Marc Lasry and Arn Tellem: Let the Kids Have Fun, and Watch Women's Sports

On stage: Marc Lasry, chairman, CEO and co-founder, Avenue Capital Group, and former co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks · Arn Tellem, vice chairman, Detroit Pistons · Host: Suzy Kolber

The commissioner of West LA Little League

Tellem, for decades one of the most powerful agents in basketball and baseball, got into youth sports the way most people do: his kids. Living in Los Angeles, he watched parents bring a pro-sports mentality to elementary school baseball, so "to protect my kids, I became commissioner of the West LA Little League." He wanted it fun and humane, with everyone playing.

Instead he got letters. Every parent was a lawyer or had one, he said, and they wrote about playing time, coaching and which coach should be removed. "I spent more time answering letters from lawyers about their kids in West LA Little League than I had in all my negotiations for all my athletes." So he called a meeting of a couple hundred parents, reminded them that he represented big leaguers like Albert Belle and Jason Giambi, and told them their kids had no chance of joining them. Settle down, be normal, have fun. "This isn't work."

The lesson stuck. "This idea of professionalization, and our kids getting scholarships, and every kid has to be great, to me is the thing that ruins sports for kids." He and Lasry grew up playing in the neighborhood. "It's about having fun."

Money is what separates

Lasry was blunter about why youth sports became a big business. Everybody loves their kids and dreams for them, he said, and parents quickly discover they disagree about how their kids should participate. "What really starts separating it is money. Admit it or not, the more money you get, the more opportunities you're giving your children." His hope is that the growth becomes more equitable.

Tellem sees the gap in Detroit, where kids can't find soccer fields, high schools lack indoor space for sports like volleyball, and families drive hours to events. His answer is a sports campus being built with Detroit's incoming WNBA team, with a youth academy: eight high school basketball courts that convert to 16 volleyball courts, five or six soccer fields and, because the community asked for them, classrooms. "Sports is a hook," he said, to develop better students and better citizens. Very few kids become pros; the point is the runway.

The daughter test

Asked how operators can capitalize on the moment for women's sports, Lasry described a fundamental change. When he was a kid, his father took him to games and never thought to bring his two sisters. He asked the room to raise a hand if they have daughters. "Today, the idea that you wouldn't bring your daughter to a game is inconceivable to anyone."

Then the math. An average NBA game draws about 1.5 million viewers, he said, and an average WNBA game about a million, yet the WNBA's share of media money is a small fraction of the NBA's roughly $7.5 billion a year. "The next media deal is going to be massive." Detroit's WNBA team came up as the example: "We think there's going to be this massive growth."

Lasry is also an investor in LeagueApps. The pitch was simple, he said: as a parent he couldn't figure out how to register for a league, and the quality of coaches and referees worried him. "You're entrusting your kids with these people." Screening them, and the data the platform gathers from families, sold him.

"It is possible"

On leadership, Lasry called himself a believer in force of personality. "Just take out the words 'I am.' It is possible." Up 3-2 and at home in the 2021 Finals, he pulled Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo aside and told them all they had to do was put the ball in the basket. "He looks at me and he goes, what?" The point was to simplify and calm the room. Tellem said the greatest athletes he represented shared one thing beyond talent: a determination that nothing would get in their way. "Hard work pays off," Lasry added. "Take it from someone who had no talent."

The Coach's Board take

Two men who made fortunes in pro sports spent 25 minutes telling youth operators not to run their programs like pro sports. Tellem's Little League story is the useful one: the pressure comes from the stands, and the operator's job is to set the tone before the first letter arrives (the parents session has the playbook). And if you run girls' programs, Lasry's daughter test is the demand curve you're sitting on.