[applause]

>> Ari Emanuel, the newest kingpin of

combat [music] sports, one of

Hollywood's biggest power brokers. It's

everywhere from the boardroom to, you

know, even politics. There was [music]

another figure named Ari Gold that many

people thought was named after you.

>> The straight-talking deal maker has a

reputation for getting what he wants.

I'm back and you're fired. [music]

Emanuel has worked tirelessly to

transform Endeavor into a multi-billion

dollar behemoth.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ari

Emanuel.

>> [music]

>> Thank you.

Hey. Awesome.

When's the last time we saw each other

at that dinner? Exactly.

>> Yeah.

Did you see that panel? Yeah.

>> [laughter]

>> You know Alex? Yeah, I know Alex. Yeah.

I think he's great.

I love his book.

Yeah, the book is incredible. Yeah. So,

what's your take?

On what we just On what we just talked

about. There are a lot to cover there on

my take.

So.

>> Well, let's start at the beginning. Ari,

you have had an incredible arc.

You 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 Yeah.

action, the tick-tock of it all? So, um

uh March 29th,

I went when I first came here I was

making 15 cents a mile and when I moved

to LA,

went to work at CAA,

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 Life After

Television and said there's going to be

infinite distribution and then content's

going to be very really valuable.

And there's going to be many forms of

content.

And so,

>> [clears throat]

>> we kind of went out and started growing

the business and trying to get into

every sector of the business.

Made it 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 Forstmann passed away, bought

IMG with Silver Lake 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 and 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

Bull Riding.

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

negotiate, 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.

>> 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 uh 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 COVID.

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 and sports entertainment

was a better conversation with the

street.

>> when you started, we had the traditional

cable networks, then we had cable. It

was a very higher hierarchical and easy

to understand hierarchy. Right. And then

you have the streamers and now, you

know, this afternoon we'll have Neal

Mohan 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 TikTok. People

consume stuff now on the streamers. And

so, and I do I don't believe that

traditional businesses is going away for

a long time because a lot of our 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

ossified, calcified, rigid maybe. Uh

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 podcasts and

the general movement of top talent,

Megan,

uh Tucker, you guys? Okay, sure. We're

we're we're a little bit behind them,

but um the ability for them to be

independent and not affiliated with the

network.

>> Yeah. 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?

>> anymore. Yeah, why why would we need

them if we have this amazing audience

that we

>> 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 behemoth.

>> World Yeah. Oprah was the behemoth and

then Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She launched a

bunch of them.

You'll probably see that reincarnated

through

people with podcasts if they want to. We

saw that at Barstool. Yeah. So, you're

saying we could then syndicate

cable {slash} syndication model through

this, through the multiple channels.

>> a network and we should develop talent.

Yeah. You need some representation guys.

What but

The problem is, Ari, it's like a lot of

the represent presentation, to be

totally honest, sucks.

>> We don't Yeah, and we would only

consider a pure,

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, Ari, anybody good I don't

know. We're talking about you, Ari. One

of the things 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 Jake Hal uh

fortunately's not on today. No, please

don't put it on. But Uh and You're

saying use the promo code Ari and Well,

Jimmy's got uh his uh 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 WME called Talent

Ventures where a lot of

musicians, actors started because, you

know, it's with the broadcasting

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 know, a lot of different

products. Sometimes it was alcohol,

sometimes perfume, sometimes it was

food, etc.

That will now start happening

with people like you, other podcasters

>> Gwyneth Paltrow who's 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. This 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 they are

you taking the sponsorship dollar? Are

you taking the ownership dollar? And

that's just the

evaluating the economics and and whether

you believe in a 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 next gen AI tools

either help you, give you maybe

operating leverage to actually go and be

even more creative on 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 know enough about AI. I'm not smart

enough to know enough about AI. I 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

Rapinoe's incredible. That's his

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 [snorts] have

it'll 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. Connection.

>> back to live. And I think

it's kind of like a four-day work week

now, probably going down to three. I was

seeing Elon and seeing the robots,

probably three-day work week for full

employment. There're 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 schlepping 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 drive times in America, 11:00 to

4:00.

So, people are doing their chores

>> 11:00 to 4:00. 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, three-day weekends.

>> Three-day weekends. I'm shocked. What?

Well, get him some coffee, please. From

back there, you should start drinking

coffee because if you just look at the

data, we're at four-day work weeks now.

I think it's going to three-day work

weeks. Which means more time for

entertainment is your key piece to it.

Sack, you wanted to get in. Well, I was

going to just spit on something Chamath

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 don't

know, helping William Morris clients.

Your 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 time?

>> I have ADHD.

Um

Listen, actually this Friday is 2 years

since we um

did the merger at TKO.

We merged at I think $100 and then went

down to 79. Anybody says they don't look

at their stock price, I look at it every

like 19 times a day.

>> [laughter]

>> 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 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 Scorsese or Dwayne Johnson or

Mark Wahlberger or Peter Berg or

Greg a whole host of my clients, they

aren't sure.

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, Ari, let me 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

ownership. 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 world

>> those are different It depends on where

you're at. If it's

a YouTuber,

right? And they want to scale up.

>> want to scale up and they they have X

amount, they'll probably start on

YouTube or start on

start on at Facebook or start on

Twitter. Once they get to a certain

level,

they'll make a decision. Is 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

you can't generalize that conversation.

>> 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

>> it for a YouTuber?

>> For YouTubers, yeah.

>> some sometimes I'm I'm not That's not

something you're seeing kind of scale up

right now. I'm definitely not in that

space. If

you know,

David said 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 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

>> 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 station group window has

kind of dissipated a little bit, 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 a 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

>> last deal I just made for South Park is

pretty good for the guys.

>> 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 cuz 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

Hawley 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 Sorkin or Jim Brooks'

clients made

a 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 re-aired and re and resold,

he'll do very, very well. It's not

if you have a show that goes into

syndication and and it gets $6 million

an episode, you can't make 5, 600

million dollars anymore. But you can

make tens of millions. Yeah, more than

that, but you can make you can do very,

very well. You were

>> So, yeah, 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? Was it

Sherry Lansing, was it Justin Baldoni,

Mike Ovitz? Which did you get the most

pleasure fighting with? Of all these

iconic fights you've had?

>> I just said, all. Um no, I mean, I

Listen, 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 cuz 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 Yeah.

>> that touched the third rail."

I'm not I'm not I'm not good there.

>> Any chance No, but [laughter] this is a

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 Grenier.

I talk to him all the time about it and

he says, I think Are you guys having

David Zaslav on this on this panel?

>> No. No, it's Zaslav.

>> you guys should call him. Well, yeah,

but he's the one holding the strings.

>> Well, yeah, they HBO

>> HBO. But you're Ari, you could go and

just tell them to do it.

>> let's hope that deal happen. Please. On

competition, was Michael Ovitz a a

mentor to you or a competitor? I worked

for Mike.

For um I was in the mailroom and 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 Lou Wasserman. They would

be on Mount Rushmore. I think Mike did a

so many things right. I mean he was a

visionary for it. The one thing when I

was young guy looking at it and looking

back at it, you know, he started he took

Coke. I think it was from Grey

Advertising at the time. I think it was

Grey. And I always said to myself at the

time like

he had so much currency at the time.

Why didn't he buy Grey Advertising? And

he could have changed the dynamic of the

agency. He could either take it public.

And so that one and then I was at this

company called Inner Talent. 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 its in 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 it 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

Pitaro going to 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

>> know I don't 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. 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 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 doing they've done an incredible

job adapting to the kind of new

environment.

>> baseball's got like 40 minutes off of

the average game.

>> Yeah, it's really incredible what

they've done. They've always been

innovative. When they launched BAM and

they've been ahead of the curve. So

>> think about international markets?

Obviously India and China huge markets.

The NBA's done an exceptional job.

They're probably going to have something

in Europe. The Knicks my Knicks 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 the

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

the a PI. Um we're going to Abu Dhabi.

We've always you know, always 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.

>> 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 incredibly

>> ambassador ambassador to Japan now,

yeah. You're an incredible entrepreneur

and businessman.

Is there a competitiveness? Has there

ever been competitiveness amongst the

three of you as you guys

>> you think one's in Chicago, one's in

Washington, one's in LA? These cities

are magnets

>> when they come together they like they

explode. Yeah.

I mean

>> Really? yeah. Where did it come

where did it

wait [laughter] wait but where did it

come from?

>> And let me just tell you something. I'm

winning. Where did it but where did it

come from and who did [laughter] who did

mom love most? You know, my mom says

this all the time. My

Rahm he says, "You don't love me as much

as you love Zeke." And Zeke is the my

the doctor then and the vice provost at

Penn. And she goes she turns to him and

she says that's all of us. She goes, "I

hate you all equally." Ah. So that's

where it comes

>> it comes from.

So

>> 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. How did that

evolve?

>> After 9/11 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 just been friends

um ever since. I just actually on

Tuesday

uh you know, I went up to see the robots

cuz 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.

>> Yeah. 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 100

million people in the United States that

actually are working bodies.

>> [clears throat]

>> 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 you know, he goes through

the 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.

>> And

and when I saw what he what the hand was

doing 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.

>> Yeah, he really is an American treasure.

Ladies and gentlemen Ari Emanuel

amazing. Thank you so much. Great to see

you.

>> [music]

>> Thank you.

Thanks.

Wow.