My experience running the Tokyo Marathon; War with Iran; Update on the Padres sale (Episode 1420 Hour 1)

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Arigato, that is the nothing personal word of the day.

Today is Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026.

Today's episode is brought to you by Draft Kings.

Draft Kings, the crown is yours.

Arigato means thank you.

It's a word that I said hundreds of times over the past few days.

Thank you for staying with me over the past.

Four days as I disappeared to a magical place.

I flew to Tokyo.

You leave Thursday morning and you get there Friday night.

Happened to me my birthday Thursday.

So I only had a 10 hour birthday as Tokyo was 14 hours ahead.

So you get on the plane and all of a sudden puff.

You've lost 14 hours.

Now it is true, you get them back.

People get confused by that when you travel internationally.

Whenever time you lose, I promise you you get back when you get home.

When you leave, side note, I left Monday at 5.30pm and you get home same day at 6.30pm.

That's right, you fly all the way back in only an hour.

That's time for you.

So I went to Tokyo.

I had a plan, Coco.

It was always a good plan.

Ten months ago it was a thank god through fit international,

a marathon travel company and through great charities.

I was able to secure a bib in Tokyo.

My plan was to train and go to the city and the country I love and be ready to run a marathon.

And then life happened.

And I think that most of you are aware of what happened and how I'm dealing with a daughter who is ill and I didn't train.

And one of the things I've learned over the years, I've been doing marathons for 30 years.

I started in 1996, Coco.

And I've done a lot of them.

And you have to earn the starting line.

It's something Dave McGilvery, the race director of the Boston Marathon, always had told me, earn the start line.

And then that will carry you to the finish line.

I did not earn the starting line, Coco.

I got to Tokyo Friday night, having run one five mile run since September.

Just absolute absurdity, shameful to take a starting line with that as your condition.

But there was no way I wasn't going to do this.

And Coco, you don't know this because we haven't spoken about this part.

I know that you are in touch.

Thank you.

With Cara during the course of the race and that you were following and making sure.

Though I do think that you may have gone to sleep while I was still on the track.

Because of the time difference, the race started Saturday night at 720 Eastern, which is 920 am Sunday.

So I want to take you inside that race and inside Tokyo.

Just so you can get an idea, I've got a top five epiphanies that I had while I was in Tokyo.

Because you have a lot of time to think when you try to do a marathon that you're not prepared for.

You have a lot of time to think when you're on the course for over six hours when you don't think you have a chance of finishing.

You have a lot of time to think when the emotion of what you're doing because you're speaking to your other daughter who says,

listen, if my sister can do this and fight the way she's fighting, you can make it through 42 plus clicks over 26 miles.

So there's no way I was going to stop.

My leg stopped working around mile 13.

I made it to 13 just on muscle memory.

And the last 13 were just my brain.

I would not quit as much as I needed to.

And so I ended up walking slash limping for the last 10 miles, the walking at like a 14 and a half minute pace.

The result is compression socks and recovery boots and Advil and all sorts of other things.

But Coke as I sit here today, having then flown back and arrived just last night is I've got several issues that I'm not discussing.

Other than chafing is a real thing.

That's number one.

Number two, I can't really feel my calves quads and hamstrings.

That's not even a top five.

Let me give you the number five of piphany in Tokyo.

The world baseball class starts this week in Tokyo.

Game start this week.

The number of each row and Otani jerseys was staggering.

There are the two players you see and there were about 39,000 runners.

I came in 26,000th place out of 39,000.

Not terrible.

Means I finished.

But the number of each row jerseys, the number of Otani jerseys, the number of each row and Otani adds everywhere.

It's just amazing.

I don't really see that as much in the U.S. in my mind.

You see commercials, billboards to me or just, again, maybe I'm not in Times Square as much as I should be or looking at digital billboards.

So this is totally anecdotal.

But to me, you are just inundated with advertisements that have each row and an Otani.

But then on the course, I've run marathons all over the world.

I've never run Tokyo.

And the number of people running in baseball jerseys talk about chafing, but each row not forgotten.

And people are certainly excited for the world baseball classic.

Number four, 12 volunteers in Tokyo.

Thank you.

And there's so many.

As you would imagine, it's a different culture in Japan.

Everyone's just neat.

You don't throw your garbage on the ground when you're going every five miles, which I did.

Our gel or eating whatever you can.

Salt tablets, lecture lights, bananas, oranges, candies, crackers, rice crackers available.

Never had that during a marathon.

I could have used a quarter pounder.

Everything's clean.

You're in a water station.

You take a glass of water.

No one throws the cup on the ground.

They have places to put the cups.

And every runner puts the cups in the ref you spin.

In the New York marathon, go to a water station on first avenue.

And there's cups like you're running on slippery cups for like a hundred yards.

The amount of respect that people have in Japan, it just doesn't exist that way in the US.

The number of volunteers where in between water stations, there are volunteers lined up with garbage bags.

And if you happen to have garbage during that period, it's just remarkable.

And I am not in any way imputing the volunteers I've come across in Boston, New York, and Chicago,

Washington, et cetera, and Disney, et cetera, et cetera.

But this is another level.

And Japan and the corals were perfectly, everything was perfect.

Other than the fact I was out of shape perfectly.

Number three, I want to help you with a concept called temporary pain.

People who have tattoos know this concept.

Temporary pain leading to permanent pleasure.

It's the same thing I've said, Koken06, when I did the Ironman.

Yeah, I did the Ironman Championship in Hawaii.

And I got the Ironman tattoo.

And that's it.

Pain for 15 hours and 36 minutes to do the Hawaii Ironman 20 years ago.

But now I'm an Ironman forever.

They can never take it away no matter how out of shape or how fat I get.

You just cannot take that away.

That is my view of temporary pain.

And that helps you get through so much stuff like studying for a calculus exam.

It helps you get through just about anything.

Temporary pain that leads to permanent pleasure, like studying for the bar.

Whatever it is that you do, just get through it.

It is unbelievable what your brain can do when it is healthy.

It's unbelievable what your body can do way more than you think.

That's a trait I would make every day.

Number two, coca-training matters in anything.

Training matters.

Whether it's for your job, whether it's for whatever recreational activity you do,

whatever it is to do reps of hosting a show, to be a producer,

to be head of social media and creative, training matters.

And I need to remember that.

And the number one thing I want to mention, the epiphany from Tokyo,

is that because of the time difference, it was 7.20 pm Saturday night.

And I was able to communicate with my daughter who is not sick,

who is just a rock and just everything.

And I got a text during the race that basically said,

you know, if my sister can do this, then you can too.

And the fight that it took to finish 26.2 and to cross the finish line,

it really is nothing compared to what my daughter's going through

and what so many people are going through, who face challenges,

physical challenges, mental challenges, who face sickness,

who face crisis, and the guilt I felt feeling,

oh my God, like I cannot believe how I feel right now.

I can't believe what's taking to get to the finish line,

to crossing the finish line, it's nothing.

So I felt guilty for having that feeling and guilty that I can't walk today.

And just to the people fighting, thank you.

Keep fighting, keep fighting because we're all next to you.

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When you're in Tokyo, a lot of things happen.

At different times, weird times.

Because you're trying to stay in touch with your friends and family

in the States.

But the 14 hour time difference leads to very small windows

where you can speak to or be in touch with.

So you're often waiting till the next morning.

You're just trying to figure it out.

We are frozen.

Standing by.

Tech issues.

Did Metal Arc Media not pay its bills?

We're back, baby.

I don't know what just happened,

because it didn't happen on my end for a change.

We had a tech issue, but we're back.

So I don't know what we lost.

But the time difference is such that things happen at the opposite times.

So you can't be in touch with people.

The war in Iran, excuse me, 4-8-6-9.

The war in Iran started during the day in Tokyo.

So I was getting, I got the first alert.

And I realized it was the middle of the night in the United States

and that people were going to wake up to an alert

that there was now an escalation.

There was a war in Iran.

And a couple of things that are being misrepresented,

there seems to be yet again,

which is how we operate as a country.

And it's not today.

It's been going on, go back to when I was young,

like a baby in Vietnam.

Go back to the World Wars.

There are always people who are in favor of war.

There are people who are against war.

There are people who are in favor of what the war is trying to accomplish.

And there are people who are not.

That is the reality of life.

There are going to be two sides.

There are going to be people today who believe that we should not be involved

in a war right now in the Middle East.

There are going to be people who...

Your views are so strong and I'm okay.

I want you to have the strong views.

That's fine.

Explain to me the contempt and disdain

that we all have for people who don't share our view.

I'm trying to work through that.

And it's been going on for all of these years

where we would take it out on veterans

when you're against the Vietnam War and all of a sudden you're not taking care of veterans.

I learned most about this coca from Fred and Jeff Wilpon,

who devoted as owners of the Mets in addition to whatever you think of on the field.

Off the field, what the work they did with veterans is...

I would compare it to anyone in the history of people who have helped

and thought about veterans in a way to make them feel loved

and understood and appreciated.

But I'm trying to just understand the concept here

that you are okay.

And if you're okay, I'm okay.

You're okay.

Live and let live, I told you.

Even though I've got family members and people who tell me

you can't have that view when it comes to Israel

or when it comes to Jewish people as I am Jewish.

However, if you have a problem with this war

and in your opinion like the mayor of New York City

where wants to make sure that at all times

Iranian people feel comfortable, I agree.

Innocent people should always feel comfortable and not feel in danger.

But why can't you be in favor

or why can't you understand those who are in favor

of eliminating an existential threat,

comma, an actual threat to other innocent people?

Why can't you potentially understand those who are in favor

of eliminating that either actual or existential threat?

Whether you agree or not

that the Iran at some level

poses a threat to the safety of Israel,

to the safety of others in the Middle East,

potentially to the safety of Americans.

Whether you agree with that or not,

the facts say that there is reason that you can agree with that

while also saying I do not agree

with the killing of innocent people.

That to me is a very reasonable position

but the most reasonable position has to be that your position is okay.

And what we're seeing now is unbelievable visceral reactions to this

by those who just want to have a reaction,

by those who may not understand, as I don't,

how could any of us, if you're not right there on the front line literally?

Why is it that you can say with such authority

that what's happening is wrong or what's happening is right?

Where does it come from?

Does it come from the information you're getting?

Does it come from journalists?

And we're going to talk later in the show about a movie

that covers one of the journalists who used to cover war

in a very neutral way.

I'm trying to find neutral coverage.

I can't find it.

So therefore I have to adjust my thinking

according to the sources of the conversation.

So Netanyahu goes on Hannity and I'm looking and I'm saying,

huh, that's an interesting choice.

Oh, I get it.

There are practical problems around this war right now.

And this goes to my general way of being

is that I'm very interested.

And you can ask my fantastic assistant

over two decades, Beth, this concept or anyone in my life,

I'm an exit strategy guy.

I need to know and it's not like looking in front of you

or behind you for an exit in an airplane.

I'm talking about the ability to exit anywhere I am,

anything I'm doing at any time.

I am not exactly sure what the exit strategy is,

while some will tell you eliminate the country.

Well, that's a strategy.

I just haven't heard that from the people who are in charge of the war

in the US or in Israel or anyone else who gets burnt into it.

An exit strategy could be kill some of the leaders.

Make sure that there is no more ballistic capabilities.

Marco Rubio wanted to make sure that we understood the exit strategy.

No, no, he didn't say that.

Marco Rubio just said that we are no matter what you're hearing.

We are concerned about the ballistic capabilities of Iran, okay?

Then the exit strategy is making sure they no longer have ballistic capabilities.

But does that include then eliminating the country, eliminating all the people

or the children?

I just want to know what our strategy is.

But David, you can't give a war strategy to people

because then the other side will know.

And on the other hand, who cares if they know

with the military might that I heard we have?

The last thing is for the people in the armed forces,

regardless of whether they believe in what we are doing,

they fight and they live or they die fighting.

And Koka knows this about me, as is anyone in my life.

I tend to say thank you to veterans very often.

I tend to remind people that we live in the freedom that was created

by other people willing to give their life.

And I have the conversation, what would I give my life for?

And when you score a 100 in the selfish category,

it's hard to come up with a list of things that you would give your life for.

I'm no longer 100, I would give my life for the health of my daughter

and I would do it in one second, less than a second.

I have found the thing that had never existed before.

I now have it.

So in theory, it's not even a slippery slope.

There is a level, there are things that people would say,

yeah, that's it.

For me, I never had to fight for freedom.

I was born into it.

So I wouldn't have given my life for it because it was just expected.

It was something I knew.

It's like I wouldn't give my life to make sure I had 10 fingers.

I have 10 fingers.

You do enough work with disabled athletes and you think about who would give what?

For what?

And you think about the trades?

No one can know what they do.

And so I am just...

I'm thankful for the people who fight.

And we've already lost.

I don't know what the count is this morning.

Coke, I didn't look and I should have.

But I think six Americans so far have died.

And we get to do a show called Nothing Personal.

Paramount.

How quickly into this segment, Coco, do I have to say that we,

that I do work for CBS sports?

I guess I'll do it right now.

We've talked plenty about Warner Brothers Discovery,

about the $700 plus million that David Zazloff is going to get

in the sale of Warner Brothers Discovery.

Fine.

We've talked on sporting class with John Skipper and public Torrey

about this transaction and on Nothing Personal.

Paramount has won.

They have bought Warner Brothers.

That's the headline you're reading.

No, no, not exactly.

There is an agreement in place for Paramount

to purchase the assets of Warner Brothers Discovery

to purchase the entire part of the company

that was going to split into later this year.

It is a huge transaction.

Over a hundred billion dollars.

It's not done.

It's got to be approved by the government.

I assure you, as I've said,

this transaction will be approved.

As a matter of fact, the reason I knew

that Paramount would be the winner versus Netflix

is that all of the signs that we got from government

was that there was a preference given to Ellison

versus Netflix versus Ted in this area.

As I've told you, some of the best deals

are the deals you don't make.

I've been through mergers.

Whether it was Morgan Stanley Dean winner.

I have seen companies merge that I've worked in.

I've seen companies merge that I've worked with.

We've seen media mergers.

We've seen rental car mergers.

We have seen team mergers.

Let's not forget about the great Yankees Net's transaction.

It is incredibly difficult to effectuate a merger.

And people during my years on Wall Street,

there are two ways.

A company can buy another company.

A company can merge with another company.

Those aren't that different.

Because in a merged company,

there's always the boss.

Sometimes they try co-chairmen and co-seos.

It's like the Orioles when they had co-GMs

with my friend Jim Beatty.

It doesn't exactly work that way.

Generally, you have to have a singular leader.

And I'm not a proponent of monarchies or authoritarianism.

However, in the business world, I'm a huge fan of that.

You have to have someone in charge.

You can have checks on the person in charge.

The way we have in theory the judicial branch

and the legislative branch,

which checks the power of the executive branch.

In business, it's the same thing.

You've got a chairman CEO.

That's the executive branch.

And they're checked by the legislative branch.

That's the board of directors.

And the judicial branch is always the judicial branch

because that's the court system,

which in theory, you're supposed to always be able to use

in order to make sure that everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing.

So Paramount now has this company

where all of the stars and all of the actors and the writers and the directors.

And the subscribers, regular people.

Everyone is saying, well, wait a minute.

This isn't going to be good for us.

You can't have one man, the Ellison's father and son team,

one company, Skydance.

You can't have this sort of concentration at the top.

There will be reckless disregard for people at the bottom.

For whether or not we have to pay extra now

if we're going to have HBO Max and Paramount.

When right now we pay for HBO Max, we pay for Paramount.

They're immersion into one network.

Does that mean we won't pay for one?

Will the price of the combined be more than the price of the individual?

Two stations now?

Not announced.

The impact to sports, the impact to movies.

Will there be theatrical releases now that one person owns two major studios,

Paramounts and Warner Bros.

It's terrible.

We are not going to get what we want when we get a percentage of the back end.

We want a percentage of the gross and the gross is way down.

As a customer, I want to be able to watch my basketball

without going to seven different stations.

Wait a minute.

You do want consolidation.

As a football fan, I don't know.

Do I go to Amazon one day and now I got to go to YouTube

and then I got to make sure that I have the NFL network.

Who owns that again?

Oh, Disney.

Wait a minute.

Do I have to ride Space Mountain as much as I may love to?

In order to watch my favorite NFL team, give me a break.

The actual consumer impact to this deal.

The actual consumer impact.

Wait for it.

It doesn't exist.

There are plenty of bidders available for the things

that require an open markets.

There has not been a transaction where all of a sudden

there is one company that controls whatever you do.

It's just not right and it's being positioned that way

and I don't understand.

People are going through and they're listing all the different rights now

because there's one guy.

They're going to own TNT.

No basketball anymore, but they have a bunch of other stuff.

But now they've also got CBS.

So therefore, if you look at all whether it's the Masters,

whether it's football, whether it's baseball.

Yeah, TNT just signed a deal with baseball,

which is Warner Brothers Discovery,

which now is paramount, which means that CBS in theory

now has a deal with baseball.

So when baseball has to go out and renegotiate

its media deals in 28, are they saying to themselves,

that's it.

That's it.

We have no one we were done.

We have no chance.

Go ask the four commissioners of sports right now,

whether after the paramount deal to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery,

if they are going to budget a decrease in their media rights deals,

I double dare you to go ask.

Whether that's their concern.

Here's a hint.

If Roger Cadill wakes up today and says ladies and gentlemen,

in light of the new transaction between paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery,

we have decided that our current media rights deals are,

they're a chef's kiss, they're plenty.

We're not going to exercise our right to open those deals

and negotiate new deals.

No, there's not enough competition.

We are going to survive for these next seven years until 2033,

and we're going to thank our lucky stars,

and then we're going to take a major hit when it comes time

because there's no one else bidding.

Give me a break.

Of course, he's going to open the media deals

because there's still competition out there

that's going to drive the price up.

Same with baseball.

My conclusion on this deal is that we don't know.

We don't know the exact impact when you say there are economies of scale

or Ellison comes out and says that it is very likely

that there is going to be billions of dollars of savings

on the corporate side where you hear about layoffs after mergers.

That is the purpose.

When you buy something, when a big company buys a small company,

this goes back to pretty women, pretty woman, 4869.

This goes back to pretty woman with Richard Gehr and Kastanza

and a young Julia Roberts.

That was his business.

You buy companies, you sell off the pieces,

and then you are therefore able to make money.

This type of combination is that not what you do in your own household?

If you have the ability to buy a product that is cheaper than having two separate products

and that product does the two things that the old products used to do,

of course, you do it.

If you own a company and you can find a way to lower your employee expense,

do you do it when it does not cut into your revenue?

How many times do we have to have the conversation about maximizing your net income,

about trying to improve your financial position and doing that two ways,

raise revenue lower expenses?

If it costs me three extra dollars to get two dollars in revenue, you're a moron.

You've just lost a dollar that you would have had if you had done nothing.

If you save two dollars and don't get one extra penny in revenue,

you're smart, you've saved two dollars.

The whole key is figuring out how much does it cost to make two more dollars.

Can I spend under two dollars to make two more dollars?

That's how you build wealth.

That's how you build shareholder value.

When companies merge, they are going to look to cut expenses.

If there are three people doing the same job and you can have one person do it,

you can bet your sweet bippy that two of the people are going to need to be reallocated.

Sounds harsh, but that's been going on?

I don't know.

Forever?

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Brent Reno is a name that I had not heard of.

I'm sorry to say.

I'm very thankful to the Academy and for the Oscars.

I cannot wait for March 15th.

I watched the actor awards live in Tokyo.

They started at 10 a.m. on Monday.

That's right. That's 8 p.m. Sunday night.

It was 10 a.m. on Monday as I was getting ready to leave Tokyo and go to a lunch first.

I was watching the actor awards live on Netflix.

And I was taken by several things,

and we can talk about, we will talk about the Academy Awards and all the movies, etc.

But I've been reviewing movies.

Armed with only a camera is nominated for an Academy Award as a documentary short.

It's under 40 minutes. It's about the life of Brent Reno,

who is the first journalist who got killed covering the war in Ukraine.

And I was floored by this movie.

It's available right now on Paramount on HBO Max.

That's funny, Coco. That was funny.

Let me do that again, please.

Because they're not merged yet, so they're not going to be happy.

So, 4869.

Armed only with the camera is available on HBO Max,

and it is about the life and death of Brent Reno.

And when you're a journalist,

you've watched war movies,

and you remember many things about them, obviously.

But two things that you always will remember

is medics where the Red Cross

and journalists wear something that says press, like a vest that says press.

And there are certain rules that should never be broken.

One is, you don't kill a member of the press.

No matter what.

There have been wars that have been going on forever

since the beginning of religion and land acquisition and business.

There are legal disputes.

There are wars.

I thought it was pretty understood that you can have a battle.

It's almost as though, and not everything is about sports.

But, fraternization, the night before a game, before a game,

I was always okay with.

But once you're between the lines, I'd never liked it.

I came from the Pat Riley school.

When there's an opposing player on the ground, you do not pick him up.

You let his teammates pick him up.

Between the lines, there are certain rules.

And you have to abide by those rules.

One of them is, you don't kill people in the press.

No matter what you're standing for, no matter what you're fighting for,

no matter what kind of devil you're fighting against,

no matter how holy your war is,

no matter what your view is of any side,

I thought that was just clear.

I thought it would be fine for people to understand the difference between

between the lines and outside the lines.

I don't know.

Please watch this movie and understand that the fact that Brent Renaud died

and was murdered is outrageous.

And the fact that there's just so many things that we don't know about

that just happen.

Thank God for documentaries.

Thank God for movies, no matter how, no matter how slanted they may be,

no matter how you worry, oh my God, Michael Moore,

he's only here to be from the left and crush the right.

It just makes you do some research.

It makes you try to get educated like every other bit of news you see

where you're forced, definitionally, to do some homework and learn.

I did some homework about Brent Renaud.

He lived a very, very short life and he did a lot.

I'm going to watch and review for you Marty Supreme tomorrow is my last

best picture nominee.

We will do that on Wednesday's show.

What have you learned as a nothing personal subscriber?

Thank you for subscribing.

Nothing personal with David Samson, YouTube channel.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for every way you engage.

On social media, nothingpersonal.mpds, we're David P. Samson.

We're, we can be found and thank you for being a subscriber because it's

sort of like a, you know, below the belt measuring contest.

Everyone wants to have subscribers and love and followers, et cetera.

So thank you.

But what's one of the concepts that you know of?

When you read about all the interest in a team that's being sold,

the way we read that the San Diego Padres have all of these interested

bitters, so interested that the deal could close this month.

What have you learned?

Not so much.

No, no, you've learned, you've learned a lot.

I hope what you've learned that totally didn't follow.

When I say not so much, meaning is that possible that the Padres

will sell in March.

Well, it is March.

Here's what we had leaked to us over the past few days.

Is that there are up to five different parties with three significant

offers on the table.

You remember the Marlins transaction because I've sold a professional

sports team before.

And any time I publicize the interest of anyone, I overstated it.

And the reason I overstated it is that I needed to make sure that the

main buyer was fearful that he, she or they, Derek would not get the team.

And that there would be an opportunity for another person, Alex, or anybody,

whether it's Midson or anybody who would get the team, therefore making fake

competition.

You've heard of this concept, of course, not just with team sales.

I believe you've heard of this with free agency.

I believe you've heard of it when you go in and negotiate for a raise or

a bonus or a new job.

You always want your opponent, your boss, your company, you, anybody.

You always want there to be what in a negotiation?

There's a through line, leverage.

That's always the key to the negotiation.

What gives leverage?

One of the things is the appearance, not the reality, the appearance of competition.

Someone wants what I want.

Wait, someone's willing to pay what for what I want in an open world.

The business transaction where in theory you're supposed to believe that there is no

leverage that competition is actual is in an open auction where people are in a

room and they're raising their paddle.

But then you come to realize, I can't win three card Monti because the person to my

left is winning.

Oh my God, that person's working for the home team.

There can't be someone holding a bid paddle up in an auction who actually works for

the auction house because if I found that out, then I would never participate in an

auction again.

Think about what we're willing to acknowledge and live with as we participate in our

daily lives, what we believe to be the rules of engagement.

When it comes to selling a team, those rules do not exist.

So, is it true that Drew Breeze wants to be a partner in the Padres transaction?

Yeah, it may be true.

Is Drew Breeze going to be the control person of the San Diego Padres?

No chance toilet pants, zero.

And I mean zero point zero chance.

Drew Breeze does not have the money nor is putting the money in to be the control

person of the Padres.

What about the Golden State Warriors owner?

That would make sense.

Joe Laker is rumored to be someone who is interested.

He could become a control person.

There are limited partners of other teams who like becoming control persons.

Todd Bowley.

There are control people of teams that like to be control people of other teams.

Mark Walter.

There are examples all over the board of people who have one, want to have zero,

want one.

That is the essence of why franchise values keep going up.

The reason why this transaction interests me so much is I can't wait for the

number.

As we are entering into a uncertain time in labor and majorly baseball.

When you are entering into an uncertain time in terms of media revenue, local and

national.

When you put your faith as you should in no a garden who is going to by 2028,

get deals that are far superior to those deals that exist.

If you believe as I do in Dan Helm, the other deputy commissioner that the labor

deal will get figured out in a way that will continue to be prosperous for both players

and management.

You just don't know when.

You don't know exactly what these short term revenue implications are.

Therefore, is it difficult to come up with a price?

Well, temporary pain for permanent pleasure.

There is no owner right now, a potential owner who looks at the Padres and says, oh,

we got a labor situation.

Not sure about what's going on with the media.

All right, I can't bid.

It doesn't work that way.

It's like someone once said to me, did someone have a problem bidding for the Marlins because

of the contract you had with Giancarlo Stanton?

No, never even came up ever.

Now, did they end up trading Stanton?

Yeah, because they wanted to lower their payroll?

Fine.

But that had nothing to do with when you are looking at the value of the team.

The Padres team and the number will be reflective of the competition that exists for people to

purchase one of 30.

And that one of 30 is not dependent upon the next labor deal, the next media rights deal,

whether San Diego wins or doesn't win, you're going to read a lot about the fact that their

attendance is higher than the last four years.

They've been one of the top in attendance.

They've lower their payroll.

I mean, this is AJ Preller.

You go up, you go down, you go sideways, you don't win, you do win, you don't win.

Not relevant.

The reason I'm interested to see the number is I want to prove to you that the numbers are

related to being one of 30, then they're related to the size of the market you're in, and

then they're related to the ego premium that a person is willing to pay to be one of 30.

And we will be able to break it down when we see what the price is.

Over three billion, it's not going to happen.

If it trades for more than the 2.4 that Stephen Cohn bought the Mets in 2020, that will be

a huge victory for the sidler family.

I don't think it's time yet to acknowledge that Las Vegas will have a team in 28.

Not yet.

We're getting there.

Yes, I do see the ballpark as it's being built in Las Vegas.

Yes, of course, I do see what the tourist numbers are in Vegas.

And I remind everyone the number of tourists that the A's are assuming will go to every game,

which we told you at the beginning was total or soggy.

What the president of the A's did yesterday was spectacular.

His name is Mark Badein.

Remember, he helped build the Legion Stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders Brady Steam.

He's now the new president of the A's who are going to become Las Vegas athletics in theory,

depending on trademark dispute resolution, but they will.

And there was an article by Mick Acres in the Las Vegas Review Journal that covered this concept

that Mark Badein wanted to make sure that we all understood.

And the concept is that everybody has done it wrong.

Every previous team president.

No offense taken.

I'm sure no offense was meant.

Everybody's done it wrong.

No one's taking care of their season ticket holders the way I'm going to take care of my season ticket holders.

As a matter of fact, I'm a Vegas guy.

He said, for all intents and purposes, we're going to make our people like casino hosts.

He literally said, I don't think teams spend enough time or money on season ticket holders.

They become sort of complacent to it.

He wants everything to be the way it is with casino hosts.

For those of you who don't know, if you are a big enough gambler,

and that's not measured by the amount of money you win or lose,

it's actually measured by something called theoretical value.

Theoretical value is a concept.

If you come to Vegas, what would over time be your risk?

What would be because the house has a percentage that they know when you gamble at Blackjack

and you do five hours a day for 10 days a year,

and your average bet is X dollars, that you have a theoretical loss of blank.

And that is how they base your comps.

We're not talking about the people who sit at the $5 table and get a free Coca-Cola.

We're talking about people who get rooms, who get sweets, who get various perks,

who get travel vouchers.

Why do you think a casino would pay for your plane ticket?

Because they expect that you will give it back.

We have been working on season ticket holders.

I did it for 18 years.

Are you going to say it into a well because I didn't have a lot of them?

Okay.

Are you going to say that someone who has a team that has the most season ticket holders does it the best,

only because there's like a green bay.

Do they have the greatest season ticket holder department in the world?

Where you can be on the waiting list for 50 years?

They could have customer service done by a donkey,

and you'll still be number 39,000 on the list.

The thought that anyone will buy season tickets because they think that they will get the attention

like a casino host would give them attention.

Nobody's dumb enough to fall for that.

But we've been saying it for years.

Yes, we have a, it's called the service department.

We don't say they're season ticket holders.

They are premium event participants.

We'll come up with more names than you've got toenails on the floor after a clipping session.

And all of it is just bonkers and that it's meaningless.

The reason why teams, companies, airlines, restaurants,

I don't care what company it is.

I don't care what they're selling.

The reason why you have a customer service department filled with AI people,

or if you're lucky, an absolute detention center somewhere in Indonesia,

is that the expense, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

We spend more money making sure that the people who spend the most money will keep spending the most money,

but we are fine with flipping the people who spend the least money.

You're telling me that in Oakland or Sacramento or Las Vegas,

that all of a sudden you're going to treat the season ticket holders who spend $1,000 or $2,000,

that all of a sudden you're going to treat them with more than a free die coke and a hello,

that they're going to get the personal service of a casino host

and the same attention that the sweetholders will get.

Well, that's epic.

You're right, Mark.

That's never been done in the history of sports or business.

But you're going to be the first team that's going to give treatment to the bottom barrel of your customers.

You are going to give them a plus first class service and make them feel just as important as the people

who are spending a half a million dollars a year with you.

Oh no, we can do it both, David.

If you're a good company, you can take care of the little guy and take care of the big guy.

Really, I haven't quite found that.

Hold on, I'm getting a call from the cable guy.

I'm next online.

I'm going to get a call back in 32 minutes.

What's the reality?

The reality is that the Las Vegas team has to sell season tickets to people in order to make the numbers work,

to get the attendance they need.

They're going to have to sell season tickets to people who they will not have the ability to service,

and that's okay.

Just because I do not get attention does not mean I don't engage with that particular product.

Don't panic, but also don't believe the ridiculous hype.

We're going to have way more after the break.

Music

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