Portland is the Epicenter of Women’s Sports with Lisa Bhathal Merage

WEBVTT - Portland is the Epicenter of Women’s Sports with Lisa Bhathal Merage Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome back to the DLM Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. Coming up on the show Lisa bethal Mirage. She is the owner of both The Fire in the WNBA and The Thorns in the NWSL.

But first, I haven't seen you for a while, Alex. We're all over the place as usual. You're just back from can How was it I saw the you know, the sun drenched photos of you know, per usual. But this has turned into a massive thing, especially in the sports business world, right, yeah.

It really has. I mean it very much has some of the characteristics of a milk and conference in La accept as in France and con and you know, I found it very productive. This year is my second year that I went. I just got back and I found the adjustment that I made was instead of booking myself eighty to ninety percent, I only booked myself thirty percent and kept seventy percent fluid for meetings and like strategic you know, showing up at places.

It was so much more productive and impactful for me, but really really productive. And is it like a party scene or a lot of business scene or sort of like combination of both, like people just sort of like moving around and bumping into each other. What is it like, It's a bit of a combination. I think the first day or two you kind of use it to wear out some of the jet lag.

And then by day three and four, almost by the time you're ready to come back, you're you're you're good. But I would say what's really impressive is you're on the beach. Is a great scenery. You have great people showing up.

You know you have you had Tatum from the Celtics, you had Jalen Brown, you had KD Kevin Durant, and then you have all the cmos from the top fortune one hundred companies, and then you hear you have representatives like you know, you have Amazon Prime, you have Netflix, you have Apple, Disney, and you get a lot of business done in a short time. You had the folks from LinkedIn. We went to one of their parties. But very productive.

I highly recommend it. It's hard to get an invite. Yeah, Well, while you were doing that hard work, I was doing the hard work of playing golf with Steve Young last week in Utah. This is his.

Annual Forever Young Charity tournament that I've gotten to play in the past few years. He says, Hi had the best time. With him, and you know, his whole team. Obviously, for those listening who haven't heard our episode or watched our episode with Steve Young from earlier this year, it's one of our favorites.

You know, he just continues to kill it, both on the private equity side obviously the philanthropic side. Such a thoughtful. Guy, and you know, pulled together a really interesting collection of folks. You know, a lot of whom he has deep ties to us, including the head coach from BYU, the athletic director from BYU.

You know, they were all in attendance and playing golf, the BYU golf team, which was a little tough for us, you know, sort of competing in the tournament because I did not have any of them in my foursome, so not good for my scramble. Anyway, a really fun time. And God, I love golf. I love golf so much.

As you know. I'm working this week out of Idaho, not too far from Sun Valley and catch him and yeah, great golf here. And you know what's really good for someone like me and you know, less of an issue for you because you hit it a mile goes a little further in the altitude. I'll take it like it's everything I need.

It's good for the confidence, it's not good, it's very good for the goverment. One quick follow up, How is Steve Young's game? What's his handicap? I don't know what his handicap is.

I will say this will not surprise you, And if I did, I probably wouldn't disclose it because I'm not sure he would want it. Except he's really good. He's I'll tell you the best thing about his golf game. He's a scrambler.

So he plays golf like he played football. I mean, I've also heard that you play golf like you played baseball, which is. You swing out of your shoes and you know, and then hope for the best. You know what, whether I have a seven or birdie, I have the same attitude.

I'm gonna go to the next one and enjoy. It exactly, all right. Coming up from the show a little bit of a pivot, We're going to talk a lot about women's sports. Lisa Pathalmerage such a fascinating figure in the sports world.

She's got two teams in two leagues in the same city in Portland, Oregon, which is just a mecca for women's sports. As you know, the NWSL she and her family bought sort of out of a troubled situation. The owner there was forced to sell. They picked it up, and then more recently they've launched the Portland Fire in your league, the WNBA, and you've seen it up close and personal.

This is a good team. It's a very good team. And she reminds me Lisa. Of a little bit of a younger days with Genie Buss, where her father was obviously doctor Buzz.

Lisa's father is obviously one of the co basically co owners of the Sacramento Kings. But what I like about her, Jason, when I send in board meetings with her, is she's dynamic. This is a business for them. There's not a hobby like.

They run like as their principal business. And those owners that do that you can see the benefits on the court or on the field, and you're seeing that with her totally. Yeah, that's a really good point. She and her brother Alex are sort of the prime movers in this next generation.

And you make a really good point, which is you know, they went in, their family went in. Her father, Raj is the alternate governor for the Sacramento Kings, and so they learned a lot about the NBA and sort of the basketball ecosystem that they're very much applying. So let's get into with Lisa pathal Mirage coming up here on the Deal. Welcome back to the Deal.

I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. So excited to have with us Lisa pathal Mirage. She joins us from Portland, where she and her family had sort of taken over the city in terms of sports. Lisa, it's really good to have you with us.

Thank you so much for having me. Yes, coming in live here from the global epicenter of women's sports, Portland, Oregon exactly. So tell us about how did this all come about? How did you, I believe grew up in southern California Like here you are, literally as we speak to you, towering over Portland, Oregon.

How does this happen? Oh gosh, it's a long story, but I'll start with My dad is originally from India, came to the United States, fell in love with sports, met my mom, who's a southern California beach girl and grew up in Newport Beach. But she was a lifelong athlete and they ended up starting a business in the fashion industry. Our family business when I was growing up was actually women's swimwear and I came on board after college graduation graduation from USC with my brother Alex, and we worked in the family business.

Started at the bottom, worked our way and we were there for about twenty years. We took the company global, we took it digital, and then we ended up selling the business to private equity. And at that time, as a family, we knew we wanted to make an investment in sports, so we looked into different opportunities and we eventually landed on an opportunity with the Sacramento Kings with the Vivak Ranadive led group and my dad, Braj came in as alternate governor and vice chair and my brother Alex sat on the executive board.

And that was about fourteen years ago. So at that time, after we sold the business, we were invested the Kings. My brother and I we have a hard time sitting still, so we decided to launch another business called Revitate, which is an investment platform focused on real estate and the sports ecosystem, and I think, as Eddie us being in the sports world, See, when you're in that world, a lot of opportunity comes across your desk and you look at different deals. And at that time it was we'd been hearing a lot about women's sports, and I kind of think that being in the fashion industry, my husband calls my superpower, the fact that I could smell trends before they happen, smell things before they happen, and you know, people were calling it a moment in women's sports, and we thought of it as the rise of women's sports.

So, long story short, this Portland Thorns deck came across our desk in the NWSL and I came out to Portland to check it out. And as we started looking into it and I came for a game and it was shocking and mesmerizing. It was what I call the magic of Portland. The fan base here is incredible.

They're insatiable, they love their sports. The women's sports rival the men's sports in this city. So we absolutely fell in love with the city and the fan base and the fact that the Thorns had three NWSL championships and we're winning, you know, basically on and off the pitch, and that became kind of our first opportunity in Portland. So, Lisa, I want to take you back and disclaimer here.

Roger and I are partners and we sit on the same board with the NBA and I sit on the board with the en the WNBA. Your father's lovely and a really charming man. But take me back to Newport Beach. You're sitting there with your family.

You're sitting there with your mom who's from Newport, and you buy this team in twenty thirteen with Vivek. How is the conversation around dinners like this is exciting dad? Or we put on our marbles on one A. Could you ever forecast it that twenty twenty six the league has grown to where it has today as a global media.

Platform with regard to the NBA. Correct NBA, Yeah, I mean. For us, you know, we looked at a few different opportunities. We kind of landed on the NBA as the league that we wanted to invest in at that time, and you know that was for a few reasons.

We saw the growth trajectory in the NBA have a huge opportunity, especially with media deals and a lot of things happening in the NBA, so we thought it was the right investment for us. We had a couple stop starts with other teams, and we actually came very close to investing in the New Orleans Pelicans, but it didn't work out. And then David Stearns said, my dad, Raj, wait, I have something for you. I have something that I know is going to be a good fit for you.

And that was how we wound up in Sacramento, which is really nice. I have to say, It's only an hour flight from Orange County, California, where we live. So we joked that we could fly to a King's game faster than we could drive to LA to see the Clippers or the Lakers. And so there is this.

You know, the other sort of big decision you make is around women's sports, specifically. I want to come back to the in a second, but since we're talking about basketball, the expansion, the growth of the w has been unbelievable. You know, take us through that deal and how that transaction happens, because expansion has been has been all the rage. But this happened very quickly as I understand it.

Yes, it did you know we were working on closing our Portland Thorns deal and then we frankly read into newspaper when we saw that the WNBA was about to get Portland an expansion franchise, and something happened with the potential owner there, and the league didn't know that we were in Portland, so we let them know, Hey, you know, it hasn't closed yet, but we're investing the Thorns. We're going to be building a performance center here. We're investing in the city. And yes, we went through a process and I think the stars aligned because we are the only ownership group to have both teams with the Portland Thorns and the NWS well and the Portland Fire and the WNBA.

And with regard to the NBA, the WNBA, that was another you know, the WNBA has been around for thirty years. This is obviously the thirty year anniversary, but it was another sport that we saw and you know, we saw it back when Caitlin Clark was in college and this bubble was starting to rise, and I think, you know, social media really became the opportunity for a lot of these female athletes to have their platform and to grow, and so we were seeing this uprising, and we were very, very excited about the opportunity to invest in a WNBA franchise.

Sticking with the sort of like fast timetable, you also had to turn that pretty fast to get them onto the court, right, it wasn't you know, because now we're seeing with the w and keep me honest here, both of you. You know, it's like you have two three you know, some cases like a little more years to sort of get it all up and running. You guys had less than two, right, like fourteen fifteen months? Yes, I think it was fifteen months exactly that we had.

And you know we had a team three weeks before we went onto the court. Yeah, I mean starting with the Thorns. When we closed the sale of the Thorns on January fourth, twenty twenty four, we had a coach, we had players, we had technical staff, and that was it. And we did a transition agreement with the Timbers who previously owned the Thorns.

The Timbers in the MLS slowly transitioning different departments over. So the first thing we did on that side was we hired a president of business operations, and then through the course of the next nine months, we built out the ticketing department, the sponsorship department, the marketing department, hr IT Legal, and then with a fire, we had a little bit of a head start with some of the back office, whether it's like finance or hr Legal, but we had to do the same thing. So we started with a President of operations.

We actually had a VP of People Culture who is over both organizations and she is amazing, but we hired a president business operations and then we started again. We started building out the departments and hired Vonya, our GM on the Fire side, and took the time that we needed to kind of build out the technical staff on the Fire basketball operation side. So, Lisa, when you think about your sports portfolio, there's a lot of chat in the marketplace and Jason and I have heard it from different guests about is there a bubble in sports?

I guess my question to you is do these teams continue to rise in value? What are your thoughts? I think the teams will continue to rise in value. I think women's sports is still very young and is growing.

We're so excited and happy that the Valkyries just hit the billion dollar valuation, and as you've seen the acceleration and growth and the valuations is incredible, but there's a lot of work to do. And I mean, Alex you know from your involvement with the Links, but women's sports is not the same as men's sports, And of course there's the topic of pay, but there's also the topic of revenue streams and how we have to I still feel like we have to work harder, faster, longer, better and stronger to have kind of the same output that the men's major leagues have.

I specifically have covered the NWSL pretty closely. It has been a fascinating journey, to say the least, and candidly, and you guys were a force for good on the back end of some really difficult times for the NWSL. Part of the reason that the team came for sale was some bad behavior and bad things that happened with that franchise that was reflective of things going on across the league. You know, the NWSL has had its own journey.

The WNBA had a separate one, you know, sort of a slow burned your earlier point over. Now thirty years. What do you take from each that you apply to the other, Because yes, they're women's sports, but these are obviously very different sports, different leagues different setups in the sense that is very long, very long prologued. Sorry, but just sort of setting the stage here.

You know, the INWSL is completely independent of the MLS, whereas the WNBA is part of the NBA or you know, partially owned by the NBA. Take us through sort of. How you toggle back and forth and what you take from each that informs the other. Well.

I think for us, we're still newer with the WNBA, so we're still learning kind of the governance around how WNBA interacts with the NBA. But the WNBA has been around for thirty years and the NWSL will celebrate fifteen years next year, so they both are not emerging sports leagues. They're still both I think in the growth phase. I would say WNBA starting to transition out of that growth phase.

But for us, down at kind of the team operations level, we keep things separate, but we think that having both teams under one umbrella is our superpower. We are going to be opening in just a couple months the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, and that will be the first and only professional dual women's sport performance center in the world. It will be just under one hundred thousand square feed and we were very thoughtful with how we built this out.

Each team has completely their separate areas with regard to their dressing rooms, their recovery areas. However, we were thoughtful in having two areas that are kind of cross pollinaid. One of them is the fitness center, the gym, where we have about six thousand square feet between indoor and outdoor space, and then the dining room. And we purposely wanted the players to be able to interact, to learn from each other, to build bonds, to support each other.

But what we have found is that are like our gms uh Vanya on the fireside and Jeff on the thorn side, they talk daily there. You know, it goes back to sometimes it's lonely at the top, but they have this dialogue where they're like, did you deal with this? Yes? What did you?

How did you solve this? I actually have a meeting with them this week where we're going through recovery modalities and we're trying to figure out what can we do to kind of cross pollinate and learn from each other. Even though they're different sports, we're still dealing with female athletes and there's only you know, six percent of medical research done on women. So it's truly an opportunity for us in the future.

And I know this is something that Alex thinks that Alex Rodriguez thinks a lot about. Not to be confused with their. Brother, but the idea of the fans and one of the things that I hear consistently as I talk to you know, your fellow owners, especially across the NWSL, is there are there are two fan bases that consistently rise above in the NWSL. Washington spirit is one and Portland is the other.

That it is like the atmosphere, the commitment, what is that? What is that about? And then how do you sustain it? And how do you feed that knowing that it's there.

Yeah, I think it's interesting on the Thorn side because it's an established fan base and we have traditionally led the league. I think we have ten seasons under a belt of leading the league with season attendance. Even this year, I think we're over nineteen thousand as our average attendance, which is just incredible if you think of women's sports. So we've kind of looked into it and we think a few things, and this is probably why we go back to saying that we're just cementing Portland as the global epicenter of women's sports.

Women's sports are authentic to the community. It was in the night when I started researching. It was in the nineteen seventies that the first LPGA tournament was here in Portland. And maybe it's the counterculture that happens here, but it's a very very passionate sports fan base, especially for women.

The other thing is that we're in the global head quoters for Nike and the North American headquarters for Adidas. So people that live in Portland and the surrounding areas, they live and breathe sports, and I think they see things that are very forward thinking as well. So you know, with women's sports rising, it's been this way for many years here. And you know, heck, we just had our Portland Fire season opener with over nineteen thousand I think it was like nineteen thousand, three hundred and thirty five attendees completely sold out for our opening game, and going into the night, we thought we were going to have about seventeen thousand, and we were like sold out.

It was incredible. It was packed. It was rocking. I think we've just learned that for us, we really take the standpoint of hiring the best people for the job and letting them do that.

We don't claim to be experts. I say that any day. You know. I love soccer, I love basketball, But we're hiring people who are really good at what they do, and we believe in giving them the space in the room to really run with what they do.

On the fireside. We hired Vanya and she was very passionate about hiring our coach, Alex Sarama, who is a leader in CLA. And it is just fascinating to watch what goes on in practice. The other day I was there and he had players shooting free throws in socks, just all kinds of creative things and they're laughing and they're smiling and they're having a great time.

You talked about some of the experience that you guys had with the family business in terms of you know, digitizing it and globalizing it. Where are you spending your time, especially as you get deeper and deeper into this broadening portfolio As we've talked about, there. Are two areas where I'm really spending my time I think the first is maybe it's coming from the fashion industry, but I am very focused on creating lifestyle brands out of both the Fire and the Thorns, and I think you could see that with our branding for the Fire.

It's very different than what you see in sports. And you know, our goal there is to have people who are wearing the Portland Fire merch and maybe it doesn't even say Portland Fire, but people know what the icon is and it creates a lifestyle brand. I think as women, we are very multifaceted, and I think you know a lot of our players also like art and music and fashion and food and culture. So it's how can we integrate that all into creating lifestyle brands here in Portland for both the Fire and the Thorns.

And the other area is my work and my service on the Board of Governors, as Alex knows, you know, just getting started on the WNBA side, but on the NWSL side then I chair our Commercial committee and I'm also on the Strategic Planning Committee, so I spend a lot of time on that. On the NWSL side, we're going to be kicking off work for a twenty twenty eight media deal shortly and it is fun and exciting to have a seat at the table and help shape the future of women's sports. I frankly call it my purpose.

You know, I'm here for a reason, and it's to do what I can to help move women's sports forward. And I can do that by having a seat at the table. So let's talk about it. You brought out something really interesting and important about, you know, sort of media deals.

So let's talk about the NWOSL because it was massive, historic, forty x what it was in the previous deal, lots of different platforms. More visibility. The next one is arguably even more important because it has to sort of cement this viewership, this fandom. And really exposure.

You've seen what's happened with the w What does the NWSL need to do? Like, what's on your mind as you think about this next slide of media, especially given how topsy turvy the overall media world does. Yeah, I mean I think for us, I think we were one of the first leagues that had an assortment we'll say, of media platforms where the streaming is. But I frankly think that's the future.

I think we're going to see more of that because people don't just watch one channel anymore. They get their information from everything from different streaming to their phone. With regard to the NWSL, the forty times was a little bit of an anomaly. I know the WNBA had closer to six, and we'll see what the best that the league can do.

But it is really important because, as you know, that number relates to everything from if we could provide charters for our players, which we may or may not be able to do, to you know, where salaries come in in the next CBA negotiations. As you think about that, and I know we have to be careful about talking about numbers and all of that because you're both governors, But I mean, I know you've thought a lot about this, Alex in terms of like how are you how do you maximize the revenue side of the in your case, the Links versus the versus the Wolves, and sort of taking advantage of all the elements that are there.

And I know you're thinking about media all the time. I just wondered your thoughts there. What I will say is our situations are a little bit different. Like, unlike the Timberwolves the Links, we walked into an incredible franchise that has a Hall of Fame coach and has four championship banners.

We have an iconic player and the feature Collier, and we have a Rabbit fan base that is just like religious, like a cult about their team, which is lucky for us. Our biggest asset are players, and I think we can do even a better job of showing them off to the world. And we're currently talking about. Our local media rights deal, which is a conversation for another podcast.

But I do think about this all the time, and I'm constantly thinking about ideas of how do we enhance the brand of. The Links and Lisa, what have you seen? I'm glad Alex brought that up and he went exactly where I was hoping you could go. We've been doing this for.

A while, but you know, how do you think about this sort of like shoulder programming? And you know a lot of the things that the NBA has been so successful at. The NFL obviously has been very successful as well. We've seen the appetite that for women's sports, but maybe not the execution as much.

Is that something that needs to happen at the team level. Is it something that has to happen at the lead like how does that work in your estimation? Well, for us, we're actually doing it ourselves. We launched announced last month that we launched Rose City Sports Net and we launched that locally here in Portland in conjunction with Fox twelve and Grade Media.

So we have the only women's dedicated locals broadcast in the country and they will cover local games. They will stream them free for both Thorns and Fire that are available, and then for us, that's an opportunity with Shoulder content, so we'll have interviews with coach and pre and post game. And we have a podcast that was launched last year called Episode of Women's Sports with Creena LeBlanc where she interviews different people, some in Portland and some outside of Portland, but kind of showing what we're doing and building here as well.

One thing that has come up sort of on the edge of this conversation, and you started with it, Lisa, is this notion of the ecosystem around sports, especially as it relates to real estate. That's where Alex got his start in investing. You guys are pursuing this, whether it's with the dedicated facility, the training facility, but I think it's more than that, as well, help us understand how real estate fits into the broader investment thesis here. Yeah, actually, real estate is probably where we started also because when I was growing up in we had our family business.

My parents were real estate investors, and when we invest in the Sacramento Kings, then we, as you know, as part of the holding company, developed Golden One Center and Doco, which is a surrounding retail area that has retail, restaurant hospitality, and that led actually to the start of Alex Bethal and my business Revitate, which I said was focused on real estate. So back in twenty seventeen, there were three bipartisan pages in the tax bill and they were focused on what are called opportunity zones, and those are areas that are designated by the state as desperately needing revitalization but not necessarily having the funding to do so.

And so it's a tax tool that encourages private investment into opportunity zones. And we found out that that area of downtown Sacramento was an opportunity zone, and with the timing, we didn't get to take advantage of any of the great tax benefits, but we saw firsthand the social impact it created. It was the spark that revitalized downtown Sacramento. It created jobs both in construction and then afterwards and really became the catalyst for what is now a very robust downtown economy.

So that has been something we I think we're on our fifth fund with Revitate, and in the future we will be focusing a bit more on sports adjacent real estate because we know how to do this and we know how to invested opportunity zone areas. Up until this point, I think we've invested into over two and a half billion dollars with the worth of real estate across the country in twenty six different properties, primarily in secondary markets. Alex, I think you need to be talking to these but thals.

I mean, I know you're like, I'm very impressiate, Like I was going to say that this is actually speaking your language in a way that I don't. I'm not sure we've had a guest on this show who's talked about the real estate and sports intersection quite that specifically. I agree, and also having the fashion components seen around corners and I've learned a lot. We have obviously been keepy and eye on everything that you're doing.

The Thorns deal was obviously such a banner deal in NWSL, and I think a fascinating indicator of where that league is going. You know, we've had a number of your fellow owners on this. Podcast, whether it's Carolyn Budget, will Obey, Karen Nortman and a number of others, and Alan Waxman just recently Brandy Chestin and I forgive this because I'm in the Bay, but it is amazing to think about sort of that league. And I'm guessing you've seen just a real upping of the ante in terms of the ambition around the around the ownership group, but around the governor's table.

Is that fair? Have you seen that? Yeah, In the past two years that we've been involved with the WNWSL, we have seen a change in ownership and really top level people who come from sports backgrounds or finance like Alan does that are pushing things forward. It's a very very exciting time of growth for both the NWSL and the WNBA, and we're just really excited to be part of it.

Well. And obviously with Willow, you've got because you're a trojan, right, you know, you've got the USC connection, friendly rivals, you know, and certainly rivals on the pitch with the Angel City, and. I know everybody envies, everybody. Envies your fan base, So good luck on the thorns, good luck on the fire.

And now you've got a new rival and partner in Alex Rodriguez. This is great. Yes, we're against each other on the pitch of the court, but happy to be serving together on the board of Governors. All right.

Good to spend some time with you. Thank you so much, Thank you so much for having me. The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals. The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly.

The show is produced by Stacy Wong. Our senior producers are Alexis HoTT and Anamazarakis. Original music by Blake Maples. Our booker is Paige Keffer.

Our executive producers are Amy Keen, Kelly Lefier, and Ashley Zingaro. Special thanks to Rachel Carnivale, Elena So Los Angeles and Nick Silva. You can also watch this episode on The Deal on YouTube. Subscribe to The Deal and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

It helps other people find the show. Thanks for listening.