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Ep 66: Tennis & Media Law with Peter Steckelman, SVP, Tennis Channel
46 Plays7 days ago
What lessons from tennis can you apply to your day-to-day life? How do you build a career as a dealmaker working with high-profile talent? How has the entertainment industry, and what it needs from its lawyers, changed over the years?
Join Peter Steckelman, Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at the Tennis Channel, as he shares stories from his uniquely wide-ranging career in entertainment law, including working in-house work at Disney, Fox Entertainment, Warner Brothers, Mattel, and Konami.
Listen as Peter serves up stories about his lifelong love for tennis, negotiating with celebrity athletes, and the joys of working in film, television, video games, streaming, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-66
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Starting his career in-house at Disney: 9:59
How to work with creative people: 20:45
What role does creativity play in the legal field?: 24:31
Working as a studio executive at video game developer Konami: 28:44
Putting together talent agreements with celebrity athletes: 30:51
Leading legal at the Tennis Channel: 39:45
What playing tennis has taught Peter about being a lawyer: 44:49
Rapid-fire questions: 47:30
Book recommendations: 49:10
What Peter wishes he’d known as a young lawyer: 49:50
Connect with us:
Peter Steckelman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-steckelman-entertainment-sports-professional/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
From Games to Films: A New Perspective
00:00:00
Speaker
To generate IP reverse, usually it's it's you make games and toys from movies and television. This is going to be the other way around. We were going to take the games and toys and make them into videos, directed videos in those days and then television series and film. That was a very exciting way to kind of, you know, change course, if you will.
00:00:19
Speaker
And so when I started there, and this was now a number of years ago, this was when the Barbie Directed Video business was was hot long before we had you know in the big sensation last year in the Barbie movie. And it was it was a wonderful thing to see that kind of, and it took a long time obviously, isn't it time? I was there to the time to see that happen and it was really terrific.
00:00:46
Speaker
What lessons from tennis can you apply to your day-to-day life? How do you build a career as a dealmaker working with high-profile talent? And how has the entertainment industry and what it needs from its lawyers changed over
Meet Peter Steckleman: A Career in Entertainment
00:01:02
Speaker
the years? Today, I am joined on the abstract by Peter Steckleman. Peter is the SVP of Business and Legal Affairs at tennis channel. Like me, he's an avid tennis player. He was also previously the VP of Legal Affairs at Konami. You may know that from popular titles like Dance Dance Revolution. I definitely played that at a birthday party or two when I was a kid or Yu-Gi-Oh. He spent time as the VP of Business and Legal Affairs at Warner Brothers and earlier in his career, he was at Mattel and Fox Entertainment. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract recorded here in LA, Peter.
00:01:40
Speaker
Great. Thank you so much for having me, Tyler. I'm excited to be here. and i' Listening to that description of my experience brings back some really fond memories and some more challenging ones as well. Well, we're going to talk about the challenging ones today. Excellent. excellent That's what a podcast is for. now I'm super excited to have you because we're both big tennis fans and you're the GC of tennis channel, which is super
US Open Highlights and Cultural Impact
00:02:03
Speaker
cool. Let's start by just talking about the U.S. Open, right? Like we're recording a few weeks after the U.S. Open. It seems like a year where there's a changing of the guard to me. Did you watch a bunch of it? I watched a lot of it more than I probably will ever admit to. But the truth of the matter is that it was from ball one from first ball to last ball, which is an expression we use a tennis channel quite often. A very compelling tournament.
00:02:27
Speaker
There wasn't, there was not a slow match, an uninteresting match. Oh, a matchup where you thought, well, this isn't going to be fun. Everything was, you know, it just built on more exciting play after another and culminating with the finals weekend was just wild. yeah It was just, I mean, wild in the sense of just spectacular play by the two champions, Sabalenka and Sinner, and really, really aggressive, competitive, right in there with Pagula and Alkarez. And it was just magic from the standpoint of of a fan experience from being part of the of the sport itself and in my day-to-day world.
00:03:03
Speaker
and just the energy and the kind of interest that people took from it. And this is not a knock on, you know, the last old guard right now I would say is Djokovic. Sure. He's, you know, this champion is just unbelievable coming right off the gold medal. Yeah. You know, after rolling on the same grounds as Roland Garros, just really wonderful for the whole sport and the excitement and the changing of the guard, maybe. But we go through this conversation probably every Grand Slam. When somebody not named Djokovic, not named Federer, not named Nadal wins. And so I'm going to reserve my personal judgment to just say, I just love tuning in and watching and getting excited and inspired by the play. It was a great tournament. I mean, I'm super excited. I love Alcaraz and Sinner. Their movement is amazing. It's really cool to see Coco continuing to play pretty well. Savalenka seems to really be establishing herself as a perennial favorite. Right. So that's great to see on the women's side. I also feel like tennis is kind of having a cultural moment. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I spent time I was in New York during the open. Yeah. It seems like people want to be buying like
00:04:13
Speaker
tennis clothes and more people are tuning into both the women's and the men's tour. I think that's a very fair assessment and i and I look at it in terms of both the way the media partners have worked with the USTA and the USTA themselves for kind of ramping up their fan experiences. and and opening up the tournament basically a week earlier with qualifying and yeah the kind of, you know, less competitive yet equally fun and innovative programs of having fan and experiences and yes legend players come out and kind of not embarrass themselves, obviously. But would embarrass any any amateur that would come on the court, that would dare to come on the court. But sure but the fun part about it is is having them lean into that experience and kind of taking those three weeks in New York and really say, hey, this is our time. This is tennis in the US when we're and we're going to have a great time with it. And we want New Yorkers and people from all over the world to feel connected
The Commitment of Professional Tennis
00:05:05
Speaker
to the sport. And I think that's what that's what you're probably noticing. Because people do feel connected to it, whether it's, you know, watching the fan experiences, seeing the non tennis players in the stands that you know, some fun celebrities that people know, it's all very much part of the connective tissue that brings tennis, which is ostensibly an individual sport, but a community sport simultaneously together. And that's really where you see that pull together, certainly on this side of the Atlantic.
00:05:30
Speaker
I went to Djokovic's first round match, but I also went to the practice session on Friday afternoon prior to the tournament starting, and that's free. So for folks who are in New York, based in New York, want to take their kids to some tennis, I don't know. I think that was really, it was really cool. It was cool. We saw Alkaraz practice. We actually, we saw Medvedev practice. It it was, it was really fun. Yeah.
00:05:52
Speaker
And I will say this about the practicing, watching the pros at that level practice is not like you and I going to the courts. It's just not. The only thing that's sentence the vocabulary is the same, but the execution is entirely different. And what's so interesting is you watch them work in real time on a certain thing. Let's say one of them is having ah an issue with a forehand. They're going to work on forehands.
00:06:12
Speaker
a volley, whatever the single stroke is or a strategy, a point you know a point construction, and watching them put that out there to the public in real time, knowing in a few hours they have to do it you know on the main stadium for everyone and their ranking points are on the line. yeah that's a real That's a real behind the scenes kind of moment that I think as ah anybody who plays tennis can really appreciate the level of work that has to go into that. Because we all get you know we all have to hit a bucket of balls with when were work when we're playing. And you not you're not always going to get 10 out of 10 in a row. ah hu These guys, it's more like 999 out of 1,000 in a row. And the one they miss is because a fan yelled something and they went, what? And they turned around or something, right? So it's just an interesting dynamic as as a a fan who's a player and a kind of an a you know a pretty good amateur to see that action and kind of take away from that up close and personal what you really don't always get to do in a main stadium. And even wherever your seat is, you're're they're in a different mode.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, you can get right there. I mean, you can be like 10 feet away from the court. But yeah, it's not going to cost you an arm and leg to buy the courtside seat. You can see the coaching team and they're hitting partners. And sometimes it's two pros that you know hitting each other. And that's often a little pickup doubles happens right away. And you're like, oh, look at this. It's so great. And you don't want to move. You're just completely transfixed by it. Yeah. Do you have a favorite memory from the US Open?
00:07:33
Speaker
I do and it it's actually it's actually it's funny it's practice court related because i as a kid I used to go i I grew up in the in the metropolitan New York area and we would go to the US Open like many families would and one year I was learning how to use a camera correctly like a proper not a you know not an instant camera like a camera with you know an f-stop and and aperture changes and I'm gonna get the vocabulary wrong And one of the things I decided to do was take my camera to the practice courts and not pretend I was a real photographer, but pretend I was a real photographer. And I was taking some pictures, and of course I'm sure the camera was making the click, click, click noises and everything. And I got a really, really tight shot of Chris Everett, and it was so tight that she gave me a very dirty look, which I only realized we have after I got the film to tell you how old how old the camera was, developed, and I went, oh, she must've been mad that I was distracting her. But it was a great experience to be that close. Like I said, 10 feet away, and you just had access, and they you know they they smiled afterwards. There was some autograph signing, but it wasn't that accessible. It was more like, hey, they're you're watching them practice. And the other thing I watched, one I think this was Martina back in the day, they had a number of hitting partners for her.
00:08:44
Speaker
And the hitting, so Martina would be on one side of the court and the hitting partners, there's like six or seven people on the other side of the court. And I was trying to figure out as a youngster, what's what's happening here? And she's just hitting, hitting, hitting, and she's not missing. ah The people she's hitting, they're all, they look like college players, like college met male players. yeah and they're hitting with her, and there's the balls are hit coming pretty fast and pretty aggressively, and every five minutes or so, she'd stop. She looks reasonably cool, calm collected, and the male players were sucking wind. They were like yeah couldn't breathe, soaking wet, and they and then she'd like change them out. And so I realized what was happening was they needed a block of male players to keep up with her and in her prime as just practicing, just hitting.
00:09:29
Speaker
That's amazing. Watching this happen. And then yeah you she by the end of the workout, she was, of course, as sure as worn out as they were. But at the beginning, but wow. she And she just kept going like like a factory in a way. And I always thought, wow, that's that's some serious, serious skill, stamina, power, all of it. And it was very there was there was one of those memories that kind of lives in my head of just being really impressed and inspired by the quality that you see up up close like that.
00:09:55
Speaker
Incredible. I mean, I could talk about the US Open all day. We could. Yes, we absolutely could.
Peter's Career Journey: From Disney to Multimedia
00:10:00
Speaker
We should talk a little bit about your career as an entertainment lawyer. And I want to go back to the start. I think you started your career at Disney for in-house. In-house at Disney. yeah That came actually after a quick job at at a bankrupt film library. And the Bank of Film Library job I got through a a friend of mine who I play tennis with act ironically out in here in LA. And the job there was to assess the film assets of this particular library for valuation for sale and or re-licensing if they could. And as I was doing this kind of fairly routine analysis, I realized even very early on in my career, these contracts are really interesting. No two look really alike, but there are some similarities. I would much rather be negotiating these than reading about them and putting them in a spreadsheet. And that was kind of the that's how I pitched myself to Disney. So I just finished this this exercise with this with this film library, and I'm now ready to apply those skills and to you and to help you build this side of the film of the film business. And they hired me as a temp initially, and then they made me permanent afterwards. And it was a really interesting experience for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the kind of work I got to do, the having the leverage of the Disney name and brand behind you when you're negotiating, And also understanding that there's a a level of professionalism and kind of ah consistency that a studio, certainly of that caliber, not only expects from its from its creative talent, but from its business and legal affairs talent and its operational talent, accounting, everybody had had to work to a very high level of professionalism, which I leaned into and really enjoyed. I liked that a lot.
00:11:41
Speaker
Because it was yeah it was as both aspirational and challenging. Like, i oh, i I can do this. I can be this kind of professional. And I found that very i'm confidence building. I'm sure it was exciting to work for Disney. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, at the time, did you think to yourself, this is like the first step on a long career as an entertainment lawyer? Like, I really want to be working in Hollywood? Or did that sort of then emerge and happen more by happenstance?
00:12:06
Speaker
Yes. And yeah so it's more it's more like, yes, I did while I'm doing it. But the more different opportunities and the different types of deals I got to work on, the more I wanted to do more different types of deals to work on. So that that what what I mean by that is the first handful of deals you get started on. OK, you master the concepts and you move through them. And then I kept thinking, what else can I do? I want more. I want to be challenged more. I want to. Yeah. You know, it's like tennis, right? You learn a flat forehand and then you then you see a topspin. I want to learn how to do that. Yeah. So this that was the kind of experience I applied as a professional. And so I got to work on a couple of, um you know, cross divisional marketing deals and things like that. But it really wasn't culturally the organization that encouraged that level of cross pollination, if you will. And so that's fine. I mean, you you learned but you learn anything in the world by trying, right? sure So I tried and that did not work itself out the way I thought long-term. So I used that as a kind of pivot to stay in the entertainment business, but then but thought, well, if I don't want to do this type of medium, what
Creating Video Content from Toys
00:13:09
Speaker
else is there? Well, there's television. And so that's what got me to Fox Television was the ability to see that the film side that I had been working on was terrific, rewarding, and very very educational. Now I want television.
00:13:21
Speaker
right And that that made me a little bit of a unicorn even back back then because most people stay within a medium. they stay They'll stay television lawyers, they'll stay film lawyers. they might think And and this was belong this is around the time you know video games were becoming more of a of a discipline versus them for a kind of a extra. And so I would say that side of it was very helpful to see just how different and the same things are. And different meaning the medium is different, the the timing is different, hu The structure is the same. It's intellectual property being exploited in a different way. right So that's the back down to core legal principles. But your timing, you have no time in a television deal because your your shooting schedule is much faster. Film can be as long as it needs to be. right And then there's a little more um real you know um balance that way.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then the different related issues with the television side come with the type of television you're doing, whether it's game shows, scripted television, non-scripted television, documentaries, then they're all in the in one place. You know, animation, live action, hybrid. All of a sudden you're like, oh, you wanted more? Here you go.
00:14:28
Speaker
And so that was kind of like a little, you know, a little terrifying yeah in hindsight now. And but what it taught me there also was the ability to time manage and juggle and to be very on my game to if I had eight, 10, 12 deals in development.
00:14:44
Speaker
Great. I had eight, 10, 12 deals in production. Also great. And then what are the ancillary issues? What are my intellectual property issues I have to worry about? What are the talent issues? What are the employment issues? And all of a sudden, the concept of being an entertainment lawyer went from a couple of structural deals at Disney, to all kinds of television deals at Fox, to now the subject matter is expanding long beyond any kind of specific entertainment umbrella into the sub, this I would call not call them sub-disciplines. They're sub-disciplines within the entertainment space, but they're there's they're very much standalone. and People are employment lawyers, they are intellectual property lawyers, and people are M&A lawyers and investment lawyers. there's There's a million groups of that and so what that kind of gave me at Fox was this much broader understanding of the business and how the pieces of the business fit together some better than others obviously and some more curious like why would we be doing this if it doesn't reach that kind of and you start to understand strategy and and why somebody gets green lit versus not green lit
00:15:50
Speaker
And that's really where you start to develop not only your legal skills, but your your business strategy and your choices. Why is it important to save X percentage on ah on a profit participation deal for Random Show X? we don't want to And the answer is you don't want to set a precedent of just being, oh, we'll just hand out money like candy. Here you go. just at just Just ask business affairs. They'll just hand it out like candy. That's not how any of that works, by the way. Yeah, it's a much more you know detailed negotiation strategy and and planning based on what the organization is looking for on a long-term strategy basis. No answer. So that that became, I would say, um a much deeper kind of breadth of subject matters and experience. And from that standpoint, there was some time that part of Fox was being spun off to Disney, which was which would have made a little bit of a circle for me in a lot of ways, but at that point I was looking for more. I was looking for another challenge and I had been recommended to look at Mattel because they were building an entertainment group. ah huh Now, I had had some consumer products experience, a little bit through Disney, a little bit through Fox, but this became much more, it's Mattel.
00:16:59
Speaker
Sure. and it's it's there's it's Mattel has products. And so to generate IP reverse, usually it's it's you make games and toys from movies and television. This is going to be the other way around. We were going to take to the the games and toys and make them into videos, direct to videos in those days, and then television series and film.
00:17:19
Speaker
that was a very exciting way to kind of change course if you will and so when i started there and this was now a number of years ago this was when the barbie director video business was was hot long before we had the you know the big sensation last year with the barbie movie And it was a wonderful thing to see that kind of, and it took a long time, obviously, is the time I was there to the time to see that happen. And it was really terrific, you know, a very kind of impressive, satisfying. and And by the way, all of the management creative has changed a number of times and since my day there. But the core business didn't change, which was taking the intellectual property, figuring out ways to not only expand it within its normal categories, but find new categories and new ways to be part of that experience for the consumer and for building building your market to newer consumers. Because we and people the research and statistics bear this out, not just you know young girls went to the Barbie movie. Right. So that's ah you know to their credit, creatively, they went in a direction that under maybe other administrations wouldn't have been that, i'm not sure I say administrations, leadership administrations, the management administrations at Mattel, wouldn't have been that possible.
00:18:28
Speaker
And now you can see the result of taking risk. And that's really, you know and again, going back to kind of learning where the strategy goes, risk is that same piece of it, right? What do you do? What's the risk here? Well, the risk to a company like Mattel is taking an iconic brand that is doing very well for it, corporately, revenue-wise, shareholder-wise, and doing something different with it. And the word different, you can put that lowercase D, capital D, and that can be a little daunting. to and And being part of a group figuring out how to do that within that culture at the beginning was very, very rewarding and very eye-opening to see. And there were different parts of the business that were, we don't want to do this level of creativity. And then there were others that we want to do a much bigger level of creativity. and and kind of figuring how that works. And then going around and closing deals around different production companies and different you know voice talent and things like that. That's that's all part of the the execution side. It's really quite interesting and quite special as far as being an entertainment practitioner.
Spotdraft and Contract Management
00:19:34
Speaker
Because what you don't normally see is that from the consumer product side. yeah That's what I'm describing as a much more classic development production model that you see in a studio network small production company.
00:19:45
Speaker
you know norf You don't often see that at the Mattel Hasbro Jax level right kind of thing. So i I found it really, really exciting and um and challenging in a lot of ways. so
00:19:58
Speaker
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00:20:31
Speaker
And because it should work where you work, it integrates with all the tools your business already uses. Spotdraft is the key that unlocks the potential of your legal team. Make your contracting easier today at spotdraft dot.com. Across each of those different types of business, I mean, you have movies, you have television, you have packaged goods or consumer products that are related to movies or TV shows that that folks love. You're working with really creative people. like I mean, these are all people who are in the jobs that they're in for the most part because of their creativity. I guess, like, is there anything that you learned over that timeline about how to work well with creative types or with people who are employed, right?
The Art of Listening in Entertainment Law
00:21:18
Speaker
Because they've got the next great idea or they've got the vision for how to take this short story and turn it into a feature length film, right? Yeah. ah So from the from the classic entertainment model that you're describing, I think the takeaway, and this is a hindsight takeaway. and then When you're in the middle of it, it's more like, I don't understand anything you're doing. right so i mean honest that that's and And by the way, i'm not the ah this is not unique to a business affairs group. yeah This is unique to colleagues in the same creative group, right? So what I learned in hindsight is be a really good listener.
00:21:53
Speaker
yeah and be a really open-ended kind of almost, I wouldn't say therapist, you know, to kind of let them steer you, but kind of really elicit, what are they trying to do here? What is that creative vision? And try to get them to boil it down. Sometimes that works, and and a lot of times it doesn't. It's just you almost need to see it in some other medium versus ah a verbal description. You want to see a piece of art. You want to see a couple of script pages, something. And that helps, but I think the most important thing because of the way ah the the studio business structure works is to remind the creative folks that you're on their side right that's the that's the key because sometimes they feel and i said sometimes business affairs fields the same that their people are at cross purposes they're off strategy they're off risk this this is too risky this is not risky enough
00:22:41
Speaker
All of those things come into the conversation, but as ah as a business affairs professional and as I've grown in tenure and in responsibility, it's important to set the example of being a good listener. To say things like, I absolutely see that this is the direction you're moving in. Here's where I think we can do this. And here's where I think we're going to have to do some not just not a linear A to B. We're going to have sure we're going to have a couple of steps along the way and to be really open to a dialogue. So listening in a dialogue really makes the difference. And that gets rewarded like anything else with just be respectful. And you may think it's the wackiest idea in the world. And you may think there is no way that you know the people who have the green light money are going to say this is going to work. Yeah, but who cares? Try it. I mean, though what you know, it doesn't matter at some at at one point in in the process, because you want to you want to encourage the creativity, you want to encourage the risk taking or at least the risk conception, not necessarily the risk taking it can be is is it more of a Yeah, nuanced answer, but sure. But the the risk thought and and doing something that's not ordinary, being extraordinary, that's that's what the business is built on. I mean, yeah there's a number of studios, a number of networks, a number of people making creative choices every single day. And we as as consumers are better for it. ah huh That's what I would say there. So I think it's a matter of respect and listening and not feeling this. I've known some folks that feel this way. I wish I could be that creative. Yeah. And they get a little little a little depressed little cranky, a little depressed about it. And I think, well, just that's your position. Then lead in and help them and grow and support it and and make it yeah make it flourish. And if they if the response is, oh, I don't feel like it or something like that, you're like, well, then you've got to be positive, right? Yeah. You've got to take the level of respect and positivity with the listening and the steering through the proper suggestion you know
Creativity in Legal Negotiations
00:24:32
Speaker
model.
00:24:32
Speaker
I mean, I think that's an interesting point. Let's talk about that for a second. I mean, yes, there are creative types, quote unquote, who yeah are the animators, right? Or are the cinematographers or are the folks who are writing the scripts? But I actually think creativity plays a big role in a lot of people's day to day lives or a lot of people's work, not just people who have jobs like that. If you're negotiating a contract and you come up with a particularly interesting way to access someone's IP or to hedge risk related to three-way interplay between three parties who are all exchanging IP over the course of a number of years. I don't know. I'm not an IP lawyer, but I'm curious, like, what what do you think about the role of creativity in your day to day? Yeah. that is That is a really great question. And the answer is you have to be you have to take a level of creativity into your day-to-day negotiating and drafting. yeah it's it's It's important for a number of reasons. Number one is you don't want to be just cookie cutter form filling out lawyering. I that i mean, that works to veryary for on a very limited basis to things like a location release or something like, you know a a i'm goingnna I agree to be filmed on camera in this live audience right now. Okay.
00:25:50
Speaker
not a lot of right thought not a lot of ah rich you know it just It is what it is. kind of yeah But when you're going through, like you were you described, ah a shared intellectual property situation or a licensing arrangement, you want to come up with the things that you need as a business, the things the other side needs as a business, and you hope that Venn diagram is a circle.
00:26:11
Speaker
yeah now it's Rarely, going to be if it's a circle, it's not going to be the circle you think it is, right? it's And it's going to be one of those elliptical oval designs that your geometry teacher will give you the the right grade for getting correctly, ye and they'll get the wrong grade for not.
00:26:27
Speaker
And the truth of the matter is within that space, that's where your creativity can shine, right? Because party A wants something and party you, let's say you're your' party B, it's not gonna work. there's there's some There's some either an institutional reason, there's ah there's ah another business or or legal reason you can't do something. So what do you do?
00:26:47
Speaker
they're They're insisting, you're insisting, we've got to come with a some level of compromise. And that's where you that's what that's the art of yes of the compromise and the art of negotiation comes in. And you you see what they want and you say to yourself, okay, we can't get there the conventional way. So now let's get there so though not the winding roadway. yeah And you try to figure out what that winding road is, and oftentimes you can come up with some level of shared participation in that particular deal point, which usually does a lot to alleviate, I want to do X, I can't do X. Well, if we're both kind of working simultaneously together in a mutually beneficial way, you probably can get the X thing done. ye And that's what I've learned is that that then the Venn diagram does become the circle, but you have to do the both, I would call the the classic business commercial discussion around that. And then you got to document it in the legal side varies very much to match the business term. And and I've seen some of that. i've i've I've been in some negotiations where the the wording goes back and forth. Well, this is just like we we talked about in our meeting. That's correct. Are we are we changing? no Oh, no, no, no. But you captured it the way we wanted it it to be captured. And you think, good. And then sometimes it's the other way around. This is nothing what we discussed in our meeting. You think, are you sure? and and then you know So it becomes that that moment of of creativity, of trying to to then persuading people. So this actually is what we talked about, and this is what we want to do. And remember, we're doing this solution because Goal X has an obstacle of of obstacle A. With this solution, you get Goal X, sort of, with obstacle A basically eliminated.
00:28:29
Speaker
And that's where that's where you end up in in the kind of compromise and the the notion of the create creativity because it's not as simple as here is a license of a trademark. Great, now what? right that it's now it's the The answer to now what is really is is the long form contract. you're trying to You're trying to solve business problems. Correct. Right. And you you have experience doing this yourself because when you were at Konami, you spent time as like a studio exec there too, right? Or you were on you are working on the business side, not not just working as the company's lawyer for a period of time?
00:29:04
Speaker
That's right. on On all of the jobs I've had, I've had a business and legal affairs role. ah huh So I've been the kind of person that will both argue with myself about how much money make this make sense. And then and then I'll argue with why are you moving the language just you know, qualifying my license from the front of the paragraph to the back of the paragraph, what am I missing? like Yeah. So I've kind of had both of both of those opportunities. What I would say there is, especially on on the video game side, you you run into some of some standard issues where, look let's say Konami wants a new game, and they go to the developer, and they you know there's ah that we're licensing software in now, right? Right. So it's not my software. I get a limited use of it. But once it's in the game, the person who has the software can't tell me the software has to come out. Right. So you have to negotiate around that. And then what you also have to make sure of is that what you're getting is exclusive to you. And if some element that they have is exclusive to them, we need a very, very broad grant in so that I can make games and derivative versions of the games going forward right So that's where, and if sometimes there's there's the the commercial component that you're talking about, the business side comes in well, game one through three, we can we'll take this kind of royalty. You start doing games for whatever, we might have to talk about escalating the royalty. or
00:30:22
Speaker
or reducing it if you're using less. I mean, we yeah that's always been my response is, oh, you want more? what if i What if I pair it back and it's mostly my additions to to the game? And sometimes that quiets the request down and sometimes it just makes for a longer negotiation. It's it's it's it's fine. And so the reality is what you want to do in those circumstances is assess everyone's need, ah everyone's commercial expectation and the culture of and of the investment that you're making on whichever side you're on of right of that transaction.
Negotiating Talent Agreements with Respect
00:30:53
Speaker
I want to ask you about talent agreements. Sure. And I actually think that that's something that these days a lot more GCs who are listening might have to deal with. I mean, if you think about influencer marketing and
00:31:04
Speaker
other sorts of brand deals, right? You've negotiated a lot of talent agreements, including now at Tennis Channel. What's it like to work with these sort of like slightly famous people or work through their agents? How do you manage those relationships in the right way to to get an agreement done? okay The trite answer is very carefully. Yeah. With caution. With caution. With caution, right. The reality of it is because they are, and certainly I'll use the tennis channel example, yeah they're very high profile. People know who they are. Part of it for me is taking the experience I've had as a leader across different divisions in different parts of of the media world and in film and television and applying that level of
00:31:45
Speaker
respect and understanding to these negotiations, which means that if we're in the middle of a deal and the money is X and my head of production and I are figuring out the right number for a certain person and we go back and forth until we get the number where everybody's happy, we want people to feel good. And that's oh that's the one thing I've learned as a talent lawyer. And this goes back to my Warner Brothers days as well, which I went, you know,
00:32:09
Speaker
Somewhat if in Fox and as and Mattel also, but i Warner's, this was this was a cultural imperative, if you will. They're very talent friendly. And that was there that it was across all divisions that dealt with talent. So your job as a business and legal affairs lawyer was to make sure that that always lived in the back of your mind, that right being talent friendly. Okay. That also meant sometimes you might be in a position to have to give up some things you don't want to give up yeah commercially.
00:32:37
Speaker
ah But it for the larger good of the studio because in the studio environment if one division is doing something with talent X they want to feel good to work with another division and another division so you can understand the need for that synergistic kind of cultural relationship. How do you do that and you respect that and you make your deals and nine times out of ten you're fine.
00:32:59
Speaker
You just do it and it's just part of that you may have to spend a little more money, do a little more in the perks area, but you get it done. Get to Tennis Channel and we have certain certain of our talent have more trophies than others, right? sure So this is not a surprise to anybody. It's no different than a studio. yeah There are studio deals that were for Oscar winners and studio deals for non-Oscar winners. And so what I tried to do at Tennis Channel was at least when it came to the legal language, pretty much make it as uniform as possible.
00:33:26
Speaker
Meaning, we call you for Tournament X and you're available, you come and it's part of your deal. We travel you a certain way, we provide you meals a certain way, hair and makeup, things like that. We'll ask you to do some publicity a certain way. And that's pretty much everybody on our website. air, the differences become what happens where there's a conflict. There's somebody works for another network. Our town is American. The English speaking world will use them at certain events. So we have people that will work for not only tennis channel, but for let's say an Australian network or a UK network.
00:34:05
Speaker
And what do we do around that? How do we how do we negotiate around that? And you just do. yeah Basically, I mean, it sounds so simple when I say it that way. yeah You have to know what it is. I mean, you have to have the detail in front of you to say, OK, and we've had them. I've watched some of our talent where they'll have our microphone at one certain days and they'll have, let's say, the BBC, or I want to say, 10 of 7 in Australia. i'm going to okay Those are for you. If I got the network wrong, I apologize.
00:34:31
Speaker
um that you'll have you It would be exciting to know that we have some Australian listeners. Exactly. um You want to make sure that you respect what everyone's, agreeing you know, yeah commercially agreeing to, then the legal is easy. Because then you just say days X is tennis channel, days Y is tournament, you know, whoever network is.
00:34:48
Speaker
whatever, and you just work worked through it. But the fundamental notion of respect and understanding is carries through. And my challenge, specifically a tennis channel, more so than in the film and television world, is I'm a fanboy, right? So i am I have a real problem sometimes. I walk into our green room, and there's I'm like, okay, there's, I'm like, great. Jim Currier. For example, his dad wore a train.
00:35:12
Speaker
ah um they're all They're all there and they all know me. so They all know what I do. And so it's very much like a, hi. And I'm always like, everybody happy. And I do. I am i get a little nervous sometimes. but and And thankfully it's it's it's the least issue for us. And I think part of it is because of of the sport we're all in and because where they live in the sport and in their respect to like stature, if you will. Me, I'm like to happy to be there. Right. yeah just And then we just we talk collegially, you know, very much, you know, it's a very tennis centric shocking that we talked that way. And um off I go, i you know, yeah and off I go my on my day and they get on camera and life goes on. But the reality for me is we we had this I actually had this conversation with two of our talent recently about the process of doing their contracts. And um
00:35:59
Speaker
One of them actually, I made a comment to one of them and I said, you know, your agent has been terrific working with both me and the junior person um in my department. Yeah. And the talent says to me, you have to tell me if if it's ever any other way because I want to make sure I said, oh, no, no, no.
00:36:16
Speaker
don't Yeah never been and this is somebody we've done a number of deals with always been above board totally professional he's a terrific advocate for you and understand but he's a total pro about getting to the finish line right and so that was that was kind of important and then somebody else mentioned oh that's that's interesting cuz you know when we do it cuz this particular person does it directly yeah Some of them deal directly with us and some of them have have agents and representatives. It's all different, but what I try to do is make sure that as ah as a leader, my team and I are always taking the position, again, talent friendly, yeah very respectful. We don't put any sneaky language in. We're very upfront about it. There's a new business term that we've discussed. I highlight that when we're going out with a new paper and I want to make sure that they feel good about signing and being part of our family, our tennis channel family. I liked, you said it very early on, sort of in the it was we were talking about this, you said you want the talent to be happy. yeah And I think that and there's there's a whole host of other sort of agreements that companies might be negotiating or entering into where that sometimes gets forgotten, right? like Yeah, like in employment, like you're hiring a new employee. Yeah, there's a little bit of a negotiation there around comp and vacation and maybe. and
00:37:28
Speaker
But you want your new employee to be happy. Right. Or you have a new partnership with someone like a marketing deal or a rev share or I'm like, yeah, I mean, there's a there's a discussion about commercials and, you know, who's giving what and whose marketing team is going to spend more. But like ultimately, like you want the partner to be happy. Right. I mean, it seems like an obvious point, but I think that sometimes as people focus very, very closely in on over negotiating this thing, and we want to close this thing in the next week. Right. You forget sometimes that bigger picture.
00:37:57
Speaker
No, that's exactly right. And I think it's important because and when you have a volume of deals that that certainly I handle now and across a number of different subject matters, it's always important to take a moment and step back and go, why am I doing this? right What's my why? right And yeah that's a very classic question, but it's hard to ask an answer while you're, like you said, in the middle of doing a million things.
00:38:20
Speaker
And so when you look at a certain deal and you're getting some resistance on something that you think is fairly basic, you have to step back and go, why? What is the resistance? And often for us, the resistance is they've not done these kinds of deals with us before. And they're just learning how to work with us and ah hu that we're not things that I cannot do because of my restrictions come with inbound license with inbound tournament footage, for example.
00:38:43
Speaker
they just have to learn that. And it's not a negative, it's just a matter of both educating, but educating in a very collegial kind of helpful collaborative way. So that they feel partnered with us and not, oh, we didn't forgot to, you know, they feel like we didn't hide the ball kind of thing, right? yeah They asked the ball kit for the ball kit. It was good faith. It was like, no. No ball for you. No. It was all good faith. If something happens that wasn't covered and we're discovering it in the process, you just try to solve it. If it's a footage issue, and for example, I might need the sign off of the tournament to say, oh yeah, for this particular marketing exercise that is maybe over our time limit, can we get an approval?
00:39:25
Speaker
Let me see the creative and that of often the tournament is very happy to approve something like that. Because again, this will come as a shock from being a media lawyer. We want more people watching. Right. So things that drive that larger strategy and that larger culture of tennis channel means we're going to try very hard to get more people to watch. Right. That is kind of our art in our DNA. Yeah, I mean, Tennis Journal has undergone a lot of changes, I would say, in recent years, launching a new channel was acquired at one point or changed ownership.
Tennis Channel's Strategic Expansion
00:39:58
Speaker
I mean, what is leading the legal team through all of that sort of change been like for you? And what have you been proud of as you've sort of helped shepherd the business through a bunch of different transitions and growth? So it's been exciting. And I will say when I first got there, the amount of leverage we had in the in the sport was was decent, but it wasn't I think it wasn't where I believe tennis channel could and should be. Yeah, because I felt like we're we're the only place for the single sport. So let's try to let's try to aggregate all the rights we can. And it took us a number of years to do that through the men's tour in the women's tour, the ATP and the WTA respectively. And we did that with the help of our corporate parents Sinclair broadcast group, which acquired us in 2016. So let me just take a quick step back on that was when Sinclair acquired us, we were able to then take advantage of their corporate leverage on the distribution side. The distribution of our main network then um grew um fairly fairly rapidly with with the help of their connections in the broadcast space and the way that cable television is distributed. So we had ah more money to work with, more leverage more more leverage to work with, which meant we can then, you know the
00:41:12
Speaker
fed itself to now we could acquire more rights. right So it it um these are all steps in the process. So now we now we are the exclusive rights holder to the ATP tour and the WTA tour. A number of US events that are not covered under those master deals um due to territory restrictions And we've also added in um grand slam deals with what we call studio shows to be partnered with ESPN, where they take the live and we take a studio show and build around it, which both helps their broadcast. They help our broadcast and we give the the the ah viewing audience two different experiences, yeah which is really kind of nice and and and it keeps
00:41:52
Speaker
um The audience was going to find US Open, Wimbledon, Australia on both places, sure and they're going to be very happy because they're going to find two different things. and they're They're different for reasons that that range from both not cannibalizing each other, obviously, to the fact that the audience demands it. The audience wants the analysis. They want that high level analysis from Lindsay, Jim, and Martina. They want to hear, ah you know, and they want to hear from Chris and John, you know, play by play. They want to hear that on ESPN. They just do. We know, you know, this is not, this will come as no surprise that that's, there's there's a reason ESPN is in that, in the live Grand Slam business. And there's a reason Tana's channel is in the,
00:42:33
Speaker
the rest of the year business with the studio shows also at the Grand Slams, which leads me to the next piece of growth that came out of having all those rights is, we only had one screen. How are you gonna put all those rights on one screen? Well, the answer is you're not. I mean, you know your geometry teacher will tell you that map that math is not. You can make all the circles and ovals you want, it's just not gonna work. So we developed um Tennis Channel Plus, which is a subscription video on demand service, which is um in the midst of its own transition right now. to a more refined ah tennis destination product. We have something called T2, which is a fast channel, which I never heard of until we got into the fast channel business, right? yeah And that sounds kind of fancy, right? It means free advertisers supported television fast. huh where are you're going to see that is on some of the um hardware platforms like Samsung and I think we're in um Vizio and I think LG maybe and um now on Amazon channels perhaps and Fubo and I want to make sure I don't under report where we are and then and then and then accidentally promise something we didn't, we didn't. write so sort fair just Disclaimer. I have to put that disclaimer out there. And that's a credit to my colleagues on the distribution side because they are in a never ending growth of platform and growth of distribution for their platforms. And part of that business now is you don't have the same content everywhere.
00:43:55
Speaker
So tennis channel linear feed has something, tennis plus has something else live, fast has something live and I'm going to make this even more exciting. We have a pickleball joint venture with the the professional pickleball association and ah major league pickleball, which is a partner there. And we're trying to, we have a pickleball television fast channel that is also a destination for not tennis pickleball because it's pickleball.
00:44:20
Speaker
And that's been really fun to see that growth around a sport that's tennis adjacent, I would call it, to start. But it's really its own. It's a real standalone kind of adventure. Adventure and venture, I will say, yes because it's it's it's I play it. It's fun. I'm better at it than I thought I would be. yeah But I mean, tennis has my heart, but pickleball is doing a real good job of trying to get an inch in there.
00:44:43
Speaker
I'm a fan of pickleball. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on pickleball versus tennis. We can. yeah I'm a big fan of pickleball. I want to ask you one last question before I've got a few fun ones to to close us out. You're a tennis player yourself. yeah What is playing tennis taught you you know lessons that you've you've brought back to your life, to your work life that you use in your day to day?
Life Lessons from Tennis
00:45:07
Speaker
That's a great question and I love that question. um it's it's an i'll short The shorthand, problem solving. yeah It is a problem solving sport. It is you and the ball. I used to think it was you and the player. huh okay So that was my first yeah learning learning exercise and when my the the people I take lessons from kind of reminded me, I don't care if I'm hitting the ball or somebody that's not as good as you is hitting the ball or somebody better than you is hitting the ball, it's the ball.
00:45:35
Speaker
Yeah. And then I listened to Martina say something once on the air, and someone's going to be playing at a certain age. and And she said something which is so true, and it and it just translates, the ball does not care how old you are. Right. And I thought to myself, that is so absolutely true. And your job as a tennis player is to problem solve how to hit the ball back inside the lines. right it's If you boil it down to it's it's its it's its raw essence, that is your job as a tennis player is to take the ball, put it on the other side of the net within the boundaries.
00:46:07
Speaker
Okay. Sounds pretty simple. but We know it's not. not but but But the joy of that is figuring out, like in and the problem solving goes like this. Well, I'm missing my serve. Why? Is it the grip wrong? Am I in the wrong foot position? Is it is though is it windy? Is it sunny? Is it an element issue? is it my Does my arm hurt? Am I nervous? Am I choking? I can give you 50 reasons why I'm not serving, but I only need one to actually serve.
00:46:34
Speaker
So I have to figure out where my issue is and then go, okay, problem solved. Serves going long. Okay, more spin, more safety. Boom. There you go. there's your There's problem number one. Problem number two. This guy is running me around the court. I can't breathe. I can't keep up with the ball. How do I blunt him back? Well, you have to start figuring that out. Do you start taking control of the point? How do you do that? Do you hit harder? Do you hit softer? Do you do you make better angles? And you have to just learn to figure that out in real time. And that's the beauty of tennis is it it requires of you to take all your experiences right and put them into play in real time and simultaneously develop new ones for that moment, for that ball.
00:47:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I love that. I hadn't heard or thought about it quite like that before I mean certainly keep it in between the lines, right? That's who wins right? But ah but you in the ball when I play tennis later this week, I'm gonna be thinking about that place Yes, a few fun questions for you Peter.
Career Growth: Learning and Asking Questions
00:47:35
Speaker
The first is your favorite part of your day-to-day.
00:47:39
Speaker
Is it tennis related or just? Whatever you want, yeah. Favorite part of my, okay, the favorite part of my day is walking the dog. I like that. No, no, no, it is it's it's because it's a time, it's the first thing in the, I walk the dog every, from yeah first thing in the morning and it's the the time of the morning where I kind of start to, listen I might listen to a podcast, I might listen to listen to some news and get her get her moving and get me moving, get my brain moving and that's, that I just enjoy that.
00:48:05
Speaker
It doesn't matter what the weather is either. Do you have a professional pet peeve? I think I do. oh And this is is this is ah this is ah an in the weeds drafting one. ahh huh Let's say you have a paragraph with a substantive deal point in it. And the phrase to the extent applicable appears in that, in let's say at the beginning of the paragraph. And to the extent applicable, deal point, deal point, deal point, commercial point, condition, solution.
00:48:29
Speaker
ah huh People that draft take the to the extent applicable and move it from the front of the sentence to the back. So so then it goes deal point, deal point, deal point, condition, comma, to the extent applicable. Now, here's my here's my here's my pet peeve. I really don't care. It does not change the meaning of the sentence. right You just, somebody on the other side of a transaction thought it was a good use of time.
00:48:51
Speaker
to move that phrase, that that part, you know, that great modifier from one part of the sentence or paragraph to the other without changing the substance of the meaning. And my question is, why? Why red line like that? Why do that? I mean, if you want to. So that so that's a pet. That it is a classic pet peeve of mine.
00:49:09
Speaker
That's good. I like that. I have not heard that one before. That's really good. yeah Do you have a book recommendation that you would offer for our audience? It could be something you've read recently, a book that has been important to you and yeah actually this this is i'm i'm in I'm in the middle of reading it now, um and I think it's it's relevant certainly in the in this day and age. It's Attack From Within. It's Barb McQuaid's book on disinformation.
00:49:33
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, it's really ah it's it's interesting and a little scary, but it's solution driven. And I i haven't gotten to the solutions yet. Yeah, I'm ah i'm at the learning part of the the qualities of disinformation and how disinformation permeates our everyday life.
00:49:48
Speaker
We will put that one in the show notes. ah That sounds very relevant. Last question, my traditional sort of closing question for my guests. If you could think back on your days as a young lawyer, maybe just graduating from law school, getting started, something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then.
00:50:07
Speaker
I probably would say um be a little quieter. I was always, I i am um outgoing and kind of proactive and pretty inquisitive and curious and I ask a lot of questions. yeah i have I think if if I had known that at some of my questions that the earlier part of my career would have netted me more positive results than they did, I might i might have i might have chosen chosen my questions accordingly yeah or chosen not to even say anything.
00:50:36
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract recorded here in L.A., Peter. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you, Todd. It was a lot of fun for me as well. Thank you for having me. And to all of our listeners, thanks so much for tuning in, and we hope to see you next time.