Ted Leonsis wants to make D.C. the sports capital of America

For some, sports is just a game, for others, it's a way of life. And for a select few, it's a business worth billions. Ted Leonsis is one of those few. He is the founder, chairman, managing partner, and CEO of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the company he started in 2010. And he owns the NHL's Washington Capitals, the NBA's Washington Wizards, and the WNBA's Washington Mystics.Between Monumental's Major League sports teams, eSports franchises, world-class arenas, media network, business partnerships, and charitable arm, it's safe to say that Ted's built an operation that stretches well beyond just games.

I want to build the most important.Regional sport and entertainment company on the planet.

I've spent a lot of time around business leaders making big bets and managing complicated operations. And one thing I've seen again and again is that building a successful company is one challenge. Keeping it growing is another. So I went to DC to share an inside look at how TED manages all of it, the investments, the workforce, and the decisions that keep this $9 billion sports empire moving.I'm Ryan Patel, and this is how they run.

OK, thank you.

A self-made billionaire, 3 professional sports teams, 6 championships, a major arena, but first we're starting at a school playground.

We have AJ here, Anthony Gill, Felix, and Keyshawn Murphy. So 4 Wizards players on the cap side, we have Cole Hudson, Justin Sort of, and Matt Roy. Both Matt and Anthony Gill came here in the spring and met with the kids, and they did a whole brainstorming session of what they wanted to see.

Community impact is a critical piece of.Monumental portfolio through corporate team, league and player initiatives supported by the MSE Foundation. This is the 14th playground they've built serving thousands of kids in the DC area. It was amazing to me as we walked through this that Ted seemed to know everyone there, and he took the time to meet and thank the new faces as well.

Fishman's the mulch. You did this last year, right?

Like how does that make you feel when you see your players actually putting the work in

asa culture carrier for us, like we want to have great, great players, but who are even better people. We don't want me, we wantwe.

But it was pretty clear we weren't just going to talk shop. We wereGoing to do some work. All right, let's put, let's put this thing together.

I'm terrible at following directions. You have to lead me on that.

Leadership in general. Like when you think of leadership, and I mean, not just Ted's leadership, but your leadership and being here, like, what, what's the word that comes to mind?

Yeah, for, for me, and I'm just saying this because he's standing right here, he leads this entire organization at a high level. So when he's doing his job, it makes it so much easier for us to do our part. I mean, you see the entire, uh, business, the entire companyout here today.

You can tell that our culture is different from other teams, and I think the success on the ice stems from that culture, and I think Ted does a good job of creating that from.The top and having that trickle down towardsus.

They're not here for the photo op. Yeah, I know. I, I feel guilty. They watch me out, you know, they say nice things, but being real, providing legit leadership, that's how you make a team a destination. And then word gets out that we don't allow bad people in the locker room. We don't, we don't want.We want great players and better human beings, and then that spiral continues, and that's how you build a team, a franchise that's built to last. You know, when you have great people who are really, really good players and they make for a really, really great team, I think we can make Washington DC the sports capital of the United States. That's kind of the goal. We want to win.We want to grow. We want to innovate, and we want to give back. Those are the pillars for our organization. The community will love this playground. They'll protect it. They'll take care of it from these little acorns, these big important trees will grow, and it starts today here. Thank you.

Next stop, Capital One Arena.The building is in the middle of an $800 million plus transformation, and Ted's got some pretty ambitious plans for what comes next. All

this won't exist. This was a mall. Now our offices are there, back of house. This will get connected to their 900,000 ft to 1,600,000 ft.

Since its opening almost 30 years ago, the arena's hosted more than 4500 events and 47 million visitors.And while fans may be asked to pardon our dust, Ted's still running the place the way he always has by staying close to the people and the details.

Jordan,youguys, hey,

oh, Ryan

Patel, Jordan is our president of venues, technology, blah blah blah, and, um, blah blah blah. And we're going on Jordan's roof because.I've wanted something on the roof and was told by everyone, including his predecessor, it can't be done, can't be done. No,

I'm

permanent, it won't happen.

I've learned something about you. You can't say impossible. There's always, there's always a way. But,

but I'm being serious, and these were really gifted, strong, professional people, but we're trained to say no.We don't want risk, right?

So how do you, how do you untrain some of your team when they're coming in here for the first time that to make sure that that they have that attitude?

Well, culturally you say, um, errors of.Omission are unacceptable errors of commission, if you learn from it, it's great, scar tissue is good in many, many places.

I've been going to basketball games since I was a kid. I've sat in the nosebleeds and stood on the courts, but it's not every day you get to shoot around with a guy who owns the arena.

I haven't shot a basketball in 5 years. Well, it's OK. I'm not intimidated.

You know what I love? He hasn't shot the ball for a while. He's not afraid to shoot. No,

no, no, no, I was never shy on shooting.No,

look at that. Have you throw me one. Let me see if I can make one.Oh, that doesn't count. That don't count. You didn't call bank.

Paul Pierce hit a shot like that, falling out of bounds, but in the playoffs, and they asked him, Hey, did you call backboard? He said, No, I called games. I. I called game.

Let it be noted, I drained that 3. It was not AI. But more importantly, a little time on the court got Ted talking about something I think reveals a lot more about the way he thinks than any boardroom conversation could.

What I want you to look at here, there's lines here. There's a clear out of bounds. People love rules. We, we want to be living in a rules-based world, and there's something about sports that's magical in that you'll boo the referees, question calls, but there's a respect for the, for this world, right?I really admire that you watch the World Cup or you're watching the Olympics, and they can be countries at war with one another, but they'll come on the court and they'll respect like the rules and, and a calling. There's something about that that you, you can trust and then you can love in sports that really is magical.

Could you imagine when you first got into this, you're on this floor with 3 teams.

Um, no, and I was a season ticket holder before I owned the teams for the Caps. In fact, my son and I, we would come to hockey games and the Caps, the 1999 went to the Stanley Cup Finals and the first round of the playoffs, one of the players broke his stick.And the guy behind the bench reached over and gave Zach the broken stick. It kind of ignited some passion, and when somebody.I was approached to buy the team. I passed. It, it just doesn't seem like the right time. And my wife said, well, you got this list of 101 things to do before you die. And on my list was own a team, win a championship. What if you get 99 of the 101 things done? How will you feel?I woke up the next morning and I said, you know, this is why I love you. Yeah, I got to buy the tea.

And you know, the security personnel who gave me that stick still works here and has known me now for 25 years, right,

and he's a great guy, and I give him

credit. Ted Sunzak recently stepped into the role of president and vice chairman of Monumental Sports and Entertainment. He's been around this business most of his life, and now he's taking a major role in running it. When I say leadership,What does that mean to you? What's the first word that comes to your mind?

Beingpresent, being, uh, willing to listen to people, showing up every day, you know, you hear people say showing up is half of success in life. They're totally right. You gotta show up in the good times and the bad times. You've gotta be there doing the hard work when nobody else wants to do it. You need to show up on a Friday night. You need to show up on a Saturday morning. You just need to show up.And treat people well and have a vision and encourage people and support people and be willing to fill the gap when you see one.

One of probably the most memorable days, President Obama calls and says he wants to come to a Mystics game. It's the first time a sitting president and his family come to a game, and so Secret Service comes beforehand. Big cavalcade comes and the President of the United States walks through.And we're sitting there together and I'm on cloud nine. It's like I can't believe my life. I'm with the President of the United States.I had volunteered. I said I'm gonna do every job.In the company I wanna learn and so after the president left my job was to work on the cleaning crew.And my job was to be a picker.So after every game.People walk down the aisles and a picker.Walks ahead.And you stand like this and you're picking the stuff up.And then someone comes with the sweeper or the mop and you methodically, you're cleaning every row. And there was 11 area that a guy cut his toenails.In the game, during the game, and there's like toenails. I was just with the President of the United States and I'm feeling I'm all that and now I'm picking up someone's toenail clippings and, but that's what that's your attitude.

I mean, I think, but I think what you both were talking about, like I can see it right away is the details. Every detail is equally as important to anythingthat you do.

Worry about the big things and the little things.And then your management handles everything in the middle. I mean, if your vision isn't right, strategy isn't right, culture isn't right, um, budget, you're not investing right, big important things.But all the little things, if the ketchup isn't fresh, if the, uh, beer isn't cold, if the toilet paper isn't stocked, right, and in fact, we'll go, can we go, we'll go into a bathroom. I want to show you. I, I sent out a Batman alert. Tell me what, tell me what you don't like. And one guy writes an email and he says, um, I love beer.And I love the team, and then I go to the men's room.And I got the big beer in my hand and I come to the urinal.I need a place to put my beer.Genius, genius. These are my favorite stories.

As we continue through the arena, I wanted to see their dynamic and get a better view on how their business model is evolving. OK,

so these are the new suites. These are called the vault suites we built.10 of these we created this concept that we're a sass business. We have reoccurring revenue streams. The suites have become big revenue producers for us. These are a couple million dollars a year.

I mean, so when you, I mean this has obviously changed the way.

Yes. Now, we're constantly in a battle. I, I feel the battle of we have to be populist and accessible to everybody, but we have to drive revenues. So you have naming rights and suites and sponsorships and tickets. You have to be cognizant of how do we introduce the game, the team to.All neighborhoods, right? All of the areas now with the suites, these are the seats.So people use the suites, but their tickets are right here, yeah, and you know they're the best seats in the house. That's why, you know, it's a couple of million dollars a year. They have to sign a 10-year contract. OK, so you know, those are big numbers that we can count on and they have escalators and, um.Every year, next offseason we're replacing every seat, but we just replaced the seats 4 years ago, 5 years ago.This set of screens is really nice, but we're in this arms race. This goes, we're donating this to a college, right? And so the amount of real-time investment and ongoing improvement, the city deserves it, the fans deserve it, but it's relentless, right? I mean, it's just constant and to keep it new and fresh when you have 2.5 million people coming in, I mean, think this.This just reopened and we'll have 60,000 people in 34 days, 4 events.

Do you guys sit sit back sometimes? Well, I wish sometimes it'd be a little more simpler like it used to be.

No, never simple. It's just gotten, it's gotten more,

I

mean, it's gotten more complex, but it's also become a bigger, more sophisticated, professionalized business, and we love what we do.

Many companies, they do a really poor job of succession planning. Is there something that has kind of let you know how theimportance to it?

My experience at American Express, it's one of the things I'm gonna be doing as chairman of the NHL. It's the most important thing that you can do, which is futureproof the organization. What do you need at what time? So if you're a company in distress.Going outside for a new executive probably makes sense. But if you're a company that's doing well, you wanna have someone who's grown up in the company andYou know, he's done every job so that they can have the followership. Hey, how are you? Nice. It's

nice.

Is this the new

Nike stuff. After trying to keep up with Ted all day.I really needed a full timeout, not just a 22nd time out. I had more questions. How does a guy who made his fortune in technology end up running a sports empire? And with so much riding on every decision, what keeps him up at night? We found a great place to sit down as the arena was coming to life around us. You could hear music, announcements, and the crew sound checking in the background. Do you feel any pressure?

Oh, I, my, I'm, I'm not CEO. I'm CWO. I'm the chief worrying officer and so many things can go wrong other than the big thing. Did you win? Did you lose? One night, we have a game against the Houston Rockets andThere's a drip of water coming down and it's raining outside, but why is water dripping down? We have to stop the game. We're gonna have a rain out at a basketball game. There was a bullet hole.Someone drove by at some point and shot their gun.And the bullet went up and came down and put a hole in the roof.And we all looked at that and went, now there's something we didn't anticipate. We had a lot of scenario planning that became an issue. And so like every day you're confronted with something different.

What do you do for yourself to kind of help with that stress or pressure? Is there something that you do that others can say, you know, Ted does it, I can do it too.

Well, I'm lucky in that I'm an extrovert and so I get my energy from people.And if you've ever taken the Myers-Briggs exam, yet it has its ups and downs, but I make people take Myers-Briggs exams because, you know, in my other life at AOL, my partner, my, my boss Steve Case, he's introvert. And when we would have a time of, of stress.Steve would go into his office, kind of lock the door and send emails. I would go out and be talking to customers and employees and partners until we took the Myers-Briggs exam.I'd be saying, oh my gosh, what's Steve doing? I'm nervous. And Steve would go, what's he a birthday entertainment clown or something? What's he doing out there? Why isn't he working? So we took the test and I was like, OK, you're getting your energy, you need the time for reflection. I need to go listen to people.

I hear that you're actually a big reader too.

I, that's the one thing that I believe has been a, a.partial secret to my success when I was growing up, we moved from New York to Massachusetts and I needed a job. And so I went to a library and I took out a book, How to Mow Lawns.Now, I was from Brooklyn, New York. There were no lawns, and I took the book and there was this one street, Andover Street, and all these big houses with lawns, and I knocked on people's doors. 100 people didn't answer the door or like laughed at me. No, no, no, no. One guy answered the door. He goes, have you ever mowed the lawn before? I go, no. Do you have lawn, lawnmower equipment? No.What do you got?A book.Do you want the Wembley cut? And he goes, you know what, this is my garage. We go in, this is the, go ahead, knock yourself out. And I am for that one hour, the world's best lawn mower. I am on my knees. I got the clipper.The guy's looking out the window. His wife is looking out the window, brings me, they bring me an iced tea. He says, it's a good job. Come back.2nd, 3rd time I'm there, we start talking a little bit.He goes, you're thinking of going to college? And I've never gone to a college tour. I had to take my SAT, right? And I explained to people, if you can't take no for an answer, I said, I,Nobody, I mean,I wasn't even a close to yes until this guy, now, if he's not at home.And he's not open minded.And he gives me a break.And I don't mow that lawn like I'm the world's most accomplished mower of lawns, so IDo I go to Georgetown? No. Do I own Capital One Arena and the teams? No. His name was Jim Shannon. He's a great, great guy. The first million dollars I gave to the school, I said, Jim Shannon scholarship.

I love it. I love it.Well, I wanna ask you, we're gonna call this round Ryan's sprint round, so.Data or gut

Mash up, OK. And, but I, but I'm more gut than data.

What about email, call, or text face

to

face? I knew that was coming, and I mean I spent with you time. I see it.

I'm the best. I return everyone's email, everyone's, uh, call within 24 hours.

That's a great,

that's, but it's perfunctory, whereas if you're meeting with someone and you're talking to them.Yeah, you get more out of it.

Is there a meeting you would like toNot have or delete or shouldn't be on your calendar.

I don't like the formal.Process that we have on how you do reviews for employees, it's just, can you really capture how somebody did in a couple of paragraphs and answering a couple of questions in the theorem, youknow.

All right, so fill in the blank one word future of leadership is.

Inclusion, but not in the DEI sense. It's being able to get people to get it and then they basically bring that message, that energy, that culture to everybodyelse

and then the future of your empire.

Well, we tend to have modest public goals, but internally,

how would you, yeah, how would you describe it? Just, um,

well, we want toMake the playoffs, and then we want to be competitive, and we want to have high ratings on our network and we want to win championships. We know how difficult that is. But to be honest, I want to build the most important, uh, regional sports.An entertainment company on the planet, and I want to win 3 championships in the same year.

Ted Leonsis has built an enormous business around sports and community, but after spending time with him, what stands out isn't just the scale of monumental sports and entertainment, it's how personally he approaches it.The big investments, the small details, the people working behind the scenes. Ted seems to believe they all deserve his attention, and maybe that's what makes the business of sports unlike anything else, because for all the money involved, the product is still something deeply personal, and Ted Leonsis has made a career out of understanding that this business is about the community around the sport. It's not just what happens on the ice or the court.It's a long game and he's playing to win.

I have 16 rings. I love when people go, You're a loser, but Ihave

16 rings.

Yes, you know, we've won a Stanley Cup, WNBA championship, and NBA 2K championships, and League of Legends championships, and, look at

that

thing. 5 AHL championships.

Does that bother you?

Not anymore. Not anymore. No, the scar tissue is pretty good, you know. On occasion I'd like to say.You know, you're right. How many rings do you have?

I can't, I can't say anything to that because I don't got no ring, so you're not gonna hear it from me.