A Top Sports Agent on Finding Billions 'Where There Was No Business'
CAA Sports co-head Mike Levine on the Hollywood-sports relationship, where the big money’s coming from — and why the 32-year bull cycle keeps raging
Ashley Cullins writes about agents, lawyers and dealmakers for paid subscribers every other week. She recently covered the New Rules of Film Finance; the Pixar of AI signing up stars; and The Death of Cost-Plus Deals: Now What?. You can reach her at ashley@theankler.com
On Aug. 15, the $2 billion Intuit Dome opened with a three-hour Bruno Mars concert that featured a surprise cameo from Lady Gaga. While the crowd lapped up Mars singing “Treasure” and his many other hits, CAA Sports co-head Mike “Vino” Levine had to be humming “That’s What I Like” as he thought about the massive, under-heralded role his team played in lighting up the state-of-the-art arena that’s the new home of the NBA’s L.A. Clippers.
CAA Sports oversaw the development, design and construction of the Intuit Dome — located in Inglewood, just down the street from SoFi Stadium where the NFL’s Rams and Chargers play — through its CAA Icon division, having a hand in everything from its enormous double-sided video “Halo Board” to its 80,000-square-foot outdoor plaza. And the name? That, too, was the product of Levine’s CAA Sports negotiating a massive 23-year, $500 million naming rights deal with Intuit, the tax and accounting software giant, which helped defray some of the project’s costs footed by owner Steve Ballmer.
Sports and Hollywood have seemingly never been more intertwined, and almost everywhere you look, CAA Sports plays a role, creating opportunities for its clients, which range from owners to athletes and coaches to sports journalists, in both traditional and novel arenas. A couple of additional recent examples:
ESPN’s flagship college football pregame show, College Gameday, saw ratings increase 9 percent this season, thanks in large part to the addition of former Alabama coach Nick Saban — a CAA Sports client that Levine and co. have a lot of plans for.
Next month, star golfers Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy will debut their new TMRW Golf League (TGL), which pits six three-golfer teams against each other in virtual matches in front of a live audience. Levine and CAA Sports engineered this fresh, tech-forward spin on televised golf, selling the media rights to ESPN, securing SoFi as the new sport’s presenting sponsor and vetting the ownership groups for the half-dozen franchises via CAA Sports’ investment bank, CAA Evolution. Among the backers they attracted: Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur M. Blank, Philadelphia 76ers owner David Blitzer, NBA star Stephen Curry, Fenway Sports Group (which owns the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C.), legendary women’s soccer star Alex Morgan and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and tennis icon Serena Williams. In addition, Connect Ventures, CAA’s investment joint venture with the VC firm New Enterprise Associates, is one of the backers of TMRW Sports, the company behind TGL, which closed its Series A funding round in July, valuing it at $500 million.
Levine, who’s New York-based and has served as CAA Sports’ co-head since its 2006 founding (along with Howie Nuchow, now headquartered in Nashville, and president Paul Danforth), has been one of the primary architects of both sports’ growing domination of the entertainment landscape and his agency’s role in making that happen. In 2010, for example, the global sports business was estimated to be $121.4 billion. This year that number is expected to exceed $500 billion for the first time.
The firm, which started representing athletes much as CAA repped actors, writers and directors — and currently has 3,000 of the world’s top sports stars on its roster — now has 19 divisions, including strategic consulting for facilities owners (CAA Icon); one for building the careers of sports media stars like NFL reporter Erin Andrews and former quarterback Tony Romo; and another that has structured and negotiated more than $80 billion in media rights deals. As Levine tells me, “We’re excited by the old and fired up about the new.”
With all this action, I wanted to talk to Levine about what’s driving this gold rush, get some insight into how the firm forges new businesses where they previously did not exist — and where sports dealmaking is headed next.
In this issue, you’ll learn:
CAA Sports’ compound annual growth rate in its 18-year history
How Levine assesses the sports market to figure out whether it’s a bubble
How streamers fit into the media rights ecosystem
The total value of stadium naming-rights deals CAA Sports has made — and the bigger ancillary business in developing new stadiums
Why the best deals come from identifying emerging trends
How CAA Sports built a global operation to grow the total market
Why he’s bullish on women’s sports — plus three other burgeoning TV opportunities
How social media changed CAA’s athlete representation business
The unscripted series featuring the unlikely media star CAA will be selling next year
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ashley Cullins: What are your thoughts on this sports gold rush moment that we’ve been in? What do you think was the genesis of it? Where are we in it? Is it a bubble?
Mike Levine: I love the way you framed all that. I don’t believe that this is anything new. I’m 53, and I feel lucky to have come into the workforce in the sports industry during what has been a 32-year bull cycle.
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