Scott Duffy interviews David Meltzer: Live on Rose Bowl, Spring 2017

Wait a few.

Hi, this is Scott Duffy with entrepreneur. And I am so excited to be here with my old friend Dave Meltzer, sports icon, founder, CEO of Sports1Marketing. And we are live at the Rose bowl in Pasadena, California today. And as a college football like, I am the biggest college football fan that you've ever met. So to be here in this room, we're actually. Where are we now?

We are actually in the locker room. How cool is that? I dreamed about suiting up and playing in a locker room at the Rose bowl, and here I am. It's amazing.

It is so awesome. Tell us why we're here today.

You know, I sit on the Rose Bowl Legacy foundation board with Warren Moon, and we were trying to figure out a way, how can we give back to the Rose Bowl? And so we have all this relationship capital that we utilize in sports. Guys like Jim Laritz and Olympians and Josh Booty, all these great people that'll be here today. How do we use them to bring the community together to really see the glory of the Rose bowl and also share some great ideas about sports innovation?

Well, I'll tell you, this is so cool. So, like, like I was saying, I am the biggest college football fan. I'm a huge USC fan. So the usc, Penn. Right. Usc, Penn State game that took place this year, maybe one of the greatest college football games ever in the stadium. And I know your partner, Warren Moon, He's. He's a former Rose bowl mvp.

He certainly is. And my two favorite teams are Ohio State, who obviously have won several Rose bowl, and whoever's playing Michigan. So I fell in love with Warren when he became MVP in 1978. And as a huge underdog, I think he weighed about 175 pounds at the time. Just put it right to Michigan.

That is so awesome. So we're in. Are we in the home or do we know? Are we in the home or the visitors locker room?

Locker room. And they wouldn't let us in the home locker room, obviously. So there's enough that goes on in here. So this is where Vince Young beat your USC Trojans.

Oh, man, you're killing me right now. You're killing me. So the home team, are they. They're right next door.

Right next door. They probably. Probably looks a little bit nicer than this.

Let's get a look. I mean, this event is going to just be amazing today. Sold out. It's starting in 30 minutes. Yeah, with tours.

We're giving tour, everyone for the Rose Bowl. We have a meet and greet with all the celebrities and athletes. Then I'll be giving a keynote. And then we have an unbelievable panel for the speaker series on sports innovation. Sam Farmer from the LA Times will be the moderator of that with Warren Moon, Caitlin Sandejo, Jim Lair. It's just a plethora of talent.

Well, that's so cool. So here's what I like to do. What Dave and I want to do is we want to take you guys on a real tour of what it's like to actually walk out onto the field here at the Rose Bowl. And then we have a lot of questions that have been coming in for the past couple days through Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and all over Snapchat. And we just want to ask you a lot of questions, really, I think with a focus on innovation today. And I've always viewed you as if not one of the most. The most innovative people in the sports business. And I want to learn more about how you do it. That's awesome.

Let's keep going.

All right, cool. So let's go this way. So we're in the locker room right now, and you can, like, see the, you know, the chairs where they'd set them up for the players. And then if we go out this door up here, what's going to happen is we're going to hit the tunnel. So I will. I'll follow you.

So the team would come out right through here, right? There'd be a lot more energy than you and I have, right? And both these doors would be open. They'd be screaming, jumping. You've probably seen some videos of it. And then this is where it gets really exciting. When you turn this corner, start seeing the lights from the field, right? You get the angst of it. And.

Outside from this tunnel, and it's one of the most exciting things is you turn like you've dreamed your whole life. Like, Warren grew up in la and he talks about this walk right here from the visiting locker room. Went to Hamilton High School, dreamed about playing quarterback in the Rose bowl when everybody told him he couldn't play quarterback from the time he was in Pop Warner, from when he was in high school, then even trying to get into the PAC 12. Well, PAC 8 at the time, right? They made him play for junior college where he was All State and All American. And then finally to walk through here your senior year to play Michigan as a 16 and a half point underdog. All your friends and family, everyone out here, start looking and seeing what this looks like.

So check this out out here. So this is the first view that you really get as a player as you're coming out of the tunnel at.

The Rose Bowl, 110,000 people screaming probably against you.

And I think. I think we should just walk out on the field.

Gotta walk out on the field, man. Just don't tackle me. I'm an old man.

Awesome. So if you look up on the big board up here, you'll see our partners, our friends over at the Rose bowl, and we want to thank them for having us here today. We want to thank all of our friends at Entreprene.

I want to ask, how did you get started in the sports business? And I know that you worked for a time with Lee Steinberg, so I'm.

Going to talk about that today. Being an entrepreneur, being someone that takes imagination, uses action to make it a reality. And so I actually started my career in technology. And when I met Lee and I dreamed about being a sports agent, right? I went to law school. Did happen for me, right? I dreamed about being an athlete. That didn't happen for me. So here I was, met Lee Steinberg, not looking for a job, but because of my skills, knowledge and desire, because I was an expert in my field. He gave me an offer within 48 hours of meeting me to be this chief operating officer of the most notable sports agency. And then within six months, I earned the CEO position at Lee Steinberg Sports and Entertainment. And that's where I met Warren.

And a lot of people refer to Lee as the real Jerry Maguire.

He is. You know this. I know Drew likes to tell people it was him, but I have seen the sign. Cameron Crowe, he also. Lee was in the movie. Troy was in the movie. Warren was in the movie. I have a sign poster. Cuba, everybody. Tom Cruise. Cruise. Lee Steinberg was Jerry Maguire. They based it off of him.

So when we're together, we talk a lot about innovation, and I'd love to dig in. When you think about innovation, how is it similar or different for someone working in a big company versus someone that's working in a startup?

You know, I think the difference is the accountability, right? There's a lot more below the line behavior. In a big company, it's easy to cover your ass, to go below the line, blame, shame, and justification. When you're in a startup, as you know, there's you and there may be a few others. And you have to toe the line of accountability. Live above the line. Ask yourself two questions. What did I do to attract this to myself? And two, what am I supposed to learn from it? Because Being an entrepreneur of a startup is an evolution, right? No startup ends up where they thought they would be. Sure, whether it's Google, Yahoo, doesn't matter. They did not start off guarantee. Google was a optimization tool and it ended up being the biggest online marketing company in the world. So you have to have that innovative spirit, but also accountability when you're a.

Small entrepreneur and company and the ability to pivot. I always hear that. Someone just said to me recently that regular people, they fail. Entrepreneurs pivot.

Yeah, exactly. I say evolve, right? People ask me, what's your number one piece of advice? That's my bird flying. I told you we get a flyby. I told you we'd get the flyby. There it was. But I tell people all the time, they ask me the number one piece of advice to being an innovator. And I always say stay in business, right? Because sooner or later, if you can stay in business, it may take you like Snapchat 8 months or Instagram 8 months to make a billion dollars, or it may take you like Wonder Bread 80 years to get that big. But eventually, a true entrepreneur with persistence, a true innovator, will pivot and evolve and make something great happen.

And when things are tough. One thing that you said to me that really stuck at one point in my career is that sometimes the purpose of being in business today is to be in business tomorrow.

Absolutely. And part of that strategy, most people don't realize, at least the shift in the paradigm that I have, is to be of service. Part of being in business tomorrow and dedicated to being in business tomorrow, is to be of service and helping others. But even more importantly, it's very hard for radical humility to take place and ask for help as well. So I'm playing with humility on both sides. One, to live in humility by giving service and offering my help and taking, no matter how successful I become, the energy to help other people. But also being radically humble and asking for help even when at the top.

Of the game, when building a business, building a team, creating culture. How do you develop a culture of innovation inside of a business?

So most people you know are very surprised when I answer this question about innovation and culture. I believe there's four things that you teach and they're all value based. Number one is gratitude. I believe you have a company that's gracious, that understands your past is wonderful no matter what has happened, your present is even better, but your future is even brighter. And gratitude. Those two words, thank you. So I train everybody in my company to be Gracious at all times. I actually train them to say or think thank you twice a day before they go to bed and when they wake up. The second would be empathy, forgiveness. There's so many mistakes that are made when you're an innovator, right. Because you're actually taking imagination and through action, making it a reality. There's so many mistakes you have to forgive yourself. And you definitely, if you don't forgive yourself, you can't forgive others. Once again, going below the line, which is the third point into accountability, you have to be accountable for everything that happens. You have to take control of your life. No matter what happens in that business, if you are accountable, you are in control, actually, which is counterintuitive. And then finally, the fourth is effective communication. Communication, the true value of communicating two ways, though. One up to that which inspires us and two, out to empower others. To empower others to be inspired. And those are the four values that are truly the way of building a culture.

I'm going to shift gears for a second. One of the things I've always admired is your ability to build great intern teams and help people from a very early age to build their career from the ground up. Can you share with us how you do that?

Yeah. Well, first of all, Lee Steinberg really motivated me with the intern idea. He told me at one time, be kind to your future self. And what a better way than empowering young people to empower other young people. And so today, after two decades of interns in my company, they now run businesses. They now run companies, they now manage teams. And who do they credit or who do they help first or give priority to? It's me. So we built that intern program based on the four values, and we really try to empower them with those values, making them successful not just within our company, because we have a learning phase, an execution phase for employees, and then a partnership phase. So we take them through that 90 day internship, that learning phase, and we either keep them in an execution phase where they become profitable with us, or we help them and inspire them to go do what they love to do.

Awesome. Now, I know we've had a lot of questions come in from Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat, and I think we're going to read some of those off here for you, Dave.

So from Twitter, what are the most innovative ideas you're seeing in sports today?

So for those of you who couldn't hear, this is from who is it on from? Ron on Twitter. We want to thank you, Ron, for asking that Question. What are some of the most innovative ideas that you're seeing today in sports?

So the most innovative are really within VR. So like the Fox VR at the super bowl where you actually can sit at home and feel as if you're in the 50 yard line suite and you choose your seat and then you get the different view of the game from that seat. You actually can turn virtually to the friends all around the country or the world in this suite and watch the game and talk and interact.

So awesome avatars.

It was incredible. Now the other side is a little bit more technical. You know, that's easy to understand how cool it is, right? Because the idea of these stadiums, the problem is they're not as comfortable as our home. So here's what people are trying to do with innovation. They're trying to make the stadiums like your living room and then they're trying to give you the energy of the stadium in your home. Wow. Very challenging thing. But the key component to that, believe it or not, is bandwidth. Like, you come out here and, you know, five years ago we couldn't do this.

True. That's so true.

And how. This is filled with 110,000 cell phones, everybody. Snapchatting, Instagram, Twitter, texting. Exactly. How do you handle that? So one of the best innovations are these repeaters and bandwidth accelerators that allow you to put the throughput into a stadium. Because not just 110,000 here, there's another 400,000 out there all hitting the same pops, right?

Sure, sure.

Access points. So that throughput side is really innovative and it's changing the world of sports.

Awesome. Another question.

Ron on 2 runs. Ron on Snapchat.

What do you see the different innovations being in big companies versus entrepreneurs?

So I think we talked about this a little bit, but the difference of having kind of an innovator's mindset inside of a big company versus as a startup.

And it depends on the company. Right. Guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would have entire business units and divisions. Right. I know Steve Gu at Microsoft. Right. He's the venture guy. He's the. But they have so many resources to be innovative. And so it's so powerful where you know, the creativity, the ingenuity of an individual entrepreneur or a small entrepreneurial group, this small innovative group has an unstoppable challenge. It's like Rudy. Right? That's the way I was when I played. I see the smaller groups as Rudy and the Microsoft Ventures, you know, as the New England Patriots.

Got it.

Once in a while, Rudy wins.

That's awesome.

And then Microsoft buys you.

Let's take one more question.

So Mike on Facebook wants to know how you handle pressure.

So Mike on Facebook wants to know how you handle pressure. And actually that is such a. That's like, that. That is the number one question that I'd want to know the answer to in this stadium. Because if you look around here, there's like 100,000, 110,000 seats here in the Rose Bowl. And the question I've always had is, you know, when you're, when you're the quarterback for USC in the Rose bowl, coming down the last five, six minutes and everyone's yelling and everyone's screaming, how do you lock in and how do you stay focused? Which is really similar to an entrepreneur's path. You know, if you're presenting an investor pitch or you're trying to sell your company, you know, to some new customers, you know, you got to be on and lock in. How do you do it?

It's the majesty of calmness. I live with Warren Moon, who can walk out here and not see anything, but I think there's someone better to ask than me. One of the most clutch athletes I've ever met. He's on my show of all time. Of all time. Right. Because on the biggest stage, bigger than the Rose Bowl, I even think, imagine hitting the game winning home run for the New York Yankees in the World Series. I'm going to give you the chance to ask Jim Leritz, the King of New York, my dear friend, my partner. I mean, come over here real quick.

Would you mind? Awesome. Awesome.

So we've got, we have. Thank you so much. So we've got Jim Laritz and we have obviously Dave and Jim. First of all, thank you for. Thank you for stepping in, doing this. Yeah, we're in the majority here. This is pretty cool.

Radio partners. We got to stick together.

So the question that I have is when you're in a stadium like this, or when you're in the World Series and you have thousands of people yelling and screaming and the pressure is on you to hit that ball, right, and maybe win the game, how do you lock in and stay focused?

Well, I think one of the great things about having this big of a stadium and this many people is the noise becomes one sound. So it doesn't distract you as much as you would think it would having all these different people. If there's only 5,000 people here yelling at you, you're gonna hear the individuals, you're gonna hear some of the rants and Some of the guys ragging on you. But I think for me, like I said, walking out in that kind of a pressure, I bet you if you asked Warren, coming out here playing football, you have this focus that, you know, whatever the task is at hand, that you're able to focus on it. Because, again, the noise is just deafening. It's not like individual noises. It's just one big sound, and you're able to block it out a little bit easier.

I think that's so awesome.

Jim's gonna heckle me during my speech today to make this difficult.

Exactly, Exactly. I'm gonna yell at him like, I'm one of those guys in the crowd.

Derek.

Awesome. Awesome.

What do you mean?

We do that on our radio show and the radio show that we do. He gives the business marketing side. I give the athlete side, and we always rag on each other. I'm like, listen, if you were my agent, I would have never listened to you back in the day. But we have fun with it.

Awesome. Well, I think that's about all the time that we have. So I want to thank, first of all, Dave, I want to thank Jim for joining us today. We want to thank the Rose bowl for having us here and also our partners and our friends at Entrepreneur. Thank you guys so much for having us on. We will be back, I think, live, next week here on Facebook. And until then.

You can watch today's event. I just found out you can watch today's event live on Sports 1 Marketing's Facebook page. So if you go to sports, the number one marketing Marketing's Facebook page, you can watch today's entire event live. So please join us there. You guys have a great afternoon, and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you.