Okay, we're gonna get started. Good afternoon. Once again, the important disclosure statement. Please note important disclosures. See the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at morganstanley.com. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. We are excited to welcome to the TMT conference as a speaker, I believe, for the first time.
Yes.
Ari Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor. Ari, thanks for being here.
Thank you very much, Ben.
I had, I think six minutes to pitch your stock on Monday, so we have 30, or 29 now, to try to accomplish the same, the same goal.
Hopefully I'm as good as you.
Yeah. I'm sure you'll do a much better job. Let's talk about Endeavor. Some out of the audience know you, know the company, but there's a lot to unpack.
Right.
Maybe we could start with, you know, what did you put together when you put together Endeavor, you and your partners? Why do you think it's a portfolio that's positioned to grow?
When we looked at the business, when we started the business, we always thought that distribution was gonna expand. We first started the business in television, just the television business. When we started it, there was four broadcasters, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. It was then back in the day, there was then gonna be WB and UPN, if anybody remembers way back then, I'm showing my age. We thought that across all categories, both linear and cable, that distribution was gonna change and expand, and that distribution across a broadly defined world of entertainment was gonna expand. That was the initial premise, and that we could build a company that could be the largest supplier in that space. That's what we've started out doing, and I think we've executed pretty well in the categories that we're in.
I think we're in all categories except video games. We're an investor in different video games. In owning and representing, that's kinda how we saw the business. We thought there was a good mix between representation into those distribution platforms, then you could convert representation if you built the right platform into ownership, and that's what we've done.
Yep. I'm sure we'll talk about a lot of the major assets of the company. Now that you're public.
Yeah.
A s of, I guess, you know, two years ago.
Year, yeah.
Yeah. you know, some of the parts, portfolios, they can be viewed differently in the public markets. On one extreme, sort of the view that, there's a complexity discount or a holding company discount, in the bull case, you get the benefit of being viewed as a smart capital allocator.
Right.
W hich obviously is I'm sure what you aspire for. Talk about why you think Endeavor is worth more than the sum of the parts. What's sort of the platform element? I know you like to talk about the platform.
Mm-hmm.
Why do these businesses make sense together?
Let me just talk to you. And I was on the board of Live Nation when Live Nation was $200 and people didn't understand the flywheel there. I would say, you know, we've been around for a very short period of time. I think people are just beginning to unpack the four segments. We've just broken out our fourth segment in the betting business, and we're giving people more of an understanding of all the different segments. Let's just take a couple of examples of the flywheel. You know, when you have something. First of all, you represented UFC, then you bought the UFC. What do we do for the UFC? We do, Endeavor Streaming does their streaming services. The sponsorship business, we do the sponsorship business. On Location does the high-end experience business. IMG does the international sales.
Our government relations teams does the location fees that we get when we go across the globe. Our licensing business does the licensing. That's just one category. You represent in the sports representation business at WME, you represented Serena Williams. We represent her as a tennis player. We do her endorsements. We help her with things that she wants to own as kind of a representative/owner. We film her documentary for HBO, we finance that and do that. On the NFL, we represent a bunch of the teams. We do on location with them. We do international sales. We do their licensing for all their former players.
When you come into our ecosystem, we can continue to do that across many different clients, many different assets, you have the flywheel that kind of extracts greater and greater value for these things. We're the only company, the one that's global, and that has all those pieces inside the company. Therefore, I think it's more valuable. The funny thing is, you know, if you look at the betting business and whether it be Genius or Radar, inside our business at our current valuation, I think your community is giving us three times. In a public market, they're at eight times right now. On the private side of the representation business, WME, CAA just bought ICM for 15 times. UTA was a very small company, just got an investment at 15 times.
I think, again, you guys value William Morris, which is the largest of all of them, inside the organization at three times. When you look at On Location for UFC, I think we're one of the great acquisitions that we made. Formula 1 is trading at 22 times. I think inside of our portfolio, I think it's at 14 times when you just do math. I just think this takes a little bit of time for everybody to understand all the pieces, the way they work, and then kind of get more and more comfortable that we can execute, and we have to execute, which I hope we're doing over the last eight quarters or so. That's what kind of, hopefully people get around to it sooner rather than later.
Let's talk about execution, particularly around M&A.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it's interesting to me, your company was built-
Oh, boy. Here it comes.
On M&A.
Yeah, yeah.
I would argue a lot of successful M&A. It's how you became Endeavor, the UFC.
Right.
They're pretty obvious, but as soon as you become a public company, you know, nobody wants to do anything.
Right. Exactly.
Without spending our entire 23 minutes on it, you know, what can you tell investors about how you approach M&A and why, hopefully, over the long term, people look at you as, you know, giving you the benefit of the doubt on acquisitions?
Well, I don't know. I mean, I think, first of all, William Morris was the best acquisition. when we were Endeavor and it was William Morris, we bought, I think, William Morris for we merged for $40 million. One of the, I think, best deals.
What year was that?
That was 2008, 2007, something like that, yeah. At the time when we did IMG, everybody felt we were nuts. We bought it at 11 times, and everything was trading post that at in sports businesses for a significantly greater amount of money. The UFC, everybody thought we were nuts at that point, and realized I thought it was a pretty good trade, and I could go through the most recent one, the Madrid Open, or Barrett-Jackson.
We've done, I think, a pretty good job in M&A and then integrating it, and I think our approach is if it hits a couple buckets, we've gotta be able to cut costs, we've gotta be able to grow revenues across multiple categories on the revenue side, and then we have to be able, because of our footprint, to figure out ways in which it can either benefit the flywheel or take the asset internationally. That's how we look at acquisitions, and we've done, I think, a pretty good job doing that, and we'll continue to do it that way.
Yep. Last week, on your earnings call, you were asked about the WWE opportunity. For those who may not be aware, WWE is in the midst of a strategic review, which may end up with the company being sold. You gave an appropriate non-answer as a good public CEO. I do think investors are wondering about your willingness to use your equity as currency, given where the stock is today, and I want to give you an opportunity to talk about that.
Well, here's what I would say to you is, I don't talk about M&A. I appreciate you asking the question. Here's what I will do to clarify that answer that we gave last week. We have taken the company from eight times levered to below four, which is what we'd say. I'm now sleeping, because of that, from four hours to eight hours, which is good. I'd sleep a lot more if I got it lower, and when you look at our cash conversion coming up, we're gonna take it a lot lower this year. I'm not gonna say what the number is, but it's gonna be lower, which is gonna make me feel comfortable. Eventually everybody's gonna say, "Well, you don't have to go that low on your debt," you know? That's gonna be the reverse that's gonna come at me.
Good.
For any transaction right now, I mean, our equity for a transaction. As it relates to the WWE, I think it's an incredible asset. We've been in business with Vince for over two decades. He's as good as it gets. He created one of the great assets of all time. That's all I have to say.
Okay. Deleveraging, which you mentioned, is that a priority for you in the company right now?
Yeah. I mean, you know, there's many priorities, but that's very high on the list.
Okay. One more question sort of at the corporate level, then I wanna go into the businesses, which is Silver Lake is a, you know, partner of yours. I think they own roughly half the company. What would you tell public shareholders about, you know, their long-term position? Obviously, you can't speak for them, but you know them well. Are there benefits that Endeavor accrues and shareholders accrue from their involvement?
Here's what I'd say. Like, I mean, Egon Durban has been an incredible partner since 2012. He's been in the company and he's continued to reinvest and help us grow and acquire things. He is unbelievable strategic thinker as it relates to our business, and he's a clear kind of asset to us and a friend. I would say, he's on the board. He's got the A share, I mean, he's got the A votes with me. I don't think they're going anywhere. We feel really positive about that relationship, and I think, you know, you have to ask them, but I think they're pretty happy.
Yeah. Okay.
W ith the assets.
Okay. Let's talk about some of the businesses. I want to talk about the UFC.
Mm-hmm.
Sort of the single biggest, EBITDA contributor, and certainly from a value point of view, the most important asset, a great trade for the company. I attempted on Monday to sort of convince people that that is a good business and a growing sport, but I turn that now to you.
Well-
Tell people about the UFC.
Yeah, I would say the following. Probably the lowest demographic of any sport are the majors, 37 years old. The split is 65% are male, 35% are female. Our social media has exploded, $220 million. We're up 55% on TikTok year-over-year. We don't have a season. We're the only sport that's truly global. Not that English Premier League doesn't travel, but we're, you know, we have multiple champions from different regions of the globe. You know, when you think about the business, if you just take the domestic deal out of the conversation, we'll come back to that.
Mm-hmm.
Since we took it over, we've taken the licensing for the sponsorship business from eight times to nine times. International sales, as I said to everybody in multiple earnings calls, we're going to double because of IMG. We're now having site fees. We're starting our betting business. We think that, you know, in every single category of the business, it's a kind of hockey stick, and then you just come to the domestic deal. There's an international deal. If you just look at sports rights, Formula 1 in the United States went, I think, from $5 million-$95 million. Hockey, I think it was $240 million. You saw what the NFL did.
You know, we have pretty good knowledge because we have 150 sports we represent in IMG where sports rights are internationally and where they're going domestically. Our Big Ten deal that we just executed against, we represented Wimbledon in their renegotiation. We have a pretty good sense of where it's going. Now you have six buyers in the marketplace.
When we made our first UFC deal, there was one buyer, and the buyer was Bob Iger, actually. He's the one that actually brought it over. I think we've done an amazing job for the growth of ESPN+ and ESPN, and we have, you know, we have the Contender Series also now. They just ordered The Ultimate Fighter that Conor McGregor is on. All in all, it's one of the fastest growing businesses, sports out there. Best demographics, social, male, female, and age category. There's, you know, we have a great relationship with ESPN. Love our relationship with them and we have a year left, I mean, until we can start our renewal. You know, it's gonna I think it's gonna be a positive outcome for both parties, but there's a lot of buyers out there.
Yeah. It feels to me, feel free to disagree, that the NBA is sort of that deal is out there and-
Yeah.
Big dollars and maybe that we have to get, the industry sort of gotta get through that before maybe the UFC gets done.
I'm not sure. I mean, you know, most of these guys when we have different calculations, are looking for tonnage because you have the SVOD and then you have the linear. Linear's not going away because the biggest player in sports, the NFL, made a 10-year linear deal.
Right.
When you look at it, you know, we're a five-hour program. We have, again, Contender, Ultimate Fighter.
Each week, each night.
Each weekend night.
Yeah.
The NBA is a great. I mean, Adam's incredible. It's a great sport. It's global. It's international. I mean, I think people can chew and walk at the same time, chew gum and walk at the same time, I think we're gonna be fine.
Okay. Maybe just before we leave the UFC, you listed a whole number of things that can drive the business. Is there one or two things you would highlight that you think is the biggest opportunity to sort of take the EBITDA from here to here over time?
Well, for sure, the domestic deal.
Yeah.
Right? Just think about what I just said, just based on stock and, you know, shareholders. If I double the international, just double the international, that's $4. I'm on track to do that. If I take from eight figures to high nine figures in sponsorship, you can do the math there. Same thing. I've just started betting. I mean, I can.
Yeah.
When I make the domestic deal, it's gonna be pretty good.
Okay. All right, let's talk about WME, which is a people business, so one that people, a lot of investors maybe are still trying to figure out. But it seems to be demonstrating consistent double-digit growth, strong margins. Give people a sense of the business model here and the competitive position of WME-
Right.
I n the talent space.
First of all, I know that there's been a lot of conversations about the SVODs and, you know, containing costs and et cetera. I think probably, first of all, I wanna just point out of the three SVODs, they're probably 2% of... Those groups are 2% of the overall revenue of the whole company.
Yeah, okay.
The movie and television business inside WME is less than 50% of the economics. You have to realize we have touring, theater, lectures, models, comedy touring, books. Broadcasters, sports. It's a lot, it's a very big business that doesn't just, when you just guys see the headlines, that they're kinda reviewing economics on movies and television, that we have a whole host of a business over there that generates a ton. In addition to our royalty business that you come in on January 2nd, and you get royalties from books, theater, old TV shows, and William Morris is over 100 years, and movies. There's a kind of there's that stream also. As it relates to.
I think a lot of people have the movie and television business on their mind. When Netflix and Disney says we're, you know, we're looking at. You know, everybody is readdressing their model. Now, I think as of David Zaslav, they're gonna do theatrical 'cause it's more valuable once you put it on service. You see what happened with MGM and Amazon right now with Creed. There's six buyers, seven with Sony on the theatrical side, and Paramount would be eight. You have Lionsgate. We're the largest player in the representation space on a global basis. I would say to you, instead of doing 30. When they say they're gonna cut back, instead of doing 30-day shoots, they're gonna do 25 dates. They're not paying Keanu Reeves or Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon or Ben Affleck or Martin Scorsese.
They're paying those people. They have to figure out their cost savings someplace else. We're cautious. You know, well, of course, we monitor this every day. It's a pretty dynamic business. They have to all the streamers that are in the old linear business have to defend that linear business still, 'cause ABC, NBC, CBS, and all the cable. Yes, they're going down in ratings, but they're still existing and there's an ecosystem there. They have to go there. Now you have the theatrical business happening. It's a really dynamic and very healthy business right now.
That's great to hear, especially, I mean, you guys gave strong guidance last week for 2023.
Yeah. The other thing I want everybody to realize, we've grown double digits for 10, 11 years in a row, except for 2020. It's a healthy business, and we feel good about it. I think it goes back to the original question is, we're on the supply side. We've picked that lane. We're sticking to it.
How come this business has been so consistently good and not been disintermediated? You think about people businesses where technology disrupts-
Right.
You know, I don't know if anybody in this room has an agent. I know I do not.
Well, Bill McCormick does. I mean, we're representing him for speaking and for his book. When you say, you know, what is the definition of representation? In our organization, unlike anybody else's, it's a very big kind of.
Right.
A palette.
Got it. Okay. I also noticed on the earnings call, you proactively mentioned, WME Sports. Again, when we think about the ability to grow the talent business in an environment around streaming, cutting back on TV.
Mm-hmm.
Sports is a big piece. Sports is a market that keeps growing. I think CAA, most people think of CAA as maybe the leader in sports.
They're incredible.
Push back if you want. What are you guys doing at WME Sports? Is that a growth story?
We decided to kinda move into the on-field representation. When we took over the business from Teddy, he had gotten out of a lot of that. Actually, CAA bought that out of Teddy, and a couple people on the golf side broke out. We were always strong in tennis. Now we've decided to go back in. In one year, we've gone from 10th position in representation to number three.
On the sports side?
On the sports side. We have broadcasters, tennis, golf, football, basketball. You'll see us move into that space, even more aggressively, in the coming years. I don't like being number three. We just kind of, you know, turned on the key into that area, and we'll be moving into that area pretty aggressively now.
Okay. I think there's a lot of buy-in on the UFC from investors. WME, we talked about. The live event business, On Location-
Right.
My sense is you are super excited about this part of your company.
Right.
It might be the part that people are the least excited about from an investor point of view.
Right.
Let's talk about that. Why do you think the live event assets that Endeavor owns are high-quality assets that are gonna grow over time? 'Cause there's a lot of them.
Right. I mean, I think it's probably the hardest thing for people to understand. Hopefully, we're giving, on the overall company, people a better sense of the business and because we've now broken out betting. You can kind of analyze each one of them. There's comps to each one of them. On the live side, we represent things and we own things. We own New York Fashion Week, we own UFC, we own Barrett-Jackson, Madrid Open, Miami Open, a bunch of stuff in there we own that we can kind of create experiences around. I think the original premise you have to think about is we think that there's a huge business in high-end experiences. I think the market for high-end experiences is like, you know, the TAM is like $78 billion globally.
I think I'm right there. We represent the things we represent. We bought this thing with the NFL called On Location that they owned with a PE firm. We bought that. We have the Super Bowl in there that we represent. We just have the IOC, the Olympics, the next three Olympics in there, the things we represent. We just added the WWE, we added March Madness, a couple other assets. We think that that business for high-end experiences is a place where the consumer is wanting to go out right now, and is gonna continue to wanna go out over years and years and years to have great experiences, especially with the phone. You know, there's that great line that Tiger Woods said.
He goes, "When I won the Masters the first time, people were clapping. The last time I won it, people were like this with one hand with their phones out." People wanna go out and experience stuff, and then kinda bring them back to their social platforms or whatever. It's the highest-end On Location of the experience economy, in my opinion, especially with the assets we have. We'll continue to add things. Whether it be the UFC, whether it be New York Fashion Week, whether it be Barrett-Jackson, those things are 30, 40, 50 years old. Super Bowl, Olympics. Those are, again, assets that aren't going anywhere that have you know, they've been around for a long time, and we think there's valuable creation that we can have.
At the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, we created 72 high-end experiences for over $100,000. UFC, I don't remember which one it was, I think it was three. We had, I think it was 10 $40,000 high-end experiences.
Each.
Each. I think it's a very lucrative place that the community wants, and we're providing.
Why does an IOC or a Super Bowl pick On Location? Like, why do they need that company to help them maximize?
You know, I don't think there's anybody in the marketplace doing what we're doing at the high end. First of all. We've created a business and helped by the NFL and the Super Bowl, and we've created a unique opportunity for the IOC. It's a high multiple nine-figure deal over the three Olympics. I think people here are just getting. Realizing, "Oh, that's 2024, 2026, 2028." That is a kind of a business when you look at the Events, Experiences & Rights segment that when people dig into it, they'll realize the value proposition that we're bringing.
I think you guys also talked about the L.A. Olympics...
Yeah.
As maybe an opportunity.
Yeah.
Is that right?
That's 2026. I wanna make sure I'm doing that. Yeah, that's 2026. We have that one, too. That will be, like, please don't call me for tickets. There's, you know.
Call James.
We've built a whole system for that. Yeah, I think that's gonna be really incredible.
Okay. All right. Well, listen, we're running out of time here, but maybe Ari, any last comments you wanna leave the group with as they think about Endeavor and get to know the company better?
I just listen, I think it's again, I said this before. When you look at all of our assets and the way. Hopefully I do a better job explaining them to you. Each one of them, either in the public or the private sector, are trading at greater than the whole that you guys are giving me. If you just look at them, I think they're incredible assets that have you know, stood the test of time. We're in a unique position different from the Netflix, the Warners, the Disneys that are great businesses or from, you know, DraftKings. We're one of a kind in this business, and I think you have to. The flywheel is actually working for our company.
When you kind of dig into it, you'll realize either individually or on a collective basis, I think probably Every CEO probably says that. The company is really performing very, very well. I think we've now done this eight times. Our guidance, you know, in the last call was very good. We just have to keep on executing and keep on explaining to people the value proposition in all four of our segments.
All right. Ari.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you for coming.