#179 - How the UFC Became a Multi-Billion Dollar Brand, No-loss Lotteries Explained & How to Save on Your Taxes

If you're already doubting have doubt having doubts or imposter syndrome. That's you doing self talk in your head that you're not the best, that you're not good enough, that you're not whatever. Well, then maybe you should replace that with something that says, I am the best, right? So that's where I got over the like Uh is this kind of just like you know, cheesy voodoo shit.

And I was like, Well No, because there is self talking happening no matter what. It's either gonna be negative or it's gonna be positive. I might as well actively make it positive. I feel like I can rule the world of no way Be what I want to

I'm putting my law in it like a day's off. Hey, what's going on, everyone? We've got a good episode, but before we get to it, we've been releasing these new episodes called Greatest Hits. They're actually Not new to the world, but they might be new to you. But basically, uh before we started uh doing the podcast as it is now, it was just Sean interviewing a bunch of people and we got like twenty or thirty in, or he did. And They were really good, but they were about two years ago when we launched them. And a lot of the people have done some really interesting things since uh or in that last two years. And so we've actually been re-releasing them where I give an intro and there's also Sean's intro where I'll give an update on the folks. But anyway, give it a listen and when you do

Uh make sure you click subscribe if you're on iTunes. So if you're listening to this on the podcast app, click subscribe. And then if you're on Spotify, click that follow button. And the reason why is we're doing a bunch of these greatest hit episodes, but I'm actually the one going in the back and finding all these old episodes. And I'm trying to find all these interesting stuff. So in the next couple of weeks, we're gonna be releasing this series where we look at some of the the greatest predictions that we've made as well as some of the worst predictions that we've made, but we're not releasing them entirely on a rate regular cadence, because I gotta go and find all of them. So make sure you click subscribe because A you can be notified when that new episode comes out. And B, it actually is going to help us go in the rankings. And right now we're ranked like number twenty, I think twenty or nineteen in Spotify in the business category. And the higher we go up in rankings, the more content we can do because the more listeners we have and well you get the idea. So just please, please, please leave us a review. And uh Sean, what are we talking about in today's episode? Okay, we talk about we're gonna talk about UF the UFC, the business of it, as well as A pretty cool moment that happened in the the recent UFC fight.

Um we we talk a little bit about Self talk. Which is Us. Um it's something that we do, both of us do, that we don't usually talk to other we don't you don't usually admit to doing this.

And it's something that a lot of UFC fighters do. Self talk before you have to go perform. before you go and do your thing. And so we talk about the UFC, the business of the UFC, we talk about self-talk, and then we jump into some new some ideas. Sam had a great idea or met a guy who was doing a really cool idea around saving money on property taxes. And this is a general class of ideas called money savers. And then we have another uh another idea called the no lost lottery that we want to talk about. So that's what today's episode is. Uh I think you guys will like it. Um

Especially the part about self talk. I think that's gonna be the most popular part. And we did have a few technical difficulties in this episode, Sean's inner Internet is not working, so Hopefully uh You won't notice too much, but if you do, sorry, it's not gonna happen again.

To the editors, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to salvage like five restarts. Uh to the listeners, hopefully it's not too bad. Uh we're finishing the conversation we are having about what we have to do. Um yeah, we gotta select a new I've got eighty nine Drawings or Art. Clips that we've got to select and then

Uh I'm having a Brayu interview. Did we announce on the podcast about a Brayu? No, we didn't. Um A Brave's leave it.

Unfortunately. Um This is kinda part of the plan, but it sucks. So anyway, we've got fifty people that we've got it. Sam, have you had this before, uh at the hustle where people wanna leave to go do their own startup specifically? Not like uh I got another job, but Yeah, yeah, you y yeah, most people, yes. Um

Yeah, I have. I always tell them I'm like And I think Abreu's different because he wasn't a full time employee, but I'm like, just so you know Like it this feels like a start up now, and it is a startup that but just so you know, like don't even even the nice shit that we have at the moment, don't expect any of that for a little while. Um and I'm like I always try to get them used to it. I'm like just so you know it's gonna be really bad for a little while. This shithole is shitty. Wait till you start your own thing. Yeah, so yeah, that's happened a lot. Although Abreu uh I think actually understands that. He's been saving money. He's been living at home and and and stashing money or living somewhere where he has cheap rent. So yeah, I think he'll I think he'll do good.

We uh there's this thing called uh that Reed Hoffman wrote his book called The Alliance. He talks about this like back in the day, people used to expect an employee to like kinda stay with you for twenty years. Like that was like People used to do that. They used to beat a company from start to retirement. And then that became less and less common and now I think in tech the average tenure Of an employee is like two years or something, like even less, maybe? Yeah, I think Facebook it's even less.

And so um So Reed Hoffman, who is the CEO of LinkedIn, the founder of LinkedIn. He wrote this book which was like look You gotta you can't just uh you can't just close your eyes, pretend that's not happening. You can't

Get upset every time somebody leaves, that's actually the norm. So w what's the right way to manage in this In this type of uh scenario and he calls it the alliance, which is A mutual understanding between the person working with you and you and you as the manager. I I actually am very curious. I want to know about this the alliance. People leaving, whatever. Yeah, so I haven't read this book, but uh Oh great, great great way to start off.

Well, I know of the book. I understood the premise. I didn't don't e Ninety percent of books that I'm a fan of. I d I haven't actually read. And this is one of them. So What he says is basically you need to have like um understanding with your the the person who's working for for you or working with you that

They're gonna be there as long as this is mutually beneficial. And the expectation is that after X number of years, two, three, four, whatever that number is, probably not much more than that. That they may um they may leave and they may go do their own thing. And that when that time comes, you're gonna support them. And then it's he's the way he talks about is like he's a big believer of networks and network effects. So he's like That person when they leave your company, they're not just like sort of dead to your company.

They are now, you know, they should be your champion and your advocate outside your company. And you'll cross again. You'll either invest in their company You know, they may come back and work for you later, they may refer somebody in. So he describes how How to like thrive g given the constraint that people are gonna leave early on or or in tech this high, high turnover rate of one to two years of people hopping jobs.

Uh, which is not what a Ray was doing, but it just reminded me of that. Yeah, and I still like the problem that I'm gonna solve for whenever I start a company again, or even now, but I at least when I start from scratch, I could I could hopefully have uh do this early on, which is basically how like How do you build a company where someone wants to work there for ten years? And and I still even even in this world where you know the average person only works somewhere two or four years, I think it's quite possible, though. See my problem is that I like working with and try to recruit and get the best results from

recruiting entrepreneurial type of people. That like that's who I get along with. That's who thinks like me. That's who like Work really, really hard and these like bursts. But those are like the worst people for retention because they want to go start their own company. Like that's That's why they're entrepreneurial type of people. They're not gonna be long term employees sort of by definition.

And so I've always sucked at the retention side of things in that sense. Um But you know, I'm I'm cool with it. I think I can just continually recruit more people that want that experience. So Before we get

into some ideas for this episode. Can I tell you something that I saw recently and we're gonna bring kind of this topic up. We're gonna talk about UFC, but Did you watch the Rose Nama Unis N is it Rose Nama Unis? Yep. So there's a UFC fighter named Thug Rose. She is uh like darling, not like Just like in terms of like physical, like what she looks like and her attitude. Like darling is like the best word I could describe her, although she can like kill you.

Yeah. Uh so so the story of this is interesting, right? She's she's really I don't know, she's five foot three, she's very petite. She used like have you seen her with long hair? Yeah, she was like beautiful. She beautiful looking girl, and at the at the beginning the UFC was marketing their female fighters. Like with their kind of like Sex appeal, basically. Yeah, right. And they're they they made her wear like a like a bikini at Weigh In, which is just so stupid. Right. And some some girls leaned into it, like Paige Van Zant, she got like a boob job and she's like

She kinda sucks as a fighter. She's like very mediocre, but she's famous and gets paid well because she has good like sex appeal. People want to watch her, people are fans of her. There's a cur the the karate fighter called the karate hati, right? That's her nickname, the karate hati, because again she's like playing on that. Rose went the other way. She's a beautiful girl and they were like, Oh, do you you wanna go do dancing with the stars? You wanna like we can make you into a star and she's like, Fuck that shaved her head and was like I don't want this whole beauty thing is a distraction. I'm actually trying to be a martial artist. And uh,

And and that makes her great. And I think that the there's like only a few sports in the world where the women are equally or more popular than the men. I guess there's tennis. Maybe uh Maybe national soccer team. I think that's kinda the the only other one that I can think of. But in the UFC, if you look at the top ten most popular pay per views of all time, it's like Connor McGregor and Rounder Ro Rousey make up like collectively like eight of the top ten. And whenever we think of like a an an Amanda Nunes fight, I don't think like it's a great women's fight. I think this is just awesome. Like I'm gonna pay m yeah, I'm gonna I'm just gonna watch this. And anyway So I think it's good. I hop I think the whole bikini thing, I think that's fucking that was offensive and bullshit.

Uh Dana White was kind of famously uh was once stopped by TMZ and they were like, Dana, when when will we see women fighting in the UFC? And he was like ha never, dude. No we don't wanna see nobody wants to see girls fighting in a cage. And um And then he like, you know, did a complete one eighty, like to his credit, changed his mind when he when Ronda Rousey came around and was like, Okay, she's a star. I can build this whole side of the sport. around this woman and he totally did and now it's like Like you and me both

Uh, you know, when when there's a great women's fight, it's just as good, if not better, than the men's fights. Yes. And so there was a fight. We didn't actually talk about it, but it was two weekends ago. Um, and this woman named Rose Dama Yunus, she's awesome. And Th there's this clip that uh I'll sh I I'll share again so people can just go to my thing or somewhere to find it. But basically she's uh in like First of all, going into a cage Like you're in your underwear.

You're getting watched by potentially million plus people. Um and you're like kind of fighting to the death. Even if you do have someone's gonna like stop you, like the c the likelihood that you can die is definitely I mean, that exists. So like you're going in like a life or death situation in your underwear in front of all your friends and family in the world. And if you fail, you sort of fall back to the bottom of the totem pole and you have to climb back up, which is fighting a bunch of monsters along the way. And

It's like in a normal sport. You go in, I'm gonna play a basketball game, I'm gonna play football. It's like I'm gonna play the game. I hope I don't get hurt. In a fight, it's like first of all, it's not even called playing you there's no play fighting. It's just It's fighting. It's actually it's it's not a sport you play. And the second thing is you're definitely going to get hurt. Like that's just it's not like an aberration. It's not like an un unusual thing when you get damaged.

Uh like you would in basketball. With fighting, you're for sure gonna take hits. You're gonna you're gonna hurt yourself a little bit. What the fighters say is like, you know, I left a piece of me in that ring and what they really what they really mean is like in a hard fight, it's like I know that I just took six mont like that's six months off my life. I just lay I I left that in that ring. So it's it's pretty amazing. And I mean it's weird, it's it's odd, but I love it. And in this fight.

The camera is that they're announcing she's fighting uh Way Lee was it Way Lee, I think her name is the Zhang Wei Li, yeah. Yeah, this woman from China who's just like a beast and She's like a terminator, dude. She's like So strong, just unbelievably physically strong. And again. Rose doesn't look like that. She doesn't have bulging muscles. She's her neck is not like popping with veins. She looks like if you've ever watched Stranger Things, she looks like Eleven, the character uh Stranger Things.

And then they and and Way Lee, I I I love that woman as well. She's great too, but This Doug Rose is her name. Uh they zoom in on her face and she's saying I'm the best. I'm the best. I'm the best. And she's saying it over and over and over again. And in two minutes, she was the underdog. She was supposed to get her ass kicked. And I actually

Would have bet that she was gonna get her ass kicked. I thought I would've bet she was gonna get knocked out. And within two minutes she did a uh front leg kick, which is already kind of weird, and knocked Way Lee out and the crow it goes wild. I remember watching it live, I was like I was in tears. I was so happy. I have chills right now just remembering it. Rose. kicks this woman in the head a minute and a half in, two minutes in. Knocks her out. We all go crazy. And at the end, her husband is her trainer or part of the training team.

And he gets down at her level, like'cause he's like six five and she's probably five six, five four. And he looks at her face, he goes, We've been saying it for years. You're the motherfucking best. No one can fuck with you. Who's the best? And she goes, I'm the best. And then In the interview with Joe Rogan, he goes You kept saying I'm the best and he puts the mic to her and she goes,'Cause I am the best and

I get I'm kinda getting uh emotional even remembering chills right now just while you're talking'cause I was watching it and it was a very It's I don't think if you didn't watch it if you don't if you don't follow the UFC, you probably don't give a shit about this. If you didn't watch it, it's hard to relate. I think he even if I just missed if you don't watch it. I don't think I think even if you don't watch the UFC, you should go and watch this clip because this woman she's had emotional issues where she like has broken down from stress, which is understandable given that like she's fighting to the death. So like fair. It's just It was so so the the I think the key part of this, by the way, is that there's a lot of UFC fighters who are like all bravado. Like they always talk about how they're the best. Oh, I'm gonna win, I'm the best.

Nobody can touch me, I'm on another level, blah, blah, blah. She's not one of those people. She's ultra. Quiet? Humble. Uh like a lot of people perceive her to be like sort of mentally weak because she's A had some issues before and B like

She doesn't come out with that bravado typically. So that's why it was very atypical to see this very Sort of small This gentle giant basically like standing in the cage. Facing her opponent. And just muttering to herself mouthing to herself. You could see she was just telling herself before the fight, I'm the best.

On the best. And It's from her, it's not Trash talk. It's not bravado. It was self talk, which is a very different thing. Uh she was trying to reinforce it to herself so she would. Go perform and then she performed like kind of a stunning knockout. And the way in that she delivered the on the best line, you could tell that her coach or or it must have been her coach her husband was like

Rose. You're the best. As a matter of fact. For the next year, when I ask you who's the best You have to reply, I'm the best, or I'm gonna go make you do push ups or run well whatever. Yeah, or something like that.

Because It you could tell that that's how like she was like you know, like when you're in c uh high school and they make you carry a football all day or like a baseball or like in my case the running baton, if you drop it, like it's like a it's like a discipline thing. That is what happened with her. You could tell that like if anyone said who you know who's the they're pretty good, who's the best? And if she goes You would have to say I'm the best. Right. And it was interesting because as it brings back to business and launching stuff, you have that same doubt. Granted, you know, you might lose money and get embarrassed, thankfully you're not gonna get your ass kicked or Killed most likely.

But you still need that self talk and that example that Minute and a half clip. is like the best example of self talk. For normal people. Do you do self talk yourself? Yeah, I yeah, I it's it's a trick question in a way because everybody has an internal monologue. Everybody's doing self talk just in their head.

But I'm just more like do you strategically 'Cause a lot of people think this is like cheesy lame like affirmations, oh go stand in the mirror and say, You're beautiful, you're beautiful, you're beautiful, whatever. No, dude, it's necessary because like doing anything. Yeah. So like Um, whenever I'm launching anything or whenever I have fear, like For example, even when I bought my home, I you know, I don't I'm I have a uh I think I have a pretty unhealthy relationship with money. I don't like spending it'cause I was poor. I know what it's like to be broke. And I was like, no, this is normal. This is normal to feel this emotion. This is incredibly normal. Do it anyway. And then

Uh so yeah, I I I do that all the time, but I try to normalize it as a this is normal. This is what I I'm supposed to feel this way and I'm supposed to do it anyway. So I tell myself that all the time. Is that what you do? Um I don't do that, but I do I have two kind of routines that are like this that I've probably never told anybody about. All right, so Um, and these are f I would say this one is fairly new.

Um I told you kind of like I had like This moment where I was like, all right, what do I care about? I I'm always been a self improvement guy, right? I talk about Tony Robbins, as he's been a big kind of like Influence on me. So I have this thing on my wall.

And it's basically what I wrote like Like p most people write goals like what they want to achieve, what they wanna ha I wanna have a mansion or I wanna Hit this dollar amount, I wanna get promoted. And for me I have a of thing that's called I wrote on it, Who am I becoming?

And I the way I do it is because I think about myself like a Every year it's like a software update, right? What's version I'm thirty I just turned thirty three. What's version thirty three of Sean look like, right? And I th I literally write this out beforehand. I write out the like the notes. Like, oh, I used to have this bug where I got jealous about people. That's fixed. You know, like um

Hey, I added this new feature. Now I can play the guitar. Whatever, right? Like I treat myself like a whole new version upgrade. Anyway, so The all those little bug fixes and features, they all add up to something. What am I trying to become? And um is like kind of like a root philosophy, which is Life is not about what you achieve or what you have, it's about who you become.

And so I said, All right, well, what do I want to become? And I sort of wrote these four things out, right? I said, I want to become A person who is uh who is fit through healthy habits. I want to become a teacher. Um you know, uh the favorite teacher of millions of people. I wanna be um

You know, a a a great family man uh who lives in a house full of love. And I have like a last one, right? One more after that. So anyways, I have these four things that are like The things I want to become. And I do this thing in the morning when I like do my kind of morning routine, which is like my reminder for the day before I go and start just doing a bunch of work and a bunch of tasks and dealing with all the emails and shit that comes my way.

I just walk in a circle in my office, which is a tiny, tiny office. I have like a I don't know, eight by eight foot office. And I just walk in a circle and every circle is um Basically can I'm basically talking like I'm you know, talking to myself or I'm my own coach. About those about those four things.

So I'll say like, you know, um You know, I'm becoming a teacher. Uh I am. I am a teacher. I'm a teacher who millions of people uh love what I love what I create. They learn from me, they're inspired by me. I'm a teacher. That means I gotta learn every day so I have something to teach. I'm a great teacher.

Right. So I just say it in the present tense. I am this, not I'm trying to become this. Um, and then I'll say this the next one, you know. I I'm a great dad. You know, uh, even when things are going off the rails, I'm patient. That's when I get even more patient. I'm poised. I'm a great dad. I'm always there for them. They know I got their back. I'm a great dad. You sound like Muhammad Ali. Exactly. You know, I said I was the greatest before I am. And so so I do that. So I've been doing that now for like I don't know, probably like

A year Um And I love it. It's just kinda fun for me. So that's the first kind of self talk I do. The second kind of self talk I do is

uh what I call revision. Which is I fall off the horse a lot, like most people, right? Like um I'm trying to eat healthy and then like fuck in the middle of the day I there's a bag of chips was there and I I ate the bag of chips or like You know, I

I say I'm gonna be a patient. Dad, but then like oh like I've I've just lost it when You know, she wouldn't let me change her diaper and then blah blah blah blah. Um obviously I'm not perfect. And so there so the the other self talk I do is revision at the end of the night. I just

Imagine that same scenario that happened. It only takes me thirty seconds. I just think back to that moment that I'm not proud of. And I reimagine it in a way that I'm me acting in a way that I'm proud of. And that's it. I don't like

I don't like decide I'm gonna do things differently. I don't like write it down. I don't like Um, pledge to myself I'll never do this again. I just imagine it going the right way. And then I just go to sleep. And that act of reimagining things the way you want to see it.

is a form of self talk in my mind. Uh it's just like Rose saying, I'm the best. And imagining herself, you know, knocking out the other girl. That's kind of what I do for, you know, I'm not a fighter. I just do it in in my daily my daily life. And the takeaway I think should be if someone's crazy enough to to look up to you, Sean, or look up to me, then at least now they know that someone they look up to has like doubts and has to do that self talk. Um The good the cool position that you and I are in is that we know people that are like some of the

And at least in terms of financial success, which is a limited version of success, are some of the most financially successful people in the world. We talked to them and we know. firsthand that they're like, Oh, I'm so depressed. I can't do X, Y, and Z. And then in our case, like we look up to a at least I do, a lot of these UFC fighters and seeing like this tough ass Lady like Doug Rose. Doing the same thing. So anyway. This isn't hokey pokey. This ac i it's actually everyone has us and and

It's interesting. So look up that Thug Roads video. That's badass. Um there's one other thing I'll put there, which is um My trainer was big on this sort of like not the talk so much, but the the visualization, the imagination. He's always like, Oh, you're too analytical. You're just being like You're trying to think your way through everything. Just imagine it. Just don't worry about how it's gonna happen. Think about what you want to have happen. And in my head I was always like

Yeah, yeah, like end of the day, somebody's gotta figure out how it's gonna happen. That's g it's gonna have to be me, so like Just imagining it is not gonna do it, right? So I was kind of resistant to it at front. But I came around when I realized one thing. Which is

Everybody in their head is already imagining some outcome. So like if you're ever stressed or worried or doubt. What is that? That's your head imagining the thing not going right, not going well, failure, whatever, right? So if we are willing Like

It's ki sounds kinda hokey and cheesy to imagine things going well. It's like sort of like this hippy dippy thing to do. But the other side, which is imagining things not going well Everybody's doing all day anyways. Anybody who's ever had stress or fear or doubts. The if you just break down what that is, that's imagining things not going well. It's imagining a future where this doesn't work. And so if you're willing to um if you're already doing and willing to imagine things not going well, you might as well

start imagining things going well also. And if you're already Doubting have doubt having doubts or imposter syndrome. That's you doing self talk in your head that you're not the best, that you're not good enough, that you're not whatever. Well, then maybe you should replace that with something that says I am the best, right? So that's where I got over the like Uh is this kind of just like you know, cheesy voodoo shit.

And I was like, Well No, because there is self talking happening no matter what. It's either gonna be negative or it's gonna be positive. I might as well actively make it positive. And if it is cheesy, who gives a shit? Like if that gives me just a slight edge, then or then I'll take it. Because I need everything I can get. Um All right, we should just before we get into ideas, Michael Harris, do you that is?

No, who is that? Michael Harris, uh His name's nickname's Michael O. I don't know where the O's from, but he founded Death Row Records, which uh he was the he was uh Google it. I I so I don't I don't wanna like get this totally wrong, but I believe he was a cocaine dealer. And

He went to prison, uh, particularly uh I think it was Sam Quentin for twenty five years. But prior to prison he uh made close to like a hundred million dollars from selling cocaine and he funded Death Row Records and he got it off the ground. He's a co founder of Death Row Records, owned the uh all the originals or the masters of everything. Anyway. He's out of prison. My um he's a good friend of uh my good friend Chris. It's he it's his good friend. Did you go pick him up when he got out? Well he he he got p he got he got picked up in a Bentley, which is pretty funny. Uh but anyway, he wants to come on the pod. You you want him?

Amazing, yeah. And Deathrow, who's Deathrow? So Deathrow was Tupac or De Deathrow who was Yeah, so it was Pac, it was uh Dre a lot Dre's early stuff. Um So yeah, it was Snoop. So basically this whole like the a lot of modern rap. originated because of

of Death Row records. This whole like amazing You know, fuck the fuck the police, gangster shit. They kinda like invented that. I love it. Okay, great. That's gonna be awesome. All right, uh you wanna talk about UFC again, or do you want to talk about something else? Let's talk about UFC, but this time we're gonna talk about the business of UFC real quick. So

The parent company that owns the UFC is called Endeavor, and Endeavour went public. And it and go anytime something goes public, you know, you can go and you can sort of see the financials and you can read the prospectus because they have to do that in order to file for going public. So This is the first time that the UFC's financials kind of like saw the light of day, really. Um there'd been sort of Shrouded by mystery. Uh You know, fighters were always wanting to know the numbers because they want to get paid more. They feel like they're super underpaid.

Um You know, Dana kind of talks about numbers, but like nobody can ever verify is that how many pay per view buys there were or not, whatnot. I thought it was kind of interesting so I want to talk a little bit about Endeavor and see what you think about this. So Yeah. I was just gonna say the two guys who are like in charge of it, I believe, is Ari Emanuel. And I think this guy Patrick Whitesell.

And um Ari is if you ever watch Entourage, the character Ari Gold is based off of R E Manual. And so um he's kind of like a power player in uh in Hollywood. He you know they had their own talent agency. Um

Then that sort of took over WME and then W and then they took so they have three parts of their business. One is agencies like WME and others. So managing uh Hollywood talent, musical talent, whatever. Then they have sports businesses where they own sports assets. Notably, they bought the UFC, but they also own some other things they own. Euro League basketball.

They own um PBR, like bull racing. Uh they own a bunch of like bull riding. Bull riding, sorry. Yuppie. Bull bull bull sitting. Um okay, so so they own a couple of you know sports assets. And then they have like kind of like a third um arm to the business, which is their events business. So they have the Miss Universe pageant, they have New York Fashion Week. They have uh they basically bought the company that hosts the event of the Super Bowl on location. So they they have all these events. And so they have these three arms of the business. Like frankly, how that company even operates, I don't understand because there is some cohesiveness, but there's also a lot of not cohesiveness and it's incredibly confusing.

of one th theme, which is sports and media entertainment. So Um, so they roll in all these companies together. And they have like yeah, they have like a brand licensing thing where they ha they have the brand for Harvard and and the NFL and they'll go like license it out and give revenue back to to Harvard and the NFL. So They went public. It's worth eighteen billion dollars.

Uh now. And uh Yeah, as of as of as as of right now, it's twenty one point three. Right, so it went up just in the time of my research here. I should have bought. Um They do about four to five billion dollars a year. And specifically with the UFC, I thought this was kind of interesting. So I didn't know. How much revenue the UFC does.

And I was a little bit surprised to learn that Can I guess? Yeah. I don't know if you've you've seen it or not. No, I haven't. Um I would say uh Eight hundred in revenue and two hundred in profit. All right, very close. Get very close on the revenue side. So Here's their 2018, 2019, 2020.

So Seven hundred million. Eight hundred seventy five million and then nine hundred million last year. Wow. Uh so very close on revenue, but their margins are a lot better than you think. So you were saying. Um two hundred million. So so their margins are about thirty six percent. Uh so they have thirty percent even uh um on their their product, which is very good. Fighters only get twenty percent of revenue.

Every other major sport, NFL, NBA It's closer to fifty fifty. I think it is fifty fifty split. And so, you know, the fighters are are sort of right when that when they say that they're underpaid. And um And so their business is interesting because they have media rights. So uh guess how much the uh media rights sold for? So the the the the

Uh it used to be on Fox and now it moved to ESPN. Guess how much ESPN paid for it? Uh I think it was a billion over six years, right? Um, I don't know how many years it is, but it's three three hundred million a year. So I think it's actually more than a billion. So they make so The Fox deal.

I think it was one point five one point five or five years, I think it's wow. So yeah, so it's uh the Fox deal was one hundred sixty eight million a year, and then the ESPN deal was three hundred million a year. And that actually paid off pretty big because Of their 900 million in revenue, 300 comes from the media rights. The rest comes from merchandise, events, pay-per-view, uh sorry, t uh ticket sales, all that good stuff. And um so I thought that was pretty interesting. Pretty good business overall, much more profitable than I would have expected given You know, all the different moving pieces that go into it.

And um overall, like kind of an incredible business because they bought the UFC for two million dollars, like I don't know, twenty something, twenty five years ago or something. They bought it they bought it out of it was going bankrupt. And Dana White, who's the president of the UFC. convinced his two kind of childhood friends who were Basically the the Fertita brothers are these like mafia family

Guys who own they own a casino. So they own Red Rock Casino in Vic. Uh I think um Fertita's son, he they de or one of the Fertita kids, or he's our age, uh listens to the podcast. I don't think he would like that if you said that they were mafia. It's like uh it's like public it's like well known information. Uh it's like been published everywhere. And I also think, by the way When I say the mafia, I'm not judging. I think that's pretty pretty fucking cool. And uh I think mo people in the mafia also think being in the mafia is pretty cool. So I I hope they don't get offended by that. And if they do, um You know, I live in Austin. You can go find me over there. So Yeah, right. So anyways uh The Fertita family's pretty interesting. They started casinos.

There the Frank and Lorenzo were the ones who Dana convinced, hey, let's go buy the UFC bought it for two million. And now and then they ended up selling it for for four to five billion. when they bought it, they pretty much just got the cage, which is probably Uh

twenty thousand dollar piece of equipment. Right. And they got the name. Yes. The UFC. They were like, we just loved that name. It was such a great name. And they go, We paid two million, but we didn't really get anything. Right. But for some reason we did it. They had to pour in way more money after that. So it's kind of the the the the easy story is bought it for two million, sold it for five billion, which is obviously amazing. No. But there was like Multiple years of just pouring money in and losing money before this thing turned around because They couldn't get regulated in a bunch of places, like John McCain called it human cockfighting and You know, they couldn't they couldn't get license, they couldn't um

The business model wasn't there, they wouldn't get put on TV, that sort of thing. And um So they put I think eighty something million. Yeah. I was gonna say sixty five. They said it in a documentary, he was like, We put a lot into it and it failed and failed and failed. And by like year six, they convinced Spike TV, which I don't even know if that's a thing anymore, to air the last fighter or the ultimate fighter. Yep. And there was it was Forrest Griffin and I forget the other guy's name. Um And they had this big fight and I remember as a kid watching that fight. Yeah. I remember that fight as a kid. These guys were going at it.

They look like it was the first time that like we thought, wow, they're like athletes. They're not like these guys are they like they they're not necessarily like thugs or like meatheads. Like these guys are athletes who are fighting. And I remember watching it and right when that episode air. Their ratings went up and they go boom, we just saved the whole company. Right from that one fight. Well, the thing with that show is they show them in a house. It's like a reality show, right? They're showing them living in a house and then c training and then competing. So it wasn't just the brutal fighting part. It was like You got to know the guys. You see their backstory. You see them lying in their bed. looking at a picture of their family right before their training session being like all right

This is who I'm doing it for, blah, blah, blah. So people got emotionally invested. So it's similar, you know, like The Kardashians also like they use reality TV. To build the brand that ends up being a commercial brand, right? Because you perform an emotional connection.

of you know them and their sort of reality, you know, although it's quite edited. Um, and then, you know, you then you're more likely to be a buyer in the future. So so yeah, they ended up turning this thing around, kind of an amazing outcome for them. Um Just a super cool business and I would say

If you don't follow the UFC, there is one kind of like cool business lesson to learn from it, which is Dana White. Dana White is the most unorthodox president of a company that I Think I've ever seen like people think Elon is kind of like out there and he'll tweet random stuff. He's kind of unafraid, he's pretty bold. Dana makes Elon, you know, look like a s like a you know, like a honor roll student. Um

Dana will like he so he's been involved with the business from the from the beginning, but he will Go in the Instagram comments where somebody's you know, hating on something and he'll just be like Go fuck yourself. You know, like uh in the press conferences, he is as much a character as any of the fighters. And the same way that Vince McMah did that in WWE, but but that's fake. That's scripted. Dana does it in the unscripted format.

And I had an investor tell me once Um, we were talking about esports. And he' and I was and you know a lot of people think Esports is really interesting space because it's Yeah, the viewership is really high, but the business is kind of nascent still.

And people are wondering, is there a UFC like opportunity there? Could you buy something today for two million that's gonna end up being worth four or five billion. Um And what this investor told me, I think is so spot on he goes. Esports needs its Dana White.

It needs its person who's gonna take this sport from like just the underground. Mm. Brick by brick build it into a mainstream Brand.

And like take no prisoners and like organize the whole fucking thing. Along the way. Let me ask you this. Dana White. When the deal when he sold the company, he made four hundred million dollars, I think. Um, I think that was public. He owned four percent of the company.

Um or Ten I forget. Ten ten percent. Ten, okay, ten percent. Sold for four, he made four hundred. Then he probably made like probably he was probably getting paid ten million a year. Uh more than that. Fifty million at least, as my before the sale. Oh, sorry, yeah. Before the sale, yeah, yeah. So he was wealthy ahead of time and he made money in a thousand, who cares? Uh so let's just be like conservative and say that he's worth six hundred to seven hundred million dollars. I that's conservative, I think. And like all the celebrities are one like they like Like the the people who we think are cool, they're the ones who think Dana's cool. Like everyone thinks Dana's cool. Do you know what I mean? Like the famous people, Dana's famous to the famous people. So he's got power. He's got people want to uh people think he's cool. Yada yada yada's got money.

Would you trade spots with him? No, his lifestyle is brutal. It's brutal. Absolutely. Never do that. Dude, it looks horrible. He looks like he still like kinda looks fit, but he looks exhausted. His face is red and like. He's gained like a hundred and fifty pounds since starting this thing. Now it's kind of like muscle fat, but'cause he takes steroids and stuff, but Um No, he's dude, he's on it like they do an event every weekend, basically.

And he has to like do like he has to manage headquarters plus He goes to the event, he does the press conferences, he's watching ringside, then he goes and talks to the fighters afterwards, and he deals with the weigh-ins and the Oh, this guy can't make it. This guy got hurt. We gotta find a replacement. He does that fifty two weeks out of the year and like there's a reason that Dana's not like, you know Happily married at home with kids and a great dad and you know, unstressed. There's a reason that Dana's got bags under his eyes because

He chose that life. And he nailed it? I would not choose that life. It's not for me. Yeah. Yeah, not a chance. I I wouldn't either, but uh but I respect the hell out of it. I'm happy he what what do I always say? Cornrows and and next tattoos. I'm happy they exist. I don't want'em. Um All right. You wanna do uh you wanna go wanna try another one? Oh, I didn't even see I didn't scroll down. You had the revenue down here the whole time. I never saw it.

Yeah. Oh, sorry, did you want to wrap up with us or no? No, that's it. I I just think it was kinda interesting. I mean, uh I don't really think a major point on like, oh b good business, bad business. I think А собів'я фан о спорт. The business side of it is just as interesting as uh as the actual sport itself.

Yeah, I think that like I think that UFC is mainstream popular now. I can't exactly tell because the people who like like it's my sport. Like that's like my that's my Monday night football. So I follow it just. as much as a hardcore foot football fan follows All that. And I make my wife watch it with me now. She is actually finally into it because she understands the story. behind it. Because it it's basically just WWE wrestling, right? Um

It's just like it's like fake drama, which i I love. So anyway, uh we watched it and I uh but I I think it's beyond just our crew now. I think it's like mainstream almost. Like everyone knows who Connor is. So A couple episodes back, we talked about business models that save you money and they just take a percentage of savings and how that's like the biggest no brainer of all time. We said taxes was good, like income taxes. We said um Software savings, car savings. We said a bunch of stuff. That was kind of an inter an interesting episode. I hung out with this guy who is uh he just lives a few doors down from me. He started this company called Student Loan Hero. You know Student Loan Hero?

Never heard of it. I I don't even know what it does. It basically helps you consolidate debt, I think. So like if you have student debt, you go to their website and you purchase Some I I don't know. I I haven't had a lot of things. Uh I I've seen models like this. I haven't looked up their website, but I've Common Bond is another one of these.

They basically just refinance your debt at a lower rate. So they save you money. And then They basically make money because the new lender will pay them a fee. For the for the loan they originated for them. Exactly.

Um, I just haven't had to do that, so I I I'm not exactly sure how it works. But anyway, he sold that company, bootstrapped it, sold it for sixty million dollars. His new company is called uh what's it called? Proper lot. Properlot.com. And he w his goal I went me and Sarah went to his house the other day for breakfast and uh they kinda just He like I took a picture of like my h like just me in front of my house. I I don't remember what I was doing. I post it online. He's like, I don't wanna be creepy or anything, but I think I live like five doors down from you. Do you wanna hang out? Uh

And uh I went to his house and we hung out and he's got this new company called Proper Lot, and they're doing this but with property taxes. And what's there's a few interesting things about this. The first thing is that he's trying to make this he has this theory where he thinks he can make it makes it he thinks he can make it relatively big, like millions of dollars in revenue. With him being the only employee So that's what he's doing. That's interesting in itself. How do they save you money on property taxes? Is there a simple explanation or no? Yeah. So the second is the actual business. So in where I now live in Austin, your property value goes up every year or every two years, and then you're taxed two percent of your property value. Um, because there's no income tax, that's how they get their money. So I bought my house for uh about one million dollars. It's currently it went up crazy very oddly, like it's odd, but it sucks for me that it went up.

Like twenty percent in the first sixty days of owning it. And now I owe two percent of like$1.2 million a year in taxes. So let's just say that that's twenty twenty-two thousand dollars or something a year in taxes that I owe. And what proper lot does is you tell them your address, they look at the assessed value of your neighbors and they tell you the g to the government, Hey, this actually isn't fair that you charged us one point two million. Our value actually should be one point One million and it Oh no, I

It saves me about a thousand dollars a year. And they take uh three hundred dollars of that fee. And There's a few companies in the space, but a lot of them are older, uh like old school. One's called uh I think it's called PO the URL is POConnor dot com. Uh they do about a hundred million dollars a year in revenue with two hundred people, and then another one's called Five Stone, which is local to Austin. They uh They filed twenty four pro twenty four thousand protests last year and made like

Four million dollars. The way the company works is The numbers are the average revenue per customer is about fifty to three hundred dollars, and uh it usually saves customers two to five percent of uh in appraised value. It lowers your appraised value by two to five percent. Um, and they have a seventy percent success rate. So for seventy percent of the users who sign up, they reduce you by two to five percent. Kind of an interesting business model and uh I I I hadn't I don't know if you had heard of it, but

I think it's great. That's pretty cool. I I like that a lot. Um I wonder like you know How do they need your permission to do it? So for for example, do you have to sign up as a customer and request it or can they just be like proactively doing it and then leave a flyer at your door, hey

We You know, we did this for you. Would you like these this much savings? Well, you know, it's ready for you, just claim your account. Like that would be a crazy growth act if they could do it. Yeah, no, um You have to sign up. But that actually would be a great marketing scheme.

Gotcha. Okay. Uh cool. I like this idea a lot. Did you have anything you wanted is there a riff of it? Uh no. I just thought it was cool. No, I think it's cool. The other day, uh th one of our listeners, Jordan, told me that he goes I listened to you guys just'cause you tell me cool shit I'd never heard of So that was that was one of a Okay, speaking of, uh I have a a cool thing that I don't know if you've heard of.

Have you heard the term no lost lotteries? No. Okay, so this is pretty cool. So I met this guy, Layton, who uh is behind this thing called Pool Together. So if you go to PoolTogether.com,

You can see what it is. Well pulled together is is it's a savings account. Uh and this is in the crypto world, so it doesn't but but this exists everywhere. Uh it's a savings account. Where instead of just getting like, you know, if you go to a bank today, you go get a savings account, you're gonna get point oh oh whatever one percent interest.

It's like nothing, right? So what they said instead was, Well, what if we pool together Everybody's point oh one percent. And then we give all that money away to one person as a lottery winnings. So so it's a lottery where you don't have to buy tickets and you put nothing up at risk, but you can win. Very, very large.

And so this has existed the same model, this prize based savings is what it's called. has existed uh, you know, for a while. It's in the US. It's very popular in the UK. So there, I think they call it um Premium bonds. So in the UK there's something like twenty million people do this, they they save in premium bonds. And there's like a total of a hundred billion dollars.

Saved in These prize based saving accounts. And the way they work is exactly how I described. Put your money in. Every week there's a drawing or every month there's a drawing, something you know, something like that. And you can win like twenty five bucks.

All ranging up to a million bucks. And um and they they give it they give that out every uh every so often. And so um So it's a pretty cool model. It's a way to encourage people to save because right now the incentive to save is so small. So the more savings you do, the more like sort of tickets you have in the raffle. So it's a pretty cool model.

Now these guys ported this concept crypto. And uh there's a thing in the in the doc. Check it out, it's called usage numbers. One great thing about crypto is that everything's on the blockchain, so every app It's like you can see their Google Analytics, um, you know, like

It's all open. So I can go see that these guys have shit. They have 200 million in assets under management. They have about nine thousand, ten thousand users, uh like active users who participate in the thing. Which is a small number of users, but for for crypto, ten thousand active users is like, you know, you're one of the top uh Like, you know, decentralized applications, you know, if if you're doing that much, like if you have that many users. So most of these are very, very small.

Uh, but it's amazing how much money they have down there. And it's and so the way that the thing works is they actually They give so let's say they have two hundred million in s in uh in assets under management. That means their lotto is gonna be of X size, you know um I don't know exactly how much it is every week, but It's pretty big. And

Then what they do is they roll over some of those savings into the next week's jackpot. So they they ensure that every week they always have uh you know, a bigger and bigger jackpot by rolling over a percent of this Of this week into the next. So

Um You'll have to what what can someone Google to look at this? Because these stats like The growth rate is just like Crazy Yeah. So so they could just if so the the website I use to see how these uh crypto apps usage is called Dune Analytics. So D-U-N-E. Analytics.com

And then um and then you can basically uh we can put the whole URL there, but it's slash whatever, slash p pull together. Okay, so I I I you I'm trying to get out of this like oh this is stupid when I ever hear Ethereum. Like I'm trying not to like even though I'm only like thirty, I'm trying not to act like a grumpy old man whenever I hear the shit I'm trying So I'm gonna try and work hard. To the deep fault to optimism here, but

My question to you is this. When you see this stuff Like when you're explaining me to this, I'm like Is this a gimmick? Or is this real? Um and I'm not gonna call it stupid. Um

But when you're explaining this, I think to myself Is this a gimmick or is this like something that has longevity and can work? I mean that's like All the all these crypto things, like many of them, there's no doubt they're cool, but are they cool like the app Yo is cool? Or are they cool like This is a thing that I could see lasting for ten plus years.

So I think that this can last. This one can last for it. Is that a fair assessment? I think it's totally the right question to ask when it comes to crypto stuff. First is like, is there any value to this beyond speculation, right? That's always the first question with the crypto app. And then it's like, okay, if there is value, is this elastic value or is this a quick fad? People are gonna get tired of the gimmick. And in this case what I think uh is interesting is that there's this whole like what's happening in crypto there's a whole parallel financial system being built so I have

I have my wallet I have my my real bank account. And then I have my Coinbase account. Right. I have my my wallet in my pocket with credit cards in it. And then I have my crypto wallet. And I have my MetaMask and I have whatever, right? And so I now have like two I'm I now it Participate in two financial systems.

In the same way that like social networking split it up, right? I had my real life friends nearby in my neighborhood and whatever, a school. And then I had like my online friends and I had like my online way to go chat with people, of which there's some overlap. So the same things happen now with finance. So what does that mean? That means that there's a whole bunch of people out there. millions of people who have put who are participating in in crypto. And crypto keeps going up in price. So now they have like

substantial holdings. And when you have substantial holdings, you have two choices. Are you just gonna hold it and like Earn nothing off of it. Are you gonna sell it? So that you can cash some of it out.

Um, or are you gonna put it to work for you or you're gonna reinvest it. And what's happening is that all the people who suc who who have won in the first couple waves of crypto. Now have those choices and they're all choosing to reinvest. Why would I sell? I'm still I me I'm even more bullish on crypto, right? I kinda believe before, now I made a bunch of money. Well now, I think this is the greatest thing ever. Um, you know, why would I sell? I wouldn't take a big tax hit for selling and and be out of the game. No, I think there's still room to go up. So they're not gonna sell. They're not gonna hold and just do nothing with it because that seems kind of irresponsible, too, right? Let's say you have six figures, seven figures, eight figures worth of crypto.

Why don't you earn five percent a year on that money. You can through crypto lending products and things like that. The point the point I'm trying to get it to is When you have all this money, people need something to do with it. Savings accounts is one, lending is another, reinvesting into other projects is another. And so that's what you're gonna see. You're gonna see. All the All the existing use c like financial infrastructure get

rebuilt over here in cryptoland. And then some new shit. that didn't exist in the real world that you can do in cryptoland will get will get built. So I think, you know, for that reason, I think that if it works in the UK and 20 million people do it, then I think there's a good shot that it this is gonna exist in crypto in the crypto world. It's just so hard for me to understand.

Would you do it? Like let's say you have like you have Ethereum or whatever, you have crypto you have Bitcoin. Would you put it in a in a savings account here and like potentially win the lottery? Play one of these no loss lotteries? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes. And it's just a set it and forget it thing. You don't have to like actively do anything once you decide that once.

Yes, I would do that. And like To all the stuff that like I would call silly. I would also do that stuff as well. Like when I buy an NFT That costs a grand. Yeah.

But not more than a grand. Like I w's like Spending a grand on that is just is the same fun as going to play blackjack for a grand. Like I can totally have a thousand dollars worth of fun over five hours. Right. Yes, I would use this. Okay, I one other idea I wanna throw through at you. Did you see this thing

That was posted on Wait But Why, the blog Wait But Why called uh where he's talked about his wife's startup. No. Okay, you should check this out. So the guy who Tim Urban who writes Wait But Why posted this blog post and he says introducing the Land Beat. And he got to his wife?

Yes, have you seen that? Uh I was looking at it after you Put it on this dock. It looks awesome. So you should go to his blog post. I want you to go there for two reasons. One is I think the idea is kinda interesting. We could talk about that.

But the second is The way he tells the story and lays out the the case for this product. uh for the startup is so good. It's better than ninety nine percent of startup pitches you and I hear Um, because this guy's like a master storyteller. And if you want to like Think about how I should

Explain my startup or explain pitch my business. Go read this blog post. All right. I shout out everyone who subscribes to the podcast and sends me proof. Uh and if you send me proof Uh you can send it to MFN. at the hustle dot co. So that's like my first million, M F M.

Yeah. The hustle. Dot co. Send me proof. So ready? Let's get to some shout outs. And by the way, everyone makes fun of me because I don't know how to pronounce or I can't pronounce stuff that well, but I promise you I'm trying really hard. So apologies. Also, I'm like reading people's Twitter handles and some of you guys have really silly handles, so And I don't think many people could pronounce it. So give a shout out to

Oh my God, just this first one was challenging. Job Hebreken. Um Give a shout out to Johnny J Z V Uh Cunning underscore Droger. Uh Claude Loudier.

Hardly box. Dave Falski. Jack Washburn. Lunatech fringe. Everest Brady

Thad Warren. D manga. Uh Roy Brits Jordan Vanderhoof? Oh, Jordan Vannerhoof, I I think I know that guy. Uh Preston Holland, John Hagerty.

Texas. Eight down David Piazza Wade for Wireless. And the podcastan. We'll do a couple more. General Calm.

Uh Kyle Nidrick. Loft Marcus, a deal Mytha. And I think that's all. Oh my gosh. I'm am I just Am I the worst? These are really hard to pronounce, am I right?

Alright, someone asked me to give a shout out to Genu uh Genuinely interested podcast. That's what it's called. Genuinely interested podcast. So shout out to them. Shout out to us this guy's awesome. Everest Brady has a power washing business called Everest Power Washing. Dude, if he's in Austin, I'm gonna use him. Uh because I need that actually now. Um one rail app. Uh as a startup that we are changing logist logistics and supply chain and democratizing an Amazon style logistics and delivery experience to retailers and distributors. Uh shout out to my YouTube channel called One Man Startup. That actually sounds pretty good. Check out One Man Startup.

Um Shout out to Contemporary Idiot. It's a sub stack called Contemporary Idiot. That's a pretty good name. And then shout out to Broccoli. I think they say.

Um They're big fans of broccoli and they wanted me to shout out Broccoli. All right. If you want to give a if you want me to give you a shout out, can you please subscribe to the podcast. So go to Uh Spotify or iTunes, whatever you use. Click that blue button that says follow or that purple button on iTunes that says subscribe.

Click that. Take a screenshot and email it to me. Mfm. Yeah. The hustle dot co. Send me that, please, and I will give you a shout out.

Talk soon. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel never looking back

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