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[Applause] Ari Emanuel, the newest kingpin of combat sports, one of Hollywood's biggest power brokers.
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It's everywhere from the boardroom to, you know, even politics. There was another figure named Arie Gold that many
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people thought was named after you. The straight talking dealmaker has a reputation for getting what he wants.
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I'm back and you're fired. Emanuel has worked tirelessly to transform Endeavor into a multi-billion
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dollar behemoth. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ari Emanuel. [Music] Thank you. Hey, welcome.
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When's the last time we saw each other at that dinner? Exactly. Yeah. Did you see that panel?
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Yeah. You know Alex? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I think he's great. I loved his book. Yeah, the book was incredible.
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Yeah. So what's your take? A lot to cover there on my take. So well let's start at the beginning. Ari,
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you have had an incredible arc. You've built an incredible business and recently you've had the opportunity to
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merge a bunch of assets and just the thing has just taken a a life of its own. Can you maybe walk us through the
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last four or five years of the evolution of Endeavor and you know your process of
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first leaving building a business then scaling it up and just all of that action the tick tock of it all.
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So um uh March 29th when I first came here I was making 15 cents a mile when I moved to LA
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went to work at CIA etc. then started the company March uh 29th on my birthday 30 almost 31 years ago. um had this idea
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about where uh content was going from George Gilder who wrote this book like for television and said there's going to
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be infinite distribution and then content's going to be really really valuable and there's going to be many
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forms of content and so we kind of went out and started growing the business and
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trying to get into every sector of the business made a two- horse race with when we
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quote unquote merged with William Morris Um I think one of my best deals actually
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that merger and then um when Teddy Forceman passed away bought IMG with Silverlake who had come into the company
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and then we were in sports and then we realized it was all in the representation business and then
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realized that because of what we built the infrastructure we built in the global scale we had and the production
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and um representation we could start owning some of the assets as opposed to just representing them and
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kind of put them through our our filters and kind of create more value. And so the first thing we did is we bought uh
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this company called uh Professional Ball Riley that was I think making uh $3 million a year in profit. We
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turned it into a really nice business. It's still growing. And then because of that um and we had negot you know we
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negotiate every day against networks and studios. the UFC came up and we said, "Okay,
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let's take a big swing." The funny thing is when we bought IMG, they say we overpaid. It was the cheapest sports
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acquisition ever happened. And definitely when we bought uh UFC, they were like at 4.
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At the time, it looked incredibly expensive. Yeah. And all we had to do was kind of make a
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broadcast deal that then took the multiple down from 30 20 times to kind of under 10. We then thought we could
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take all those assets. My big mistake here. Um, a conglomerate. Yeah. The marketplace just didn't understand
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it. Yeah. And so we tried to take it public right before CO failed. I didn't realize how hard it was
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to go back out. Finally got it back public. We we kind of rolled all of the UFC into Endeavor and um we still
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weren't getting any value. We then Vince said yes and we merged the assets. A pure play was in sports, sports
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entertainment was a better conversation with the street. I mean when you started we had the
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traditional cable networks then we had cable it was a very high hierarchical and easy to understand hierarchy
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right and then you have the streamers and now you know this afternoon we'll have Neil
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Moan from YouTube right then you have characters like the Mr. Beast of the world who can go direct so
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it's very chaotic. No it's actually just back to George Gilder. It's back to George Gilder. There's
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infinite distribution, right? Many forms of content. People consume podcasts. People consume, you know, stuff on
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Instagram and Tik Tok. People consume stuff now on the streamers. And so, and I do I don't believe that traditional
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business is going away for a long time because a lot of us sports guys have the NFL, the NBA has still sold stuff there
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plus also sold it to the Amazons of the world. And so you just have a vast kind of map of where distribution is.
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So distribution has gotten vast but a lot of people would say some people would say the kinds of content has
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gotten a little oified calcified rigid maybe. Um what does that mean? Meaning like you know you don't see like
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the broad swath of the content that you would see maybe 15 20 years ago. People I think there's more content now.
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But do you see people taking creative risk the way that they used to before? I don't know. I think I think I think I
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can't get enough content. I don't think I don't know about you. There's going to
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be more content than there's ever been. I think there's incredible voices out there. I think the content that's being
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made is it there's a vast majority and I think it's really incredible. I do. Yeah.
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Ari, what do you think of podcast and the general movement of top talent Megan? Uh Tucker, you guys.
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Okay. Sure. we're we're a little bit behind them, but um the ability for them to be independent and not affiliated
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with the network, this is something we have not seen in the industry. There were gatekeepers.
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You used to have to get packaged, represented, and now, you know, people come to us all the time
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with different opportunities to join different networks. I won't talk about any specifics, but we've decided, well,
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why would we need them independent? Yeah. Why why would we need them if we have this amazing audience? Funny thing
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is I think the podcasting business is going to turn into the syndication business that used to be on the
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broadcast and the station groups. So Oprah was the king world kind of thing. Oprah was the behemoth and then Dr. Phil
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and Dr. Oz. She launched a bunch of you'll probably see that reincarnated through people with podcast if they want
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to. We saw that at Bartool. Yeah. So you're saying we could then cable syndication model through this
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through the multiple channel. We should be a network and we should develop talent.
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Yeah, you need some representation guys. But but you know what the problem is Ari? It's like a lot of the repres
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representation to be totally honest. We don't Yeah. And we would only consider a peer,
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you know, relationship with somebody who has done it before at a high level. If you know anybody
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Yeah. I don't. You don't? Well, anybody good? I don't know. One of the things we're talking about you Ari.
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Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed has become a common kind of thread with these big independents is
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they move from what used to be kind of commercial ad placements to sponsor deals where they got one sponsor to
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eventually owning their own business. Correct. And the value there is so much greater
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cuz the multiple you get a multiple on revenue. You don't just get advertising the marketing line.
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Right. You know Tucker has his Alps product which Jal uh fortunately is not on today. No, please don't put it on. Uh,
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you're saying use the promo code allin. Well, Jimmy's got his chocolate bar company. Is that the future, do you
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think, for monetization for the big independents is that they actually own the equity in what historically have
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just been sponsors for them and that's where the value Well, you're going to own the equity in
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your podcast, right? And then a lot of people and we started this business I don't know about 10 years ago we called
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we started at WMU called talent ventures where a lot of musicians actors started
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because you know it's with the broadcast networks and cable channels ratings going down
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you know manufacturers had to get to the audience and so that they used to do it
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through commercials when that rating went down they started then giving equity or people started launching you a
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lot of different products. Sometime was alcohol, sometimes perfume, sometime it was food, etc. That will now start
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happening with people like you, other podcasters. If Paltro has done an exceptional job
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that that's just a natural evolution because of where broadcast television is and cable television is manufacturers
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going to have to get to an audience. You guys have a very big and loyal audience.
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events and things that you do on you know over the air. Um you know products will come to you. You
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you will make the decision are are you taking the sponsorship dollar or you taking the ownership dollar and that's
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just the pro evaluating the economics and and whether you believe in the product. There's a lot of things that go
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into that. Yeah. Ari, how much of your time are you spending trying to figure out where like
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all these nextg AI tools either help you give you maybe operating leverage to actually go and be even more creative,
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own the content versus maybe disrupt some of the legacy folks you've worked with?
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You know, we have a whole program being set up at TKO and and and William Morris
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about kind of how AI can help us. On the production side, there's a whole another
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that the studios are doing and our clients are doing. You know, I have I've made a decision. I
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I don't know enough about AI. I'm not smart enough to know enough about I've made a decision that live is content is
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where I'm going to sit. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at monetizing that. So, we have a pure play sports
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sports entertainment business. I just launched which will launch in October kind of what I believe is the next kind
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of live events business. You know, you have our sports business, you have Live Nation and Michael Rupinos and
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incredible. That's pure play music. And I think there's when we were a public company, now we're a private company, we
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had 700 events inside Endeavor. I have um it will be completed in first week in October. Bought a lot of those, raised
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about $2 billion and about 900. And I'm going to go pure play in events cuz I think it's the opposite. If you have AI
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over there, the opposite bet on AI is not data centers. It's live. Humans want connection. Keep going back
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to live. And I think it's kind of like a 4-day work week now. Probably going down to
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three. I was seeing Elon and seeing the robots. Probably 3-day work week for full employment. There going to be a lot
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of free time. We definitely all need connections as we can see right here. And so my whole thesis is live. Um, and
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I think on the William Morris side, which is incredible, there's only two representation business. William Morris
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is the biggest one of all of them. And there's going to be more room for content.
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I want to slow down and double click into this. Just wait. So, we work Monday through Friday.
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Saturday, I don't think a lot of people work Monday through Friday anymore. But I'm saying like, let's just say,
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yeah, we used to Monday through Friday. Saturday, you're slapping the kids to soccer. Sunday, you get a rest day,
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watch some football, then rinse and repeat. That's all a lie now. That's going away.
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No, no, no. Right now, drive times, average dry times in America, 11 to 4. So, people are doing their chores
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11 to 4. Do doing their stuff that they have to do on the weekends in the morning or in
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the afternoon. They have their mobile phones. They're doing their stuff. Thursday, hotel bookings are way up. Way
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up. So, weekend 3-day weekends. I'm shocked. What? Please up from back there. You should
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start drinking coffee because if you just look at the data, we're at 4 day work weeks now.
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I think it's going to three-day work weeks, which means more time for entertainment
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is your key piece. Sack you wanted to get in. Well, I was going to spit on something
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Chamas said, which is you you have so many different things you're involved in. How do you decide how to prioritize
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your time? Because you could be, I know, helping William Morris clients. There's
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representation could be a never- ending job by itself. You've got TKO. You could
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be looking for new acquisitions. How do you decide how to spend your money? Thank god I have ADHD. Um, listen,
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actually this Friday is two years since we um did the merger at TKO. We merged at I think $100 and then went
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down 79. Anybody says they don't look at their stock price, I look at it every like 19 times a day. Yesterday we hit
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200. We're doing, I think, everything we said we were going to do with regard to
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kind of streamlining the two businesses, integrating them. We brought over in February uh PBR um on location and uh
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IMG, which kind of fills out the suite of what we do at TKO for everybody that wants sports. We made our broadcasting
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deals and we're just kind of powering away at what that, you know, focused on what we have to do. Are you personally
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at this point just kind of out of representation? No, no, no. Or do you dip down sometimes and and
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help clients? How do you see that? you know, being in the representation business, whether it be Marty Scorsesi
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or Dwayne Johnson or Mark Wahlberg or Peterberg or a great a whole host of my clients. or enables me to make the deals
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over at TKO because I'm in the conversation right with YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, all the
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people I need to be in business and and I do that the running of that business now cuz I'm not in like you didn't call
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this person back. I don't do that anymore. But in the representation of my clients and the clients of the agency,
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I'm in it every day because it does help the other businesses. Which platform are
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you the most obsessed with? YouTube, Netflix, all. Okay. But which one, if you have a
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client, do you think is the most important over the next 5 or 10 years? Who's going to pay them the most amount
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of money and creatively enable them to do what they want? Well, let let me ask you a question.
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This is a really important question. I was going to ask this of Neil as well. I've heard from a number of folks that
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have historically done production on Netflix that they want to move to YouTube because Netflix like the margins
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compressed and so they're offering and deals. That's not true. Okay, that's not true.
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And so I've heard a lot of folks say, "Well, if I go independent, I have unlimited upside. If I publish on
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YouTube, I just need financing." Is there an emerging? Listen, those are different. It depends
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on where you're at. If it's a YouTuber, right, and they want to scale up and they want to scale up and they have
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x amount, they'll probably start on YouTube or start on or start on at Facebook or start on Twitter. Once they
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get to a certain level, they'll make a decision. Is there is can do they have a product that's right for a half hour or
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an hour on on Netflix or a feature film, right? That's different from what YouTube's
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business plan is. And Neil will talk to you about that. So again, you can't generalize that conversation.
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Are you seeing a burgeoning of independent financing for production that would go out on YouTube? Like where
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folks are saying, I just need production financing. Find me some partners. And then
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you mean for a YouTuber? for YouTubers. I mean, some sometimes that's not something you're seeing kind of scale up
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right now. I'm definitely not in that space. If you know, David, I I that's not something I
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I do see. There's people in my company that do that. We have a whole division for YouTubers, etc. Podcasting, that's a
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whole group that we've started. It's very successful right now. Ari, there was a time when the dream of
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content creators was being able to own their IP. Netflix came in and said, "Hey, we'll pay you much more, but you
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don't get to own the Simpsons anymore. You don't get to own this IP yet." Well, remember the syndication model as
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broadcast television started to fade away as this, but there was a at the beginning there was a third window which
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was Netflix. Now the cable and the station group window has kind of dissipated a little, right? But when you
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still when you make a deal at a broadcaster smaller now you do have a bidding war between Netflix whether it
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be if you're at NBC Peacock we just finished a big we're finishing up a big deal for the office which
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started on broadcast the new stuff they're buying out. Yes. Yeah. So you don't have this opportunity
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to do what you know the Simpsons did, to do what South Park did, to do what Seinfeld did. But you yourself deal I
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just made for South Park's pretty good for the guys. No, no, I know. But that seems to be the
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last generation to get that. This new generation seems to be just giving their IP over to Netflix. You yourself are
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saying, "I want to own the IP and you're choosing to buy them." So what is your advice to the clients because they can't
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become billionaires if they don't own IP. So there's a client I there's a client
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by the name of Noah Holly just had the Alien Earth show that it premiered on at Disney. Um he did Fargo also. Incredibly
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talented guy. I just signed him right. He's going to make a new deal. Now, back in the day, Greg Daniels or Larry David
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or Aaron Sorcin or Jim Brooks clients made an unbelievable amount of money. Jim did Jim did well.
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All of those people I said did very, very, very well. Yes, he will not make as much money as
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they did in syndication, but he will do very, very, very well. So, if you're really talented and you
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have success, you will do really well. And when it's when it gets reaired and re and resold, he'll do very very well.
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It's not if you have a show that goes into syndication and it gets $6 million an
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episode, you can't make five $600 million anymore. But you can make tens of millions.
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Yeah. More than that, but you can make you can do very very well. You were f I mean, I'm not crying.
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You're famous for fighting hard. In fact, there was an iconic character created on Entourage for that.
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Yeah. Um, which was your favorite fight? Is it Sherry AOF? Was it Justin Baldoni,
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Mike Oitz? Which did you get the most pleasure fighting with of all these iconic fights?
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You know, like I just said, all um, no. I mean, listen, when when you're at the beginning of your career 30 years ago
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and you do not have the ability to change price and you have at the time you had William
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Morris, ICM, UTA, CAA, and you're the fifth and you you have to fight really hard because people just
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think you're a chump, right? And I don't Yeah. when people don't think because I'm dyslexic. I remember
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growing up anybody that thought I was stupid, they touched the third rail. And so when you were growing up in this
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business and everybody thinks, "Oh, you're just that pushover. You got I'm I'm not I'm
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not good there. Any chance?" No, but this is a and this is a serious question. Bringing Entourage back. Why hasn't this
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happened? We love this. We grew up on it. How many people want to see the reunion? You're the guy who can make it
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happen. I'm friends with Adrian Grineer. I talk to him all the time about it and
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he says, "Not my choice." Are you guys having David Zazoff on this on this panel?
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No. No. I think you guys should call him. Is he holding the strings? Well, yeah. They HBO HBO.
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But you're Ari. You could go and just tell them to do it. Let's Let's help that deal happen.
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Please. On competition, was Michael Oitz a a mentor to you or a competitor? I worked for Mike for um I was in the
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mail room, then I was on a desk. Um he was you know you he was incredible and you he kind of changed the business.
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Before him was Louman. They would be on Mount Rushmore. I think Mike did a so many things right. I mean he was a
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visionary for the one thing when I was a young guy looking at it and looking back
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at it you know he started he took Coke. I think it was from Gray Advertising at the time. I think it was gray. And I
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always said to myself at the time like he had so much currency at the time. Why didn't he buy gray advertising and he
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could have changed the dynamic of the agency? He could either take it public and so that when and then I was at this
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company called Intertalent. They got bought by ICM. ICM like had the greatest agents all and it just was bad
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management. And then we started the firm and I just said, you know, I'm not going to have a
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bad culture like ICM and when the opportunity comes, I'm going to go for assets that I could own
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and change kind of the dynamic of what an agency and what representation and what
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and that's what no one had done before is think in terms of equity. Are there any assets that you don't own that you
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wish you did or or would you like to buy a studio? Would you like to buy sports teams? What?
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I I don't want to buy a studio. I don't want to buy a sports team. Okay. I just started this company. I
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raised about $2 billion. I'm going to start this big events company. So, my plate's really full. I'm loving life
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right now. And uh yeah, I mean, TKO is on it in a great place right now with all the deals we made. We have a great
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partner in um uh David Ellison and you saw what happened at the VMAs where our thought process, they put it on MTV,
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they put it on CBS, and they put on streaming. the largest audience they ever got. That's going to be the same
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thing for the UFC. And now Bob Iger and Jimmy Potara are gonna launch um the the
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WWE on ESPN. I think it's going to be incredible for that asset. So do you think that all sports there's
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nothing left right now, right? We're launching, you know, we have a big fight this weekend, uh the Canelo fight
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with Netflix, so we're in good place. Ari, do you think that all sports continue to do well in the future? Or
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will some sports have to adapt for, you know, the fact that kids have a shorter attention span? They just need faster
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action. Like what happens to things like baseball? What happens to the maybe the
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slower, more prolonged sports? You know, I I think everybody's going to have to adapt. The thing I like about
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our sport is the it's like the UFC. It's fast. Bull riding, 8 seconds. You know, you get it,
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you can watch it on your phone. Um WWE is family entertainment and and all of them are um the both the UFC and the WWE
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are huge global brands. I think all of them except you know I had a conversation with Roger Goodell
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yesterday. I was like how many storylines can you get? It was an unbelievable weekend except for Monday
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night when the Bears lost. But um I think a bunch of them are going to have to adapt and I think for some of them
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pricing is going to have to come down because um I don't think uh the the US domestic market is the right place for
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them as it relates to hockey and baseball the big ones. Um they're do they've done an incredible job adapting
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to the kind of new environment. I think baseball's cut like 40 minutes off of the average.
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It's incredible what they've done. They've always been innovative. when they launched BAM and they've been ahead
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of the curve. So, what do you think about international markets? Obviously, India and China,
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huge markets. The NBA has done an exceptional job. They're probably going to have something in Europe, the Knicks,
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my Knicks, uh, which are going to win the chip this year. They're going to be playing in Abu Dhabi, their preseason
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games. How How do you view the internationalization of these live events? I mean, just look at that Brazil game
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for the NFL. Incredible. Look at what baseball did when they launched the Dodgers and the Cubs in Japan.
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Everybody's realizing the value that can happen now. We just had a UFC event in Shanghai, which we have a facility in a
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PI. Um, we're going to Abu Dhabi. We we've always in ours been international. It's a requirement for continued growth
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in the sports that you have to go international. So, all of them are going to adapt a little bit and try and figure
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that out. I want to I want to shift and ask a personal question. You come from an
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incredible family. Your brother Zeke is an incredible doctor. Your brother Rahm worked at the White House, was mayor of
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Chicago. You're incredible. Ambassador to Japan now. Yeah. You're an incredible entrepreneur and businessman.
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Is there competitiveness? Has there ever been competitiveness amongst the three of you as you guys?
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Why do you think one's in Chicago, one's in Washington, one's in LA? The cities are like when they come together like,
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you know, like they explode. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Where did it come where did it? Wait,
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but where did it come from? And let me just tell you something. I'm winning. Where? you know, but where did it come
00:24:56
from and who did who did mom love most? You know, my mom says this all the time.
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My mom used to say, "You don't love me as much as you love Zeke." And Zeke is the my the doctor and the vice proess of
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pen. And she goes turns to him and she goes to all of us. She goes, "I hate you all equally."
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Ah, that's where it comes from. Still trying to get mom's love. I got it. And what about your long-term You have a
00:25:21
long-term friendship with one of our besties, Elon. Yeah. Um, how did that evolve?
00:25:26
After 911, I gave up my Ferrari. I bought a Prius. Didn't really like the Prius. I was
00:25:32
looking for a better car. I read the article that he's launching. I just call him. He picks up, comes in
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the office. I say, "I have to have one of these cars. I think I got number 11. I still own it." The kind of the first
00:25:46
model. Yeah. And he and I have just been friends um ever since. I just actually on
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Tuesday uh uh you know I went up to see the robots because I want to do a UFC fight with his robots and the robots
00:26:02
meaning robots versus robots. Yeah. I think it'd be incredible. Yes. And I saw what he he's creating.
00:26:08
The man's a genius. The the hand is incredible. Their ability to kind of he had one he showed
00:26:15
me one that was kicking um and and boxing. And when he talks about it, he talks about, you know, there's probably
00:26:21
about a 100 million people in the United States that actually are working bodies.
00:26:27
When you have a robot, it it occupies five people, works 24 hours a day. Um, and there's no
00:26:36
HR, there's no issues. He says the pro, you know, he goes through the pro, he goes through all the numbers, and it's a
00:26:41
it's an incredible argument, and I think he'll be able to produce a million of them. It's going to be really profitable
00:26:48
and they're going to cost a dollar an hour to operate. And when I saw what he what the hand was
00:26:53
doing, the the I think it was the third or fourth generation. Yeah. I I was like, it's incredible. And now
00:26:59
the movement and the charging that he's got down, it's really he's a special human being in that in that capacity.
00:27:05
Really special. He really is an American treasure. Ladies and gentlemen, R Emanuel.
00:27:09
Amazing. Thanks. Great to see you. Thanks. Don't crush it. [Applause] Wow.