- The video features a one-on-one interview with Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor and a famous Hollywood agent.
- Emanuel shares stories about his upbringing in a non-boring family with parents who were activists and stood up for what they believed in.
- He discusses his competitive relationship with his brothers, Zeke and Rahm, who are both well-known figures in their respective fields.
- Emanuel talks about his career journey, starting in the mailroom of CAA and eventually becoming the most famous agent in the world.
- He is known for his negotiation skills and fierce advocacy for his clients.
- The interview touches on Emanuel's short attention span, ADHD, and his strategic use of it to avoid boring conversations.
- Endeavor is a global sports and entertainment firm that went public in 2021, and Emanuel has been involved in numerous acquisitions and partnerships to expand the company's reach.
- The conversation ends with a mention of the interview being part of the "raging river" of the conversation.

- The conversation in the video is fast-paced and covers a variety of topics.
- The speaker talks about making a lot of phone calls but doesn't know the exact number.
- They mention starting their firm in 1995 and the changes in the television industry.
- The speaker reflects on their success and happiness in life.
- They discuss their involvement in acquiring the UFC and the challenges they faced.
- The speaker's ability to gather information and make phone calls is highlighted as their superpower.
- They explain their approach to creating value in business acquisitions through cost savings, architecture, and negotiations.

- Endeavor, a sports and entertainment company, made a big bet on buying the UFC for over 20 times its value, but the deal was almost derailed by Donald Trump's interference.
- Endeavor faced challenges finding buyers for UFC rights due to ongoing negotiations and conflicts with other media companies.
- Eventually, a deal was made with ESPN and Disney, leading to the success of UFC pay-per-view events.
- The COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant threat to Endeavor's business, but they managed to survive by making strategic deals and cutting costs.
- Endeavor's CEO, Ari Emanuel, reflects on missed opportunities, such as not being able to buy Formula 1 and the challenges faced during the pandemic.

- Ari Emanuel discusses his admiration for Elon Musk and his decision to invest in Twitter when Musk took over
- He also talks about his fitness and nutrition regime, which includes waking up early, exercising, and fasting on Fridays
- Emanuel emphasizes the importance of being consistent and comfortable in uncomfortable situations
- He reflects on his childhood experiences and his relationship with his brothers
- The article mentions Emanuel's efficiency as a dealmaker and his ability to work both sides of the aisle in negotiations.

- UFC and WWE athletes receive a small percentage of revenues compared to athletes in leagues like the NFL and NBA, who have unions and receive about half of league revenues.
- Endeavor represents athletes in leagues with high labor costs and opts for ownership in ecosystems with low labor costs.
- Endeavor may face difficulties entering the boxing industry due to the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, which protects fighters from exploitation by promoters.
- Ari Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, expresses concerns about consolidation in the food industry and its impact on health.
- Emanuel discusses the potential impact of artificial intelligence on scriptwriting and live entertainment.
- He believes that AI cannot replace live entertainment but sees potential in virtual reality and augmented reality.
- Emanuel discusses his role as CEO of a public company and the value of Endeavor's various businesses, including betting, fan experiences, and representation.
- He addresses concerns about competition from other agents and highlights the success of his clients.

- The interviewee is not worried about not being the biggest agency because they still represent a lot of clients.
- They believe that having a diverse range of resources is important for an agency, unlike some other companies.
- The interviewee expresses concern about other agencies contacting their clients behind their back, calling it bad culture.
- The interviewee mentions the economic and political conflicts surrounding the Live Tour in professional golf.
- They discuss how the Live Tour is funded by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which raises moral concerns.
- The interviewee reveals that they had an investment partnership with Mohammed bin Salman, but returned the money after a bad incident.
- They mention that they still do business with Saudi Arabia and acknowledge that governments do bad things.
- The interviewee expresses that they are satisfied with their life but still enjoy the pursuit of new ventures.
- They mention their involvement in setting up movies and TV shows.

- Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, discusses the importance of creating movies and TV shows that are both entertaining and meaningful.
- He emphasizes the power of entertainment to influence people and make a positive impact.
- Emanuel reflects on his own career and contemplates how much longer he wants to continue working.
- He values surrounding himself with people who live by their word and have high standards.
- Emanuel expresses his willingness to defend and fight for those in his inner circle.
- The interviewer recounts their initial apprehensions about the interview and their pleasant surprise at Emanuel's friendly gesture.
- The episode concludes with a preview of the next episode on slippery slope arguments.

- The video features an interview with Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor and a Hollywood agent.
- Emanuel discusses his upbringing, his competitive relationship with his brothers, and his career journey.
- He talks about his negotiation skills, ADHD, and strategic use of it to avoid boring conversations.
- Endeavor is a global sports and entertainment firm that went public in 2021, and Emanuel has been involved in numerous acquisitions and partnerships.
- The interview covers topics such as phone calls, starting the firm in 1995, acquiring the UFC, and the challenges faced.
- Endeavor faced challenges finding buyers for UFC rights, but eventually made a deal with ESPN and Disney.
- The COVID-19 pandemic posed a threat to Endeavor's business, but they managed to survive through strategic deals and cost-cutting.
- Emanuel reflects on missed opportunities, his admiration for Elon Musk, and his fitness and nutrition regime.
- He emphasizes consistency, comfort in uncomfortable situations, and his efficiency as a dealmaker.
- Endeavor represents athletes in leagues with high labor costs and may face difficulties entering the boxing industry.
- Emanuel discusses concerns about consolidation in the food industry, the potential impact of AI on entertainment, and the value of Endeavor's various businesses.
- He addresses competition from other agents and expresses concern about other agencies contacting their clients behind their back.
- The interviewee mentions the economic and political conflicts surrounding the Live Tour in professional golf and their involvement with Saudi Arabia.
- They express satisfaction with their life but still enjoy pursuing new ventures.
- Emanuel discusses the importance of creating meaningful movies and TV shows and reflects on his own career.
- He values surrounding himself with trustworthy people and is willing to defend and fight for those in his inner circle.
- The interviewer expresses initial apprehensions about the interview but is pleasantly surprised by Emanuel's friendly gesture.

He turned a small Hollywood talent agency into a massive sports-and-entertainment empire. In a freewheeling conversation, he explains how he did it and why it nearly killed him.

You know the funny thing, just before I answer that question?

Ariel Emanuel is telling a story about his family.

When Ari and his brothers were kids, they spent summers in Israel.

They would always do things that, they would shave our heads in the summer, so we would walk around when we come back from Israel.

I still shave my head on the same day that they shaved my head.

So in 2 weeks, my hair will be gone because That's when they shaved my head and I still f***ing do it.

His mother was a civil rights activist who took the kids with her on protests and was arrested several times.

His father was a pediatrician who sued the city of Chicago for allowing the use of lead paint.

He also quit the American Medical Association because they didn't support national health care.

FUCHS, MD, PhD, PhD, Newly to the country, stood up for what he thought was right.

And even if it was going against the organization that he was just starting his practice, he didn't care.

When you look at how you approach the world, how you deal with people in business especially, do you think you got more from your mom or your dad?

He didn't take bull or, you know, he had a lot of common sense.

She didn't give a what people thought she was going to stand up for what she thought.

And the good thing about both of them, it's funny.

I just went to the eighth anniversary of the uprising, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

And 1 of the survivors there had this whole thing about indifference.

And I thought about my parents and they were definitely not indifferent.

When I heard that the light bulb went off because they taught us in anything we do, whether it be casual, fun, professional, or social.

And that moment when the survivor, he was 94, 95, talked about the 11th commandment, thou shall not be indifferent.

That just seeped into our system without them telling us anything.

And I'm definitely not indifferent in anything I do.

You have probably heard of at least 1 of Ari Emanuel's brothers, maybe even both.

There is Zeke, the oncologist and medical ethicist who helped write the Affordable Care Act.

And there's Rahm, the politician, chief of staff to President Obama, senior adviser to President Clinton, also a former congressman and mayor of Chicago.

Ambassador to Japan, where he is reportedly keeping a close eye on China.

I think he's enjoying the position and enjoying learning everything he's learning from that region, which I think is a very important region for geopolitics, and he is definitely not a wallflower.

They were extremely competitive as kids, maybe more so in adulthood.

I pick my parents up from the airport and I'm driving them to the house.

And my father's asking me, you know, what's going on?

I'm giving him information about all the things that we're doing.

I think it was my mother, but it might've been my father goes, as I'm describing all the things that I'm doing And he goes because I was the dumb 1.

He goes who does all that And I say to him Classic You can't be you know, I said well, it's not Robin Zeke and so Yeah I've gotten over that I'm no longer angry.

So your dad probably thought Zeke was noble for becoming a doctor

Oh my god, you know Jewish family You're the Philistine The definition of intelligence in our family was reading.

Now, did you not get any bonus points for the fact that you had dyslexia?

You know, the Grades would come up, our report cards on the fridge.

The angry little brother, the 1 with dyslexia as well as ADHD, the 1 who loved to fight, the 1 who wasn't a reader, the dumb 1 in his words, Ari Emanuel has done all right.

He started in the mailroom of CAA, the big Hollywood talent agency.

Today, he is the most famous agent in the world, as well as the CEO of Endeavor, a global sports and entertainment firm that went public in 2021 and earned Emanuel a few hundred million dollars, he's considered 1 of the best negotiators in Hollywood.

Also, 1 of the fiercest advocates, if he's on your side, and 1 of the most brutal opponents if not.

You may have seen the hit HBO series Entourage.

Emanuel helped package that show and he inspired its most entertaining character, an agent named Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven.

If it's $100, please put it in a brown paper bag along with a nice big pile of s**t and send it over there.

He swore pretty much constantly, but he also stuck to the cardinal rule of agenting.

No matter how brutal the negotiation, you have to mend fences and get ready for the next deal.

Don't f***ing mention that review again, all right?

Today on Freakonomics Radio, a one-on-one with the real Ari Emanuel, who may be more entertaining than Ari Gold.

We will hear about the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Meghan Markle, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and his daily consumption of live microbes.

Emmanuel likes to present himself as an uncomplicated person, but he's not.

His complications are what drive him, and we'll hear about that, too.

Okay, That's not happening on this podcast.

Sorry, Ari, but it's happening right after the bump, bump, bumps.

This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything, with your host, Stephen Dubner.

Ari Emanuel has a famously short attention span, which he blames on his ADHD, but it has also been suggested he uses it strategically as a way to get out of conversations that bore him.

He doesn't do a lot of interviews, especially long ones.

So I flew to Los Angeles to meet in person.

That way I was told he might be more inclined to stay put.

So I got to the studio 30 minutes ahead of time.

He was right behind me As the engineer was setting up the microphones, Emanuel took a work call.

And when that was done, he started asking the engineer some questions.

And then when you when you say you go on the road, what does that mean?

We have the overhead and the equipment up front.

He didn't end up buying the podcast studio, but it wouldn't have been shocking if he had.

That's how Endeavor got to where it is today.

11, 000 employees in 36 countries with revenues of $5.3 billion last year, most of it from their sports properties, live events, and old-fashioned agenting.

They represent a lot of big names, Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Ben Affleck, Larry David, Martin Scorsese, and as of very recently, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.

Emmanuel's first big deal was in 2009 when his relatively small Endeavor agency merged with the much larger and more historic William Morris agency.

Since then he and his partners have bought all or part of the following.

IMG, a sports, entertainment, fashion and media agency.

The Miss Universe franchise bought from Donald Trump and since sold.

A sports betting tech firm called Open Bet.

the Biggie, the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC, the huge mixed martial arts league.

This year, Endeavor went even bigger, spending $9.3 billion to acquire WWE, the pro wrestling league that's part sport, part soap opera, mostly cash cow.

Emanuel plans to turn this fighting empire into a new publicly traded company called TKO, which will be majority owned and controlled by Endeavor.

Over the years, there have been dozens of other acquisitions or partnerships, a European basketball league, ad agencies and lecture agencies and agencies representing gamers.

Also a firm called On Location that sells high-end fan experiences at the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, and other sports and entertainment events.

For what it's worth, even I have been gobbled up by the Endeavor machine.

They own the agencies that represent the work I do in writing, public speaking and podcasting.

Anyway, the conversation you're about to hear is a bit of a raging river.

If you had 1 label to slap on a manual, the best choice might be contents under pressure.

But we'll start with a straightforward question.

1 person who's spoken with you a lot on the phone, so that the average duration.

I'm not a person then you pick up the phone.

I mean, I'm trying to get better at this.

I usually start talking to the assistant as if the person's on the phone.

Did you read the Bob Odenkirk memoir by any chance?

There's this 1 great moment where you offer him a job.

He's like, I started to say yes, but by the time I got to ye, Ari was off the phone.

And then he also said, as of this writing, Ari Emanuel represents most of the chemicals in the periodic table.

I started the firm in 95 on my birthday, March 29th.

With the concept, I read a book by George Gilder, who became a friend, Life After Television.

And he talked about infinite distribution, and I thought about it and talked to him a lot.

And I said, Wow, there's gonna be more distribution than ever.

Then all of a sudden, the WB happens and UPN happens.

And he said to me, you know, content's gonna be more valuable.

I was 1 of the big television agents, I didn't want to work for anybody, and I said, you know, I got 1 of the best television client lists ever.

I'll put some shows on, I'll get packages, I'll make a lot more than what this could be.

We just had cash and we just started playing.

And I had this idea about like what this thing could look like.

There's going to have to be, you know, a different way to market companies and sponsorship getting IMG.

Like You can think things, you never imagine them to play out.

That's why when I was meditating yesterday, I was like, you know, we- Wait, I thought when

you're meditating, you're supposed to like-

Like, hopefully I get to the place where I don't think, but when I think about it, I was like, Most of the time in life, you're chasing, and I just was very happy about, you know, my life is really good.

When you're looking over the hedge, what's the next target?

If you could own an NFL and an NBA team, would you?

Here's what I think, and I have no idea if I'm right.

I think those are ego plays and I try and make sure that it's not ego that I'm doing this for.

Well what happened was We had this whole research department that we thought was important inside the company and people were like, why do you do that?

Well, 1, it gave us an advantage of getting shows on the air, keeping them on the air by about 15 to 20%.

So when we were going for renewals of TV shows, our research people would be giving us the data that the networks would be having, like okay, here's how the show performed.

Why weren't you getting good enough data?

I wanted some insight of what they were thinking so that my arguments about how to keep a show back on, I had ammunition as opposed to, isn't it a good show?

And they wouldn't share that data with you

Then networks, of course not and then I'd always get these things like what's new out there that's performing and then 1 of my researchers said, you know, there's a show on spike I'm looking at the numbers and it's ticking up.

I then called Dana and I think I called Lorenzo.

Lorenzo is Lorenzo Fertitta, 1 of 2 brothers who were the UFC's primary owners.

They were making a TV show called The Ultimate Fighter.

It ran on the Spike cable network for 14 seasons.

So when Emanuel saw the viewership numbers for this show rising, he called to set up a meeting.

I think I referenced the WWE and I just gave a bad meeting.

And then when you reference them, meaning

we represent the WWE here so we can, You know, they didn't like being compared because of the- I

But I just, you know, did my normal thing, just kept on pounding away with phone calls and talking about what we could do and what they're not thinking about and where they should go and how they should think about their deals.

About 6 to a year later, Dana calls me and says, if you can get me a meeting with Ross, who is the head of boxing at HBO, I'll sign with you.

ROSS WAS ROSS GREENBERG, AND DANA WHITE WAS SAYING THAT IF EMMANUEL COULD GET HIM A MEETING WITH GREENBERG, HE WOULD SIGN WITH EMMANUEL to negotiate the UFC's TV rights, not for the UFC to be acquired, that would come later.

I mean, I was involved with like a lot there.

That's like, I have to jump over a pebble.

He goes, if you can get me this meeting, I'll sign with you.

I said, I need to meet with Dana today in an hour.

but he thinks Dana that doesn't give good.

Well, whatever No, Dana actually gives very good meeting and then They signed with us.

I think their deal was at the beginning They paid spike and then spike started paying them.

Yeah, that's nothing And then I think we got them in the next renegotiation, I think we got them 75.

We helped them with their video game deal and just help them.

And at what point then did ownership become a natural conclusion?

Well, I always wanted it, but they were doing well.

We realized we wanted half of our business to be representation, half to be ownership.

We had this big kind of offsite thinking about the world and where it was going and what we should be doing and what the representation gives us insight to and what we could do because of how big the company was now and all the different assets we had in our architecture, that if we had ownership, we could extract more value.

And so we wanted to be in the sports business.

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544. Ari Emanuel Is Never Indifferent