single day. Uh, and if the A's play a day game on Thursday and travel on a Thursday, they may take. A flight into New York, they may land in New York city at 5 a.

m. Okay. Uh, then they get up and they play a night game. The next, uh, they'll play [00:36:00] a night game. We'll get to the ballpark, maybe, you know, one 32 o'clock. Right. So they've got very limited sleep. Uh, their body clock is completely off. And then they'll play a night game that may, they may get home at midnight and then they'll play a day game the next day and maybe a day game the next day on a Sunday and then they'll travel again and they may spend, you know, eight to 10 days on the East coast, then go back to a time zone.

And what we're doing in baseball, what's happening now, our medical staff and some of the other medical staffs in baseball is really trying to understand the impact of sleep and when optimal travel schedules. Uh, and we don't have that much control because baseball, the grind of a baseball season, it's different than the NFL.

The NFL is obviously of impact. You know, you have impact injuries. Baseball is a long, long season. You're playing every single night. Your body starts to wear down and what, you know, uh, speeds up that wearing down and actually hurts the process of healing is, uh, is the time zones and the lack of sleep and just the consistency in your schedule.

And. With the NBA, you know, that's an amazing stat. I [00:37:00] have no doubt. I'm no expert on it from a medical standpoint, but the ability to sleep in your own bed, have a consistent schedule and stay in the same time zone probably had a huge impact on, on the, or at least the success rate as far as keeping players on the court.

Uh, and in baseball, we, we deal with that in Oakland and Seattle, the two teams and Anaheim as well with it, we really, uh, the travel schedule. I mean, we, us in Seattle travel more miles than anybody in major league baseball. And we're playing almost every single. Every single day. And you mentioned to me that, that there was a challenge from a, from a safety standpoint when you brought your pitchers back, uh, after, cause your, your spring training had been curtailed.

Yeah. Yeah. That brought them back during COVID. That's the opposite. Exactly. One of the things about spring training, you know, some people say it's too long. You know, it's, we, we usually have a six to seven week spring training and, you know, a lot of the position players are usually ready to go after say 30, 35 at bats, uh, which might be a couple of weeks of games.

But one of the reasons spring training is long is. Because we need that length of time to get starting pitchers and get pitchers, arms and shapes. It, you [00:38:00] can't speed that process up. They get in shape, they rest a couple of days and it just, it takes time. And one of the challenges we had with the startup of the season this year was giving the pitchers enough time.

The position players would generally tell you that they were fine. They were ready to go. But in some cases, the pitchers, we really had to speed things up. And early on, there was a significant amount of pitching injuries that we, you know, listen, pitching injuries always happen, but there was an excessive amount early on.

And there was some belief that it was because we had to sort of start back up and sort of rush into the season, uh, which was, you know, one of the risks of, of doing what we did, as it turned out, I think it kind of normalized. As time went on, uh, but, uh, it was a concern and, and, you know, the players were concerned about it.

And certainly the, the organizations in baseball was concerned about it too. Do you think there's going to be any learning from this moment that is going, that it's going to result in, in the leagues and the players association saying, you know what, we've learned how much healthier our players are when we don't grind them out like this.

We could [00:39:00] make changes. We don't, they don't have to travel all over the country to, to play a regular season. We can figure out a way to keep their travel more regional or. or a shorter season, or I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud, but do you think there'll be a push for learning from the COVID bubble experience to make, to, to let baseball, baseball, uh, professional athletes develop in a way that they wind up healthier and having longer careers?

Uh, yes. And, and this is actually, uh, it's interesting you bring up because some of the things that baseball was addressing even before COVID was, for instance, we've actually, uh, we've created more off days. Uh, as you know, just because of what you're saying, uh, the other thing to think about it, let's just take it from a forget from a health standpoint, the health is a benefit, but one of the amazing ideas I've heard about in baseball was one of the great things about, uh, your soccer or football in the UK and sec football, that's.

Two of the most passionate, you know, uh, I guess events you could probably experience, you [00:40:00] know, watching Auburn play Alabama or watching Man United play Liverpool. And one of the reasons they can do that is because away fans can travel, right? I mean, there's a, you know, if the Yankees play the A's, there's a few A's fans in the stands, but it's all Yankees.

And, uh, when you go to New York and one of the ideas I've heard in baseball, which I think is fantastic, which will address what you're talking about. If you sort of created sort of regional divisions, let's say the Giants, the Padres, the Dodgers, the A's, the Seattle, the whole West coast was all in one division and the whole central was on one division and all the East coast was in one division and the bulk of your schedule was played against those.

And so you created a, a much easier travel schedule. You probably, your television contracts would be much happier with you. Because they could consistently broadcast at the same time. Cause in Oakland, understand if we go to Boston, we are, our games on a four o'clock and a lot of people are still at work, but if you had, you know, if we say had one West coast division, uh, basically your TV games would all be at the same time, so there'd be a consistency there and quite [00:41:00] frankly, if a ACE fans wanted to go down to San Diego to play the Padres or watch the Dodgers, you'd probably see a lot more, you know, away travel with away fans and create a much different atmosphere and in turn, uh, Address what you're talking about when you have less stress on the athletes because at the end of the day Listen in sports everyone asks me about what I think the next You know the next frontier is in terms of solving problems in sports and it's exactly what you're talking about dan It's keeping players healthy, but it's when they ask you they're asking you from a from a quant standpoint, right from the analytics standpoint What's the next frontier?

Yes, and and just in general. I mean, you know, what what's the next big problem? Yeah, and it's And I think every, anybody involved with a professional sports team will, you know, try and do a prevent or minimize injuries with athletes and keeping them on, uh, you know, on the playing field because, uh, listen, in many cases, if you look at just about every other major sports, you know, the NFL, the, in many cases, the healthiest teams are the ones that go to the playoffs.

Uh, a lot of that [00:42:00] happens in baseball as well. And we, we, you know, the athletes, uh, lose so much time due to injuries and trying to prevent that. And, and to your point, you know, to, to, to the message on analytics is I think ultimately data will help you solve that. Uh, but, uh, but, you know, keeping players healthy is a huge, it's really, really important.

I mean, listen, if you're buying a ticket to an NBA game and you wanted to go see LeBron James play it, he pulled a hammy. Uh, you know, you might've bought that ticket four months ago. And so, uh, you know, you miss LeBron James playing that night. And that's the one, one guy you wanted to see. And, and from a organizational standpoint, when, when we, like this summer, we lost arguably one of the best players in the game, Matt Chapman.

And, uh, you know, we didn't have him and it has a huge impact, uh, on your club and your performance and everything else. So, so the next, that's interesting. So the next frontier, the way you, the way you conquered. Baseball, so to speak, through analytics, quant analytics, that you think the next frontier is figuring out the injury, you know, that friend of mine, Guy Ahron, who runs that [00:43:00] Israeli tech startup, Player Maker, you and I spoke to him during COVID, actually, a big part of his technology Is putting this device on players feet, and they get all sorts of data from that, and they believe they can, they can begin to, to, you know, measure players in a way that gives coaches information that can help reduce injuries.

Um, sounds like a, it's a big space, big open space. Yeah, and driven by data. You know, the challenge in health and data is the privacy issues. You know, is, uh, it's, you know, there's, that's the real, it's, it's, and it unders Explain that. Well, I mean Uh, well, for instance, you take a major league baseball team, we will, we will normally draft 17 and 18 year old kids or 21 year old kids.

And, and usually before the draft, we will have some sort of medical consultation with either the college or the player themselves, just to get some medical background as well. As we, as, as much as we possibly can, that being said, you know, the more, the, the more information you have, you know, uh, someone may have an injury that happened when they were five years old, [00:44:00] that may have an impact on their future health.

I mean, an orthopedic injury that, that may, and you may not have access to that. And so you, you really have a small amount of information, uh, with which to try and predict, you know, the future health of that, that player, uh, And again, and rightly so, I mean, health and data don't always sort of, uh, you know, they're, it's, it's not necessarily something that go hand in hand because there's a privacy issue.

And, you know, for all the concerns that, you know, we all have in our, you know, our lives about using data and privacy, that's, it's, it's a fine line. You gotta be careful. So I think, uh, I do think data and analytics. We'll help you improve upon keeping players on the field and, and, uh, maybe preventing injuries, but it's probably, it's, it's, you know, you've got to bridge that gap between a person's privacy and your, your desire to want to get to, you know, uh, the right answer.

On the, you mentioned. TV ratings, TV audiences, as it relates to baseball and other sports. You [00:45:00] know, what did we get wrong about the appetite for professional sports? Because we all, as you gave that example about watching someone, you know, watching a rerun of a golf tournament or watching Korean baseball, we all thought, you know, as I said earlier, it was like sports content famine.

And we, during the first wave of coronavirus and the wake up call for how much we were Demand there was, was when ESPN released the Michael Jordan multi, multi episode documentary, The Last Dance, and they released it ahead of schedule, and they dropped two episodes every Sunday night over the course of a few weeks, you know, five, six million viewers per episode.

I think the first couple episodes, well, first episode may be close to seven million viewers. These were And that doesn't even include downloads. Then you have like, you know, people downloading it. That was like in the tens of millions. And then there's the Netflix distribution of it. So this, this show, and it was a very, um, universal experience in that people were not watching [00:46:00] it on their own schedules, people, because they were dropping two episodes every Sunday night, people were anticipating the drop.

And then. Uh, they were effectively watching it together and it created the shared experience that comes from sports and the numbers were better than ESPN has done for any docs, you know, for I think ever in its history. So Thank you. We all assumed, aha, this is an early sign during COVID. There's so much appetite.

There's this hunger for anything sports related. And then it all began. You had the NBA bubble, you had baseball, uh, you, you had other sports starting to pick up and the ratings. We're to call them lackluster is an understatement. I mean, uh, I was looking at some of the numbers here from, um, from a good, good newsletter, uh, called Huddle Up on Substack.

So here he has NBA Finals. All right, so Lakers versus, uh, the Heat. Game one. 7. 4 million people least watched NBA Finals game in [00:47:00] history. Game two, 4. 5 million viewers, a 68 percent drop from last year's game two, which he's, you know, the, the newsletter points out. And one of the teams in the last year's was a Canadian team, it was a game in Toronto.

So the, so the ratings should have already been bad. Um, but, but. These numbers were bad, you know, I don't have to tell you the baseball ratings numbers were bad. So one would have thought there'd be this incredible pent up demand and then it wasn't there. Yeah, you know, I have a whole bunch of theories and they're completely Bring it, bring it.

Well, first of all, Dan, you know, I've discussed about it. Our whole, the sort of, uh, the rhythm of our lives this whole year has been interrupted. And, you know, I'll just speak for myself. There's certain times of year, uh, you listen to the day after Christmas is boxing day in the UK. I love watching all the soccer matches.

I get used to that. There's a certain weather that I expect, you know, and everything was completely interrupted from our own sort of body calendar, if that makes any [00:48:00] sense and our own, our own history. It's different. You know, when you're, you know, I've, a lot of times I forgot that there was NBA games on at 10 in the morning here on the West coast that I could watch.

So it, it, it just wasn't something I was used to having happen. Um, the other thing I think about, and I know this cause I experienced it, you know, here we're, we started the baseball season and for me, To drive to the ballpark. And I was able to have very little, or I actually didn't have a lot of interaction with the staff or the management, you know, myself and David Forrest, we would sit in the suite together.

We tried to limit our contact with the players and limit it with the, the major league coaching staff. So we literally just go right up to our suite and there's nobody in the stadium. It was a very eerie, empty feeling, uh, to go into stadium and have a game going on. It just was surreal. You could actually hear players talking.

You could hear umpires. Uh, it was just very surreal. And I, I think even when watching games, there's a certain amount of social gratification that you get by watching a game with a [00:49:00] hundred thousand people at Ann Arbor, watching University of Michigan, there's an expectation, and even though you may not be there.

I do think there is something social that you get by seeing people on TV and watching this event. And quite frankly, when a game's going on with no fans, it doesn't quite seem as authentic to me. And this is my own interpretation, Dan. Uh, I, you listen, you know what we, you know, I'm in an industry where we, you know, our relationship with fans in sports is.

It's the most important thing. I mean, you realize the, the game and the sport is no matter what is about the fans, you know, they always, they always say it. But I think again, this is just my dime store psychology. I think we miss the social part of sitting in our living room and having lots and lots of people at a stadium.

And we feel some connection to that. And we didn't have that. We haven't had with any sports. And to me, that was a major. Yeah, it, it also, I mean, I, I will say, speaking personally, uh, [00:50:00] sadly, my family is a diehards Jets, New York Jets, uh, family. One of the cruelest things I've done to our children. Call social services.

Uh, to launch an investigation, but, but we would select, we'd go to every single home game. Even more pathetic, we would travel for Jets games. So we would, we would go watch them lose. It's not bad enough to watch them lose at home. We would go travel to watch them lose in a, in an away game. I wonder how much of the suffering of being a Jets fan was, was um, mitigated by the fact that you shared this experience.

We'd be in this stadium with, you know, 60, 70, 000 people sharing in the high, the highs and the lows, usually the lows. And then when we would watch the experience, you still feel part of that because you just see all that emotional intensity stacked, human emotional intensity stacked into a stadium. And when it's empty, it's like the human rollercoaster is removed and you're just watching sport on [00:51:00] a field, which is impressive in its own way and entertaining.

But it's different and it's great to see, you know, athletes rise to occasion in a, you know, you feel the tension from fans, you feel the support from fans, whether it's on TV or certainly when you're there and that was just a piece that was, that was missing, you know, the, uh, listen, I thought the baseball playoffs were a lot of fun this year, but there's a certain amount of like pressure that, that builds during the post season.

That's amplified by. Yeah. The fans in home parks and, uh, and listen, I, I, you know, I like in between innings, the shots of fans, I like seeing what they're doing. I like to see what they're addressing. I like watching, you know, again, I go to sec football to see both sides, you know, in between plays and stuff.

That's one of the great things about, about sec football is you have the home fans and then you have the away fans travel. It reminds me of like premier league. Soccer, right? Where you have fans traveling to different stadiums. So you get like the tension between the competing fan bases. [00:52:00] Oh, it's wonderful.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's again, it's what makes them arguably, in my opinion, the two greatest leagues in the world, sec football and, and, you know, uh, and UK football, because you can go from Newcastle. Down to Cardiff, if you actually want to in California, that's a normal drive. You know, it's a long drive in the UK, but you could actually do it and go watch your, your team play if you decided to drive.

And, and it's, and again, it goes back to it. If we, I don't think anyone really realized how. You know, how important the fan atmosphere was, uh, to an event and including on TV. In fact, I mean, you talked about this, Dana, I kind of years ago, I used to say at some point, you know, these media contracts are so big that there may even be, you know, some stadiums where they just let people in free just to create an atmosphere for television.

Uh, you know, so, you know, because it's more important to create a good media atmosphere on TV than it is to actually, for the match day receipts, I get it probably. That's probably not going to be the case, but you know, wouldn't surprise me at some point. Yeah, my first exposure to this is it was in two, I think it was 2015 or [00:53:00] 2016.

I was in, um, I was in Paris for work and a couple of colleagues of mine and I decided to go to a soccer game, a football game. So we went to see PSG play Chelsea, uh, outside of, in Paris. And we were not seated in the Chelsea fan section. We were seated in the, in the Paris Saint Germain home fan section.

And that day there were all these stories about Chelsea fans showing up from London in Paris and getting in street fights with the PSG fans and fights were breaking out all over Paris. And one of my colleagues said to me that night at the match, he said, listen, we cannot speak to each other at the match.

I'm thinking, what are you talking about? We can't, we're at a sports event, and he says, well, no, because we don't speak French, we speak English. We're seated in the home section of the stadium. If they hear us speaking English, they're going to think we're Chelsea fans, even though we weren't, and it could get violent.

Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, you know, well, you know, it's interesting, you know, you talk about sort of [00:54:00] fan. I had the, uh, I mean the, the two probably the, the, the loudest, uh, I was a Charger fan growing up. So some of their chargers in the late, late seventies, early eighties, the, the crowds there were incredible. And then, if you remember, the Minnesota twins, I was part of, uh, the, the 87 team and the fan, the fans supported the Metrodome that year was.

It was unbelievable where you would, you would get chills when you heard the fans. But the, the other one, I also recall in an environment that I, I will never forget was the opening world cup match in 2006, it was hosted in Germany. And I was able to attend in, it was in Dortmund and to be able to attend the Poland, Germany, open and match a world cup.

And, and I think it holds like 80, 000 people there at Dortmund. And to hear 80, 000 people, I mean, it was just. It's still, uh, chills, you know, when I think about it and that's missing right now. And I don't think we realized how important it was, uh, until again, I think it, I think it had an effect on viewership, TV viewership, to be totally honest with you.

I'm going to [00:55:00] posit one other theory that's, that's very difficult to quantify. So this, this theory was articulated by Tyler Cowen, who's a, who's an economist, uh, at George Mason university. He's got a fabulous blog called marginal revolution and a great. Uh, podcast and he, he was, he was looking at the ratings drop in sports during COVID.

He was equally surprised and he, he put forth the idea that maybe so much of the sports experience is not just what happens in the stadium and it's not just what we watch on television. but it's the water cooler talk. It's that we talk about sports with friends when we're out for meals or out for a beer, we talk about sports, walk in the halls of the office, you know, we read the sports page on the subway on the way into work.

Uh, you know, we listened to, you know, sports talk radio, when you're driving the kids to school, whatever it may be that, that it's, it's a lot of what happens outside of the actual. sporting event that fuels the interest in sports. And during COVID, we weren't at the water cooler with our colleagues. [00:56:00] We weren't driving our kids to the, to school.

We weren't out for, you know, a beer or dinner with our friends. And so the whole, the whole, um, channel by which you would use sports as a currency to hang and communicate and, and, um, enjoy other people's company was gone. I mean, COVID was a lonely experience. And if you, if you don't have the, the, The space to be chatting away about sports.

There's less of a sense of urgency to watch and keep up with all the sports. And therefore, why do I need to watch this game? I'll kind of hear what happened. I'll read about it, but I'm not really going to be talking about it at the office tomorrow. Well, you know, I was thinking as you're talking and you're exactly right.

Dan is, uh, uh, You know, you think, you know, you obviously the masters, one of the biggest golf term is the world, but, uh, the other one that's probably just as popular in a different way is the Phoenix open, you know, the, the, the legend of, you know, attending the Phoenix open, uh, to be a part of that whole environment, you know, that atmosphere and everything [00:57:00] it's turned into, it's kind of legendary and it's grown into something that's.

Really not just about the golf, but about the people and the fans that go there. And so, uh, again, I think in some respect that, you know, having missed it or, or seeing what it's like without it, I think we're going to have a stronger appreciation for the people that do buy tickets. You know, we always have, but it even stronger appreciation and the, and the part they, the, you know, the most important part they play, uh, in the game, I, you know, not having them there.

I think we really, I know I do, I really appreciate it and, uh, I miss them. That's for sure. Let, let me ask you, um, another sub industry that may not be so sub. Uh, that's, that's growing, it's, it's like, extraordinarily is sports gambling, obviously because the Supreme Court case made it, so many states now are gonna, are, are in the process of legalizing and, uh, building gambling, uh, sports betting industries.

So this is, uh, the betting operator draft kings. Saw [00:58:00] users up 64 percent in Q3, uh, compared to last year, and they saw almost, uh, doubling in revenues from last year, um, in, in the same, same time period, third quarter. How much do you think COVID was rocket fuel? It was clear that sports betting was going to be a growing industry, but the fact that everyone's at home with not much to do, sports betting Is an easy activity to adopt and whether it's, whether it's people who were betting illegally now just doing it legally or whether it's actually new people betting on sports who've never done it before, it was an easy thing to do at home and COVID introduced a lot of people.

To this activity, you know, wagering is a major part of European sports. Uh, it's in fact, uh, yeah, you have, you go to the UK, most of the teams, and many of the teams have. Betting, you know, companies as sponsors. Uh, so, and, you know, and I guess the good thing from that end, it's a [00:59:00] huge business over there, so it's, it's very, it's, it's policed, you know, and the companies themselves police it, cause they don't want to lose that, the opportunity that they have, you know, over here.

And baseball, it's always been incredible taboo, you know, since I entered the game. In fact, when you walk into a major league clubhouse, there is a sign in every major league clubhouse in English and in Spanish that tells you what you can't do as it relates to that. I mean, it's, it's drilled into you. And in fact, the word coming off your lips, if you worked in baseball was uncomfortable, you know, certainly there's been, you know, legislation that now has opened the doors potentially.

You know, uh, in the U S for some of the similar, you know, structures that you have in Europe, but still, even now, when I talk about it, it's just an uncomfortable conversation to have because it's always been, the word has almost been taboo, uh, when it comes to, uh, American sports team and in particular baseball, because understand baseball has a history.

In 1919 with the Black Sox scandals, and that has, listen, it's very strange, but something that could happen in [01:00:00] 1919, that's still sort of strongly resonates within your business. And it, it has had that effect and it was always drilled into your head. And, you know, we've had, you know, other situations over the year, very few, but, uh, uh, but it's, it's, it's been again, a taboo, but it's, you know, it's starting to become part of the conversations that relates to states finding ways.

To, uh, raise revenues and challenging times, particularly after what we just went through. And there's been some, I believe some legislation that has opened the door. So I think we've just started to see the start of it here in the States. Wrapping here. I just want to. I'm always struck by the fact that you had, I don't think, just your own life.

You had no formal, you weren't a statistic, a statistics PhD. You weren't, um, you know, it wasn't obvious that you were gonna be this math guru, um, that would transform a sport, uh, through your analytics. So just briefly, uh, I assume most of our listeners have seen a red money ball. What did you identify [01:01:00] when you unleashed this, this analytics revolution at the Oakland A's?

And, like, are you surprised that you were equipped to make this observation and implement it? That's my first question. My second question is, what's the next Moneyball? And I know you get this all the time, whether it's in the sport that you're in or another sport. So firstly, what about you made you, you know, equipped you to be this, this, Big quant based problem solver that revolutionized how sports, how this particular sport was run.

Well, if anything, and I feel blessed to have two wonderful parents, and the one in particular my mother gave me was the love of reading. All right. Uh, my mom was a voracious reader as my grandfather was, who was a, uh, a military officer. So I, I inherited that love of reading and I chose a profession majorly or professional baseball that gave me a lot of time to read.

And I've always been very curious about the world. So [01:02:00] right. Cause you could have played football or basketball, baseball, right? You had opportunities. Yes. You have scholarships. Yeah. At Stanford. And uh, so in some Stanford to do what? Play football and baseball at Stanford. Yeah. Uh, right. And I, it was, uh, yeah, so that was, you know, a long time ago.

Uh, and in some sense the time off. And the one thing I always love, I love to learn, you know, I was very curious about the world. And again, I think that was inherited from my grandfather and my, my, you know, and my mother. And so, uh, it's, and I say that's a skill. The, the love of reading is, is, is a, is a learned trade.

And I'm so lucky that I love to read. I feel like that. And so again, the curiosity and having downtime and baseball sort of. Allowed me to sort of look for for answers in the industry I was in and some of the things that we were doing didn't make sense And the other thing I was around some incredibly stimulating people Uh, you know as sandy alderson was my you know, sort of business mentor a harvard law graduate former vietnam marine lieutenant a really Different [01:03:00] background than most, uh, uh, most, yeah, most, any Currently leading the Mets.

Currently leading the Mets, yeah. And so I was around some really bright, you know, people who also had a curiosity to, uh, to look for different answers. So I think as much as anything, That was it. And I'd also like to think that, uh, you know, if anything, I, if, if a lot of things I'm not good at, but I always felt like I hired really well.

And I, and I reason I felt like I hired well, I mean, the people that I brought next to me is that I was never embarrassed by what I couldn't do. Well, I knew what I was good at and what I wasn't good at. And I didn't feel an insecurity about finding people who did things much better than I do. Because I felt like I would compliment them.

And, you know, you mentioned math. Listen, I don't know. I mean, there's a small percentage of the world who, I mean, who are really good and just can't wait to do that. If anything, I did understand the power of mathematics and a lot of that was Through sort of my [01:04:00] own research, you know, reading even like Warren Buffett, reading Warren Buffett, how he made decisions and uh, reading about card counters in Las Vegas and understanding how actuaries set insurance rates.

These were all things that, you know, were part of my research. And then when I hired people, I hired people who had skill sets that they, you know, this quantitative skill set, uh, because I wasn't embarrassed by the fact that they were better at than I was, I think of Paul D Podesta. Uh, you know, my first right hand guy, you know, who was, uh, who's running the Cleveland Browns now.

And, and there's things that Paul was just a lot better than I was and, and vice versa. And so in some sense, Paul D. Bedesta, who's effectively played by Jonah Hill, right? In Moneyball. Exactly. And, uh, uh, you know, and then Farhan Zaidi and David Forrest, you know, people who sort of complimented my skills.

And again, if, if anything, I, You know, I, again, he's at the Giants now, far hands up running the Giants and David, my right hand San Francisco, David, my right hand guy who, uh, just really, really bright people. And so, uh, again, my own curiosity, I, and I'd like to think some humility [01:05:00] in the way I hired. And realizing I don't know everything and that there's a lot of smart people in the world that can actually contribute to the organization success and in turn, my success, uh, I think that those two things, that combination a lot.

And, and again, you know, it's hard and a leader, one thing I, and being around a guy like Sandy Alderson, he was a great leadership example, uh, for me, as was my father as well, who was also a military officer and, uh, you know, just try to borrow from those people and again, have some humility. Uh, and realizing you, you don't know everything and being curious and, uh, and, and also be knowing that, you know, you're not going to succeed all the time, you know, baseball, we always say this thing, if you make five decisions, if you, if you three out of five and you, uh, multiply that time after time, after time, that becomes a big gap.

You know, don't feel, you know, and, and so as a result, you know, Oakland, we're kind of a transactional organization and we make a lot of transactions and we just try and be right three out of five, three out of five, three out of five. And it adds up to a nice little gap after a lot of decisions, you know, your, your, your [01:06:00] friend and colleague, Daryl Moray has this line where he says, I don't have to be that good.

I've just got to make sure that there's always the seven other managers that I compete against are, are not smart or dumb. And if that's the case, I'll be okay. Yeah. By the way, go ahead. You know, it's funny you mentioned that. Is that. Yeah, you can use the set in sports and I, Daryl and I are very close friends.

He's far smarter, brighter than I am, is that baseball has become such an intelligent industry is, I mean, the people running baseball teams are so bright and, uh, and it's, it's very, very competitive. And, and that's one thing I'm really proud of. If anything, I, I don't talk a lot about the book, but the thing, the impact of the book had the thing I'm most proud of is that we really created a meritocracy in terms of hiring, we hired the best and the brightest, as opposed to people who are say X players like myself.

And the use of data has created a transparency in our decision making, which is good. And as a result, baseball has become a much more diverse and in the executive pool, diverse. Uh, we've got, it's opportunities [01:07:00] Kimming just hired by the Miami. Uh, we have a number of, uh, very, very talented young, uh, uh, women executives in our, in our front office here in Oakland.

And I think that a lot of that is just the opportunity. And again, I think the book and the use of data has really opened the door. Uh, for people like that. I think that's great. Listen, in 10 years, I won't be able to apply for my own job. I always say that. And that's a good thing, because I won't be smart enough.

And, and I think a lot of that's because of, you know, A, Michael Lewis's book and, and the use of data and, and, and creating a meritocracy. And, and finally, I just, people ask me this all the time about when they watch Moneyball. They're like, how did This guy, he was an athlete, he gets into quant stuff, there's an article written about him by Michael Lewis, and there's a book written about him, and then he's being played by Brad Pitt in a movie that got nominated for an Oscar in 2011.

When they approached you, and they're trying to buy your life rights, and they're Trying to make a movie about you and these [01:08:00] actors want to start me Were you just like what the hell is going on? You know, i'll make this as brief as possible This is a great story because when the book first of all michael wrote the book We didn't know he's going to write a book.

I know you'd think two intelligent guys myself and paul di fidesa michaels Brighter than we are. And he really sort of sneakily embedded himself into the A's. And he'll tell you that he told us he was going to write a newspaper article for the business section of the New York times. And then that, then that was going to be it.

Well, he sort of kind of, again, he became, first of all, we were very, just enamored with how bright Michael is. I mean, he understood what we were doing, so we kind of became friends. Anyway, so the, he writes the book, unbeknownst to us, he tells us later in the year that it's going to be a book. And we were horrified, you know, because we'd given him complete access with no idea that every quote we had was going to be in a book.

So it was very, just a very, just an uncomfortable winter while he wrote the book. So when the book came out, there was a lot of noise. And then it became a bestseller and that was enough. It was kind of overwhelming for both [01:09:00] myself and Paul and, and it was not something we were, you know, it was, you know, we weren't looking for fame or anything like that.

So when they approached us about the movie, I wanted no part of it. I wanted to like, no way I've had enough. And in fact, Michael's at that point was giving me advice like, Hey. Just sign the option. They never make my movies. They never make my books into movies. They're just going to give you a little bit of compensation every year.

They'll never make it. It's just, you know, free money. It's not going to happen. Well, then, then guess what they did? They made blindside. It made about a half a billion dollars out of Michael Lewis's book. And then, uh, and then, you know, I, I'd heard that, uh, you know, Sony was very, there's some people at Sony who are very committed to making the movie.

They love the book. And then Brad Pitt attached himself. He read the book and was committed to making the movie. So, but I can tell you up to that point, think about it, someone says, we're going to make a movie on you. You have no idea who's going to play you. So you're kind of holding your breath. So when I found out that he was actually going to be playing it, I, if any, first thing I did was I exhaled like, Oh, it can't be that bad.

It's Brad [01:10:00] Pitt. And then my, then my wife looked at me like, really, you know, like Brad Pitt's going to like, she felt chipped. And so, uh, You will be, you know, you're being humble yourself, Bennett Miller, who directed the film, as you know, told me a while ago that he had the hardest time getting you to cooperate with the film, it was like pulling teeth.

Oh, he's, yeah, no one believes me, you know, I, you know, it's just, oh, no, you, I said, I really had, Bennett is exactly right. I told Bennett, uh, this is hopefully the most inappropriate word I'll use on this is that Bennett, I'm going to be a complete pain in your butt the whole time because you're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming through this whole process.

Cause it was just, it was, I, I, it was, it was uncomfortable. I wasn't looking to be famous. The movie was a whole different category. Yeah. He said, he says, he goes, I'm making a major movie. It's well budgeted. Brad Pitt is paying him. I want him to help a little bit, sit down with Brad, work with us, and he won't return our calls, you know, so I was awful.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, I wish I would have enjoyed it more, but I [01:11:00] really, you know, there's something about, you know, you really want to be aware of like, Hey, they're making a movie about you. You know, this idea that you, you think you're more important than you really are. I just, again, I came from a military family and I like to think that I was raised by parents who kept me grounded and I wanted to make sure that I.

Instead of just saying that I lived it. So, yeah, Bennett was right. I was a complete, I was of no help to him whatsoever. I just wanted it all to go away and I could walk my dog and go fishing. Right. So, so, with that, Billy, uh, you, as I say, you're one of the lowest key people I know, but you're obviously chock full of insights and, and interesting observations.

And, you know, this, this has been a great conversation, helping us think through. Where this massive industry goes after it's been struck by this, by this, this unbelievable shock. Um, that we're hopefully going to start coming out of. But until then I, you know, this was a very [01:12:00] illuminating conversation and I hope you'll come back.

And thanks for, for taking the time. Well, thanks Dan. It's been an honor. Well, this is one podcast 'cause it's mine that I can't listen to while I'm walking. My dog. Your other podcast, uh, I I share with my, my, uh, my dog on our long walk. So, but, uh, thanks now and your history podcast. You're big consumer history podcast.

I am, yeah. I'm a storehouse of useless information. Dan is what I've become. Israeli history. You're also obsessed with like Israeli military. Absolutely. Yeah. The whole creation of the Israeli state is just fascinating to me. The Israeli military. My dad used to tell me stories about the Israeli fighter pilots.

And yeah, I probably, you know, way too much than I should about a lot of things and, uh, and should concentrate on some other things, but yes. No, no, no, no. We'll bring you back. Thank you for doing this. Well, thank you. Thank you.

That's our show for today. Thanks again to Billy Bean. And if you're interested in the work of some of the writers and journalists. And, and the particular studies I cited in today's show. You can go to [01:13:00] the show notes. We'll have links to all of them. Ben Cohn and Andrew Beaton from the Wall Street Journal.

There's the Huddle Up newsletter, which you can find on Substack. There's Kendall Baker's sports, uh, tip sheet from Axios. There's the Run Repeat website that had all that terrific Data on sports, the sports injury record out of the NBA bubble. And then there was the Aspen Institute study on the future of youth sports.

Again, go to the show notes. We'll have information on how to access all those writers and studies. One final comment. In the last episode with Adam Grant, we received a lot of comments from listeners, particularly about Adam's closing comment about what he predicted for the world post corona. That he said he would have never predicted which he phrased it as the end of the nuclear family and a lot of a lot Of people got in touch with us saying is he really predicting the end of the nuclear family?

No I mean he what he actually was describing when you listen to his his [01:14:00] explanation of it was that Nuclear families will be depending more on extended families and extended networks of friends and, you know, being part of a broader community, uh, going forward, which he may or may not be right about, but his kibbutz example is not the end of the nuclear family.

He cited that we're going to be living in a more, he predicted we'd be living in a more kibbutz environment, which means a community of nuclear families, all sharing some resources, but it's not the end of the nuclear family. And he. He recommended, he suggested we write a book on the topic. I'm not writing a book on the topic, on the capitalist kibbutz, as we called it.

I'm working on another book, but that's another topic for another day. Uh, before we wrap, I want to invite you, our listeners, to send in your thoughts, your suggestions, any questions about what the post corona world might look like. Uh, please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to dan at unlocked dot FM.

That's dan at unlocked dot FM so I can share it on future [01:15:00] episodes. Post Corona was produced by Ilan Benatar. Our researcher is Sophie Pollack. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.