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

Summary

Ari Emanuel, CEO of TKO Group Holdings and one of Hollywood’s most influential power brokers, joins the All-In Podcast to discuss the evolution of entertainment, media distribution, and his strategic vision for live events in an AI-driven future. Emanuel traces his journey from starting as a mail room employee making 15 cents a mile to building Endeavor into a multi-billion dollar entertainment empire through strategic acquisitions including William Morris, IMG, and UFC, culminating in the merger with WWE to form TKO.

The conversation explores how infinite distribution has fundamentally changed content creation and monetization, with Emanuel drawing on George Gilder’s prescient predictions about media fragmentation. He discusses the rise of independent podcasters and content creators, comparing the emerging podcast landscape to the old broadcast syndication model exemplified by Oprah. Emanuel also shares his thesis that live entertainment is the counter-bet to AI, predicting that as work weeks shrink to 3-4 days due to automation, demand for in-person experiences and connection will surge.

Emanuel offers insights on talent representation in the streaming era, explaining why creators may not make syndication-level billions anymore but can still earn substantial sums. He reflects on his fighter’s reputation born from being dyslexic and starting as the fifth-ranked agency, discusses his relationship with Elon Musk (including plans for robot UFC fights), and addresses family dynamics with his famous brothers Rahm and Zeke Emanuel.

Highlights

”Infinite distribution makes content extremely valuable”

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“Had this idea about where content was going from George Gilder who wrote this book Life After Television and said there’s going to be infinite distribution and then content’s going to be really really valuable and there’s going to be many forms of content.” — Ari Emanuel, 1:33

”Podcasting will turn into the syndication business”

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“I think the podcasting business is going to turn into the syndication business that used to be on the broadcast and the station groups. So Oprah was the king world kind of thing. Oprah was the behemoth and then Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She launched a bunch of, you’ll probably see that reincarnated through people with podcasts.” — Ari Emanuel, 6:32

”The opposite bet on AI is live”

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“I’ve made a decision that live content is where I’m going to sit. I’m really good at that. I’m really good at monetizing that. If you have AI over there, the opposite bet on AI is not data centers. It’s live. Humans want connection.” — Ari Emanuel, 9:40

”3-day work week for full employment”

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“I think it’s kind of like a 4-day work week now. Probably going down to three. I was seeing Elon and seeing the robots. Probably 3-day work week for full employment. There’s going to be a lot of free time.” — Ari Emanuel, 10:55

”Because I’m dyslexic, they touched the third rail”

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“When people don’t think… because I’m dyslexic. I remember growing up anybody that thought I was stupid, they touched the third rail.” — Ari Emanuel, 19:10

”My mom says I hate you all equally”

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“Why do you think one’s in Chicago, one’s in Washington, one’s in LA? The cities are like when they come together they explode… My mom used to say, ‘You don’t love me as much as you love Zeke.’ And she turns to him and she goes to all of us. She goes, ‘I hate you all equally.’” — Ari Emanuel, 24:40

Key Points

• George Gilder’s Vision (1:57) - Emanuel’s entire career strategy was shaped by Gilder’s prediction of infinite distribution making content extremely valuable
• Endeavor Evolution (2:16) - Merged with William Morris (his best deal), bought IMG with Silver Lake, then acquired UFC transforming from representation to ownership
• UFC Acquisition (3:20) - Despite looking expensive at $4 billion, a broadcast deal brought the multiple from 30x down to under 10x
• TKO Formation (4:15) - Merged UFC with WWE after Vince McMahon agreed, creating a pure-play sports entertainment company the market could understand
• Podcasting as New Syndication (6:35) - Predicts podcasting will evolve into the syndication model that used to dominate broadcast, with Oprah-like figures launching talent
• Talent Ventures Model (8:14) - Started 10 years ago at WME helping talent launch equity-based businesses as TV ratings declined and manufacturers needed new audience access
• Live Entertainment Thesis (9:40) - Made a strategic decision that live content is his strength; views live events as the opposite bet to AI and data centers
• 3-Day Work Week Prediction (10:55) - Believes we’re already at 4-day work weeks and heading to 3, citing Thursday hotel bookings and 11-4 drive times as evidence
• $2 Billion Events Company (10:40) - Raised $2 billion to launch a new live events company with 900 events, betting on human connection
• TKO Stock Performance (12:45) - Merged at $100, dropped to $79, now hit $200; admits checking stock price 19 times a day
• Representation Enables Deals (13:30) - Still actively represents clients like Scorsese, Dwayne Johnson, and Mark Wahlberg because it keeps him in conversations with platforms
• YouTube vs Netflix (14:40) - Disputes narrative that creators are fleeing Netflix for YouTube; says they serve different purposes and can’t be generalized
• IP Ownership Evolution (16:35) - Creators can’t make $500-600 million in syndication anymore but can still do very well; just closed a good South Park deal
• Fighter Reputation Origin (18:50) - Being dyslexic and starting as fifth-ranked agency meant he had to fight hard when others thought he was a pushover
• Michael Ovitz Legacy (20:05) - Worked in CAA mailroom under Ovitz; learned from his vision but regretted Ovitz didn’t buy Gray Advertising to change agency dynamics
• Sports Adaptation Required (22:35) - All sports need to adapt to shorter attention spans; UFC and bull riding naturally fit mobile viewing, baseball has cut 40 minutes
• International Expansion (23:55) - Sports must go international for growth; UFC in Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, NFL in Brazil, Dodgers/Cubs in Japan all demonstrate this
• Emanuel Brothers Competition (24:35) - Brothers live in different cities because “when they come together they explode”; mom says “I hate you all equally”
• Elon Musk Friendship (25:30) - Met Musk after 9/11 when Emanuel gave up his Ferrari for a Prius but wanted a better car; got Tesla #11 and still owns it
• Robot UFC Fights (26:05) - Visited Tesla to see Optimus robots; wants to do robot vs robot UFC fights; saw robots kicking and boxing

Mentions

Companies

• Endeavor (1:32) - Emanuel’s agency that he built and scaled before going private
• William Morris (2:22) - Merged with Endeavor in what Emanuel calls one of his best deals
• IMG (2:28) - Sports management company bought with Silver Lake; called cheapest sports acquisition ever
• Silver Lake (2:30) - Investment partner in IMG acquisition
• UFC (3:20) - Ultimate Fighting Championship; major acquisition now part of TKO
• WWE (4:15) - Merged with UFC to form TKO
• TKO Group Holdings (4:17) - Pure-play sports entertainment company; stock went from $79 to $200
• Netflix (4:33) - Streaming platform; Emanuel disputes narratives about creators leaving
• YouTube (4:33) - Platform for creators; different business model than Netflix
• Amazon (5:08) - Has bought sports rights alongside traditional broadcasters
• CAA (18:55) - Creative Artists Agency; one of the top agencies when Emanuel started
• ICM (18:55) - Agency that bought Intertalent; Emanuel cites its bad culture as a lesson
• UTA (18:55) - United Talent Agency; one of top agencies when Emanuel started
• HBO (19:47) - Holds Entourage rights
• Live Nation (10:23) - Pure-play music events company run by Michael Rapino
• Tesla (25:30) - Where Emanuel first connected with Musk; still owns car #11
• ESPN (22:00) - Will launch WWE with Bob Iger and Jimmy Pitaro
• NBC Peacock (16:35) - Streaming platform; negotiating The Office deal
• Disney (17:25) - Where Alien Earth premiered

Products & Technologies

• Optimus Robots (26:05) - Tesla’s humanoid robots; Emanuel saw 3rd/4th generation version kicking and boxing
• Prius (25:30) - Car Emanuel bought after 9/11 but didn’t like, leading him to Tesla

People

• George Gilder (1:57) - Author who predicted infinite distribution; foundational to Emanuel’s strategy
• Teddy Forstmann (2:28) - After his passing, Emanuel bought IMG
• Vince McMahon (4:15) - Said yes to WWE merger with UFC
• Neil Mohan (4:33) - YouTube CEO; mentioned as later speaker at event
• Mr. Beast (4:38) - Example of creator who can go direct to audience
• Oprah (6:41) - Example of syndication behemoth who launched Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz
• Dr. Phil (6:46) - Launched by Oprah’s syndication model
• Dr. Oz (6:48) - Launched by Oprah’s syndication model
• Megan Kelly (6:05) - Example of top talent moving to podcasting
• Tucker Carlson (6:07) - Example of top talent going independent; has Alps product
• Gwyneth Paltrow (8:52) - Cited as doing exceptional job with Goop
• Jimmy (MrBeast) (7:57) - Has chocolate bar company Feastables
• Michael Rapino (10:23) - Runs Live Nation; praised as incredible
• Elon Musk (10:59) - Long-term friend; Emanuel visited to see robots
• Martin Scorsese (13:33) - WME client Emanuel still represents
• Dwayne Johnson (13:36) - WME client
• Mark Wahlberg (13:39) - WME client
• Peter Berg (13:40) - WME client
• Noah Hawley (17:18) - Creator of Fargo and Alien Earth; just signed with Emanuel
• Greg Daniels (17:35) - Example of creator who made huge syndication money
• Larry David (17:35) - Example of creator who made huge syndication money
• Aaron Sorkin (17:38) - Example of creator who made huge syndication money
• Jim Brooks (17:40) - Example of creator who made huge syndication money
• Michael Ovitz (20:05) - CAA founder; Emanuel worked in his mail room; visionary who changed the business
• David Zaslav (19:47) - Controls HBO and thus Entourage rights
• Adrian Grenier (19:41) - Entourage star; says reunion not his choice
• David Ellison (21:41) - Great partner at TKO
• Bob Iger (21:57) - Launching WWE on ESPN
• Jimmy Pitaro (21:58) - Launching WWE on ESPN with Iger
• Roger Goodell (22:55) - NFL commissioner; Emanuel spoke with him about storylines
• Canelo Alvarez (22:08) - Big fight that weekend on Netflix
• Rahm Emanuel (24:25) - Brother; former White House Chief of Staff, Chicago Mayor, Ambassador to Japan
• Zeke Emanuel (24:25) - Brother; doctor and Vice Provost at Penn

Surprising Quotes

“I’ve made a decision that live content is where I’m going to sit. I’m really good at that. I’m really good at monetizing that. If you have AI over there, the opposite bet on AI is not data centers. It’s live.” — 9:50

“I think it’s kind of like a 4-day work week now. Probably going down to three. I was seeing Elon and seeing the robots. Probably 3-day work week for full employment. There’s going to be a lot of free time.” — 10:55

“Anybody says they don’t look at their stock price, I look at it every like 19 times a day.” — 12:48

“When people don’t think… because I’m dyslexic. I remember growing up anybody that thought I was stupid, they touched the third rail.” — 19:13

“Why do you think one’s in Chicago, one’s in Washington, one’s in LA? The cities are like when they come together like, you know, like they explode… And let me just tell you something. I’m winning.” — 24:40

“My mom used to say, ‘You don’t love me as much as you love Zeke.’ And she turns to him and she goes to all of us. She goes, ‘I hate you all equally.’” — 25:02

Transcript

0:00 Ari Emanuel, the newest kingpin of combat sports, one of Hollywood’s biggest power brokers. It’s everywhere from the boardroom to, you know, even politics. There was another figure named Ari Gold that many people thought was named after you. The straight talking dealmaker has a reputation for getting what he wants. I’m back and you’re fired. Emanuel has worked tirelessly to transform Endeavor into a multi-billion dollar behemoth. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ari.

0:40 Thank you. Hey, welcome. When’s the last time we saw each other at that dinner? Exactly. Yeah. Did you see that panel? Yeah. You know Alex? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I think he’s great. I loved his book. Yeah, the book was incredible. Yeah. So what’s your take? A lot to cover there on my take.

1:05 Well let’s start at the beginning. Ari, you have had an incredible arc. You’ve built an incredible business and recently you’ve had the opportunity to merge a bunch of assets and just the thing has just taken a life of its own. Can you maybe walk us through the last four or five years of the evolution of Endeavor and you know your process of first leaving building a business then scaling it up and just all of that action the tick tock of it all.

1:33 So March 29th when I first came here I was making 15 cents a mile when I moved to LA went to work at CAA etc. then started the company March 29th on my birthday 30 almost 31 years ago. Had this idea about where content was going from George Gilder who wrote this book Life After Television and said there’s going to be infinite distribution and then content’s going to be really really valuable and there’s going to be many forms of content.

2:09 And so we kind of went out and started growing the business and trying to get into every sector of the business made a two-horse race with when we quote unquote merged with William Morris. I think one of my best deals actually that merger and then when Teddy Forstmann passed away bought IMG with Silver Lake who had come into the company and then we were in sports and then we realized it was all in the representation business.

2:40 And then realized that because of what we built the infrastructure we built in the global scale we had and the production and representation we could start owning some of the assets as opposed to just representing them and kind of put them through our filters and kind of create more value. And so the first thing we did is we bought this company called Professional Bull Riders that was I think making $3 million a year in profit. We turned it into a really nice business. It’s still growing.

3:13 And then because of that and we negotiate every day against networks and studios. The UFC came up and we said, “Okay, let’s take a big swing.” The funny thing is when we bought IMG, they say we overpaid. It was the cheapest sports acquisition ever happened. And definitely when we bought UFC, they were like at 4. At the time, it looked incredibly expensive. Yeah. And all we had to do was kind of make a broadcast deal that then took the multiple down from 30, 20 times to kind of under 10.

3:48 We then thought we could take all those assets. My big mistake here. A conglomerate. Yeah. The marketplace just didn’t understand it. Yeah. And so we tried to take it public right before COVID failed. I didn’t realize how hard it was to go back out. Finally got it back public. We kind of rolled all of the UFC into Endeavor and we still weren’t getting any value. We then Vince said yes and we merged the assets. A pure play was in sports, sports entertainment was a better conversation with the street.

4:21 I mean when you started we had the traditional cable networks then we had cable it was a very high hierarchical and easy to understand hierarchy. Right. And then you have the streamers and now you know this afternoon we’ll have Neil Mohan from YouTube. Right. Then you have characters like the Mr. Beast of the world who can go direct so it’s very chaotic.

4:41 No it’s actually just back to George Gilder. It’s back to George Gilder. There’s infinite distribution, right? Many forms of content. People consume podcasts. People consume, you know, stuff on Instagram and TikTok. People consume stuff now on the streamers. And so, and I don’t believe that traditional business is going away for a long time because a lot of us sports guys have the NFL, the NBA has still sold stuff there plus also sold it to the Amazons of the world. And so you just have a vast kind of map of where distribution is.

5:18 So distribution has gotten vast but a lot of people would say some people would say the kinds of content has gotten a little ossified calcified rigid maybe. What does that mean? Meaning like you know you don’t see like the broad swath of the content that you would see maybe 15, 20 years ago. I think there’s more content now. But do you see people taking creative risk the way that they used to before?

5:42 I don’t know. I think I can’t get enough content. I don’t know about you. There’s going to be more content than there’s ever been. I think there’s incredible voices out there. I think the content that’s being made is there’s a vast majority and I think it’s really incredible. I do. Yeah.

5:59 Ari, what do you think of podcasts and the general movement of top talent Megan, Tucker, you guys. Okay. Sure. We’re a little bit behind them, but the ability for them to be independent and not affiliated with the network, this is something we have not seen in the industry. There were gatekeepers. You used to have to get packaged, represented, and now, you know, people come to us all the time with different opportunities to join different networks. I won’t talk about any specifics, but we’ve decided, well, why would we need them independent?

6:32 Yeah. Why would we need them if we have this amazing audience? Funny thing is I think the podcasting business is going to turn into the syndication business that used to be on the broadcast and the station groups. So Oprah was the king world kind of thing. Oprah was the behemoth and then Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. She launched a bunch of, you’ll probably see that reincarnated through people with podcasts if they want to. We saw that at Barstool. Yeah.

6:57 So you’re saying we could then cable syndication model through this through the multiple channel. We should be a network and we should develop talent. Yeah, you need some representation guys. But you know what the problem is Ari? It’s like a lot of the representation to be totally honest. We don’t. Yeah. And we would only consider a peer, you know, relationship with somebody who has done it before at a high level. If you know anybody. Yeah. I don’t. You don’t? Well, anybody good? I don’t know. One of the things we’re talking about you Ari.

7:27 Yeah. One of the things that I’ve noticed has become a common kind of thread with these big independents is they move from what used to be kind of commercial ad placements to sponsor deals where they got one sponsor to eventually owning their own business. Correct. And the value there is so much greater because the multiple, you get a multiple on revenue. You don’t just get advertising the marketing line. Right.

7:48 You know Tucker has his Alps product which Jamal unfortunately is not on today. No, please don’t put it on. Uh, you’re saying use the promo code allin. Well, Jimmy’s got his chocolate bar company. Is that the future, do you think, for monetization for the big independents is that they actually own the equity in what historically have just been sponsors for them and that’s where the value?

8:07 Well, you’re going to own the equity in your podcast, right? And then a lot of people and we started this business I don’t know about 10 years ago we called, we started at WME called talent ventures where a lot of musicians actors started because you know it’s with the broadcast networks and cable channels ratings going down you know manufacturers had to get to the audience and so that they used to do it through commercials.

8:35 When that rating went down they started then giving equity or people started launching a lot of different products. Sometime was alcohol, sometimes perfume, sometime it was food, etc. That will now start happening with people like you, other podcasters. Gwyneth Paltrow has done an exceptional job. That’s just a natural evolution because of where broadcast television is and cable television is. Manufacturers are going to have to get to an audience.

9:03 You guys have a very big and loyal audience. Events and things that you do on, you know, over the air. You know products will come to you. You will make the decision are you taking the sponsorship dollar or you taking the ownership dollar and that’s just evaluating the economics and whether you believe in the product. There’s a lot of things that go into that.

9:23 Yeah. Ari, how much of your time are you spending trying to figure out where like all these next-gen AI tools either help you give you maybe operating leverage to actually go and be even more creative, own the content versus maybe disrupt some of the legacy folks you’ve worked with?

9:40 You know, we have a whole program being set up at TKO and William Morris about kind of how AI can help us. On the production side, there’s a whole another that the studios are doing and our clients are doing. You know, I have, I’ve made a decision. I don’t know enough about AI. I’m not smart enough to know enough about it. I’ve made a decision that live content is where I’m going to sit. I’m really good at that. I’m really good at monetizing that.

10:09 So, we have a pure play sports entertainment business. I just launched which will launch in October kind of what I believe is the next kind of live events business. You know, you have our sports business, you have Live Nation and Michael Rapino and incredible. That’s pure play music. And I think there’s, when we were a public company, now we’re a private company, we had 700 events inside Endeavor.

10:34 I have, it will be completed in first week in October. Bought a lot of those, raised about $2 billion and about 900. And I’m going to go pure play in events because I think it’s the opposite. If you have AI over there, the opposite bet on AI is not data centers. It’s live. Humans want connection. Keep going back to live.

10:55 And I think it’s kind of like a 4-day work week now. Probably going down to three. I was seeing Elon and seeing the robots. Probably 3-day work week for full employment. There’s going to be a lot of free time. We definitely all need connections as we can see right here. And so my whole thesis is live. And I think on the William Morris side, which is incredible, there’s only two representation businesses. William Morris is the biggest one of all of them. And there’s going to be more room for content.

11:20 I want to slow down and double click into this. Just wait. So, we work Monday through Friday. Saturday, I don’t think a lot of people work Monday through Friday anymore. But I’m saying like, let’s just say, yeah, we used to Monday through Friday. Saturday, you’re schlepping the kids to soccer. Sunday, you get a rest day, watch some football, then rinse and repeat. That’s all a lie now. That’s going away.

11:38 No, no, no. Right now, drive times, average drive times in America, 11 to 4. So, people are doing their chores, doing their stuff that they have to do on the weekends in the morning or in the afternoon. They have their mobile phones. They’re doing their stuff. Thursday, hotel bookings are way up. Way up. So, weekend 3-day weekends. I’m shocked. What? Please wake up from back there. You should start drinking coffee because if you just look at the data, we’re at 4-day work weeks now.

12:09 I think it’s going to three-day work weeks, which means more time for entertainment is your key thesis. Sacks you wanted to get in. Well, I was going to riff on something Chamath said, which is you have so many different things you’re involved in. How do you decide how to prioritize your time? Because you could be, I know, helping William Morris clients. There’s representation could be a never-ending job by itself. You’ve got TKO. You could be looking for new acquisitions. How do you decide how to spend your time?

12:37 Thank god I have ADHD. Listen, actually this Friday is two years since we did the merger at TKO. We merged at I think $100 and then went down 79. Anybody says they don’t look at their stock price, I look at it every like 19 times a day. Yesterday we hit 200. We’re doing, I think, everything we said we were going to do with regard to kind of streamlining the two businesses, integrating them.

13:05 We brought over in February PBR, On Location, and IMG, which kind of fills out the suite of what we do at TKO for everybody that wants sports. We made our broadcasting deals and we’re just kind of powering away at what that, you know, focused on what we have to do. Are you personally at this point just kind of out of representation? No, no, no. Or do you dip down sometimes and help clients? How do you see that?

13:31 You know, being in the representation business, whether it be Marty Scorsese or Dwayne Johnson or Mark Wahlberg or Peter Berg or a whole host of my clients, it enables me to make the deals over at TKO because I’m in the conversation. Right. With YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, all the people I need to be in business with. And I do that. The running of that business now, because I’m not in like, “you didn’t call this person back.” I don’t do that anymore.

14:05 But in the representation of my clients and the clients of the agency, I’m in it every day because it does help the other businesses. Which platform are you the most obsessed with? YouTube, Netflix, all. Okay. But which one, if you have a client, do you think is the most important over the next 5 or 10 years? Who’s going to pay them the most amount of money and creatively enable them to do what they want?

14:24 Well, let me ask you a question. This is a really important question. I was going to ask this of Neil as well. I’ve heard from a number of folks that have historically done production on Netflix that they want to move to YouTube because Netflix, like the margins compressed and so they’re offering. And deals. That’s not true. Okay, that’s not true. And so I’ve heard a lot of folks say, “Well, if I go independent, I have unlimited upside. If I publish on YouTube, I just need financing.” Is there an emerging?

14:50 Listen, those are different. It depends on where you’re at. If it’s a YouTuber, right, and they want to scale up, and they have x amount, they’ll probably start on YouTube or start on Facebook or start on Twitter. Once they get to a certain level, they’ll make a decision. Is there, can, do they have a product that’s right for a half hour or an hour on Netflix or a feature film? Right? That’s different from what YouTube’s business plan is. And Neil will talk to you about that. So again, you can’t generalize that conversation.

15:22 Are you seeing a burgeoning of independent financing for production that would go out on YouTube? Like where folks are saying, I just need production financing. Find me some partners. And then, you mean for a YouTuber? For YouTubers. I mean, sometimes that’s not something you’re seeing kind of scale up right now. I’m definitely not in that space. If you know, David, I, that’s not something I do see. There’s people in my company that do that. We have a whole division for YouTubers, etc. Podcasting, that’s a whole group that we’ve started. It’s very successful right now.

15:56 Ari, there was a time when the dream of content creators was being able to own their IP. Netflix came in and said, “Hey, we’ll pay you much more, but you don’t get to own the Simpsons anymore. You don’t get to own this IP.” Yet. Well, remember the syndication model as broadcast television started to fade away. But there was at the beginning there was a third window which was Netflix. Now the cable and the station group window has kind of dissipated a little, right?

16:25 But when you still, when you make a deal at a broadcaster, smaller now, you do have a bidding war between Netflix, whether it be, if you’re at NBC Peacock, we just finished a big, we’re finishing up a big deal for The Office which started on broadcast the new stuff they’re buying out. Yes.

16:45 Yeah. So you don’t have this opportunity to do what you know the Simpsons did, to do what South Park did, to do what Seinfeld did. But you yourself, deal I just made for South Park’s pretty good for the guys. No, no, I know. But that seems to be the last generation to get that. This new generation seems to be just giving their IP over to Netflix. You yourself are saying, “I want to own the IP and you’re choosing to buy them.” So what is your advice to the clients because they can’t become billionaires if they don’t own IP.

17:16 So there’s a client by the name of Noah Hawley just had the Alien Earth show that premiered at Disney. He did Fargo also. Incredibly talented guy. I just signed him, right. He’s going to make a new deal. Now, back in the day, Greg Daniels or Larry David or Aaron Sorkin or Jim Brooks clients made an unbelievable amount of money. Jim did well. All of those people I said did very, very, very well.

17:49 Yes, he will not make as much money as they did in syndication, but he will do very, very, very well. So, if you’re really talented and you have success, you will do really well. And when it gets reaired and resold, he’ll do very very well. It’s not, if you have a show that goes into syndication and it gets $6 million an episode, you can’t make $500-600 million anymore. But you can make tens of millions. Yeah. More than that, but you can make, you can do very very well.

18:21 You were, I mean, I’m not crying. You’re famous for fighting hard. In fact, there was an iconic character created on Entourage for that. Yeah. Which was your favorite fight? Is it Sherry Lansing? Was it Justin Baldoni, Mike Ovitz? Which did you get the most pleasure fighting with of all these iconic fights?

18:41 You know, like I just said, all. No. I mean, listen, when you’re at the beginning of your career 30 years ago and you do not have the ability to change price and you have at the time you had William Morris, ICM, UTA, CAA, and you’re the fifth and you have to fight really hard because people just think you’re a chump, right?

19:10 And I don’t. Yeah. When people don’t think, because I’m dyslexic. I remember growing up anybody that thought I was stupid, they touched the third rail. And so when you were growing up in this business and everybody thinks, “Oh, you’re just that pushover. You got…” I’m not good there. Any chance? No, but this is a serious question.

19:33 Bringing Entourage back. Why hasn’t this happened? We love this. We grew up on it. How many people want to see the reunion? You’re the guy who can make it happen. I’m friends with Adrian Grenier. I talk to him all the time about it and he says, “Not my choice.” Are you guys having David Zaslav on this panel? No. No. I think you guys should call him. Is he holding the strings? Well, yeah. They, HBO. But you’re Ari. You could go and just tell them to do it. Let’s help that deal happen. Please.

20:00 On competition, was Michael Ovitz a mentor to you or a competitor? I worked for Mike for, I was in the mail room, then I was on a desk. He was, you know, he was incredible and he kind of changed the business. Before him was Lew Wasserman. They would be on Mount Rushmore. I think Mike did so many things right. I mean he was a visionary.

20:25 For the one thing when I was a young guy looking at it and looking back at it, you know, he started, he took Coke. I think it was from Grey Advertising at the time. I think it was Grey. And I always said to myself at the time like he had so much currency at the time. Why didn’t he buy Grey Advertising and he could have changed the dynamic of the agency? He could either take it public.

20:47 And then I was at this company called Intertalent. They got bought by ICM. ICM like had the greatest agents all and it just was bad management. And then we started the firm and I just said, you know, I’m not going to have a bad culture like ICM and when the opportunity comes, I’m going to go for assets that I could own and change kind of the dynamic of what an agency and what representation and what…

21:11 And that’s what no one had done before is think in terms of equity. Are there any assets that you don’t own that you wish you did or would you like to buy a studio? Would you like to buy sports teams? What? I don’t want to buy a studio. I don’t want to buy a sports team. Okay. I just started this company. I raised about $2 billion. I’m going to start this big events company. So, my plate’s really full. I’m loving life right now.

21:35 And yeah, I mean, TKO is in a great place right now with all the deals we made. We have a great partner in David Ellison and you saw what happened at the VMAs where our thought process, they put it on MTV, they put it on CBS, and they put on streaming. The largest audience they ever got. That’s going to be the same thing for the UFC. And now Bob Iger and Jimmy Pitaro are gonna launch the WWE on ESPN. I think it’s going to be incredible for that asset.

22:04 So do you think that all sports, there’s nothing left right now, right? We’re launching, you know, we have a big fight this weekend, the Canelo fight with Netflix, so we’re in good place. Ari, do you think that all sports continue to do well in the future? Or will some sports have to adapt for, you know, the fact that kids have a shorter attention span? They just need faster action. Like what happens to things like baseball? What happens to the maybe the slower, more prolonged sports?

22:32 You know, I think everybody’s going to have to adapt. The thing I like about our sport is, it’s like the UFC. It’s fast. Bull riding, 8 seconds. You know, you get it, you can watch it on your phone. WWE is family entertainment and all of them are, both the UFC and the WWE are huge global brands. I think all of them except, you know, I had a conversation with Roger Goodell yesterday. I was like how many storylines can you get? It was an unbelievable weekend except for Monday night when the Bears lost.

23:04 But I think a bunch of them are going to have to adapt and I think for some of them pricing is going to have to come down because I don’t think the US domestic market is the right place for them as it relates to hockey and baseball the big ones. They’ve done an incredible job adapting to the kind of new environment. I think baseball’s cut like 40 minutes off of the average. It’s incredible what they’ve done. They’ve always been innovative. When they launched BAM and they’ve been ahead of the curve.

23:34 So, what do you think about international markets? Obviously, India and China, huge markets. The NBA has done an exceptional job. They’re probably going to have something in Europe, the Knicks, my Knicks, which are going to win the chip this year. They’re going to be playing in Abu Dhabi, their preseason games. How do you view the internationalization of these live events?

23:52 I mean, just look at that Brazil game for the NFL. Incredible. Look at what baseball did when they launched the Dodgers and the Cubs in Japan. Everybody’s realizing the value that can happen now. We just had a UFC event in Shanghai, which we have a facility in a PI. We’re going to Abu Dhabi. We’ve always in ours been international. It’s a requirement for continued growth in the sports that you have to go international. So, all of them are going to adapt a little bit and try and figure that out.

24:21 I want to shift and ask a personal question. You come from an incredible family. Your brother Zeke is an incredible doctor. Your brother Rahm worked at the White House, was mayor of Chicago. You’re incredible. Ambassador to Japan now. Yeah. You’re an incredible entrepreneur and businessman. Is there competitiveness? Has there ever been competitiveness amongst the three of you as you guys?

24:41 Why do you think one’s in Chicago, one’s in Washington, one’s in LA? The cities are like when they come together like, you know, like they explode. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Where did it come from? And let me just tell you something. I’m winning. Where? You know, but where did it come from and who did mom love most?

25:02 You know, my mom says this all the time. My mom used to say, “You don’t love me as much as you love Zeke.” And Zeke is the doctor and the vice provost of Penn. And she turns to him and she goes to all of us. She goes, “I hate you all equally.” Ah, that’s where it comes from. Still trying to get mom’s love. I got it.

25:22 And what about your long-term, you have a long-term friendship with one of our besties, Elon. Yeah. How did that evolve? After 9/11, I gave up my Ferrari. I bought a Prius. Didn’t really like the Prius. I was looking for a better car. I read the article that he’s launching. I just call him. He picks up, comes in the office. I say, “I have to have one of these cars. I think I got number 11. I still own it.” The kind of the first model. Yeah.

25:50 And he and I have just been friends ever since. I just actually on Tuesday, you know, I went up to see the robots because I want to do a UFC fight with his robots and the robots, meaning robots versus robots. Yeah. I think it’d be incredible. Yes.

26:08 And I saw what he’s creating. The man’s a genius. The hand is incredible. Their ability to kind of, he had one he showed me one that was kicking and boxing. And when he talks about it, he talks about, you know, there’s probably about 100 million people in the United States that actually are working bodies. When you have a robot, it occupies five people, works 24 hours a day. And there’s no HR, there’s no issues.

26:40 He says the pro, you know, he goes through the pro, he goes through all the numbers, and it’s an incredible argument, and I think he’ll be able to produce a million of them. It’s going to be really profitable and they’re going to cost a dollar an hour to operate. And when I saw what the hand was doing, I think it was the third or fourth generation. Yeah. I was like, it’s incredible. And now the movement and the charging that he’s got down, it’s really, he’s a special human being in that capacity. Really special.

27:07 He really is an American treasure. Ladies and gentlemen, Ari Emanuel. Amazing. Thanks. Great to see you. Thanks. Don’t crush it.