Steve (00:00.174)
together and we'll take it from there. I know from, let me just get your one thing here, please.

Steve (00:13.452)
Okay.

Steve (00:18.158)
Great. Great. Where are you based? You're in Washington, correct?

Shripal (00:22.239)
Yeah, I'm in Bethesda, Maryland, right outside DC.

Steve (00:25.87)
Fantastic.

Steve (00:32.35)
Shripple Shah, what a pleasure. The former chief strategy officer headed up digital transformation initiatives at the Washington Commanders, formerly known as the Washington Redskins, presently chief digital officer of Next League and has held a lot of positions in advisory, adjunct professor at Georgetown, an angel investor. What a pleasure it is to have you on the Transaction Report today.

Shripal (01:01.726)
Thank you, I really appreciate you having me Steve.

Steve (01:04.417)
Well, we actually appreciate having you for many reasons. One is you're a 20 year friend of our chief strategy officer, Michael Robuchon at SportsBiz at our company SportsBiz. It means a lot to us. You did a lot of work with him when he was at NexTel, Sprint NexTel before he was 15 years heading up global sponsorship at MasterCard. And you had mentioned you were providing some digital solutions. I gather this is where you were when you were at the helm.

of strategy at the commanders or formerly the Washington Redskins.

Shripal (01:37.788)
Yeah, I mean, when I was at the the Commanders when I was then the Redskins, I oversaw all marketing strategy, digital strategy, and then all our our fan engagement platforms and the client activations and really tried to lean with the digital slash social first sponsorship strategy that helped us. You know, at the time we were still top three in the NFL in revenue. So it really helped us.

you know, punch above a bit in what we were doing.

Steve (02:09.72)
So what was the value? I want to recreate some of these moments and see how much has changed over the course of the last 20 years, although you were a decade at the command. I'm going to continue if it's acceptable if we just use the term commanders. That's what they are. I'm going to put in the context recognizing that people know that you were there with its former name. With that said, I want to get a progression, if we will. And I have a few use cases I want to talk us through. But first and foremost,

Shripal (02:26.226)
Yeah, of course.

Steve (02:38.732)
Let's go back and put on your hat as the Chief Strategy Officer, again, heading up digital, heading up fan engagement, heading up marketing. You started up for six months in website development and then assumed your positions as you grew with the company and evolved and left came back as a Chief Strategy Officer. An impressive trajectory at the commanders. If you were back with Michael at the time when he was at Sprint Nextel,

What was the value pitch? What was a brand leader hearing as a corporate sponsor as a reason why he should engage what you were selling? And please define that for us. And how we knew if we were all sitting on Michael's side of the table as a Sprint Nextel brand custodian, what was that pitch and what was the value he was going to get from that?

Shripal (03:35.918)
Um, I'm going back in time. Um, you know, I mean, I think back then, right. You, you, you were looking at market to, you know, I think DC is a unique, um, market because of what's going on in the federal government space. You have, uh, folks internationally that come here and then you also have.

this really local, passionate fan base that has grown up rooting for the commanders, right? And if you go back decades ago, people would say the territory would go from Maryland, because at that time there was no Ravens, all the way down to almost Georgia. Because in the 80s, right, there was no other team in between.

you know, in that area, until the Falcons and they had won the three super bowl. So there was a very deep, passionate fan base. and then I think for a brand, it's like, how do you really, build on that affinity and loyalty to drive both awareness, but also, brand consideration. And I think with the sprint next tell, it was really driving,

awareness of. You know, their their NFL sponsorship, the unique content they had, and I think trying to leverage the exclusive content that we were providing on the Sprint Nextel phones as a reason why someone would purchase back then it was pre iPhone, right? So it was going to be like the the Motorola Razor flip phone or.

or what have you, or the Blackberries, right, that people were buying, like they could have gotten at any other carrier. And so...

Steve (05:39.822)
this is by the way, just to interject, this was really just at the advent of broadband. So this was an early stage of broadband, prior dial-up was difficult as heck to transmit anything from a video standpoint. It wasn't easy, a lot of buffering, a lot of discomfort for a user.

Shripal (05:53.851)
Right. I mean, we were going like early days, like it was pre 3G. So it wasn't even like. Right. We hadn't even crossed into sort of the higher speed cell phone, you know, cell tower. So, you know, it was an experience and we were creating really short form content. But I think it was really about providing.

inside access, exclusive content, and going after a digital savvy market to try to start positioning Sprint Nextel as innovators, thought leaders, but also I think at the time, a lot of the federal contractors were using the

the next telephones because of the radio capabilities. So there was sort of an affinity there too that a lot as they were, as the companies had just merged, we were, you know, helping to kind of go from the legacy brand to the new brand and really trying to help connect that.

Steve (07:08.888)
So the key point is that there was speed and again, I wanna correct myself or have you correct me please if you will clarify. Is there any correlation, obviously broadband being the last mile getting into a PC or a Mac with a faster speed when I am in a telco, is there any?

Is there any impact that going from dial-up to broadband has in any capacity with your ability to serve content as a provider of content to an audience that is actually consuming this over a mobile phone, cell phone?

Shripal (07:48.186)
Yeah, I mean, I think because of the we could do it faster, which then allowed us to do more of it. And it also allowed as we got to the higher speed broadbands, it allowed us to ultimately produce longer clips because people could consume more of it. Right. So I think.

Steve (08:11.182)
So that was material to the actual telco. You're providing that content, early stage content provider in a multimedia space. And so what you're saying is, and this preceded obviously Verizon's seminal deal that came after the Sprint and XTel relationship, where they had frankly an exclusive that was so vital to the early stages of where streaming started to become.

a go-to in this industry at around 09. But you were really there at the seminal level, the early stage, the genesis. What I'm interested in is, so what you're saying is it's at fan engagement user of the telephone, of the cellular mobile phone that was gonna benefit from content coming from the commanders. And that was very attractive to someone heading up a Sprint Nextel brand.

What would be different today if you went back and put on your hat as Chief Strategy Officer at the commanders today for Josh Harris, who seems to be a wonderful steward of the brand. Obviously, just pulled off a remarkable deal of getting the stadium back at RFK, which for me, having spent two years in D.C. back in the 80s, I think that's wonderful for the community in Washington.

And everything I read, I've never met him, but everything that I read about him, he seems to be the consummate sports marketing mind, professional, investor, builder, creator, and advancing of assets. If you went back and worked there, what do you think has changed so definitively since your departure?

Shripal (09:48.933)
I mean, think what's changed is

how people are receiving content, where people are making purchases, right? Sort of mobile first. I think they're, how to reach them, how to really target. In many cases, it's less about awareness now. It's like, how do you really drive a higher share of wallet? And so I think what would change is thinking about how do you drive more

personalized content at the right time for the for the For the fans so that they're more engaged with the sponsor So in the case 20 years ago, it was a daily Highlight and we were one of the only teams that were doing that that came on the phone now Everyone has highlights everyone's on mobile. So the key would have to be how do we really? personalize that

real time, right? It could be based off your players. Like now you're looking where AI is, right? If you know people's players, you know people's themes. It's how do you create that right content? Can you send it at the right time where it almost feels organic and how timely it was? And it also could be that you're creating something on the fly based off of something that they need. And it's almost like instant. You could, instead of seeing something that was pre-packaged,

you can tailor the full experience as someone is requesting it, which is very different than it was 20 years ago.

Steve (11:32.374)
It's so interesting you say that I've had a lot of conversations internally and it's precisely what you said, by the way. And that is that we're at that point and there's a duality actually. You see it in the general digital space, what I call instantaneous revisionism, that we can literally serve content to a human being in a news, let's call it a news capacity.

And I simply don't know if what I'm seeing is real. And as an event is happening on a cultural, political, religious, whatever it may be level, I can literally spin that same event with an outcome that is different in a counterfactual way. And so using it in a positive way in sport is exactly almost one of our friends guests, David Edelman, who's over at Harvard and was at Bain and McKinsey wrote a book

called personalized customer strategy in the age of AI, to precisely what you've just said here as well. And you also, I should note for the audience, have written two books about AI and their deployment in the sports marketing space, one that just came out last year and I believe one the year before that.

So it's, as you have quoted, been quoted in your interviews elsewhere, for a gentleman who was a computer scientist and was apt not to write and actually had most of his colleagues wordsmithing what he wrote. It's amazing to see how AI has empowered you to become an author. And it's something that you marvel at introspectively, that it's the great democratizer. With that said,

Shripal (13:03.268)
Yeah, I do.

Steve (13:15.83)
I want to share with you an insight of this instantaneous ability to serve content that is not prepackaged. I vision, and we'll go there together and what we see coming, I vision a time where literally the ability to serve LED in stadium 30 second, 60 second, 15 second, rotationals in a venue.

is going to become instantaneously deployable based on KPIs set by the brand sponsor and literally Messi scores a goal and you will have a 30 second creative that has been instantaneously created with literally content from the moment of impact of both the goal being scored perhaps and the fan reaction and something novel and purely creative.

that occurred as it's happening with a customized message for the in-stadium crowd, which is the primary consumer of the LED. And then, course, peripherally or secondarily, rather, the home viewing audience that may get a fraction or the majority or at times nothing of that LED rotational. But it will become, to what you said, instantaneously deployable, customizable, pre-customizable, but not prepackaged.

and somehow with some call to action that gets something doing something, whether it's merchandise related or at the portable station, concession stand, having that fan benefit by having a call to action.

Shripal (14:39.577)
you

Shripal (14:51.8)
Yeah, I mean, it's exciting, right? It's where things are going.

Steve (14:54.862)
It's a heck of a time to be alive, heck of a time to be a sports marketer.

Shripal (14:58.774)
Yeah, no, I think there's a I think there's a lot of opportunity. And I also think when you look at. You know, with the multiple camera angles that we have, things like that, it's that you can also create. You know, people always have the choice to choose angles. Now you could actually package content that automatically right could be giving you the multi views either simultaneously.

or based off of, you're in one section of the stadium and you couldn't, it's, it's obvious you couldn't clearly see the play. So maybe if you have a device, you can immediately see the replay from the other angle, right? Or it's, it's served. you could, if you know people's

Steve (15:40.942)
I want to run that if you don't mind. want to run that. I want to process that for a second.

Shripal (15:45.537)
So if I'm seeing the corners, right, upper level stadium, right, so now someone scored on the opposite corner and I couldn't get a clear view. In theory, someone could send me an SMS or as we get to RCS, right, and that could actually have the clip from the other angle down on the field, because it's obvious.

Steve (15:47.886)
You're at the stadium, you're in the ring, yep.

Steve (16:03.149)
So.

Steve (16:08.91)
Is there a reason you wouldn't present that on the Jumbotron, presuming, let's say you had a four-sided Jumbotron or a wrap around. Is there a reason you wouldn't serve a specific clip over the Jumbotron to the actual targeted audience in venue, knowing that that was obstructed?

Shripal (16:16.876)
Yeah, no, dude.

Shripal (16:25.286)
I think for indoor venues, can write that's where you see more of these four sided jumbotrons. think for outdoor venues, you're still going to have an end zone board. So then I think that's where the personalized delivery has to come into play. Not an ideal experience, but I think that's still a way to start providing a better in-venue experience to an older facility.

Steve (16:32.312)
point.

Steve (16:38.018)
Mmm.

Steve (16:47.522)
What about from a home consumption, from a linear streaming standpoint, if we're looking at this viewing standpoint at home, the larger audience?

Shripal (16:51.991)
I mean, think for so. Is I think at a home, right? It's interesting. I actually wrote about this company, two companies, actually in one of my recent John Wall Street columns. You know, there's a company called Screens. They were working with Xfinity during the March Madness and people could actually select either multiple games to watch on a single screen or you could watch multiple angles.

Of a broadcast and you might have multiple camera views. It might be that you have your your stats on one side and three other camera views. You're at your personalizing that screen and that is something that I think what's different is in the past a The different camera angles would be either hard Fixed selections either through hardware on single TVs or it would be done at the broadcast studio now They're using it on the client side

Steve (17:32.622)
Mm.

Shripal (17:50.314)
which is using a series of, it's using AI on the backend to create unique experiences at scale. So I could have four different camera angles than you, and this could be done for millions of people that have different customization, and it's all being done based off our own personalized views. And that just happened during March Madness.

Steve (18:04.578)
Hmm.

Steve (18:17.984)
interesting, you know, when you think about it. And it's something I'll just give you an anecdotal. When I was a kid, one of my dearest, dearest friends now of too many decades, I'm happy about the relationship, but we've known each other 56 years and we were not in the same delivery room. So with that said, we've known each other, we knew each other since we're six years old in Scarsdale, New York. And I always marveled at my dear friend because

We used to watch and we had content that came off of literally a few channels of choice, served on linear television, free there. And on a Saturday afternoon, we'd be watching, know, ABC or whatever it might've been, Wide World of Sports.

And he was very RBI oriented. And I was thinking about this today. I do a lot of mountain biking and I was riding and I was meditating on this a bit of reflecting on a dear friend of mine as more of a metaphor for someone who has this proclivity to be so into the stats of the athletes. And to be frank with you as a kid, I didn't know what an RBI was. It didn't mean anything to me. I was more into this emotive

Give me what's happening at the moment. I needed to see how the athlete was playing that day. wasn't, of course it was impressive how many home runs they had hit. That intrigued me, but I didn't track them. But that's not a cottage industry. mean, that's a massive global industry of people who are so stats oriented. And we see in today's AI world of feeding new technologies.

So much is based on that statistical delivery, the ability to deliver data in a user-friendly, delightful way that the fan at point of impact is able to get very often some of the most esoteric stats that I know for many of us can be questionable how relevant that was to the masses. Please. And that could be a channel, by the way. That could be a dedicated service that for those who love the data analytics side,

Shripal (20:16.469)
But I think, right.

Steve (20:30.188)
they can have a channel or a delivery of content that is expressly data.

Shripal (20:35.788)
And I think there's two things that driving that more now, It's both sports betting, being pro-Olympic. It's season in North America, right? It was already there in other countries, but I think that's really changed it. And then, you I think you look at companies like, you know, N-Venue, which I, you know, was in the Comcast Sports Tech Accelerator. I actually featured them early on in one of the startup investor days that I used to run. And, you know, they've...

Steve (20:40.909)
Where?

Steve (21:02.007)
Hmm.

Shripal (21:04.073)
They went from, they actually started, I believe, with the Oakland A's doing microbedding stats in the broadcast. then, you know, power now, I believe all the MLS games on Apple TV and MLB, right? Providing those stats in the broadcast, which actually then is not just being consumed by people who are fans of the game. In many cases now are also appealing to.

Steve (21:08.173)
Hmm.

Shripal (21:31.56)
you know, sports betters who are looking at these stats to help inform the decision making right. And whatever parlay bets or other things that they're looking to do. And I think that's also spurred a faster adoption because now before the stats were just sort of there as like a novice novelty, right. And you could go back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, the NBA would work with SAP and as part of their sponsorship, they'd be like the SAP advanced stats, you know, IBM.

You know, the NFL had the advanced stats now powered by AWS, but it was really just like a tagline and people did it. But I think when with sports books now, there's a tangible economic benefit of the stats, right? Not only to the broadcaster property, not only to the sponsor, but to the individual who's watching who may actually be looking to look, understand those stats to actually place a wager. Right? So the, so

That, think, is an example where what seemed like a peripheral thing with the use of AI has actually created more content that actually also drives more engagement, but it also created a bigger revenue opportunity in three different directions.

Steve (22:50.83)
very well stated and I didn't think I was going to go there today but I want to bring up something you've brought up in prior conversations. You mentioned that you're a fantasy league player and you used to actually since you weren't so specialized in it you usually ranked at the bottom of the spectrum of the totem pole when it came to your ability to pick the right winning team.

and be on the side of a champion within the league. It's interesting. You started to use AI and large language models to drive your decision-making. And as I was listening to your interview about that, it comes to the same point about micro-betting, because micro-betting could guide me as to when to bet. What should I bet on? It can drive, and it will, as we both know, drive if it doesn't already. It will drive based on my

aversion, I will set parameters, always KPI driven based on my particular risk aversion. And it will guide me what to do in my betting. And frankly, we see in Wall Street so much is driven in this capacity as well. When it comes to your comment about being in fantasy leagues, using AI, and by the way,

for our viewers, Tripal actually ended up being, I believe, in the champion circle with using artificial intelligence to help drive his decision making. What went through my mind when I heard you say that, and the same thing here, when we are all using it in that capacity, help us understand the distinction of the authenticity or exclusivity

of the decisions we'll make that will still put you in the winner circle when Steve and Michael and Dave and Kristen are all using the same tool.

Shripal (24:51.573)
I think when everyone's using the same tools, it's actually no different than without AI, it's going to put a premium on what data you have. you think of, I know you had Chris Russo on one of your podcasts, I've known Chris forever. When he had

his fantasy sports ventures before it became big league sports, right? One of the big things was they were creating custom content for fantasy sports players before there was even daily fantasy. And what it was, was people would go there to get more Intel before they would actually make their selections. So now if everyone's using the same AI tools, the premium will actually be on who has what data, right? It's actually putting a premium value now on the data.

Because AI is only as good as the data feeds that are going in. So if everyone has the same AI tools, but if I have a different data feed than you do, then the point of difference will actually be that I might have other data sets that you don't have, which will then give me the competitive advantage, right?

Steve (26:01.454)
I think it's important just to interject because it is so topical and it's no longer a 1999 Ray Kurzweil projection. This is today. What about as we are inching closer, some say it's within 12 months, some say it's before 2030, Ray Kurzweil had projected in 99, it would happen in 2029. Some say he's now overly conservative, it will happen pre-2029. As we march towards artificial general intelligence,

and we start seeing the machine creating that data. And today it is in synthetic data. We see synthetic data to be created en masse to be able to expand our universe of access to data because we tapped out the existing available data to train models. What happens if this is correct and in the next, let's call it 12 to 48 months, we hit artificial general intelligence.

And we're now seeing the machine evolve at a level almost like AlphaGo-esque in its iterative identity. Does that data, proprietary data, to be lost because the machines are serving the next gen of data not reliant on you and me to have our apps create that?

Shripal (27:25.126)
I mean, it's all speculated, but I actually think in that scenario, it actually puts more of a premium on you on what subscriptions and what content you own or license or pay for. Cause the models, if you have your own tool is going to be based off of what, what, what you have and

Steve (27:45.752)
So is it the data or are you suggesting that it becomes then perhaps a premium on the human?

Shripal (27:56.571)
I think it's a premium on both, right? Because the data could be just something that's stats or automated content or feeds. But data is also based off of human interactions and the things that you're doing. So the premium may be that I actually have a better sense of how to interact or coach my AI model than you do, right? How to prompt it.

But that ultimately is creating better data points. It could be that I had other insights having worked in sports, right?

Steve (28:36.418)
So you don't see a post-prompt era in the near future.

Shripal (28:40.942)
I think the it's you know what I. Let's let's go back a second for analogy right like you think of like the web. Right people used to write like when I started writing for the you know for Web 10 in 95 right you were using like text editors to write HTML code and then you started creating these. You know there were were tools from like Macromedia and Adobe right? Dreamweaver there were tools that basically would.

helped someone visually lay out a website, but it was said, you it was never as good as someone coded it from scratch, right? There was always sort of a, and then over time, that delta kept shrinking, right? From the automated way to where things are.

Now, now we're at a version, which I don't want go down too far the rabbit hole, but people are saying, right, they're using AI to do full functioning code, right? This vibe coding is a term of using AI to automate. just tell us something and it just made the app. But there's degrees of sophistication, degrees of performance. So that degrees I think will still be there, right? Like you might've used one AI product to build

A quick iPhone app I may have used others, but mine somehow had more sophistication. Why? Or more features. It's cause I might have spent more time with it. Or it could be that I gave it more details, right? So if it's not the raw prompt or the raw HTML, it's that knowledge. So I don't think it goes away fully. I think at least not, and it may.

But I think that something else in that form will always will be there because there'll always be some degree of volatility, you know, volatility or variance between these automated things. Like you, could download five automated app creators today and you could tell it the same thing. And you're going to probably get five very different looking apps. And so there isn't a consistency that we today.

Steve (30:50.551)
Absolutely.

Steve (30:54.392)
today.

Shripal (30:56.825)
But even historic, right? So the consistency has gotten better, but there's still the degrees of volatility are still there. So I think as we're going forward, you're still going to run into that and it'll just be a different method on how you communicate. Cause ultimately if everyone's building AI based applications, there's going to have to be a point of difference. So therefore there will be some method.

to create that difference that will have to be given. It could be how you talk to it, how it sees you, how it tracks you. It could be how you prompt it or how you code it with it. I think that is really, but there has to be something in allowing differences. Otherwise you won't have a marketplace of

of different SAS space tools. So I think.

Steve (31:56.814)
Well, by the way, just to interject, mean, if you look at Satya Nadella over at Microsoft, he would say to you when you mentioned SaaS tools, he would say to you, as he did back in the last five months, he believes that SaaS is dead in many ways. I want to read to you something and get your insight on this. A guy I have a LinkedIn connection with, I don't know him personally.

His name is Andreas Horn. He's the head of AIOps at IBM. He comes up with good content on a daily basis. And he said something very interesting today. He said AI is coming, and again, something repeated, but listen to this one. Quote, AI is coming for your job. AI is coming for your job. Heck, it's coming for mine too. Now those were in quotes. Those are not his words. And he wrote, that's not clickbait. That's the CEO of Fiverr, Mika Kaufman, in his latest email.

that every employee received yesterday from Fiverr. And he's not the first person to say that. That was said by the CEO of Shopify. It was said by the CEO of Duolingo. And what was interesting about Andreas Horen's comment is that he said, however, what accompanied Mika Kaufman's note were seven survival tips for folk today within his company. He sent it to every employee. He said, number one, experiment, experiment, experiment.

And as you and I both know and our viewers know, what's one of the most overwhelming parts like where we are right now in the evolution of the technology distinct from Web 1.0. Because Web 1.0, people were just trying to grapple with what is the internet? What type of content can be served? And it was quite rudimentary compared to we are today.

We see changes almost on a daily basis, certainly weekly, in large language models, diffusion models, what is taking place in technology. Obviously, Jan LeCun, the head of MetaAI, of their endeavors, has said he already is finished with large language models. He's on to the what's at the horizon, what he's working on with his team beyond large language models.

Steve (34:05.976)
But so one was try everything, try every possible tool you can get your hand on. I'll just quickly go through them. He said, find smart people and stick close, surround your people with folk who already get AI. Number three was use your time like it's expensive. So if you're still working like it's 2024, you're doing it wrong. It said speed and efficiency are the new currency. By the way, there was an interesting comment in the last few days I came across of someone trying to understand what in an employee today.

is considered favorable output for the company. And it's not on a 2024 model. Number four was master prompting. Now again, there's a debate within the community today of AI. Are we going to be post prompting at some point soon? Today, prompting rules, we know that. Number five, by the way, was help your company do more with less. So it's don't just do your job. Think, rethink how the whole organization works and automate.

know, everything comes down or a lot comes down to automation. Number six was think like an owner. Know what the company is really trying to achieve strategically and don't wait to be asked. So again, these are evergreens, but they're very specific in his vision of what's going to make someone successful when it comes to AI taking their job. And then number seven was make your own opportunities.

He says no one's coming to save you if you want to grow. Build your own path. Take initiative. Start small. Stay consistent. And that was what was put up by the CEO of Fiverr yesterday. What's your take on that?

Shripal (35:44.621)
I agree with them. you know, I think. But I also think. People don't process this the same way, but you could have made the same case about social media in 2009 and 10, because back then no one thought an 80 year old would win the most powerful office in the country on the back of Twitter, right? People eventually just started doing it.

Right? They didn't think about it. And if you had told them then that they had to get on these platforms and start using it, there was all this blowback. Eventually people did it. I'm a big proponent of, I think in this case of the speeds faster. I think it's easier to do everything that's said is when you can apply it to your life. And I, you know, I've, I've been quoted, you know, elsewhere, like how things I've done. Right? When I was playing with things, it's a lot easier.

When you look at it beyond your work life into your personal life, and I'll use some examples, I'm vegetarian, it's dinner time, it's midweek, depending what's on the groceries, Danny's like, what can I make for dinner? And using AI to just take different ingredients and come up with two, three options allows you to move faster, right?

I've used it to submit grants for my kids PTAs where we've won thousands of dollars being thousands of schools. I've used it to...

You know, manage like sports schedules and timing, right? Like, it's and it's not about it with a it's a time saver. But what it also does is it's starting to build a subconscious where you're no longer having to really force yourself to do these things. So when you can actually start using like prompting and these things for things that you're just going to do quickly in your day to day life.

Shripal (37:59.879)
What happens is it's retrained you. So when you're now doing things in the work life, it's second nature. And I think that's really what those seven things are about, is you need to be able to build some level of fluency, leveraging these tools to ultimately allow you to do things faster. And you need to then think about how are you gonna use these tools to create more value, which

Ultimately is both if you have more time, what can you go focus on? But then also if you have things done faster, what can you do?

You know, what can you do on top of that to potentially make it better?

Steve (38:44.686)
So I'm going to just share with you one thing you said, because I want to make sure I don't lose the thought as well. You said something very important. I think we're coming to the nexus of that. think it's going to be a tipping point. And again, I'm not much on projecting time, but I'm willing to say over the next six to 12 months that what you just described would almost be a 2024 model of usage of AI. And for Shripal, what is so beautiful knowing that he's a vegetarian,

And I have been one off and on throughout my life. And I haven't had red meat in 37 years and very proud of that. And principally no dairy and very rarely fish. So relating to your comment, what I see happening in this next stage, which we're in now, is that you and I will get that it's Wednesday night and now the AI is going to actually push to us.

recipes and recommendations, knowing what we may have already eaten over the course of the month, right? It might have a record of what we have logged in or just audio inputted as to what we ate. Or there, frankly, as we evolve, might be some video consumption of the AI within our kitchen, knowing what we cooked. We don't have to say anything to it. And it's Wednesday, and it might say to Shripal, one of your favorite dishes,

which is mine and I hope you don't mind me being culturally going back to I love all different cuisines I spent almost 20 years overseas, lived in the Far East, did a lot of work from Japan to India and aloo gobi, bengan birtha, ras malai, I can go on and on and on about the love of Indian cuisine and with that it might say chana masala one of Steve's favorite dishes.

I haven't had in three weeks. And by the way, here's a new recipe that just came out from X, Y, and Z Chef that is gangbusters has 100,000 downloads and everyone's given it five stars. We think you might really enjoy this tonight. I think, and that if you will, even though the book is probably in some ways, it's hard to keep up when you're an author. And I'm speaking expressly of David Edelman's book of personalized, you know, the idea.

Steve (41:04.982)
that it knows what we want, where we are. It's time sensitive. It's very sensitive to the fact that when we are renting a car, knows what music it should be playing on, you know, Sirius XM for us. It's already pre-programmed that. It knows what car we're going to rent, what we want. And so I think we're getting to that next level of, as you've spoken about multiple times in our conversation today, of the customization personalization.

of that intense personalization that has been the Holy Grail, one of many Holy Grails. And I do agree with you, but I do think we're going to get to that next beautiful level of a technology that preempts us.

Shripal (41:50.361)
No, agree. And I think, right, I think most people don't realize when they write or opening up Netflix or Amazon or Spotify in some ways, a lot of that's already being done today. And, you know, when. And so I think it's you're going to see more of that. think the question will be. What?

Steve (42:00.098)
Hmm. 100%.

Shripal (42:15.847)
You asked about broadband earlier. Well, if you think of what spurred the genesis of the adoption of LED TVs, it was HD broadcasts of sports, because it was a content that forced in mass where all of a sudden in a span of less than three years, or three to five years, you could say all CRT TVs just disappeared.

to in a macro sort of sense. I think the question here will be in the home, what is gonna be that push point that creates that same sort of drive, right? To sort of bring in new, either an appliance, hardware, what have you into the home. Cause I think a lot of what we spent

the early part of the conversation talking about, it actually predates to when the broadband piece happened was if everyone hadn't made those upgrades to these HDTVs to then get to the 4K broadcast to then go do cord cutting, they wouldn't be actually in the position to want to have split screen views using multiple camera angles and everything else, right? Like one kind of fed the other. And I think

for the future, I think like the cars and stuff are easier, but I think the question I have is really what's gonna be that driver in home. Cause I think that's, you know, like the TV was. Cause I think that that's gonna really then open up all these experiences. Cause then that foundational asset will be there.

Steve (44:04.344)
You it's so interesting and you made me think, I'm so glad we're having this conversation. so, it just, because you know you're in a space that whether, whatever we think, it's happening around us. And so therefore tomorrow we might hear about another robotic invention, the commercialization of quote unquote a humanoid robot.

that becomes more technologically affordable, commercially affordable and deployable. And whether that's one year or five years, it's coming. And so therefore it made me think about when you were speaking, Shrapal, that the idea of the smart appliances really never took off, right? It really became, if you will, for many,

kind of an upper class deployment of the Nest thermostat. did it all, anyone who's watching this today, I wish I could ask you to raise your hand in real time. We're not live at the moment. Although there's virtually no editing, we have a great editor and producer, but we keep high fidelity to the conversation. I'd love to ask everyone to raise their hand and say, how many times did your fridge tell you, you need to go buy some more eggs?

Shripal (45:16.05)
Right, like all those people that bought those Samsung fridges with the LED like displays that could look inside and track and all these features, right? That a lot of people when they bought new homes during, especially during COVID were buying all these things.

Steve (45:16.214)
and give you a 48-hour threshold.

Shripal (45:31.992)
You know i know if you like and they don't use them it's just like this like little like. You know it's a pretty thing that like you see but no one's actually using it.

Steve (45:40.194)
And it never became mass marketed, Tripoli. So what we're talking about, the advent that we're at today is truly consumable human augmented technology. That is, we know if we want to go again, just for a tad, because I do want to make sure we get to one point of your book and going back to the sports sponsorship realm before we conclude. And that is as we drive beyond AGI into singularity and we start having access as humans to neural augmentation.

which is the whole concept of the singularity. For me, this goes beyond singularity and ultimately to transhumanism, barring an act of God, if you will. I don't foresee anything stopping us from getting there. And therefore on that path, this is clearly a distinct time from anything else the human being has experienced. So when we reference Web 1.0 or...

the deployment of social media. First of all, this was not a every human being engagement, right? So what we are at now is we now are keeping up with the Chinese. The Chinese two months ago announced a national campaign that everyone six years old and above will have to use AI in school.

In my opinion, that's a smart move. The United States responded with a relatively comparable remark. I know the Chinese will deploy it having spent 13 years there. I don't know how well and effective we will deploy it. When we had kids during COVID in my city of New York and that of Manhattan, literally not when the parents said, or when the principal rather, or superintendent said, kids go home, we're gonna serve you via Zoom.

or Google Meet, I don't even know if Google Meet was available at the time of February 2020. What we started to hear in New York City was, whoa, whoa, whoa, there are kids at libraries just trying to gain access to technology. So I believe the Chinese will deploy and are in the process of that. What is so interesting is that we are in the midst of technological change, where literally you and I awaken daily. And if we go to the leaderboard of who's at top,

Steve (47:54.902)
We see Claude, we see Llama, see obviously Chat GPT-4 right now has been retired. Are we interested in it from a commercial deployment, from a diffusion model, for the usage of, from an advertising creation standpoint, from a graphic design standpoint? Are we interested from a different usage, from a writing standpoint or from a consultative standpoint? And we're using it so we know that we're starting to see niche-based success.

among the large language models, going back to your expertise in the books that you wrote and bringing it back to your passion of sport and your professional expertise in sport. As a sponsor today, if you were speaking at a conference in May 2025 about what a must have is,

Shripal (48:29.095)
.

Okay.

Steve (48:46.412)
for a corporate sponsor today in the, what we call the three M's of the landscape of sports sponsorship. The pre-contract match stage, I got 100,000 choices of athletes, teams, associations, and stadium venues and events. I've got a tabula rosa. Well, I do have KPIs in this case, tabula rosa. Just what should I do? I'm an automotive brand, or I'm insurance brand. I've come from 70 industries. Obviously once I choose,

What should I do with it? How do I maximize? I wanna optimize, I wanna maximize, and then I wanna measure. But I wanna measure objectively. I don't want the person who sold me the sponsorship to then come back with the management report as a property or an agency and tell me how well they did, because that's really what a management report is. Typically, when I sold you the sponsorship, executed the maximization, activation.

I come back to you with a management report, man, that's a heck of a conflict of interest. What would you tell them, Shrapal, having written two books in the space, deploying AI and being smart in a way of how to get more out of their sponsorship in the match, maximizing measurement areas? What might a brand leader do today who's contributing that $100 billion to sports sponsorship?

Shripal (50:01.731)
I mean, I think you can use AI to do better ICP, right, ideal customer profile analysis on the front end because

Steve (50:11.118)
So for those who just using that acronym, help us understand what are some of the tenants of that place. ICP.

Shripal (50:20.581)
So I mean, you as a brand should know who your ideal customer is, right? Income, right? Attributes. Do they have kids not where they go to school type of cart? Right. Right. Exactly. And then you have a property that you may buy and they'll tell you, yeah, we have the same ones. But how do you really validate it? Right. How do you really go further? And I think there are now ways to

Steve (50:32.354)
For demographic psychographic passions, right.

Shripal (50:49.161)
a use AI right to actually dig into with the because social media is so public right it allows someone very quickly to gather insights of someone's audience even before they actually do a deal with the brand which you could which Michael couldn't do 20 years ago right he had to trust that the commander's fans were gonna be that same demo there was no way to actually know now there's a way to actually get a sense

within that fan base prior to that, right? You can actually look at social media conversations, do the analysis of content, try to look at profiles. So I think, again, it's not perfect, but I think there's ways where you could look at conversations, try to see if there is the type of...

behavior that you might have already gathered that if when people talk about these type of things They tend to be more associated with our product So if you can make that connection that may be something that can help you at that match stage. I think the other thing is we're talking about is like right at how do you really start now removing friction because I think the reality is is

Sponsorship activation hasn't really changed in 20 years. There's still tables and kiosks and you know You went from like signing clipboards to scanning QR codes, but it's still You know it no, it's like great. You have the same Street team interns trying to flag people down come over get your thing and it and that met method hasn't really changed and the question should be How do I already? start if

you've walked into a stadium, right, using heads-up display, they've seen your face, then in theory, how could you, could we already identify what your brand allegiances are and interest and actually message you to try to inform you that these things are available? You come over, you could just tap a device and leave and the sponsor gets all the data they need. You get your free item.

Shripal (53:11.683)
you got back to your seat faster, so you're happier and you could drive a better view, right? So I think a frictionalist client services activation for sponsorship needs to be done. And then I think that we've talked about the personalization, the right time of when to send, how to send, whom to send, to drive a higher share of a voice, not just in venue, but when you can start measuring.

the fan base and their behavior outside, I think that's also needs to be part of this now, you know, that I want to message you, you know, both in bowl, but also now when you're you know, the two days later, going to the grocery store, it's like, how do I actually find a way to interact with you or time my messaging with that behavior? So like, I think.

Steve (53:58.167)
and

Shripal (54:08.066)
You just threw a lot of random things, but I think I think there is a what.

Steve (54:10.926)
What about measurement by the just to cover the three M's. What about the measurement stage from your expertise, Shrapal, when you were writing your books, what is it that you see that could be a game changer for a brand in trying to authenticate, validate rather, their actual, it's not an ROI, but a value generated from a sponsorship campaign?

Shripal (54:32.824)
Yeah, I think.

I mean, I think this is where it's like, how do you build new models, right? To like.

do prediction or propensity to start scanning like, If we know that there's a certain target at the end of the season for a sponsor, how can you start building models to see based off actuality if the marketing is actually performing or not, right? And there's, think things that you guys do where if someone has LED ribbons, right? Can you actually see is that creative giving us maximum impressions? Now impressions.

don't necessarily equate to sales, but if we can maximize the impression value, what that really does do is it's created a better value from the awareness piece of that sponsorship. And then I think you just have to go down the funnel, right? Is really trying to create a playbook of how are you gonna, and people measure everything, the reality is are they looking at it? Have they built a cadence to actually look at it?

Daily we write daily weekly hourly and I think that's where AI can also come in is it could look at some of these things for you alert you when they've seen a change so that the reality is instead of you waiting every Friday to log in to go check the stats. We're actually getting you know. It that's where again I think that can help because I think the biggest challenge right now is people.

Shripal (56:11.892)
have the tools to measure that the frequency isn't there and therefore the the latency in that frequency of the measurement actually removes an opportunity to make adjustments faster which could have potentially improved that ROI.

Steve (56:28.812)
As a Boston guy, you're originally from Boston, not Washington, DC, favorite teams, as I understand you have a rule in the home. It's Boston first, Boston Red Sox, Boston, you name it, Celtics Bruins.

With that said, in a time of tumult.

And imagining whether you're at a property, a team, a league, association, a singular event, ATP, WTA, LPGA, PGA, golf tournament. In times of tumult economically, philosophically, and really, really believe this, where do you stand when it comes to what should that sponsorship's...

manager, sponsorship director, marketing manager, brand director, whatever that title is, reporting up the funnel all the way up to the CMO. What do they do during times of economic tumult? know, whether we like it or not, and we like it, the Bruins are gonna play again. We have the Sox engaged now, the games go on. October is gonna be October with the World Series.

Everything that's transpired in hoop right now in the playoffs continue to play and people find their way to a sense, if you will, of in some paradoxical way, serenity and pain, depending on which side of the wind they are, but a sense of it's a sanctuary that they get to watch their sports. During times of economic tollment, and right now several members of my board have told me in their 40 years in finance,

Steve (58:12.622)
They've never seen anything like this, the volatility. What is your take on guiding a sponsor on how they should spend in sports sponsorship during times of economic tumult? And you obviously were at the commanders during a time of enormous economic tumult for the 2008-09 subprime crisis.

Shripal (58:35.826)
It's a, people are going to look to the sports properties and escape. And I think right there, it, is a way to, not feel the day to day, right? Especially like here in DC with all the changes in the federal government, there's a lot of changes going on. So, so I think how do you,

Shripal (59:02.592)
How do you become more of that, be closer as a sponsor, closer to my fan journey, right? Like if there's probably a behavior that I have in how I consume, you know, my local teams and the teams I grew up with, right? The Red Sox and the Celtics. And as a sponsor, it's how can I...

just be part of that journey in a way that's not deemed too obtrusive, but a way where I can be credited with providing that comfort, right? So if you can go from not, know, from people always say for game day these days, right? It's from curb to on on rent, right? From my house all the to the stadium. What are all the things I've done? The more insights you can get.

with someone's behaviors and I think be associated with that with the sports content. I think the more you will come across as one of the comforting brands, right? Which is why I think in in terminal times, there are certain brands that people go to because it provides a sort of a comfort, you know, and.

you see these brand C spikes, right? Like a Krispy Kreme or others, right? That it's just a comfort that some people end up gravitating towards. And I think...

Steve (01:00:37.55)
COVID Netflix Peloton, by the way. And although Peloton post COVID, that comfort seems to have gone astray. Their stock went from about 160, 180 to now I think it's down to $6 at the moment. And so if I understand your point, it's this idea of aligning during difficult times, aligning and being wise and not being invasive.

Shripal (01:00:40.404)
Exactly.

Shripal (01:00:52.328)
I am

Steve (01:01:03.672)
but being able to be a part of a journey during difficult economic times. And so if you were a brand, if you were the brand manager of FedEx when it was the naming rights partner over at the commanders and you were faced with a renewal, would you think that during this time of economic instability?

that this is going to be a bonus to your marketing because as you said, I've got a leg up on just conventional placement and creative airing of commercial spots or programmatic advertising. If I'm affiliated with their passion, I believe that will go much farther. Understanding that there's a compliment between traditional placement and the sports sponsorship is a holistic marketing undertaking.

Would you resign in times of turbulence because of that, for that reason?

Shripal (01:02:01.855)
I think potential, think the question should be right, is it a B2C or B2B brand? If it's a B2B brand, in many cases, having access to those things can actually be a big driver because your constituents, right, and customers are also dealing with terminal at times. So if you can provide them with the respite, you might actually endear yourself more. It's like, you know what?

FedEx helped me as a small business. gave me, you know, on my day off, they got me to go see my favorite team. And that might be endearing, or they got me a VIP tour, or they had a player come to my business. So I think...

Then on the content side, it's about

Steve (01:02:49.832)
What if you would go first to the B to C? I'm very curious the distinction you were drawing between the two, please.

Shripal (01:02:52.699)
Yeah. So the beta C right. So, I think with the beta C it's

How do I associate with the behaviors at that moment? So I think, again, I want to be there to show that we can support you, or not.

Steve (01:03:14.904)
But are you suggesting that the B2B brand during times of crisis as sports sponsors, and it'd be interesting, not for the purpose of our conversation, I'm gonna really look into this of the 70 industries within our sponsorship landscape, what percent fall into B2B, B2C or both? Do you believe there is, again, you live through and work through the financial crisis of 08, 09.

with what we are in now, we just had a week ago the announcement that the economy has retracted 0.3%. And it's quite apparent, at least I believe to the president of the United States as well, that next quarter, this, what we are in right now, Q2, ain't gonna be rosy and we're likely gonna have a clinical or technical recession announced. Do you believe there is a preferential

benefit to a B2B brand over a B2C brand or they're just unique benefits to each and they should both continue aggressively their sponsorship campaigns during times of crisis.

Shripal (01:04:23.838)
I They're different challenges, right? I think a B2B brand can actually. Sometimes take advantage of that. Because they can. I think. Right. Right, like.

Steve (01:04:37.934)
Well, you mentioned the VIP corporate hospitality, the ability to entertain, you saw in a very sculpted way, but on the B to C side, if you will, if I'm selling kicks, if I'm selling Nikes, selling Adidas, actually we just announced, I should mention that the former.

Shripal (01:04:45.97)
I'd end the beta-c side.

Steve (01:04:53.976)
President and CEO of Reebok and the former managing director of Adidas, Uli Becker just joined Sports Business Board and we're very proud of that. That was a today announcement in Sports Business Journal yesterday and today. So I should actually defer to Adidas. If we're selling Adidas, we're selling kicks and sportswear, would you curtail your spend during times of economic turmoil? If you were the sole decision maker as CMO, would you put the brakes on?

Shripal (01:05:00.861)
That's great.

Steve (01:05:23.766)
Or do you believe this is a time where we can actually have the brand excel in our relationship with the consumer?

Shripal (01:05:31.68)
I mean, I think we can look at COVID, right? Like these brands were still spending. It's what products are you putting in market and what's the messaging? So it might be that, you know, you're trying to offer, you're not offering the Y3s and the, the, the, you know, board eight collabs and you're offering the basic, you know, uh, training products and you're offering more training content, or you're trying to remind folks that

In terms of times, don't forget, you know, the fitness can actually be really helpful.

Steve (01:06:05.902)
That's beautiful point, the way. It's such a beautiful point that goes back full circle to the fact that for the moment, the human reigns supreme in concert with the technology. To be sensitive to the fact of what are our behaviors in times of duress is that we can start to neglect our health. And your very, very eloquent point about

how Adidas could come in with more affordable brands, being sensitive to perhaps people shaving back a little of their spend on the most elite brand offer. And so with that said, and again, I'm glad that you went to the watch because we are absolutely at that point of time of our discussion, that it's a perfect place to know that this is in, when you're having a discussion in AI.

that I believe for the rest of our lifetime, that this is an evergreen conversation. I don't believe that there is a end zone to what are we getting to in AI.

as we again have heard Yanla Kun interviewed this month, last month rather, April 2025 in Newsweek and gave a very compelling lecture on what is the post large language model universe look like in AI. We know that there's always going to be the human competitive spirit.

Shripal (01:07:36.221)
Yeah.

Steve (01:07:38.498)
to evolve and continue down the path again, until ultimately we see what is the outcome of the artificial general intelligence environment in which we live. And then ultimately that singularity and if you will, beyond that, a transhumanistic experience. So with that, what a pleasure. I know that we can have many, many more conversations Shrapal.

Shripal (01:07:44.829)
Okay.

Steve (01:08:06.19)
a compelling guest. want to be true to what you've written, so I'm going to make sure I capture both of them. One is called Leveling Up with AI, Strategic Guide to AI in Sports Marketing, written in 2023. And the other one, I don't know if this is a nod to the President of the United States, but The Art of Victory, AI and the New Frontier of Global Sports. Again, our guest was Shropil Shah, former Chief Strategy Officer.

Shripal (01:08:22.604)
So

Steve (01:08:35.854)
at the commanders, shop your way, Chief Digital Officer, an active angel investor, advisor, adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Great exploration today with you, Shrapal. Thank you for joining the transaction report.

Shripal (01:08:51.731)
Thank you, I appreciate having me.

Steve (01:08:55.288)
We're gonna hold for one last minute. And as we come to just at the top of the hour, and thank you. I know that we had that tech challenge at the beginning. So thank you for the extra few minutes. Kristen, or is he uploaded? We just wanna make sure.