Steve (00:02.172)
So let me take us back for a moment, even though I really value your insights to just living a meaningful life.

Dan Ariely (00:02.85)
it.

Steve (00:12.732)
Because I pity, it's the wrong word, I'm in pain for anyone who has to wear two hats in life. You people say I've got my business life, my personal life, I wear one hat. And it's so liberating to go through this world, not having to feel that we've got dual identities going through it. With that said, I wanna take us back to Kenya, because it's a really interesting one for me. It opened up a whole...

Dan Ariely (00:28.819)
Thank you.

Steve (00:42.812)
framework of thought when it came to fan engagement in sports and understanding human behavior. It's something I've thought about for 35 years and I know that you're going to help me and our viewers understand it better. First and foremost, why don't you just tell us a little about that study and what you implemented that made it such an interesting outcome.

Dan Ariely (01:04.178)
Yeah. So, so this study was a study about trying to help very poor people, some of the poorest people in the world, to save a little bit of money for a rainy day. And why is it so important? Very poor people live hand to mouth, hand to mouth. At some point there's a tragedy. Somebody breaks a leg, the roof leaks. They need to borrow money. They have no reserve. And then they go into a very, very tough cycle.

So we want to help them keep a little bit of money for a rainy day. And we try to motivate them in different ways. We send them a text message once a week for six months. We send them text messages if it came from their kids, remind them future generation. We gave them matches in different ways and different percentages. Spend up to 100 shillings, a dollar, we'll give you another 10 % or 20 % and so on.

And the most interesting one was a coin about this size with 24 numbers written on the edge. And we said, put the coin somewhere in your hut. And every week, take a knife and scratch the number for that week, week one, two, three, four, scratch it like a minus if you didn't save, scratch up and down if you saved. And this coin almost doubled savings compared to everything. And the question of course is why?

And the insight basically became that there are a lot of things in life that are thankless. In general, we can spend money on things that are visible or invisible. Visible things, fruit, kerosene, water, gifts for the kids, a piece of candy, invisible things, buying insurance, paying debt, saving. Imagine somebody is a breadwinner and they have a choice. What do I do with my money?

Do I put insurance saving paying debt? Nobody will say thank you. Or do I do something that is visible and somebody might say thank you. Also think about what we talk about in society. How much do know about what your neighbors are spending? Quite a lot. You can see them, they talk about it and so on. How much do you know about how much they're saving? What is their debt and what insurance they have? Not that much. So we have

Dan Ariely (03:27.254)
A dramatic imbalance between the visible and the invisible. And one way to get us to care more about the invisible is to make it visible. And this is what I coined did. People don't visit each other's hearts in Kibera. It's a tough place. But it was a communication for the person to see what they've done, for the spouse to see what they've done, for the kids to see. And that communication made people more proud.

After doing this study, I'm happy you picked it because it also kind of helped me start thinking about lots of things. ask people who are breadwinners for their families. say, how many of you feel appreciated? And lots of people say, not so much. And in fact, when I stay longer in the office because I need to do something, they're angry. You know, there's some anger there. So I think that this issue about

making the invisible visible and realizing that there are things that we need to be very motivated about but we're not because they're invisible just means we need to work extra hard on those things.

Steve (04:37.116)
So that's what really hit me too. First of all, I was very curious, what was the revenue generator for those people living in the huts that they were counting their revenue on a weekly basis? Do you know what their source of income was?

Dan Ariely (04:51.776)
Yeah. So these are people who work in the informal sector. Right. So every time we try to change behavior, we think about, okay, so what's the layout? What's the tool? What do we have? And if people were working in the formal sector and they got salaries, we would have bank accounts. So we could do all kinds of things. These were people working in the informal sector. They would mostly go to the market and either carry things.

Steve (05:02.864)
Thank

Dan Ariely (05:18.622)
or work in metal for a day. And they would make about $5 a day when they worked, but they only have about two days of work a week. So it's both very variable, very, very tough.

Steve (05:27.132)
It's very variable, isn't it?

Steve (05:33.277)
So this is what became so fascinating. Your concept of invisible to visible. idea of, and particularly as we bring this into the world of sports, and many people who are watching this might be stewards, custodians of major brands, investing collectively $100 billion into sports sponsorship. And for them, one of the hottest topics is, listen.

what's my objective, whether it's B2B, B2C, I'm doing this, and whether I'm putting my money behind a athlete, a team, a league, or a stadium, or an event, I'm doing it because I'm trying to reach the passions of my target market. So fan engagement is perhaps among many areas of the business of sports, one of the hottest issues in 2025. It's one of the holy grails.

Dan Ariely (06:16.782)
Mm-hmm.

Steve (06:28.932)
And so then I thought, then let's bring that analog over to the fan. how do we, those concerned about the fan, the team in particular, and the sponsor, how do we make more visible that reward for a sports fan? So I have a series of questions I want to go through about fan psychology and discuss that with you. But first and foremost, if you were a head of

Dan Ariely (06:53.591)
Yep.

Steve (06:59.374)
a major fast moving consumer goods brand or an automotive brand or a team owner and you wanted to penetrate a relationship, foster relationship with a fan more intensively. Could you just off the cuff? What would come to mind? Because you're very creative and that's one of your perhaps greatest aspects of your reputation you've gleaned as a man of creativity. What creatively comes to mind?

Dan Ariely (07:22.892)
Yeah. So, so let's think about the basics. It's, it's good to not jump to conclusion of what I would do, but let's say let's, let's just kind of go back to our assumption. And what is a fan? What is a fan? A fan is somebody that has an identity tied with something. And because of their connection with the identity,

They see future success of the team as a future success of them. So how do we, how do we get people to feel that they are connected with some, with some identity? What, what is it? What is it about that? So some of it, of course, comes with, you know, parents. If you're a kid of a parent who went to see game number, you know, a particular thing.

Steve (08:20.123)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Ariely (08:21.868)
Your identity is connected with your family and your childhood and so on. So, but, but what on top of that, what gets you to, identify with something? And the answer is that you have to see some particular thing that you both aspire to and you think are connected with you. Now it's a very strange thing because when we see athletes, for me at least,

their performance and my performance is not the same thing. Like how could I have an identity with athlete X that we're kind of like, you know, two very different species. I, you know, they're capable of all of these things. I am not. What I would, what I would try and do is I would try to figure out, okay, so we have these athletes that are incredible in what they're doing, but by being so incredible in what they're doing, they feel very different from us.

What is it that they represent that we can feel connected? Not as other things, right? I belong to city X and they represent my city, my parents, but outside of that, would do something that would basically take sports from being a particular incredible ability. And I would try to make it into a more generalized

principle that I could identify with. So let's think about professionalism, for example. And you can say, here are people who are professionals. They work hard on the court, off the court, they live a committed life. You can think about what it is about that. And you can say, OK, I can identify with that. So going back to your question, I would look at the different sources

Steve (10:19.45)
Thank you.

Dan Ariely (10:21.526)
of identification. would look at families, I would look at city, but I would also look at attribution of what people aspire to, but feel connected to them. So I cannot be aspire to be an athlete, but I can aspire to be, to pick a goal and work against the barriers. I can aspire that when I'm behind to find the energy.

Steve (10:38.428)
Hmm.

Dan Ariely (10:52.662)
to go in front. And I think that for me at least, I think that's the part that sport is not making sufficiently clear.

Steve (11:03.164)
Hmm.

Dan Ariely (11:03.436)
And I would like them to do better at that. Like we see these people on the court, but I think for true fandom, would need to understand more about them.

Steve (11:17.149)
You know, when you think about sport, you know, obviously we have the slogan and I'll certainly mix it up. But, you know, pop core or Cracker Jack's mom, Cracker Jack's and baseball. I'm forgetting the slogan as a kid of what how it came to me. But the idea that baseball, you you put it in that context of something that is very much the fabric of the United States.

We call the Dallas Cowboys America's team that's debatable from those who live outside Texas or perhaps Dallas itself But it is very much a part of our fabric and when we look at the commitment as you've described it What I find compelling is the idea of developing that relationship in a more visible fashion So the idea of just rewarding a fan and rewarding it

And fans do have that expectation in sports, by the way, that there is an expectation of I have a relationship and I'm part of the family. And in some context, I should benefit as part of that family because I first of all pay part of your salaries and I'm part of your network as a in a fiduciary fashion. I want us, if we could, to look at the strata of fans. That's just my thought when I was thinking about what is a fan, as you asked just now.

What is a fan? Well, first and foremost, in my mind, that's an impossible question to answer with a single sentence. Because fans come in all different strata, right? We have certain fans that might show up, like you said, it's part of the fabric of their childhood experience. I'm going to go with my mom or dad to a baseball game or a football game. It's a memory I have as a six, seven, eight year old. It was very much part of our culture.

for a parental unit to take the child to a ball game. And that might have been it. That might have been a great experience. Alternatively, I could be a VIP coming, having gone to a Knicks game in a long time, but they're in the playoffs and I'm a valued client of some important sponsor. And boy, I got lucky. I got to show up in the VIP box and have a lot of fun. The game is really peripheral. It's more of the social experience.

Steve (13:38.417)
being a part of that mob psychology, having the thrill and the excitement that takes place. Then you have people who literally are super fans and will travel to another city because their team, the New York Giants are playing Philadelphia Eagles and they might literally transit to another city and show up in that part of the stadium where you have a lot of other New York Giants fans.

Dan Ariely (13:38.659)
Yeah.

Steve (14:05.83)
And we'll call them, if you will, a super fan. They're buying the merchandise. And by the way, throughout the strata, you'll have people that will buy the memorabilia, buy the memorabilia, seek out autographs, seek out pictures. If I can get something personalized, my God, that's, AI can't do that, right? I've got to get that hand autographed by the superstar. So we have a lot of strata. I'm wondering if you have an insight.

Dan Ariely (14:10.094)
Thanks.

Steve (14:34.734)
If I'm a team owner or a sponsor, I'd love to see people rise up the ranks to the super fan strata. Do you have a sense of what is the tipping point between one level and the next? Is it something we can understand and process?

Dan Ariely (14:54.506)
So first of all, when it comes to the translation from preferences to actions, it's not just about the intensity of preferences, it's also about financial ability. So when you say, I want to travel, need a car, I need time off, I need all kinds of other things. So I think it's better to ask the question, what makes people real fan? And separate, think about

Steve (15:06.469)
Mmm.

Dan Ariely (15:24.086)
what economically they're willing to do. Because this way we ask about the psychology of being a fan. And you know, one day people might be better off financially, might be worse off, they'll take their kids with them. But I think what we should think about is what gets people to be truly, to feel connected. And it's about identity. It is about identity. So the difference between somebody who goes to a game because...

You know, somebody invited them and it's a fancy thing and there's wine and whatever. That's not the fan. And that's not what we should, what we should invest in. What we should invest in is people that their identity gets connected with, with the team. So, so think about what are the experiences that, that you've had in your life that get you to feel that your identity is part of

Some universities are successful in getting people to feel, I am a Duke grad or Harvard Business School. There are some places that their experience formulated something within you. Now, universities have an easy time because it's the first time kids move from home somewhere else. So a lot of their identity gets molded at that time and that stays with us.

I think we need to think about how do we have an impact on people's identity, understanding of themselves. And if we do that, that's the gate to being a fan because once your identity is with team A, very hard to, very hard to break it. My, my understanding, somebody gave me this statistic. I'm not sure it's correct, but somebody said that in soccer,

Steve (17:20.86)
Thanks

Dan Ariely (17:22.346)
And less people move from team to team, then people change religions. And, and okay. So now, now that's, that means something very, very substantial. That means that people are connected in a way that transcends whether the team is good or not good, where I move city and so on. Where, where is this connection? Where is it coming from? I don't think it has one source.

Steve (17:24.237)
Thank

Steve (17:28.262)
By the way, that's true. That's a true stat. Yeah.

Dan Ariely (17:52.14)
And also, don't think identity has one source, but we need to think about what are all the sources that can contribute to identity.

Steve (17:59.293)
So I wanna share with you a thought on that. Haven't thought about this ever. So first and foremost, it's at a time where the formulation of our brain, it's growing. So it's embedded in our memories in a way, in the very fabric of our prefrontal cortex, if you will, in a way that we are, it is such a formative experience that as you said, there's absolutely not one source per se, but it could be that

Dan Ariely (18:02.402)
And this is.

Steve (18:28.218)
For example, when I was a young boy, eight years old at a sleepaway camp, I met Jackie Robinson. His grandson was in my bunk. That was a seminal moment for me. My father took out his business card. He was an attorney. And Jackie Robinson signed my father's business card, the back of it. Now that stayed for me for life, right? And so I think one factor is the following. What you made me think of, which is just profound for me, and I've lived in a lot of places, but I have friends, for example, that moved from New York.

Dan Ariely (18:35.288)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Ariely (18:44.899)
Yeah.

Steve (18:57.392)
And they moved, for an example, to Dallas or San Francisco. And they have been there since they're 21 years old. So it's 42 years they've lived there. So for two thirds of their life, they lived in another city outside of their New York base. And they are rabid Dallas Cowboys fans. They're rabid with anything to do with Dallas or San Francisco. But when the New York team comes to town, it's a monstrous conflict.

And you feel very torn. And frankly, for a lot of us, you're still gonna be your New York fan. It's a win-win, if you will.

Dan Ariely (19:25.112)
Yes.

Dan Ariely (19:31.085)
You

Yeah, yeah, by the way your your taste in music our taste in music is has a peak around age like whatever was playing at age 18 19 And there's a there's a pic again because our taste 18 19 because that's when our a this is when our taste kind of gets formulated and so

Steve (19:43.482)
Hmm. interesting. What was the age again, Dan? It was... Okay.

Steve (19:55.293)
So when I was 10, 11, 12, my parents were praying, Carol King, James Taylor, Kat Stevens, and to this day, I still indulge, yeah.

Dan Ariely (20:02.711)
Yeah. That's the thing. So, you know, I got the call from some team and they were building a new stadium for their team. I think not building yet, thinking about building. And I told them that in the building, there's a tremendous amount of opportunities for connection. So imagine for example, that

You're a fan of Team X and they're building a new stadium and you have a chance to come and sign on the foundation, the concrete foundation. Nobody would ever see it. It'll be concrete or there'll be the flooring on top of that. Wouldn't it still be special to say this? Imagine, imagine that happen. Imagine that you, uh, you signed in a particular place and you can see the court. It's a basketball court.

And you know that it's about that corner of the court that your signature is underneath it. Every time the ball will be in that corner, you would think about it differently. Right? So, so here is a second direction. The second direction is about adding meaning to life. And the reality is that there's lots of place that we, don't live enough with meaning and there's a lot of meaning to be added. I'll give you the experts in this.

is wine. Wine has what we call a consumption vocabulary. Tanning, complexity, acidity. And then we take the wine and we look at it and we swirl it and we smell it. And that intensifies the emotion. Now, if you drank the same wine from a beaker next to your computer as you, you know, do email, no enjoyment.

the slowing, the paying attention, the having names. The having names is very important. Most of our experiences are fleeting. But if you have a name for it, you can remember something, you can think about something, you can pay attention to something. if you understand tannin complexity, acidity, leg, you're experiencing wine differently than if you didn't. So one more story on wine and then we'll make the connection. There's an amazing guy called Bill Harlan that has a...

Dan Ariely (22:25.064)
a winery in Napa.

Steve (22:26.67)
and he gave you on your 35th birthday a bottle that he said, don't open it until you're 50. And it was sitting on your mantle for 15 years with that 100 rating by Parker. Quite a story.

Dan Ariely (22:29.612)
That's

That's right.

That's right.

That's right. And by the way.

Steve (22:46.46)
I was going to ask you, you said you had the actual decanter, but did you keep the bottle, I hope?

Dan Ariely (22:52.119)
No, no, But this, this wine is from his son.

Steve (22:57.434)
Okay, but question, Dan, because you said you kept, you said the decanter inherited some of that hundred rating. Did you keep, let me just ask a question. Did you keep the bottle, by the way? Okay, thank you. Please.

Dan Ariely (23:03.224)
So let me tell the story.

Dan Ariely (23:08.714)
Yes. So anyway, so the story is that Bill kind of, didn't just give me a bottle of wine. He said, here's a bottle that was picked when you were 35. I want you to have it when you're 50. I want you to keep it. I want you to remember. And it was after a day where he showed me all the procedures. And I watched this bottle for a very long time. Waited to be 50.

And then, you said, I didn't want to have it to go to waste. The memory, so I bought a decanter and I pulled the one with the decanter and I still use the decanter. And every time I get a decanter, I think a little bit about bill. The meaning.

Steve (23:49.415)
But you didn't question first and foremost, because it's very real. The concept of consuming wine by your own computer monitor is not an event, but having that wine, part of that language is a, if you will, an unspoken language of Dan looking at Steve and Steve looking at Dan, taking in your friend Bill's hundred rating, perfect rating, Parker rated wine, which you helped pick.

Dan Ariely (23:59.307)
No.

Dan Ariely (24:03.149)
Next time.

Dan Ariely (24:16.888)
Yes.

Steve (24:19.778)
looking at each other, unspoken, and just going...

Dan Ariely (24:26.562)
This way. So let's think about the two. Yeah.

Steve (24:27.792)
So first, by the way, just a quick query, by the way. Did you drink it? And first of all, was it as enjoyable as your anticipatory 15-year wait? Wonderful.

Dan Ariely (24:38.132)
It was, it was a wonderful one. I, it was wonderful wine, very memorable. Stayed with me now. Now I think there are kind of two points for us to think about in life and also in sports. The first one is about consumption vocabulary. We want to enjoy anything. We need to give it a language. So, so if, if you were, if you were now designing a sports event, I would say help the people who are watching it.

develop a language so they could code different things, understand them, and remember them better. So, I'm not a sports, but imagine, imagine that we took

Steve (25:14.861)
For example.

Just because we have a huge vocabulary in sport, what would it be that you might see that could be seen as a yet to be written?

Dan Ariely (25:23.138)
Yeah.

Dan Ariely (25:27.928)
So, so I would, I would, for example, take a step, a leak that is particularly high, impressive or something. And I would give it a name. Like, imagine you watch a game, let's say basketball, and there's a, there's a name for the best leap of the game. You would remember.

where it was. So this is probably it. I would take something that is like an achievement. I would take an achievement that is connected to teamwork. I would take an achievement that is connected to forecasting what will happen. I would take an achievement that is about physical achievement and I would give them names and I would start discussing games this way. Now,

We have the most valuable player and we have this, but it's not the same as saying, you know, let me analyze this particular, how good is this on the people, did somebody predict, how many steps did you think in advance and so on.

Steve (26:38.524)
I want to share with you when I had learned about your comment about your experience with your dear friend Bill and his wonderful vineyard Two things came to mind and it was very much an analog your bottle became for me a piece of merchandise Sports merch memorabilia So the closest thing as I heard you talk about the bottle was me thinking about all my former clients who we literally framed an autographed picture from one of the top 10 athletes in the world

saying, dear Dan, what a wonderful day we spent together on the golf course. Your dear friend, whoever that golfer was, as an example. And that bottle to me became an expression of that in some capacity because your friend's label of his vineyard is first of all on that bottle. Number two, something else you taught me, which I find fascinating, really interesting, and I loved it. A guy is in, let's say like me, New York City, I gotta find a place to park.

Dan Ariely (27:07.715)
Yeah.

Steve (27:37.231)
And in the old days, for those who don't know, were meters used to put coins into the parking meter and park your car. And I'm sure there are still some small towns in America that have that. Well, let's just say we don't have any change and I need a quarter or 50 cents to put in the meter. A guy walks by and says, and I say to him, do you have a quarter? He goes, no, I only have a dollar. Excuse me, I have a quarter, but I only have the dollar. So I'm asking him for a quarter. And he says, sure.

I'll give you my quarter, but I want a buck from you. I say to him, take a walk. As we would say in Brooklyn, forget about it. So he goes on his way. Next guy comes by and I asked for, does he have a quarter? He says, no, but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go to the bank. This is what you wrote. I'll go to the bank. I'll run there. It's about two blocks away and I'll come back. But would you mind for my time just paying me a dollar? And a lot of us would say, sure. Well, the former example is a lot faster.

give the guy the dollar, take the quarter, you've achieved your objective. What you shared with me, what was so fascinating, is the idea that we have to see value in what a fair exchange. And when I heard that, my mind was racing. You talked about it when we buy a very expensive cup of coffee and we see the barista laboring intensively to brew that cup. But if it was already in a jug and they poured it for us,

Dan Ariely (28:34.284)
Yes, sir.

Steve (29:02.458)
We wouldn't have that same visceral connection to that cup of coffee. Where did my mind go? Which I don't have the answer to. So here, Dan Ariely, if you will, I have a question for you. We have sports fans and even what we call collectors today. My God, we had a guest on our show. His name is Brandon Steiner, one of the foremost memorabilia companies in the world, Steiner Sports. He bought every single seat of the old Yankee Stadium.

and he put them online for sale, back to your point about engraving the concrete. Well, guess what he did? He had a fertile market, a captive market. Everybody wanted a seat from Yankee Stadium. They were buying them in droves, number one. Number two is, when we buy memorabilia, you get a Michael Jordan signed jersey that he wore during one of his victories at the Chicago Bulls. Well, people will pay.

six figures for that jersey or perhaps a ball that was caught in a Grand Slam home run that won a game, but that's not fair value. So how do you translate your concept of human beings and you obviously with your books and you've written, know, an enormous, know, myriad of books from predictably irrational and misbelief and dollars and cents and I can go on and on and I have several of them.

Dan Ariely (30:17.61)
Thank you.

Steve (30:27.676)
Back to we are meant to buy and buy in where we define fair value. When it comes to memorabilia, Dan and autographed items, how do you make sense of that?

Dan Ariely (30:30.19)
Yeah.

Dan Ariely (30:43.938)
Yeah. So, so I want to connect this to a previous conversation. So we said that I can create value, right? By giving you a language or by making the experience more unique. Right? So, and what Bill, what Bill did to me, here's and so on. And memorabilia, if, if I am just buying a t-shirt with team X, it's not the same.

If I buy it in a game after we won, to think about something specific, as things become more unique, they become also more meaningful. If somebody got to sign it, if somebody got to, to sweat on it, by the way, there's a study. They were asking people, asking people, mostly women in this study, how much they would pay for George

Clooney sweatshirt. And they asked, okay, this is a sweatshirt that George Clooney wore, how much would you pay for it? And then here's the sweatshirt that he ordered, but he returned. And here's one that he wore, but he washed. So it turns out the washing took some of the Clooney-ness out, the price went down. But, you know, in this particular case, Clooney got stuck to the sweater.

Steve (31:52.923)
Mmm.

Dan Ariely (32:13.602)
No, there was no branding and so on. was, think a gap sweater in in the study, but the meaning gets stuck and we're all, we all a little voodoo like that. Think about like, imagine you had old pictures and you scan them all. You scan them all, all pictures. Would you burn the old ones? Of course not. You would feel like it's, it's immoral to burn pictures of our parents and us as a kid. We all believe in voodoo to some degree and meaning.

Steve (32:32.956)
Mmm.

Steve (32:42.202)
No.

Dan Ariely (32:42.946)
Meaning sticks. So in order to make something more meaningful, you want to connect it with meaning and you want the meaning to stick. So a shirt that this player wore on this game is more valuable after the shirt. Something that connects.

Steve (33:04.616)
Is that irrational, by the way? Isn't that quite rational in some ways?

Dan Ariely (33:07.884)
You know.

Dan Ariely (33:11.384)
So it depends what you mean about rational, but in the so in the strict rational theory there's no emotions. So you shouldn't do anything to manipulate your emotions.

Steve (33:14.534)
Well, you wrote the book on it, so what would you say is rational or irrational?

Steve (33:26.273)
So it's pre-behavioral economics, the traditional, how will this consumer behave?

Dan Ariely (33:30.413)
That's right.

That's just, there's no emotion.

Steve (33:35.258)
regardless of gain or loss being equivalent.

Dan Ariely (33:37.71)
So in this case, what we're saying is, I want to buy this shirt because my future self would look at this shirt and remember that moment. And economists would say, why do you need this shirt to remind your future self? Just remember it. Why do you need to?

Steve (33:54.097)
But what if it's to do what you again, I don't mean to just acknowledge all of your insights, but but you're here as our guest, so I will when you talk about how we do consume for others. If I get utility in the sense that Dan's come to Steve's home and the visceral joy I get because you saw my 1932 World Series Babe Ruth card, which I do not own, by the way, but it's the most.

expensive card ever sold, it's called the Shot, and it was sold for $24 million, right? And for me, if each time someone comes over, I define that as a $10,000 experience in my own satisfaction of life. I can put some form of calculation on my collectible and just like that bottle for you might mean something, or if you had purchased it, by the way, I should mention in 1945,

Dan Ariely (34:38.883)
Yes.

Dan Ariely (34:46.755)
Detroit.

Steve (34:51.408)
bottle of Domaine de la Romaine was sold for $548,000. I believe, don't hold me to it, that might have been one of the more expensive bottles sold. And there's a lot in common between wine collection and sports memorabilia collection. But it's not rational, it is irrational behavior.

Dan Ariely (35:04.29)
That's That's right. So, so it is, it is it. Look, there's lots of irrational behaviors that are wonderful. Love, romantic love is not rational. It doesn't exist. Helping each other. You caring about the impression of somebody else. mean, all of those things. So they're not rational, but they are thoughtful. So I don't, I don't want to say that they're not part of the economic model.

Steve (35:15.052)
Mmm. Mmm.

Dan Ariely (35:33.934)
But it's good. so anyway, going back to your question, how do we, how do we get memorabilia is really interesting because on one hand it's a way for the team to get more revenues. But if you think about it correctly, it's also for people to increase their identity as part of the team. So if you're a member of team A, you're a fan of team A.

Steve (35:56.517)
Absolutely.

Dan Ariely (36:01.812)
And you're wearing a shirt and somebody asks you about it and you're proud about it and so on. I have just increased, you know, some, some behavioral effects, you take an action and loyalty goes down. Some things you, you, you make an action and your loyalty goes up. And I think, you know, if I buy a mug and it's in the closet, it doesn't have any long-term effect. But if I buy something and I use it.

it can have a long-term positive impact. but I want to say a couple of words. You talked about, you mentioned this idea that we want to see effort. And there's some industries that we see the effort. We see open kitchens. I think in sports, it's one of those areas where we see the effort on the court.

Steve (36:38.236)
Please.

Steve (36:50.812)
Mm.

Dan Ariely (37:00.686)
but we don't see enough the preparation for that. So if I was running a team or a club in some way, I would basically spend some time reminding people what does it take to arrive there? So you don't say, oh, these people are hanging out. Now we all know that they practice, but I would put more information out there. would put more effort on.

Steve (37:30.768)
It's interesting Nike capitalized on that. I don't know if you recall the ad. It was probably one of the greatest from my personal, very subjective view. One of the greatest ads ever created was the Michael Jordan ad where you see him speaking. He's narrating and he says, I, you know, I was this, I achieved that. But and I'm paraphrasing you, you don't know that I took 20,000 shots that I missed and his basic message was.

First of all, failure, you don't only see me from a standpoint that I live to perfection, because the reality, the statistics reflect a very imbalanced level that I missed a lot more shots than I took, but I was not afraid to take them. And secondly, I think you will find that in pre-training, we do see a lot of activity of teams inviting fans out to smaller fields, smaller activities.

and engaging them. You know, it is interesting, another aspect of some of your theories about hindsight bias. I would say I've never met people who lived with hindsight bias more than sports fans. I think if there's any dictionary definition of hindsight bias, it's why did you throw it to that player or pass to that player? Why did you take this shot? You should have dribbled to the basket instead of shot the three pointer. So it is interesting, a lot of your

Dan Ariely (38:56.44)
Thank

Steve (38:57.88)
economic and social science standpoint terminology are so relevant to the world of sport.

Dan Ariely (39:06.53)
Yeah. And I know we're running out of time, so I just want to point one last thing on, on behavioral economics and sports. people often don't bet against their team. And you know, we have this notion of hedging, you know, in the stock markets, buy multiple stocks and so on. And you can think, the ideal thing to do is to cheer for team A, but bet on team B and this way I will be a little bit happy no matter what happens. But we don't do that.

We don't do that because eventually if we bet something on this, even intensify our emotional caring and we want to care. have it, like it tells you that we don't want not to care. you know, I love team A, I invest in enough, I bet enough money on team B that I'm indifferent between which team wins. We don't want that. We don't want to be indifferent. We want to experience the heights and downs.

of the emotion and the question is, can team step up their game to give us that? Can they do something to give us more of these ups and downs? Of course, the people who broadcast and so on, but what else can we do to make this more intense and more satisfying emotionally?

Steve (40:29.596)
Well stated. You know, I'm looking forward and hopefully we'll have this opportunity to delve further into learning about your insights in social science, behavioral economics, as relates to the changing consumer in the face of what's happening in artificial intelligence today. If you don't mind, I'd love down the line, perhaps in the next quarter or two, to make that a part two, if you're available to pursue that conversation. How does it affect your

research, how does it affect your view of the human being in transition from a mindset in social science, human behavior. But with that said, Dan Ariely, what a pure, pure delight to have you on the transaction report today.

Dan Ariely (41:14.702)
Thank you so much. Lovely, lovely to start meeting you. Looking forward to our next meeting.

Steve (41:19.045)
Likewise, and you're going to hold for one moment. Ryan's going to pop on.