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Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference 2024

Sep 10, 2024

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Great. Should we get started? I'm Kurt Simon. I'm Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs. I wanna welcome everyone. I wanna thank you, Greg, for being here. It's an honor and a pleasure to have this conversation today. You know, maybe we'll start, you know, a lot's changed in your portfolio in the last year. You had a very active year. Think about Vegas, bought MotoGP. Congrats on completing the Sirius transaction last night.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Spun the Braves.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Spun the Braves. Like, pretty, I guess, a typical Liberty year, but maybe start there. What's your thought on your portfolio and so what you've accomplished in the last 12 months?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Volume is high. Maybe you can turn it down just a little bit? It seems like I'm in an echo chamber. Look, it has been a busy year. We, I think you're seeing us try and hone the portfolio and make it more focused on the things where we've had strength and success, and excited about the opportunities.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

So let's start on convergence between tech and media. I think most people know you obviously spent time at Microsoft, spent time at Oracle, spent a lot of your career, obviously, in the media side. You know, give us a sense for how that convergence is going. It doesn't seem like traditional media is faring too well, but maybe start there.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah. About ten or twelve years ago, I used to have a slide presentation which said, you know, "Tech Godzilla eats Media King Kong." It's not even a fair comparison. I remember I was a CFO of Microsoft twenty-five years ago, we had over 50% of our profits outside the United States. There's no media company, even Netflix, that can manage that, and it's just a different scale. And, you know, the size of these businesses and their ability to pull levers is way more powerful than what media companies can do, which tend to be either, you know, domestic only or regional. They may have some international arms, but they're-- it's not even the same comparison. And so yeah, you're seeing the tech guys obliterate much of what is traditional media.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right. So when Skydance bought, I guess, a pending deal for Paramount, they made a big deal about bringing you know, new tech to the, you know, the studio in the cloud, you know, rethinking the tech stack at Paramount. Any thoughts on that or further consolidation on the media side?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You know, could there be big cost savings potentially in the content creation through AI? Yeah. Do I think Paramount or Skydance is gonna have a unique opportunity there? No, I think that's unlikely to be a unique opportunity. I think there could be some reductions, but I don't think it's gonna change the landscape dramatically. And I think the continued drive of a world from, you know, incredibly stable, growing cash flows when you had cable bundles, to a far more volatile world with one winner in Netflix and a couple of guys who can afford to be long-term losers or monetized in other ways, in the, you know, in the Apples of the world or the Amazons of the world, it's the... Nothing's gonna change dramatically, I don't believe.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah. So, streaming economics, is it a bad business or just too many, or a good business with too many competitors?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Again, you know, for we did one of the-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

When you think about the six traditional-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

We call them about the circular firing squad-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... is what I describe it as, because the... You know, you went from a world of incredible stability with the cable bundle to where you are, have amped up. You know, we may have passed peak TV, but we went from two hundred original shows, two hundred and fifty original shows a year, to five ninety-nine at peak, and cost per hour going up, you know, two, three, four X. That's a recipe for a, an upside-down business model, particularly one where the ability to churn off is so much easier on these tech models. So I don't see that changing. Is it a terrible business?

Remains to be seen if it gets down to a couple of players, whether it's a good business, but it will never be unlikely to be as good a business as what it replaced, which was a much more stable cable bundle.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... with a lot less money being spent on content.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Now, you have a renewal coming up with ESPN in Formula One at some point, like-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... relatively soon?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Through the end of the 2025 season-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... we're committed to ESPN, but then we open up.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

We saw what happened with the NBA and the, you know, obviously Amazon, NBC, Peacock. Could we see F1 on one of the streaming platforms in the future?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

So a couple of thoughts there. First, you know, we're gonna be renewing off a three-year deal, not an eleven-year deal, so I would not expect the kind of just mathematically-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... the potential uptick, 'cause the CAGR is too low off a three-year deal. One of the... There'll be a lot of questions for us to weigh. We have interest from streamers, we've had in the past. What's the breadth of their platform? We're relatively unique among sports that, at the league level, we have a very important sponsorship business, and so we want breadth. It's important for that sponsorship business. We're relatively unique in that we're still on the right side of growth, much more than many other sports who've had lagging numbers, in terms of their TV audience or their growth compared to us. And so we definitely want to see probably a shorter deal, unless it's particularly attractive. We have our own F1 TV product. How does that get incorporated?

That's been something that's been very powerful for our hardcore fans. Is that something that gets subsumed? Is it something that's a part? How much are we on linear versus that? All those questions, I think, are open. You know, the NBA was very fortunate in terms of when they timed, you know, their deal, you know, what was going on in the marketplace, what the needs of some of the bidders was, what the motives of some of the bidders was, it was very favorable for the NBA, and they capitalized on that. We'll see if we're as smart and as lucky.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... sports rights in general, some say there's been a peak. I think the NBA would say the big example of it not being at a peak. But if you look at the Premier League, I think last year, the-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Premier League effectively went down.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Effectively went down a little bit, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

They got more games, but-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

More games

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

to keep the same price, right?

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

But if you think about across the globe and sports rights in general, do you think we're getting close to peak pricing or...?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I think it very much does depend on the sport. I'd like to think we're, as I said, the right side of the curve in terms of growth, in terms of the quality of the audience, the age of the audience. We're among the youngest audiences out there, which is attractive for sponsors and the like. So I think we're on the right side of that. I think you have to weigh, you know, it'll be interesting to see, how do you weigh a world where in this fragmented distribution channels, how do you keep seeing your product be seen by enough people? You're weighing that all the time. You know, you see that already.

The RSNs, I think, in the LA market, only 35-40% of the people can see the Dodgers. Is that long-term healthy for the sport? You know, there's a lot of challenges around things like that. So you're always going to weigh what's your ability to be seen, what's your, you know, what you can get paid. And I do worry with that fragmentation, that hurts sports as much as it may help in the interim on this bidding up of pricing.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

What about, you know, sticking with sports, you know, new growth opportunities for Liberty in general? When you think about youth sports, women's sports, I assume there's a long runway still left in sports in general, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I think there's a long runway in sports, and I think there's definitely a longer runway in women's sports that, you know, lagging both historically, somewhat lagged in viewership, which is changing, becoming obviously, WNBA leading the charge, becoming way more, popular on a relative basis, but definitely lagging in terms of monetization of their popularity.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, sure.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

So they both have a rising popularity and the potential to monetize far better. So we've talked to several women's leagues and opportunities we find very interesting, and we're certainly looking at those closely. I don't think it's a fad. I think it's going to continue for a while.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

What about college sports? I mean, college football is a good example.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

No, I-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

'Cause college football, roughly, NFL is under-monetized, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yes. If I think these numbers are right. The TV revenue for the NFL is about $14 billion. TV revenue for college is about $3.8 billion, and that just seems low relative to what the opportunity is, particularly as you change from a world where, you know, it's not clear what the conferences mean. You're really talking about the top 20 teams, NIL, portal, and the structure in the conferences. I think over the long term, those college football and the NFL probably come more close, not if not to parity, there's certainly the differential declines.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

But hard to figure out how it all...

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

A lot to get-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... sorted out there.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You know, you have college presidents, you got-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

College presidents-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

The conference.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

The pretense that there's academics involved still. You know, it's hard to argue that when you see the portal, right, and what's going on, and you see the conferences-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

And NIL.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You see the conferences trade out-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Right, for money. So clearly, it's a different game.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Let's go back to your portfolio. So Sirius, congrats on that. I know it's a long journey, but Liberty's involved. I know you're personally going to be on the board, but Liberty's involvement going forward?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Liberty is no longer involved. I'm still the chairman, but we're no longer... You know, I think our shareholders now are 81% of the shareholder-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Based as of this morning, but we're not directly involved with the company.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

What do you think about future opportunities for Sirius going forward?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Look, Sirius has an unbelievably secure, you know, position in the car, which is very attractive. Don't see OEMs lagging at all. Have seen challenges around, you know, the size of the SAR, the car market in the United States having shrunk. You've seen some decline in the take rates off of free trials. Challenge there is to continue to find interesting content, to take advantage of the position we have in the car, and particularly in new cars. Hopefully, some of you have a newish car with 360L, which is our capacity to both utilize the wireless aspect in the car and take advantage of our satellite capacity, and I think that's a very innovative combination. Continue to do things like Atlas, our new mobile product, which improves our pricing, packaging, allows us a lot more flexibility.

So I do think there are opportunities, but we need to continue to refresh our content. You know, we were built, as I described in an earlier session, you know, around forty-year-old men twenty years ago, and the market has moved, and we need to move with it. And we continue to find new content that is relevant today, things like SmartLess and Call Her Daddy, rather. And so you know, new opportunities like that are important for us to continue to grow.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You look at your investment track record, I assume that would be, if not the top, the top?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

It's a pretty good deal. We don't have a lot of money invested in our space.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah. We probably have negative basis still.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

So, pretty, pretty well done. You see the NFL talking to private equity.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Maybe that's a sign of a top somewhere. Obviously, private equity in the PGA Tour now, too, but you know, how do you see competing? Do you see private equity going to be a more meaningful competitor for you going forward here?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, I mean-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

In these sports

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... you know, throwing capital against something usually makes the price go up. We'll agree with that. The, you know, multiples have expanded unbelievably in this space, right? And that's one of the things to watch. Look what, look what's happened to multiples on NBA teams, and, you know, dramatically gone up. Maybe it's somewhat around anticipating this kind of contract that they did sign for TV, but NBA teams trading at 10, 12 times revenue is, you know, that's a large uptick from where they were. Baseball teams have gone up a bunch. It doesn't seem like forever that these things can grow, but well, I think the rates will they'll probably have growth, but it's probably a declined rate from where they were on some of those traditional leagues.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, and I think the NFL is probably more just the not that many people can afford those kind of checks anymore, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I think that's right.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Almost, they almost had to bring in extra capital.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, if you're talking about $8 billion-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... $7 billion per team, and you, one person had to write a 30% check, that's a pretty liquid person.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

All right, let's move over to F1. You know, talk about the ecosystem and how it's doing and how it's changed since your stewardship.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You know, we are blessed that it's gone up a lot. Average attendance across last year was 6 million fans, up from 3.8 in 2017. We've gone from 20 races to 24 this year. We've increased revenue dramatically, including, you know, consolidating our own managed race, our own promoted race in Vegas. We've seen EBITDA more than double. So a lot of positive-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Team values?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Team values. When we were involved, the Manor was the last team, and they went into receivership, the U.K. equivalent of bankruptcy, and it was sold for GBP 1. Now a team, the bottom price in a team is certainly over $1 billion. So there's been a huge growth. You know, Aston Martin just raised money at a valuation rumored between GBP 1.6 billion and GBP 1.8 billion-GBP 1.9 billion pounds. So up a lot from where it was. I think, you know, that was bought by Stroll for probably $150 million or something like that, seven, six years ago. So dramatic increases.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Vegas was undeniable success, year one?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Look, there was always growing pains on a new track, on a new experience, but I think in general, very well-received by viewers, very well-received by the drivers. Great race in terms of more overtakes than any other track we had last year. So very exciting. The second place finish got down to the last lap. So great. Definitely expanded our universe in terms of global sponsors. There were a bunch of people who came in largely on the back of what we did there: Amex, T-Mobile, Google Chrome. Now, most recently, you've seen us bring in Santander. I think a lot of those global sponsors would not have come in with what, with the exposure we gave them in Vegas, and I think that's been very attractive.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

What should we expect differently for year two?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I hope we see we don't have a Thursday night challenge on the track in terms of locking it down, manholes and the like. But I think you're gonna see us better manage costs because we've learned things. I think you'll see a great spectacle, great racing, hopefully even better racing. But I think we've learned to manage our costs there and understand how to... what to do. We were blessed last time, actually, you know, the getting around was very pretty easy, at least the people I spoke to. The movement was way better, for example, than the movement during the Super Bowl. We did well on traffic flows. We did well on waypoints. I think that'll be a positive.

I think we could probably find places to make all as good as it was, but at a more cost-effective price.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You think about F1 going forward and kinda growing, keep growing the ecosystem, sponsorships, premium hospitality, you know, still a long way ahead of you?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You know, certainly on some of these, you can see, as if we continue to drive viewership, we're gonna continue to drive increases in what we get paid in media rights. We continue to see increased interest from promoters who want in South Korea, Thailand, Rwanda, South Africa; all want to race, and the opportunity to bring races to those places at attractive prices for us is real. The pressure we've created, the success of Vegas in terms of creating a high-end experience, the success of Miami, all of that has raised the bar for all of our promoters, and they're all expanding. As I mentioned, how much we've grown the audience, 3.8 to 6.

They're finding ways to change to make it more of a premium experience on top of the growth, and that enables us to get a better price out of them, get more money out of them because it's attractive for them as well. And then lastly, sponsorship. Certainly for 2025 and 2026, I feel a big tailwind. We've reached a certain point where we're expected to, you know, a global play that people know is a quality play, and that's worked very well. The fact that we've grown the audience and driven it younger is something that definitely appeals to our sponsors as well.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You bought Quint last year?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yep.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You know, in the theme of premium fan experience, but talk about what you're doing with Quint and how important that is to driving fan experience.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

So Quint is a company that packages up and creates, hospitality packages for leading sporting events, including F1, but also the NBA All-Star game, the U.S. Open, the Kentucky Derby. And that bundling will include a ticket, perhaps, travel, lodging, but also when you get to the site, things like, you know, dinner on the track on Thursday night before the race, a garage tour, a hot lap, a track tour. And it bundles those kind of experiences up, and it does the same thing and creates, at these other kind of sporting events. I would say this is Quint has been great for us in a bunch of ways.

First, our business is becoming much more direct to consumer and understanding what our fans want and offering them choices and understanding better how to meet their needs. Quint is a great arm for that. Two, you know, allowing us to rationalize ticket sales between us and the teams and bundle up correctly and think about how to manage the whole prospects. The more data we have, the more direct touch we have, the better. Three, it's allowed us to look at other sporting events and understand what's going on. One of the things we knew more about MotoGP, frankly, is because of what we knew from Quint. And I think our ability to improve ticket sales and improve how things are done at MotoGP will be helped by our experience with Quint. And as we look at other sporting opportunities, I think we can help there as well.

Finally, QuintEvents has its own growth opportunity. Even where we're not involved, the success they've had with Formula One, the success they've had with Kentucky Derby, they've got a great growth prospect to offer other, sporting events and make them better. Had discussions with people like U.S. Ski, won the U.S. Open most recently. All of those, I think, opportunities are ahead of them still for new sporting events and new kinds of great experiences.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Now, I know you get asked about every time you're up at events like this about the Concord Agreement, and anything you wanna comment on?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, I think we're reaching some consensus with the teams about where to go. I expect it's gonna be, it's hospitable. It's not something we need to rush, realizing we still have, you know, more than a year left on this one, but we're working together towards an early renewal. The teams see the benefit of that, and I think it'll be relatively in line with where we were, in terms of most of the terms. I don't expect our percentage take rate to go down, but the teams probably are gonna fight not to have it go up too much, so that's the challenge.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

MotoGP, which you kinda referenced here, but talk a little about... I know that's an asset you guys have coveted for some time, but rationale for that?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, I think MotoGP is, to start with, it's an unbelievably exciting product. I don't know how many of you have seen the racing, but to see people driving motorcycles two hundred and twenty miles an hour, you know, six inches from each other, it's wild, and the overtaking there is incredibly impressive, and it's an exciting product. It's unfortunately one that is too little known here in the United States and around the world. There's interest in Asia and other places, but the real heart of it has been Spain and Italy, to some degree, France. I think the opportunity to expand it, and I would call it, you know, our opportunity we saw was sort of pattern recognition.

We saw what we were able to do with Formula One by telling the stories, making them humanized, making the story larger than just about the car or the technology, but also about what the drivers were doing, what was going on behind the scenes, telling those stories, making sure the world understood the breadth of what was going on. But also, we did a lot to improve things like, and credit guys like David Hill, improving the TV experience, improving, what you could see on the screen, making our fans understand the story better. All of those are things that can be helped here, and I think, frankly, growing in the U.S. They have one race in Austin, for which they receive relatively, modest revenues from TV and the like.

I think there's an opportunity to improve that, the opportunity perhaps for a second race in the U.S. All of those I think are interesting in ways that look familiar to us from Formula One and hope we can replicate here attractively.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, when you announced that, you talked about the importance of being a league-level owner-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... in the economics. Maybe talk a little bit about, you know, what that means.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

When we announced it, it's a great example. You know, we had immediately people call up and say, "I wanna buy a team," including people like Lewis Hamilton. Why? Because they saw what had happened in Formula One, and they want to follow. We had, you know, major distributors call up and say, "We wanna be involved." And unfortunately, I had to tell them, "Well, we really can't talk about it until we get EU approval, but we'd love to talk once we get it." You know, I think there's an opportunity when you're at the league level to take advantage of those changes that you can make. When you're at a team level, in general, teams don't cash flow as well. Not absolutely true.

NFL teams cash flow pretty well, but in general, trade at really big multiples of cash flow, and we're still too traditional in wanting that cash flow. But in addition, your ability to change the dynamics, to set the stage and do the things that you want, are far better, far easier, more manageable. Still takes time, but you can get it done at the league level in a way that's very difficult at the team level.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You recently completed an equity raise.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yep

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... at the Formula One level. You want to talk a little about how you're gonna finance MotoGP and just broadly, capital allocation for F1 going forward?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

We have lowered the leverage at MotoGP. Excuse me, Formula One, the parent, dramatically over the last several years, partly through success and partly through generating cash flow. To finance the $4.2 billion purchase of MotoGP, we raised just under $1 billion of equity money, and the rest is gonna be financed on our balance sheet and their balance sheet. Leverage will still be relatively modest compared to the historical numbers which have been managed at both companies. I think for a little bit of time, we'll focus on cash flow management, but you know, we've run return on capital through equity repurchase, and that's certainly on the table. But we'll also look at other synergistic opportunities. We have returned capital, and we do expect we will be repurchasing of our stock in the future.

That's, that's been a Liberty hallmark, and I don't want our shareholders to think that's something we're walking away from.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

On the Braves, which you mentioned, you spun out, you know, within the last year.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Your role recently changed. Anything you wanna talk about there?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, we spun them out-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... just over a year ago, and we really moved to a full transition where Liberty is no longer supplying many of the corporate services we had been. And I think this is really part of, you know, John Malone recognizing the good work that Terry McGuirk and his team have done there. He's given them a proxy on his stock, on some voting rights that he has. And, you know, the Braves are well set up for the future and what comes with May.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yep. Let's go to Liberty Broadband, and coming back to what we talked about, what's going on in the media ecosystem. I know a lot of people out here could not watch the Jets-Niners game.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

I saw that Disney offered to put ABC News on for a three-hour block, so people here could watch the debate if you're a DirecTV customer, which DirecTV refused.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Which is kind of funny because, you know, one of the few things you can watch on how many channels, right? That's kind of limited. It's not an opportunity that's unique.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

What do you think about... And obviously, on the Charter side, you guys were involved in that.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... last August, but what do you think about the DirecTV-Disney dispute, and is that, I guess, a sign of things to come? 'Cause it doesn't sound like, I mean, I would've thought it would've ended before last night, but-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah. I think these things are gonna get more and more bloody because, you know, you've seen the cable networks push up prices and push for full carriage in a world where that's not necessarily what customers want, and that's not necessarily what the distributors want to package, so that tug is gonna continue. One of the other things that's going on, and you've seen this from the Charter side, is much of the great content that is produced by these people is now on their streaming product. And that is a case where they've, in some cases, been trying to charge more for the linear channel to the distributor than they charge for the stream product to a retail customer, and that doesn't really work. The distributor is not gonna pay more than the retail customer.

It's not very interesting to distribute the product. So that tension is ongoing. You've seen that at Charter with other people, and so making sure that Charter has not only attractive pricing, but all the best content, including that which is on the streaming product, available to their customers. And, you know, wanting to be a good partner and help resell that streaming product is something that Charter wants, but not to pay more for something that's a lesser product.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Sports bundle, you know, Venu, I guess, is pending in the courts. I don't know if you saw the New York sports nets put together, like, a New York sports bundle.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

$50 a month?

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Something like that.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

$29 a month or something?

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

It wasn't cheap. It wasn't cheap.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

But-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

If you wanna watch the Mets and Yankees and-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... Rangers and Knicks and Nets, but what... You know, is there a role for sports bundles here, I guess?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

We'll see.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

How big is that audience?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I mean, we'll see whether Spulu, Venu, or whatever their-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Venu.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Venu.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You know, Spulu Redux, whether that comes back or not. Obviously, there are issues around the packaging, both in terms of what customers want, but now, as you've seen, they've found a judge, Fubo found a judge who found it compelling that you were arguing you can't rebundle it that way for Fubo, but you can for Spulu. So, I think there's gonna be a lot of turmoil here. Whether these products are really gonna be attractive at these kind of prices-

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... for incomplete sessions. There is demand for sports, but it will be tested.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Yeah. So, back to Charter, you saw T-Mobile's been active buying fiber companies.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Verizon obviously bought Frontier, announced it actually last week. What are you seeing competitively with fixed wireless fiber, you know, in the Charter footprint? And do people like this? Does cable need to have a owner's economics in wireless at some point?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I would flip it a little bit. You've seen some reduction in fiber builds over the last several quarters. It's been sort of trending down, and you saw actually a peaking of fixed wireless access, you know, several quarters ago. It's been holding more steady, but neither of them appears to be growing, and I actually think the efforts of the wireless companies to expand their fiber footprints or their fixed footprints is the more interesting. It's not, do we need a mobile play that's our own? Do they need a fiber play that's broader? I think what you're seeing is they recognize there's only X amount of access design, desired access for fixed wireless access for that product, or their ability to actually go out and build, that they have to go find partners. We'll see.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Moving to Liberty Live, seems like a lot of tailwinds behind live entertainment and concerts. Any sign of that abating?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Not really. I think Michael Rapino spoke this morning. I don't know if some of you saw it, but demand remains very high. This year has been a year which is less revenue growth just because of the nature of the mix. Fewer stadiums, but a lot more profitable smaller venues. Next year is gonna be big for tours. I think they're well set up for next year and seeing demand already coming through on that. So they're... You know, this business has, from two thousand and nineteen, you know, EBITDA is gonna be up, you know, multiples, not quite multiples, but approaching multiples. It's been a big tailwind post-COVID, and

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

People want to spend on experiences, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Experiences remain strong, and I think that's, you know, we molded a lot of our portfolio away from things like video several years ago, looking at experiences, so investing in Live Nation, investing in Formula 1, you know, owning the Braves. We've had a great run on the experiences and the live experiences and sports side because of that.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Ticket pricing at the concert level, here to stay at premium levels?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

You know, I'm shocked that prices go up when there's excess demand compared to capacity.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... that's,

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

It's kind of math, right?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Particularly, I'm particularly surprised, and you know, that used to be captured by the scalpers, and increasingly, artists want to capture it themselves, and that'll be... That's what the dynamic pricing or letting higher some of the market price, them capture a certain percentage of the market price, that's what's gonna go on. I don't think the artists feel good about saying, you know, the high price for every ticket, but they also don't feel great about seeing it captured by scalpers and third parties and not the artists themselves.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

You know, and I guess from a structure perspective around Liberty Live, what do you see about optionality down the road around that, with your existing-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I think there are a lot of things. You've seen us take action at things like Sirius or the Braves to try and capture that value, and there are ways through, you know, spins or the like, combinations that I think you'll see us over time move to capture the full value of Liberty Live. And it does trade at a large discount to the underlying stock, and you've seen us take that action. I wouldn't be surprised if over some period of time we take action on Liberty Live.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

So maybe the last question I have is, so are we seeing a recovery in the M&A market off of a low-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

I'm sure that makes you unhappy, Chris.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

It's up about 35% but off a low base, right? We're, we're-

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Right

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

... but we're still well, well below where we were in 2021. And I guess you think about the opportunity set going forward for Liberty Media. Are you as excited about the next three to five years as you were if you go back kind of pre-F1, pre-MotoGP?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunities in the spaces where we've been focused, around live events, growing out the portfolio, doing things like the Quint acquisition, looking for other opportunities to take advantage of some of the success we've had with Formula One. So we'll see. We're not in any rush. We have a great portfolio there, but I do think our ability to add to that is attractive.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Braves, in or out wild card?

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

They may make the wild card. The question is whether they make it on the first, top two or not. That's a little more challenging. We'll see. They're right on the bubble. It's not been an easy year with injuries.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Right

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

... as you know.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Listen, thank you.

Greg Maffei
CEO, Liberty Media

Thank you, Chris.

Kurt Simon
Vice Chairman of Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs

Pleasure to have you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

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