Sports!

the 2030 episode 71 hannah yo what's up how are you how are things things are good i'm i'm doing well how are you i'm doing well back in the united states as of two days ago um i'm averaging like 10 days on 10 days off ish right now so yeah i mean kind of jet lag a little bit i'm not that not that bad this time did it right how's today going for you today's been okay i've had some interesting conversations and um some good work that i got done and now we're doing a an episode which is fantastic um so yeah it's good it's good i'm about to go it's hot again we're having another heat wave um here in london and it's gonna get hotter so i don't know what's going on it might be climate change maybe could be yeah i mean it's super hot here so i have a question for you actually you on fridays right so friday is not a workday in saudi you obviously do a ton of work in saudi with saudis for me it's just another workday like i don't get like oh it's friday it's the weekend when i'm here it's like another workday it's you know getting ahead a little bit but there's still stuff to do my weekend's only one day long now which kind of sucks is it the same for you yeah and honestly like like i often have to play catch up on a saturday and anyways so i kind of get saturdays off but when you run your own company or companies it's really hard to take any time off so yeah i technically only get like i do work on a friday for sure uh i definitely also work on a sunday and i often have to catch up on things on a saturday so life is as busy that's how it is right well we are going to be discussing sports by the way before we do that let's discuss podcasts now so this makes me think of something that happened recently i was in saudi i was talking to somebody they had brought up the podcast in the recent episode we did on riyadh air yeah they were like so can i just ask you like how did you and hannah like start doing this podcast like and the kind of the question was more like how did you find hannah to do a podcast with you because she's so talented and i basically told him i didn't get this feedback well i didn't i'm sharing it to you live and in color right now but basically i said well we were sort of randomly paired at a conference and i was supposed to interview her and then when we started talking we realized the report was really good and then one thing led to another right in podcast but i was telling him how unique your sort of language skill set is and you always say it's not that unique but when i found out how unique it truly was is when i sent you a washington post u.s english versus uk english quiz it was like an online interactive thing and i was like oh dude i got this i love making fun of british people and i got so you're supposed to choose words and say u.s or british words and i got maybe like 46 of them right and i thought that that was really good and the ones that i didn't get right i was like what are you talking about that's definitely a word in the u.s and you aced it 50 out of 50 and then you are also fluent and uh a native arabic speaker just an incredible skill set so hats off to you for being who you are but anyway i just um it's kind of interesting what i think about yeah yeah so like living in the uk i have learned a lot of new terminology but i still don't get it right every time but i do remember like one of my favorite things and you know this is funny and silly is when i first moved here like i know that they don't call garbage garbage they call it rubbish and they don't call it a garbage can they call it a rubbish bin but i didn't know what they called a garbage truck and i asked people and i wanted people to tell me what they called a garbage truck and i didn't know what they called a garbage truck and they didn't tell me what it was called and everybody would be like yeah yeah a garbage truck i'm like these brits are like they're hiding it from me is it rubbish lorry or whatever what are they so i thought it might be because like obviously lorry is a truck but i was like but the lorries are really like it's a semi so i wasn't really sure if we're if we're gonna call it a lorry or not but it is so it's a bin lorry a bin lorry is what comes to take your garbage from the curb and take it to the landfill no way about a year before somebody like actually told me that and then i have a favorite word but it seems like i'm just using dirty words at the moment like but my favorite word is port-a-loo port-a-loo like guess what that means so loo being a uh commode bathroom right a bathroom toilet right and then port-a-loo what is that like water toilet hit me port-a-loo oh like a porta potty kind of thing okay well by the way why not go with port-a-potty yeah that's it's alliterative go with that it's so much better is that port-a-loo so like when you're at a concert you're like i gotta use a port-a-loo yeah people use port-a-loos yeah so my thing and if you look at like our instagram dms it's just me sending you british people like street british uh and like people making kind of like doing the accents or whatever over and over and over again and i cannot get enough of it i don't know why it's just like wow what are you talking about just say they're americans half the time making fun of british people and i find that obnoxious because it's like really really fake and thick and like um yeah there's some other really funny ones though yeah but i mean when you hear so i feel like if i did a british accent they'd be like shut up you're american i mean obviously you know i can't really undo this but there are so many british actors who like i don't even know are british until they you know do a live interview and i'm like whoa british accent like your heat does an american role down to like a street cop talking like the street cop and i'm like how can the brits go to american so easy but you know i can't put on my you know white tie and tails yeah yeah uh yeah like hugh laurie for instance hugh laurie is one yeah the guy who plays jimmy from the wire i'm like dude you're like a baltimore cop and i didn't know he's uh sorry yeah no you're like a baltimore cop and i didn't know he's like a go ahead i mean you know christian bateman right or is it no christian not patrick bateman he's uh christian bale you're talking about maybe i don't know who that is okay anyway i was thinking of the guy that plays um billions um the red hair what's his name oh yeah um he's also i he like lives actually not far from me so oh of course billions right um and uh shiv from uh what's succession is also british and she sounds like the i mean whatever what are we doing can we talk about your amazing sports career yeah just like whatever nice to speak with you again um so let's talk a little bit about sports uh and what you've been doing we have a lot of people that always comment about sports too so i feel like this is gonna slap but anyway um tell us what you've been doing i did have somebody tell me that they didn't like how much we covered sports i'll just say that so sorry nosler but anyways yeah sorry he doesn't really listen yeah he doesn't listen to my um episodes that often so it doesn't matter okay but he was like too much sports yeah okay my brother yeah he's like why are you talking about sports all the time anyways um so i hosted the malise sports investment forum this was the seventh iteration of this forum and it is basically a british kind of initiative to help people who want to enter the world of sports from the uk and europe uh to meet people in the middle east that are in the industry so they're the first one they ever did i think was here in london at the emirates stadium and then the last two years the ones in london were here at tottenham hotspur stadium um so which is obviously my rival team's stadium so that was awkward i think i've already mentioned that so we won't dwell on it but i think i just need to say that again okay so what was really interesting was the conversation between the conversations the prep conversations that i had with my co-host kamil badawi who is the chief of data and strategic alliance at aspire in qatar so he was a really big part of kind of getting the world cup in qatar going and i mean i didn't know that much about aspire zone but um you know they have everything in the sports ecosystem from kind of basically you know the the training the facilities to a hospital to all all of the things that you would need um and kamil's kind of extensive knowledge of the world of sport was something that i was actually really keen to learn from because again yes i know the region really well and so does he but he also knows the world of sports so when we sat down and we talked the thing that we agreed on and the thing the message and i think the overarching message that we wanted to have when we were talking on stage together and presenting kind of or opening the event was that we were talking about the fact that we were building relationships is the most important part about doing business in the region regardless of what industry you're in and so yeah it's great to have panels of experts to come up on stage and talk about what they're doing it's fantastic to hear from them about you know how things are evolving and developing in the world of football through the ministries through different investments through the world of sailing um potentially a little bit of golf uh but also esports um both in like the gulf states as well as in the rest of the Middle East and in North Africa. So it was great to hear about all of those kind of potential collaborations, but we were like, you know, these panels are one part of this event. The most exciting part is the breaks when people stop and come together and start talking about what they're doing. But you do need a little bit of that presentation in order to facilitate some of those conversations. Obviously, one of my favorite presentations, I had two, and I want to talk a little bit about both of them. So my favorite one was probably the one about Al-Qadisiyah. And this is a stadium that Aramco is building, and it's almost ready. It's going to be one of the stadiums that hosts the World Cup games when they come to Saudi. And so it's massive, it's beautiful, and it's on track. Again, like true Aramco standards, this is something that is getting built up to standard, and it's on time. And it's literally, again, so like talking about what's his name that lives down the road from me, actually, he lives in an adjacent neighborhood. He doesn't live near me. Love Baruch on all your success, yeah. Yeah. The Aramco Stadium or the Qadisiyah Stadium is literally a stadium that is in the neighborhood that I grew up in, in Saudi. So traditionally, my family are not Qadisiyah fans because my dad's family grew up in Tamam and not Khobar, and Qadisiyah is a Khobar team. So I grew up in Qadisiyah, and I grew up in Qadisiyah. So I grew up in Qadisiyah. So we're Etifagis, but it's okay because it's still a really cool stadium. And one of the things that I learned about the stadium was how it was being developed. So it's not just the pitch or the field, if you want to call it that, but it is a retail space. It's an exercise space. There are going to be a lot of opportunities for fan experience within the stadium. And it's also a club for training so many different sports for young people as well as the pro athletes. So it's an ecosystem that is being developed and in an incredible space. And so they kind of like kind of walked us through the stadium, where it is and the plans for it and all of the different opportunities that, you know, exist to kind of collaborate with the stadium and the different the different sides and different parts of it. And what I liked, I think, the most about that was this kind of learning about the idea of fan experience. And that is kind of how I opened my actual presentation on stage. It's like I was talking about how the first time I ever came to the Tottenham Hotspur-like stadium, I felt this incredible team spirit. Everybody was wearing their kit. It was a beautiful day. Everybody was like kind of walking toward the Tottenham Stadium. And you could just feel everybody coming together. And I get inside the stadium. And it's just like the energy and the excitement to see Lady Gaga, because I was there for a concert. I wasn't there to watch Tottenham play. I'm an Arsenal fan. So that's when Kamil was able to pick that up and start talking about the idea of fan experience and how sports isn't just about sports. It's about all these other things that you're building alongside it. And then when I think about that and the excitement about kind of how things are unfolding within the world of sports in Saudi, it is about that. It's not just all of these stadiums that we're building. It is all of the sports federations and the potential athletes that are now going to be going into the Olympics or other professional sports and competing internationally. And I just think it's really exciting to think about the ecosystem. So, yeah, the stadium and that presentation got me thinking. It's what actually I changed my opening after that to talk about my experience in the stadium that had nothing to do with the sports, because this is what you should be thinking about when you're thinking about sports investment. And then I met some of the people that were there. And it was everybody from the people that do the production on, you know, televised sports to the people that do the lighting to the people that are doing the training. I mean, Syracuse University was there, which, I met them and talked about how their sports education is probably the best in the world. And so many people are now going there to learn about all of the different dimensions of sports education from management to medicine to everything else that you would need in between. And it's interesting to just hear about, like, again, growing up, I didn't care about sports. It wasn't a thing. I got the World Cup was interesting. Everything else was boring. But when I now as an adult, look back at that, I think there were missed opportunities that adults, I think kind of would glaze over when they were talking to kids about sports or getting kids into sports, which is thinking about it more broadly. It isn't just about the game. That's a huge part of it, of course. But if you're a business person, you can still be really interested in sports. Or if you're in education, or in medicine, or in law, you can still be really interested in sports or in production or whatever. And I think that's a big part of it. And I think that, again, that's what excites me, because I like to talk to people about their career journeys and think about economic opportunities and capabilities building. So there was just a lot of food for thought. The other, and the last thing I'll say is the other thing that I really enjoyed was listening to the CEO of the Esports Federation speak. And it was a really interesting exchange, because the panel also had kind of a sailing, I can't remember the name of the panel, but it was a really interesting exchange. And I think that's a really interesting exchange, because the panel also had kind of a sailing, I can't remember what it was called right now. And maybe we should put it in the show notes. But we were talking about how. Sailing like sailing boats. Sailing boats. Yeah, they're on the same panel. Like they're talking about sailing on one side and esports on the other. And it was almost like a duel. It was really, it was like the sailing organization that the woman was representing is small scale. But instead of like you watching some sort of regatta that's like out in the middle of the sea, you're like up close, they sail close to the sea, the shore to get people connected. And I think that's a really interesting exchange. I'm kind of excited. And it's a real experience watching these races. But, you know, the numbers are small, and it has to grow kind of organically. And like, you can only have so many boats, and you can only do so many of these events versus like the esports numbers, which are insane. And so it is, again, thinking outside the box a little bit. Like, obviously, I want to think about sports and thinking about people who are active and moving, because I do think that's one of the best parts about getting people excited about sports. But I also think that it's a really interesting exchange. I think that the competition dimension is super important. And you have to work as a team. And you have to think strategically. And you also have to exercise a whole bunch of other skills when you're playing esports. And that's just as important when it comes to kind of mental resilience and agility. So I do think that there are things, that one's mental, it's kind of like chess, right? And this one is physical. Both of them are in the world of sports. And both of them have to be supported by an incredible ecosystem. I just want to pick up on one thing that you said earlier on. Thank you for that. Which is that conferences and events, I mean, I think this is kind of commonly accepted. Programming is very important. But the networking is why people pay money to go. That's it. And so programming on stage stuff, you and I both do it. We're not belittling it. But people go to these events to meet other people in the industry and have real conversations. It's a reason to get together for sector X and whatever it is. And I sometimes joke, you know, hey, we're not doing any programming. When I see people, you know, at a conference, there's no programming. It's just we're going to put on a movie or a cartoon and you guys just network because that's what you're here to do. But when you have really good programming, what it does is it drives conversations. People listen to these conversations on stage from thought leaders, from industry leaders. And yes, that's what makes the news. And yes, that's what it does is it drives conversations. And yes, that's what it does. Nope. Reuters isn't writing. People networked at Farnsborough Airshow in London. They're talking about what is news and what people are talking about, what they're revealing about their industry. So you move the industry forward in terms of thought leadership and ideas and concepts. And that trickles down to what people talk about. Sometimes it's just an icebreaker where people say, yeah, like, wasn't it interesting what she said? And then the conversation moves on from there. But these two functions really work together. And so I think that's really important. The second thing that I think is supremely important, if you're doing business or want to do business in the Middle East, it cannot be overemphasized that relationships really matter. And so people hear that. You've heard, everybody's heard that, right? What does that mean? That means real relationships. It doesn't mean going there and expecting to mechanically build a relationship with people, putting in time as if you're a gardener and you're trying to grow a garden. It's actually something that you really have to invest in. And that you have to want to do. And it's reciprocal. It's human to human interaction. And I think people miss that all the time. They say, well, I'm here. I'm staying at the Ritz. And I'm, you know, where are my relationships? It's like, no. Build a relationship in the region like you would build one with one of your best friends at home over time, patiently show interest in what they're doing and make it genuine. And so I just, I wanted to like emphasize that point because people do miss that all the time. On your sports point, and finally getting to the point here, I never get to speak about sports on stage ever, so. I had one chance to do it. It was at the PIF Private Sector Forum 2026. So this year, I got to interview Danny Townsend, who is CEO of Surge Sports. That's PIF's investment arm for sports. And it was the most interesting conversation I've had on stage ever. First of all, because it was sports. So I was super stoked about it. And when they asked me, I was like, yep, I want to do that for sure. And there wasn't any prep with Danny. I mean, I basically said, I'd like to ask you some questions about this. He's like, yeah, yeah, good. And it was all organic, all on stage. And about one minute into it, I was like, you know, there's a little trash can next to my seat just through the questions in the trash can. I wanted to riff with him. I wanted to understand how he thought about sports, not as a, you know, a way to make money, but as a way to build ecosystems. And that sounds really sort of, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Fake or just like talking point E. But in reality, that is what is happening in Saudi Arabia. If you want to get your people, the people of Saudi Arabia into sports, it's not investing into teams, investing into transactions related to major sports. It's little things like investing in tennis and tennis centers, places for people that are young to go and play. The ROI on that is long horizon. It's long tail. So you're not going to see a return on that until way down the road. You may not really be able to measure it at all. But what you're going to see is a return on that. And that's what I'm looking for. What you're doing is investing in actual ecosystems and actual opportunities for health and then for jobs, for careers, for people to work in sports if they really want to. Instead of having to leave Saudi to do that, you can do it at home. And Danny's like the man. I was big time bro crush on Danny. I was like, dude, first of all, you have such a cool job. And second of all, the investments you're doing are really, really cool. Of course, we can't just be all sort of. You know, sugar and roses here. It's been a year of changes for PIF in investing in sports. You've had the pullback from Live Golf, which will end at the end of 2026. And that means no more Saudi money into Live Golf. Some who are looking for ROI on their investment would say that that's a really good move. You know, that's what's happening there. There's rumors that they may sell or be interested in selling their stake in Newcastle. I don't know if that's going to happen. That could also just be a rumor. But what you're seeing is sort of this trend of we've made some international investments. We've seen ROI that's both actual ROI and soft ROI or cultural or whatever. We want to focus inward now. PIF also sold its stake in Al Hilal to Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Al-Waleed. But Saudi is now sort of like. And the region is becoming more and more integral to the world of sports. It's undeniable. Not just for their money and for their investment. It's becoming more and more integral to the world of sports. It's undeniable. But actually for a place where you can grow your sport, especially if it's a sport that is not like one of the major five or six sports. Anyway, I'm sorry. I love sports so much. Unlike you, I grew up only thinking about sports. We're American. I grew up in the U.S., right? So like it's very different. And I'm Saudi. And I was a girl growing up in 1990s Saudi that we didn't really do sports, right? And we couldn't go to the stadiums and we couldn't do any of those things. So incredible now. And I do think you can measure the ROI on opening up facilities and neighborhoods because you can really see, like again, I think that just the interest in sports by everybody in society has changed significantly. And I mean, you can do a lot of sociological studies on this and it'll probably translate into much, much better literacy when it comes to health, well-being, as well as, again, hopefully some of those benefits that you get from playing team sports when it comes to communication and resilience, as well as some of those other incredible things that you learn about dealing with people that you don't like, good sportsmanship, negotiation skills, strategy. There's so much that we can learn from that. And when you don't have the opportunity to play, it's really, really hard to learn that. But I want to go back to something that you said earlier. I think it's really, really hard to learn that. And I think you said, absolutely. And this is something that we've talked about a few times on the podcast, the kind of recalibration of spending that's happened in Saudi. This is something that people from the outside often look at as a weakness, but we know that it is actually a strength and it's a strategic pivot. For a large kind of, to a large degree, I think people misunderstand what's happening. And I do think that, you know, the changes, again, over the past 10 years, have been so, so significant and have happened very, very quickly that you need to see how the economy responds, how society responds, and then pivot and adjust depending on what, what new opportunities are arising and where money needs to be spent and where the investments can be more interesting. What I find really interesting in terms of like spending pivots is traditional sports, maybe kind of being downsized, streamlined. Esports is actually untouched by the budget cuts. So through the Savvy Games group, the kingdom is kind of executing its national gaming and esports strategy and going full, you know, forward in full force, I think. So they're not just hosting tournaments, but they're, you know, they're buying that infrastructure. They're really changing the way it's like the whole global competitive landscape is evolving in the space, which is kind of interesting. And I do think that like, you know, the younger generations maybe don't care so much about like a 90 minute football game, but they're, you know, they're into the online games. Those competitions are something that captivates them. So it's, it's kind of a demographic proof asset to some degree that Saudi is investing in. Or you can, you can at least think of it that way. But I think that there's, you know, a really interesting kind of thing to think about there. In terms of why we're investing a lot in that area. And just going back to another thing that you said, and that we talked about earlier, it's kind of those discussions on the stage spark your curiosity and change the way you might have a discussion. And so I was talking a little bit about how, you know, it was the span, it's the fan experience, but it's also the other kind of byproducts. So thinking about the impact on manufacturing in particular is really interesting. I do think that there's an interesting announcement that was made at one of the MESIFs where it was a fast Arabia JV with Zahid group and a couple of other entities or something, but they were talking about manufacturing temporary structures and kind of demountable stands and things like that. So when you look at some countries that really gear up for World Cups, you end up with some infrastructure that probably isn't going to be used because you don't usually need that much of it, especially in smaller spaces or countries where, you know, there is a big sports following, but you might not need that many stadiums because when it's just the population and the sports leagues that are there, you don't need as many. So thinking of a little bit more smartly about what you're going to build and how you're going to kind of recycle, reuse the structures in different ways in a smart way, that's something that's happening, which I think is really interesting. Another thing is like thinking about local manufacturing capabilities. And so you've seen a little bit more in sports innovation summits, kind of thinking about localized manufacturing that has to do with specialized polymers, different materials that you need for the seats, for the security kind of lines for, you know, I think one of the things that's really interesting is the actual turf and the infills. And this is something that Kamen showed me when we were in the stadium. He was like, come look at what they're doing. And they were removing some of the grass and laying down NFL grass because it was just like the stadium was just about to host an NFL game. So it's just so interesting how all of this is modular. And, you know, Saudi is a global leader in petrochemicals. So the new strategy is like stop exporting all of that raw material and having people manufacture things for stadiums. But like, let's start using those raw materials within Saudi to create what we need for the stadiums. And we're going to be able to do that. And so I think that's a really important thing to do within this area. And it's and sports is a huge, huge, huge kind of economy really like around it. So it's it's it's fascinating thinking about that. And then again, like I said, sports technology, medicine, well-being, wellness, hardware, all of those other things. There's an invisible supply chain that's supporting the the new interest, the newfound interest that people have in physical games. And then there's also, again, of course, all of the interest in that the e-sports element as well. I love the lawn and grass thing. That's like my favorite thing ever. We're like, no, we this is a you know, this is a science project. We're growing it somewhere else. I'm going to put it down. And you're like, you look at the pitch, look how naturally it comes out field. And you're just like, oh, my gosh, as someone who has a huge lawn that is never, ever looks anything like that. I'm like, oh, like that's Eldorado to look like that. And it's just there's you're right about the supply chain. You're right about it. everything you said. Yeah, sports, sports podcasts, the 2030 sorry for all the non-sports people out there but this is actually something that touches everything and it was kind of nice to sports no this is this is bigger than sports um dr hannah thank you nice to see you we'll be back again next week thanks so much