AI, Attention, and Ownership: Ari Emanuel Explains the Next Era of Entertainment

[Applause] Ari Emanuel, the newest kingpin of combat sports, one of Hollywood's biggest power brokers. It's everywhere from the boardroom to, you know, even politics. There was another figure named Arie Gold that many people thought was named after you. The straight talking dealmaker has a reputation for getting what he wants. I'm back and you're fired. Emanuel has worked tirelessly to transform Endeavor into a multi-billion dollar behemoth. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ari Emanuel. [Music] Thank you. Hey, welcome. When's the last time we saw each other at that dinner? Exactly. Yeah. Did you see that panel?

Yeah. You know Alex? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I think he's great. I loved his book. Yeah, the book was incredible. Yeah. So what's your take? A lot to cover there on my take. So well let's start at the beginning. Ari, you have had an incredible arc. You've built an incredible business and recently you've had the opportunity to 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 last four or five years of the evolution of Endeavor and you know your process of first leaving building a business then scaling it up and just all of that action the tick tock of it all.

So um uh March 29th when I first came here I was making 15 cents a mile when I moved to LA 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 about where uh content was going from George Gilder who wrote this book like for television and said there's going to be infinite distribution and then content's going to be really really valuable and there's going to be many forms of content and so we kind of went out and started growing the business and trying to get into every sector of the business made a two- horse race with when we

quote unquote merged with William Morris Um I think one of my best deals actually that merger and then um when Teddy Forceman passed away bought IMG with Silverlake who had come into the company and then we were in sports and then we realized it was all in the representation business and then realized that because of what we built the infrastructure we built in the global scale we had and the production and um representation we could start owning some of the assets as opposed to just representing them and 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

this company called uh Professional Ball Riley that was I think making uh $3 million a year in profit. We turned it into a really nice business. It's still growing. And then because of that um and we had negot you know we negotiate every day against networks and studios. the UFC came up and we said, "Okay, let's take a big swing." The funny thing is when we bought IMG, they say we overpaid. It was the cheapest sports acquisition ever happened. And definitely when we bought uh UFC, they were like at 4. At the time, it looked incredibly expensive. Yeah. And all we had to do was kind of make a

broadcast deal that then took the multiple down from 30 20 times to kind of under 10. We then thought we could take all those assets. My big mistake here. Um, a conglomerate. Yeah. The marketplace just didn't understand it. Yeah. And so we tried to take it public right before CO failed. I didn't realize how hard it was to go back out. Finally got it back public. We we kind of rolled all of the UFC into Endeavor and um we still weren't getting any value. We then Vince said yes and we merged the assets. A pure play was in sports, sports entertainment was a better conversation with the street. I mean when you started we had the

traditional cable networks then we had cable it was a very high hierarchical and easy to understand hierarchy right and then you have the streamers and now you know this afternoon we'll have Neil Moan from YouTube right then you have characters like the Mr. Beast of the world who can go direct so it's very chaotic. No it's actually just back to George Gilder. It's back to George Gilder. There's infinite distribution, right? Many forms of content. People consume podcasts. People consume, you know, stuff on Instagram and Tik Tok. People consume stuff now on the streamers. And so, and I do I don't believe that traditional

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 plus also sold it to the Amazons of the world. And so you just have a vast kind of map of where distribution is. So distribution has gotten vast but a lot of people would say some people would say the kinds of content has gotten a little oified calcified rigid maybe. Um what does that mean? Meaning like you know you don't see like the broad swath of the content that you would see maybe 15 20 years ago. People I think there's more content now. 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

can't get enough content. I don't think I don't know about you. There's going to be more content than there's ever been. I think there's incredible voices out there. I think the content that's being made is it there's a vast majority and I think it's really incredible. I do. Yeah. Ari, what do you think of podcast and the general movement of top talent Megan? Uh Tucker, you guys. Okay. Sure. we're we're a little bit behind them, but um the ability for them to be independent and not affiliated with the network, this is something we have not seen in the industry. There were gatekeepers.

You used to have to get packaged, represented, and now, you know, people come to us all the time with different opportunities to join different networks. I won't talk about any specifics, but we've decided, well, why would we need them independent? Yeah. Why why would we need them if we have this amazing audience? Funny thing is I think the podcasting business is going to turn into the syndication business that used to be on the broadcast and the station groups. So Oprah was the king world kind of thing. Oprah was the behemoth and then Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She launched a bunch of you'll probably see that reincarnated through people with podcast if they want

to. We saw that at Bartool. Yeah. So you're saying we could then cable syndication model through this through the multiple channel. We should be a network and we should develop talent. Yeah, you need some representation guys. But but you know what the problem is Ari? It's like a lot of the repres representation to be totally honest. We don't Yeah. And we would only consider a peer, you know, relationship with somebody who has done it before at a high level. If you know anybody Yeah. I don't. You don't? Well, anybody good? I don't know. One of the things we're talking about you Ari.

Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed has become a common kind of thread with these big independents is they move from what used to be kind of commercial ad placements to sponsor deals where they got one sponsor to eventually owning their own business. Correct. And the value there is so much greater cuz the multiple you get a multiple on revenue. You don't just get advertising the marketing line. Right. You know Tucker has his Alps product which Jal uh fortunately is not on today. No, please don't put it on. Uh, you're saying use the promo code allin. Well, Jimmy's got his chocolate bar company. Is that the future, do you

think, for monetization for the big independents is that they actually own the equity in what historically have just been sponsors for them and that's where the value Well, you're going to own the equity in your podcast, right? And then a lot of people and we started this business I don't know about 10 years ago we called we started at WMU called talent ventures where a lot of musicians actors started because you know it's with the broadcast networks and cable channels ratings going down you know manufacturers had to get to the audience and so that they used to do it

through commercials when that rating went down they started then giving equity or people started launching you a lot of different products. Sometime was alcohol, sometimes perfume, sometime it was food, etc. That will now start happening with people like you, other podcasters. If Paltro has done an exceptional job that that's just a natural evolution because of where broadcast television is and cable television is manufacturers going to have to get to an audience. You guys have a very big and loyal audience. events and things that you do on you know over the air. Um you know products will come to you. You

you will make the decision are are you taking the sponsorship dollar or you taking the ownership dollar and that's just the pro evaluating the economics and and whether you believe in the product. There's a lot of things that go into that. Yeah. Ari, how much of your time are you spending trying to figure out where like all these nextg AI tools either help you give you maybe operating leverage to actually go and be even more creative, own the content versus maybe disrupt some of the legacy folks you've worked with? You know, we have a whole program being set up at TKO and and and William Morris

about kind of how AI can help us. On the production side, there's a whole another that the studios are doing and our clients are doing. You know, I have I've made a decision. I 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 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 sports entertainment business. I just launched which will launch in October kind of what I believe is the next kind of live events business. You know, you have our sports business, you have Live Nation and Michael Rupinos and

incredible. That's pure play music. And I think there's when we were a public company, now we're a private company, we had 700 events inside Endeavor. I have um it will be completed in first week in October. Bought a lot of those, raised 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 over there, the opposite bet on AI is not data centers. It's live. Humans want connection. Keep going back to live. And I think it's kind of like a 4-day work week now. Probably going down to three. I was seeing Elon and seeing the robots. Probably 3-day work week for full employment. There going to be a lot

of free time. We definitely all need connections as we can see right here. And so my whole thesis is live. Um, and I think on the William Morris side, which is incredible, there's only two representation business. William Morris is the biggest one of all of them. And there's going to be more room for content. I want to slow down and double click into this. Just wait. So, we work Monday through Friday. Saturday, I don't think a lot of people work Monday through Friday anymore. But I'm saying like, let's just say, yeah, we used to Monday through Friday. Saturday, you're slapping the kids to soccer. Sunday, you get a rest day,

watch some football, then rinse and repeat. That's all a lie now. That's going away. No, no, no. Right now, drive times, average dry times in America, 11 to 4. So, people are doing their chores 11 to 4. Do doing their stuff that they have to do on the weekends in the morning or in the afternoon. They have their mobile phones. They're doing their stuff. Thursday, hotel bookings are way up. Way up. So, weekend 3-day weekends. I'm shocked. What? Please up from back there. You should start drinking coffee because if you just look at the data, we're at 4 day work weeks now.

I think it's going to three-day work weeks, which means more time for entertainment is your key piece. Sack you wanted to get in. Well, I was going to spit on something Chamas said, which is you you have so many different things you're involved in. How do you decide how to prioritize your time? Because you could be, I know, helping William Morris clients. There's representation could be a never- ending job by itself. You've got TKO. You could be looking for new acquisitions. How do you decide how to spend your money? Thank god I have ADHD. Um, listen,

actually this Friday is two years since we um did the merger at TKO. We merged at I think $100 and then went 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 200. We're doing, I think, everything we said we were going to do with regard to kind of streamlining the two businesses, integrating them. We brought over in February uh PBR um on location and uh IMG, which kind of fills out the suite of what we do at TKO for everybody that wants sports. We made our broadcasting deals and we're just kind of powering away at what that, you know, focused on what we have to do. Are you personally

at this point just kind of out of representation? No, no, no. Or do you dip down sometimes and and help clients? How do you see that? you know, being in the representation business, whether it be Marty Scorsesi or Dwayne Johnson or Mark Wahlberg or Peterberg or a great a whole host of my clients. or enables me to make the deals over at TKO because I'm in the conversation right with YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, all the 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 this person back. I don't do that anymore. But in the representation of my clients and the clients of the agency,

I'm in it every day because it does help the other businesses. Which platform are you the most obsessed with? YouTube, Netflix, all. Okay. But which one, if you have a client, do you think is the most important over the next 5 or 10 years? Who's going to pay them the most amount of money and creatively enable them to do what they want? Well, let let me ask you a question. 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 have historically done production on Netflix that they want to move to YouTube because Netflix like the margins

compressed and so they're offering and deals. That's not true. Okay, that's not true. And so I've heard a lot of folks say, "Well, if I go independent, I have unlimited upside. If I publish on YouTube, I just need financing." Is there an emerging? Listen, those are different. It depends 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 x amount, they'll probably start on YouTube or start on or start on at Facebook or start on Twitter. Once they 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

an hour on on Netflix or a feature film, right? That's different from what YouTube's business plan is. And Neil will talk to you about that. So again, you can't generalize that conversation. Are you seeing a burgeoning of independent financing for production that would go out on YouTube? Like where folks are saying, I just need production financing. Find me some partners. And then you mean for a YouTuber? for YouTubers. I mean, some sometimes that's not something you're seeing kind of scale up right now. I'm definitely not in that space. If you know, David, I I that's not something I

I do see. There's people in my company that do that. We have a whole division for YouTubers, etc. Podcasting, that's a whole group that we've started. It's very successful right now. Ari, there was a time when the dream of content creators was being able to own their IP. Netflix came in and said, "Hey, we'll pay you much more, but you don't get to own the Simpsons anymore. You don't get to own this IP yet." Well, remember the syndication model as broadcast television started to fade away as this, but there was a at the beginning there was a third window which was Netflix. Now the cable and the station group window has kind of dissipated a little, right? But when you

still when you make a deal at a broadcaster smaller now you do have a bidding war between Netflix whether it be if you're at NBC Peacock we just finished a big we're finishing up a big deal for the office which started on broadcast the new stuff they're buying out. Yes. Yeah. So you don't have this opportunity to do what you know the Simpsons did, to do what South Park did, to do what Seinfeld did. But you yourself deal I just made for South Park's pretty good for the guys. No, no, I know. But that seems to be the last generation to get that. This new generation seems to be just giving their IP over to Netflix. You yourself are

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 become billionaires if they don't own IP. So there's a client I there's a client by the name of Noah Holly just had the Alien Earth show that it premiered on at Disney. Um he did Fargo also. Incredibly 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 or Aaron Sorcin or Jim Brooks clients made an unbelievable amount of money. Jim did Jim did well. All of those people I said did very, very, very well. Yes, he will not make as much money as

they did in syndication, but he will do very, very, very well. So, if you're really talented and you 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. It's not if you have a show that goes into syndication and it gets $6 million an episode, you can't make five $600 million anymore. But you can make tens of millions. Yeah. More than that, but you can make you can do very very well. You were f I mean, I'm not crying. You're famous for fighting hard. In fact, there was an iconic character created on Entourage for that.

Yeah. Um, which was your favorite fight? Is it Sherry AOF? Was it Justin Baldoni, Mike Oitz? Which did you get the most pleasure fighting with of all these iconic fights? 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 and you do not have the ability to change price and you have at the time you had William Morris, ICM, UTA, CAA, and you're the fifth and you you have to fight really hard because people just think you're a chump, right? And I don't Yeah. when people don't think because I'm dyslexic. I remember

growing up anybody that thought I was stupid, they touched the third rail. And so when you were growing up in this business and everybody thinks, "Oh, you're just that pushover. You got I'm I'm not I'm not good there. Any chance?" No, but this is a and this is a serious question. Bringing Entourage back. Why hasn't this 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 happen. I'm friends with Adrian Grineer. I talk to him all the time about it and he says, "Not my choice." Are you guys having David Zazoff on this on this panel?

No. No. I think you guys should call him. Is he holding the strings? Well, yeah. They HBO HBO. But you're Ari. You could go and just tell them to do it. Let's Let's help that deal happen. Please. On competition, was Michael Oitz a a mentor to you or a competitor? I worked for Mike for um I was in the 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. Before him was Louman. They would be on Mount Rushmore. I think Mike did a so many things right. I mean he was a visionary for the one thing when I was a young guy looking at it and looking back

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 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 could have changed the dynamic of the agency? He could either take it public and so that when and then I was at this company called Intertalent. They got bought by ICM. ICM like had the greatest agents all and it just was bad management. And then we started the firm and I just said, you know, I'm not going to have a bad culture like ICM and when the opportunity comes, I'm going to go for assets that I could own

and change kind of the dynamic of what an agency and what representation and what 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 wish you did or or would you like to buy a studio? Would you like to buy sports teams? What? 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 raised about $2 billion. I'm going to start this big events company. So, my plate's really full. I'm loving life 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

partner in um uh David Ellison and you saw what happened at the VMAs where our thought process, they put it on MTV, they put it on CBS, and they put on streaming. the largest audience they ever got. That's going to be the same thing for the UFC. And now Bob Iger and Jimmy Potara are gonna launch um the the WWE on ESPN. I think it's going to be incredible for that asset. So do you think that all sports there's nothing left right now, right? We're launching, you know, we have a big fight this weekend, uh the Canelo fight with Netflix, so we're in good place. Ari, do you think that all sports continue to do well in the future? Or

will some sports have to adapt for, you know, the fact that kids have a shorter attention span? They just need faster action. Like what happens to things like baseball? What happens to the maybe the slower, more prolonged sports? You know, I I think everybody's going to have to adapt. The thing I like about our sport is the it's like the UFC. It's fast. Bull riding, 8 seconds. You know, you get it, 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 are huge global brands. I think all of them except you know I had a conversation with Roger Goodell

yesterday. I was like how many storylines can you get? It was an unbelievable weekend except for Monday 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 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 them as it relates to hockey and baseball the big ones. Um they're do they've done an incredible job adapting to the kind of new environment. I think baseball's cut like 40 minutes off of the average. It's incredible what they've done. They've always been innovative. when they launched BAM and they've been ahead

of the curve. So, what do you think about international markets? Obviously, India and China, huge markets. The NBA has done an exceptional job. They're probably going to have something in Europe, the Knicks, my Knicks, uh, which are going to win the chip this year. They're going to be playing in Abu Dhabi, their preseason games. How How do you view the internationalization of these live events? I mean, just look at that Brazil game for the NFL. Incredible. Look at what baseball did when they launched the Dodgers and the Cubs in Japan. Everybody's realizing the value that can happen now. We just had a UFC event in Shanghai, which we have a facility in a

PI. Um, we're going to Abu Dhabi. We we've always in ours been international. It's a requirement for continued growth in the sports that you have to go international. So, all of them are going to adapt a little bit and try and figure that out. I want to I want to shift and ask a personal question. You come from an incredible family. Your brother Zeke is an incredible doctor. Your brother Rahm worked at the White House, was mayor of Chicago. You're incredible. Ambassador to Japan now. Yeah. You're an incredible entrepreneur and businessman. Is there competitiveness? Has there ever been competitiveness amongst the three of you as you guys?

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, you know, like they explode. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Where did it come where did it? Wait, but where did it come from? And let me just tell you something. I'm winning. Where? you know, but where did it come from and who did who did mom love most? You know, my mom says this all the time. 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 pen. And she goes turns to him and she goes to all of us. She goes, "I hate you all equally."

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 long-term friendship with one of our besties, Elon. Yeah. Um, how did that evolve? After 911, I gave up my Ferrari. I bought a Prius. Didn't really like the Prius. I was looking for a better car. I read the article that he's launching. I just call him. He picks up, comes in 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 model. Yeah. And he and I have just been friends um ever since. I just actually on

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 meaning robots versus robots. Yeah. I think it'd be incredible. Yes. And I saw what he he's creating. The man's a genius. The the hand is incredible. Their ability to kind of he had one he showed me one that was kicking um and and boxing. And when he talks about it, he talks about, you know, there's probably about a 100 million people in the United States that actually are working bodies. When you have a robot, it it occupies five people, works 24 hours a day. Um, and there's no

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 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 and they're going to cost a dollar an hour to operate. And when I saw what he what the hand was doing, the the I think it was the third or fourth generation. Yeah. I I was like, it's incredible. And now the movement and the charging that he's got down, it's really he's a special human being in that in that capacity. Really special. He really is an American treasure. Ladies and gentlemen, R Emanuel.

Amazing. Thanks. Great to see you. Thanks. Don't crush it. [Applause] Wow.