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Andrew Sollinger
27 Plays2 days ago
The CEO and Publisher of Foreign Policy on what makes the venerable title and company a publishing standout, the primacy of partnerships, UN Foundation and World’s Toughest Job, the nexus of Hollywood and global affairs, FP’s FIFA World Cup-aligned “Sports Diplomacy Summit”, our “new world disorder” and more
This White House Correspondents’ Dinner-timed episode is the first of a series recorded at The Line DC, in Washington, as part of a World Cup walkup: 2026 and the American Moment.
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Transcript
00:00:06
Speaker
Bye.
Direct Audience Relationships and Value Proposition
00:00:10
Speaker
For our money, one of many vital points that Andrew Sollinger, CEO and publisher of Foreign Policy, FP for short, drives home in the following conversation is the value of direct relationship with one's audience, keeping a tight handle on the ecosystem and playing to one's strengths. It's not all a numbers game, which is often best left to the bots.
00:00:27
Speaker
This in no way downplays the reach of FP, a global brand whose lifespan the better part of 60 years, nor the dynamism of its audience, a growing, diversifying mix of public and private sector leaders who either live and breathe international affairs or see it as essential to their everyday decision making,
00:00:39
Speaker
nor the partner roster, which encompasses tellingly an expanding variety of corporates, nor lastly the creativity of its original programming. At a time when geopolitics permeates the discourse, the impending FIFA World Cup clearly no exception, the FP value proposition, publishing and consulting sites, is well understood by going back eight years to the start of Sollinger's tenure and a moment of reinvention for the organization.
00:01:01
Speaker
Coming off FP's GeoEconomics Forum adjacent to the IMF and World Bank annual meetings, he joins us in the recording studio at the Line Hotel in Washington,
AI Strategy and Strategic Partnerships
00:01:08
Speaker
D.C. to explain what makes FP tick, shed light on the company's AI strategy and standards, sneak preview a joint programming venture with UN n Foundation, mull the intersection of Hollywood and global affairs, tease their World Cup-aligned sports diplomacy summit, extol the opportunities of professional horse jumping, and indeed put our quote, new world disorder in helpful context.
00:01:31
Speaker
So Andrew Sollinger, thank you so much for, it's been a busy week for you. Thank you very much for making the time and very excited to to speak with you. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Reinvention and Leadership Changes at FP
00:01:42
Speaker
So you joined foreign policy in 2018, the halcyon days of geopolitics, as it were. um was the same year your editor in chief Ravi Agrawal took the reins on the content side, if I'm not mistaken.
00:01:55
Speaker
ah More or less. Ravi came in around the same time, but we had a different editor um at that point, but he quickly rose up and and took over. Sure. Okay. So so walk us walk us through that moment, the the the FP evolution and blueprint from there, as well as the the why.
00:02:13
Speaker
Why were the marketplace and the organization primed for reinvention and expanding what you what you do Sure. Some of it was a prerogative of Graham Holdings, or a unit of Graham Holdings, which is the former Washington Post Holdings company. So you'll recall that Don Graham and family sold the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, oh, 15 years ago now. Actually, it's more than that. I think it's like 18 ago.
00:02:37
Speaker
and um they ah reinvested the proceeds in other businesses um under the Graham Holdings umbrella. It's a publicly traded company, but is um primarily controlled by the by the Graham family. And at the time, ah the ah Graham Holdings already ah owned foreign policy. They had bought it years and years before um Don Graham would say, um sort jest, that he was um sold FP while he was recovering from some arthroscopic surgery and still under the influence of anesthesia. It had been owned by the Carnegie Endowment, which um didn't wasn't really in the magazine business. It was in the geopolitical business. and it was a great magazine, but wasn't getting the same kind of business management and focus that you would get in a real media organization. So Don um bought it. It did very well, by the way. it um ah had um some amazing editors who ah or really took it to new heights, um but still wasn't really making a mark financially for Graham, and also as a very small business.
00:03:46
Speaker
on When Don effectively retired in um ah in and around 2017, his son-in-law, a guy by the name of Tim O'Shaughnessy, who in addition to marrying well, is ah was ah ah one of the dot-com pioneers of Washington, DC. He had started a business called Living Social, but which he sold to Groupon.
00:04:08
Speaker
And he was gonna go um set up his own private equity fund, but instead Don asked him to run the family business that Don was gonna step up and retire. and um And Tim started looking through the portfolio of businesses and came upon foreign policy, earning losses, you know not particularly knocking the lights out and also losing money.
00:04:29
Speaker
um And he decided to hire in new management. And that is when he um brought in um whole new team, me among them, Ravi Agrawal among them, to um grow the business. They also foresaw that this is a great brand that is undersold at a time when geopolitics is really starting to kick off. Trump is in office. um The China Hawks have come into power. And um it's pre-pandemic, of course, but there's a lot going on. And um our mission, as we were brought in, was to make a going business of this. um And so that's how we got started.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. And so just skimming the ecosystem, it you Publishing and and solutions, the those are the the the two sides of the business. on Under publishing, print, web, podcast, FPLive, solutions, analytics, event studios, how much of that was in the last eight years?
Diverse Audience and Subscription Focus
00:05:24
Speaker
ah Pretty much all of it. I mean, we stripped the business down to the bone, focused on rebuilding um editorial. that We still do have a couple of the excellent editors that predated us, um but it's mostly new staff.
00:05:36
Speaker
um And we're trying to build a balanced business. business So it is half um subscription-based content that is read by um geopolitical influencers around the world. Half of our audience is in the U.S., half outside of the U.S., um Our biggest site license subscriber is the Department of Defense. Our most active site license subscriber is the US State Department.
00:05:59
Speaker
and um And the executive office of the president is ah is a subscriber as well. So all the cabinet um officials will read. I wouldn't make a bet that Donald Trump is reading foreign policy. I hope he is. You never know. Definitely the and NSA um is and um and NSC. um So ah you take that kind of demo and then all the people around it. So the think tanks, the academics, we actually have a huge um audience in academia. All the undergraduate international relations programs around the country use FP in their curriculum. So they have IP authenticated site license access to FP. and um and share that that content um with their ah with their students.
00:06:41
Speaker
um And as a result, we have a nice little sideline business from graduate school programs like Tufts Fletcher and Johns Hopkins Sice and Georgetown School of Foreign Service, the Walsh School, um who want to advertise to reach those um rising IR postgraduate students.
00:06:57
Speaker
um Anyway, you and then you put NGOs into that mix. Take that kind of broader geopolitical audience, of course, ah the folks on Capitol Hill, Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs Committee members and staff, um but replicate that around the world. So the German Federal Foreign Office um and the Chancellery, the um Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO in the UK. and Parliament, um et cetera, all are subscribers to FP, and you can replicate that around the world. so And then all the, again, think tanks and academia around those. Those are those are our core um institutional readers, and we also have individual readers who could just be smart um individuals who want to keep up on geopolitics. So that is... um
00:07:40
Speaker
but pretty We want that to be half of our business, that subscription content. sure It's recurring revenue, it's dependable, and it's a real validation of the of the value of the content that we're creating. If it's worth something, people will pay for it. And as you may know, our editorial mission is not to break news. We do have a news team, but half of our content, probably more than half of our content now, is contributed by experts in the field.
00:08:04
Speaker
Regular columnists like Steve Waltz at the Belfer Center at at Harvard, um or um ah ah politicians or track two politicians um who are opining on what's happening in the world.
00:08:15
Speaker
Very nonpartisan. We're very careful about representing both sides of an argument and not trying to just beat the drum on one you know political ah angle. And ah our readers respect us for that. You know, they they rely on other wire services or the New York Times or Financial Times, My Old Haunt or Bloomberg to give them the daily headlines. What we're doing is trying to analyze why something is happening and what might happen next.
00:08:40
Speaker
And there's value in that in today's confusing, crazy, madcap world. And how does the interplay with the solutions side ah solution side work? Right. so So the other half of our business, that's half our business, that that editorial on that and that subscription revenue business.
00:08:54
Speaker
The other half of our business is trying to activate those audiences I just described to you with partners. And we do that um in a variety of different ways. so So solutions is our blanket term for those types of partnerships um that will create an event around a theme or a topic. um And we just did a whole series of events this week around the ah and adjacent to the World Bank IMF meetings that are taking place right now. So yesterday we did our first geoeconomics forum where we had partners including Microsoft and McKinsey and Open Society Foundations and Gates Foundations, where we plumbed into um all of the geoeconomics that are impacting ah the the world right now, a lot of it around technology and AI, a lot of it around development finance, um e etc.
00:09:42
Speaker
And we had speakers from the US government like Jacob Hellberg, the US Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, who's just started the PACS Silica program for creating an ah alliance, a Western alliance to resource critical minerals and energy um in the AI chain, all the way through to Michael Kratzios, who is the White House um Special Advisor to the President for Science and Technology. And we talked about their AI export program um and their tech talent
Government Collaborations and Tech Initiatives
00:10:09
Speaker
program. They have a new program. It's kind of like the Peace Corps, where we're going to send tech talent to partner countries to help them ah spool up their expertise on AI. So we'll do that with events partnerships. And I just described some of the partners that we work with. We only work with partners where we are, we're not advocating on a policy issue. We're not lobbying. It's all always about how how can we um help spread light and shed um understanding of an issue that we think is important and and and syncs up with our mission. So we partner with those folks also on research that's via our FP analytics um business. um ah So we've done that with a few of those very same partners. In fact, most of the um event activations that we have,
00:10:48
Speaker
It comes with a research paper. We don't just want to have a discussion. We want to kind of set the stage, do a white paper. we do an issue brief, we call them, before the event, um and a synthesis report afterwards, which will say, here's what we're going to talk about, understand the topic, and then afterwards, what what conclusions did we come to? we're really trying to move the ball forward on some of these developments. And then lastly, the same format that you and I are in right now,
00:11:09
Speaker
We do podcasts. It's another form of storytelling where we can sit down and talk through ah an issue with um experts in the field and really um make sure we're raising awareness on it in another completely different format. And I'll just give you one example of that we're undertaking right now with the UN n Foundation.
00:11:27
Speaker
a podcast about the um ah naming of the new secretary general for the UN. A new ah secretary general will be named by the end of this year. There are several candidates under consideration. And the UN Foundation, which was started by Ted Turner, to help broaden the UN's remit, A non nonprofit wants to really dig into that because everyone knows the UN needs reform. And this is going to be a really difficult um role that this next um ah secretary general is going to take on. And the name of the podcast is The Toughest Job in the World. And we're going to be not interviewing the candidates, but rather talking about what issues ah these candidates will need to undertake. And the UN n Foundation is...
00:12:10
Speaker
Backing that podcast, that's really core to their mission. So it's a long-winded explanation of how we do that. All those partnerships are basically sponsor you know ah money, even though they're very independently produced projects. They don't take editorial control. We take on board their feedback and their input, sure but but they're very independent. and um And that is the other half of the revenue base of foreign policy. So that's in place of – we do add advertising. we We do accept advertising. But really our model is half subscriptions and half partnerships in those solutions formats that I just described. And how much um how much of your growth curve would you say owes to –
00:12:50
Speaker
the The dollars from traditional marketing budgets, say, shifting to government and public affairs. of yeah All of it. I mean, you know we really are not taking any, um um really, any marketing budget. um Maybe the schools that are...
00:13:06
Speaker
advertising their um graduate programs that I described earlier. they um Those are a kind of um student um ah admissions, marketing, classic marketing budgets, as youd as you described. It's also very much direct marketing. But I'd say almost all of The revenue that we bring in on the partnership side is public affairs um focused budget that is out. And we work with a lot of foundations as well, as you heard me mention. And they'll have programs that are focused very specifically on a particular issue and they'll have funding to explore those programs. So um we're really not in the advertising game at all. I've played I've been in that business for my entire career. um And it's a tough one when you're in a world of digital marketing right now with the big um ah global players like Meta and Google that um by by every right, ah you know, won't talk about the value of those businesses as ah social um ah arbiters, but they're very effective at reaching um very targeted audiences. sure and i And I think it's very hard for a media company, even a niche media company, to claim that they're an effective marketing vehicle um like like one of those. Ours is ah budgets are more around issues.
00:14:23
Speaker
As corporate America and certainly that the business world at large has become more sophisticated on on issues and and geopolitics has become more central to business strategy. Have you seen a growth ah
FP's Growth and Global Events
00:14:38
Speaker
correlation? Oh, yeah. So I would say, you know first of all, I'd like to but my team, our team at Foreign Policy is brilliant. on They are hardworking, incredibly innovative, um very competitive and driven. um They're all – we're very lucky in that a lot of the folks who work at FP and the people who want to work at FP are – salivate at the kind at the opportunity to report on to be involved in this incredible geopolitical moment that we're in right now. So it is – When we have an open position, we get a bajillion applicants because folks want foreign policy on their resume. And as I just described, there's a huge boom, by the way, in graduate. I was just talking through these this this graduate program. sure Those schools are packed with candidates because of the kids. And something that gives me hope in today's messed up world that um there are very smart, dedicated kids who are trying to rise up and fix these problems. So that really does give me hope. So we take advantage of that with our own staff. And they're all super smart and do very good work across all of these different vectors I just described to you, editorial partnerships, you name it.
00:15:44
Speaker
um But it's super helpful when you're in a market that has all this action going on right now. very careful to say we're not fans of geopolitical chaos and certainly not all the kinetic conflict that we're seeing right now. but you can closely track booms in FP subscriptions and financials related to what's going on in the world. So kicking off this year, you you don't budget for but growth because we're going to take out the leader of Venezuela and kidnap Maduro. You don't budget for war in the Gulf. um So that's none of that is in my plan for 2026. But when that happens, we see massive spikes in subscriptions and interest in folks engaging with our audience to try and influence policy and what might come next. So that has been a huge help. And i like I am extolling my team and how great they are. I'm a complete idiot.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I think really a monkey could ah could but lead lead lead a brilliant business like this um at a time like this and do an effective job. I joke, of course, but I'm this is a moment that I think we're very lucky to be at FP and automatically mission driven as a result of that. We're trying to lend insight and understanding to folks to to make sense of this crazy world that we're in, as I said before.
00:17:06
Speaker
Well, and and Politico, um as you as you referenced earlier, was ah was an early mover, um in my view, and in making the business case for policy smarts when it planted a flag in New York, which you're, I believe, somewhat familiar with. ah How does your New York footprint advantage FP?
00:17:26
Speaker
ah So we have – that's a very good question. And yes, I was um ah but but running the Politico New York business when they acquired Capital New York in 2014. I think that was 12 years ago.
00:17:39
Speaker
um And ah what an amazing business um ah the Politico team built, Robert Albritton and Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen – um And I um learned a lot from that experience, even in a short period of time that I've tried to apply to FP as well.
00:17:55
Speaker
um I live in New York and I'm here in DC with you right now and i'm back and forth pretty much every week. I'll be here for all of, ah you know, go going back home on weekends, but be here all ah all of April and into May.
00:18:07
Speaker
um But i'm also we're also all over the world. So next month we're going to Geneva to the World Health Assembly. We'll do a whole host of programming there, research on and events.
00:18:19
Speaker
um And we were at the Munich Security Conference in February. We're a media partner of the Munich Security Conference. So we're all over the world. Even for a small organization, we have a pretty big global footprint.
00:18:31
Speaker
um
00:18:33
Speaker
I'm in New York. Ravi Agrawal, our editor-in-chief, is is in New York. um Also goes back and forth to D.C. when he's not having a baby, as he just had. Congratulations, Ravi. um And we have several staffers um in ah in New York. ah So I think it's um an advantage because so much of this um geopolitical power base and um at business is based in New York. and we're And we're very close to that as a result.
00:19:01
Speaker
Ravi is in, um you know, from cable studios pretty much you know all day when he's in New York. So that's very convenient for him. You could do that in DC too, but or from the convenience of his home office in on the Upper West Side. But he um spends a lot of time um in those types of meetings, as do I. So I think that's super helpful. We have a core of our editorial team in ah Brooklyn, because I think that's like an unwritten law that editors need to live in Brooklyn.
00:19:27
Speaker
And they work um ah together often. I think today, in fact, in our ah Slate office. in um ah Slate is a sister company under Graham. Right. And they have office space in downtown Brooklyn, um which we utilize. and um And we do activations down there. I am going back to New York tonight. And tomorrow we are hosting a live taping of Ones and Twos. Ones and Twos is our economics podcast.
00:19:50
Speaker
Adam Tuos, the economic historian and professor at Columbia University, um ah is very well known in this space, very popular. um And does this podcast each week with Cam Abadi. Cam is a deputy editor at FP. He is based in ah Berlin. And he and Adam do a weekly take on economics. They pick ah two data points and they dive into them. That comes that show comes out on Fridays. um So we're going to do a live taping um tomorrow night at the Caveat at 930. The Caveat is a club and on the Lower East Side. So I took off my tie to sit down with you just now in my jacket. I'll be wearing all black tomorrow as a ah as a hipster. That's going to be a fun club scene with drinking going on, listening to Adam Tooze. But that is a shape shift. And so that's a New York kind of scene. And we're serving our the young cohort of our readers there.
00:20:42
Speaker
um a lot of them are going to be Columbia University students that are of of Adam, of course course. But we also did a live taping of ones and twos yesterday at the International Institute of Finance um annual event here in D.C. on the sidelines of my IMF World Bank. And that was filled with finance guys. So um Adam did not put on a tie, but he did put on a three-piece suit, open collar.
00:21:02
Speaker
Cam was wearing a tie. I haven't seen that really in in a long time. um And they covered all sorts of issues um there. And that was ah a partner program. I mean, IAF sponsored having them at their events. It was breakfast with ones and twos. and A lot of them are ones and twos listeners. And it was kind of like the fun kickoff event that they had, programming that they had at the beginning of the ah of the day of panels and all that sort of thing. And, you know Kevin Hassett spoke, you know, that was not the most exciting, ah probably, um conversation that they had of that day. But it's really cool hear Adam Tuzo pine and what he thinks is going on in the world and what might happen next. Sure, sure, sure. And I want to come back to Tuzo in a second. But, uh,
00:21:40
Speaker
Are more talent and storytelling driven audio properties something that you're you're looking to pursue? Yeah, definitely. Pods are booming right now. We happen to be incredibly good um at ah pod production and storytelling in this space. Dan Efron lee is our executive editor of audio. He's the number two at um at FP editorial overall.
00:22:06
Speaker
He's brilliant on and ah and leads this business. um Rob Sachs, the managing director, um also ex-NPR, expert on radio, um and they have built a really strong team. And when you listen, especially the short form pods that we do, little short shorts ah episode series um that we'll do with um short series that we'll do with partners, they really hit the nail on the head. We just did one in February with the Munich Security Conference. I mentioned they're a media partner of ours. And we did a pod called Munich Moments where we went back through history of the of the speeches that have have occurred at Munich and how powerful and important they were and in geopolitical um history. um The Munich Security Conference, for those who don't know, is one of the big global geo geopolitical convenings um in Munich every year. It's really focused on the transatlantic alliance initially, but it's really broadened out. But that's where last year J.D. Vance gave a warning to Europe that the enemy the the real enemy in Europe is not Russia. It's the enemy from within.
00:23:06
Speaker
And if you go back much further, there was a speech that Vladimir Putin gave at Munich. I think it was in 2008. where he warned NATO that if you keep encroaching eastward, there are going to be repercussions. So he basic basically a lot of the folks who, um not necessarily aligned with Putin, but just kind of say, you know he he told us that he was that the Russians were not excited about having all the Baltics and Ukraine and other um ah countries that were formerly aligned with the soviet old Soviet Union joining NATO. I mean, he's like, who are you who you know who is NATO designed to fight? Us. So he would they would claim that, you know, we told you not to do that and you did it anyway. So those are the types of moments that we unearthed. We basically talked not to Putin himself, but we talked to people who were in the room. We had recordings of the speech and translated it, exactly what he said and what the reaction was of people in the audience. And how, and today they're in positions of power and they're like, yeah, that's what the guy told us. And we really didn't listen. Instead, we expanded NATO and here's where we are. Ukraine was invaded by Russia.
00:24:06
Speaker
Well, come, I want to come back to that in a second, but I, you know, yesterday, I i was but quite taken by your conversation with Frank McCourt at the Geoeconomic Summit, centered, of course, on AI and his call for a, quote, third way. ah for responsible AI development. um How is FP confronting and embracing the technology? What what are the standards that you've that you've set?
00:24:31
Speaker
Of AI, you mean, specifically? So um we've published standards for how our editorial content is is devoid of AI. We do not produce content using AI. There are many media owners, by the way, now. It's a very worrying trend. who are actually producing content quickly via AI in an in an attempt to um buttress their feed of content. And as I explained to you, we're not we're not in that business. we have we We publish very select stories and analysis by noted people. It's very carefully written and edited and and and scrubbed.
00:25:03
Speaker
um We certainly, so so not an editorial at all. You can find those policies on our website, but we do use it to do research and background and checks. um and um And in different parts of the business, we use it much more on the business side. We use it much more actively.
00:25:19
Speaker
um So we are a huge believer in AI being a force multiplier for the work that we do. um Interestingly, I talked about Graham earlier. um Graham just launched a ah an AI hackathon um that applies to all of the um the the portfolio businesses under Graham's 20 plus businesses um ah for the next ah month and a half. And on June 1, they're going to award a prize to the best new product or internal time saving efficiency tool that is developed and submitted to this Graham company. judging ah panel um and the winner winning team is going to win $100,000 cash um from from Graham Holdings and they'll have runner-up prizes as well. um We have activated our entire team to jump on that. We i'm FP is going to win one of those prizes. Okay. And then we're going to um ah also institute our own FP prize where we are going to um award regularly even small innovations that the team picks up and and creates using AI. I view AI not as a job replacement on a vehicle.
00:26:26
Speaker
I view it as one that is going to create huge efficiencies for our business um that is going to help us, our existing team do their jobs better.
00:26:36
Speaker
to get rid of the BS ah repetitive tasks that I have to deal with every day. And there are many of them that we all undertake, including yours truly. And we just have to have the presence of mind and the patience to work through Gemini. We're a Google Workspace customer. And so ah Gemini comes with that. And and obviously, we're detached from um an LLM when we're using that tool. So we want to be very careful about um what product we're using. That doesn't mean that we won't go into our our our engineering team is on a private version of Claude.
00:27:09
Speaker
And there some people have their own paid versions of ChatGPT. Again, that's not being used by the ah LLM to train. um But we want to utilize whatever tools are most efficient, but to um ah give our staff the ability to do more value-added, higher-level work rather than the grunt work that that a lot of folks are are stuck doing. So I'm ah a huge believer that in an information business like FP, um and any business really, it's going to be an incredible ah advantage, but what it's not going to do is create editorial product that we're going to pass off as um ah high-end research. That would be insane. And we've actually surveyed our readership, our subscribers, And ask them their opinions. And they've they've told us that. Like, you know, by all means, use AI. But we're not paying FP to do AI-driven analysis and kick that back out to us. And they will know the difference. sure So I find it to be um a real opportunity for FP, especially considering the kind of high-end content that we ah specialize in. Yeah.
00:28:10
Speaker
So FP turns 56 this year, I believe. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. i have Time flies. i I have to imagine that it was founded on assumptions about the durability of multilateral rules rules-based order and and the the genteel art of diplomacy that um by all measures have been ah flipped on their on their heads. um Ravi puts it fairly bluntly in the in the leader in this issue, we're in a new world disorder.
00:28:39
Speaker
And Adam Tooze in last year's UN n General Assembly issue um argues that Western aid and the SDGs were shaky propositions to start with, just to give a couple of examples. So if we're taking a big step back, has Trump II, and more specifically what Trump II reveals about the state of affairs broadly, um occasioned in any way at the FP a philosophical ah reckoning or or rethink?
00:29:07
Speaker
um I think ah it what it creates, what it's created is a complete um of ah acceleration of what was an inevitable shift in the global international order. So, you know, we we could get into a lot of theory here, but this is what we're in right now is a moment. A lot of folks talk about what's going on and how it's 1914, we're entering World War I or we're on the precipice of World War II. first of all, I really i really hope not, um but I don't think we are. I think we're at 1918, where there's going to be a new global world order that is created. And um and by the way, a lot of this stuff I'm pulling out of what we what we discussed at the Geoeconomic Summit and some of the roundtables that we held from super smart people way smarter than I. um and Or 1945, when the UN was created and Bretton Woods established. right And the US had hegemony.
00:30:00
Speaker
Or 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed. These are shift these are moments that didn't lead they led to incredible tumult and and ah and issues, but they also created great opportunity, but the entire and ah ah ah landscape of how countries interacted changed because new powers emerged.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I think that's the moment that we're in right now. i We could be in a 1914 moment or 1938 moment, you know, ah ah um one of those things where we lead into global chaos. um And war, I sincerely hope not. But I think a lot of the the way I would summarize it is a lot of the machinations that are taking place right now are a simple case of China rising and the U.S. trying to accept, deal with or stop that, which is not it's in inexorable. I don't I don't see that being something that we can stop as much as we can figure out how to operate with that, um you know, but ah in this in this bipolar ah world that that we'll find ourselves in rather than the unipolar world. I bring that back to FP because that is change that we are purpose-built to cover and analyze. your you know it It is ah a little understood, critically important.
00:31:16
Speaker
The Iran War, the what's happened in Venezuela, um i you know even Ukraine-Russia, these are sideshows next to the US-China position. And a lot of them are so actually driven by that by that competition. And that is the big change that's happening right now. And there are a lot of countries that are caught in the middle of that, these middle countries um who are looking for a third way. That's not what Frank McCourt was talking about. He was talking about specifically AI. sure But these are countries that have to choose.
00:31:49
Speaker
He was talking about it in terms of choosing the hyperscaler stack of the US versus the government-controlled AI stack of China. But you could just apply that to basically everything, you know, the entire economic stack of and philosophical stack of those two powers. And that's the moment that we're in right now.
00:32:05
Speaker
FP. oh So I wasn't around 56 years ago um when FP was founded. I guess I'm doing the math. I think i'm've I've been around for one seventh of FP's life. But that's the moment that we're in right now in 1973. Wow.
00:32:19
Speaker
It was or or thereabouts. um Before then, and during in the in the um cauldron of the 1970, the cauldron of the Vietnam War, it was founded because, hey, we need to figure out a way out of this mess that the U.S. has created. And I think if um the um founders of of FP were around to today, they'd be looking at this current moment in the same way and think that there there is a ah ah need for an FP. Samuel Huntington, may he rest in peace, ah probably would um agree with me, I hope.
00:32:50
Speaker
So we're staring down a ah World Cup that is ah a touchstone, a FIFA World Cup that is in many ways a touchstone for this world disorder, this new, this
Sports Diplomacy and Global Initiatives
00:33:03
Speaker
rebalancing. And your spring issue and and the forum yesterday actually speaks to us through quite a bit of it. But how how is FP approaching and treating this World Cup? What what is your what is your angle of attack?
00:33:15
Speaker
So um we feel it's a it's an incredibly important moment as um government basically nations compete on um on the on the athletic field, and in in ah ah in this case, the the biggest sporting event um every four years on the planet, um the FIFA World Cup.
00:33:35
Speaker
It's a moment to take stock of how nations relate to each other and and also a way to think about how competition is better left on the pitch, um that active kinetic competition. um and and and And it's a healthy way to express that nationalism.
00:33:50
Speaker
um So that's the moment that we're heading into with the ah with the World Cup. We are launching a sports diplomacy initiative in June in the run-up to World Cup.
00:34:00
Speaker
We're partnering with the past, present, and future FIFA hosts, World Cup hosts. So, um ah Qatar um from four years ago, US, Canada, Mexico this year, um and the future hosts, Portugal, Morocco, and Spain, they'll host in 2030, and Saudi in 2034. Those countries are our partners. And we're going to host a um program at the Qatar embassy on June 3rd.
00:34:27
Speaker
um Our sports diplomacy program will plumb government relations and explore how ah these events change how governments relate to each other, help those intergovernmental relations, and can be a new way to settle differences um rather than doing it in the field of battle. You know, by the way, Evan, it's kind of um ironic. If you look at the past two big global sporting events, they both echoed and mimicked things that were happening geopolitically. So what was the final, and of the hockey final in the Olympics? It was U.S. versus Canada. And man, did those two countries and their fans get up for that event in a spirited,
00:35:12
Speaker
friendly, but very competitive competition. And the US won, and it was, what a moment that was. I think you would agree, what a fantastic finale. And yeah just, I mean, the team was trotted out for the State of the Union, and that was like the most unifying moment of all, that that long, crazy speech that the president gave was that moment when he brought out those young guys who represented America. it was a really special moment.
00:35:42
Speaker
Then flash forward a short while after that, a month later, the World Baseball Classic, which isn't generally thought of as as one of those iconic global sporting events, but it is fast becoming one, said the baseball fan. um And what was that final? It was the U.S. versus Venezuela.
00:36:00
Speaker
And we had just opposed the leader of Venezuela and he sat in ah a jail and in is sitting in a jail in Brooklyn. There was rumors that they let him watch the game. I'm not sure if they did, but I hope they didn't.
00:36:11
Speaker
But um though because not not a good guy, in Maduro, I don't have to get into politics and nonpartisanship on that one. But to see the Venezuelan players, many of whom are professional athletes in the major in Major League Baseball,
00:36:24
Speaker
get so excited about the game they were playing, I would argue they had they had more patriotism, more national spirit than the US team, I think. That might have carried them to victory. They beat the US. Ronnie Acuna, who's one of the greatest all-stars in Major League Baseball today, um went on the record and said, I mean, to see these guys these guys partying, it was that was also super thrilling. The Venezuelans certainly have the spirit. They're dancing in the locker room. And Ronnie Acuna won as an Atlanta Brave player of the World Series. I think he was 19 or 20. It was incredible. And he's an unbelievable all-star. And he said, no disrespect to my my my boys in Atlanta, this was my best moment in on the baseball stage ever, playing for his country, which had just been through the ringer and has been through the ringer. Forget about you know Maduro, just terrible economics and huge migration issues and ah and who knows what's going to happen next, but hopefully there's a chance it can be built back. And they felt incredible national pride to show that this country has skilled, talented people on the world stage that can compete. And they're worthy. It was it was incredibly powerful. These are important issues that you cover all the time on this podcast and in the great work that you do on Seven Aside that I think is critically important for us to air out um as FP. So that's why we're undertaking this sports diplomacy summit. And we're very excited about it. Attached to it, we're partnering with the U.S. Soccer Foundation on their Embassy Cup tournament.
00:37:53
Speaker
That's going to be actually um on April 25th here in D.C. 16 embassies are competing um in friendly matches, co-ed matches on that Saturday, April 25th. There will be two finalists um named. Each team is going to play three three three matches each. um at least. um There will be two finalists and then the actual final um match, the Embassy Cup winner, will be decided on Audi Field on the night of June 3rd, just before the Congressional Cup tournament. And that is the evening of our Sports Diplomacy Summit at the Qatar Embassy. So we're super excited about that and to partake in that um with our partners, all of ah many of whom, not all of them, many of whom are competing in the match. And we're super excited about that.
00:38:38
Speaker
And you're optimistic about World Cup being a unifying experience. I would say um I'm hopeful. I'm worried about logistics big time. And I worry about that both as a ah just ah um an observer institutionally and and a fan of of what of um of global football, F-U-T-B-O-L.
00:39:00
Speaker
t b l And um and how that might ah play out, but also just the economics and logistics around it. um There are huge people, there's security concerns, there's concerns about the fan base. And this is a huge moment for global fans to come to the United States and Mexico and Canada and experience this.
00:39:22
Speaker
And um there are concerns around security, around immigration and status that might keep people away. There are concerns about moving this many people around. um They're talking about huge fees for travelers. For example, in New York, my hometown, I'm ticketed for a match and I'm really worried about how am I going to get to the game? Am I going to have to pay $100 to go on New Jersey Transit right to get to um ah the Meadowlands? It is really ah frightening to think about and I'm glad I'm not in charge of that. What I am hopeful, though, of is how um countries are going to relate to each other. This has been a very tense year and change for North America.
00:40:02
Speaker
And I'm talking about the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Have relations ever been more strained between these three countries that share this continent together? um And the answer to that would be no.
00:40:14
Speaker
However, at our summit, we are going to do a trilateral moment between officials of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. And we're going to talk through how this exact the dynamic that I just described to you, how this moment transcends those geopolitical tensions. And it's a great way to air it out. I think we saw a little bit of that, by the way, at the Kennedy Center during the draw when we had um ah ah the leaders of of the US, Canada and Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, Mark Carney and um and Donald Trump up on stage doing the draw in a very friendly way, even though, you know, hours, weeks, days earlier, there were barbs flying back and forth and insults. So this is a unifying moment where we can cut through
00:40:57
Speaker
those types of tensions be together and really express our edge on the field. That was a moment of of normalcy, a rare moment in in a very surreal, surreal run of shows. Yeah, and only one of them got a Peace Prize. World Cup also feels like a culminating moment for the convergence of sport, media, and entertainment. um And these are industries that and we're seeing examples of it in the even the last couple of weeks. um of ah that that have ah blind spots when it comes to geopolitics institutionally. And I so I wonder, um do you see opportunity in connecting with these these industries more deeply? And if if so, how do you go about capturing that? um Yeah, most definitely. It's not our normal food group, um but I think there are on tendrils that um are natural for FP to explore and plumb.
00:41:51
Speaker
I'll give you an example, actually, and this is just from yesterday. So you mentioned Frank McCourt, um who is going to be, who who who is ah ah spoke yesterday at our AI summit, and he has an interest through his Project Liberty program in making sure, and this is really out of the out of his own moral compass, he wants to highlight that there are other choices that that um ah middle power countries can take when it comes to their AI stack.
00:42:16
Speaker
Getting back to real life for Frank McCourt, he, in addition to coming from an incredibly successful real estate family, and he himself, very successful real estate investor builder in Boston, he was owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And um he now owns Olympic Marseille soccer team.
00:42:35
Speaker
um But he has another passion that he's kicking off right now, just announced. It's the um ah professional jumping league. It's a new horse jumping league that is actually not unified globally. He's modeling it on F1, where there will be franchise teams that compete for prize money that he's putting up.
00:42:57
Speaker
And we're not talking about Little Graham Holdings AI contest prize money. $300 million dollars in prize money. That's how much he has allocated for this. He has just launched this thing.
00:43:09
Speaker
I first personally do not know a lot about this um show jumping business. he's He just educated me on it yesterday. it is But it is huge globally, especially with some of the partners that we're working with on the sports diplomacy program like Qatar and Saudi, um based on some of the the horse demonstrations I've seen ah from the Emir's stable when I was in Doha.
00:43:32
Speaker
um So this is um a huge global league that he's standing up. And a tremendous opportunity. And it's something that I'm just learning about right now. It's so fascinating. So, you know, we're we're hoping to help him and involve him in that sports diplomacy summit and talk about that hard launch. and um ah and And so I say that because I think there is a natural um nexus for FP in this space that we really have not taken advantage of.
00:44:00
Speaker
um I don't see, you know, are we going to be covering, um ah of you know, sports? I mean, I'm a huge fan myself, but no, I don't think that's a natural for us. But just for the economics of it, especially in the social impacts are a lot of negative ah impacts of some of these developments. There's a movement right now. Why are we having Olympics in different cities? We should and there have been some repeat cities, but they have the infrastructure set up already. Why build all this new infrastructure, which often goes unused and then decays? You really should focus on um doing this in some central areas that um can invest, reuse, revitalize. And ah um and I think that's something that that the Olympic Committee is certainly exploring that we'll talk about on June 3rd.
00:44:39
Speaker
Very good. Well, I want to take it back to publishing, the the publishing industry for my wrap-up question. Finally, so the FP is a member of Digital Content Next, formerly Online Publishers Association, which happened to be a client of mine for for several years in the early twenty ten s um And it was my crash course, really, for all things digital media.
Content and Revenue Strategy
00:44:59
Speaker
So best practice sharing is is one of the ah one of the the tenets of of of being a member of of DCN. and And I wondered if if you could share what
00:45:11
Speaker
other premium publishers could learn from FP's sustainability and and success? i I mostly learn from other premium publishers in that in DCM, which is a great organization. We're happy to support them. um You know, I would say that keeping content at the core of ah of of what we do is ah is critically important. um I think that ah the balanced ah revenue streams that we've created are also critical. So you can't just have events.
00:45:47
Speaker
You can't just have partnerships or just advertising as your revenue generator. um You need to have subscriptions um at and recurring revenue as a core um revenue stream for a variety of reasons. um it It, as I mentioned, is a validation of of of your content. People are willing to pay for it. But just from a straight up financial perspective, it's better, don't say it's better money, I'll get yelled at by the partnerships team, it's more effective money on the balance sheet. When you sell ah advertising package or an event or some type of partnership, You basically have to deliver something to that partner before you receive the payment. you know perhaps in In the best environment, you get you always try and get upfront payment, but you get half, let's say, or some some sort of permutation of that, staged payments, and you get paid for the service as you go, for the thing that you deliver. That's also how you recognize the revenue. So there's you know you you have accounts receivable that you're trying to collect.
00:46:51
Speaker
When you sell a subscription, you get all the money upfront for the thing you're delivering. When you buy a subscription as a as ah as a consumer, think about it, you pay whatever you're whatever you're subscribing to, the the Washington Post, the New York Times, Financial Times, $100, $200 upfront, they take that cash from you, they put it in the bank, and then they earn every month 1 12th of the money that you paid if you're on an annual subscription.
00:47:17
Speaker
That's cash in the bank. Great cash flow that that organization can do whatever they want with. I mean, it's ah it's a um ah but you know deferred revenue. They owe that money to themselves for the work that they're doing. They have to deliver on the product, but it's outstanding for cash flow.
00:47:34
Speaker
so That is why, by the way, private equity firms love to buy SaaS-based businesses, subscription-based businesses, because they have great cash flow dynamics. And what they can do is they could take out, saddle that business with huge amounts of debt and service the interest and and loans from that cash flow.
00:47:53
Speaker
So that great solution. stream of revenue to have. The downside is it's slower to grow. You know, you're never going to have like this big boom or get some giant, you know, hopefully you get a giant subscription contract, but rarely do you. So it's a kind of a slow, hopefully high single digit, low double digit percent grower if you're doing it right.
00:48:15
Speaker
On the partnership side, you can land a whale and get this giant multimillion dollar contract that you're delivering on the changes, the dynamics of what you're doing on the partnership business.
00:48:26
Speaker
So that's much faster growing, but you could also lose a whale. or um or it's harder to re to renew that well year after year. So it's not it's more dynamic, faster growing, less of a sure thing. So I'd say the one thing that I have brought to FP and is a very laser-like focus on growing both of those revenue streams.
00:48:51
Speaker
And they're not in competition. They sometimes are in competition with each other for resources. We're all very aligned on this. But all of those revenue streams are key to growing a healthy business so that when economic hardship or maybe geopolitical news and information and insight is not in vogue, long may that never continue. You know, that will never i that will never happen. I'll say that right now for the foreseeable future.
00:49:14
Speaker
Look, see the U.S.-China dynamic I just described. But if that day were to come, we have defense dependable subscription revenues, even if the partnership revenues evaporate, which they won't. So that's the that's the critical thing there. So I would say that's the number one thing that I can, um that that I could offer and suggest to peers and colleagues. The other thing I would say is, and this was coming in FP, this is more on me, um having dealt with this at the Financial Times, where I was the managing director of the Americas for for many years, you could see the writing on the wall, what was going to happen to the advertising business. You asked me about marketing spend earlier, and what's going to happen with Google and and Meta disintermediating that. so Coming in while we have our specialist advertising niches, that is not um ah ah an area that I want to invest in. um I'm very happy and and grateful for our advertising clients and love the work that we do there. But that's not going to be the big grower for us as much as those bespoke partnerships that I just described. Harder to produce, but much more effective for our partners.
00:50:14
Speaker
This kicks off a string of special episodes of recorded at the Line Hotel in Washington, D.C.' 's Adams Morgan, part of the World Cup walk-up dub, 2026 in the American Moment. With thanks to our guest Andrew Sollinger and the Line, D.C., and with congratulations and well wishes to the growing Agarwal family, I'm Evan Howell with KIT Magazine and Studio Santiago.