Steve (00:00.219) So I will in the moment do a formal, I'm gonna get my mind back to our, a formal welcome, but you know, the quote that you had was very, very deep. In fact, you know, what we can do is we'll just start right here and I'll do an intro at some point and we'll edit it. So, you you wrote something that touched me deeply and I think a lot about data. That's a world that I live in. I'd like to embrace it. Sandra (00:04.098) Yeah. Steve (00:28.901) More and more, my primary company is called SportsBiz, which is a sponsorship technology data platform, using AI in a way that where it can be deployed effectively to deploy it. The objective is gamifying data in a way that those who are stewards of their sponsorship budgets can better understand AEE, IE rather, those who are stewards of their sponsorship budgets, whether it's sponsorship manager. marketing director, brand manager, all the way up to the CMO, really understanding A, how to optimize choice and sponsorship. And that is I've got a hundred plus thousand choices of athletes, teams, leagues, events, venues. How do I know it's optimal? And then secondarily or subsequently, how do I actually maximize what I just, what I desire to do, optimize? You know, not all athletes are created equal, but there's gotta be one that's better for me than another. Number two, once I've optimized on maximizing, what do I do with what I just spent? Over $100 billion is spent on sports sponsorship annually. We just saw the Super Bowl and the amount of money spent collectively on almost 130 second plus spots. You're talking about an average of about 7.7 million. spend per 30 second spot plus about another six to 10 million on the actual production costs. And then finally, of the third the three M's that we operate in is the measurement area. How do you ultimately know what you got? So the match maximize measure, optimization, maximization and measurement. And your world of understanding and particularly your book, which is so fascinating. Sandra (02:05.166) or the door. Steve (02:21.18) Mind masters the idea of getting into and predicting behavior and of the human being in an era that may be four years ago if you had written this book Sandra people would have perhaps said really Really, we're really going down that path and then we have a seminal event with November 30 2022 which is that finally the third version of chat GPT Came out as a language large language model from open AI Sandra (02:34.894) Yeah. Steve (02:49.538) and the world has forever changed. That's a lead-in to a quote you had. Data doesn't change, but leaders do. And I had to meditate on that for a little bit. And then your citation about Nazi Germany and the reference, although we could have a, it's not political discussion, but you referenced 1938 as being Germany as a democracy. Well, Hitler had already come into power in 33. Sandra (03:04.524) Yeah. Sandra (03:13.102) in. Steve (03:19.024) had completely cleansed academia of virtually every Jewish leader it had in the country. The brown shirts were vast and pervasive. But at the same time, as you said, it was democracy, data doesn't change, leaders change. Let's go deep into that for a moment. Sandra (03:41.004) So for me, it's like one of the most important takeaways of the book, to be honest. And it's something that oftentimes comes up in response to like people saying, like, I don't care about my privacy. I don't care about my data because I have nothing to hide. And I benefit from all of the perks that data gives me when it comes to convenience, personalization. And I really don't feel that bad about my data being out there. And my response to this is that First of all, it's a very privileged position to be in. I think that's the first thing that people need to realize. You not having to worry about your data being out there just means that you're currently in a really good spot. Because that doesn't apply to everybody. If I can predict things about you, like your political ideology or sexual orientation, those are kind of characteristics that are still in parts of the world and could lead to a death penalty. there's, even when we start into here now, I think there's something that we need to grapple with is that us not being worried about having our data out there is just a privilege that we get to enjoy right now. But then I think taking it a step further is it's also a privilege that you might not be granted tomorrow. Because the of the political landscape changes really quickly. And you mentioned Nazi Germany, right? So there's like from one day to the next, even though it kind of gradually developed. It was like a democracy where people felt somewhat protected and then suddenly it wasn't. There's no guarantee that this is not going to happen tomorrow in a different country with a different characteristic. And I think what we've learned from the time in Nazi Germany is data back in the day already, where it was obviously a lot less, already played a critical role in making the Jewish community vulnerable. So we know that across different European countries, for example, Religious affiliation was part of the census in some countries and it was not part of the census in others. And you can imagine that having this really intimate information as part of the census means that it was incredibly easy for the Nazis to come in, go to city hall, get the records, track down the members of the Jewish community, including names and address, and just go find them. And so the atrocities that we see across different European countries vary widely. Now, Sandra (06:00.664) To me, fast forward to today, you don't even need this to be part of the census, because you can easily predict it from all of the data traces that we leave. And you can say, well, but maybe the leaders of the big companies who are responsible for collecting this data, they would never share this data with the government. I think it's a risky gamble. First of all, we've, I think, seen over the last even kind of months in the US that there's a lot more friendly chatter going on between governments and industry leaders. And it would be so easy to replace those leaders, right? If you think back to Nazi Germany, if there were companies holding this data, like you bet that there would have been a way to replace these people at the top who might have been a barrier to getting access to the data. So I think this notion that we don't worry about data today is very short-sighted. And in the US, the example that is top of mind for me, was actually the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, which suddenly overnight for like millions of women in the US made kind of, think women in the US woke up to this reality of like my data being out there could actually be used against me. That could be anything from what do you search on Google? What do you search for on Google? Right? Like your GPS records, which track, which places you go to, maybe which clinics you visit. Maybe you kind of travel across borders. Maybe your purchase behaviors don't add up. with some of the Google searches that you made initially. there's all of this. I think that the danger is that we're so focused on, I don't worry right now, that we forget that the political landscape, leadership landscape changes quickly and data is permanent. Steve (07:43.389) It's so interesting, right before our discussion, I came across a video, I believe it was about 60 seconds in length, and it featured folk from Simon and Garfunkel with Art Garfunkel's arm around the shoulder of Paul Simon. It featured Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It featured a whole slew of individuals, Ben Stiller, Scarlett Johansson, and they were wearing a shirt, not my style, But on the shirt, there was no speaking. It just literally faded in and faded out these mega stars, mega personalities. And on the shirt was a middle finger in literally, you know, in the breast area with a picture of Kanye West. And it was basically saying, you know, F off Kanye West. And this comes literally, right on two days after the Super Bowl, during which he placed a 30 second ad, which drove people to a website. I forget it was something yeezy.com. And in the morning when everyone awakened on that website, there was nothing on it but one product for acquisition, which was a swastika. And obviously that site was immediately removed. Now he did this on the world's biggest stage promoting a singular product, a swastika. Now he's not a person in political power, but he wields an awful lot of power. A lot of folk do, and actually to what you said about, you know, hey, listen, I have nothing to hide. Number one, very often those folk are quite delusional and they might be the ones with the greatest amount of information. But secondly, when it came to Kanye West, what was so interesting is that people say, well, he's crazy. But he's crazy, but there a of people who enjoy his music, a lot of people who enjoy his iconoclast identity. And that power that he wields of literally being able to go on to the country's greatest stage, promoting one product, a Nazi swastika, speaks to the changing landscape of power. Steve (10:06.874) And I wanna couple that with a comment and why I referenced this 60 second spot that I saw of the reaction of the celebrities who almost all were Jewish wearing the shirt. When I finally saw Art Garfunkel with his arm around Paul Simon, I realized it was a deep fake. It hit me that that was not happening in that speed of time that they were gonna be able to produce that type of imagery and that type of embrace so rapidly. Sandra (10:15.068) in. Sandra (10:24.91) That was going to say. Steve (10:35.804) to come off with a meaningful response to Kanye, that it just immediately hit me that this was obviously constructed by AI. I then Googled it, and of course it was constructed by AI, and there was an article this morning, I think in the New York Post, just about it and its effectiveness, but again, being a deep fake. We live in a time, Sandra, as I look at that, where I call something after October 7th, 2023 and what happened in Israel as instantaneous revisions. Sandra (10:41.326) Yeah. Sandra (11:05.614) of history. Steve (11:06.128) that I was raised in an era of the Soviet era where the Soviets would go through a methodical process of revising history. But what I experienced after October 7th was that the facts that were happening to the second had folk representing what I would call enemies of humanity, revising events as they were occurring. So coupling these two factors, the ability to communicate falsehood as it occurs, simply because you have chosen to construct a message that is completely mythical, but you want to extend propaganda on an instantaneous revisionist moment. And then the second, the ability to use technology to create whatever you so choose to create. So therefore, does it even matter if data is out there? When in a world of singular image, a singular image of an individual, you and I can create a full length motion picture, having that individual do whatever we choose to do, say whatever we want them to say, that their data point becomes almost irrelevant. Sandra (12:20.046) I think it's, so for me, the critical part and I've been thinking about this a lot. So like the question that I constantly ask myself is like, is anything about what we see today? Like forget about AI. I think that's like the fact that we can now put falsehoods out there at like scale and with essentially like a finger snap, right? We kind of put like something prompt an AI and that's it. For me, the question is what's different about the propaganda piece? And the one thing that I worry about, and that's also where the data comes back in, is that we've always had propaganda, and they play on very similar ideas in terms of appealing to people's fears and so on. So I think that in and by itself is actually still very similar. What's different is that we have almost no collective oversight anymore, because oftentimes what happens is based on the data that they have about you and what I think you want to see. I target you with something so specific, but if I can create overnight a video of all of these stars, I can also create a video that's so specific to you and propaganda that's so specific to you that only you see it. Because I have the ways, I have the ability to target you and single you out and do the same thing with everybody else. And what the problem that this creates... is essentially even like if we kind of now talk about this video, but we can talk about the video and say, hey, we both saw it. I think this is propaganda. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe it's a deep fake, but we can kind of at least sit down and have a conversation. The moment that you see something that I don't even have insight into, right? So you might mention a video that you've seen and I think, well, sorry, can't, can't say anything to this because I haven't seen it. What I've seen is something totally different. I think that's where this, this idea of almost like resistance and kind of collective checks and balances breaks down entirely. kind of coming back to Nazi Germany, there was certainly propaganda, but there were still some groups who kind of took a look at the propaganda and said, this doesn't make any sense. Let's mobilize. The moment that our reality is so fractured that we can't have this conversation anymore, that I think is when propaganda becomes becoming really, really dangerous and combined with what you said and that we can now easily scale in. Sandra (14:40.274) I can easily scale millions of different versions of propaganda based on what I know is specifically worrying to you, what scares you the most, what you fear the most, how I kind of push your emotional buttons. I think for me that's a dangerous world to be in. Steve (14:57.894) So as we're gonna segue into the sports theater and how this can be used in a very effective way, I wanna posit a thought to you. We're living at a time where a broad cross section of the human race, particularly in the Western democracy of the United States, and it's been gradual. We've seen this graduation of folk needing to hear only what they can capacitate. Sandra (15:02.072) Yeah. Steve (15:27.194) psychologically so it doesn't disrupt their view of the reality they are constructing in their life. And I have given a lot of thought from my own simple vantage point that we're in the process of creating cones of what I would call parallel truth. So if you want to call it, you know, creating a universe where I'm not only being a recipient of the message, nefarious message that you just referred to, but I have actually opted into it by virtue of requesting those messages that you just said that have been constructed for me. I only wanna hear messages about a certain ethnicity or a certain subject in the framework for which I desire. because hearing it gives me so much visceral joy and satisfaction to see, you know, in a schadenfreude way, someone suffering so much whom I despise for whatever psychological reason I've chosen to opt into that prejudice, that I have created a universe of my truth. And I believe this is where media is going, that I will just go through check boxes and I will create my own algorithm that will feed me sources of influence, whether we call them mainstream media or quote unquote fringe outlier influencer. And as such, I will only receive what I have literally been the decicer for, and that is personalized algorithm created by the individual, hence receiving what I have constructed and I can live a life. in a parallelist fashion that is so divorced from reality, from truth on the ground. And I believe that's what we're in the midst of. Sandra (17:31.5) I mean, I think so. I think I give humans a little bit more credit than you might, but I do think it's part of human nature. Right. And on a psychological level, it does make sense. You see this in an offline context all the time, right? It's like something called homophily that we surround ourselves with people who are similar, just because it first of all makes the behavior of others more predictable. And it also kind of self, it affirms our identity, right? If we kind of hear stuff on social media, we read stuff on social media. that speaks to some of the beliefs that we have, that just kind of feels good. It's like it's a very comfortable place to be in. And I think you're absolutely right. And this is, also supported by research. It's kind of, which suggests that it's not just these algorithms putting us into these filter bubbles and echo chambers. It's partly that there's a demand from, from users. Now, the one thing that I've been thinking about a lot recently, if you kind of almost flip it and see is there any way that we could use technology to potentially help us deal with this fact that we kind of now live in these separate realities. And I do think that if I think about myself and if I think about a lot of the other people that I know, most of the time it's very comfortable in this filter bubble and echo chamber, right? So maybe 80 % of the time I'm happy to be in there, even though I know it might actually create a problem on a more collective level. But there's also these times where I'm itching. actually break out and see what it looks like from the point of view of someone else. So Roe vs. Wade, the example with the Supreme Court, I would have been so intrigued to see what do the search results on Google look like for someone who is like a diehard Republican somewhere in the middle of the United States who has a completely different view because I just don't understand it. Right. So I only live life with my own experience and that's what I can draw on when I make sense of the world. It would have been incredibly interesting to say, okay, here's like Where are they coming from? What are the things that they're seeing that might explain the views that they hold? And I do think in a way, the tech giants have almost like this unique opportunity here to offer us a way to break out of our own echo chambers and engage in something like, I call it like a perspective exchange or like an echo chamber swamp. if they, like, I don't have a direct insight into the reality of like this 50 year old Republican in Ohio. Sandra (19:50.786) But Google and Facebook, do, right? Because they have their perfect, not perfect, but like a pretty good algorithm that understands, here's the reality of that person. Here's what we're feeding them. Here's what they see on a day-to-day basis. Here's what they experience is like day-to-day. And they could give me access to those models. Right now, I only have access to my own model, right? So Google thinks I'm a specific person with certain interests and certain desires, and that's what they're optimizing for. But they could also allow me with my essentially like choice to say, well, today I just want to see what it looks like from the point of view of someone else. like even me defining who that someone else is, right? I could say, well, today I want to see what does it look like from a 15 year old teenager who lives in Brooklyn, because that's like almost the other extreme, but what does it look like from someone else? And I think that this is a, it's a way to expand our view on the world in a way that we've we've never really been able to do, right? I can travel, I can talk to people, and that's a great start, but it's kind of, it's not as easy for the vast majority of people to do, as opposed to kind of ticking a box on your Google search or your Facebook feed that says, yeah, just show me what other people see, and maybe use AI to explain it to me, right? And like, if you want to avoid this problem of, if I see it and I'm so appalled by it that I just dig in my heels and even deeper, maybe have someone walk. me through their reality and say, here's why they might be thinking differently to you about abortion. Here's why they might be thinking differently to you about immigration. now kind of, hope is that that would foster some kind of understanding that at least makes a dialogue possible again. Steve (21:31.037) So Sandra, this is where I get to say you as co-director for the Center of Advanced Technology and Human Performance and co-director of the Leadership Lab at Columbia Business School, your associate professor there as well. You and your husband are very cerebral. You are very research oriented. You wrote a book about algorithms during the debacle of Cambridge Analytica and at the time Facebook. Sandra (21:46.574) it. Steve (22:00.177) You're one of the core researchers understanding what just happened with Cambridge Analytica and what was that breach. I want to give you a very simple, simple thought to share and see what your reaction is. Go to a fan in Philadelphia who they just won the Super Bowl demonstrably. And now go to those vast number of Philly fans and say to them, you get the chance. Sandra (22:22.104) Yeah. Steve (22:30.064) to understand the mindscape of a New York Giants fan. If you can find me a singular Philly fan who's actually gonna look into the mindscape of me, a New York fan, and it's not for nefarious purposes, I want you to know you are truly a mind master. Sandra (22:30.584) to happen. Sandra (22:35.01) bit. Sandra (22:48.077) Will it? Sandra (22:57.57) Yeah. Man-meister. So I agree, right? So the question is like, would people use it all that often? Maybe not. I still want to have the option. So I still want to have the option. And this is coming back to this idea that we don't have any collective oversight. I want to have the option to hop into that echo chamber if for whatever reason. If I want to know if I'm a Philly fan and I want to see what are the giants plotting, I want to hop into that echo chamber for a second. So I do think that there's times when I have an incentive to understand what this looks like. But for me, the sports is actually like, it's an interesting, like it's an interesting context because there we know, for example, from like empirical studies that once you prime, not like a specific sports team, like an identity with like the Eagles, but you say, hey, you're all huge fans of football. That's like a way of uniting people, right? Because suddenly you make a different identity salient and you kind of tell people, Look, why don't you football fans unite against the hockey fans? Just making this up now. You can already tell that I don't know as much about sports in the US. But essentially, think for me, like, kind of sports is like one of these very interesting domains where we can play around with people's identity based on what we make salient. And there's studies like showing that once you make the, let's say the football identity salient, people are much more willing to help people from the other team, even though If you make the specific team identity salient, you're just not going to help them at all. So it's an interesting context. Steve (24:30.204) You jog my memory. I spent a year living as well, not only 13 years in the Far East, but also a year and out of London. I used to represent a lot of Premier League soccer players and rugby, cetera, et cetera. Globally, I want to share with you a fascinating study. It was about Manchester United fans. And what's interesting is, know this one, where they literally took a guy who was feigning illness on the street and they... Sandra (24:38.435) Yeah. Sandra (24:47.212) Yeah, I think that's probably it. Menu exactly. Steve (24:59.708) had him wearing a Man United jersey. And a whole bunch of folk from Man United went over to try to aid him and get him immediate medical support. They did the same reenactment, but actually with someone wearing another team's jersey. And the guy couldn't get help. It's the colloquialism that we have towards our specific teams and the mindset that we have in this kind of blind. Sandra (25:15.5) it. Steve (25:27.206) faithful way that we have towards supporting this. It's a very kind of at times toxic masculinity that goes into blindly following a team. And it's just a metaphor for anything that the human can experience with the choice always being there not to behave that way. So with this world of segueing into Sandra (25:45.742) But by the way, is, like, you were picking up on the negative part of the study. The positive part of the study is, once you actually get people to think about themselves as soccer friends, they actually do help the person from the other team. So for me, the optimistic part is that we're so tribal in a way that sometimes that actually tears us apart, but we're also tribal on a different level. But once we can highlight a different tribe... we actually become supportive of the other side. So for me, this kind of tribalism is a fundamental human drive that can pit us against each other, but depending on how we use it, also unite. Steve (26:23.644) So I have an obligation to make a declaration. I wake up every day like a kid in a candy store who loves life more than you can imagine. So I do want you to know, and by the way, when someone says, how do you see the glass half empty or half full? About 20 years ago, it hit me. said, neither. Why are you disadvantaged yourself? I actually, you know what I do? I actually take the glass that you say is half full with water. I go out and get a glass cutter. I actually excise the excess glass. Sandra (26:25.784) Yeah. Sandra (26:30.222) That's great. Sandra (26:41.944) What even? Sandra (26:48.174) Fill it up. Steve (26:53.092) so that my cup overfloweth. Sandra (26:53.166) You could also just open the tab and add some additional water. This is like a little bit easier. I thought this is where you were going. the other one. It's like an involved way of making the glass overflow. Steve (27:01.564) that's why you're so successful. Always, always thinking of the clever answer. I make life so difficult. Let's let's so since we are here to look at it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a construct since I want to have a little fun with going out of the comfort zone on sport. You are now a team owner. And you're living why shouldn't presume anything. Sandra (27:27.48) Yeah. Steve (27:30.32) You teach in New York City. you have a team you're a fan of anywhere in the United States of any sport? Can I, can I, can I, could you? Okay, so let's go to the Yankees. So you own now, you're the Steinbrenner sold the team to you for a buck. You're the happiest woman in the wealthiest business deal ever undertaken. Sandra (27:31.022) Yeah. Sandra (27:37.199) I'm terrible. Can you give me my... You can assign me to Yankees. You can put me... Sandra (27:54.806) Amazing. Yeah. I'm Steve (27:59.869) And you're saying, and you're driving the analytics of the New York Yankees. And you say, you know what? I only want to use this for good. I mean, you're a master, you're one of the world's leaders on understanding algorithms and how to reach people with a positive message that will influence them in a way that they benefit. That's the beauty of it. It's a win-win scenario. That's the whole objective that we want because of our knowledge of the fan that comes to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Sandra (28:20.824) Yeah. Steve (28:29.612) Our objective is to just do one thing, tap into their passions, relate to them in a way that we are so effective at enriching their experience that they in turn so subconsciously, if you will, value our paying attention to their needs in an intimate personalized way. Almost like David Edelman, his book just recently personalized customer strategy in the age of AI. It's a way of saying, you know, Sandra (28:47.374) Thanks, mom. Mm-hmm. Sandra (28:54.286) Yeah. Steve (28:59.108) in a way, wow, I feel even closer to the Yankees than I did yesterday. I might patronize their merchandise more. I might buy more tickets to a game than I used to see. I might watch more TV broadcasts of it. I might do a lot of things to express my gratitude and evolve my relationship. You as the new owner of the New York Yankees, if you were sitting down with your very large analytic team, what would you do day one on that whiteboard to construct and if you will, rules, an algorithm, a game plan. Could you educate us all on how you would approach a relationship with a fan to engage them in a way as the new owner who is steeped in such elite analytics? Sandra (29:29.73) So, ahem. Sandra (29:33.3) Mm-hmm. Sandra (29:44.27) It's amazing that I just got a whole new sports team. But it's funny because the way that I think about it, and I think this might also be helpful for people who are not in the data space day to day, is that I think about it very much analogously to the offline world. I grew up in this tiny village and we did have a soccer field. There was always a question of how do we draw the community in? I think what happens naturally in a village when you have offline communication is, you think about what drives a mom to come see the soccer plays. How can I make her experience much better by understanding why would she actually show up on a Sunday morning and come to that soccer? Is it community? Is it the ability to talk with other people? Maybe. What gets the dad to show up? Maybe it's the competition and the pride of seeing the kid play against some of the other teams. I think in an offline context, the kind of thought experiment of trying to figure out what's driving different people to behave in a certain way and to show up if you want when we think of persuasion. I think that it's so natural that we don't even think about it. And for me, like the way that we use data is almost a translation of these principles to a world where we just for a long time didn't know as much about people, right? So in an... In a village, kind of interact with people day to day. It's not just like a person that's part of like this massive data set, but it's like a human being behind the conversations that I have. And what data allows us to do, I think, is to some extent replicate some of these interactions. So the more I understand, coming back to me being the owner of the Yankees, is the more I understand from a psychological level, and that could be anything from what is your personality. Right? Are you the person who's competitive? And the reason for why you show up at these games is because you like the challenge and you like the thrill of your team beating the other one. Or are you the person, and this is just two sides of the same personality trait, are you the person who kind of thrives on community? And the reason for why they show up is because you get to hang out with your friends and you get to kind of have this feeling of community or this tribalism that we talked about earlier. Are you the person who loves Sandra (32:04.718) to kind of are exposed to these like very stimulating, like an extroverted person who kind of loves to go to the events in person and the more excitement there is and the more social activity, the better. Or are you the person who prefers to watch this from the comfort of their home and anything I can do as the owner of the Yankees to make your experience at home better, kind of goes a longer way of you enjoying it. like, I think there's a way of now using data and ideally, so if I was the owner of the Yankees, I would do this to as much as I can, to the extent that I can, with as an interaction with the fans. Oftentimes, I think what happens in marketing is it's like a top-down. I try to grab as much data as I can. I make some predictions. Some of them are accurate, some of them are not. And then based on my predictions, I try to push you in a certain direction and maybe get you to spend more money on tickets, on merchandise, whatever it is. I think there's this huge opportunity to build on the fact that sports is so, it's like so relational and it's so core to people's identity that you can actually make it a two-way conversation. You can say to your fans, look, here's what I know about you. And here's what I think you would want out of this experience. And I'm trying to make, kind of do my very best. to make your experience of enjoying the Yankees games to the fullest. I'm investing a lot of money, I'm investing a lot of resources to try and optimize what you get out of this experience. Now please tell me if I'm doing something that is just totally off. If I think that you're someone that you're not, that's not only hurting you because your experience goes down the drain, it's only hurting me because it's obviously not good for my business bottom line because I'm optimizing for something that I shouldn't be optimizing for. So I think it's both this, how do we understand people on this broader psychological level that really gets into what makes you show up and put in the extra work to get to a game? What do you get out of it? In an ideal world, what would this experience look like? And then working your way back from there and say, how do we make this a two-way conversation where I can be as transparent as I can and kind of show you here's how I'm creating value? And you talk to me if you disagree. Steve (34:20.796) So with that knowledge of your predictive analytics and your understanding, deep understanding of really the science of algorithms, of how these black box algorithms function, whether they be large language models or otherwise, when you look at the fan, how do you, we know that there are different strata of sports fans. Sandra (34:26.702) Yeah. Sandra (34:36.418) Yeah. Steve (34:50.328) If I'm a team owner and I were your, if you permitted me to be your partner, I'll be a, I'll even be, for the first time, I'll be willing to be a minority partner on this one. And so, and no double entendre on that one. But what I would suggest to you is we know that there are different strata fans. are fans who are invited by others and they go. Someone's friends, family had season tickets. Sandra (34:54.446) Yeah, can negotiate the deal. That's what I teach at Negotiate. Yeah, good. Good. Steve (35:18.01) and they were so psyched to get invited to the Yankee game. Someone else, dad or mom, wanted to take kids to a game because it's a family experience and it's part of American lore, it's part of our culture. But they did that maybe once a year or once every few years. Others take the initiative as they get older. They have a passion, they really love it. And as you described, they want to be at the stadium, so they might come a few times a year. Others go out and literally spend and go up into what we call the nosebleed seats, the highest level seat, farthest away from the field. And they'll get the cheapest seat and they'll scalp it and they'll just go up there because they want to be part of that. For them, it's not an extent, it's an appendage, it's part of their essence. You may remember during COVID, people were literally clamoring, was the only thing that headline news except COVID. The headline news is, when do we go back to the stadium? When do we get our seats back? Sandra (35:47.15) Thank Sandra (35:51.438) You Sandra (35:58.253) empty. Sandra (36:14.04) stadium. Steve (36:15.74) because it's so much a part of their visceral true life experience. So the question I have, which I thought of a long time and I find you're kind of the perfect person sincerely to answer it, is I as a team owner and you as a team owner, we want to evolve the narrative of the fan. Meaning, we want them to go from that, hey, it started with your friends' family bringing you for a visit back when you were eight years old. Sandra (36:34.089) out on there. Sandra (36:41.496) Do you want to? Steve (36:42.94) And by the time you got to 13, 14, first of all, you are a fanatic. And as you started to have some discretionary income, you either A, decided to come to a lot of games and patronized us, you bought a lot of merchandise, you ate at our concession stands, consumed a lot. Additionally, as you started to get a little older, maybe you're at a brand where you decided to sponsor our team. And you just spent millions of dollars of a corporate budget and shareholder money. with us, because it started back when you four, six, eight years old. How do you, if your task is to evolve the narrative of the psychology of the connectivity, the connection between brand, the property, the team, and the fan, could you share with our viewers, how would you go about extending the narrative, advancing the relationship so that we can What does it take? What is the inflection point, the tipping point for a fan to go from classification A, just an occasional, to that ultimate, I live, breathe, eat, the Yankees. Sandra (37:45.176) you Sandra (37:53.358) It's a great question. and again, I think you know a lot more about sports than I do. So I can just give you my point of view from a psychology perspective. I think that what I understand from sports and like I maybe have to say like in the music context, it's most of the time about community, but it's rarely about the sport itself. The reason for why you get so pumped kind of going as a kid is you see the sport, but you see your parents react. And I just have this image in my mind where And one of the first times that I met my nephew, he was, I think, two years old. We went to the US Open to watch tennis. He did not understand at all what was happening, right? But he was excited when people started to clap. So the exposure that you have as a kid is essentially you see the reaction of the people around you. You see kind of the whole emotional spectrum of people going through. They're elated. They're kind of in despair because their team is losing. So think what connects people to sports is, yeah, it's the game. But I think that comes later. I think that the foundation is community. the more, as a team owner, what I would invest in is like, how do you make this transition from you come as a kid, you come once in a while, or you're this person who is being taken by their friend. How do you actually embed them in the community and look forward, not just to the game, but you look forward to the fact that you're now being surrounded by other people who are cheering for the same thing. And I think to me, and I don't know exactly how I would do that, to be honest, but I think for me that's at the core of what makes the sport experience so visceral and so like almost addictive. Steve (39:33.981) So what you hit on is what my brain goes to is that I realize while I do appreciate the play, most of the play very often, very often, it's not a plus sports competition. Meaning I always used to give the example that if the giants win in football, they beat their first team by 30 to zip, they then win 55 to zero, they win 80 to zero. Listen, New York will be a static for a little while. Sandra (39:58.104) Yeah. Steve (40:02.588) Let's just say they go through 16, 17 games and then through the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl is 100 to 0. We just saw a Super Bowl that had differential of 18 points and people said it was one of the most boring games they ever won. Now I can imagine this goes through to second season. We show up at the stadium at MetLife and all of sudden the game again is 50 to 0. And we're saying, wait a minute, this is no longer sport. Sport requires tension. It requires Sandra (40:12.622) Boring games! Sandra (40:31.16) Yeah. Disemotional, exactly. Steve (40:32.442) the vicissitudes, the fear, the joy. It's this sense of can we pull it off? Will there be a comeback? All odds are stacked against us. Or we witnessed a remarkable, above human, superhuman athletic expression. How did that person just achieve what no other human being could ever do? Sandra (40:44.942) It's like coming together to support. Steve (41:01.114) So what I realized was it is not only visceral, Sandra (41:05.55) Yeah. And it's not just that, right? So like, imagine you see the superhuman performance, you watch it at home by yourself. It's not the same. You might still be impressed, you might still be, well, this was like an amazing stunt. But I think the moment that we celebrate and the moment that our brains go, oh my God, this was like a once in a lifetime thing, is because we get to share it with other people. That's why I think like, yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, no, I agree. Steve (41:12.592) Mmm. Mmm. Steve (41:26.3) That's chemical, isn't mop psychology chemical? So you as the owner and the data master, how do you then secrete more serotonin, more dopamine in the fan? Because to me, that's what it ultimately boils down to. I had an experience when I was eight years old, I went to a summer camp up in the Adirondacks and I actually had a bunkmate and it was Jackie Robinson. Sandra (41:38.827) You Steve (41:54.181) one of the greatest baseball players in history, African American. His grandson, and he literally showed up to parent visitors day. And my parents and I, I was eight years old, met Jackie Robinson. My father, who should rest in peace, took out his law firm business card and Jackie sung the back of it, just his name. And I cherish that my entire life. Sandra (41:56.896) As I know, obviously, as a Yankee owner. Sandra (42:16.544) Yeah. Steve (42:23.088) So there's something chemically happened, there's experientially happening. Using algorithms, your domain, one of your domains of vast expertise, is there a way to penetrate the mind, your book again is Mind Masters, is there a way we can, through data-driven strategy, in a ethical, proper fashion, healthy, completely, completely transparent fashion, can we? Sandra (42:43.406) Yeah. Steve (42:52.412) Are there ways to then empower the human, in this case the sports fan? Because think about it now, your sponsors, the Yankees, will be so great indebted to you, they're never going to leave your portfolio. Because you have a special technique to actually elevate different fans to a higher level of fandom. Can we reach that chemical processing through what you might have as data-driven strategy? Sandra (43:21.206) I mean, I think I wouldn't speak to the chemical processing because that's just like, if you really wanted to interfere with that, so probably a consequence, right? Like if you do it right, maybe there's going to be something that's going to happen. You're not going to interfere with that directly. But exactly. Steve (43:30.246) This is consequence. No, you were part of 80,000 people. We all stood up. We're cheering. Someone said Steve Feuerstein, Sandra Matz, come on down to the 50 yard line. And then all the athletes came and embraced us, autographed, gave us footballs for life. And we walked away going, what just happened? This is the greatest. And everyone's cheering. The crowd is roaring. Your face is up on the Chumbo-Chum. People are calling you. For the rest of your life, that's Sandra Matz. Sandra (43:38.914) Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it's done. Yeah. That's Steve (44:03.1) and Steve Foyer stood. So something so unbelievably experiential happened that consequentially, just as I'm speaking with you right now, our heart rate is going faster. We can viscerally feel what it would be like to be there under the spotlight. Sandra (44:04.866) Yeah. Sandra (44:20.91) Yeah, it's a fascinating question because I almost, and I've never thought about this question before, because oftentimes when we think about data, what we think about is how do we make your experience unique, right? Understanding what brings you to the stadium, I think my intuition right now is that what allows, what we can do with data is get you to the stadium in the sense that we can say, well, we understand what motivates you to show up. I think this kind of moment of like this chemical reaction that you're kind of talking about, I think that actually hinges on like the collective, which then is almost the opposite of the personalized experience, right? What you kind of described just now is everybody getting up at the same time, everybody cheering, because there is something that happened that just kind of sparked people's imagination and they got excited. it almost seems to me that, like, that what makes this moment great is that we lose our sense of self. and we become part of this bigger identity. So if anything, I would argue that what you need is data as a means of understanding how do you get people to show up to this collective experience, but then you probably don't need data to create this collective experience in the moment. And that's just kind of just basic human psychology, right? What is it that gets people excited? What kind of creates awe in people? creates... and the sense of transcendent, the self and kind of becoming part of a bigger group. And I think there, data might help you get a sense of like, historically, when does that happen at the collective level? But I think that's like one of these moments where I think the human element almost removed from data becomes takes over. Steve (46:06.332) And to supplement what you said, do want to just point out where sports does it so well. And when you look at organizations like Make-A-Wish Foundation, and it's not even publicized until way after the fact, and you see a little boy being visited by Tom Brady, and he's handed him a football, and you see the family, it's just family members. And it's one person coming in the room, that icon, that that child has made a wish that that superstar showed up. There was no lights, camera action. Sandra (46:20.024) Yeah. Steve (46:36.304) It was all secluded, it was individual, but was it fan, God willing, till 120 years of age. That child for eternity will memorialize that experience. Didn't need the roar of the crowd. And it it transcended, it was transcendent. And that's the power of sport. Sandra (46:47.937) Ever. Yeah. Steve (47:02.148) It's a very powerful, powerful tool. I'm excited to read your sequel, A Mind Master. You sent her to go, I was about to say yes, yes. And it would be really adorable, by the way, if one day you actually did become the owner of the Yankees. I hope all my partners... Rule number one is there are no rules. number two is just remember your friends at SportsBiz. Sandra (47:07.022) How to get the Yankees to... Yeah, I think I might have to go to a game first and understand the rules. I think I'm a little bit behind. Yeah, it takes forever, that's I remember. Steve (47:30.062) and its transaction report. So with that said, I'm just gonna conclude by saying this. What an unexpected tour de force. It was so enjoyable, pleasurable to navigate and these kind of this labyrinth that I feel we just, I wish we had more time to spend with you. I hope we'll do it again. But Sandra Matz, what an honor it is to have you on the transaction report today. Sandra (47:47.352) Yeah. Sandra (47:56.088) Thank you so much. Definitely one of the most diverse conversations that I've had in a while. Steve (47:59.229) I'm gonna do an intro as well because I know Kristen's gonna ask me for that. So I always like to do it by the way You have a lengthy CV. What would you like me to highlight? Sandra (48:04.162) Yeah. Sandra (48:12.814) I mean, I think whatever helps you set up the episode. I think the center you already mentioned, which is great. The book is great. I don't have any strong preferences there. Steve (48:18.054) Thank Steve (48:23.324) So if I were identify one particular title, I mean obviously the book came out this past year. Sandra (48:29.038) I think I usually kind of say she's an associate professor of the author of mind masters and she also co-leads or co-directs the Center for Advanced Technology and Human Performance. I think that's what I'm... Steve (48:37.562) Okay. Steve (48:42.63) Okay, So. We have quite an episode ahead with a guest whom I actually watched her presentation and I highly recommend that you Google it. It was a presentation she made before I believe business students at Columbia University. I found her to be one of the most charismatic, effective communicators and I don't come across too many too often that I enjoy, I enjoy, but I was riveted for 50 minutes watching her presentation. Her name is Sandra Matz. She's the associate professor of business at Columbia Business School. She serves as co-director of the Center for Advanced Technology and Humor Performance and co-director of the Leadership Lab. She wrote a book last year, which is one that should be on everyone's bookshelf after you've read it, which of course is Mind Masters. And going deep into the world of everything we read about every day, artificial intelligence, algorithms, data, data-driven. practices to understand how to predict outcomes in the future. And of course, behavior behind the use of technology. She, should mention, by the way, was one of the leading researchers to understand what happened about a decade ago with Cambridge Analytica, the British firm that literally had access to all of Facebook's data and used, unfortunately, in a very nefarious fashion. Sandra Matz, what a pleasure it is to welcome you. to the transaction report today. Sandra (50:19.566) Thank you so much for having me, Steve. Steve (50:22.19) Excellent. Sandra (50:24.078) We got it. Steve (50:26.222) Okay, so we're just going to do one quick thing and I didn't congratulate you on No, Right after, it's not much fun. But I didn't get in, which of course I should have, which is your new motherhood. Kristen, can I sit that in? Sandra (50:30.158) Great questions! It's so funny, like I... Yeah. Yeah. Sandra (50:39.128) Tada! Yeah, it's like a sleepless night. Amazing. Steve (50:47.972) Or is there any way that I could edit that in? Steve (50:56.06) But you know I'll do is she just said it's great to, what I'll do is, as she said, it was great to be here. And so I'm just gonna go right back to, and Sandra, I would be remiss if I didn't bring forth to our viewers perhaps one of the most important accomplishments in your life, which is the birth of your son just last year. Sandra (51:01.72) Okay. Okay. Sandra (51:17.78) I know, he just turned one. I think it was like a book baby, a real baby. So it's been a really fun and busy time. Steve (51:28.966) Well, we appreciate it. know that you were after maternity leave and you were very involved in family life and that you made your commitment to come and join us on the transaction report. And I am very much looking forward to getting into what will be a very, very meaningful discussion. Sandra (51:45.72) same here. Steve (51:47.12) Beautiful. Sandra, just wait. We're going to wait for your uploading. Kristen, has she uploaded? Sandra (51:54.094) So I know I love, like I...