Episode 37: BAMTech, Disney and "the Biggest Media Company You've Never Heard Of”
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Frequent forms, can I hate these quotes to the day? Most annoying website ever.

Welcome back to episode thirty seven of acquired the podcast about technology acquisitions and ipos and today spin outs. I'm been gilbert David .

resent and we are your hosts.

So today, David, I are continuing our journey along sports and technology by diving in the majority league baseball twenty fifteen spin out of a company called bam tech from their advanced media or M L B M group, and the twenty sixteen minority investment into being tech by disney. So David, i'm ridiculously pumped for this .

episode of me too, not only and for listeners, even if you don't care about sports, you should keep listening. Because not only is this one of the most interesting sports tech deals that happened in the last decade plus, but this is actually, I think, really important understand from just appear technologies stay on point when IT comes to the future of television and things we've talked about on the show a lot with twitch and amazon and youtube and even snaps chat. So a stay tuned for this one.

Yeah, it's like there was A A secret like big tech company hiding inside of a sports league for like a decade and a half. And they had more foresight and more prominence than the best streaming services out there and had Better technology. And I mean, reading into all this, I really couldn't believe IT like we give a lot of credit to a lot of these other companies, netflix being one of them for for being the sort of digital pioneers. And uh, baseball is making bets five years earlier.

total tog. This can yeah well .

before we before we get to A A couple of administrative of things. As usual, we love itunes reviews listeners if you, if you like the show, if you've been listening for for a long time of your brand new to the show, how we grow the show is how others find us. And IT lets us do more cool things and bring up more cool guest.

So if you have a minute, would love a review on itunes. And thanks so much for that. Our slack has been blowing up recently. So we've got a thing called slack, and i'm sure many of you that at work, and there's over six hundred of us that are are hanging out in the acquired slack now you can get to IT by going to acquired dot FM, and there's a little widget on the right.

And uh, there's a tonic cool conversation and there are A A lot of great criticism, feedback of of episodes after we released them, where we hop in and talk about IT with you guys. Um but then also a lot of people you link to breaking news and and yesterday is a great discussion of amazon earnings call and honestly, we get a lot of great color for upcoming episodes from from the community. So thanks to everyone who is .

an active participant in slack.

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Yep, so learn how you can put A I agents to work for your people by clicking the link in the shower notes or going to service now doc m slash A I dash agents. So David, I think we're ready to dive in.

Let's do IT history in facts. okay. So question number one, I bet on many listeners minds, is what is bam tech? So forms calls this, the calls bam tech, the quote, biggest media company you've never heard.

And this story is, you know, I been eluded to. They are probably as much as netflix and amazon and twitch doing as much to shape the future of television in amErica and around the world. Then any other company.

What's funny, you know I bet a lot of our listeners ers haven't heard of bamb tech. There's some out there that are play not in their heads that that half heard of IT. I'd come across IT in a lot of research I was doing for some of the things we're working on at pianer square labs. But IT really took kind of like diving in for for in a few hours yesterday to really understand how the structure this whole thing works and how the time line lays out. And all I stuck in here.

yeah. And and I knew IT because I have been a baseball fan for a long time and a subscriber to M, L, B, that, T, V, which is where bampton get the origins. So although we back in the year two thousand um majorly baseball, the sports league um had the first sight to start a new division within within the league and they called IT majority baseball advanced media and the mission that they gave this new division was to build and Operate a website for each of the thirty teams in the league uh rather than saying, you know the mariners and the giants and the anchors, you guys all go off and build your own websites. We're going to centralize this in the league.

which is kind of brilliant, is in its own right, right? Like when you think about in that area what what the worst website would have been of thirty sort of random owners who are hiring random web development firms to do the contract work for that. It's prety good thing they centralized that function.

IT certainly IT certainly is, but I kind of got off to an inspired start because the the league and and bam itself made the same poor decision. Read off the bed. And they like any super corporate I T department because this is basically, you know, majority baseball I T department. They decide outsource the website building to a consulting firm and pay them a ton of money. And you know, as expected, fashion, uh, the consulting firm basically failed to deliver, and the websites totally suck. So Robert bowman, who was the newly appointed CEO of majority baseball advances media, which which is going to call bam for the rest of the, he quickly made the decision, which ends up being probably the best decision that major baseball has ever made, a to build a tech team in house, bring on really good developers, and start owning and building out all the technology inside of bam.

Yeah pretty interesting.

very interesting.

So that and also probably I mean for anyone out there that that um you our audience is probably mostly attack audience, but for people that don't work at tech companies, um it's it's probably actually hard to know what the right things to hire for our in in the area. I mean, not only is a web development, but there they're looking to do things in ticket rides and they're looking to do things not yet in streaming but very shortly there after and thinking about like you know how do people that have backgrounds in sports, sports law um you know contract negotiations, media, how how does IT how do they build like a strong tech team inside I longed them for that.

Yeah and and bowman really um he really reinvent themselves so he had been before becoming the CEO of bam. Within majority baseball he had been a tegument either he was the C O O. And the CFO of big and glamour called I T T was footy reading about this? I remembred all those commercials growing up for know I T T technical institute.

Oh yeah, same thing. So that's where booming from. Um he also, he had been the treasures of the state of michigan and have thought about running for governor.

And much earlier in his career, he was an investment banker at goldman. Sex so you know he's not he's not your typical silicon rally executive? no. But this was also relatively early days for the next head and and can in the middle when they started of the first tech bubble. So he he figured that out along the way, and they pretty quickly start doing a lot of really innovative things with this team that they build in new york, the headquarters of bam. Actually really call there in the Chelsea market in new york this amazing building, and pretty quickly there after once he brings in house.

So in two thousand, two, the season before each eros zu ki had joined the mariners from the pants um and and each year so much fun to watch and his first season he had he had won the Ricky the year and the al MVP and of course he had this huge following in japan and pretty much the whole country wasn't still is obsessed with each o and they wanted to follow. They wanted to follow his games. And so bowen decided and beam decided that they were gonna start streaming audio of the mariners games, uh, on the internet so that people in japan could could follow each row.

And unfortunately though, that also doesn't go too. What else? They spend millions of dollars building on the tech to do this, millions of dollars advertising IT.

And they only get about a thousand subscribers. So were two years into beam at this point. And they kind of have two files. They made bad the wrong call on outsourcing the websites and then they sunk a ton of money into streaming audio and that failed.

And David is playing worth talking about the the way that um the agreement structured between bam and the teams because major baseball, I believe, is owned by the owners of the teams. Each team has committed one million dollars for four years um for a total of a between the thirty teams for a total of one hundred and twenty million dollars to capitalize this project. And so you know they they draw their first thirty million dollars.

They draw second thirty million dollars. Here we are, two thousand big failure theyve draw ten sixty million dollars from from the teams that theyve promise you know this is going to be a um I think we've actually said this can be a revenue generating uh organization within major league baseball. And like big flop.

sixty million 的 yep。 And so this is where this is where things start to turn around and where I have to imagine bowman really canna gets fords through the fire into you learn how to be a great. Executive and and technology executive.

Um so he makes one really good decision later in two thousand two and that's that he realizes that because of as you are seeing this ah the way the deal was struck between bam and all the teams that they have the rights to sell tickets to games online via the company's website and so they do boma doesn't deal with ticket master amid two thousand two to partner with them to power the sale of tickets on the team's websites. And still to this day, if you go to the mariners of the giants of the yankee's website, uh to buy a ticket, it's done in partnership with ticket master. And as part of that deal, ticket master pays bam, ten million dollars up front. And that's really the moment where things start to turn around and they can now invest that money. They stop drawing money down from the teams they know of their own revenue stream and can start to do even more innovative stuff.

Yeah, some nice cash flow.

yeah. So towards the end of the same season in two thousand, two, so where they've had this horrible failure with audio, but what they learned from that is that audio failed because people really wanted to watch the game. Uh, you know, that's why people watch baseball on T V.

In life. They didn't just want to here. They wanted to see IT.

So unlike most of these sort of like online media failures you think about the technology didn't fall down anything that was actually just insufficient, like enough people willing to pay for just the audio.

So again, this is where you is really impressive by the end of the season, same season in two thousand two, they start experimenting with streaming video online. And nobodies doing this in these days. This is two thousand two, three years before youtube, they stream the first game that they dream is in late August.

They stream at texas rangers in new york and ange's game online. The quality is terrible, but people love IT. And then they kind of raise to build a product around this.

And by the end of the season, they sell a nine game pendent race package. So streaming games online, people are paying for this. And then they sell a twenty dollar poison package.

And people love IT. And so then they scramble during the off season. And by the start of the two thousand three season, they launch after a full autum of M L B T V.

And for eighty dollars for the whole season, you can stream every auto market game on the internet. And this is huge. You know, until this point, whenever people wanted to watch baseball, they had to turn on P, N, R. Or their local sports, regional sports in network, and they could only watch what was being shown. Now, all the sudden you pay eighty dollars directly to major baseball, and you can watch every auto market game, you know, whenever you want at any time on the internet.

It's pretty awesome. yeah. And the speed at which they were able to do that is pretty lodged in the way that they were able to do IT. Because you sort of think a business that's dangerously cyclical and seasonal like this, where you sort to only have one shot per year to interview something new for the season, the idea that they did their first little test with just streaming one game and then another little test with a poison package you can buy and then came out with the real deal for that eighty dollar full season package um which I think got one hundred thousand subscribers, so like eight million in revenue from that. That first you know the season that went fantastically well, I mean that that's that's irrational development and they were able to do IT even within the constraints of of this. You can uh you can very easily see management saying, well, you know, we're going to try that for next year.

Yeah and I think what's super impressively two things. One, this is two thousand and three, you know again, where were years before youtube? But nobody else is really doing streaming video at this time.

It's four years before netflix went online.

You absolutely no no streaming netflix. And like you said, they get one hundred thousand subscribers right off the bat, that eight million dollars in subscription revenue, but then they're also selling ads on top of the game. But so this pretty quickly becomes a really interesting high margin business for fermain baseball.

Um and their building beam is building all this expertise. You know this is hard. They're dreaming you know fifteen games every single day all around the world. They're building all this expertise and streaming live video and and notice live video, but live video where IT matters, that IT can be ten minutes delayed because if the score changes and you hear about IT, you know somewhere else and you're delayed watching the game, people get set about that.

You and that a big selling point for them is, is effectively handling that, that multiplatform hand off because for them are just listening to a podcast that will throw the show notes where the the commissions of major league baseball on a uh one of fortune podcast and he's mentioning that one big you know core asset to this is not just the raw sort of like video encoding and fallbacks and relationships with the cdn to distribute the video files themselves.

It's actually the the expertise of hey, i'm watching this on my T. V. And I I called my apple TV and I switch over to my phone IT Better pick up exactly where I left off and I can't pick up like in the middle, the next inning where I accidently see the score like that.

A that destroys the experience you so they they have sort of like developed expertise. And in this thing that is initially quite specific, they are use case. But then we'll see in the future, you know as as as IT becomes more important to to be able to stream live events uh, in sort of this real time way crossed device over the internet. That's a huge asset.

absolutely. And and they really write the wave not but as you point out, not only of video growing on the internet over the next ten years um but also of of mobile and and devices majorly baseballs APP gets featured by apple and basically every major developed announcement. So when they announced the APP store for the iphone major baseballs, one of the first partners and first apps featured on stage with Steve jobs during the announcement, a feature during the launch, on stage during the launch the ipad, on stage during the launch of the apple watch. Um they really become one of the best uh one of the best you know technology teams in the business in terms of bringing video to devices.

whatever they are. Yeah boy and i'll say I do. So far I ve just been incredibly praise worthy and um it's it's good to be a little little bit more baLanced. I totally remember sometimes call IT a eight dish years ago where I was like tuning into a game on the the streaming service. And like I did have some weird hick up.

And like I saw, I think to actually the use case was I was watching like an hour delayed or something, and then IT IT flash forward to the the the real time. And then I saw the score. And then I think that actually I seem to remember that bug being pretty widespread because I remember IT, it's sort of blowing up on on twitter as a big problem. But like they've totally had this hick up on the way where they have had to learn how to be really good at this, this sort of ensuring a consistent experience, critical live viewing.

Good point. IT is definitely not happen overnight, but the business you keeps growing year over year. They eventually do raise Prices from eighty dollars a year for M B D, T V. They raised that every time but the subscriber base keeps growing to the point where in an interview in twenty twelve, boman is quoted as saying that ban makes about six hundred and twenty million in annual revenue um which is really meaningful for .

the league yeah so think about were promised to be capital ized with one hundred and twenty million interesting step that they only ended up taking a uh seventy seven million from from the teams after the ticket master deal and then that eight million dollars in revenue from from hundred thousand subscribers in the first season and so you know they they really they did really well by the the teams s the league yep.

And along the way, as as we've been saying, they build all this expertise in in streaming video and particularly live video. And so back in twenty ten, they make kind of the first move uh that starts setting them down another path um which is not just streaming baseball and majority baseball but they do a deal with the S P N and they become the technology provider that powers E S P N three, which is E S P S new site that they launch them that covers all of their internet streaming. So you still have to be an E S P N subscriber via your cable service.

But it's now bam and majorly baseball in the background that's powering all sports that E, S, P, N is, is streaming online. And so they do that for a couple years just as the technology back and provider. And then in twenty fourteen, a bunch of really interesting things happen.

Things happens. So the one that's the year that amazon buys witch, as we've talked about, which obviously is another a form of sports in e sports and live video streaming on the internet. But bam makes a pretty big move.

So they announced a partnership with W W E, the worldwide reselling. I think what this stands for now, it's it's not the world by restating federation. It's restful entertainment like .

it's one of my favorite uv brands ever because the W W F the worldwide d life federation has a trademark and then the W W E had to get off. I think so also W W is still like world wrestling entertainment like IT needs uh IT needs a organization or like like you even just said, the world rest ocurred entertainment entertainment .

is not a known right. Anyway, the point is this is a big deal because for the first time now you have multiple sports um multiple sports leagues putting up putting their content powered by the same back and under the internet. And this is when cable companies and media companies are really starting to worry for for the first time.

It's been going on for years. But about cord cutting and the only thing that's holding the cable bundle together at this point really is live sports. And so this is the first, first crack you can start to see in the theme of of the live sports cable bundle package that that I could actually be coming online yet.

And then in twenty and fifteen, early the next year, bam, can I continues that trend? And they do a deal with with golf, with the P. G.

A. tour. And they announced that they're bringing golf online too. And so the the momentum is is kind of continuing.

And then and then later in two thousand and fifteen, and this might have been, if you've heard of bam, majorly baseball advanced dia before. This might have been where you've heard of IT. If you're not a baseball fan, they do a major partnership with H B O. And H B O decided to bring their own sort of cord cutting service online. For the first time, you had been able to watch H B O shows on the internet again, only if you were a cable subscriber, they do their first.

And that was H B O go.

That was H B O go. They announce H B O now, which is you're able to subscribe as a non cable subscriber directly. H, B O. And it's and it's bam in the background that is powering all of that.

Yeah and fans of game of thrones who who had H B O now will remember that there were some some big issues with H B O building out their own um the role in house streaming and they actually drought like there was an episode of game thrones where there was too many concurrent viewers and you basically just couple couldn't watch and people were furies and twitters blowing up and people had to wait till the next morning to watch IT and yai iida and you know they pop their head up and looked around and said we're not working to take a chance on this for true over the top product and and outsourced to to M L B A M.

Yep, that's what advanced media has been gotten really good at over the past decade. So that was in April twenty fifteen. And then in later in twenty fifteen, the first really big other big for sports league um does another deal with bamb.

This is the N H L. And so the N H L announced that they're going to contract with beam to power all of their streaming. But what's interesting here and this is this is where really the the cable industry really starts to get nervous, is is not just powering the back end, but they actually do a right deal.

So and the N. H. L. Takes a rumor to be about seven to ten percent equity stake actually in bamb, in the majority baseball advances media. And in return, bam promises to to pay them a certain amount of money each year and then they get to monetize all of the contents. So the subscriptions that people pay to submit to N H that's bAmber that's monodist ing that just like A E S P N that gets the cable subscription fees and all the advertising that they run on top of IT. This is really a watershed moment where bam starts to look like a cable problem, like a next generation cable provider itself.

Yeah, you can totally see why this. This makes me nervous because if if you're in asp or any sort of rights, acquire your whole business model is particular look and saying, okay, well, if we if we buy these rights, what can we get for them? Uh you know in terms of uh of the advertisements were going to show viewers and the subscription, whatever a vehicle you want to use to monitor size that like, okay, i'm going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars up front for these rights for x years.

I really hope we can architect of business that's going to generate more than that. And I think that on its own feels kind of like a tenuous business model. But as that moves closer and closer to the source of the actual rights holder, um you can see that that that totally looks like it's going to distance immediate at you as as someone whose business IT is to take on the risk of buying those rights and monitise IT if those organizations themselves are getting Better and Better at monitise ing their own you unique I P rather than potentially licensing IT out to to you to figure .

out yeah this is disruption of middle man. This is the internet work here are yes. And uh, so when when this happens, the verge actually is the verge does a really great long piece that will willingly to in the show notes covering kind of the history of bam, that we've taken a lot of this history from and and they they say this is a quote from them.

The new approach moves being beyond just being a White label service provider, putting them in position to become an E S P N of the internet age, competing against the legs of netflix, who lew and amazon where they have the one thing that those services lack live sports um and and boone himself is actually quoted as saying we knew we wanted a bomb tech over the long term to be not just a vender but also a write holder. Exactly what you're going bad. And that also being a buyer of rates was the best business model.

So getting these rates has obviously been important. So this is something that they were working on kind of for many years. And this is the vision of of this next generation. Like what is the E S P N of the internet? Look total and and bag is so well positioned totally .

in in that that rob man ford um podcast I mentioned earlier, rob rob man ford is the commissioner of majority baseball. He mentioned that there is kind of a they look at this in three different ways. One is the the obvious way that, hey, baseball is gonna be broadcast right now is broadcasting cable bundles as that it's you skinnier and skinner and live sports provides more of the value. This is at a head against that, right? It's just a simple we need to have a little bit option value for the future on how we our content gets dirigo, ted. And this is kind of our own way to to do that instead of outsourcing IT too is um hey, this is actually uh a really great technology company that happened to be invented inside majority baseball um that could be a services organization for other um other content plays, which is what we saw with the P G A with W W E and potentially more to come and know what we saw with with na H L is the sort of third business model of actually being that rights holder and monetizing other people's rights. And that you could imagine a scenario this this is get into themes later but like what if baseball declines in popularity but majority baseball on its own or or B A M is is a even more valuable organization because they own the rights to many other forms of entertainment and they own the pipes to distribute that is kind of a crazy future.

is kind of a crazy future. Um but it's also one that and this is the next thing that kind of happens in in the history in fact here a one that doesn't make a lot of sense like IT doesn't make sense for for the collective thirty teams of majority baseball to own basically the future of internet television totally and that .

hammer rings them right because they can't really issue stock to employees. They can't and they don't control their .

own business and become a tech company at this point. And so they're competing with engineers and executives with you know facebook and amazon and flix, you know all of whom are issuing stock compensation um but bam bam can do that so they realized they they need to fix this. And so immediately after the announcement of the N H L deal, major baseball announces that they're spinning advanced media out into its own separate company called bm tech and that they're going to start talking to investors to to buy a stake in the company and finance IT and they'll retain a large quality stake. Major baseball will but I will finally become its own independent company and so they work on that deal takes a whole year. Um and then finally, in August of twenty sixteen, it's announced that they have found that that partner, that investor that's going to going to help spin the company out and IT is surprise, surprise disney, which of course on the S P N and E S P N, which for to many years at this point has been the largest part of disney .

yeah almost dangerously so in this era too yep .

and and so disney announced this is August for twenty sixteen. They're going to acquire a one third, taken the company for a billion dollars. So they're valuing b tec.

Three billion dollars um and then they also have the option to acquire a majority stake in the future. And this is just classic disney. The similar thing happened with the S P N.

The disney doesn't own one hundred percent of E S P N. They own eighty percent of S, P, N. And actually the host corporation owns a minority .

stake and they do currently.

Yep, I hope I thought yes.

P, N was wholly owned.

Note not holly on. So disney is very happy to do deals like this. And this one of the reasons, i'm sure, why they end up we sort of winning, uh, winning the investment here and becoming the partner, they're happy. Majority baseball, as we are talking about this is such a valuable asset they am sure want to retain their equity stake. And disney says as long as we have a path to controlling this um yeah we're happy to have minority shareholders yep and boy.

disney gets great option value here too. I mean that they just get to see how I don't know every source i've read says over the next few years to decide if they want to buy another third to give them A A majority share of the company. But um yes is not public .

exactly what the deal is. But IT has been announced they have an option to acquire a quote majority stake yeah in bam tech yeah and I think .

could have have been anyone else like we're gonna get into that in another section. But like disney is just the the absolute perfect partner for this.

right? To bam and to baseball, yes, because they have a history of and is kind of what we saw with with lucas film, right? You know IT was really important to George lucas who the buyer of lucas film was gonna be um and for majorly baseball, even though they have a different set of motivations, you know there are they are are very motivated to want to retain an equity stake over time and and disney can say, yeah, we've done that many times.

We're happy to do that uh and and so concurrently with the announcement that disney is going to invest and have this path towards control ownership of bam, they also announced that they're going to start working on a direct to consumer E S P N subscription service powered again by bam tech. Um but this is huge. This is going to be the first time E S P N H, the first time the E S P N is gonna available directly to consumers outside of a cable bundle.

And it's really, it's been at this point years, that S, P, N is the only reason so many people continue to subscribe the cable. So this is disney saying, okay, we we now is finally the time. We're going to move past linear television.

yes. So David, I saw that too. But there's this weird like thing. They also follow that with that sounds like it's hamstringing the deal and it's gotta to just like is the concern of, of the cable .

companies. So they're not to include any current E S P N content. But you know the door is open as and i'm sure the other reason for that is that all these right deals have already been negotiated for the next several years, and I locked up. But as those right deals come up, you can bet for sure that disney going to be moving large portions of their content into their direct consumer service.

Yeah and actually this we keep having this like very serenity is timing with episodes. We definitely didn't know anything about the E S. P N layoff that we're coming. Um but you know this last week there there are very large sky layoff s inside of E S P N uh particularly around a lot of a lot of baseball tonight's s programing. And a one one really interesting thing that bent tomson pointed out in tratement ory this week is that the internet and the availability of of instant replay all the time has really taken away a lot of the initial value prop of sports are I mean, you'd have to wait to go see highlights on sports center. Um you know the next morning after the sporting event occurred and that's really just not necessary now I mean, if if I free can confine well yesterday fines, I can find new tweet with ebel ded videos or gifts of that insane diving save seconds after that IT happens yeah I mean.

remember growing up when, like you are staying up till ten or eleven P M, to either for sports center to come on watch .

what the frantic editors had put together in a couple of hours since the game yeah yeah. So at the point of driving at here, is that like maybe IT doesn't matter that much that the E S P. S. Current content is not going to be repurpose for this direct over the top service and that is much more like who cares because there their current content isn't .

what's gonna matter in five years yeah and don't forget you know bam by now is not just no direct T, V style streaming is all of the they're on every device with all different types of experiences from highlights to stats, overlays and data through to full video.

yep. And I want to make two points here that um I think I just want to make sure before we move on, one as I don't know if we disclose the enterprise value of bam tech at spinout when disney bought a third of IT was three point five billion dollars. So I think about that initially capitalized with was seventy seven million inside of majority baseball um you know spun out at a value of three and a half billion dollars.

And the other thing that I want to clarify is, uh, we keep talking about this over the top service. A lot of listeners are probably familiar, but that basically refers to the idea that that um number one, I think ott is like the stupid dest name of all time. But every everyone talking about the move to ott service.

this this is like my director and my doctor. That is not a wave. As long as you know you have a, you have A A title for IT that that your average person .

doesn't understand actly exactly. But basically, he refers the idea that everyone has a set top box, and that set top box is controlled by their cable company and that cable company sells them in cable bundle. And then that cable bundle consists of a whole bunch of a fillip or carriage fees that that are charged to the cable company by the channels, basically. And what over the top does is basically saying, we don't need your set top box were going over the top.

going direct sumer. This is, this is serious. This is the business model innovation I was talking about in the clippers on our last show.

Okay, so aug. Twenty sixteen, the spin off happens. Disney is the partner a very shortly there after in november of twenty sixteen, bam announced that they're expanding beyond the U. S. And they're coming to europe.

They're partnering ing with discovery communications, the the completed ones, the discovery channel in many other a many other forms of content to buy the rates to stream the olympic games in europe. So big announcement, they're going global. And then shortly thereafter in december, and this is this is really interesting. Going back to twitch, they do a direct right deal with riot games, the owners and publishers of league legends for bam. To have the rights to stream all official league of legends competitions through twenty twenty three?

yes. And that is a big, big deal. That is a guaranteed fifty million dollar per year deal that bam tech is going to pay riot.

And in the export space right now, we're all wondering what does this mean? Because right now you go and you can watch a championship series game with millions of other people for free. Um that ad supported on either twitch or or youtube. And there is this company bam tech that's paying fifty lion dollars to ride IT per year and so far, nothing like they have these rights. But we haven't seen anything with that.

And we're a we're really going to see something, I would assume, in the next six months um where there is a direct offering that, that is built by batek, that is the maybe the one and only way to go and watch these league of legends matches. And I think we we will probably get into the east ports and future episodes. But um that a disney slash bam tech is making these like big bets throughout their history on things that are before their time. And that's shown here yet again with A A A big purchase of these rights. In fact, some of the biggest dollars that are moving around in the entire export space probably years before most people have any idea that that's even a thing.

Yeah and this is something for for bam, to be able to start to do this. They really need a partner. Know this is another reason why majority baseball and he couldn't finance, but with disney and the you know the the baLance y the disney brings to this, they can really start to be a player in this this right space.

So the last thing that happens just a couple months ago, in february twenty seventeen, bowen, after seventeen year run as a of bam, steps back from from data day Operations of C. E. O. And they hire a man, a Michael paul, to be the new CEO. And this is really interesting.

Paul had been the V P of video at amazon and was the person responsible for the development of prime video with amazon's nett less competition and of course was super involved with the amazon's position of twitch um and before amazon he'd been A T V exact at tony and fox and time Warner but this is really interesting when you think about the rest of disney streaming catalogue. A netflix is obviously a big partner of the earth as as apple and and others but you picks are lucas film, marvel, all the disney videos and now have the guy coming from amazon who built their netflix competitor. You can start to see how bam and disney together could really be the full service are a very compelling full service video provider to consumers over the top of the year.

Absolutely, absolutely.

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we move on the category.

Yeah, that couldn't have been the more perfect segway because originally, as I started to doing this research, I was thinking, oh, a technology acquisition or or you know not quite an acquisition but a technology investment because is you know the best technology that provides these services to anyone that that wants to do.

There's they're back in streaming, but really, I mean, theyve been they've been spending and they have been kind of taking over uh, a much more significant part of uh uh of a business here where they're actually the ride holder and they're actually distributing this content on their own. So I mean, I think they're really their own business line here at this point that, that disney so far has invested in. And we will see what they continue to do with IT.

Yeah I told agree business line. And right now, it's sort of a admire ing the E S P N business line for for disney and and their heads against the decline of the cable model to be the E S P N of the internet age. But as we talked about, when you think about all the content that disney has, there's really potential here to be business model disruption for the whole company and how they their relationship to consumers of their content. Right now, all disney content is mediated through through a movie theatre or through through cable or through netflix or some other distributor. This is really a way for disney for the first time for their content to start to have a direct relationship with customers.

yep. And the magic of these internet business models is shorting value chains where when we start to say, oh, it's sort of the disney of the iron, so the E S P N of the internet, well, it's the E S P N and the cable company, right? Because of previous visions.

Ly, you need so many more steps because distribution is hard, like offline distribution is hard. And so these cable companies have an incredible moat around them against other cable companies, but not against loan disruption from internet pay services, where you, in that old world, the model is content. And then they sell that to a rights holder.

And then the rights holder gets a carriage fee from selling that into a distributing IT through a cable company and then IT goes to consumer. But you really combine those middleman here with the internet and uh and have the ability to go much more direct. And that happens in every business.

yep. And it's so ironic here. This is, I believe, over ten years ago at this point, comcast actually once made a hostile takeover of four disney and tried to buy disney. Fate is a, fate is a cruel mistress here and it's is me is making the play not you not buy comcast, but just obsolete .

them yep and it's it's the smiling curve, right? I think I feel like half of my life is informed by the time right now. But that piece was so great about about self driving cars and making the reference that uh way upstream you have um the the kind of component makers or in our case the content producers.

Way downstream you have the actual um whoever goes direct to the consumer and everyone in the middle of the value gets diminished over time. So if if you're a netflix and you're effectively all you have is distribution, well, like the internet changes that, right? The internet makes IT that you become much less valuable. And if you're the content producer, disney, you've dramatically grown your value. And if you're in the middle, the comcast, you've ramages ally listened IT.

Yep, yep. And in netflix, of course, gets this. And this is why they and amazon to were investing so much in producing their own content.

But you know, he'll be interesting now that that disney, the eight hundred pounds gorilla, has really also stepped in as a direct competitor in this space. Yeah, okay. So what would you have otherwise?

Yeah, so I really like, uh, i'll just kick IT off with this one, except that I grab b from that verge article I thought was really great. Bam has been floating with the idea of spin off since two thousand and five when I made the round with investors and bankers. But as revenue at the time was under two hundred and fifty million and streaming video was far from mainstream, a decade later, baas on paced or nine hundred million dollars, and it's been turning a steady profit. And so it's really interesting to think about M L B.

For the longest time, you know, over a decade now has known that this thing probably different enough from what we do and serves us as one customer, but is really a horse zonal that could serve a lot of customers or in fact, be a write holder itself that we got to get this thing out here. But it's sort of took until now for them to find the right partner and make IT a big enough business on its own to to make that happen. And I I want to get your thoughts on that. You know why can they do any sooner?

Yeah I think I think the opportunity here is so much larger than just being the streaming service for majority baseball, but that you actually could build the the television network of for the .

internet yeah yeah absolutely.

So we yeah terms of you know who else do you think could have been could have been the investor here for the spin off? I know we talked about why disney wasn't many ways a perfect fit. Is there anybody .

else maybe netflix, but like they have so much duplication with netflix, like when you think about the the people that are really good at this in the world, this sort of video content distribution right now, it's bam tech h and they historically have been more back. And because they sort of they saw a White label, their front end um where as netflix really aggregates all users into one front end.

But h there there are differences between them, but the people there are really good at this streaming technology and and have uh all the right agreements and an infrastructure in place across all the different you know cdn and everything necessarily distribute this content. R bamb tech, netflix, amazon yeah. Can you think of any others?

Maybe horizon well, to h VISA is part of amazon.

And I mean, horizon sort of like one layer deeper in the stack when you actually just start to go look at the tecolote. Um but they they actually own the the pipes where this gets distributed so you can see that being an interesting partner.

Yeah I mean google and youtube, but I you know the only the one that comes to mind for me and i'm sure they must have looked really hard at IT and and and quite honestly, i'm surprised they didn't didn't really try to make a run and how bid is because I think disney probably got a pretty good deal. Valuation wise here are relative to the potential is amazon uh and especially with Michael pol coming over to be the C E O.

I mean, clearly he had been thinking about this. But if you look at amazon and and then they were so pression in the acquisition of twitch and maybe the the path that they're taking is that they want to broad now twitch and compete directly here too. But again, the rights are so important for physical sports. I'm very surprised that amazon didn't try .

to make a harder run and back here yeah and maybe I mean, it's it's not a crazy uh, enterprise value for the spin out, right? If they're generating nine hundred million in revenue to have sort of a three and a half four x multiple on that.

I mean, that's really very reasonable related to other tech company valuations. And I guess the only thing I can think of is that you know historically, amazon is pretty cheap when IT comes to ema, and so maybe they just weren't willing to go higher. But um but I have to imagine give given the huge investment that amazon is made in video over the last few years and you bazas talks about IT potentially being, he always talks about how is looking for the looking for the fourth pillar for amazon that's gonna the next big business unit and and the video could be that again, i'm very surprised that they let this get acquired by somebody that can can threaten them as .

much as disney yeah and and we're sort of going we're bridging here elitist spas sped and say that we're into tech themes.

tech themes per usual .

yeah yeah. I I I think one thing that I ve been thinking about is did M L B screw up in giving disney the option to buy the whole thing at some point, or at least buy a majority share? Because you look at the growth of this business and you look at the potential ahead in the very clear wave that they're surfing on in in going over the top and actually starting to own a lot of these rights and at the very least, do a lot of the distribution for the the important content out there.

Um for four life sport specifically like I if I usually baseball like I find visually baseball shareholders and this is prime where the nuance comes in. I would love to own that for the next twenty years. And maybe this is all sort of the art fact of the fact that maybe baseball is not a publicly treated company.

I I think I you saying this in pressure, i'm right. That's IT is another league is actually owned by all of the owners of the day. And so maybe you know you don't have the same sort of investor pressure because a lot of these owners of baseball teams aren't really in the business of owning a an asset that needs to appreciate over the next twenty years and in a very high growth tech company way like that's just not the business there in. And if they we're going to do that, they are going to invest elsewhere other than their no one thirty ownership in a league.

Yeah as we talked about IT before, there was no way that ban was gonna able to realized its full potential. You know, being fully owned by by majority baseball here.

right? But could they have found a partner or like they they warn at risk of losing the majority .

of this business? yeah. But you know, again, and this, I think probably comes down to we weren't probe the negotiations, why I have to imagine that disney ended up being the perfect partner and that they're very willing to let majority baseball retain A A minority otherness state in the future, which even though know it's not a majority otherness steak but um but they're gona realize be able to participate in the economic benefits here without having to control IT. And again, like we talked about, the control structure was definitely hampering hampering ing bam o from really it's .

potential right. I also wonder too like what is maybe there just will be a fantastic return. Let let's say this is takes their option in two years and it's doubled by then or maybe three years and doubled by.

I mean, if it's if it's a seven billion dollar, you seven billion dollar company and this means buying another, maybe ml s like, awesome. Like great. We actually, what do do with that money pay strip tion?

Well, and I can think about, you know who who is M V I? Their bunratty know people who who own baseball, right? What they are not, you know maybe some of the martek investors, but you know certainly not. They're not live in this and thinking IT everyday .

like we are here on quiet and it's much the money, the MBA I am this is be actually i'm a dance forward to follow up and then come back to tech themes here. But um my follow up is going to be boy to I wish I had listen to that bill Simons interview with Steve ballmer last episode. And the good news is i'm not like radially changing any.

My thinking I think IT reinforces a lot of the same points and but he was just super enjoyable to listen to bombers incredibly candid and I think that um and IT bills obviously an amazing interviewer but you really get a sense of who the owners are in different leagues like in in um bomber says talks about the nfl. But I think the M L B is the same way. It's a lot of older money from sort of varying industries that.

Families may have on the team things like things like that. And when you look at at the N B, A, it's like a bunch of hedge fund managers, investment bankers, tech billion airs and like there sort of looking at these businesses and in A A very different way. And I really think that you know if owning a majority share of the amtech as IT grows as a tech company through your one thirty eth ownership of majority ly baseball, by the nature of you owning a team, it's just not the thing they're optimizing for like yeah it's it's a lot of old money. They there are done by any means but it's just not a it's not why .

they on the team.

Totally agree um but then coming back, I have this this this other question that baseball so the M L B is growing year over year IT itself regret, even after the the bm text spin out, is a great growing business. And i'm a little bit i'm a little bit different here because IT seems like of all the major sports, baseball seems to be declining. And so you with baseball, the M, L B posting record earnings and and teams getting more more valuable.

In fact, the average um uh majorly baseball team is more valuable than the average N B A team like the sport itself doesn't seem to be growing. So i'm a little bit maybe listeners can help us out with this in the slack and we can talk about in this feedback in the next next episode. But i'm trying to figure out why I feel like baseball is less prevalent my generation, that IT wasn't my parents generation. And yet the teams continue to appreciate in value and and are even more valuable than other sports leagues.

say. And without being an an expert on this by any means, you know, my hypos would be that there really is a different here between the game on the field and innovation and interest growing or or winning there and a business model innovation.

And this is where we talked about this on the clippers episode in the MBA has their own streaming um tech with with league pass that maybe maybe they will you know think about outsourcing the bam tech or selling the rates to bam tech in the future. But he is this business model innovation and developing again, collapsing the middle, taking an internet based business model approach and and developing a direct relationship with your customer, direct paid subscription relationship with your customer. That's probably accounting for a lot of .

the increase in value here. Yeah, I agree. Do you think that disney is going to take their option in the next couple years and and buy another third?

I think I don't see how they don't, right. I mean, I guess this is bleeding into grading a little bit, but working on through this episode, both in our cushions and the research kind of this aha moment, like we talked about when we were introducing the episode, that what we're talking about here is the future of television. We're not talking about just sports. And that is so core to everything that disney is, I mean their cable networks division and which is of which E S P N is the crown jewel, has been the vast majority of the profits the evita, and in accounts for the vast majority of the market cap of the entire world disney company for for the past twenty years.

Yeah so then i'll pose this to so if bam so you say it's all it's all about television. Television is a uh a bundle of life and prerecorded content. So let's say that the cable bundles in x number of years don't exist or are not important for disney bam tech.

Is there the replacement for live rather than selling into the bundle and taking a carriage? Feel like disney is able to put all their live content directly through bamb tech right now. Other, you know, prerecorded content is locked up in deals with netflix and others. And I think those go through two thousand twenty twenty yeah. Will disney renew those agreements with those other content aggregators and and keep all of their non live content going out through those channels? Or are they going to try and and build a directive consumer offering through bam tech, where they're actually portal and they're aggregating live or bungling live and non live together in a way that that consumers want going direct the the continue .

this is this is super interesting and and we are alerting to this at the end of history and facts. But I think this is the question rate. My mind is coming back to superior consumer experiences here. And I wonder if there is some danger in the path that disney is taking here from a consumer perspective that are they just recreating the cable bundle online and doing IT with Better economics for themselves.

But what consumers hate about cable, right, is you get all the you have to paper all the stuff you don't want is a much Better experience really in the current world that we live in for consumers where you can choose. You know, here, if I care about baseball, i'll subscribe the baseball. I care about basketball, subscribe the weak past.

Know, I care about movies. All subscribed netflix and TV shows. Are we gonna see a rebundling ling here that actually would be negative for consumers.

like, it's like that jim bark, to quote, right? There are two ways make money in business. You can unbundle or you can bundle.

And I mean, I really think like if if your entire business strategy is read what consumers will want in the next five to ten years and unbundle or bundle appropriately, like if you can execute on that, you're going to do well. And right now, what consumers want is unbundled ling. But big open question to win. All of the content is too desperately scattered around everywhere.

And we have you know like remember like ten years ago when every network had their live TV or their like like abc had lost available to watch on abc 点 com and some other company know N B C had the office available N B C 点 com and like IT took hou and then netflix and like these rebundling ling all this content back together in a way that you want to view IT。 Maybe right now what we want is unbundled ling and to be able to nicely um get content directly from the source. But at some point we're going to have fatigue of that and to be .

and who got how many subscriptions are you gonna have? Do you really want to pay netflix and ml b and leave pass and and and or could a really compelling, you know, don't know, twenty dollars a month, thirty dollars a month, forty dollars a month package from disney that includes all of that? That could be very compelling as well?

Yeah, that looks great.

The thing let's do before we do one quick tech I I wanted attack on, we ve talked about this so many times, another shows. But I just think this is another really good example of a kind of lesson for me in terms of building companies and and for entrepreneurs. They am started by solving a real problem.

They didn't start out by trying to invent the future of television. They started out with like the teams needed websites. And they solve that problem poorly at first and then Better. And then the problem was, you know a lot of fans in japan wanted to see E G O. And they solve that that problem poorly at first and then Better.

Um you know and then the problem was, well, there a whole bunch of other you know folks on the that that folks that have live content that want a streameth on the internet. And well, bm had a good solution to that problem. And then IT was, you know consumers wanted a new way, a new relationship, two sports and wanted to find, have the final reason to cut the cord, and they have solved that problem. He is just a great example of stair stepping your way up into a enormous company by by solving real problems. Can one at a time .

and the the counterfactual to that, or more just the the counter ethereal to that is, yes, it's a really great way if you want to become a platform to solve one problem first and then figure out what under there you can serve other people by doing.

But boy, you have to make sure you don't get into a vertical or reverse horizontal mess there, and then be both the services provider and care about your own core business that utilizes the services provider. And this is like, this is, I don't think we anticipated this being a theme we started acquire. But boy has IT sure become one especially hot on the heels.

The oculus episode, interestingly enough, like IT, doesn't really seem to be an issue in this case, like major baseball isn't trying to hamstring bamb tech by not allowing bam tech to serve major, major ee baseballs petitsou. And until now, IT made entire IT made tons of sense for for bamb act to prioritize or for bamb prioritize the needs of female because because that was an only customer. And so with this spin out, I mean, it's really like A A great way to solve for that problem.

And I hadn't thought about IT. You've been right to be asking this question and bringing IT up throughout the episode. I think this might be why the the deal took a year to get done.

They announced that they're gonna end IT out in August. The disc deal doesn't happen until August of twenty sixteen. Man, that must have been such an negotiating process to rango all thirty owners. And I get everybody's interesting here and i'm sure not everybody band is going to the rational, you know thought ful approach that you just know laid out about why this should be a horizontal play out of vertical play.

Yeah well, IT seems like they've got the incentive lined up right now, especially if disc in pretty shorter hereby ys the rest of IT and then really a non issue.

Yeah alright. So we greet IT. yeah. So .

listener, is David never having a debate before they show over a over I message of whether we were going to grade what, whether this episode was going to greeting to spin out or creating disney's minority investment with the option to buy a majority shirt later. And I was kind of pushing for like, well, you know, I think the thing is fairly well understood as the spin out and entirely speculative to talk about the future purchase. But like, the spin out is so clearly like I am David arara like, uh, no .

brainer.

A great decision would have hamstrung that thing by keeping in a house and it's just like value destruction to not been the thing out. So we've decided as we're gone, agreed IT. Um from from the disney perspective, which I actually David, I want to hear your thoughts first on that OK.

i'll go first. I I think this is an incredible acquisition by disney. You know we are somewhat hamstrung in in greeting IT um uh as early as we would like given that we don't know exactly how much revenue. Is coming along with bam tech first is staying with majority baseball.

But let's to say for for argument six, sort of the latest number we have is is kind of nine hundred million in revenue and and of course, they have to pay a lot for right uh, to go along without revenue. But still they are essentially paying what is for three and half billion dollar enterprise value you call IT four times just under four times revenue for this. Think about that relative to you know the multiples that we typically see in the technology space that's very low. And then think about that relative to the massive opportunity that the disney has here to really have a have a credible shot at building the future of long form in a video customer relationships on the internet. This feels like a great purchase to me.

And then I also wanted to think about this through if you go back to some of our earlier episodes on disney, pixar and luis film and marvel, we talk a lot about the disney fly wheel and and the playbook that the world disney so many years ago laid out that um really was the the four father of of the bazas fly wheel and how disney is gna be able to take all of their all of their other activities and pieces of of content that they have through out the rest of the company and start to push IT through this direct customer relationship that they've now just acquired for the first time really in company history. Um and I think the potential is enormous here. So so both easy .

to direct relationship like bam tech doesn't have any audience.

Bam tech doesn't have any audience, but they're managing the subscription for relationship with the consumers. So consumers are paying them both for M, L, B, D, T, V, and H, L, and anything they do in the future. Now, right?

Oh, yes, I see. But on a on, in a silent basis, yeah yes like they they don't necessarily have some consumer I ball porno where disney can pleg their content and get distribution.

No, A B tech itself isn't a consumer portal, but through IT isn't IT majorly baseball and the N H L. And now disney can Operate a direct consumer relationship where consumers are paying them subscription for the content that that in the past, disney had immediate everything through you, whether that was comcast or movie s or apple or amazon or whom ever. Now there's finally a vehicle that consumers can can you know, over the internet, just pay pay disney directly.

Yep, and I think it's a brilliant hedged by disney. I mean, I think i'm assuming you're driving .

in an either oh yeah ah said everything is self the actual grade ah this this is uh that I predict will go down as one of the most important, most transformative acquisitions in in disney history, of which we have recovered several that they've done.

And it's only in process we'll have to revisit this .

when they would buy the rest of IT.

yes. Yeah, I think I I agree with you. I also giving in A A, and I think the biggest thing is the mastery of positioning. To me, it's sort of a hedge like it's a hedge that, oh, what if cable bundles decline but like cable buttles aren't going to decline. They already know that they don't currently own their highest value content and that will come in the future and that will come through a lot of the rights that, that bam tech already owns and that this is a bet on whatever their future content and this this distribution mechanism to go direct consumers is.

yep. And one last thing I do, and it's kind of been a while here in a quiet since we've talked about the people's pect of acquisitions, which going back to our early shows, we focus so much on that and so many of our guests talk about all you bam. Tech as an organization has this history of Operating within a you know not as a start up as a as a part of a much larger can glam, which is now will continue to as part of disney. So I wonder if you know a lot of times you see startups get acquired by a large company and then you know the mojo gets lost and you equity conversation isn't as much as he wants was in this case there's gonna more equity compensation and probably a more innovative culture that bm tackle be joining vers versus baseball. Um so I wonder I wonder if from a people standpoint, the company is also well position to succeed here.

Yeah I think that's right.

okay. Should we move on to follow up?

Yeah, let's do IT. So I mentioned earlier, i'll just call IT out one more time if you like the last episode or you want to hear more or you just want to hear from a very honest and clear thinker about the the current state of the N B. A. And how he Operates his basketball team. Go listen a Steve ballmer on the bills .

siman show uh yeah, it's a great episode and yes, here say unfortunate he doesn't do a doesn't do a uh you know head coaches and coaches, head coaches, the classic, the classic boma enthusiasm is is on display is always yeah fun to real quick ones. For me, a whole lot has happened in the last couple weeks.

We won't analyze any of these, but just to list out and and love to jump in the slack and chat on with folks, uh, some of this has really been talked about in the slack. Apparently, a lot of publishers are now abandoning against an articles, uh for a whole bunch of reasons. Uh, two, microsoft is killing one day list.

Very, very sadly. That is my list. APP, I love IT and i'm bombed that it's it's going away. Uh, three, instagram is on fire. H growth is just continues to accelerate. They passed announced that they passed seven hundred million M A use um this past week, which is you there they're starting arrival. You know the same sizes as the parent company is facebook.

An instagram is just crushing IT at being snaps at.

Nobody does snow jab Better than instagram uh next um the echo look so amazon announced and actually big shout out to our good friends I playing developing the echo look. So now you can not only talk to alexa, but alexa can watch you in your home. And I don't know, I can't decide if creep pieter or awesome.

probably both as with everything I mean that as and you know as I record this episode um in my apartment capital hill in seattle, like my Alice listening to the entire thing. So um listeners if if you're at amazon and um you you have the encryption keys, then you get a first .

look at this episode first at the epo.

say down you know are .

just joking. But IT is one of those things like that. I think a lot of people will think this seems creepy right now, but I Better will be surprised how quickly IT becomes as Normal.

Yeah, next two more real quick ones. One, h cloud era pressed their IPO yesterday at fifteen dollars a share enterprizing value market cap of of about just under two billion, which is sort of flat from there. There are actually a half of their last private race, but the last private race was more of a secondary that that so big enterprise IPO happening. And which six of .

this year, the march goes on.

yeah, the march he goes on, the polo, the IPO window is open. And then finally follow up on our uber D D episode. Obviously, they're been lots of uber news over the past couple weeks, but D, D yesterday raised five point five billion dollars in the largest private company fundraising round ever, b, five point five billion dollars in one fund raising round.

If you know if you are on team mover and you thought that we talked about this on the show with with brad stone, but if you thought that a doing the quote, quote merger with D, D, meant that the war was over, you know and you don't know anything to worry about, like guess again, the dd giant is. And this five point five billion dollars specifically was raised to expand IT internationally. Dd is is coming and gunning to be a competition to uber and everyone else in this space. So watch, watch what happens in the future.

Yeah, car bets.

car bets. Okay, real quick. I have a liquid carve out that will take many hours to read. Uh and still not done, but the latest way but why was months in the making and is just fascinating all all about the new elan mass company neural link that we but I refers to as the quote, wired hat I won't even get into IT here, but it's very worth thing and very thought provoking.

I feel like elan companies at this point are like the blockbusters .

hit of the summer like this. It's all， it's all coming full circle here. IT is. And well.

you chose one that is uh largely about the future of humanity and incredibly important. Mine is a quite trit but fun. So the new york times Operates a twitter account called the N Y T fourth down bot.

N Y T fourty h down bot and IT basically crunches a whole bunch of of numbers. And i'm sure i'm really looked into the at these days, these days, I just assume something has a data scientist doing machine learning behind IT. And that that is just like oh ah everything that involves the data is surely machine learning .

now but basically .

it's really just a man behind certain yeah somebody applying a twenty year old mathematics um the statistics to pop this out but basically IT tweet for every nfl game what decision they would make on fourth down and IT is is awesome because there's a non data driven basically there's a trop going around that nfl owners play IT safe and punk because that's the accepted wisdom and they don't want to a risk IT and go for fourth more often than is generally accepted go go forward fourth down rather than punting or going for a fuel goal um more often than is commonly accepted because they will if they fail face face the rath of of fans and oh which .

the last after right and in the slight right but you know if if .

you quit money ball and if you really look at all the data that you possible. We can um coaches should go for and forth much more often than they do and so this a this is a live uh actually working boat that analyzes every nfl game and and every decision on fourth down. So I followed IT.

It's a fun. And I saw and found out about IT you might have do in the flag. So thank you, everyone, for posting about IT.

Yeah yeah. We want to think our long time friend of the show, venta, the leading trust management platform, venta, of course, automates your security reviews and compliance efforts. So frameworks like soc two I saw twenty seven o one gdpr and hip compliance and modeling ing vento takes care of these otherwise incredibly time and resource draining efforts for your organization and makes them fast and simple.

Yeah, vana is the perfect example of the quote that we talk about all the time here and acquired. Jeff bases his idea that the company should only focus on what actually makes your beer taste Better. I E spend your time and resources only on what's actually gone to move the needle figure product and your customers and outsource everything else that doesn't. Every company needs compliance and trust with their vendors and customers. IT plays a major role enabling revenue because customers and partners demand, but yet IT add zero flavor to your actual product.

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So whether you are starting or a large enterprise and your company is ready to automate complaints and streamline security reviews like vana seven thousand customers around the globe, i'd go back to making your beer taste Better, head on over to vent a outcomes lush required and just tell them that been in David sent you.

And thanks to friend of the show, Christina anta CEO, all acquired listeners get a thousand dollars of free credit vented outcome slash acquired all right, all listeners, that is all we've got for you today. Thank you so much as usual for joining us. And ah if you've been a long time listener or if you're just joining us, we would love of you seriously if you've got two minutes right now and you're bored on your phone and you have you're trying to decide what APP to open next, please open.

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We ah we'd love you to join the slack and and help us decide how to pick the next piso's. We will likely continue on kind of the sports tech trend for maybe one or two more episodes and then there's punny other great stuff to cover. So oh yeah, point. What's in the embarrassment .

of rich ges ever here required? thanks. Everyone will see the next time.