The video delves into the professional journey and accomplishments of George Pine, the founder and CEO of Bruin Capital. George discusses his career, including his roles as former COO of NASCAR and president of IMG, and the transition to forming his own investment company. He reflects on significant moments and challenges in his career, such as handling safety initiatives at NASCAR after Dale Earnhardt's death and his strategies for leading and transforming businesses.

Moreover, George shares his insights into leadership during crisis, especially during the critical times at NASCAR, and how he managed to implement controversial but necessary safety measures. He continues on his journey from NASCAR to founding Bruin Capital, discussing his approach to investments focusing on sports, media, and technology. The conversation brings out his philosophy of leading by example and the importance of planning and strategy in business execution.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. seminal [ˈsɛmənəl] - (adjective) - Highly original and influential, shaping future developments. - Synonyms: (influential, groundbreaking, pioneering)

I mean, that was a seminal moment in the sport, it was tough.

2. trifecta [trīˈfektə] - (noun) - A set of three things in a particular arrangement, especially when successful or benefit to oneself. - Synonyms: (trio, triplet, triad)

I think this is a guy that if you're a young entrepreneur, you should study. Yeah. And the reason why he has a perfect trifecta.

3. vicinity [vəˈsɪnəti] - (noun) - The area or region near or about a place; surrounding district; neighborhood. - Synonyms: (proximity, area, neighborhood)

You know, we have a team of people that really work in operations.

4. discernible [dɪˈsɜrnəbl] - (adjective) - Able to be perceived or recognized; noticeable. - Synonyms: (detectable, perceptible, noticeable)

Can this company grow or not on its own. And if I don't believe in the growth, we can't touch it.

5. stabilize [ˈsteɪbəˌlaɪz] - (verb) - To make or become unlikely to change, fail, or decline. - Synonyms: (steady, fix, secure)

So having to kind of stabilize and kind of like sports getting go back and play the next day.

6. controversial [ˌkɒntrəˈvɜːrʃəl] - (adjective) - Giving rise to public disagreement; contentious. - Synonyms: (contentious, debatable, disputed)

We put data recorders in the cars, which was also controversial.

7. restructuring [ˌriːˈstrʌktʃərɪŋ] - (noun) - The process of changing the structure of an organization or system. - Synonyms: (reorganization, rearrangement, overhaul)

I had to do a lot of restructuring, which I hadn't done a lot of.

8. arbitrage [ˈɑːr.bɪ.trɑːʒ] - (noun) - Buying and selling equivalent assets or combinations to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset. - Synonyms: (trade, negotiation, transaction)

I saw there's a great arbitrage in people and duration of those people

9. fragmented [ˈfræɡˌmɛntɪd] - (adjective) - Existing or functioning as though broken into separate parts; disorganized or incomplete. - Synonyms: (disjointed, division, broken)

That's unmatched and you know, in this world now where media consumption is fragmented, there are very few things that pull people together, Right

10. revolutionary [ˌrɛvəˈluːʃəˌnɛri] - (adjective) - Involving or causing a complete or dramatic change. - Synonyms: (innovative, radical, transformative)

Sort of revolutionary and candidly like sort of fraught moment for, for college sports. How does it feel to you?

How Bruin Capital’s George Pyne Capitalizes on Sports - The Deal

So, George Pine, Alex, he is the former COO of nascar, former president of img, now the founder of Bruin Capital. This is a guy that if you're in the sports world, you are one degree from him because he's everywhere. He's got a speed dial like no one else, has been involved in major deals, and is looking around the corner constantly for what's happening next in sports. Yeah, I think in many ways, Jason, guys like you and I, we looked up to Warren Buffett and other great CEOs. I think this is a guy that if you're a young entrepreneur, you should study. Yeah. And the reason why he has a perfect trifecta. I mean, you said it best. He's a wonderful family man. He's built an incredible business in Bruin Capital, and he's got world class relationships with an amazing culture. Here's George Pine.

All right, George, should we start this show always by having people introduce themselves, their names and what they do? George Pine, founder and CEO of Brewing Capital. Now, I could use the Boston accent, George Pine. But I'm going to use my real accent. Listen, when you use a Boston accent, it gives this guy ptsd. So you got to know your audience. That's true. I have nightmares about that. So use that. Use that to your advantage. I mean, if you don't like the question. If you don't like a question. Yes. Just answer it in a Boston. No Moss. No Moss.

You know, we were wondering how to start the conversation with you. You know, looking at all the stuff you've done over your career, what would you say so far is your signature deal? Signature deal. I don't really look in terms of that. I think the thing probably, if you ask me, what am I most proud of, maybe. Dale Earnhardt passed away in the last lap of the Daytona 500, weeks before I was promoted to run the company. Having to lead the safety initiatives at NASCAR through a very difficult period is probably the thing I'm most proud. Proud of. And then, of course, that had two avenues. One was actually putting in safety policies and procedures and creating a R and D center, the first of its kind in the world. And then also too, navigating the communications challenges of that, because overnight NASCAR became so much more popular at that time. So of all the things I'm most proud of, I think it was. It was that era and dealing with that challenge. And luckily they've had an almost perfect safety record since then.

What was that moment like? I mean, that, that was a. I mean, that was a seminal moment in the sport, it was tough. I mean, that was tough to lose your greatest driver of all time. Now, we had lost three other guys in last 18 months. And then when the greatest of all time passes away, it just, it shook the whole industry right to the core. And, and of course, we were leading the nightly news three nights in a row, and we. The scrutiny on the sport was off the charts. So that rattled you. It really rattled you to, to your core. So having to kind of stabilize and kind of like sports getting go back and play the next day and dig in there and find your way through it, it was really probably one of the most challenging things. But we came out the other end and made great strides and had a real impact over a long period of time. So if you ask me what I'm most proud of, it's that effort.

Let's talk about that, George, because obviously when the returns are great and you're returning capital to investors and all that, it's all wonderful. But in a very, very difficult moment, leadership wise, what were some of the things that you did over those three days to 30 days to make everybody feel better about themselves? I think you have to lead by example and taking tough positions. I mean, we installed a HANS device, which was very unpopular at the time. We put data recorders in the cars, which was also controversial. So pushing through a number of changes that culturally and for other reasons the organization had never done before, but you had to do it right. So what was your option? So having to push through, having the courage to push through change at a diligent, difficult moment and sticking with it and believing it and standing up was really what I took away from that. So I think a leader has to take a stand, do things that are uncomfortable and be thoughtful at that. It's. You don't really want to go against the grain, to go against the grain, but, you know, you. To lead, you've got to take a stand and do what you believe in.

So over the course of this conversation, we're going to talk a lot about your leadership and candidly, like your operational expertise and your operating experience and how that translates into your investment world. But I feel like I have to go all the way back. And Alex knows this because I've known you for a long time. I met you when I was basically a kid in Atlanta through our mutual friend Billy Andre. You started out in the real estate world. You come out of Brown. What's the quick story of how you get from there? Me meeting you and Helene, like on Club Drive in Atlanta to Today, as I tell everyone, there's no way to replicate my journey, right? I moved to Atlanta. I had $5,000. My wife had a car with 90,000 miles in it. No air conditioning. My car had 170,000 miles, and only two of the four doors worked, right? And we literally had to use our credit cards to pay the bills we had. Our friend Billy came over to our apartment and said, I feel like I'm in a college dorm. I said, yeah, this is all my stuff for my college dorm. So it was a journey. But again, I come from a family of athletes and didn't wanna fail. I never really cared about winning, but I never wanted to lose, right?

And so I moved away, went to this new place, Atlanta. Atlanta was great. It was having the Olympics and the Super Bowl. And I worked in a big real estate company and had built 27 buildings in downtown Atlanta. And I was like, hey, we should get in the sports business. And my boss thought I was crazy. But on the side, I built a little sports business, signed up NASCAR in 1995. You know, people forget today. When I went to NASCAR, it was called Winston Cup. Sixteen races were on the Nashville Network, and the company had one office, and it was very small. You know, when we left, you were on Fox and NBC. We had nine offices.

Hold on, I want to stop you there. It was not called nascar. It was Winston cup racing, right? It's a tobacco sponsor, and people referred it to Winston Cup. The NASCAR brand at that point didn't really exist. And NASCAR at the time when I went, there was a company that sanctioned the races and administered the races. It wasn't supposed to be in the commercial side. And so they let myself and Brian France were anointed to go try and develop a commercial business. And, man, we. We took off. We hit it hard. I knew we had a big opportunity, and, you know, and it worked out. And so it was an amazing run. The industry was great, but I wasn't a car guy. So, you know, I was 40 years old, had a little itch in me, and I wanted to do something else.

And so I had a friend at Goldman Sachs and said, hey, you know, you should go see this guy Ted for Smith. He just bought img. And I was like, all right. I didn't know who Ted was. And I thought. I went by. I saw Ted. I thought it was going to be 30 minutes. It was two hours. And Ted, when he wanted something, was pretty compelling. And the notion to go to IMG worked for a guy who was a leader in private Equity, to me, was a legend. In private, he said he invented it. I'm not sure that's true, but I felt like working for him, I could learn a lot, which I did. And obviously IMG was in 30 countries. And so running a company that operated in 30 countries that was in wide array of sports, working for a guy like Ted, for me was like, all right, that sounds good.

So I like when you mentioned Ted Forchman, because the first time I heard of him was when he bought 24 Hour Fitness from my partner, Mark Mastroff. And I think they did that deal for about a billion 8. Mark just loved working with him. But tell us a little bit about Ted. Our listeners, probably a little bit younger, don't know much about Ted, but he's a legend. Tell us what he meant to you and what were some of the attributes and lessons you learned from him. I had, really three great mentors in Atlanta. A guy named John Portman, who's one of the great American architects, and 25 million square feet of real estate. And I work with him through financial restructuring and then working at NASCAR for Bill France.

Bill France was another billionaire, very successful guy, and then working for Ted Fortman. So I learned different things from different people. Ted, what I really learned was he was very conservative and a little bit negative, but, boy, if he was able, through structure, to come up with an idea to minimize the risk, like, the guy was all in right away. And so what I really learned from him was, and I tell my kids, the risk reward ratio, what's the upside? What's the downside? Is it worth it? And if it's worth it, you go for it. That's what I took away from Ted. The other thing from these three guys, all highly successful, they all worked. They worked hard. They're smart. I'll tell you one.

One other funny one is, so my last day at nascar, I'm going to lunch with Bill France and Jim France, two billionaires. Where do we go? We go to Steak and Shake, and they're wearing, like, short sleeves, and we're driving home, and I said, I go, guys, can you give me one piece of advice? And it's great advice. They said, know when to squeeze and know when not to squeeze. And that was it. Right? But that was kind of having the judgment of knowing when to push and when not to push. So, like, watching these guys, Dan and Dale, for me, was a great. A great learning experience.

I mean, what's the transition like? From what? I mean, you go from these two, like, iconic people in American business and finance. Was there any sort of transition from working for the Francis, you know, you know, pretty well codified family business to TED Force? I mean, barbarians at the gate. How do you sort of adjust mentally? Like, what are you going home and saying to Helene of like, okay, this is. This is a different world. Yeah. So NASCAR was. Because it was a family business, really, all you had to do is convince the family of the right thing to do, and you're doing it immediately. No politics, which I loved. And there was no kind of political maneuvering. And so that was great for me. And I was kind of a guy that went out there in the fields and did the work and brought the goods home and did it again and did it again.

And when you went to ted, Ted was an investor, not an operator. And investors, sometimes when they don't know a business there, there are a lot of different inputs. And when you're running a global company, there's a lot more politics. And. And I was not. When I first went to IMG, I was 40 years old. I was like, hey, if you're doing a good job and you're driving results, that should be good enough. And what I learned in that environment was that may not be the case. So it's, you know, I tell people, you know, you need good style, but you also have to in substance. And I was more substantive, I think, at. At nascar, and I. I needed to work on the style, kind of the presenting and being a little more political, which I didn't like, quite honestly. And we don't have it brewing today. But that was.

If you said to me what was different working for a global financier who has a lot of inputs, you've got to be a different set of management skills than working for a family business and delivering results. And so what was the. Like, you get to img, and what's the biggest challenge that you took on there? Well, the biggest challenge was trying to reinvent and grow the company. Which, you know, one of the things with ted, which was great training for me, and I knew it when I took the job, was, all right, you know, my job is to grow earnings. Right. Scale doesn't matter. Profitless volume doesn't matter.

Growing earnings, because he's an investor. He's an investor. And so how. How to grow Eida is. Was the thing that, you know, we got trained in and measured. But ironically, you know, the one thing that I learned a long time, all the way going back to Portman, when I. I made a huge mistake. I used to Criticize people for not having a plan. When I went ran my first business, I didn't have a plan. I got really taken to the woodshed on that and I said I'll never run a business without a plan. And so how's a guy that, you know, his wife taught him how to drive a stick shift, run NASCAR and set rules and so forth? Because we, I was a very big three year plan guy. So we had to write a business plan. And you checked in on the business plan once a month on strategy and numbers.

And when what happened, nascar, Bill France was like, you know what, it's working pretty good on the commercial side. Why don't we take this discipline and put it over to the core business. And that's what got me in the on the racing side from just the commercial side. And that has served me well. It served me really well working for Ted because have a very diligent planning strategy. It's not, I look at it this way, like numbers are like your blood pressure, your cholesterol or whatever. They'll tell you what's right or wrong with the business, but they're not going to solve it. It's the strategy drives the numbers. The numbers confirm the strategy.

I've always been a big believer in that. Even yesterday I was in a staff meeting, I'm like, hey guys, let's make sure we have a collaborative approach with our companies. And just someone doesn't show up in December and presents me a business plan. Let's start now digging in with people and let's go through the draf of it. So I found that working with people, developing a strategy and then having the numbers check the strategy has really worked well for me for 30 years. I learned that at Portman actually. So I specifically on img, you said one of the things you were looking to do from Teddy's kind of from the top is grow ebitda. Right. Maybe one or two examples of what strategy did you take and how did you move that number in the right direction?

Well, you know, one of the ones I'm really happy about is IMG Academy. When you take about IMG Academy was they were really great at training athlet lead athletes. You know, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova. Really great athletes had been through there, but for 30 years it had never been profitable. Right. So I put in a guy today who's at the Barclays center and running the Nets. Sam Zussman. He was well educated. He went to Stanford Business School, Tel Aviv Law School. Sam came in as my chief of staff. And I put him in to run IMG Academy. And Sam's a brilliant guy, but he had worked at McKinsey in yield management. And running a sports academy is like running a hotel, or in Sam's case, understanding the yield management in the airline industry.

So we took IMG from not being very profitable to profitable in a very short amount of time, turning it into more of a place where you could go to go to college versus where we're going to get the next Maria Sharapova. And I was really proud of that. We bought this amazing IMG Academy just sold for, I think roughly $1.2 billion, like 10 or 11 years ago. We bought 40%. We only owned 60% of it when I got there. We bought 40% of IMG Academy for $6 million and a two year payment plan. And it was hard because we did it during like 09 and, you know, cash, we were managing cash tight. I had to go to the wall. That was like moving a mountain to get $6 million to buy 40% of the academy they'd never been profitable for, but, you know, recently just sold for like $1.2 billion. So anyway, so that's one.

And then, you know, we had a lot of fun building the college business. We'd never been in college. And one thing I learned from Ted, which serves me well today, was we had to go around and find places to grow earnings that didn't exist. And so what we did is we look. We. I looked at everything. We looked at all these different sports. And I had one of my buddies who used to be my CMO at nascar. I started getting these numbers on college sports. It was like 190 million fans, number one, with young people, ethnically diverse, wealthier audience than golf. Right? But think about it. Most CEOs went to college, right? And gender neutral. I called my guy and I said, his name's Roger Vandersink. He's at the Colts now. I said, Roger. I go, where did these numbers come from? He goes, oh, George, we never compared ourselves to college sports. And so we made investments in college sports and it turned out to be a real at img, a real growth engine for us. And that was probably in 2010.

And we were the first really guys that got, got the ball moving there. What does that look like when you're investing into college sports? Like so many things that you're, you've done, they seem so obvious now, but they were not obvious at the time. So how did you invest in college? So the idea was, I took look at those numbers. I was aghast, right? And then. And then you start looking at, all right, take Atlanta. You have the Atlanta Falcons and the Georgia Bulldogs. Now, we lived in Atlanta, so, you know, like, who's more popular, Truthfully? The Georgia Bulldogs. It's not close. It's not even close. And so, like, when you look at. All right, what revenues does the Falcons generate and what revenue does the Bulldogs. And all of a sudden, the Falcons are way up here and the Bulldogs are down there. So I'm not the smartest guy, but I was like, you know what I want to do? I'm going with those guys, and we should be. And try to sell, like. Sell like the. Like the Falcons and that.

And so we had. It was a big restructuring. I mean, we. I think we had. Unfortunately, we had a REP. We had 400 salespeople replaced, 300 in 18 months. And so it was. You had to replace people because you were selling differently. We wanted to sell like the Falcons, not like the Bulldogs. And we had to go out and get guys from the other leagues to come in and help us, you know, so, George, I'm sorry, you lost me a little bit. Take me a step back. So you're investing to the Bulldogs. The Georgia Bulldogs. But what does that mean? Does that mean that you're managing sponsorships or you invested into the university? Walk me through that a little bit. So there were companies, small companies at the time that had the marketing rights to these companies.

And what we did is we rolled them up, and when we left, we were representing 85 universities. Wow. On sponsorship and local media rights, and then 200 universities in licensing. So you were repping the schools and essentially replacing an infrastructure that was probably, like, local or regional. Right. Like we were trying to. That was kind of the whole thing, which didn't. Your point makes sense now, but transformation at that time, ahead of the curve. It was a big driver of growth during the IMG time. It's really interesting to think about that sort of trifecta of experiences. But what were you seeing in the business of sports that you found so compelling as you moved along? Well, when you think about sports anywhere in the world, it's the only thing that aggregates hundreds of millions of people together around something as a statement of who you are and what you stand for. So that connection, which at nascar, those fans were loyal.

In college, you're loyal. A Yankees fan, very loyal. And so what you really want to do is try and tap into that loyalty. That's unmatched and you know, in this world now where media consumption is fragmented, there are very few things that pull people together, Right. And then when you think about all these new devices that can deliver content, you're really tapping into the consumer. So when I look at sports today, like in a fragmented world, sports become more valuable. And where I think sports is going is this whole concept of the lifetime value of the consumer, right? Because really it's a one to one relationship. And I'm, you know, I'm a Yankees fan, I want Yankees content, I want to know everything about the New York Yankees. And having that one to one relationship might give me permission to suggest products and services that are relevant, you know, to the Yankees. And by the way, you can take that to Europe. It's the same thing in any of those football clubs or leagues.

It's that passion of sports and that one to one connection that's unlike anything else and will become more of a valuable because the media and the way we communicate so much more fragmented today than it was 10 years ago. So take us through, you know, arguably the biggest sort of personal deal you make, which is you've been working for these, like, big companies, you've had these incredible, like iconic business figures you've worked for. And then you decide like, I'm going to do my own thing. And not just I'm going to do my own thing, but I'm going to move from being an operator to being an investor. Like, what's that thought process like? Well, the thought process was we had success in growing earnings and I could now apply this to a different area for myself.

And I think we had talked a little bit about, you know, the transitions, you know, when you're in a company, it's political. And I wanted to have a more horizontal, entrepreneurial, results oriented kind of situation. So that was appealing to me. And, you know, I was 48 years old and I was like, hey, if I'm 48 years old and I fail, you know, I'll be 52 or 53 and I'll come back and take a job, right? But I said, you know what, I'm going to wait till I'm 60 to take my shot. I was like, age always meant a lot to me. You know, I was 40 years old at NASCAR. I'm like, do I see myself here 20 years or I want to take a shot at something else? You know, I'm 48 years old, you know, now's the time to take a shot. I'm 25, I'm going to Move away from home. I have no money, so what if I feel I can always move back home again, right? So like I'm 48 years old, it's time to take a shot now. It was a big difference.

You know, I'm in the $188 a square foot, 44th floor of the GM building with all the great trappings. And, you know, I'm in White Plains at the Regis Temporary office. I didn't even have a secretary. I mean, I had anyone to answer the phone. So really, literally was that journey. And I have to say, even at 40 years old, it was nice to know that I was still that scrappy, you know, that I still, I still could get in there and go, and we built this thing from nothing, right? And we built it up. And you look at Bruin today, we operate in 71 countries. We have people on the ground in 20 countries. We work with every major league or federation in the world. And it literally started from Regis Temporary office in White Plains, New York.

So George, let's go back to when you were 48. You said you want to take your shot now. You talked about a three year plan. Walk us through your three year plan. How much are you raising? What are you trying to invest in? And this in layman's terms for viewers and listeners who don't know much about Bruin. Walk us through that a little bit. Yeah. So what the idea was was to invest in things that were very similar to the businesses that we built. You know, nascar. We came in, there were four people in the commercial division. When we left, there were hundreds, I don't know how many, but a lot of people, right? And so we built a media capability, we built a PR capability under scrutiny, you know, we built a sponsorship capability, a licensing capability, a marketing capability, right? And then, and then at IMG, we're in 30 countries, we're wide ranges of sports. We had to do, I had to do a lot of restructuring, which I hadn't done a lot of.

NASCAR was more organic growth and IMG was a restructuring and then investing, right? Working for a demanding guy who was really quite bright. So the idea was I did good at that for other people. You know, I had a friend of mine said, hey, why don't you do it for yourself and your partners? I said, well, how do you do that? He goes, I'll help you do it. And you know, here we are. Can you tell us who that friend was? Kaveh Kharzrow Shahi at Allen and Company. Kaveh was like the day that it was announced that Endeavor was buying, IMG called me up. He said, are you ready to go yet? And of course, I wasn't ready at the time, but he, you know, I had been. I knew IMG was going to sell, and so I had to think about, like, what do I want to do? What's the next step for me? And so I had been thinking about this probably two years prior to the sale.

And Caviar was like, hey, man, you got to do it. And I was, you know, first of all, when you work, at least I. And I work, I love the company, so it's always hard to leave. Like, when I left nascar, I cried, right? I mean, so, like, it's hard leaving these places when you give everything you have. But it was just an itch I needed to scratch, whatever that saying is, Right? So, George, I want to go back to when you were 48. I'm 49, so I'm obsessed to this time of year time. There. There's nothing harder than raising a first time fund. You're an entrepreneur, you're an operator, but you haven't really raised a lot of capital at that point. A. How scary is it? How big of a fund were you trying to raise and how difficult was it for you or how easy was it for you to raise that money? Well, by the. It was a lot harder.

It's a lot harder than I realized. When I started. I was lucky that my friend Cave essentially went to his clients and said, believe in this guy. And if it wasn't for Cave, I would not have. I wouldn't be sitting here right now. And if I knew how hard it was to raise money, I think stupidity in this case was a real asset for me. And if I knew how hard it was, I probably wouldn't have done it. But. But having. Surrounding myself with. With good people and people that believed in me, you know, Cave really delivered. And I have to thank Martin Sorrell too. Martin Sorrell was the CEO of wpp and he came up to me and said, hey, I'm in for a third of the raise as wpp, no matter what amount of money. Wow, you raised. Holy smoke. And of course, for me, that was helpful in the race. So between, you know, Martin Sorrell and Cabe, those two guys really, you know, meaningful. And I pre. You can hear it in my voice.

I'm very appreciative of those two people, you know, to this very day. How much was it and how long did it take you? It didn't take very Long. It was like six or nine months and we raised 250 million. Nice. Holy smokes. Amazing. Well, you know, Alex, you transitioned from, you know, really probably as, as well as anyone I. I know. What was it like transitioning from being a successful athlete to being a successful entrepreneur? And how are you able to. Why do you think you're able to do that? Because you've done amazing. Thank you, George. I, you know, first of all, I think I've had some incredible mentors, you know, starting with George Steinbrenner. So watching George Steinbrenner, you know, execute what I call vcp, that he had the vision, he had the capital and he has great people and those people have been there for north of 25 years. So continuity was really important. I saw there's a great arbitrage in people and duration of those people.

When I thought about my career, I said, well, if I can surround myself with the best people and take a 40 or 50 year outlook in my business versus my competition was about the next five months or the next year more transactional. I felt that was something that was really good. And then kind of staying in my circle of competence. Sports and real estate is what I know best. And I'm pretty dangerous in those spots and I'm pretty like, I don't know much about much else after that. And I just try to stay in those two places, bring in the best people and just, you know, run the heck out of these companies and do the best I could. I think it's amazing what he did in baseball, obviously, but I think the real estate and what you've done in business is, is more amazing because there are a lot of amazing baseball players and athletes out there, but there aren't people that were the best at athlete and be able to transition and do what you've done in business. So congrats, man.

Thank you. Because I've been around this thing a long time. Yeah, you've seen it not go that way. Right. And so one of the things that's so interesting and we sort of alluded to this at the top is you're getting into the sports ecosystem, which again seems so obvious now. And listen, we look around, we see all these funds that have been create. We see your friend Roger Goodell at the NFL like embracing private equity, which we never thought might happen. But you clearly saw something from an investment perspective in the broader ecosystem early. What was it? Well, you know, what I saw with Ted and img, Ted was really an early adapter. Maybe there's one or Two others where he invested. He was a private equity guy that invested in img, which at the time was unheard of and somewhat controversial. And what I saw was that if you could deploy capital against good ideas in sports, you could get great results.

And so the idea was, okay, we've done that a few times at img. Ted deployed capital, we deployed capital and got great results. You know, now we can do. You can do this on your own. And you're thinking of like IMG Academy, like specific initiatives, IMG college or other businesses that we bought along the way and saying, hey, we had a lot of success with that. You know, there's more opportunity here. And of course, you know, when you kind of look back on me now, what was unique was, was IMG was in 30 countries. And so we have a global. At Bruin, we have a global network. You know, we got 14 Bruin advisors. Many guys who had worked with me at img, some people who competed with me at IMG are now Bruin Advisors. So we have a global network.

And sports, they're. There are investment opportunities literally in sports all around, all around the world. So when you look at it from a global standpoint or international, it's a big world out there. Yeah. And what's interesting is you're not buying teams or at least not yet. You have, you know, really invested. Again, I'm overusing this, but like in the, in the ecosystem, in some of the adjacencies. So what's the underlying theory there? Well, I think when you look at lower middle market, private equity traditionally has huge growth potential and you can take these businesses and really grow them. And so when we come in there, we're able to, we've been through this now. We've, we've experienced growing companies now brewing a fair amount. So we go into these middle market companies at, you know, one stage and can add a lot of operational expertise.

And then obviously with our network now, we open up markets and we can take these companies around the world that, that, you know, quite honestly, they couldn't do it on their own. You know, an example would be DeltaTray. When we acquired DeltaTray, it had no US business. When we sold Delta Tray, half the business was, was us. And what is that company now? They do webs, apps and streaming. And so, you know, when you look at that, you look at us, we're able to open up new markets, whether it be, you know, I said we do business in 71 countries, but we're big in Europe, we're big in the United States and we have a big presence in Australia and we're able to cross sell. So that's a real value add on opening markets.

And then, you know, we have a team of people that really work in operations. And I'm an operator. Right. So like, you know, and we're still, I'm still pretty hands on. You know, I was, I was talking to a CEO yesterday. We had a problem and I'm a little, I'm a little more polished than I used to be, but we had a pretty substantial problem. And I, you know, the old me might have been a little more aggressive. I was like, look, you know, you got a great business doing great things. And then I said, look, I've made a lot of mistakes and here's a list of all my mistakes. So let's be honest with one another and let's work to figure it out.

Our guys like that. So if you talk to our CEOs, we do because they're our best sales when we buy a company, like they're happy. And it's quite different than other forms of private equity because typically, because the people that lead the deals are deal guys. They're not subject matter experts. So like when you do something with us, there are no, no boards, there are no committees. Like we actually know what we're doing. Now I have advisors and experts, but we have people that actually have done it. Not somebody like I know two people that used to do it. So they're going to whisper in my ear and they're going to tell me what to do. Like we know what we're doing and we're not. We know we're not doing healthcare, we're not doing these.

We're doing sports in media and entertainment. So, George, talking about Bruin, if Jason was selling you on a pitch. Right. Walk us through what is the perfect, what I call the 20 fastball right down the middle for Bruin. Meaning here's a space and we can make it up. Here's the earnings, here's the ebitda. And walk us through what excites you about that and how you think about growing and helping Jason as a founder. Yeah. So it would be somebody earning 10 to 20 million of EBITDA. Right. That we've invested mostly in technology. Not always. Why technology? Because the growth fundamentals are in technologies. Right. So occasionally we'll see things on location, proof, in the pudding. We'll see a few things along the way where we think through our expertise, we can add a lot, but most of it's technology. So it would be probably a tech or data related company that had on its own great growth fundamentals. And you really like the CEO.

And the lens I always look through is can this company grow or not on its own. And if I don't believe in the growth, we can't touch it. Then the other lens we look at is through our network. Can we add value? And it's important because if you have a great investment, then we can make it even better. And if by chance, which happens, we're wrong, we can prop it up. Okay, so in this case, Jason's company is throwing off $10 million of EBITDA, most of it free cash flow. He wants 10 times, you won five times. How do you land on like, is it seven and a half, is it six? Obviously it depends on the growth trajectory. Walk us a little bit through how you think about it. Yeah, well, you, I like this company. This is great. You're just doing the numbers.

Well, usually there's a, there's a, a margin of what, what the multiple is. Now I will say for us, like we don't want to be with someone who, if it's all about, I want to get the last nickel. Ironically and thankfully most, a lot we, I think, you know, more than half our deals are one on one deals where people have sought us out. There's not really a process because, because if you think about it, if you do your diligence on us and you're a founder, like we're quite compelling of who you sell to matters. Right? Because like I've worked my whole life, I built this company up and now, you know, I want to take a little cash off the table and I'm probably going to take more risk because we'll deploy capital to do acquisitions, we'll open up markets and of course we're going to be pushing for growth. So then if you're a founder, like, well, who do I want to do that with? The guy who said listed all his mistakes when someone wrong before he got into what went wrong or somebody who's highly educated wagging their finger at you? That's never run a business and that's really where. So that with our discussions, not so much about the multiples, it's about, hey, do we culturally agree?

And I always tell the guys, because I am a bit of a salesman, like I'm not and I don't want to sell, I'm not selling anything. Like once we acquire your company, we can never part ways. So I don't want to convince you to do something you're going to do. So I'm always like, hey, if we buy your company, these are the expectations. Are you comfortable with with it? And if you're comfortable with it, this is how we roll. And you know, that's kind of how it works. So we don't the price thing, you know that there's a range of the price we're going to pay, a fair value, whatever that might be. But if you're about the last nickel, it's probably not a guy that I want to spend the next X amount of years with. Jason, I'm hugging up the mic. I'm going to give it back to you. But it sounds a lot like the Berkshire Hathaway, you know, Charlie Munger one model.

One of the areas obviously very near and dear to us is the media world. You know, we're sitting here on, on our podcast, you invested in Box to Box, I believe, not too long ago, which we, I mean, everyone, I'm guessing, listening to or watching this show has consumed something that Box to Box made, especially Drive to Survive, which I feel like revolutionized the way we think about sports and sports media. Talk to us about that deal, how it came about, what you saw at this moment with that deal. Well, a couple things. I see two great CEOs, James and Paul are very talented people. I have a good friend of mine, David Hill, who used to run Fox Sports and I called Dave and he raved about them. It meant a lot to me. And then their product is really good. They do drive through survival in full swing.

They do kind of the behind the scenes for sports around the world. They're a market leader and they fit well with us because they're, they're global. Right. We're helping. You know, we've been able to add some relationships and contacts for them as well. But I felt like I always wanted to get in media if I could find a smart way to do it. And where we see growth for them, you know, that podcast, short form media, they haven't really done, they haven't invested capital, they've never taken risks on the deal, they've never done acquisitions. I think there's opportunities for branded content. So we saw, saw four or five things that we think we could add. But again, we were, it was guys we believed in and guys we felt like we could add, add something to, in terms of opening a few client doors for them.

They don't need too many because. Right. They're very global themselves, but they're great at what they do. And I Love being with them because you get on a phone with them and like, or zoom, and they want to be great. You know, I'll give you a little example. So one of the things, you know, my companies are very under leveraged, which, it's good in one way, but we have to be a little better at that. And so we brought all our companies together in London and I brought in an expert on debt because I'll never, I don't. I learned a long time ago making adults do things they don't want to do, it's probably not going to work out too good for you. So I brought in this expert on capital markets and had them talk to the companies and these guys like embraced it. And we just got our first credit facility for the company.

But it was because they were interested. And as I say, the guys, look, we're not going to leverage up. We'll be below lower leverage than everybody else. But let's be the best we can be. And like, and they want to be the best they can be. And it was kind of a new area. So like that's somebody that wants to be great at everything they do. They want to embrace new things and they're just hungry and they're really smart and creative. So I'm really happy with those guys. And so what is. So when you're assessing, when you're getting to know a CEO or a founder, like, what's that process like? Because I know you to be like incredibly personable, very humble, you know, great family man. Like, what's your vibe? Like, how are you getting to know somebody? Well, often you go to dinner with them and try to socialize. And what I'm really trying to decide is, is the person driven? What's the team like? And do I believe in the growth fundamentals of that business? And if I believe the growth fundamentals of the business and I really believe in the CEO, then it's, you know, feels good and can I add value?

Can we. Yeah, can we add value? If we don't. If we can add value, then all we are is placing a bet on something. And I'm not, I'm not a better. I gotta know, like, I can add value to something great or if it goes wrong, can I add value? So I want to go back to college sports if we can. Because one of the really interesting things about you, I'm totally like taking advantage of, like knowing a lot about you here, is that you obviously, you know, have been involved with college sports from a business perspective, but also as a dad, your son Drew is a very successful quarterback on the college level. I do wonder, like being able to wear those different hats, how. What's your perspective on sort of college sports at this moment? Because it feels like such a revolutionary and candidly like sort of fraught moment for, for college sports. How does it feel to you?

Well, I think it's going through change, right? It's going change because it's very successful and it's so successful that the money became so significant that, you know, you have to share it with the players. I mean, you know, when you think about the College Football playoff game, one game, $84 million in meteorites before all the other things, if you have 80,000 people paying 100 bucks a ticket and all the concessions, you know, so one game is worth $84 million. Like do you think for two or three hour game. Three hour game. If that game's generating over $100 million for three hours, don't you think the guys on the field should participate? I estimate IT to be 6 to 8 billion dollars a year generated in college sports.

Shouldn't the play people that are on the field of play be. And so what's happened is the courts used to be deferential to the college model, but in this amount of revenue, the courts have now sided with the players. And so you're going to have to change. And by the way, change isn't easy and it's hard in college because nobody's in charge. There's, you know, everyone's their own independent person. If, you know, USC and UCLA were part of a conference till they weren't. Right? Right. So you have a bunch of competitors that work for their self interest. And so with no one in charge in a highly successful industry, you're going to have a little bit of turbulence. But I think at the end of the day, it'll all work itself out. You know, we had, we went through all this with the Olympics, right. Oh, we shouldn't play the athletes. We shouldn't play the athletes born.

Boy, I thought the Paris Olympics were amazing. Unbelievable. So like, and those. Everyone's making money. No, nobody cares. And five or ten years from now, this thing will, you know, make its way through. And you know, I have a little bit of laughter about this because I, you know, I'm semi knowledgeable in football and my family's been playing college football for over 100 years. You know those playoff games last year, Michigan and Alabama, you know, it went down to the last play. Yeah, right. Like the product on the field pretty Good. Yeah. So all this talk about, yeah, you're going to blow. The Florida State game was a blowout, and then whatever bowl it was, but so what? There were always blows. But those playoffs, yeah, amazing. So, like, the off field stuff of how. What the player movement is do the players get paid. It'll get figured out and it won't be easy.

I mean, one of the things that I know Alex and I both admire about you and have watched over the years in various venues, some of which you've been, you know, the convener of, you know, everyone. I mean, you really have, like, cultivated an unbelievable. There's no one that I talk to in sports who's more than like 2 degrees and often 1 degree away from you. Is that purposeful? Like, what's the. What's the method to that? Well, I think a couple things. There's a little bit of a track record. Right. And NASCAR was a good job. Right. And then at img, a lot of people, we were their clients. But I think truthfully, you know, like an old shoe, you know, if you're around long enough and you're a good person and you deliver results and you do what you say you're going to do, you know, it pays out for you. Now, everyone's got their angle, right? That's my angle, you know, if I tell you, and I learned it from Bill, Bill France, when he hired me, because I got three things for you said, tell the truth, work hard, don't embarrass the company.

Still quoting it today, right? Yeah. And I knew that if I told somebody and ask her we were going to do it, we were going to do it. And so like, that had an influence on me. And even Ted was honorable. And so to me, it's like, hey, you know, tell someone you're going to do something, you do it. You. You try and do it in a nice way. I try to emulate Roger Penske. I told Roger I was with him this summer. I'm like, you know, some of these guys had impact on me, and I. So I think that is the basis from which you build out trust and respect over decades. Right? And that's what you're seeing in the benefit. That's my stick. Doesn't mean it's everybody's stick, but that's my stick.

And so, you know, one of the things that's fascinating about you, George, too, is that, like, you're so tied in at the highest levels of all the major sports in the US and abroad, you're one of the Only people I know who I feel like can call every commissioner of every league and like, get on the phone. What do you hear from those folks these days about sort of the state of the sports leagues? Because obviously that has a big direction in terms of your own investment thesis of where things are going. Like, take us inside some of those conversations. I just feel you have to be kind of bullish right now because when you look at the NBA, to get two and a half times on their media deal is really amazing.

Adam did an amazing job there. When you look at the NFL with all the contracted television revenue, they have really strong. NHL's got a long term deal strong. Baseball's doing well. You know, everyone seems to be doing. NASCAR did a great TV deal. So like all this stuff about how the media is changing and the fragmentation, nevertheless the sports have held up really strong. So I don't know, I think, I think the big issue in sports today is that you do see institutional investors coming into sports capital is going to change the game. And so my advice to someone is, hey, if I'm running a sports team or I'm running a league or organization, I need a capital plan to differentiate myself from my competitors. Monitor number one.

Number two, I need a defensive capital plan. So whether I want to act on it, I need, I need a phone call. Like, hey, if I'm, if something's coming in with capital is going to disrupt my sport, what am I going to do about it? So I don't think you can just sit back maybe like you used to and say, well, that's not for us. You have to have a capital plan. Yeah. I mean, look at golf. I mean, I'm not going to make any commentary on what's good or bad. But look, somebody with capital showed up and the game changed. The other guy, I do, he had to go out and raise capital. Right. And a lot of it. And a lot of it. And so like, if you're in sports, whoever you are, you better have a capital plan to go on offense and defense.

Yeah, that's an interesting. But I hadn't thought about it in exactly that way. But you know, you think about the NFL, if private equity is going to come into, you know, even a half a dozen franchises, that doesn't just change those franchises, it changes the other 26 is what, like in terms of them, you know, having to figure out what their plans are going to be in terms of their spending or it's going to change. Right. So you're, you know, I think they've done A really good job of limiting it. Right. And making sure that, you know, that the investors have really no say. Right, right. And so they're not, their life's not really changing for the NFL, but they're benefiting from an influx of institutional capital into the industry.

That money's going to go to provide liquidity for limited partners that might have had a hard time getting liquidity, might solve some family issues on some of these teams that are family owned. And it's going to provide capital perhaps for real estate investment and reinvent in the, in the franchise. And lastly it's going to increase the value of the franchises because you have more bidders. So again, the institutional capital, well controlled in this case is changing the game. Right. And so, and probably over time will change it more, as you know better than I, that in other sports the number is higher than 10%. And in order for these franchises to keep growing and growing in value, you're going to have to look at different outlets for capital. I mean to, to buy an NFL team Now you need two, $3 billion. It gets a little thin.

And what rights you get, you know, if you're one of the guys in the commanders that put 4 or 500 million for no rights. Right. So that's getting harder and harder to. That's a pretty, that's a pretty expensive season ticket. I mean it's a nice problem to have, Frank, but you're the victim of your own success. So you're going to have to understand the capital markets and have a long term capital plan. But again, it's all against the backdrop of success. Right. Everybody would love to have these problems, I think. All right, so let's do a quick rapid fire round. So this is the only thing I'll say is like keep it tight. We'll bounce it back and forth. What's one word to describe your deal making style? Decisive. What's more important to your instant gut or data? Instant gut. Who's your dream deal making partner? Someone who's well capitalized and smart. What's the best piece of advice you've received on deal making or business? Know when to squeeze and know what to not to squeeze. What's the worst piece of advice you ever received? I don't know.

I didn't pay attention. Do you have a hype song before you go into a big meeting or a negotiation? No, but a good workout is a good substitute. There you go. If you can only watch one sport for the rest of your life, what sport would it be? Football. Football. American football. So. And what's your favorite team? Patriots. My dad played for the Patriots. I have to go. What team do you want to see win a championship more than any? Missouri to Tigers. There you go. There you go. Going for your son. That's right. One fun fact about George Pine, that if your colleagues heard about it, they would be shocked or surprised. I played the viola. Okay. Wow. Listen, this was really, really fun. I feel like it's decades in the making. So thank you so much for. For doing this. It's great to see you and great to be with you guys. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thanks, George. Thanks, George. Sa.

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