How did Daryl Morey end up as the president of basketball operations?

Sure.

Good morning, guys.

Good to be with you.

So look, after the end of this past season, I think it's fair to say we were all disappointed with where we were.

I think you've got to turn negatives into positives.

And I think, led by Josh Harris, we had a major mission to figure out how to upgrade all aspects off the basketball organization.

Started first with Doc Rivers, got an incredible coach, one that Philadelphia fans air really fortunate to have.

And then when Darrell became available, if you kind of cut through, he's the same guy we tried to get 2.5 years ago weren't able to get him.

And literally, within hours of becoming available, Josh Harris reached out and said, You know, I want to figure out how we could get him to be our president basketball, and we moved incredibly quick.

We did it with Doc.

He was higher than days of him becoming available, and the same thing with Darryl.

Darryl became available immediately.

Um, Josh acted.

We figure out how to get him in to become our president.

Basketball, I'll tell you.

All in all, when you look at the upgrade the Philadelphia Sixers have made from the end of last season, which was disappointed where we are now, I couldn't be more excited, a partner and certainly in Philadelphia.

Our fans were so excited about where the teams had it.

Michael Rubin joins us on the shell pens.

Oh, performance line, Mike.

You obviously have Darrell Moore.

You have Ellen Brand.

You have new coach Doc Rivers.

How do you envision the dynamic between all these guys working?

Yeah, I think one of things.

I think these guys an incredible partnership.

When you look at Doc and you look at Darryl, I mean these guys in a lot of ways opposite, So I think they're gonna work incredibly well together.

I think it's really exciting.

In addition, Elton's you know, such a great guy, selfless.

As soon as he saw down became available, he said, We need to get this guy this how we can win championships.

So these air three guys who just want to win championships and bring Philadelphia chips and so everyone's incredibly focused, working so well together already and so passionate about what we could do for the city of Philadelphia, Michael the league and Adam Silver somewhat concerned about the pre Christmas start for the 24,021 season.

Where do you stand on how the MBA should start this season?

This year?

Yeah, Look, the way I look at it is we have incredible Commissioner Adam Silver and I think Adam together, the players, they're going to sort that out.

Certainly there's a lot of pressures coming from all different areas, but they're gonna get that sorted out, and they always work well together to get to the right outcome.

I know we're gonna do something that's in the best pictures of the players and something that works for everyone.

Um, when you look at the situation, we mentioned it at the start.

You're the executive chairman of fanatics.

Why have fans been so eager to purchase championship games gear from the Dodgers and the Lakers?

Yeah, there have been two incredible hot markets.

The Lakers were actually beat our previous MBA record by more than two exits two times bigger than any hot market in the history of fanatics that shows just how great MBA fandom is and and certainly Laker fans as well.

And the Dodgers become our second biggest hot market in the history of company in the history of company.

I think it starts with E commerce is doing incredibly well, and that's about 80% of our business.

Certainly with the pandemic, you've seen a big step function up in e commerce sales and certainly finances benefiting again without being 80% of our business.

But these air, you know, sports are doing great.

I think fans were so excited about supporting their teams.

I think during the pandemic there's been, you know, people just want to be excited about certain things that we've seen that both with the Lakers and the Dodgers and how are you and I talk about this all the time.

So it's like I'm curious to get your perspective on this.

Ah, lot of fans are saying, Well, MBA ratings air down, What do your metrics show?

You guys have a little bit more of insight in that category.

Yeah, I think that's kind of like when you look at a brick and mortar retailer and If you say we're only gonna measure the sales of the stores and not looking e commerce, that's the same way we just look at television rate is when I think about ratings.

I look at what's overall fandom and certainly social media so much more important today than it was just a few years ago.

So I think when you look at the MBA, Phantom is incredibly up.

I just look this morning.

Year to date, NBA sales are up 63% and that's really very indicative of where MBA fans stand.

And I think if you look at media consumption, issue is television.

Media is a smaller percent of total media consumption has ever been social media is more important than ever been.

So I think MBA fans are more passionate.

They have ever been about the sport.

I think you're just seeing more consumption, other forms of media.

Unless in traditional television Michael, with fans not able to spend money going into stadiums, how much have sales increased for you guys doing this pandemic?

Yeah, look, E commerce sales, which you know again is about 80% of our business been really strong, were up nearly 30% year to date.

And we also have a wholesale business that supplies the brick and mortar retailers and that business been, you know, terrible.

It's not about 50% but e commerce is really strong.

I'll tell you the most interesting thing.

When sports were paused in March, I thought that fans would say, Hey, until sports come back, they're not going to support their teams was exactly the opposite.

There was incredible support.

Fans want to go online.

They want to buy the merchandise, the teams that care deeply about and really business terrific during the entire pandemic, even when there's no sports for five months.

Michael, before we let you go, I wanna ask you, you know, you work with Meek Mill and Jay Z two former Reform Alliance recently and had a huge, huge social reform to tell us about the impact of Reform Alliance had in getting the bill signed in my State of California.

Yeah, well, it was a really big win for for for people in California and and for the Reform Alliance.

You know, we've got a goal of getting at least a million people out of the criminal justice system, will keep the community safe.

What?

A lot of people don't understand this.

America has five times the rate of incarceration of the rest of the world.

And, um, in California, Gavin Newsom, the governor, just signed into law just a few weeks ago, a bill that put a limit on how long he'll be on probation up to no more than a year for Mr Mita.

No more than two years for a felony.

And that was incredible.

Step forward, I think, really transformative.

One that's gonna help hundreds of thousands of people directly, millions of people and their families indirectly.

So really proud of what?

What's happened in California and a big step forward.

We need to do the same thing in every state in the country.

We started the Reform Alliance, you know, inspired by what happened to my good friend Bill when he I went to prison for different times for not committing a crime, and we use that again turned negative into a positive exactly what just happened with the six of the off season.

And, you know, we have a goal again.

Get at least a million people out of the system of the 6.7 million people in the system say we'll keep the community safe, and I think it was a big step forward, one that we look to replicate.

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