We’re back with Pete Giorgio, a Deloitte Principal who leads the firm’s Global and US Sports practices, to uncover the business model of professional sports.
Put your helmet on for a wide-ranging conversation around:
- Defining the professional sports market
- Which of Porter’s Five Forces are at play in the space?
- The rise of youth sports
- Levers teams and leagues pull to accelerate growth
- Trends accelerating change in the sports landscape
- Which team Pete could buy if he had the option
Relevant Links
- Episode #1 with Pete: listen now
- Raise your firm’s brand awareness: reach out today
- Break into consulting this year with the help of Black Belt, our premium case prep program
- Deloitte’s 2023 sports industry outlook report
- Explore free resources to break into consulting
Partner Link
Transcription: The Business of Sports is Fierce Competition
MC: Namaan Mian
Pete, Welcome back to Strategy Simplified, really excited for part two of our conversation on the business model of professional sports. Where does this podcast find you today?
Pete Giorgio
I am sitting in Deloitte New York headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center. And thanks for having me back.
MC: Namaan Mian
It’s my pleasure. Pete, I have to start here. The last time we connected it was mid-March, right before March Madness. And we ended up making some final four picks that went terribly, horribly wrong. I think much like 99.9% of the rest of the country, I don’t really have an excuse. Just wondering what the heck happened to Purdue?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, yeah, I was more worried, my bigger pick was Indiana on the women’s side. They did a little better than Purdue but not much. Yeah, it was a rough one. So if I feel sorry for the Boilermaker fans out there, sorry, guys.
MC: Namaan Mian
So there you have it. Don’t take any final four prognostications from me or Pete, at least not next year.
Pete Giorgio
You have reams of data that support that conclusion.
MC: Namaan Mian
Well, Pete, for those of those of our listeners who missed the first conversation—by the way, we’ve linked to it in the show notes. If you missed it, go ahead and catch up after this episode. But for those of us who aren’t familiar with who you are, and your background, can you just give us a 30 second summary?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, great. So Pete Giorgio, again, I’m a partner at Deloitte, I run both our US sports practice, as well as our global sports practice, I have a history as a strategy consultant, originally at Monitor Group, which some of you may have heard from back in the day, but then Deloitte bought that about 10 years ago. So I’ve been at Deloitte for the past 10 years.
MC: Namaan Mian
Fantastic. And today, Pete, we’re really going to be picking your brain on the business model of professional sports, and the marriage of two of my favorite things in the world, business strategy and sports. So as a start, can you just define the market for us? When I say professional sports, what does that mean to you? Are we talking about the leagues, the franchises, both? Can you just expand on that?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, as we define it, I would say the core of it—at least we at Deloitte define it—is the leagues. It’s the teams, generally the properties, right. So in the in the sports world, we call them properties, anybody who has a property, that’s a sort of sell in the market, but also includes the Olympic movement, so a lot of the organization’s like, here in the US, the USOPC, or the IOC globally, but that extends into, you know, National Olympic Committees, also International Federations, all of those types of organizations, all the way down to, you know, USA badminton here in the United States. So it includes all of those. For us, it includes eSports, at least, I would say, the league and team side of eSports, as well as college sports. But that, you know, very closely related are the media partners, the ESPNs of the world where we collaborate with our media practice. The retailers, the other consumer products companies of the world, like the Nikes and those sorts of folks and others as well, that are sort of close in.
MC: Namaan Mian
Absolutely, there’s a lot of adjacencies to that professional sports market.
Pete Giorgio
More every day. I mean, I do think one of the interesting things about the industry is the convergence, right? And we’re seeing that not just in sports, obviously, but across all media and entertainment.
MC: Namaan Mian
Now that we’ve defined some of the players and some of the segments at a high level, we’d love to just open up the conversation by asking you to dive a little deeper into the forces that you think are really shaping the industry as we see it today. So the way that I think about it is through Porter’s Five Forces. And for those of us who may not be familiar, those forces are the threat of new entrants, suppliers, buyers, substitutes, and competitive rivalry, which of these forces do you think shapes the industry more than others and how?
Pete Giorgio
You know, I think probably, it’s interesting to think about new entrants, because, there’s a lot of new and emerging sports that are always vying for our attention. And so whether that’s you know, think about, sort of historically the core, you know, five or six main sports in the US, but then how do you think about the rise of some of the combat sports, you know, in the US and globally as well, and so I do think constantly there’s this question of like, what’s the new hot sport? What’s the next sport that’s gonna come up? How do sports—one of the biggest determinants actually, of somebody who’s going to be a fan of a sport is whether or not they played it as a kid, right? And so thinking about where and how youth sports affects that too, and are kids playing more basketball, or volleyball, or lacrosse or football or badminton or archery or eSports, you know, will have huge effects there.
And so, I do think there’s always this question of what are those sports and how will those play up? But also, again, you know, substitutes, sports is one of the myriad of different ways that fans and, and consumers sort of engage in entertainment. And so when you’re thinking about plans for Saturday night, are you going to a baseball game, are you going to go to a movie, are you gonna go to a concert, you’re going to stay home and watch something on TV, and where and how sports organizations vie for for not just those dollars, but also those eyeballs, right? Because that’s actually a lot of what sports does is monetize a lot of those eyeballs that they bring to the sports.
So if you think about something interesting, like buyers, for me, there are buyers in a bunch of different ways in the sports world, there’s obviously the fans and what they’re looking for, either in an experience going to a game or what they expect from an app associated with a sport or a team, or where and how they they want to buy merchandise. There’s also an interesting market for the teams themselves, right? Where and how various people are buying and selling sports organizations, in even new and different ways too, is fascinating. So thinking about the Five Forces is fascinating, because I do think just about all of those have profound effects on the ecosystem and on the industry itself.
MC: Namaan Mian
I want to dive a little bit deeper into one of the things that you mentioned, because from the outside looking in, it seems like to me that this is a growing pie, the market is growing rapidly, but at the same time, it’s a zero sum game, because as a league or as a team, I’m fighting for the attention of my fans or potential fans. And there’s only a limited amount of attention to go around. And so if I’m an upstart pickleball league or volleyball league, or UFC type of league, how do I start to gain a foothold in Gen Z, or even the younger generation? So that 10, 20, 30 years down the line, I’ve got a rabid fanbase, are you seeing tactics or strategies that leagues are employing to start to bring those younger fans onto their side right now?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is one of the focus areas of a lot of the leagues, but you have to actually back that up even further, because, you know, let’s take the state pickleball, great example, right, obviously, a sport that’s had a tremendous amount of growth, especially in the US recently, a lot of press about it. You know, there are different ways to think about that growth. Obviously, a lot more people are playing it, it just seems like every time I turned around tennis courts are turning into pickleball courts, you hear that distinctive, you know, wiffle ball type noise of the paddle hitting the ball. And you know, it starts with how do you get people and kids to actually play your sport, right, a lot of the traditional sports that you’ll hear about the US.
A lot of like the US Golf Association, for instance, spends a lot of time thinking about where and how they can get more people to play more golf, a lot of those organizations, and a lot of them are focusing on kids, you know, where and how can we get the next generation to do that. So it kind of starts with getting people to play your sport and be interested in your sport early. But then it’s also really about it what do generations of consumers want when they actually engage with the professional version of that sport? Or the college version of that sport? You know, how do they want to watch it? Do they want to watch it on their phone on their TV? Do they want to want to watch a full game? Do they want to watch clips? Do they just care about the betting on the game?
So they just care about the fantasy aspects of the games? And where and how do these organizations meet those consumers where they want to be met, on which platforms they want to actually do that with, as well, as importantly, kind of who they want to bring along, you know, sports continues to be a group exercise, right, whether you’re playing it in many cases, but certainly when you’re watching it, it tends to be a group exercise. And so, you know, you got to get people to play the sport in the first place, but you also have to actually adapt the way the sport is applied to the world in ways that that actually meet that next generation.
Gone are the old folks like me, who want to just sit in their seat at a game and watch the entire game, right? New generations want to take advantage of amenities across the stadium, to go visit the the fantasy lounge at the stadium, to bring up other games on their phone, to talk to their friends in a restaurant, things like that, too. And you see a lot of organizations shifts to meet that new demand.
MC: Namaan Mian
I think one of the starkest examples of that is the rule changes we’ve seen in in Major League Baseball, which I am a big fan of, you know, cutting the average time of a game down from three hours, 20 minutes to two and a half hours, even though I’m one of those people that likes to sit in my seat all game and watch the game. It’s nice that it goes by faster and keeps my attention.
Pete Giorgio
Yep. Yeah, it’s been really interesting to sort of watch how that’s evolved. And obviously, it’s gotten a lot of attention and a lot of praise in terms of how that’s happened. And basically the enjoyment that a lot of people have of it, but it’s interesting, if you attack it from a strategy angle, a business angle, that actually creates some benefits for teams, but also some challenges, you know, shorter means fewer commercials, means fewer concession sold, things like that, too. So from a business perspective is a give-get, but you know, I’ve been taught my entire career, both by clients and and by the people who’ve taught me how to do this, that if you focus on your customers, most of the things work themselves out over time.
MC: Namaan Mian
100%, I’m sure they’re thinking about it from a greater lifetime customer value perspective, greater engagement, bringing more people in from the top of the funnel, and even if they’re not able to monetize each fan, to that same degree, just more fans to the pipeline has to be a good thing, I would think.
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, absolutely. And again, to your point earlier, you know, younger fans, how do we get that next generation?
MC: Namaan Mian
So let’s talk about them the P&L of a professional sports team. And, for me, talking about revenue drivers is always more fun than talking about cost drivers. So let’s start there. But what are the biggest levers that franchises pull or properties pull to increase the top line?
Pete Giorgio
You know, it’s fascinating, because I think people get this once you explain it to them, but sometimes it takes somebody to sort of take an approach. You have to actually approach the teams and the leagues differently on these fronts, right, they actually drive revenue, some places in similar ways, other places in different ways. So, you know, most teams revenue is is driven by some combination of sponsorship deals, so local car dealerships, or local manufacturers or things like that, you know, put a sign in the stadium, buy a suite for the season, you know, run ads on the Jumbotron, things like that, put their name on the field, things like that. That’s typically one of the ways, another way is they typically, in a lot of sports, have a local media deal, right. So this is less so in the NFL, but for a lot of the other leagues.
Only some of their games are picked up nationally, the rest are made available to the team to sell to a local broadcaster. And so that that media deal that they have with the local broadcaster would drive a lot of things for the team. Obviously, tickets are usually a big driver at the team level, interestingly, not as much at the league level, mostly just set up such that the ticket revenue is driven by the team. And then the actual situation of the team itself, you know, depends a lot on if they own their stadium. They usually participate in concessions or any of those types of merchant concessions revenue, whereas if they’re just leasing the stadium, sometimes they don’t participate in it. But you know, obviously, there’s some some different ways that you could strike those deals.
You know also, if the team owns the stadium, there’s other events in that stadium besides the sporting events and where and how they drive revenue from other events, and other ways that they can monetize their investment there. At the league level, obviously, there aren’t things like ticket revenue. But obviously, sponsorship revenue, and especially media deals tend to be much larger at the league level. And so that’s where you see a lot of the money coming into the leagues, and oftentimes just shoot it back to the teams as well. From the league’s interestingly use, you know, at the league level, you’re selling bigger sponsorships, national sponsorships, sometimes global sponsorships of those as well. And then oftentimes, at the league level, there’s international rights, they have broadcast rights internationally, or things like that that happen too, so I would say similar, but those are typically the places that this revenue comes from, for most teams, and leagues.
MC: Namaan Mian
So a big theme I picked up in that answer are kind of media and broadcast rights. And I recently saw that the Las Vegas Golden Knights, so the NHL team, seem to have struck a deal with a broadcast partner where all games within the local region would be broadcast for free. But then nationally, broadcast games would be paid for. I’m not sure if I’m getting that right. But can you talk us through if you think that’s a model that could become more prevalent here over the next few years? Because it’s definitely groundbreaking.
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, I don’t know the specifics of that deal. I would say in general, this idea of local media rights, and where and how teams monetize those and who they monetize them with, is undergoing a fair amount of transformation right now, some of it, because of some business drivers, others because of advances in technology. I’d say in general, most properties, and this includes the leagues as well, are trying to figure out where—it used to be okay, to be able to say, hey, you know, 500,000, or 5 million people watched my game last night, I can’t tell you who they are.
But I know through various means that that many people watched it more and more, it’s not enough to just say that you need to know who those people are, have other ways to reach them, be able to talk about, you know, statistics about those audiences. And so what you’re seeing a lot of properties do is figure out ways to build that one to one relationship with fans. And some organizations see the some of these media deals as ways or new ways to sort of broadcast and share their content as ways to do that. So I think we’re just at the beginning of seeing a bit of a revolution on that front, it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
MC: Namaan Mian
Do you think that these one on one relationships or these seemingly personalized relationships between me and my favorite team or me and my favorite league, is this really the next big trend in the space?
Pete Giorgio
Yes, I agree. And actually, I’d add to it, also you and your favorite athlete, right, more and more athletes are starting to build that one to one, social media has been a boon for athletes to build their personal audiences, right, and build their one to one relationships with fans. So you know, where and how those relationships evolve and new ways to think about and monetize those relationships, either through existing revenue streams, or new revenue streams is absolutely you know, a big factor in how sports is going to evolve. It’s honestly similar to what happened in you know, consumer industries in the grocery industry, in retailers 10, 15 years ago, as they started to adopt things like loyalty programs and got a lot more focused on their customers as well. I think we’re seeing the same thing happen in sports.
MC: Namaan Mian
I for one am, all for the hyper personalization. I’m there for the increased engagement between me and my favorite team, and league and athlete. So I’m looking forward to it and it’s funny how what is now old hat in retail is seen as groundbreaking in a different industry like sports and it seems like that’s just the way the business world works.
Pete Giorgio
That’s business happens.
MC: Namaan Mian
Right? Innovation in one space is you know, legacy in another.
MC: Namaan Mian
Well, moving back to the conversation around P&L of professional teams and leagues, how about the boring side of the equation? The cost side? What are some of these biggest drivers that properties are dealing with?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, I would say at the team level, it’s interesting. One of the things I always remind people is that their personnel costs, their salary costs are structured a little differently than most companies, where a small number of people get paid get a larger portion than, certainly at Deloitte, a lot of folks get. So there’s that factor. You know, beyond that, you know, it depends a little bit on the team situation, obviously, there’s certainly operational costs, and whether that’s on the business side, operations or technology or sales, or any of those things, you know, probably the one that’s maybe a little different than most companies is typically there’s a pretty high sales component for most teams, as they try to monetize, you know, suites and season tickets and things like that.
But the rest is, you know, usually pretty standard, most teams are actually not giant organizations, people would be surprised that that probably how few employees that their favorite team has. There’s certainly another layer of operational costs that have to do with actually the games and the matches themselves, whether that’s, you know, thinking about repairs, prepping the field, or coaches or trainers or all of that, transportation, all of those things are a piece of it as well. But, you know, I’d say, it’s like you said before, it’s other than kind of the differential sort of employee type compensation, a lot of it is pretty typical.
MC: Namaan Mian
I’m going to grossly oversimplify here. So you have to forgive me ahead of time. But it seems like to me there are two ways for just thinking about leagues now, instead of teams, two ways for leagues to continue to grow. And I would think, number one, you either increase the ways in which you’re monetizing existing properties, so you renegotiate media deals, etc. Or you expand your product offering, right, so league or market expansion. Can you give us some insight into how leagues are thinking about this and if they identify new markets for expansion, how they do that?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, you’re exactly right. Like, how do I take my existing assets and either get more for them or sell them to new people? Right, and how do I find new products to bring to market? Right and I would say on the first one, you know, immediate rights is a good example where and how can I maximize that asset? You know, how do I, one of the one of the interesting strategic questions for a lot of leagues is bundling, right? When I think about doing my media deals do I bundle in that my digital, which typically happens in most of my digital rights? Do I start to think about data rights? As I start to think about the metaverse, is there a different sort of right that I need to bundle into those deals and and how do I mix and match and structure those, the NFL has one package for Thursday, a different package for Monday, a different package for you know, red zone, and then the deal splits the other games up in different ways, okay so where, how do I bundle those and package those in different ways? And so usually moving those things around and really understanding what both traditional media players, but some of the new media players want, is a piece of that.
But also new revenue streams, my favorite one is NFTs and what we saw with the NBA and Hotshots that was a brand new revenue stream, similar to a historical revenue stream or a traditional revenue stream with a with a twist on it, but where and how can I find those? Right? How do I think about, some ways you can think about adding a new team, right? That usually that adds games to the schedule, adds athletes to the mix, all of those things, too. And then, you know, what are some new products that I can think about where and how do a lot of leagues think about new places where I can license my brand, you know, who’d be interesting in associating a product with my brand and who’s willing to pay for that in new and different ways. And so I don’t think it’s terribly different, obviously a little bit more interesting and sometimes sexier than some other industries, but not that different than where and how you think about any company.
MC: Namaan Mian
Do you think there’s a danger for leagues in overexpansion? Is there a danger that I would dilute my product if I’m in 45 markets instead of 30? Or do you think those are overblown fears?
Pete Giorgio
I think you have to be careful, right? I think you don’t want to get too far over your skis in doing too much of that, you got to make sure you you’ve got enough. But yeah, I always remind people that, you know, the supply of people who love and are interested in sports is is not going away. Right? And is, in some ways is almost never ending. And so it’s really just a question of, you know, if I’m going to open another team, can I convince people in that city to cheer for that team versus a sport that already exists there, right? You know, can I think differently about how I structure my conferences or how this works? My favorite, you know, I do think, you talk a little bit about disruptive forces.
And I forget if we talked about this last time, but I think it’s going to be fascinating to see when the next generation of supersonic travel happens. And then you start to get to a world where these leagues could literally play games and other countries, you know, fly to London in a day and back, and we just like, you know, going to LA today, right? And so that’s gonna open up new things. So I think there’s a little bit of a risk in that, you just got to be careful about it. But listen, I think there’s plenty of people out there interested and who loves sport, and it’s just a question of where and how you bring them to yours.
MC: Namaan Mian
So the implication, Pete, of what you just said, is, we may see some consolidation in the space, if I could have an NBA team in Paris, and I’ve got Victor Wembanyama on my team. Why would I be in the French league if I could have an NBA franchise in Paris? Do you think that’s where we’re heading in the next 30, 50 years?
Pete Giorgio
I don’t know. I think it would be interesting to sort of think about that, or is there some sort of global, you know, different divisions of a league or something, but I think we’re absolutely witnessing globalization is real. Globalization is already happening right now, in terms of content. And I think we’re seeing the popularity, especially of sports, you know, as, for instance, the NBA thinks about expanding to India and to China, so the demand is there. So I think we could see some interesting things on that front, if we could get some of these logistical challenges out of the way.
MC: Namaan Mian
Absolutely. One of the other value propositions of a team coming to a city or a region beyond just the unifying effect of fandom and the entertainment value, is the fact that a lot of these teams are involved in community development. They’re involved in community investment there. There’s a big focus on teams and leagues being good community partners. Can you talk to us about some tangible ways that a pro franchise contributes to broader community development? I think the Sacramento Kings are a really good example of this, but I’m sure there are others as well.
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, listen being involved in the community giving back to the community and making a difference in the community, that these organizations sit in is, it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s actually demanded by fans and athletes as well. You know, fans want to—everything you look at about how buying habits are changing, people are buying products and services from companies that they share values with, that they believe in, that they trust in new and different ways.
And the same thing is happening with athletes look, you know, more and more athletes are looking to see what other athletes are doing and saying, Listen, I need to use my platform to make a difference. And you know, doing that in a local community, whether that be through community organizations or creating direct access is absolutely a piece of the puzzle. It’s almost table stakes now for any organization that really wants to dive in and I’m not familiar specifically with what Sacramento is doing, but just about every organization has versions of these programs, both at the team, and the athlete and the league level that are super important.
MC: Namaan Mian
Pete, one of the things that your practice has done and released recently, is a 2023 sports industry outlook. And so we talked about this briefly last time. But we got a lot of follow up questions around some of the insights and key takeaways that were included in that report. Do you mind just quickly elaborating on some of the potential implications of what your team found and just some some insights from that report?
Pete Giorgio
Sure, anything specific or just talk more broadly?
MC: Namaan Mian
Yeah, I’d love to hear more broadly, what some of those insights were, and then we can follow up on what I find most interesting.
Pete Giorgio
The one that I talk a lot about, and I think is one of the more interesting ones is, we are absolutely seeing women’s sports, you know, finally getting the recognition or start to get the recognition and the attention that it deserves, right, we’ve been looking at data for years that talks about more people watching women’s sports, more people participating in women’s sports, more people wanting to get involved in women’s sports, and we haven’t necessarily seen some of the dollars that would normally be associated come come with that. But people are finally waking up to it. And in both in a societal way, like, it’s important to promote women’s sports, from a societal standpoint, but also, from a business standpoint, I’m a firm believer that women’s sports is one of the most undervalued assets that exists in the sports world.
And when we talk to our clients, we say to a lot of them, Listen, if you’re not investing in women’s sports right now, you’re behind the curve, right, and two, three years from now you’re gonna wish that that you had and so I think we are just at the beginning of that really starting to grow, I think it’s going to continue to accelerate. And I think we’re gonna see a lot more consistent data around the fact that the people who who watch this, you know, who were involved in and like women’s sports, digging into it, and honestly, we’re also seeing some interesting emerging data that shows that the people who do choose to watch women’s sports and the people who are watching it are more loyal, are more invested in the products that are associated with women’s sports. And so, for me, the exciting part is, you know, it’s not just important that women’s sports be successful for women and girls, you know, it’s a business reason. And so that, for me, is exciting.
And I do think it connects to the other one, which I hear a lot about is the entrance of formal Private Equity into the sports world in a way in the US anyway, in a way we haven’t seen before. And I think that will be for both women’s sports, as well as men’s sports. And so we’re seeing organizations come in, buying up minority interests in teams and thinking about those as assets that have valuations that grow at a scale that actually outgrows a lot of industries. And so we’re seeing a lot of Private Equity firms and other special purpose vehicles, creating dedicated groups that just focus on sports and think about sports as their sort of every day activity as opposed to every once in a while activity. So for me, those are fascinating. And it’ll be interesting to really see how those grow. I’d also just say that college sports, which was another one of our Outlook items just continues to be a place where we’re—there’s very few places in sports that are changing as rapidly and as fundamentally as college sports right now.
The effect of of NIHL regulations and the transfer portal and conference realignment and media deals and what we’re seeing on a bunch of different fronts. College sports is going to look very different than it did two years from now than it did two years ago in ways that that even I am having a hard time predict. Pete, there’s a lot that are to unpack, a couple follow ups if you don’t mind. So one of the things that I was thinking about, as you were talking is the entrance of Private Equity into professional sports. Are you seeing these transactions being made as buy and hold transactions? Or do you expect to be there to be more turnover and ownership the more that we see Private Equity enter the professional sports landscape?
Yeah, I think there are a lot of buy and hold transactions, at least from what I’m seeing right now, at least they’re being done without any… there’s a bunch of people in that space are a lot smarter than I, who have long term plans about what those to do. But the market is so nascent right now, and things are so new that I think you almost have to be ready for a buy and hold type of outlook on it. But also be ready, if there are opportunities coming up. So I think it’d be interesting to see how it evolves. There are some folks out there try to make it even even easier to get in and out of teams in ways that I think will be fascinating, and maybe even available to folks like you and I at some point here, although that they may be far in the future. But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point here, one of the leagues allows something similar to what the Green Bay Packers does, but but in a more liquid way and in a more tradable way than we’re seeing today.
MC: Namaan Mian
Fractional ownership in a sports team, is that where you think we’re heading?
Pete Giorgio
Well, we’re there already, right. Most sports teams do have fractional ownership. But what doesn’t exist is is a liquid market for that, exactly. So I think that might be coming again, that we’ve got a bunch of different steps between here and there. But sometime in the future, I think some place in some league, that that’s going to be a piece of the puzzle.
MC: Namaan Mian
Personally, I’m looking forward to that day.
Pete Giorgio
Who are you buying, if you could buy a piece of any team right now?
MC: Namaan Mian
So funny, that was gonna be my question for you. So if money wasn’t an object, I think I’d be in the bidding for Manchester United right now. You know, personally, I don’t think the Brown family would ever sell, but my hometown team is the Bangles and so yeah, I think from a heart perspective, the Bengals are the team I’d love to buy. From a business perspective, Manchester United looks pretty good right now.
Pete Giorgio
No, don’t sleep on women’s sports. So I’m telling you, that’s gonna grow exponentially.
MC: Namaan Mian
You know what’s so funny, I was thinking about this the other day and talking to a friend. And we had a similar conversation, you know, if you could buy any team in the world, which team would you purchase? And from a purely business perspective, my answer was actually I’d buy a team in the National Women’s Soccer League, from a kind of lower barrier to entry perspective, kind of the growth of the market. Just the fact that soccer in general is exploding in popularity in the in the US, I thought the NWSL was pretty attractive. And so it’s interesting to hear you talk about women’s sports, because I’m feeling pretty affirmed right now in my own kind of market analysis.
Pete Giorgio
You can tell your friend that Pete says you’re right.
MC: Namaan Mian
Okay. I love that. That’s the whole reason I wanted you to come on the podcast. When you were talking about the NCAA, kind of as a fan looking at at the NCAA from the outside looking in, I’m thinking the big winners in conference realignment are the big 10 and the SEC, do you see a path for other conferences to compete with those so-called Super conferences?
Pete Giorgio
I think the real question is where and how do we get to a world where people can continue to watch the football, the basketball, the gymnastics, the tracking field, you know, that they want to watch between the teams that they want to see play with each other. And I think customer demand and fan demand and booster demand and even athletes demand will continue to sort of dictate that. So I don’t like to talk that much about winners or losers in that space. You know, I like to think about where I think business will naturally drive that market towards something that makes sense to the people who want to watch it and consume it as well.
And so we might have some bumps here and there on our on our way to that, but and whether that means two conferences, or 10 conferences, or one conference or a completely different model altogether, I think that remains to be seen. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that there won’t be some sort of conference structure, though exist as part of this. But I think importantly, is where and how do we meet fans where they want to be met? And I think I think there’s a lot of really smart people in college athletics who get that and will naturally drive the entire ecosystem towards that.
MC: Namaan Mian
It seems to me that we’re just seeing the professionalization of college athletics and I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but there are people out there that seem to think that’s a negative. Do you have a comment to make on that?
Pete Giorgio
You know, I’d say professionalism is a very heavy and and implication laden word. I would say generally college sports, in many ways is a business like a lot of businesses and I think we’ll continue to see it sort of grow in the same way we’re seeing other sports businesses grow, as they sort of learned from those businesses as well. How’s that for a non answer?
MC: Namaan Mian
Very consulting-like of you, well done.
Pete Giorgio
I’ve got to tell you, as you know, as a business professional, as a consultant, as a strategist, it’s just fast. I mean, we are watching in real time the realignment of an entire industry in ways that you don’t often get to see happen at the speed we’re actually watching this, and it’s just fascinating to see how such a complex system which has a bunch of both real but also sometimes, you know, invented constraints to it, strain at the edges and evolve over time. And I think we’re watching that, almost in real time in a way that for me, it’s fascinating, and there’s a lot of really smart people in that space. You know what the NCA is, you know, starting to talk about it and do, what the conferences are doing, what the colleges are doing, what their broadcast partners are doing, a lot of really smart people in that space that I think are going to do some really interesting things moving forward. And I’m just fascinated to watch it, and hopefully fascinated to be able to help along the way.
MC: Namaan Mian
Pete, as we wrap up our conversation today, you might remember from last time, we ended with a couple of personal questions, just to get to know you a little bit better. And so I want to turn around your question to me back to you. If you could make an investment or purchase one professional sports team anywhere in the world, which one would it be and why?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, you know, it definitely would be a women’s team, or at some other property somewhere. There’s a lot of interesting innovations happening in women’s sports just on the notion of a week. Probably something in the women’s space. My first love is basketball, so probably something in the basketball world because I feel like I at least know something about that. So probably something in that world would be where I’d personally go. But I think there are a lot of options out there. And yeah, I think I’d probably be in that space, I’m trying to think about you know, that’s the business answer, but I think it’s also the personal answer too.
MC: Namaan Mian
I love that. Is there an underrated sport that you love that you follow that you wish more people knew about?
Pete Giorgio
You know, it’s hard for me, I love most sports generally. There are a couple sports that I’m fascinated by that I actually wanted to go see because there’s nothing more exciting for me than to go watch a new sport and see a new sport. When I was just at Australia, I’m not sure if you’re familiar, primarily in the UK and Australia, they play a game called netball. Have you ever heard of it?
MC: Namaan Mian
I have.
Pete Giorgio
And from what I understand, it’s basically a version of basketball that emerged when somebody either miscopied or misremembered Naismith’s original basketball rules.
MC: Namaan Mian
There’s no backboard, right?
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, no backboard, no dribbling, there’s a few things missing. You know, court’s sort of split into thirds. And similar to my last trip in Australia, I got to go see an Aussie rules football game. Next time I want to go see a netball match. Cuz I’m just fascinated by it.
MC: Namaan Mian
Amazing. An Aussie Rules game is definitely on my list next time I’m down in Australia and New Zealand for sure.
Pete Giorgio
Just make sure you go see it with somebody who knows the rules because it takes a little while.
MC: Namaan Mian
Yeah, it looks like controlled chaos to me when I’ve seen it. So I definitely need someone to explain it.
Pete Giorgio
Looks like it hurts.
MC: Namaan Mian
Yeah, that too, some of the toughest athletes in the world.
Pete Giorgio
Yeah, not made for 50-year-old, sort of former athletes.
MC: Namaan Mian
Pete, last question for you. If I was a genie, and I could grant you the ability to master any sport right now, which one would you choose and why?
Pete Giorgio
If I can choose a sport to be an expert in and why. You know what I might choose, just because I find it fascinating is curling. Because it also feels like something that might actually be something that somebody my age could perhaps still be somewhat competitive in. But it also just looks like—I’ve actually tried it a few times, it’s a deceptively complex sport. And physical sport in ways that I wasn’t expecting, and I don’t think most people realize, but it also seems like the people who play it have a lot of fun. So that appeals to me.
MC: Namaan Mian
That’s a curveball for sure. I was not expecting that. I love it, you’re keeping us on our toes here. Pete Giorgio is the sports practice leader at Deloitte Consulting. He joins us from Deloitte’s offices in New York City. Pete, thanks so much for being with us today.
Pete Giorgio
Alright, thanks for having me. It’s great to see you again. Have a great day.