Steve Feuerstein (00:02.569)
So what a pleasure it is today to have on the Transaction Report, Jay Douglas, Doug Thornton. He's the Executive Vice President, responsible for arenas. He's the Executive Vice President, responsible for arena, stadium, and theaters at ASM Global. And Doug, welcome to the Transaction Report.

Doug Thornton (00:26.786)
Thank you, Steve. Nice to be with you.

Steve Feuerstein (00:29.374)
Yeah, well, you know, it's a real privilege to have you today because one of the most fundamental areas of fan engagement, player participation as a stakeholder in what they do well, coaches, all assistant coaching staff. If you look at the gathering of what makes the business of sport so exciting, it is ultimately

when we are in play and all of the training has culminated in the athletes getting together for combat on the field. And in your world, very often that's football and that's very much at the Mercedes -Benz Superdome. And you have played a seminal role in all aspects of it. I wanna just touch on one aspect of the Mercedes -Benz, perhaps one of the best known arenas in the United States.

It was hit hard by Katrina. You were inducted into a hall of fame in your local city for the stalwart efforts you made in rebuilding that. First of all, just if we could understand what was the damage incurred through Hurricane Katrina that needed so much reparation.

Doug Thornton (01:47.918)
First, I want to make a minor correction. It's now the Caesar's Superdome. Caesar's replaced the Mercedes as the sponsor two years ago. the damage that was incurred during Katrina was mostly to the exterior roof. The roof itself is 9 .6 acres, and we lost probably a third of it. When I say lost, I mean the outer shell, the membrane that protects the roof.

protects the stadium from water failed and allowing massive water penetration into the stadium. And of course, you know, there's a steel deck, a sheet metal deck that is between the steel frame and the outer membrane of the roof. And that membrane, when it blew off, exposed the sheet metal decking, which also failed. So imagine in your home, if you had rain pouring in through your ceiling,

What would it do to your drywall, to your carpet, to your electronics? Well, people ask me all the time, how could it be a $225 million restoration? Well, think of the damage it would do in your home. We've got a lot of electronics. We've got 2 million square feet of space. So all of the carpet, all of the ceiling tiles, all of the drywall, all of the furnitures and fixtures had to be replaced. So think of it in those terms.

in terms of the damage.

Steve Feuerstein (03:18.759)
You know, I'm going to do my opening once more just to cover us on the Caesars. Mercedes had two sponsorships as Stadia.

Doug Thornton (03:26.168)
Well, there's still a sponsor in the club lounges or in the Mercedes -Benz club lounge, which is our field level suites, but Mercedes -Benz naming rights agreement expired under its own terms a few years ago. And if you recall, they wound up sponsoring the Atlanta stadium, which is now called the Mercedes -Benz stadium. now, so, Cesar's has been the naming rights sponsor for

Steve Feuerstein (03:47.783)
That's right. Right, so you're right. I remember that very clearly. Yeah.

Doug Thornton (03:55.854)
the Superdome for the last two years.

Steve Feuerstein (03:57.031)
And we're talking the casino in, no.

Doug Thornton (04:01.748)
casino in Las Vegas and we've got a Caesars Harris here in New Orleans land -based casino right down the street.

Steve Feuerstein (04:08.565)
Okay, so you know what, I'm gonna do my intro again, just so that we got you while we do. Thank you for that clarification, my apologies for the error. once again, I won't do it once again. So it is an honor to welcome Jay Douglas, Doug Thornton, the Executive Vice President of Arena, Stadia, and Theaters at ASM Global to the Transaction Report. Doug, what an honor it is to have you on the program today.

Doug Thornton (04:37.102)
Well, it's great to be with you, Steve.

Steve Feuerstein (04:38.921)
So you had overseen the 200 and plus million renovation of the Mercedes -Benz Superdome, now known as the Caesar's Superdome, and Mercedes has engaged in its sponsorship in the stadium in Atlanta. I wanna get first and foremost into the issues of Katrina and you over...

you literally almost played the role of GC, general contractor, rebuilding a two million square foot stadium. And there was a lot to do after Katrina. My memory of Katrina was frankly of the remarkable job that the city had done in bringing folk who could not go back to their homes seeking refuge and being a shelter for those who were protected from a very, very, very

a vicious hurricane. But one thing that did happen is you had a roof that was deeply impacted by that storm. If you could just give us a quick overview of what was that damage and what role did you play in the rebuild.

Doug Thornton (05:53.102)
Well, it was very difficult time. The Superdome was forced to be a refuge of last resort. We housed over 30 ,000 people for period of five days. Most of the damage occurred due to the failure of the outer membrane of the roof, which, without getting too technical, sits over a sheet metal deck that's attached to the steel frame of the building. So imagine that roof peeling like an onion.

exposing the sheet metal deck to the 140 mile an hour winds. We lost about a third of our roof membrane in the sheet metal decking that sits underneath it, allowing massive water to penetrate into the stadium. And people, you know, ask me from time to time, well, how could it have been $225 million worth of damage? Well, you think about what would happen if you had water coming in through the ceiling of your home. It would affect everything inside, everything from

the ceiling to the drywall to the carpet, the furniture, your electronics, your television, anything that sits underneath that ceiling. Well, that's what happened here. And we have 2 million square feet of space. So we had a lot of electronic equipment. We had a lot of carpet to pull out. All the ceiling tiles were damaged by water. So we literally had to gut the building. We had massive mold too, something that people probably

wouldn't think about, but without conditioned air, without having HVAC, for several months, the water damage, of course, creates mold. So we had to remediate that mold by taking out all the areas that were wet and damaged. So was a massive rebuilding project. It was quite simply the largest reconstruction project of a stadium of its kind in the world for something like this.

It took us remarkably less than a year. And, you know, there's a lot of stories behind that. You mentioned some, you know, earlier, but, you know, our goal was to play a football game on September 25th, 2006, one year after Katrina. And we did that. And it was literally our stake in the ground here in New Orleans to say we're back. And it was the momentum that the city needed to go on and recover and be rebuilt to have what we have.

Steve Feuerstein (08:21.565)
What was the sources of that cap?

Doug Thornton (08:23.854)
Most of it was FEMA. know, FEMA has a disaster assistance program that they utilize to support cities and states. It's a very, should I say, bureaucratic process because it's all regulated, highly regulated, so it made it very, very complex. FEMA pays to replace things that are damaged by water or by wind. They don't pay to upgrade.

In other words, if you have ceiling tiles that are damaged by water, they'll replace the ones that are damaged, but they may not match the ones that are not damaged. So we couldn't have that. So we used a supplemental source of funding. We had to refinance our bonds here at the stadium district to come up with $65 million in new capital to basically use that as a, what we call an improved project in those areas that

were affected by the storm, but FEMA wouldn't pay to match. We had to supplement that to replace those, in my illustration, the ceiling tiles that were damaged by water and those that were not. And then the NFL came in with $20 million to help us through the New Orleans Saints as part of the disaster relief. So those were the three principal sources of funding.

Steve Feuerstein (09:43.977)
What about the corporate community? Was there any corporate?

Doug Thornton (09:45.87)
The corporate community stepped in in a big way to support the team. This is a, then it was the Mercedes Superdome, now it's the Cesar Superdome, but it's a state -owned building. the corporate money was needed to help the team get back on its feet because the city had been devastated. At the time, the decision was made to rebuild the

Caesar Superdome, were 40 ,000 people living in New Orleans. Think about that. That was November of 2005, 90 days after the hurricane had damaged the city. There were questions as to whether or not the team would return. There were questions whether the Superdome could be rebuilt. And I always say there were three people that took the blind leap of faith with us. The first was our governor at the time, Kathleen Blanco. She basically

signed an executive order allowing the district that we represent to take over the project and run it. The second was Paul Tagliabue, who was the commissioner of the NFL at the time. He was magnificent as a leader and stood by us the entire time. He understood the power of the NFL brand and what it would mean to step in and help and to bring the team back. And the third was Tom Benson.

Steve Feuerstein (10:54.205)
Hmm. Sure.

Doug Thornton (11:12.718)
He was in effect an ex -op. They were playing their games in San Antonio in 2005. They had three games that they played at LSU that year just to keep the connective tissue with Louisiana. he had to make a decision at a time when there were only 40 ,000 people living in the city, whether or not he could bring his team back, whether there'd be a market to support it. Those three individuals jumped in.

and took that leap of faith with us. And then nine months later, we had the remarkable reopening of the stadium in 2006 and it was completely restored. I remember saying to some of the league officials that we think we can have it ready to go. We may not have all the carpet in the suites. We may have to serve the food off of folding tables, but we'll play football. And you know what, by the time we opened,

We didn't have carpet in the suites and we had folding tables and no one cared. None of our customers, none of our fans cared. You know why? Because they were dealing with that same sort of recovery in their own homes. So they accepted it. it was, you know, they were just so happy to be back. But anyway, that's the quick sort of recap on Katrina.

Steve Feuerstein (12:13.971)
Hmm.

Steve Feuerstein (12:30.973)
You know, when you look at the evolution, just to give our viewers an understanding, in a synopsis of the decades that have coupled together to evolve stadia, right? So if we go back, we had an amphitheater, if we go way back, and we look at how, frankly, structures have survived thousands of years as amphitheaters, when you look at modern stadia of the 20th century.

They were built as a utilitarian. There's a lot of utilitarian built. Get bodies into seats and let them engage in one fundamental, and that is, let me watch the game. And then obviously concessions started to become a factor of importance. And then there was a, in time over the decades as we evolved into the 21st century, it almost became like a fashion show. Who has what concessions? How much are they charging for concessions in that venue?

and how much pleasure or quality of life can I have at a particular venue. You had mentioned to me off camera that we went into the 70s and 80s and there was a transition that took place from more of what I'll call the utilitarian structure of venue to, as you mentioned, much more focus on the corporate sponsor.

Doug Thornton (13:52.718)
Yeah, what I find fascinating about our business is the evolution of the stadium and arena, the facilities that we have today. And the way I think about it, Steve, is these buildings are constructed to have a 30 -year useful life. They're usually financed and bonded over a 30 -year period. The team leases are a 30 -year period with extension options.

And somewhere in that half -life, let's say that 12 to 15 year period, know, halfway through that 30 year period, they're being renovated and upgraded in today's world. We've seen an acceleration of that. There's a huge number of stadiums and arenas out there today that are going through major renovations. you go back into the 70s and you think about the evolution of the stadium. You're right. You know, go back to the Roman times. Stadiums were a place. Facilities were a place to...

to gather socially and watch competition. And how has that evolved, you know, since the, you know, the thirties and the forties and then the seventies. In the seventies, we had a number of stadiums that were built that were very modular. Think of the old Three Rivers Stadium and even the Dome Stadiums, the RCA Dome, the Astrodome. They were multipurpose. were, many of them were baseball, football, and they became obsolete in the eighties. Why? Because

commercialization came along with corporate sponsorship. People wanted to enjoy the game in a different way. So luxury suites and loach boxes became popular. And by the way, the Caesar Superdome was the first building to have box suites at a mid -level. If you remember, the old Astrodome had what they call sky boxes. Why would they call sky boxes? Because they were an aftermarket product.

back in the day they were sort of hung right below the rafters of the building so they were way up in the sky so they called them sky boxes but the Superdome was the first building back in the mid 70s to have 64 suites in a ring right above the plaza level but so the evolution of the stadium in the 70s and the 80s you know changed because of the commercialization and then we saw this proliferation of new stadiums and new arenas being built.

Doug Thornton (16:15.871)
And now those buildings are being replaced. And the reason is because the way people consume the product today is different. They're more social. They want to have more experiences. There are different product tiers within those stadiums. And many of them, when they were designed in the 90s, weren't capable of being expanded or adapted to the uses that we have today. So it's fascinating to me to see the evolution of the product.

Steve Feuerstein (16:44.871)
You know, it's also the evolution of the Jumbotron and you can't talk stadia today without talking about who has the bragging right to be called the stadium with the largest number of pixels on a screen to bring the most robust entertainment value to the fan in stadium. And as I think about that, I want to go to two aspects before we move along from your comment. The economics of building stadia

for the consumption of the corporate suite. How do we justify that? How do we satisfy a VIP and tell a team owner or the municipality who might own that, that this is worth expanding the VIP structure, the VIP viewing opportunities and hosting of corporate VIPs, because you're going to benefit financially.

Doug Thornton (17:40.558)
Well, it's an interesting question. And I think if you look around sports today, you see larger investments being made by the teams themselves. It used to be that these buildings were municipally funded and municipally owned to a large degree. They still are. But today we create special purpose entities that are quasi -governmental that can monetize the future taxes.

that are generated from these facilities, whether they be visitor taxes, occupancy taxes from hotels, rental cars, you see a number of those types of uses of funds to support. But you're seeing a larger percentage of investment by the NFL teams, by the NBA teams, because the revenue generation is so great, not just within the four walls of the building, but...

beyond those four walls. The justification for the municipality or the state entity that would be investing in a stadium is simply the ability to generate that economic return. Stadiums are demand generators for cities. Just think about the Caesar Superdome, what we've been talking about earlier. When it was built in the 70s, it was built as the...

way to generate tourism for the city. It was built as a module. It was originally designed to be a modular stadium to host conventions, baseball, football, all these different things. And the minute it was coming out of the ground, you had four hotels that were built in downtown New Orleans, and it literally reshaped the city. And New Orleans was literally put on the map as a big event host city because of the Superdome and has enjoyed.

almost 50 years of that now as a result. And that's why cities and states make investments or willing to put money in to these facilities because they're demand generators. And they not only host NFL games, they host college football playoffs, they host WrestleMania, they host Taylor Swift concerts, they do a number of different things that generate economy. And those taxes that are produced from that effort can be

Doug Thornton (20:07.126)
refundled back into the development.

Steve Feuerstein (20:11.335)
You know, it makes me think to my hometown of New York City and think, what is it about Yankee Stadium that has never been a magnet for any of that type of investment you just discussed? In fact, most people who don't live in that neighborhood would not stray a few blocks from Yankee Stadium at night after a late night game and feel comfortable if they don't have a lay of the land.

Doug Thornton (20:32.674)
Yeah

Steve Feuerstein (20:40.275)
because they might feel that their wellbeing could be compromised. how...

Doug Thornton (20:43.448)
Well, are certain there are certain stadiums, though, Steve, that, you know, look at Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium. Those are historic landmarks. And you couldn't take that stadium out of the Bronx and make it Yankee Stadium. You couldn't take Lambeau Field out of Green Bay and make it Lambeau. I think similarly, you can't take the Superdome out of New Orleans and make it be the Superdome somewhere else. And that is one of the reasons, by the way.

that there was such a passion by the local community to see it rebuilt because there's such a connection that is built over a 30, 40, 50, or even a 70 year period. I think Lambo is now approaching what, 65 years old, 75 years. So you can't replace that. You can't put that stadium somewhere else and have it be Lambo. It's iconic.

Steve Feuerstein (21:36.751)
It's iconic. It's iconic in a way, but what you didn't see is the economic revitalization or gentrification, if you will, of a certain environment. Whereas in other locations, as you mentioned, a magnet for four hotels around your stadium, and as a result, some form of uplifting of a particular community. I want to go to the sponsorship side for a moment. What was it in your assessment, Doug, that the trigger, it's so interesting.

that you see corporate dollars really in the 90s start coming into what we call naming rights of venues. There were some that preceded that. But when you look at the college landscape and you look at the professional landscape, you really chart to the mid late 90s all the way through where we started to see 20 year deals for different types of stadiums. What changed from your experience? And this was an experiential.

retrospective for you. What happened that's where did this impetus of recognition that there was something to brand and wow what a gold mine for who's never whose ever name is behind it.

Doug Thornton (22:53.486)
things in my opinion. One, 1984 Olympics, Peter Yuberoth. He was the first individual to basically commercialize a sports entity or sports organization, changed the landscape. If you think about it, pre -84, 1984, you didn't see commercialization in sports. just wasn't as big a deal. But I think that was a game changer when he introduced

Steve Feuerstein (23:08.125)
made a profit.

Doug Thornton (23:23.086)
sponsorship to the rings, the five rings, the Olympic movement. And then the second thing that comes to mind is the evolution of television. ESPN on cable, and then you have, now you have streaming, and again, the way that brands can interface and connect with the consumer. I think those two things come to mind in terms of the acceleration of name and,

name entitlements, as well as just general sponsorship of sports organizations. And the live experience, you know, there aren't many places that, you know, in terms of television, from programming standpoint, there aren't many places where you can have uninterrupted viewing. know, David Hill, the former CEO of Fox Sports used to say it was the last, know, sports is the last.

greatest drama on live television. So people are glued to it. the sponsors want to be able to get those eyeballs during the play.

Steve Feuerstein (24:33.481)
It's a really interesting, I never thought of it before that you look at the founding of ESPN in 79. Then obviously you had subsequently Fox Sports and other brands that started to become TNT Sports, other brands. And then you're saying we had kind of this period of buffer period to gain that recognition that there was all this television coverage you're gonna get as a, first of all, first and foremost, the ability to reference.

Welcome to the X, Y, and Z Superdome, right? So in your present iteration.

Doug Thornton (25:09.624)
Yeah, well, I think in the beginning, the naming rights were really for brand awareness, you know, for products that were looking to make the public aware of what they sell. And they were consumer brands. think about it, you know, the beginning. But now what you're seeing is companies that have or want to have a B2B relationship with the team. So there's an interaction between that brand and

football team, whether it be access to their database, access to their season ticket holders, utilization of their product or through it. Absolutely.

Steve Feuerstein (25:47.869)
Also utility, mean utility products in the form of brands that are saying, listen, you can benefit from using my product. There's a win -win mutually beneficial relationship is very often sponsorship was very much a one -sided, I will pay for the rights. You're receiving my capital, my revenues. But at the end of the day, I'm not really gonna see necessarily an immediate return because you're using Verizon as your primary.

your primary carrier, and there's a lot to come with that or the technology that I have to offer. You're now incorporating that into your overall superstructure of your bigger business. So you're saying what has changed in title sponsorships of venues and arenas is that it's become a more ingrained collaborative relationship and a more B2B, not necessarily a B2C.

What's the consequence of for that for the team? Is it a better relationship? Is there less churn that you would anticipate as a result of that?

Doug Thornton (26:51.214)
I think so. I the old way was what you said earlier. was, know, the brand wanted awareness, the brand would pay the team or pay the facility. Today, it's a much more collaborative, interactive relationship, a more B2B type opportunity. And brands want to find ways to connect with that consumer in real time. It's not just putting their brand on television, you know, during a football game and buying a

and add during the time out or doing it on the website of the sports organization. It's much more interactive with the fan. They want to be involved with that fan engagement.

Steve Feuerstein (27:30.633)
So, Caesars, let's take their, how many years have they been your title sponsor now? Two years. How many years were you with Mercedes? 10. 10 -year deal, and again, public information. What was that publicly released number?

Doug Thornton (27:34.239)
years.

10.

Doug Thornton (27:43.704)
Well, we don't like to release the dollar amounts, but five to seven million a year for Mercedes, and the Cedars is way north of that, okay?

Steve Feuerstein (27:48.489)
Can you give me a range of where we would sit? Okay, five to seven million, that's just right. Yeah, of course, so we're talking about five to seven million back in, we're going back to 2012, approximately, and that was just rights fee, Doug. Right, so what do you typically see from your expertise? What do you typically see that a brand, or what would you recommend? What do you see? And is it a shortfall where you feel they need to do more?

Doug Thornton (28:00.974)
That's correct.

That's right.

Steve Feuerstein (28:16.519)
What would they usually go in activation? What would they spend above and beyond to maximize what they pay for?

Doug Thornton (28:20.488)
gosh, that's a question for the marketing department of those brands, but it's probably three, it's probably 10X of that. mean, it's amazing, because they have to activate, you know, and they're going to figure out a way to integrate, you know, the entitlement that they have at a stadium with their whole advertising campaign. And in the case of Caesars,

You know, they're interested in capturing customers. want, you know, they want to be able to have access to the database. They want to be able to bring their customers to the casinos. They want to be able to use the sports betting app. So for them, you know, their view is a little bit different than say, a Mercedes who is looking to maybe brand a particular type of vehicle and capture an audience, say between 30 and 40 years old with a new product. So

They're going to spend millions of dollars trying to get to that consumer that may be within that profile of the sports team.

Steve Feuerstein (29:26.665)
You know Doug, I can think of only on a handful of times. I used to own professional sports events and professional golf, ATB, WTA, tennis, many other sports. And when I had a brand that was with me for 10 years, one of the most difficult aspects of the discontinuation of a contract is that all of sudden people get very familiar with the name of the event. Now we're talking about a venue. As you said, guys like us who are in the sports marketing business, in our case SportsBiz, that owns this,

this broadcast called the Transaction Report, we're in the business of building software with AI throughout the match maximizing measurement of sports sponsorship, of how to empower brands, we're not getting enough out of their sponsorship, what to do when they've, how do they optimize, how do they maximize, and then that holy grail, don't give me a subjective number, I want objective understanding of what I got in value from my sponsorship. One of the hardest things we always talk about is when staple centers,

changed its name to crypto .com. First of all, the multislavic nature with .com in it makes it difficult for a consumer. It's a big ask for a consumer. And I want to let's not stick with your transition, but let's go to staples and crypto. For many people, it takes years upon years upon years to get out of their embedded mind.

that it's no longer a Staples Center. I'm gonna meet you at the Staples Center, we're gonna go to a concert at the Staples Center. There are multiple types of sports events taking place there. It's a landmark in the city. How do you ultimately profess to bring the value that a brand wants to own from day one, but when those who are selling, by the way, since you are, this is your purview of that transition from Mercedes to Caesars.

Who did you empower to sell the naming rights, by the way, to bring in Caesars?

Doug Thornton (31:17.312)
team, the team was responsible for that primarily, the Newport Saints. Well, because they control the marketing rights here at the facility. So they're granted those rights under their stadium use agreement. So the team took the lead. The in that particular instance, sports betting has become a that's sort of the next frontier. It's the next adventure for many of these teams. And there's a race among

Steve Feuerstein (31:20.168)
Why is that?

Doug Thornton (31:46.882)
the casino brands who have sports betting to capture those customers. So it was a targeted category. And of course, there's land -based casino gaming in New Orleans. And it was really the team who targeted Caesars as a potential sponsor. So.

Steve Feuerstein (32:10.897)
And you mentioned earlier the actual stadium is still owned by the city.

Doug Thornton (32:16.75)
yes. yeah. Basically, the Saints have the ability to market and sell sponsorship within the Superdome itself. And that includes the name and title rights. And Mercedes agreement had expired. So we were looking for a new sponsor. And Caesar's looking to get, like I said, a larger share of the market in terms of the sports book and

the gaming space, which is very active space now. You see it's not only penetrating professional sports, but you see it in college sports to a large degree. So the Saints took the lead on that. And of course, we participated with them, you know, in the activation of the the Caesars sponsorship. But you

Steve Feuerstein (33:08.317)
What does that exactly mean, Doug, when you say you participated as ASM and you're now, there was just obviously in the last two weeks an announcement of an acquisition of your organization by Legends and we'll get into that in just a moment. But when you say that you participated in the activation, could you give some examples of what that means for our listeners?

Doug Thornton (33:26.124)
branding inside the stadium. have to look at where we're going to brand, how we're going to brand. We make that decision with the team and with the sponsor. Again, they're trying to attract a certain customer and we will work with the team and the sponsor on where they think that their branding should be placed, what it should look like.

Steve Feuerstein (33:31.859)
How do you make that decision?

Steve Feuerstein (33:37.725)
How do they know what's optimal?

Doug Thornton (33:56.024)
the imaging that they want to convey. And it goes beyond that. It's everything from the website and how it looks, how it feels to the integration of the Wi -Fi when you walk into the stadium and the splash page. So all of that has to be sort of collaborated among the sponsor, the team, and the operator of the building. And that's how we got involved. Same thing with Mercedes when they were the sponsor. So activation.

on game day, activation on non -saints games. All of that sort of falls within our realm to work with the team to make sure that we're delivering on the brand promise that they've committed to with Seaswitch.

Steve Feuerstein (34:40.329)
You know, from your own personal experience, have you ever walked into the stadium and you said, dang, they did that so well. Is there an activation you could share with our viewers here?

Doug Thornton (34:48.726)
yeah. Well, you know, there are many that come to mind in terms of branding. mean, SoFi is an incredible facility, you know, has so many beautiful attributes. That's one that comes to mind.

Steve Feuerstein (35:04.905)
What about in your own stadium with respect to Caesars and where you said, you know, that fan engagement or some form of benefit, a call to action that, and by the way, capacity is what at the stadium? 72 ,000. So you got a full capacity stadium, 72 ,000 folk, very eager to support the team. And there's a captive audience and Caesars is saying,

Doug Thornton (35:16.878)
72 ,000.

Steve Feuerstein (35:28.273)
We want to engage them. have a capital. I want them to have a call to action now. Is there anything over this embryonic stage of the first two seasons that they've been a part of it that you can think of that said, you know, that was really well done?

Doug Thornton (35:39.214)
Well, I think the first thing that would come to mind is when you walk in the building, if you're on the Saints app, you're going to get an introduction to the Caesars logo and to the Caesars link. So you could become a potential customer of Caesars. they want to be able to, it's all about the loyalty with these sports gaming brands. Once you...

download the Caesars app, you're not gonna download the MGM app. You're gonna bet on the Caesars sports book app. So that sort of activation, I think, has been pretty popular. And that's what the brand wants. I mean, they wanna connect with the consumer and they want, when you think of placing a bet on a sports event, they want you to think of Caesars. So that is one thing that comes to mind. When you walk in the building and you're on the Saints app, you're gonna get an introduction to the Caesars.

Steve Feuerstein (36:35.539)
Yeah, you you, you're, it's, I was thinking about your job and you handle not only football. I mean, you're, you're involved. How many overall stadium are you responsible for?

Doug Thornton (36:45.198)
Well, in my division there are 106 accounts. We have seven NFL stadiums, 72 arenas, and 57 performing arts theaters. So it's quite a diverse ecosystem. They're not all created equal because they're A, B, and C markets, know, large, mid -size, and small. And many don't have sports teams. Some have minor league sports teams. So it's very diverse ecosystem.

Steve Feuerstein (37:13.565)
the distinction among, can you give us an example of the different sport we got, NFL, some of the, obviously you've worked with the Final Four, so many times, four times at the Superdome, so you have NCAA basketball. What other sports do you work with in specific stadia?

Doug Thornton (37:18.904)
Yes.

Doug Thornton (37:22.522)
yes, many times.

Doug Thornton (37:32.43)
Everything from this year we hosted the Olympic gymnastics trials at the Target Center. We had the Big 12 wrestling and the national NCAA wrestling championships at the T -Mobile Center in Kansas City. We'll do WrestleMania in our buildings. We do Monster Jam in all of our stadiums. do other non -tenant sports. The Bayou Classic here is a big football game.

between Grambling University and Southern University. We'll do bowl games in our stadiums, Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium, the Sugar Bowl here. So a number of different sports products, not just tenant events, but non -tenant events as

Steve Feuerstein (38:19.815)
and you're the management group to make sure that logistics, operationally, electricity, scoreboards, everything to do with operations at venue is under ASM's purview?

Doug Thornton (38:33.176)
That is correct. are managing all of those things from the recruitment of the guest services personnel, when you walk in the door, the ticket scanners, the people that are escorting you to your seats, to the security of the building, IT, all of the video production, all of the internet service. I mentioned the splash page, you know, when you walk in and you're on the Saints app.

All of that is under our purview and the booking responsibility. That's a big responsibility for us, the procurement of those non -tenant events. And it's not just sports, it's live concerts, it's lifestyle shows, it's festivals. We're in the business of recruiting all of that content so that we can generate revenue for our owners, which are typically municipal owners, and in some cases, they're team owners.

Steve Feuerstein (39:25.257)
Is that actually a liability on your books? Do you actually procure those and underwrite those?

Doug Thornton (39:31.382)
In some cases we'll co -promote with live event partners, Live Nation, AEG, Outback, other live music promoters. And in some cases we'll do the same thing with some of the non -tenant sports, whether it's ESPN.

Steve Feuerstein (39:47.134)
If we take the final four as an example, is that something that you're actually soliciting to the end date?

Doug Thornton (39:51.022)
Well, would work, that's a different animal altogether. Final Four, Super Bowl, WrestleMania, those are what we call bid events. And what happens there is the Final Four, the NCAA will issue a bid specification that will be probably 100 pages with exhibits. And they will ask cities to submit bids. So we would work with not only the team here, the New Orleans.

Steve Feuerstein (40:16.425)
state, but you have a state.

Doug Thornton (40:18.296)
But we have, well, we would have the Convention of Visitors Bureau who would help us assemble the hotel requirements. We would have our sports commission that would handle all of the logistical planning outside of the stadium, the bus movements, the practice facilities, the procurement of all of that. So you have to put a bid in for those events, whether it's Super Bowl, Final Four, WrestleMania, World Cup. Those are bid events that require not just the stadium manager, but the family of the destination, so to speak.

coming together and putting together the best offer to be selected.

Steve Feuerstein (40:53.501)
And who's usually leading that bit?

Doug Thornton (40:55.692)
It's usually the Sports Commission or the Convention and Visitors Bureau because they have the ability to integrate with not only the city or the parish or the county in our case, the parish in Louisiana, the only state in union that has parishes. But it's usually the Convention and Visitors Bureau or the Sports Commission that leads it. We're a partner in that team. Of course, the New Orleans Saints in this case would be a partner in that as well because they control the marketing rights and

So many of these events require their sponsors to be able to coexist or they want to be able to cover certain signage.

Steve Feuerstein (41:34.013)
The venue, largest amount of staff required to operate a venue, which venue under your management group that you handle, which has the large, which one please?

Doug Thornton (41:43.214)
Easy answer. NRG Park, have not only the stadium there, but we have a very large, I think it's 650 ,000 square foot convention center. It sits right across the street. And we have an 8 ,000 seat arena on campus. It's probably our most active facility campus because you have the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo that does 21 straight days of events and they consume the entire 300

Steve Feuerstein (41:47.24)
energy.

Doug Thornton (42:13.006)
20 acre park. mean, they've got an outdoor carnival that goes on. They have a big show every night, not just the rodeo, but they'll have a live performance. They'll have over 2 million guests in 21 days. So that building, I think we have 230 full -time employees here at the Caesar Superdome would probably be second. We have about 210 because we manage three facilities. We have the Smoothie King Center next door, which is obviously the home of the Pelicans. And we have Champion Square, which are

which is our outdoor, I call it urban amphitheater that can seat up to about 6 ,000 people.

Steve Feuerstein (42:48.041)
And the 200 plus, is that, what about game day? Are we talking? Yeah, please.

Doug Thornton (42:50.958)
game death, it's totally different. 3 ,000 people to run a football game, typically, on game death. Yeah.

Steve Feuerstein (42:57.769)
So take us that fascinating 3 ,000 folk and they're not occupying the seats. These are functional operational staff.

Doug Thornton (43:07.054)
I joke with our staff, I remind them that on any given Sunday, we are the equivalent of the seventh largest city in the state of Louisiana for about six hours when we have 72 ,000 people here. Think about that. And we have all of the trappings that a city would have. We have all of the services. We have our own food service, our own restaurants. We have our own way to remove trash during the game, like you would have in your city. We have our own jail. We have our own security department. We have our own guest services.

You know, domestic water system, all of that has to come together on a game day to support the infrastructure. And then you need 3 ,000 people to run it. There are about 1 ,500 stadium workers that would be your police, fire, security, your guest services. Think about it, for 68 ,000 people, you need ushers, you need guest services personnel, you need ticket takers.

And then you go beyond that, there's probably an equal number of food service personnel. We start batch cooking here at 4 a on a Sunday for a 12 o 'clock kick. So we have workers coming in in the overnight hours to start the prep. And then the stadium comes to life. roughly, you know, ,500 other service workers that are doing food service. And you've got your broadcasts. I'm talking about people that running the video boards, your game day production, your team related personnel that are required.

All in all, it's about 3 ,000 people here. It could be more than that in places like SOFI that have larger capacity and more access control points. So it's a big operation, a lot to coordinate.

Steve Feuerstein (44:46.439)
How many of those are unionized?

Doug Thornton (44:48.878)
Depends on the jurisdiction. We have a union staff here of our 210 full -time personnel. There are about 55, I think, that are engineers, operating engineers, mechanical folks that are running our central plant that are part of the trade unions. In jurisdictions like Minneapolis, all of them are unionized in both the part -time and full -time.

Steve Feuerstein (45:12.393)
So if I'm doing some elementary math, and we have 3 ,000 people, and we factor out, let's just say for the sake of discussion, minimum wage and then a certain cadre, you know, a union rate, let's just say for the fun of it, I average out at 25 bucks an hour. At six hours, as you said, I'm at 150 per person, minimally, minimally. So I'm very low. Yeah, I am.

Doug Thornton (45:36.878)
We're trying to figure out what it costs to run a stadium on game day. It's roughly between, I would say on the low end, 750 ,000 on the high end. It's probably like 1 .6 to 1 .7 depending on the jurisdiction.

Steve Feuerstein (45:50.825)
My 25 was definitely, well actually my 25 at 3 ,000 brought me to, I was 150 so I was at 450, so I was definitely low on that.

Doug Thornton (46:01.102)
Well, it's because you're off a little bit on the time. Six hours would just be the time that we open doors and we close the doors. You've got to remember, we have staff coming in six, seven, eight hours prior to opening doors. So they're on the payroll for probably eight to 10 hours on a game day. Some of them will be multiple shifts. And then you have all your service, your subcontractors, the people. This is stuff that the fans never see, but just the removal of waste and trash.

Steve Feuerstein (46:18.035)
Do have multiple shifts? Okay, there we go.

Doug Thornton (46:31.118)
during the game. We will pull probably three different containers full of trash during a game, during a live football game. So you've got to pay for those, for the services to pick up the trash, the garbage and haul it away. Fans never see it because they're inside the stadium watching the game, but those are all the functions that are taking place. Just think about the amount of trash that 72 ,000 people generate. You know,

Steve, can usually for a concert or a football game, it's amazing. After the game, I can walk through the building and I can see how well or poorly we did that day with concession sales just by looking at the amount of trash that's in the building. It's amazing. You know, I can tell whether it's a $1 .8 million day or a $2 .3 million day because after you've been doing it for a long time, you just know, you know, you can feel it and you can see it just by the amount of trash that's been removed.

That's an interesting point that over the years, and I'm sure my colleagues in the business who run stadiums can do the same.

Steve Feuerstein (47:35.815)
You know, I'm gonna go back to the sponsorship side as we kind of come to our final aspect of our discussion. Let's go to the sponsorship side again. I'm Caesar's. We know that by the way, Mercedes headquarter for the United States is Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia. And they have a title sponsorship there for a stadium. Now that doesn't preclude them from continuing. They opted out two years ago or maybe without getting into it, it could be that the price for incremental

know, demand of what the next contract was going to look like might have been above their pay grade. I don't know, you know, and I'm not here to delve into that unless, of course, you'd like to discuss that.

Doug Thornton (48:15.81)
Well, I don't think it's any secret that the Mercedes Stadium sponsorship in Atlanta coincided with the relocation of their headquarters from New Jersey to Atlanta. And those are the kind of things that make these deals work. You know, it was a big economic development coup, you know, for the state of Georgia, you know, to get Mercedes to relocate. And often when you see those kinds of things happen, there's a residual benefit. In this case, I think

It was no coincidence that Mercedes wound up sponsoring the new stadium.

Steve Feuerstein (48:50.153)
When you look at the Caesars deal, and this is also an identical, I mean, usually I don't see too many 10 -year deals today.

Doug Thornton (48:58.062)
Well, I think in the case of Caesars, it was brought about because Caesars has a big presence here in the state of Louisiana. We have a land -based casino. They're building a 350 -room hotel. They're expanding their operation. So this is a big market for Caesars. And remember, we routinely host major events. We've got the Sugar Bowl, which is part of the college football playoff every year with the semifinals and hopefully

the CFP Championship on a rotational basis. We have the Essence Music Festival in the summer. We have Bayou Classic. We have a lot of non -saints related activities that draw people to the city. And of course, we're hosting Super Bowl in February of 2025. So those are all big reasons for Caesars to want to be aligned with New Orleans and with the Superdome in particular.

Steve Feuerstein (49:52.757)
And by the way, you mentioned, we're literally five months out, six months out from your Super Bowl. Is every day for you right now? Do you have that sense of almost, I know from an event management standpoint, if I'm six months out from an event of the magnitude you're involved in, and again, how many venues and arenas do you oversee? You heard?

Doug Thornton (50:15.022)
Seven, seven NFL stadiums, but 72 arenas and 57 performing arts theaters, but seven NFL stadiums.

Steve Feuerstein (50:23.273)
Okay, but you've got over 130 venues, you personally are responsible for ensuring that the buck stops with you on how business is managed. You got a Super Bowl coming up. Is it, give the viewer a sense of, is there a tension right now within your organization?

because of the seven you have run before, is there a sense that we know how to address this? It's like Patrick Mahomes going to another Super Bowl. What is it like for you at this month from an emotional standpoint?

Doug Thornton (50:57.624)
Well, every Super Bowl is unique in every city, but one of the benefits that we have as a company is that we have experience. We're coming off of two successive Super Bowls that were hosted in ASM facilities. State Farm Stadium two years ago, Allegiant Stadium last year, and New Orleans this year. And of course, Houston has, I think, hosted two, Jacksonville hosted one.

So we have a great deal of experience within our reservoir of talent. So I'm able to draw those people in to help with the planning for the Super Bowl that's upcoming in 2025. So that's one big benefit that our company enjoys that maybe others don't. The second thing I would say is that this will be, I think, our eighth in the Superdome. And it's not like, you know, we don't take it seriously, but

We have a plan that can be easily activated. One of the great things about Super Bowl is the NFL will bring in their planning staff and we start two years in advance, actually almost three years in advance in this case. So they know our layout. They've been here many, many times before. Of course that has to be adapted to the ever -changing landscape of Super Bowl. know, now we have on location, we have all these different activation areas.

the geographical footprint has to be reconsidered each time an event takes place in every city, but in particular New Orleans. But the great thing is we've got subject matter experts that have just come off two Super Bowls. Our staff from New Orleans was visiting State Farm in Allegiant during those two games and participating with the NFL on the planning exercise. So it's not new. Secondly, the NFL overlays their people and their subcontractors and the people that are

that have been doing this for 25, 30 years. And we've worked with them on multiple Super Bowls here in New Orleans. there's always an anxiousness with any big event. I tell people, if you don't get nervous when you're hosting a big event, you're not human. So yes, we take it seriously. And there's an immense amount of planning that goes into it. And we're having monthly meetings with the NFL group that's planning the Super Bowl. They'll be here in mid -September for the next planning session. They'll be...

Doug Thornton (53:22.318)
50 or 60 people that will break off and go do their thing. it's not only in the building, but around the city. So that effort has been underway now for quite some time. It'll come together.

Steve Feuerstein (53:33.161)
personnel wise, you mentioned 3 ,000 on an average day. What are we talking about for Super Bowl?

Doug Thornton (53:40.846)
It'll change. Just the credential press, think there's something like 7 ,000 credential members of the media. They won't all be in the stadium. Some will be outside. But know that you're talking closer to 7 ,000 to 8 ,000 credential workers that will be in and around this campus compared to a typical football game might be 3 ,000.

Steve Feuerstein (54:02.633)
I'd be remiss in inquiring about the VIP corporate hospitality and how much, what changes structurally? In other words, what additional incremental experience, even though everyone feels like a VIP, is there any material difference for those who are attending the game where there is more augmented, specialized at venue? I'm talking about specifically in venue.

Doug Thornton (54:25.144)
Well, what I've seen with Super Bowl in particular over the last five years is On Location, which is the brand that the NFL contracts with to activate that hospitality, has just exploded. You know, what they did in Phoenix, they have this massive land area, okay? So they could build tent structures and, you know, live music venues. And they had, I think, three live music venues on campus. So there's something for everybody. There's a different tier.

different product here. You can spend as much as you want and get the top of the line experience and literally be able to go on the field for the trophy presentation if you pay enough money. yes, there's been a complete evolution of that. Now one of the challenges we have, as with Allegiant last year, is we have a very tight geographical footprint around the Superdome and the Smoothie King Center. We're in a downtown environment. We're surrounded by high rises, so we don't have a lot of

landmass like Glendale, know, Phoenix, Arizona, where we had the Super Bowl two years ago. So we've got to sort of reimagine where those activation spaces will take place. And the NFL is in the process of doing that right

Steve Feuerstein (55:40.329)
Brilliant, Doug Thornton, what a privilege. What a fascinating life you've had. Obviously you were a college quarterback. You've been in this world a long time in managing the most, the highest profile events. Certainly one could argue outside of the quadrennials in the world. And you're as cool as a cucumber.

and I must say your ability to handle stress. You I was gonna ask you earlier, I am gonna close out by asking you this now. If you weren't, ostensibly the chief executive overseeing over 120 plus venues.

What are the, and we don't have to go to a list of top three, top five, but what does it take to be the Doug Thornton to be able to handle, which we all know in event management, you have stakeholders coming at you from every direction. You have live television production. You have demands of primadonnas who want perfection and demand perfection. You have miscues, you have force majeures. You have hurricanes, tornadoes.

You have rainstorms, you have floodings, you have refrigeration, refrigeration problems that cause food to go rancid. You have fights at venues, unfortunately, where people get very unruly. You have, and we could go on and on of what you must have as a list of just what it takes to not only crisis manage, put those aside, but just to functionally execute.

to deliver an A plus product. What are those elite skills if someone is looking at this to understand about the persona required to thrive?

Doug Thornton (57:35.342)
That's an interesting question. I'll digress a minute and I'll tell you when I was first hired for this job, the guy that hired me, I came from a sports promotion world. I was running the Sports Commission here producing events in the Superdome. And we had a fairly good size staff. Think of me as a sports promoter with Sports Commission. And I said to this guy, I you know, I've never I've never operated a stadium before. I don't know much about,

physical attributes I've never dealt, you know, that point in my career, I've never dealt with concert promoters. And he said, look, 25 % of this job is understanding the physical plant, you know, domestic water lines, the chiller systems. And he said, I can teach you that. And he said, you just need to know enough about that so that you can, you know, call BS on people that may try to, you know, pull the wool over your eyes. He said,

25 % of this job is managing people and you've done that. 50 % of this job is managing the politics and the stakeholders and I cannot teach you that, you either have it or you don't. So I've always been reminded of that conversation as I talk to people that are coming up in the business. Instincts are very important and the ability to, we're in the people business, Steve.

You know, we interact every day with guests, interact every day with politicians, we interact every day with sports teams. So having the instincts to make those right decisions. Now, I'm also reminded of a story I heard about Sam Walton once. was speaking, the story goes, he was speaking at the Harvard Business School and a student raised his hand and said, Mr. Walton, how did you become so successful? He said, two words, right decisions.

And the student accepted that and Walton continued. the student raised his hand. said, well, how did you make all those right decisions? Walton says, one word, experience. Students kind of scratched his head. Well, how did you all that experience? And he said two words, wrong decisions.

Steve Feuerstein (59:43.778)
Hehehehehe

Excellent.

Doug Thornton (59:53.102)
So over my career, have, you know, we've all made wrong decisions, but you learn from those wrong decisions and you course adjust. The other thing I would tell you, Steve, is that it does take a village, okay? We have 5 ,000 employees in the division that I oversee. As you said, over 130 facilities. Each of those facilities has a general manager. Each of those general managers have a regional VP that they report up to.

Each of those regional VPs have a senior VP. So we have a very structured organization. And one of the things that makes us unique is that we collaborate, we share information, we have best practices, and we're learning from those experiences. Like I said, they may be wrong decisions. If they're wrong decisions, we move on. If we have occurrences that take place in our buildings, we course adjust. So the ability to share that.

information among those 130 general managers is powerful. It gives us business intelligence, it gives us benchmarking, you know, in terms of our revenue production, which only benefits our clients and benefits our stakeholders. So I know it's a long -winded answer, but instincts are important, learning from your mistakes and having good people on the team.

Steve Feuerstein (01:01:08.819)
Doug, I'm gonna weave this question in earlier into our discussion, but I have to share something with you. First of all, the Walton story is genius. It's so beautiful. It really is the cumulative experience from the challenges, from the incredibly difficult, unexpected obstacles we confronted that ultimately leads to expertise. And then of course, being the man who fell down five times and got up each time to rise and go up another rung on the ladder.

I'll confide in you something that happened to me in earlier part of my career in event management. And that is we had Michael Chang at the time, who is probably number four in the world on the ATP ranking, playing Michael Shtish, who had just won Wimbledon. And this is in a venue outside of Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. And we had a seven o 'clock open of the doors. And I kid you not.

The fans, Michael Chang was like Michael Jordan on steroids at the time. He was a Chinese American, the most famous Chinese athlete in the world at the time. And literally, the fans were lining up and they broke down the doors to the venue to rush the venue and claim seats. And we had VIP, I think Diners Club was the title sponsor of the time, or Citi, can't remember, one of the two.

Doug Thornton (01:02:21.058)
Mm.

Steve Feuerstein (01:02:27.631)
and they literally overtook the people who had not yet been established in literally ushering those seats and sat in all the VIP seats that were allocated to that particular title sponsor's seating. And I can tell you, I had to have been on the verge of a panic attack. It was, my heart was racing. I was almost asphyxiated.

There was a young lady whose face was up against the glass of the entrance of the facility. There were two policemen inside who would not go out. I, the embryonic stages of my China, I went over in 89 to learn Chinese, then started my company in 90 in Asia for 13 years. I literally came out in my early stages of Chinese in Mandarin and said on the count of three, we're moving back, someone's gonna die right now. I'd like to ask you, because you are so calm, cool, and collective,

Can you reflect on your 40 plus year career and name a moment that just things didn't go according to the plan, your heartbeat elevated, maybe others didn't see it, but you can still recall that moment and say that was a defining moment in what Sam Walton would say, that there was something that didn't go according to plan.

Doug Thornton (01:03:47.726)
There's no question about it. The one moment for me was when we had the electrical failure during the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 47 in 2013. And everybody had a chance to see it. It was, even though it wasn't our fault, it became our problem. As it turned, we didn't know what had happened at the time of the occurrence, but as it turned out, it was a faulty relay switch in the power company's

switch gear, is about a quarter mile from the stadium that car.

Steve Feuerstein (01:04:19.721)
Doug, would you just, just to give the viewers a little context, just give us a quick 30 seconds context. Where were we? When did it happen? Who was playing who?

Doug Thornton (01:04:28.814)
It happened Super Bowl 47. was Ravens against the 49ers. Harbaugh, Harbaugh Bowl, we called it. The two Harbaugh brothers were coaching and it was right after halftime. Jacoby Jones had just run the kickoff back and Beyonce had just finished an incredible performance. Everybody thought that might be the reason the lights went out, had nothing to do with Beyonce show. But as we were

bringing house lights back up, Jacoby Jones. mean, literally the smoke from all the pyro was still, you know, in the air when he ran the kickoff back and then the lights went out. And what made it so compelling was CBS, who was broadcasting the game, was filming an interview with Frank Zapavitz. I was standing right next to Frank. Frank is the guy who, he was VP of special events for

the Super Bowl for the NFL at the time and think of him as the game producer, right? He's leading it and I'm standing right next to him in the house controls area. We're looking down at the field, the lights go out and Frank turns to me while he's on camera. Doug, what just happened? And I turned to him and this is on 60 minutes now. You can go Google it. I said, Frank, I think we just lost the A feed, meaning the entire west side of the building is fed from what we called A feed of the electrical circuitry, the B feed.

is what powers up the east side of the stadium. So literally half of the building went dark. And he says, what does that mean? I said, I think it means we have to do a bus tie procedure to connect the two so we can run the power off of the B feed now. How long is that going to take? I said, that's a 20 minute process. that was the moment for me. And what you said about your experience is the same thing I experienced for that moment.

Back when I think back on it, it was such a blur. I don't remember all the details. know, it was such a blur. you know what, when I tell people, and Frank's written a book about this, by the way, when I tell people about that experience is that we had thankfully gone through a tabletop exercise 10 days prior with the NFL, with all the law enforcement officials, and we drilled on several different

Doug Thornton (01:06:53.774)
examples of things like that that could occur that would be game stoppers. And because of that, we all remain calm. Now, like you, I mean, we've got an audience of 850 million people around the world and it's the middle of the Super Bowl. I couldn't breathe, you know, literally couldn't breathe. And I'm trying to think, OK, what do we do? Because all of a sudden I'm hearing from the people sitting behind me who are my staff and the NFL staff, things start coming over the transom.

Elevators are shut down. We don't have power in the concession stands. The home team locker room, which was the 49ers, is dark. They can't leave the field, which turned out to be a great thing for us because the team stayed on the field. The fans thought, well, as long as the players are on the field, we're going to re -zoom play. So things start happening really, really quick. And then you've got to decide, OK, how are we going to fix this? What's happening? We were prepared. We had people in our central plant.

monitoring the situation, immediately got with Entergy and Entergy was able to restore power because they bypassed, we didn't know it at the time, what had happened, but they bypassed the relay switch and allowed us to re -energize the western half of the building. So that was my moment and I'll never forget it. It was literally the scariest thing that's ever happened to me in my life. And then the aftermath, dealing with that for, you know, I didn't want to talk to people for three months.

I did not, serious Steve, it was very traumatic because you know, all the public associated you with was, hey the lights went out in your stadium. Well, they didn't care if it was interviews fall or if it was something that happened in the dome. just knew the lights went out at Super Bowl and you were involved. We saw you on TV. You know, so it was scarring, you know, I gotta tell ya.

You know, we joked and said, you know, wasn't our fault, but it became our problem and we had to deal with it. So you learn from those experiences. The NFL has since changed its whole game plan on how they protect against those kinds of occurrences. You can't ever be 1000 % certain that something's going to happen like that or something you could prevent it, but they can mitigate the risk. so they, you know, again, going back to the Sam Walton story.

Doug Thornton (01:09:17.506)
you learn from your experiences, you learn from the mistakes. So, Entergy, I think, will be much more prepared this go -around.

Steve Feuerstein (01:09:24.425)
So Doug, a testament to you today, Executive Vice President of Arena, Stadia, Theaters at ASM Global, obviously in the last several weeks acquired by Legends. The fact that you stuck to it, you evolved, you kind of embodied the Sam Walton, how do I become excellent in what I do? And you've got resolved. And what a pleasure it was to speak to you today on the transaction report.

Doug Thornton (01:09:51.63)
Thank you, Steve. It's been my pleasure to be with you. All the best.

Steve Feuerstein (01:09:54.493)
Yeah, and thank you. I really appreciate your extra time. Ryan's just going to come on and just close us out.