Sports Executive John Filippelli

Rick Harrell: The business of sports icons with Rick Harrell starts now. $5 buys you a Dolphin ticket in 1966, the first one ever. At the end of the day, you could actually buy the team if you wanted to for $5 million. You wanna buy an all-star shortstop, it's gonna cost you $29,000. Man, if things have changed in the last Years at the end of the day it was a business nobody knew it. Harvard Law School. I wrote a thesis and I went to the professor and said I want to do something on sports law. He said that's great, but there is no such thing. And if there is, we don't teach it here. I had to win a squash game for the right to do that. And at the end of the day we certainly have caught up. It's a 2.6 $billion trillion business right now and in fact it has grown by about 20% year over year until Rudy Gobert tests positive for COVID in March of 2020. Industry shuts down, million jobs lost. Nobody knows when they're getting back, but the rebound. In fact, the Yankees nearly 9 to $10 billion. George Steinbrenner 50 years ago. Buys the team for $10 million. The Lakers sell for $10 billion. The bids start in Vegas and Seattle for $8 or $9 billion for the NBA. It is a resilient industry and as we get back post-COVID, cooperation, survival of the fittest, shared information, and understanding this is a business that's growing faster than any other, and you got to be on top of it to survive and thrive in the business. Now we're heading for the new Roaring 20s, not 100 years ago after the Spanish flu, but something even bigger. The positive aspects of the sports business permeate our own life, and as we go through the finest minds in the industry, about 100 of them agreed to be part of my book The Sports Business Hand. Book you're gonna get the business from them as only they can provide it to you. Executives, owners, players, athletes all lined up to give you their best judgment in the best business possible. So buckle up, be ready for a show like none other. Sports professor Ricardo, speak with you soon. Those of you who are baseball fanatics, if you don't know the name already, you better. John Filippelli, who was cutting his teeth at NBC, one of the most respected, influential, and accomplished leaders in the history of sports media. That's not just me, that's a whole series of people who wrote. And by the way, he started at 16 as a vendor in the Bronx, basically made along with some of the other icons like Dick Ebersall NBC Sports into a worldwide brand, then went over to Fox for baseball in 1996. The first World Series coordinating producer and the first Yankee win for him, by the way, in 18 years, 1998, he remembers Mark McGuire breaking the 1961 home run record. He was a production enhancement guy. The tight super slow mo, the full speed replay, the most iconic moments were captured by his technical expertise. At the end of the day, he was one of those folks that pioneered the transition from a black and white look at the box and see what happens into a multimedia event at NBC Fox. It is ironic that NBC is now back in the baseball business, and it owes in many ways John Filippelli the kudos to getting them involved at a high level where the next investment made sense. So as we look at a baseball brand worth over $12 billion and much of it as we know is television, more or less, we also understand that the value is created by the regional teams, the superstars, and the technical aspects of the games themselves, plus how they're covered, and John checks all those boxes. So as we settle in and watch the rest of baseball for the fall and beyond, hopefully it doesn't stop on December 1. Here's John Filippelli. You really started your career as a vendor at 16 at the Bronx basically selling hot dogs, right?

John Filippelli: Uh, I started my professional career. Yes, that's right. My working career, I started running numbers for a prime family. I did. I was doing it. I ran numbers, uh, to make a little bit of money. I was 12 years old or 13 years old, whatever I did.

Rick Harrell: Is this true? Is this true confessions?

John Filippelli: I was 12 years old. I, I was, uh, I was, uh, uh, underage working, whatever. I didn't get working papers either. Whatever it was, but it was, uh, it was an introduction into the world and it was interesting, interesting year of my life.

Rick Harrell: Yeah, but the, but the, but the dramatic piece which shows up in all your stuff talks about the vendor at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and that

John Filippelli: that was my first professional legit job.

Rick Harrell: Yeah, did you get enough tips?

John Filippelli: No.

Rick Harrell: OK, good. Well, they motivated you to greater heights, obviously. So, yeah, so, so now we're in the business of how to break in and whenever I advise law students, it's like you just gotta, you gotta, you know, suck it up and be lucky and be in the right place. So, so according to the lore, you gotta tell me if it's true. Yeah, Chet Simmons, who is a legend in his own right, asked you to name the uh starting lineup of the 61 Yankees, and he named all the players on the roster, and he said, you're higher. Is that right?

John Filippelli: Well, that, that's close to me, right? I, I, he said to me, uh, can you name the starting 11 of the '61 Yankees, young man? I'll do one better. If I need the entire team, will you give me a job? And he says to me, he goes, You can't name the entire team. I said, yeah, I can. No, you can't. I said, yeah, I can. He goes, well, go ahead, do it. So I did it and uh and he then he said to me, you missed one.

Rick Harrell: I didn't miss one you know he was just screwing with you I think so that could do that you know timing is, is kismet in this. I have the honor of Knowing and and being a good friend of Mark Lazarus and what he does is he goes through the Ebersol back to you and everybody, that world is a world that we won't produce again because you had to be a series of one-armed paper hangers unless I'm wrong. You had to do so many different things and you had to crisis manage on a daily basis. It wasn't a string connected by two cups, but it was damn close.

John Filippelli: Absolutely. Uh, you know, absolutely, you had to wear a lot of different hats. You had to really think on your feet. You had to be bold, you had to be daring, you had to be adventuresome. So it was quite, it was great, a great time in the business. And uh you're right, to your point, I don't know if you'll ever see something like that again because the business has morphed and changed so much now since then, it's a whole different, it's a whole different, uh, you know, uh, you know, set of, uh, you know, uh qualifications that you need to go for any kind of success in it.

Rick Harrell: Well, so, uh, City University of Richmond, 74, BA in History. How did you decide? Was it Ebersol's hiring in '74 and then you reached out and you became a PA? How did you morph into what you ended up starting to do?

John Filippelli: No, I took the tour of NBC, um, and I, uh, I really fell in love in like 10 minutes with broadcasting. It was like, oh my God, this is what I did. I gotta get a job. This is what I'm gonna do. I got, I have to do this. It's like this, this, I'm not gonna leave here to get a job. So I kept going from place to place, and they kept throwing me out, you know, who are you? Who did we ask you? And it was those were the days when you could actually, you know, actually leave someplace and walk around a building, you know, now you could do that with all the security and all these companies. That, but then it was fairly lax and so, uh, you know, I tried, I went from place to place. I wound up getting hired as a copy boy and I was making, you know, $14 a day, but it was an entree into the business and it was, uh, you know, it was a great way to start and I got to know all the sports guys because they were down the hall from the news with the area where I worked as a copy boy and they would all come in for their wire copy and I'd point out stories to them and They were very grateful and then they said, did you see this story? Did you see this in the draft? You took this and whatever, you see the score. So Frank Tedda threw a 2-hitter. He had 12 strikeouts or I could do stuff and they were great and they and but I didn't realize, but that became my, my audition into sports because they saw that I knew a lot about sports. I was passionate about it and you know, maybe there was an aptitude that I could apply and be successful in that part of the business.

Rick Harrell: MLB game of the week. Uh, did you realize, uh, speaking of icons, that you were about to jump on an incredibly iconic Generational opportunity when you were in the middle of that.

John Filippelli: You know, it's always through the, through the prism of hindsight that you really appreciate something, you really view it. I don't know if I really viewed it as much as I should have, uh, because, just because of my age at the time, and I was just so enthusiastic about it because I love baseball. I grew up with baseball. My dad owned a bar across the street from Ebbets Field. You know, Jackie Robinson and Carl Favrilo and Preacher Roy, Roy Campanella, Charlie, all those guys would come to my dad's bar because they did it to network so they could get jobs in the offseason. People have no idea what that means because players make so much money now. So I mean, so I, you know, I grew up around the game. I grew up with the game, and I had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. So I really, you know, I did, I'm not, I'm not saying that I'm not, hope I'm not immodest talking about that, but, but, but I had those qualities. And I, I love the game. So it would to me it was just that it, it was, wow, I get a chance to do what I love. How, how great is this? And that's kind of where, you know, that's really what launched me was my passion for the game, my understanding of the game.

Rick Harrell: The NBC iconic moment was the Gibson '88 World Series home run. That's what I, that's what I, we do Fox. We'll do Fox in a minute, but, but the NBC one, is that, is that right?

John Filippelli: Well, there was a couple. I mean, Bill Buckner was.

Rick Harrell: Pretty seminal, that's right, you know, so, no, no, it's OK.

John Filippelli: It was like, so there were, there were those moments, and, uh, they were, they were tremendous. They were great moments, uh, and, and I got, and, you know, I had moved on to Scully and and Garagiola, and, uh, because they were the number one team and they got, uh, moved up at NBC and so I was doing the World Series. So that's how I got to work with, with them, and, uh, and I, and Vin Scully was terrific, obviously, uh, legend you talk about legends.

Rick Harrell: Yeah. Oh, well, well, clearly, so 20 years at NBC Sports, maybe more. So who called you? Uh, it was, it wasn't, was David Hill who called you at Fox?

John Filippelli: Well, I knew Ed Goran really well. So it's really Ed Gore, but I, but I mean Ed Hill, like Hilly was, I knew Hilly. I mean, I got to know him through because I was friends with Goran. So when Goran was his boss was Hill, so they, they knew me, knew of me, and I knew them.

Rick Harrell: Was it McGuire's, uh, 62nd home run? Was it the '96 series with the Yankees being the first title in 18 years as your heroes? Uh, there's an iconic moment there. Where, where, where is that one?

John Filippelli: Probably because I, you know, I, I actually. Grew up a Yankee fan because the Dodgers deserted Brooklyn and LA. So, uh, those traitors, those Benedict Arnolds, uh, they left. So I became a Yankee, I'm a big Yankee fan. So, uh, I would say the Yankees '96 because it was Fox's first. It wasn't their fight, they were winning Emmys for their. Work in football, but they, that, that was what they had won. They like the pregame show was winning a lot of stuff, but that was their first live coverage of '86 World Series. So having played a part in that and then hiring Billy Webb, who was the great directors ever, ever, and I had a pleasure and a great man to work with. Um, you know, I'd say that, well, that, that was pretty iconic and it was important for Fox to, to do that to show that they could cover baseball.

Rick Harrell: Then you get the call from, from, uh, from, uh, yes, the RSN, and we'll fast forward because we don't want to do all of that, but The irony is that you had all of these technical experiences, but yet the RSN model, it worked and it worked somewhat in LA, it worked in New York, but it was effectively unproven. I mean, would you argue that this is something new for you when you did it?

John Filippelli: Um, I, I would say it was something that was there and it was a petri dish, and the petri dish needed to be, you know, it needed to be, you needed to experiment, and it was crying for advancement and it wasn't getting it. And, and I saw it as an opportunity, and I had said that to George Steinbrenner and Randy Levine. Randy Levine, I, I've said it to them that I think that, you know, I, I mean, I would take it, the job if, if we were going to. You know, advance this thing, and I, I didn't want to treat this as a, you know, 5 cameras and 4 tape machines. I want to treat this like a playoff environment. I would do, I mean, not like exactly like a World Series. That's all, that's really, uh, above and beyond, but a playoff, uh, you know, a complement of cameras, tape machines, you know, the kind of equipment that you need. Also, I wanted, I wanted to be able to hire the. that I thought could advance what we were trying to do and, and, uh, and to their credit, they, you know, they, they gave me a canvas to paint what we needed to paint and, and the ability to hire who we needed to hire and I mean the our biggest problem was the ticking clock of time. I mean we started, I got hired the day before 9/11. Think about this and then 9/11. had a terrible thing obviously happened since 9/11 and New York is the nation is paralyzed by it, but New York in particular, because that's where the attacks, or some of the attacks happened and New York is, is reeling in this. So against that backdrop, you know, we're charged with starting a new television network at 24/7 new television network, and we have like 5 months to do it. I mean that was crazy. That was, that was as, as lunatic a thing as you could from a production standpoint. I mean we had no producers, no more they had us, me and me, but where we hired, I mean, I hired, but I, I hired people I wanted to hire, but we had, you know, but we didn't have any equipment and we didn't have any infrastructure. We didn't have, you know, announcers per se. We didn't have, uh, offices, you know. We didn't have graphics. We didn't have music. We didn't have transmission. We didn't have any of the things that, that are just, you know, you know, basic stuff for, for a broadcast, you know, network and opportunity. We didn't have any of that, and we had no time. So to start with all that was crazy.

Rick Harrell: No, and, and by the way, 134 Emmys later, how about that? I mean, at the end of the day, look at your NBC experience and And you know, the, uh, the, uh, the baseball experience and throw in there Monday Night Football, Indy 500, the Super Bowls, Wimbledon, um, Wide World of Sports. What is your proudest accomplishment? That's a stupid question. Is there one?

John Filippelli: There's, there's a couple, but my proudest accomplishment actually deals with People, um, being able to work with and develop some of the people that we worked with and developed through the years was, was really quite rewarding, uh, helped break the glass ceiling. You know, with the hired women when it wasn't fashionable to, you know, and I didn't mean I didn't, I was kind of working recently and a woman says to me, thank me for, you know, stepping forward for her and advancing her career and doing whatever, and I said, I didn't do it to be a vision and I did it because you're good, you deserve the job, and I'm very big about if you deserve the job, you should get the job. Yeah, yeah, I don't sit there, look at gender, race, creed, or any of that stuff. I mean, I guess people do, but I, I really try not to. I tried to always look, try to get the best people I could. And if you could, you know, you could make a check, check a box for, for, you know, social, you know, consciousness and, and enhancement or whatever, that's great. But I wasn't really looking to do that. I was just looking to hire the best people.

Rick Harrell: So, let, let's talk for a couple of minutes about the, the, uh, well, future of baseball and the future of the media. So, so, you know, rapid-fire. Uh, do you like the Ghost Runner on second?

John Filippelli: No.

Rick Harrell: OK. Do you like the, uh, the pitch clock?

John Filippelli: Yes.

Rick Harrell: OK.

John Filippelli: Do you, I would, but I do because it does speed the game up.

Rick Harrell: How about this one? Do you like the, uh, the batter, uh, uh, catcher, uh, strike ball challenge?

John Filippelli: Yes, I think they need to fix it a little bit. They need to,

Rick Harrell: how do you, how do you, what in what context?

John Filippelli: Well, I tell you, I think when you get to the 9th inning and if you don't have any challenges left, we do, I think you should, they, they, there should be a situa because the game is really could be decided, and I think any inning, to be honest with you. But when you're at the end of the game and you've got, you know, and everything becomes so critical, every pitcher, whatever, I, I would like to see them have more there.

Rick Harrell: How about, how about the media business generally because you're the best at commenting on this. Uh, is, is streaming generally, is it good for creativity of media? I know it allows a lot more events to be covered that wouldn't otherwise be, and it gives you more money, but give me your global view of, of the streaming industry right now.

John Filippelli: My global view of the streaming industry, it's in its infancy, obviously. You see, I mean, eventually it's gonna be bundled. I mean, I don't know how any other way they're gonna do it. I mean, I'm, I'm sure maybe there is, but I haven't seen it. I, I think it's gonna get bundled because the way you had a cable bundle, you'll have a streaming bundle for because just the economics of it all. I mean, people just can't pay, you know, $15.20 dollars a month, $25 a month for this channel, that channel, that channel, this channel. I mean it's gonna exceed what their cable far exceed what their cable bills used to be so that that's economically I can't see how that's gonna work but it's all about content I mean obviously what that content is and you know if you control the content you know then then you're gonna find I mean I I I still believe like we talk about baseball right now. And you see what's out there and you see that games are all over. You've got games on cable, you've got games on broadcast, you've got games being streamed. The, the, the, how those games are, are disseminated is, I mean, you look at, you look at Major League Baseball, they've got their foot everywhere. We are right now in whether it's cable, whether it's, it's, it's streaming, whether it's, you know, whatever, it, it's, it's there, there.

Rick Harrell: But what do we think as far as content, if it's 100% of the pie, how much today is storytelling versus, you know, Detroit 2, Kansas City 1?

John Filippelli: Well, I, I mean, I mean, I, I think it's, I mean, it's obviously to me, it was, I grew up with storytelling. So, and I was a basic tenet of the business was storytelling. And to me, it's, it's, it is the it is about storytelling. It always has been and it always, always will be. And because storytelling personalizes and makes you care. About a play, I mean, it goes beyond the box score. The box score is the box score and that's score. That's fine. And you know, the, the analytics are the analytics and that's important to the game too. I get it. I understand it, but at the end of the game, the thing that sells the game is personality at the end of the is, is being able to relate to a player or relate to a situation and you know, caring about something. Give, give me a reason to care about this game. You know, beyond the basic, you know, to your 0.2 to 1 score. I, I need something like that. And if I'm gonna get really involved and I'm gonna gonna care and I'm gonna get passionate about what I'm watching, I've got to care. Make me care. Tell me a story, give me a reason to like this player or that player. It's important.

Rick Harrell: So I'm not talking about money because I ask all the players, are they born too early and they don't like the question. But all of the technical doodads that are at a mind of yours type disposal in the future and today, uh, were you, were you kind of born too early? You've made the best of what you could do, but look at all the stuff that's going on now, you would go crazy.

John Filippelli: Yes, well, that, that was the great thing about working at Fox and then working at was, here's the canvas, go paint it. If you could think of it, we'll do it. And that was like the NBC was not, it was not like that. But, uh, as you know, times have changed, and, and, uh, you know, no, I would love the idea. I mean, I love the idea of pushing envelopes. I love the idea of trying different things. I love the idea. I love when I was in Fenway Park when I was at NBC, I remember telling Corey Leibel was. They had no cameraman. I need you up on top of that wall, that wall, exactly, yeah, get up there 37 ft high with the thing on the right, yeah, that thing. Then get up there. It was a World Series. I need you up. I need you to go up there. And, uh, he said to me. OK, because he was great. He was great cameraman, tremendous, and he was willing to try things, and I, you know, when you get like minds, nuts like we were, I wanted to try different things. And when I got to Fox, you know, David Hill was crazy about, about those kind of things. He loved it. And so you could say to him, David, I want to put a mic on a base or a mic in a wall, and I wanted this. I wanted that. He was very open to all those kinds of things, cameras and bases, which, you know, you know, and then I, you know, I tried some of that, some of that stuff on some level. And so to me this was like. A kid in a candy store. I, I love the idea of this. I still do. I mean, I got bored one day and yes, I'm watching, I'm watching every, you know, every 3 innings we're putting up, you know, how many pitches somebody threw, and, you know, 100 pitches is a benchmark for getting starting whatever. And I said, this is uncre. I've got enough of this. I want you to put it up, put a number up there of just put it on the screen. Every time a pitch gets thrown, that number changes. And I'm the, you know, Michael K, I think it was announced. I said, Michael K, say this is it. This is the number you see is how many pitches the pitcher's thrown. And, and within a week, everybody in the industry doing baseball was doing within a week, but it took, but, but you know it's gotta be first it's up, so we, you know, we did that we did so many things that, you know, pushed a lot of, you know, I just said let's do it if we could, we could, we could try it and especially since we had our own network.

Rick Harrell: And the and the testament to your flattery is the lemmings you created. So final question, um, where's, where's media traditionally 20 years from now and where's John Filippelli in it?

John Filippelli: Hopefully, hopefully I'm, I'm, I'm still here and I could still. You know, make a contribution or do something. I, I, I, I would like that. I, I love the business. I'm fascinated by the business, great business. I'm very fortunate to have been in and played a part in it, uh, you know, so I, I'm very, very, uh, thrilled for what the way that life has unfolded for me. I got very, very fortunate and very lucky, and, you know, but, you know, maxed my opportunities and I, I wasn't afraid to roll dice or take chances and You know, go places that hadn't been gone before, and if they worked great, if they didn't work well, you learn from it, and the next time out, you'll, you will, we'll, we'll, we'll take what we didn't know and we'll apply it to this, and hopefully it'll make it what it needs to be. Um, and where the business will be in 20 years is The way it's morphing right now, you know, it could be, it could be anything, and that's why I think baseball right now, I say baseball because more than any of the other sport they've got their foot everyplace. Hopefully it keeps advancing the way it's advanced the last 20 years. It'll advance even further the next 20 years. Hopefully that's the case.

Rick Harrell: Well, I will tell you this, that the industry is absolutely lucky for having you in the middle of it, and I'm lucky for having these few minutes. We have some mutual friends, and thank you very much for this. The industry again is so excited to have your input on this, and we will watch this and continue this soon. Thank you very much for being part of my debut show. Sports Betsy Rick Harrow, speak with you soon.