Ben Mathan: Chief Strategy Officer, Learfield - Sports Business Conversations

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Ben Mathan: Chief Strategy Officer, Learfield

Episode 59 • 5th November 2024 • Sports Business Conversations • ADC Partners

01:22

Dave Almy

A quick review, if we could.

02:24

Ben Mathan

Yes.

02:25

Dave Almy

Of your, of your work history. Because you start down one path and you take a pretty good fork in the road here, right, because you were at Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo's adverse management, and then all of a sudden, like, needle scratch across the record, you're at Learfield.

02:43

Ben Mathan

Right?

02:43

Dave Almy

So that trajectory in financial services kind of goes sideways.

02:47

Ben Mathan

Yes.

02:48

Dave Almy

You end up in sports business. So can you talk about that a little bit? Like, how did Cole Gahagan, president of Learfield, sort of approach you with that idea? And what was your initial response?

03:01

Ben Mathan

It's a great question. I wish I could tell you there was some master plan that led to me becoming the chief strategy officer. Weird field. That would be a humongous lie to start off.

03:10

Dave Almy

This the strategy officer without the strategy. That's a tough one right there.

03:14

Ben Mathan

No not at all. Honestly, I think over the course of my career, I just continued to pursue whatever the most kind of interesting, challenging thing I could see in front of me was. I don't think I am, maybe even to this day, but I certainly wasn't at the time smart enough to think three to four steps ahead. I was kind of looking at what the next thing was. So I went to NYU, which is a very finance forward school.

03:36

Dave Almy

Yeah. Yeah.

03:36

Ben Mathan

And I knew that, you know, investment banking was one of the most competitive jobs to get out of NYU. So I kind of set my sights on trying to get one of the most competitive jobs, you know, out of college. And I was able to.

03:46

Dave Almy

Had that always been a thing for you? Were you always super competitive in that way? And you kind of saw it and you went, yeah, I want that.

03:50

Ben Mathan

Yeah, I really have always been. And I pick. I pick my moment. I know people who are just kind of universally competitive 24 hours a day, and I sometimes find those people hard to. I pick certain things to be competitive in. But yes, when it comes, when it came to education in my career path, even when I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up, I knew I wanted to do something that was difficult and challenging and competitive, and investment banking represented that pretty early on. So I went. As I was at NYU, I knew investment banking was going to be one of the first jobs I wanted to have. I was able to get that right.

04:24

Dave Almy

It actually sort of followed that plan that you had. It sort of. You did actualize that.

04:28

Ben Mathan

That's right. So Morgan Stanley was actually an internship while I was in college. Wells Fargo was my first investment banking analyst role, kind of right after college. And while it seems like a kind of complete left turn, I would say when you're on the investment banking side, your job is to advise companies. Right.

04:45

Dave Almy

So we do have to kind of get into the weeds with them a little bit.

04:48

Ben Mathan

You have to understand what a company's needs are. You've got to understand what other kind of, at least as it relates to mergers and acquisitions or capital solutions, what solutions are out there to help support the companies that you're serving. Right. Pretty early on, I got to understand, okay, finance is great, and I'm really enjoying what I'm doing. But part of why I'm enjoying what I'm doing is because I'm getting to learn about other companies that are outside of finance. And that's what kind of started the private equity itch in my head, which, number one, it is also a competitive industry. To get into just a little. Yeah. But I realized in my mind, if I'm enjoying the advising of companies, maybe I'd really enjoy owning a company and helping kind of build that company as, you know, as an ownership partner.

05:32

Ben Mathan

And so that's where the kind of, you know, private equity it started. And so I went from Wells Fargo to a firm called Tenex Capital Management, and then from Tenex to Ateros. Ateros was actually a really interesting and exciting opportunity that was a brand new firm just started. Michael Angelakis, the founder, had spent years on the private equity side, mainly at a firm called Providence, and then was the vice chairman and CFO Comcast for a number of years. He decided to start his own private equity firm. And I was incredibly lucky to be one of the first employees that they hired. So I got a chance to kind of take on an entrepreneurial type of private equity experience working with, you know, closely with partners that normally I would be very far.

06:16

Dave Almy

You got a little bit more. A little bit more boutique with a startup sort of piece like that allows you to be a bit closer to what you were trying to do. And was there a theme to the investing ateros? Where did fit into that? Because they were an investor into Learfield.

06:28

Ben Mathan

That's exactly right. So Learfield. So a teros had, you know, two or three big mandates. One, the word ateros literally means partner in Greek.

06:36

Dave Almy

One was, to my greek is not.

06:39

Ben Mathan

Sharp, if you ask me. That's the only word I know in Greek. One was to invest as kind of long term partners, which is different than a lot of private equity models, usually five and flip.

06:52

Dave Almy

Yeah, exactly.

06:53

Ben Mathan

A five year kind of horizon. This was a ten to 15 year partnership approach we had. This vast majority of the capital comes from Comcast as well. So the goal was to invest in companies that were, call it media and technology adjacent to Comcast, not necessarily right down the fairway of Comcast, and also invest in good companies that had growth prospects. And Learfield fit perfectly in all of that. A company that had multiple private equity owners over a handful of years and probably could benefit from some long term ownership stability. A company that certainly is kind of perfectly in the adjacent part of the media, sports, entertainment, technology landscape, but not something that you'd ever see kind of comcast directly investing in necessarily, but one that could benefit from a Comcast partnership.

07:42

Ben Mathan

And so we really just got excited about Learfield as a potential first investment that would allow us to take all the experience that people like Michael Angelakis and Alex Evans and others had around the media space and apply it to Learfield, and it actually became one of the first investments we did.

07:59

Dave Almy

standpoint, yes, this is all: 2019

08:07

Ben Mathan

acquisition of Learfield was: 2017

08:12

Dave Almy

imedia rights. And then April: 2020

09:04

Ben Mathan

,: 2020

09:15

Dave Almy

Perfect timing.

09:17

Ben Mathan

You're citing April is kind of now, in hindsight, the timeline where we all kind of knew, but at the time, we knew there was a thing called Covid. I don't know that we knew how long and how on live sports and entertainment. So I knew I was joining, I was making a career change during a time where something strange was going on in the world, but I don't think any of us knew how big of an impact it would have on, you know.

09:38

Dave Almy

So, as you fast forward to Komaznet, it becomes very clear pretty quickly when you make that change from something like private equity, which is impacted by a monumental pandemic like that, but nowhere near what college sports experienced during that time. How did you maintain a level of optimism about the investment that had been, not only the investment that had been made, but your decision to then join the company as not just an investor, but as literally a true stakeholder.

10:10

Ben Mathan

oined, I think, in January of: 2020

10:47

Ben Mathan

But I still, you know, felt pretty confident in our ability to, you know, get past that. I think that the two biggest things that you kind of. That grounded me, I think during that period, as, you know, chaotic and. And scary as it would be, especially.

11:00

Dave Almy

Those are, like, the easiest terms put against that period of time. Chaotic and scary.

11:04

Ben Mathan

Well, I mean, when you think you're just going to go, you know, dabble in getting a little light touch experience, were operating experience, and then the world turns upside down. Yeah, you get scared pretty quickly.

11:13

Dave Almy

No doubt.

11:14

Ben Mathan

And the things that just grounded me were, I fundamentally believe that college sports were not going to go away forever. And so there are people who were working industries that maybe felt like this industry might not survive two year prolonged pause. I never felt like.

11:34

Dave Almy

Right.

11:34

Ben Mathan

Sports wouldn't survive the pause.

11:36

Dave Almy

Right.

11:36

Ben Mathan

So that was kind of thing one, then if you believe that the industry will survive, you just got to believe, are you in the right position on the end, on the other end of that survival? And so knowing that I'm in an industry that I think is going to survive, and we're a market leader in that industry, gives you at least the confidence to say, we're going to be okay. I would also tell you that when Cole joined, there were so many things we wanted to, and I'm sure we'll get into this, so many things we wanted to rethink about the business.

12:01

Ben Mathan

And the one very, very weird thing to say for me, but the one silver lining about COVID was that it kind of forced us to accelerate some of those differences in thought and say, hey, when there are less people in the stadium, how do you think about digital revenue as a component of a sponsorship? And in a strange way, that level of urgency kind of forced us to change faster than maybe we would have.

12:26

Dave Almy

You didn't have to convince people that change was necessary. I mean, change was happening to you. There was no maybe this is a good idea. This was, hey, survival's at stake here. There's nobody sitting inside the stadiums. We have to look at our business differently than we have in the past. And, I mean, I remember that when were working briefly together during that period of time, it was transformative for the company. And as you emerge from COVID you were named chief strategy officer.

12:57

Ben Mathan

Yes.

12:58

Dave Almy

Why was that the right moment to take over that role? How did that come together for you? Because that's a lot, and we'll certainly get into college sports right now, which, I mean, that's a pretty significant role in a company that you joined not that long ago. Why was that the right time?

13:17

Ben Mathan

Going through the pandemic, working as alongside Cole, we had a kind of highly accelerated relationship building experience together. We got to understand what his strategic vision was, the way he thinks, and I think he did with me in a way that, like, everything in Covid was magnet by times ten.

13:35

Dave Almy

Right.

13:36

Ben Mathan

And so number one most important thing for a chief strategy officer is to, in my opinion, to be fully in sync on the strategy of the CEO and the strategy of the board. And so I really quickly developed that with Cole because I was lucky to have developed such a personal relationship with him. I think what strategy in a crisis is the first thing people throw away? It's the classic Mike Tyson getting hit. Everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face.

14:02

Ben Mathan

And I actually think that by making a more intentional effort to say, we are establishing the strategy to be the leading media and technology company in sports, we have a chief strategy officer who's going to make sure that all of our business units continue to do what they're doing on a standalone basis, but are serving that integrated purpose as well. In some ways, kind of being that intentional about how committed were to a strategy in the. In a period of crisis, I think it really was impactful to the team and to us to say, like, being in a crisis is no excuse to not have a strategy. We've got to actually double down and commit to that. And I hope that's what our team kind of felt in that moment.

14:38

Dave Almy

Did the vision change? I mean, it sounds crazy, right? Because Covid was such a transformative moment, like we talked about for the business. But was the vision prior to Covid, like, when Cole came in and you guys started talking about, hey, here's how I see this company going. Did the strategy change that much, that sort of overarching strategy about media and technology as a result of COVID or did they kind of just make it the right time at the right place, even with something as crazy as Covid?

15:09

Ben Mathan

I think it's definitely more the latter. It's the same strategy, but it created more urgency and acceleration around that strategy. Cole's, I think, his second month, he and I were talking, and he was presenting something to the company, and he referred to Learfield as what I'd said before, the leading media and technology company in sports. And that was the first time people had thought of Learfield. In that vein, people knew Learfield as a big, trusted sales organization, a technology business. But to say that, no, the sum of those pieces is actually the leading media and technology company in sports was a big deal. Covid just helps, you know, accelerate the need to actually make, to make that vision more close to reality. When you've got people not able to go to games, et cetera, and still wanting to have engagement with their favorite.

15:52

Dave Almy

Teams, it is such a monumental shift to, like, you just hit the nail on the head. There's the vision of what Learfield was like, exceptional sales organization, working with college sports, and then to pivot, nothing, forsaking the sales organization, because that's obviously critical to what you do day in and day out. But to pivot to this idea of media and technology, obviously you have a bunch of people internally going, okay, that's a totally different way to look at what we do. But, you know, as we look down to what the company's gonna be like in the next ten years, that's the direction we're gonna head. I'm also interested in what the reception has been externally from, like, university partners. As you start to shift what was, how did they receive that coming from an organization that they knew as something slightly different?

16:44

Ben Mathan

Yeah, I think it's been welcome for the most part. I think it's taken some adjustment for people internally and externally to think of us that way. But as we do and as we explain that's not just an aspirational comment. We do have technology assets that are highly valuable and data assets that are highly valuable. People have welcomed that support. The other part about the whole industry, it's not just Covid that's happened. I'm sure we'll get into this. To have Covid and nil happen at the same time, you've got internal stakeholders and external stakeholders that are looking for solutions to problems they haven't had, they've maybe never had to solve before.

17:21

Ben Mathan

And if there's ever a time to kind of demonstrate that you can be an expert beyond what you normally think of us as Learfield, we can be an expert for your technology needs, your media needs. We've got an organization that you've only ever thought of for licensing and CLC that can actually demonstrate, and I can actually bring a technology solution for you called compass that helps you with Nil being like, the period of time that we've gone through over the last four years, the premium on providing solutions became so high that I think people were just more open to hearing a different story about Learville because they were. Everyone's just looking for solutions to really complicate problems right now.

17:58

Dave Almy

Let's talk about that, too, because we've alluded to it a couple of times, you know, nil, conference realignment, media rights. This is college sports, ironically, used to sort of be the sort of adorable, comfortable place to work in sports. Right. You know, athletic departments, you know, oh, this is nice. You know, go sell tickets and everything like that. There is no part of sports that's more dynamic right now. I mean, just when you think conference realignment, for example, has settled in Stanford or, you know, in two years, it could be back in the pac twelve. Right. You know, and nil, you think, okay, house decision, that's been settled. Well, the judge takes that one back and says maybe we're going to look at it a little differently. So as the person charged with strategy during this. Right. It, it's hard.

18:51

Dave Almy

I mean, strategy is usually like three to five year plans.

18:54

Ben Mathan

One year.

18:54

Dave Almy

Three or five year plans, yes. How do you prepare yourself and people that you work with to deal with strategy in such a chaotic environment?

19:08

Ben Mathan

It's a great question. I would, if I had the perfect answer to that question, I'd be much better at my job than I actually am.

19:15

Dave Almy

But I honestly let you.

19:18

Ben Mathan

I think this probably sounds, probably not answer you're expecting. But I will say one of the most important things, in my opinion, for executives, especially strategy executives, going through a period of industry dislocation and disruption, as we are, is just a sense of humility. I think knowing that you don't know is okay, and that almost frees you to actually kind of think critically if you're able to just admit, I don't know the answer. And by the way, I don't know how many people in positions of power in this industry would actually say, I know exactly what's going to happen in the next six months. And in some ways, just admitting that allows you to have open, crazy idea type conversations that you might otherwise be guarded on because you think, like, I'm supposed to know that's a bad idea. So I can't say that.

20:03

Ben Mathan

So, number one, I actually think, is humility, just knowing I don't know the answer. But I want to explore how to get to the answer together on where all this is going. And then once you allow yourself to accept that, you just kind of have to constantly remind yourself or ground yourself in the one or two or three pieces of the puzzle that you know are not going to change. Right. And it starts as simple as, like, do I believe that student athletes will be able to monetize their name, image and likeness forever? Yes. Do I believe that potentially leads to student athletes getting paid to play? Yes, like whatever that means. And people can even disagree on a couple of those points. But once you start grounding yourself in, I'm not going to know 100% of the story.

20:39

Ben Mathan

Let me just focus on the two or three or four of the hundred things that might happen, the handful that I actually know are not going to change. And then figure out how many more things can I build on? I think just. It's the analogy of eating an elephant, right. You got to start with the stuff that you know is true and then work your way up to the things you think might be true before you get to the things that you have no idea.

21:00

Dave Almy

It's a really interesting point from the standpoint of there's so much going on and it's so easy to get wrapped up in the change. And I made that sort of snarky comment about Callen Stanford, like, but that's not anything that you're going to control or build strategy around one way or the other, at least in the near term. So really identifying, okay, what are the things that we can focus on that are going to impact our bottom line? Really concentrate on those, like nil, huge piece of business. So much change, so much opportunity. Let's build on that. Yes, let's focus on that.

21:38

Ben Mathan

And I think if you don't think of it in that context and break things apart and say, what do I know is true? What do I believe is true? You're just, you create a lot of risk to miss something. Right? I was on a call yesterday, literally, where somebody was talking about this idea and someone said, well, that would never happen because it's illegal for state institutions to do that. And everybody kind of accepted it. And then two minutes later, somebody said, wait a minute. But what happens if a governor changes the law? And everybody was like, oh, yeah, wait a minute.

22:05

Ben Mathan

It's like even just realizing and having the ability to say that you have to challenge the status quo, even things that you accept as kind of basic facts in a world that's this disruptive, you kind of have to look at everything differently.

22:17

Dave Almy

Well, never pay college athletes. It'll ruin amateurism. Well, clearly that's not going to be the case. I'm wondering if your background in private equity and financial services did that perspective help you uniquely in this moment versus someone who maybe came up through college sports? Did that outsiders perspective help or hinder in these moments?

22:48

Ben Mathan

Actually, I do think it helps. I think Greg Brown is a former CEO, and I talk a decent amount, and we always joke about how Greg is probably a worldwide. There aren't too many people who know college sports better than Greg Rupert, and yet Greg and I have thought about Nil for the same amount of time.

23:04

Dave Almy

You guys are, on equal basis, certain.

23:07

Ben Mathan

Things that are so disruptive that no one's an expert in right now and that in some ways that allows you as an outsider to kind of, you know, allow you to think differently. So, yes, I think even from that basic level, it's been helpful to bring different thought when the world is so different. And then I also think private equity and investment banking, to an extent, really forces you to ask yourself, what do you have to believe for this thing to be true? Not how do I learn everything there is to know about this thing? Because on any given deal that you're looking at, you've got two months to make a decision about whether or not to buy this company for the next ten years or five years or whatever.

23:40

Dave Almy

Right. You're never going to know everything.

23:42

Ben Mathan

You have to come up with. What are the four things you have to believe for this investment? True. And I think bringing that mindset to college sports or sports in general has helped me to say you don't have to know everything about where nil is going, but what do you have to believe to know that these are the right next steps to take?

23:56

Dave Almy

e was this period of time. In: 2021

24:39

Ben Mathan

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, we were the market leader. I don't love the word dominant because any, they can always change market leader of schools by far of any. Yeah, right. But we still add the same ish number of competitors out there as we do today. Most of they're under different brands and under different names, but a lot of these competitors were still out there. Now they're maybe being a little bit more aggressive, but no, I don't think that competitors being more aggressive necessarily changes our strategy. Unless. Which it might be. Unless our strategy is never lose a school. Have the most schools that you could possibly. If that's our strategy, then yes, competitors being more aggressive should change the way we approach the multimedia rate space.

25:19

Ben Mathan

If our strategy is to be the leading media and technology partner to every school, sometimes that's not what the school is looking for. They might be looking for the most capital in that moment, or they might be looking for certain capabilities that we don't have. And so I hate to lose. We talked earlier about. I'll tell you, I hate to lose what it's losing inside of the strategy. We believe in losing because somebody's and prioritizing something that we are not as good at, where we're not going to do, like pay the most every time, is a different type of loss, and I hate it regardless, but I don't think that it changes our strategy from that standpoint.

25:55

Ben Mathan

The last thing I'd say on that real quick is paying more for rights is, you know, one way is certainly a real way to win in this industry. The value that schools need to find is more than any one MMR provider is going to solve on any given renewal deal. Right? And so that's why I just fundamentally believe that we've got to focus on creating solutions for that big problem. Because if we can do that, I think schools will look at us and say, yeah, maybe somebody else would have paid me a little bit more guaranteed hours or whatever, but Learfield is offering me a solution to my biggest problem. And my biggest problem wasn't x percentage more on rights ease. My biggest problem was this and like nil and how to solve paper, like paying salary, captain stadium renovation.

26:42

Ben Mathan

We need to be in the business of providing solutions and I think the rest will solve itself.

26:46

Dave Almy

And so I think it's fair to say, right, sometimes you touched on it from the standpoint of if a school is just looking for the maximum amount of dollars that they can generate from multimedia rights that might not necessarily fit with where you see the future of this industry going, and they may not be the school that's going to be able to help you develop that expertise, that level of skillset, and exploit the full range of the product services capabilities that you're bringing to the table. Is that a fair assessment?

27:16

Ben Mathan

I think it's a fair assessment. I would just slightly tweak it to say because we give, you know, because we have such aligned incentives in our deals where we share an upside as well. The school has to also believe that Learfield together we can create more revenue that I will share in than I would have otherwise.

27:34

Dave Almy

Right.

27:34

Ben Mathan

The upside, the hard thing to prove, but as we start improving on our national sales platform, as we continue to develop our multimedia. Right. Sales organization, as you and you know that you andy have helped us with, frankly, as we continue to build out digital marketing, the more we can demonstrate that you want to be a business with us because we'll solve your problems and the revenue that you're going to share with us on is going to be greater than everybody else's. The more it's not just taking less. It's not about are you willing to take less money? It's are you willing to be a part of growing something together or taking a guaranteed dollar if you think you're.

28:08

Dave Almy

Also seeing a change in college leadership, too. And I'm always struck by folks at the commissioners for the conferences, right. You got Brett Yormark. Right. Free leaving the big twelve. I mean, he's willing to try anything to give his conference. Right. You talk about naming rights for the conference games in Mexico. I saw a quote by Tim Pernetti, who's now at the american saying he wants to take big swings. This is not your grandfather's commissioner, right. These are aggressive, seasoned executives who are, they see the dollars involved and this filters down. Not, I just used examples from the commissioner's office, but I mean, this filters down to sort of this new generation of ads and things like that, more sophisticated because the money's more sophisticated. So how does that type of administrative leader impact you on a day to day basis?

29:06

Dave Almy

Do you then have to be more dialed in to what it is they're trying to do? Do you have to do they, are they more receptive to the kinds of things we've been talking about on this podcast? How does that react to what you do on a day to day listen?

29:19

Ben Mathan

I think it forces all of us to step our games up a little bit, right. We've got, first of all, four and a half, four years ago when I joined, it was, you really felt like an outsider in this industry. Even four years ago, it was very like anyone you met, you would be the only one that hasn't been in this industry for 15 years, right?

29:35

Dave Almy

Yeah.

29:35

Ben Mathan

Passport or years later, and the number of just from athletic directors to coaches to conference commissioners to. There has been more movement of people coming into the industry and moving than I've seen in almost any other industry. Anytime that happens, you bring in new ideas, and so it makes us, I think it forces us to step our game up because you've got people coming in with good ideas that worked outside of college sports who are going to bring them into college sports, and we've got to find a way to be a part of that. The exciting thing for me is that, you know, if you asked anybody off the street, this is my outsider, you know, coming out. Right.

30:10

Ben Mathan

If you ask anybody off the street who's in charge of college sports, as most of them would say, the NCAA or a conference or a school, we all know that the answer is all of the above. Because the college sports is such a fragmented set of rights and assets and things like that, you could not design.

30:26

Dave Almy

A more complex system.

30:28

Ben Mathan

It's so complicated. And Learfield is so fortunate to be in a position where we have such a good ownership position of so many pieces of that puzzle. So the great thing is we have, as commissioners change, as athletic departments change, we have a footprint on so many parts of how to make this puzzle work. But we've got to also have, you know, take that as a responsibility to be partners with them and figure out a solution together, because I don't. It's going to be hard. It would be hard to solve something without people like Learfield in the mix, but that comes with a responsibility of actually, you know, helping them think differently.

31:01

Dave Almy

Yeah, it's funny, right? It's not just media and technology. Those are obviously the lead on how you go to market. But there's almost this greater pressure on thought partnership, because everybody that you're talking, that we've been talking about, athletic directors, commissioners, multimedia rights providers, media, everybody's looking at this and trying to figure out what's going on. So, so with that in mind.

31:30

Ben Mathan

I'm.

31:30

Dave Almy

Sorry to ask this question, but, you know, what's on your radar? I mean, this. With an industry that changes every 20 minutes, where are the issues and opportunities that, as the guy charged with strategy, what are you, what's keeping you up at night, man? I mean, other than everything, honestly, it is.

31:51

Ben Mathan

It is everything. I mean, the obvious. The obvious stuff are. The obvious stuff is nil. Needing to raise $22 to $25 million per school to compete from a, you know, student athlete modernization or a student athlete payment standpoint and all of the above. And Nil is so disruptive that the answer is everything. The reason it's almost nonspecific is that schools are. I think schools are looking for sustainable ways to generate somewhere between ten to 30% more revenue than they've had to generate before. And how they get there is kind of all, it's fair game right now. And so to me, it's not. There's no one thing.

32:32

Ben Mathan

It's how does Learfield position itself to be the best partner to solve that revenue gap, not once, not for one year, but to solve that revenue gap on a permanent basis, and that there's no one silver bullet to get there. But what keeps me up at night is making sure Learfield can provide the right solutions to fill that gap as much as possible.

32:51

Dave Almy

And it's beyond just, hey, give me more money for my multimedia rights. That might be part of it, but the long term play is so far beyond that, and it feels like that's what you guys are designing for, because.

33:05

Ben Mathan

Even multimedia rates might be some of the longest contracts that I've been around. Even that nil will need for nil dollars will survive any one MMR deal as well. So we've got to actually find permanent revenue solutions for the industry that, because we have a permanent change in the industry. That's already happened.

33:25

Dave Almy

It's happening to you as we speak.

33:28

Ben Mathan

That's exactly right. Exactly.

33:30

Dave Almy

I'm with Ben Mathen. He's the chief strategy officer for. For Learfield. Ben, thanks for the time today. Really appreciate the conversation, the insights. But before I let you go, I gotta put you in the lightning round. Yeah. No, oh is the appropriate response when you're told you're being put into the lightning round. This is a series of questions. You don't know what's coming. Are you ready?

33:52

Ben Mathan

I'm ready.

33:54

Dave Almy

Okay. That was pretty confident. That was pretty confident sounding.

33:56

Ben Mathan

We'll see.

33:57

Dave Almy

All right, as we discussed, you did your undergrad at NYU. What is the nickname of the athletic teams there?

34:05

Ben Mathan

The violets, believe it or not.

34:07

Dave Almy

Follow up question. Is that the least intimidating sports nickname in all of college sports?

34:12

Ben Mathan

When I was there, they changed it to also be the Wildcats, but it was a violet colored wildcat. But it's historically been the violets. And yes, it must be the least intimidating.

34:22

Dave Almy

Go violets. It just does not strike fear. Okay. What college sporting event is still on your bucket list?

34:31

Ben Mathan

Oh, good question. I've actually. I've never been to. I've never actually stayed through, like, I'd love to actually spend a full three days at March Madness. I've been to a game here or there, but I mean, I'd actually love to commit to just being a part.

34:46

Dave Almy

Of the whole experience. That's a good one. You helped launch Learfield's college rodeo. When's the last time you sat in a horse?

34:56

Ben Mathan

Maybe five years ago. I was. I was. I was around when a number of people really helped launch college rodeo. I get credit for it because I happen to have a big title, but no, five years ago, and I probably been to a rodeo once or twice in my life.

35:11

Dave Almy

Okay.

35:12

Ben Mathan

But I will say, going back to the point before huge fan base, passionate, that's where Learfield should play, is kind of continuing to innovate around sports properties that are not right down the fairway of what we do and yet very much are right adjacent to what we do.

35:26

Dave Almy

Very good. All right, lightning round. We got to keep it quick here, man. You were recently named a 40 under 40 by the sports Business Journal. Congratulations. What award would you like to receive next?

35:39

Ben Mathan

You know what? I'll plug myself for next year. I'd love to receive 40 under 40 a second.

35:42

Dave Almy

Oh, a double winner. All right. I like it. All right. You have indicated in past this is the last one, by the way, so you can. But this is the hardest one. You've indicated in the past that your parents proudly just described your job as, quote, business. Have you made any headway in helping them understand what you do?

36:01

Ben Mathan

Well, it's better than they used to think. I was a bank teller instead of an investment banker. But no headway since business.

36:09

Dave Almy

Well, as the world's most successful bank teller, Ben Mathen. Appreciate the time, man.

36:14

Ben Mathan

Thank you, Dave. Appreciate you having me.

36:16

Dave Almy

Thanks for listening to this episode of the one one sports Business conversations podcast. If you enjoyed it, we always appreciate a subscribe, share, comment or like. And don't forget, you can always find past episodes@abcpartners.com. Podcast this podcast is written, produced, edited and hosted by Dave Almey, and theme music was composed by Scott Holmes.