Final Job Description: A Niche Career- Not settling for the norm

 Summer Analyst at Evolution Media Capital

Here are some crazy facts and numbers:

 

Every year companies like Forbes, ESPN, and Sportico release their lists of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. Sportico just announced their 2024 list:

Dallas Cowboys (NFL) - $9.2 Billion

Golden State Warriors (NBA) - $8.2 Billion

New York Knicks (NBA) - $7.4 Billion

Los Angeles Lakers (NBA) - $7.1 Billion

New York Yankees (MLB) - $7.1 Billion

The next top five sports franchises were all NFL teams. Just three years ago, Forbes reported  the 2021 Most Valuable Sports Franchises List and it looked like this:

Dallas Cowboys (NFL) - $5.7 Billion

New York Yankees (MLB) - $5.25 Billion

New York Knicks (NBA) - $5 Billion

FC Barcelona (Soccer) - $4.76 Billion

Real Madrid (Soccer) - $4.75 Billion

In just three years these two lists have changed drastically. Today there is no soccer team valued as a top ten sports franchise, the Dallas Cowboys have nearly doubled in valuation, and NFL teams are rising at a faster rate than any other sport. A full decade earlier in 2010 the Forbes Most Valuable Sports Franchise list looked like this:

Manchester United (Soccer) - $1.83 Billion

Dallas Cowboys (NFL) - $1.65 Billion

New York Yankees (MLB) -  $1.6 Billion

Washington Redskins (NFL) - $1.55 Billion

New England Patriots (NFL) - $1.36 Billion

Just one decade ago, all of the most valuable sports franchises were worth just around $1 billion and today most of these franchises are nearing $10 billion. Ever since these valuations have been recorded it is clear that teams who are winning championships are valued the highest and the teams who are located in major cities, like New York and Los Angeles consistently are more valuable than their opposition regardless of their record. For instance, for my entire life, the Knicks have barely even been in the playoffs yet they are consistently a top-five most valuable franchise. 

This insane growth in enterprise value was extremely exciting to me. It almost yelled “Opportunity!” I was fascinated. How could all these teams be growing at such an exponential rate? What are the drivers? How are teams building engagement? How do I get involved!

Where I started

I grew up in New York City and every year I would have the absolute privilege of going to the Mecca of Madison Square Garden. I got to witness from a young age just how powerful sports are at bringing people together and creating excitement. I just never realized how they were all such a business until I got to college. I am a business major at USC and from freshman year all I heard was IB IB IB. Every single person whom I would speak to not in Real Estate would tell me:

“You need to do the grind and get involved in investment banking recruiting and then grind that out for a year or two where your life is hell and then you get to go to the buy-side and be in private equity and then you're set for life!” 

To be completely honest it did not sound like fun and this whole idea of being a corporate slave crunching numbers and grinding Excel really did not excite me, but it seemed like it was the only way. So, in my sophomore year, I did just that. I got the study guides, joined the clubs, learned my technicals, networked my ass off, applied for all the bulge bracket banks, networked some more, took the interviews, had six “super days” (final round of interviews that last anywhere from three to six hours, where you are interviewed on technicals and behaviors by different bankers who clearly do not care about you Yes it is just as awful as it sounds), and then got no offers. I was miserable to say the least and really could not get myself excited about starting secondary recruitment. I just had no idea how I would be able to do it all over again.

At that same time, I declared a Sports Media Industries minor and joined the Sports Business Association. I was taking great classes by Professors like Jeff Fellenzer that actually interested me and I would learn more and more from amazing guest speakers about the business of the industry. Not only that, these industry professionals would give advice about how to break into the sports industry. For instance, LA Dodgers General Manager Ned Coletti came and spoke in one of my classes and explained that when he got his first job he interviewed for one of two positions available and offered to do both for just a small salary increase. He made himself stand out and took a risk and it seemed like that's what working in sports is all about.

I was inspired and knew I needed to break into the industry. I had this passion to work at the intersection of sports and finance and knew there had to be opportunities. I began researching investment banking but for sports. In traditional banking, when there is a merger or an acquisition, there needs to be an advisor to be the middleman and do the due diligence. I knew it had to be the same for sports and it turned out there was.

One of the many companies I found was called Evolution Media Capital (EMC), which has now just recently been rebranded as CAA Evolution. The CEO, Bob Stanley, happened to live in the same hometown as me, and through a mutual connection, I was able to set up a phone call. I could not have been more excited and after explaining my situation and aspirations to Mr. Stanley, I quickly found out they did not take “sophomore interns.” However, in great Ned Colleti fashion, I offered to do a free project for EMC or do any tedious work they needed help completing. Weeks later, Mr. Stanley called me back saying I could help make a White Papers presentation for clients and investors on the increase in enterprise value in sports franchises and the driving factors teams and leagues are using for fan engagement. Not only did I land a major resume builder, but I also had a project that would get me informed on everything I was already passionate about. 

Long story short, I killed my project and got great feedback from the team, but they did not offer me or even bring up a traditional internship opportunity for the following summer. That said, I once again began my process of networking and recruiting for jobs in finance and sports. Months later, I took my two younger cousins to a Yankees Game where I just so happened to be sitting in the same section as Mr. Stanley had a young son the same age as my cousin. We quickly caught up and I reminded him how I was recurring for an internship. One week later someone on Mr. Stanley’s team reached out and congratulated me on completing a great project and offered me to return and intern for the M&A and Media Rights team in NYC. 

The Internship

I had no idea what to expect from the internship. I knew I was working in M&A and typically that means long hours of tedious work and intensive training, but banking for sports is extremely different. I won’t get too into it here, but in valuing a company a banker typically uses a DCF (Discounted Cash Flow Statement) to value the business. However, you really cannot effectively do this for a sports franchise and rather have to use public comparables, precedents, revenue multiples, and differentiating factors to value a team. 

Just for brief background and context, EMC is a subsidiary of CAA (Creative Artist Agency), so my internship took place in the CAA office of the Chrysler Building. The team was located on the sports floor, meaning we sat right next to all the social media sports groups, the sponsorship groups, the property sales groups, and of course the huge sports agents. This meant every day I went to work I had no idea who I might run into and what opportunity I might find myself in. The President of CAA Sports Mike Levine, aka Vino, had a motto to essentially always have your A-Game and make an effort to meet new people every time you are in the elevator because you never know who you might be talking to and where it might lead you.  

Anyway, back to the story. I quickly found out that the EMC internship program followed the same HR guidelines as the traditional CAA internships. This meant minimum wage with a strict 9am to 6pm workday with no overtime allowed. While the hours sound ideal, I honestly would have rather preferred a little more intensity, so I could learn as much as possible and experience the traditional NYC corporate grind. 

I was given a desk outside of the three media rights analyst cubicles, which was the best thing that could have happened. From the start, the analyst whose cubicle faced in front of me, offered to answer any question I may have. My first task was data entry. I had to go through every major sports league and find any public sale of a major or minor stake in that franchise for the past two decades and categorize it into a spreadsheet. There are over 30 teams for the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, countless major league soccer teams, and many F1 teams, and many teams have changed names, relocated, or no longer exist. There is also not a single database that tracks these transactions, in fact, most are just small articles on different websites like Yahoo Sports. I started with the NBA and immediately realized I was moving way too slowly, but luckily the analyst gave us a full lesson on shortcuts and tricks they use in working with Excel that allowed me to become more efficient in my job. 

While I was creating this database, I also assisted any of the analysts on any projects that were completed by both the M&A team and the Media Rights Team. For instance, the team was working on the largest sale of a minor league baseball team and needed me to create a few slides for the deck that represent the team's fan base demographic and why they are unique. In another instance I had to help the media rights team find a way to make the NASCAR demographic look competitive to that of the NFL and explain that the league is still growing. The rest of the internship consisted of more data entry projects and assisting on many more live deals and I even had the privilege of sitting in on weekly deal calls with the rest of the company located in Beverly Hills. I was amazed at how many live deals were going on at once and learned even more about how big these companies related to sports were. Even if EMC was advising on just a .5% sale of a major sports team that deal would be worth millions of dollars.

The rest of my internship primarily consisted of me creating a White Papers Presentation on the Physical and Digital Collectibles Industry in Sports for clients and a final presentation on Disney. For my White Papers project, I essentially had to become an expert on the collectible industry myself. I spent my first week mastering the digital side. I had to learn the ins and outs of blockchain, the Metaverse, and cryptocurrency. The basis was NFT’s and I needed to be able to convey in simple terms to investors what they were, how they worked, and if there was any real opportunity to make money off them. Then I did the same with the physical side. I learned all about the rise of trading cards and collectibles and the various marketplaces like Fanatics and StockX. Once again I needed to show clients how they could incorporate these physical collectibles into their franchises and companies and show the various ways they could profit off it. For my final project, I was tasked with creating a traditional 5-year P&L statement for Disney and giving the company business recommendations. After doing the due diligence and working to understand the company strategy, I ultimately decided that Disney needs to package ABC with ESPN and sell off the two so they can focus on rebuilding up their IP, which is their true money maker. 

I once again killed my final project and this time presented my work to the entire NYC team in person. I once again was left with no future plan. I found out in my last week that no matter how well I did on the project, EMC does not do return offers for first-year analysts. I am again now in the dark cycle, recruiting, networking, and trying to find what's next for me in this niche intersection of sports and finance.