S2 E44 Exclusive Interview: Leonard Armato Discusses Shaquille O'Neal's Brand Strategy and Equality in Women's Sports.

Can we truly achieve gender pay equality in sports? This episode promises insights and answers as we sit down with Leonard Armato, a visionary leader dedicated to leveling the playing field for women in beach volleyball. Leonard, with his illustrious career as CMO of Skechers, founder of AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, and board member of the Harlem Globetrotters, shares his philosophy of the four P's: Play, Purpose, Potential, and Pay. His mission to uplift women's sports and secure equal recognition and compensation is both inspiring and actionable, offering valuable lessons in personal branding and entrepreneurship.

You'll also hear the transformative story of a former college basketball player who found his true calling in sports law, thanks to the impactful mentorship of his college coach and NFL legend Ronnie Lott. This journey highlights the indispensable role of relationships and mentorships in achieving career success. The narrative showcases the power of bold career decisions and the importance of guiding athletes as they transition from college to professional sports.

Lastly, the episode shifts gears to focus on empowering athletes through brand ownership. We highlight the innovative approaches to brand building and intellectual property with Shaquille O'Neal's strategy serving as a compelling case study. From the creation of athlete-owned IP to supporting emerging female athletes, we explore the multi-faceted strategies that drive women's sports forward. This enriching conversation underscores the need for cultural support, visibility, and mass viewership to bridge the gender pay gap and propel women's sports into the mainstream.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

If you can get people to watch something in mass numbers, the money will flow. I'll give you one great contrast NBA players, wnba players. Nba players average $10 million a year. Wnba players average $150,000, approximately a year. Why? Because of the numbers, the number of people watching. So you have to narrow that gap, to narrow the gender pay gap. How do you do that? By growing the audience. So my philosophy we're creating an incubator for what I call high growth women's sports opportunities. I think those opportunities, should you know, we've seen, let's say, for example, nebraska's women's volleyball team go outside and play in a stadium in front of 90,000 people, or something you know.

Speaker 1: 0:43

so that's like oh, people are watching women in high numbers. That's a big, you know plus, because we're sort of conditioning ourselves in our culture to value women's sports more when people watch it in mass numbers. Well, I, you know, sort of believe that people should pursue things that really have four P's if they're going to develop a career. The four P's I always think about are your job should feel like play. It should really really have purpose so that every single day you feel like you have some purpose in your life that you feel really good about. It should bring out your God-given potential. That's the third P. And then, finally, you have to get paid doing it. And I always say are those four P's existing in whatever it is that I'm doing?

Speaker 2: 1:56

what's going on everybody, welcome to another episode of the forever podcast. It's your host, it's your boy, jamar jones. I am the founder of forever media, national keynote speaker and the author of the book change your, your Circle, change your Life. And we're about to do that today. Again, again and again and again. We keep changing our circle and meeting amazing people. This podcast is all about entrepreneurship, all about personal branding the journeys and seeing kind of how people got to where they're at today and really to help somebody. Help somebody learn about where they need to go and because you know, a couple nuggets from somebody can really change the trajectory of somebody's life. And that's what this podcast is all about. And you know, today is no exception. We got just an amazing, amazing individual. I have a lot of stuff for him, but first let me introduce him real quick because I know our community, the people that follow this podcast, a lot of our social content. They're going to love, love this episode. So we got the founder and CEO of Management Plus Enterprises. He's really known for building high growth personal and corporate brands, converging sports media, marketing, technology, which we'll get into that Cause I love, love that.

Speaker 2: 3:12

There's a lot of similarities within that he was the CMO of Skechers, which is crazy. We could probably talk about that. Talk about that as well. Founder, ceo of of AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, and also he was on the board. He's a board member of the Harlem Globetrotters, which is crazy. I mean, that's just. I have been to a few few other games. Definitely had fun there.

Speaker 2: 3:39

You know, really Leonard is known for transforming the way of how celebrities were marketed and created and orchestrated, developed and launched brands like Shaquille O'Neal, oscar De La Hoya and so many more, for really having their brand and evolve that into really a business and actually owning what they create, owning their own brand, which is so important. Another thing that people might I mean, depending on the spaces and where you're at, maybe what you don't know about Leonard is that he's a champion of women's sports and he's the owner. As the owner of AVP, he was the first to put men and women under one umbrella and beach volleyball and have paid for equal prize money and mandate, equal TV time for both men and women and the driving force behind beach volleyball becoming an NCAA championship sport for women, which is incredible. I know your mission is not stop there, because you have done amazing, amazing things and have other things planned. So welcome to the show, leonard Amato. Say what's up to everybody, what's going on in your life?

Speaker 1: 4:50

Well, thank you so much, Jamar, for that wonderful intro. I'm going to take you on the road with me, so that was awesome. I appreciate that and hello everybody and look forward to this conversation today.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah, this is going to be so, so good man. I mean, we got a chance to chop it up and I always love to tell people kind of how we met and how we got connected. So we got connected through Jake. Jake is an amazing individual. He's now doing his own thing, which I applaud him for. Entrepreneurship is tough and anybody that dives into the world of that I applaud him. So thanks so much, jake, for the introduction. And then once we once me and Leonard started talking, we just kicked it off right away as he was telling me stuff, I was like, dude, save that for the podcast, say it save a little bit for the pod man.

Speaker 2: 5:38

I mean you just dropping so much knowledge first. Let's first let's kind of talk about why did you get into this industry of sports, technology, media, talent, why? Why are you in that space?

Speaker 1: 5:54

Well, I, you know, sort of believe that people should pursue things that really have four P's if they're going to develop a career. And the four Ps I always think about are your job should feel like play. It should really really have purpose so that every single day you feel like you have some purpose in your life that you feel really good about. It should bring out your God-given potential. That's the third P. And then finally, you have to get paid doing it. And I always say are those four P's existing in whatever it is that I'm doing?

Speaker 1: 6:32

And early in my career, like, I played basketball when I was in college, so I had sort of the mindset of an athlete. I went to law school and I started as a trial lawyer and I spent a lot of time in the library and it was difficult for me to see the purpose in what I was doing. I was writing a lot of legal memos. I wasn't enjoying it. I didn't see how this was going to make the world a better place. Necessarily. I didn't think it was fulfilling my potential. I was getting paid pretty well, but that just wasn't enough for me.

Speaker 1: 7:02

And so my college coach I stayed in close touch with him and you know, he had this great saying that I love when he recruited people. He was a coach at USC Basketball, university of the Pacific Basketball, a bunch of different colleges and universities. He had this great line If he recruited you, he would say if you give me two hours a day for the next four years, I'll give you 24 hours a day for the rest of my life. And it was like, wow, that's pretty powerful, because and he really meant it because not only were you a member of his team while you were at the university, but when you were graduated or going on to do other things, even if you weren't a star, he was there to help you.

Speaker 1: 7:45

And so I'd always keep in touch with him and talk to him. And I said, gee, you know, coach, I'm just not really that fulfilled doing what I'm doing. And he said, well, you should be a sports lawyer. You should be helping these athletes. You have the mindset of an athlete and they're getting screwed right and left. You could help them make the transition from being a college athlete to a professional athlete and business person. And that was sort of the beginning of me thinking about the fact that, wow, that could be my calling. And that's when I started to pursue that profession.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And so really that was through kind of a mentorship at that point to give you that guidance and actually unlock something in yourself that you didn't even see. You know through yourself, you know like from looking into a mirror, because sometimes it takes somebody else to realize your greatness. You know to unlock that or even just get that thought that was there.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Well, it's so important, jamar, you bring up a great point, and relationships that you build in the course of your life are so critical and crucial to your future path. And I could go on and on about the power of relationships and how they affect people in such a profound way, from the people that surround you that influence your conduct, to the people that you develop mentorships with that help you in your life, people that you develop mentorships with that help you in your life. And you know Steve Jobs, the famous, you know Apple, you know icon once said you never know when you're going to connect those dots until later. And I had no idea that this coach was going to be my entry into the world of sports management and marketing, the world of sports management and marketing, and he made so many different impacts on my life over the course of time. You know it's really incredible. So everyone should realize that nurturing relationships is so profound in terms of their effect on your life and you never know when they're going to come to roost in a powerful way.

Speaker 2: 9:41

Yeah, and it's so true. And that is like the coin statement for change your circle, change your life, because you really don't know what these relationships will lead to and how they will fill different cups of your life. You know one thing that I want to talk about just as you now got that transition to kind of realizing, hey, I could help a lot of athletes and getting into, you know, from that transition from college into the pros, talk to me about maybe some challenges, about getting started within that field. And then, of course, we got to go into you know, shaquille O'Neal, oscar De La Hoya, and then, of course, we got to go into you know, shaquille O'Neal, oscar De La Hoya, lisa Leslie you know the people, obviously some of the icons that you've worked with. But did it start there? Was it immediate, just success?

Speaker 1: 10:36

How did that transition happen? No, no, it's a really interesting story, and I tell this to young people that want to get into the sports business, to young people that want to get into the sports business. When I decided to make the transition from being a trial lawyer, litigation attorney, to being a sports lawyer, I didn't have any clients and nobody wanted to hire me. I tried to get a job with one of the big sports agents at the time and they just weren't having it. So my coach said you got to go out and find a client for yourself and fly without a safety net, just be all in. And flying without a safety net is something that everybody has to do in their life At some point in time. It's uncomfortable, but through that comes a lot of power. But unless you're all in, unless you fully commit, a lot of times you can't realize your potential. So I quit my job, jamar, and I had about two months of savings for my rent and my car and I hired a part-time secretary and I was going to go out and get myself a client. Well, he introduced me to somebody who was playing on his basketball team, but it happened to be not a basketball player, but really someone who was going to be an NFL star, and I don't know how much of a student of the history of the NFL you are, but the name of this individual was Ronnie Locke, who was one of the all-time best players in the NFL. At the time he was coming out of USC and I got the intro from my coach and he was playing on the USC basketball team. He was a two-sport athlete, if you can believe that. So I got this meeting only because of the coach. When I sat down with him, he said to me I got three questions for you. Number one how many clients do you have? And I said, well, I don't have any. And he said, well. Number two what kind of experience do you have in sports law? And I said, well, I don't have any. And he said number three what kind of big firm do you have in sports law? And I said, well, I don't have any. And he said number three what kind of big firm do you have behind you? That's going to make me feel any degree of confidence that you can do the job. And I said, well, I just went out on my own. I'm a sole practitioner at the moment, but I'm really dedicated, I have a great attitude and I could do a great job for you. And he looked at me like I was crazy and I said, well, look, before you leave this meeting, because he was about ready to walk out of the room. I said let me ask you three questions. And he goes well. What I said?

Speaker 1: 12:50

Number one what's your goal on the field in the NFL? He goes well, I want to be all pro. I want to be an all pro player. I said, oh, that's a great goal. I said what's your off the field? I want to be a successful businessman. I want to have car dealerships. I want to have, you know, all kinds of different business ventures. I said that's an amazing goal too.

Speaker 1: 13:09

And I said, well, how do you want to be remembered? He goes. I want to be remembered as somebody that gave back to the community, somebody that really helped young people, disadvantaged people. I said, okay, that's amazing as well. And I said just think about this If you decided to go with one of these fancy agents that have 40, 50 clients each and they treated you equally with the rest of their clients, they could give you maybe five, six, seven minutes a day of attention. On the other hand, I could work for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You're my only client. I would be devoted to you. And he said well, you know, that sounds really good, but I got no confidence that you could do the job.

Speaker 3: 13:46

And.

Speaker 1: 13:46

I said let me make you an offer you can't refuse. He looked at me kind of funny. I said yeah, I'll work for you for 30 days for free, and if you don't think I'm the best for you, at the end of 30 days we'll shake hands, I'll walk away, you'll owe me nothing. And he looked at me kind of sheepishly and he said well, maybe you should ask my parents if they think that's a good idea. I said, okay. So I jumped in my car and raced out to San Bernardino, california, which is about an hour outside of Los Angeles, met with his parents Mr and Mrs Ronnie, you know, mr and Mrs Lott. I said Mr and Mrs Lott, I'm going to work for your son for free for 30 days, just to prove myself. What do you think of that? And they looked at each other and they said what a nice young man. He wants to prove himself. So I said, ronnie, they're on board, let's go.

Speaker 1: 14:36

So for the next 30 days, jamal, I worked my butt off. I would set up meetings with him, I would write him, you know, email letters. I would do all kinds of stuff to get him to understand just how dedicated I was. Well, at the end of 30 days he didn't sign with me. He just sort of was like, oh, I haven't decided yet. So 60 days went on. I kept doing the same thing and I remember I only had two months worth of money. Yeah, yeah, I was ready to run out of money. So at the end of like 90 days he signed with me. I had no money. I didn't tell him because I didn't want him to think like I was some desperate guy.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Right right. I just kind of kept that inside of me. And then the NFL draft happened. So what ended up happening is that they drafted him and then they wouldn't pay him the amount of money that we needed to have a great contract. But I had to do a great contract. He wanted a great contract. So he held out for like four or five days.

Speaker 1: 15:21

The media started attacking me as this rookie who didn't know what he was doing. I was, my stomach was churning. All the agents were out there, like if you ever saw Jerry Maguire the movie. They were trying to swoop him up, telling him I didn't know what I was doing. So he calls me up one night. He goes, leonard, you know I love you, you're great, but you know what Everybody says you're a rookie, you don't know what you're doing. I'd have a deal if you weren't my agent. So I'm going to have to fire you. I said you can't do that because they're just trying to drive a wedge in between us. You've got to understand it's not in your best interest. He goes. I'm going to have to call you back.

Speaker 1: 15:54

He hung up the phone on me. I got on my knees, jamar, I was praying. I was praying. Five minutes later, the phone rings. It's Ronnie Leonard. I talked to my dad, I talked to coach and, you're right, they are trying to drive a wedge in between us. We're in the foxhole together. We're in a war together. You know we're taking care of each other, but you got to show me the money, all right? Anyway, long story short, we got the deal done within three days of that call. I was like I got money, I paid my bills, but that was almost the end of my career before it.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Wow, think about that, wow, that is, I mean, just a crazy story. When I, when I told my dad that we were, we were interviewing, um, he knew, he knew who Ronnie Lott was, he knew right away. I mean he was like, oh yeah, I mean, are you kidding me? It's like I grew up watching him, um, but it's that. There's so much, okay, there's so much to unpack even with the just that story. But one thing that's that's crazy is one that that coach gave you that introduction so kind of say, you know, cause he trusted you, he said, hey, well, I got somebody you can meet. Um, the other thing of you working for free for three, four ish months I mean that's almost half a year.

Speaker 1: 17:20

It was scary. I don't even want to remember that it was so scary.

Speaker 2: 17:24

Oh my God. And then, and then, just on that cusp, because if you lose it, um, you're I mean, who knows what happens to you after that point but you're like I don't want to back out now because, like, like we're, we're in this together, I'm, I'm in this this far. This has got to work.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I know it's one of those things where you know one little thing can go wrong and your life takes a different direction. But you know what? All you got to do sometimes is fly without a safety net, believe, and somehow the good Lord will come to your aid just when you need it the most.

Speaker 2: 17:59

Yes, yes, I mean always, always, I mean the Lord will push it through, you have to trust.

Speaker 1: 18:05

You push it through. You have to trust. You have to trust the higher power to be there for you when you need it the most, and, by goodness, I needed it really bad then, and it happened, so anyway we've got a lot to talk about.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll help some people when they're in time of need, just sort of believe in important times where you know they just feel like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? For sure, for sure, so. So let's, let's fast forward a little bit into um, how you really got um, you know, created these, these brands, um, you know, for people have people have ownership of their brand. So a lot of people in our community are entrepreneurs, keynote speakers, um authors, and you know that ownership of your brand is so important and we often talk about our personal brand, our likeness also, and how we can use that really to our advantage and be able to develop relationships, business opportunities.

Speaker 2: 18:59

So how did you create something where it wasn't common to do this at all? Now you see athletes now today creating all types of IP and all types of you know brands for themselves and owning their likeness. But I think I mean we think Shaquille O'Neal, I mean even some of the deals he's done now he's got equity. It's crazy. So how did you, how did you come up with that and how did you push that with the people you work with?

Speaker 1: 19:29

Yeah, so we talked about mentorship and you mentioned that earlier, jamar, and one of my mentors was David Stern, who was the commissioner of the NBA, and Adam Silver, who's still a very close friend of mine, and we all kind of worked together as I was representing some really high profile athletes in the NBA and Kimberlé Jejuan I had actually represented Kareem at the end of his career Kevin Johnson, who was a great player, and then all of a sudden I got Shaquille O'Neal and I had been watching David and the way that he had marketed the NBA and I thought it was so interesting the way that he had used, like other people's money to build the brand of the NBA, like he'd get these partnerships with these companies and they'd spend all kinds of money around the NBA brand and all of a sudden, you know it just made the brand you know grow in popularity. And I saw Michael Jordan, who was like the ultimate pitch man, like he was an incredible, incredible endorser of products and getting paid nicely for that. But I thought to myself well, he doesn't even own his own IP, nike owns it. Why can't we, for Shaq, do something that's never been done before transform the way that athletes are marketed by creating your own IP, owning your own IP, licensing it to other companies, using other people's money to build his brand.

Speaker 1: 20:47

And so we created this sort of like multimedia strategy around IP and creative partnerships and different forms of media. Remember music and we have movies and we have television and we have marketing and we have technology and it all sort of worked together in concert. And every single year we would bring together all of our partners in what I called the shack summit and everyone would talk about what they had done with him to do creatively compelling work that was of mutual benefit. And then, when everyone was together, we would introduce the different people. So the whole was much greater than the sum of the parts. So it was a really interesting way to build a brand, market, an athlete, and I think a lot of people learn from that.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, oftentimes we try to tell we work with different companies as well and our thing is kind of what we call branded entertainment. So how do you use entertainment in even the corporate sector to drive marketing initiatives? And a lot of times companies are trying to do these traditional methods. But if you tap into something of entertainment, you can unlock something that's way more relatable, builds way more authority with people, and then that connection, that human connection level, is just at such a high point and I kind of translate that to the things that you've done within. Taking an athlete that was maybe more around this corporate structure, right, this entity, but then how do you drive their own brand and likeness through the entertainment side of it, which is, um, which is incredible, which is incredible so um so and now, now that you've you've been focusing um, now within driving those brands, are you working with anybody else, um, within that realm currently today, currently today, to help them kind of transition, those things?

Speaker 2: 22:48

Are you solely focused on a lot of your kind of more of the women equality initiatives that you're running?

Speaker 1: 22:59

Well, you know, shaquille asked us to help with his kids. So we helped with his kids under the NIL and a couple of years ago Sharif O'Neal was NIL Athlete of the Year and we worked with him in a really powerful way and did some really fun things with him Content creation and brand marketing. Did the same thing with Shaquille O'Neal, his younger son, and he was the number three athlete in NIL two years ago. We've helped his daughter a little bit, miara, who's out there One of the things that I've really been focused on recently and there's a woman coming along who I think is going to be really extraordinary and we're just sort of giving her some guidance right now and we'll see where that goes. But her name is Madison Skinner.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Here, some guidance right now and we'll see where that goes, but her name is madison skinner. She was the ncaa player of the year in the finals when university of texas won the women's volleyball championship. Last year, her and she's won three national titles one at kentucky, two at tennessee, two at texas and she has one more year to go. So I think she could be a really interesting athlete, evolving and becoming sort of almost like the Caitlin Clark of women's volleyball. You know what I mean. Yeah, I think she's interesting, but you know we're really doubling down on women's sports now, particularly women's sporting events and IP that we think have high growth potential, because the problem has been with women's sports that you know there's the World Cup if the USA is doing well, people watch it.

Speaker 1: 24:30

The Olympics, where there's a lot of female athletes, people watch it, like beach volleyball or gymnastics. But a lot of times outside of those key, like marquee events, you don't get mass audience watching women's sports. I mean, caitlin Clark is sort of like an exception. Yeah, she captured it as an imagination last year. Then she formed this rivalry with Angel Reese and that whole thing turned into a huge upside and big television audience. I think 10 million people watched the women's finals last year and I know I'm about to write an article on this in Forbes. But ESPN and women's sports advocates are praying Caitlin Clark doesn't lose on her way to the finals this year, because if she wins and goes to the finals at least it doesn't matter if she wins the game or not. If she gets to the finals you're going to have 15 million people watching.

Speaker 1: 25:19

If she doesn't get to the finals. I think it's probably a third of that. So you know it's going to be a really interesting run and I was getting nervous actually last night watching the game because it was tied with like two minutes or three minutes yeah, and I was thinking, oh my gosh, if she gets eliminated, espn is going to have a heart attack.

Speaker 2: 25:34

She keeps delivering, though Somehow, someway, I know she's delivering.

Speaker 1: 25:39

She's really competitive, but anyway. So I just think women's sporting events that and we're creating a number of them and we'll be announcing them soon. Not ready quite to announce them, but we have several really interesting women's sporting events in our slate that I think will be really fun for people to watch.

Speaker 2: 25:58

Yeah, yeah, we're definitely going to get into that, just within the realm of women's sports. One thing I have, I have a question is working with all of these athletes. What is, what is one of the biggest challenges working with athletes? When you, when you talk about their livelihoods within the athletic realm, of what they put their whole life towards because we work with some athletes as well and it's just very interesting, they put their whole life towards that and then you're here, you come talking about hey, let's also think about the business side of it. And how do we, how do we grow that a little bit further, even maybe after the athletics? You know, you know kind of the the time runs its course. What are some of the biggest challenges working with athletes? And just to help, because a lot of people want to inspire, just to be the best athletically, but you're giving a huge opportunity, you know, from the business side of it too, of what happens after the sport.

Speaker 1: 26:59

Yeah Well, that's a really easy question to answer. Let me tell you why. Because you know I've had a lot of experience and I've spent pretty much my life trying to figure out how to maximize the potential of remarkable people. Okay, so you start with somebody remarkable, because it's just as hard to work with someone average as it is to work with someone remarkable, and the results are markedly different.

Speaker 1: 27:23

So, you start with the remarkable and then you create a plan and I'm really confident in the plan. But the athlete sometimes has their own plan that, you know, is not the plan that's gonna work. So you gotta like convince them to do the plan that's really gonna help them maximize their potential. Sometimes it takes a long time, like, for example, with Shaq.

Speaker 1: 27:46

When I first met him, you know he was really open because he was young and I just sort of laid everything out, almost like I don't want to say a father figure, but almost some like a position of authority.

Speaker 1: 27:58

His dad was a drill sergeant in the army and he was used to obeying. And then, once he got into the pro basketball life, you know he got influenced a lot with the people that surrounded him, his entourage and all that. So it became difficult to get him back on track. Sometimes, however, as you get older and more mature and you look back, you know sometimes people don't love their coaches much while they're getting coached, but they love them later because they realized, you know. So later on he started, you know, really coming around towards that plan more and more and more, and today he's taken it to a whole new level in terms of what he does. So, you know, obviously a great example of a person who, you know, evolved, you know, and learned and has become extraordinary and all the things that we laid out at the beginning and he's just, you know, become sort of the shining example of how well that can work.

Speaker 2: 28:52

And he's just, you know, become sort of the shining example of how well that can work. Yeah, that's great, and I love the growth aspect and just showing people a pathway, you know, to where they can take their greatness, and it's almost like you know essentially what that mentor did for you. You're doing for others, you're showing them maybe something that they don't fully see quite yet, but you can show them a path, pathway there, which is which is absolutely incredible, um, you know through, through your, your business, I mean it's, it's crazy to to say this, um, in the sense of I feel like every even reading your bio and getting to know you a little bit more, every conversation, I get to know a little bit more about leonard. Um, you are constantly thinking like you're a few steps ahead.

Speaker 2: 29:39

I feel like every time, like you, you, you have these moments, and even from the nba, uh, technology summit, um, that you that you put on at the all-star game for all-star weekend, um to now, what you're doing in women's sports, um, some of the conversations we have with some, some things that you're planning, um, the advocacy of driving, of where, where attention is even going, um, how do you come up with this stuff, like, I mean, do you, is it just something in you that just sees something ahead of time and you're just going to go there, no matter if everybody really is riding that wave at that moment?

Speaker 1: 30:19

Or do you Failures too? I mean you. You know anybody that has achieved any degree of success has had tons of failures, and I can write a whole book on just the failures and I can. You know you almost start crying thinking about them. But sometimes you're too early on a trend, sometimes you misread what's going on out there and you have to always learn.

Speaker 1: 30:42

And I think what I always tell people about failure is three things happen. Number one you know failure is always a tool for learning. So you always learn from failure and hope you make a good adjustment. Second, failure is the ultimate motivation. You know, like Michael Jordan, he got cut from his high school team. Okay, then he went out and became the greatest player of all time. The first thing it opens new doors for you. But I always kind of like, want to push the envelope. You know my dad, as I was growing up, was always like is that all Isn't there more? You're always trying to look for more or some new insight or some new innovation, and that's what kind of stimulates me and gets me all pumped up and excited. So you want to do something that hasn't been done before, in a way that moves culture in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 31:29

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like that's what drives you is the movement of culture. I think that's a perfect way to sum that up is the movement of culture. And speaking of that with with what you're doing in women's sports, how, how do we so your, your whole thing is how do we get more attention on the women's sport categories from basketball, volleyball, and how do we grow this? What do you think is a great format to really grow that viewership? Obviously, we're seeing it early with you know Clayton, caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and things like that, but how do we grow it? What's your approach?

Speaker 1: 32:11

It's really complicated but people don't understand. It's a pretty simple formula If you can get people to watch something in mass numbers, the money will flow. I'll give you one great contrast NBA players, WNBA players. Nba players average $10 million a year. Wnba players average $150,000, approximately a year, in salary. Why? Because of the numbers, the number of people watching. So you have to narrow that gap, to narrow the gender pay gap. How do you do that? By growing the audience. So my philosophy we're creating an incubator for what I call high-growth women's sports opportunities. I think those opportunities, should you know, we've seen, let's say, for example, Nebraska's women's volleyball team go outside and play in a stadium in front of 90,000 people, or something you know.

Speaker 1: 32:59

So that's like oh, people are watching women in high numbers. That's a big, you know, plus because we're sort of conditioning ourselves in our culture to value women's sports more when people watch it in mass numbers. So that's the kind of events we want to create, you know, events where you can do something iconic, where women can be viewed in a way that makes people watch in mass numbers. I think beach volleyball is a great sport for that, because it's easy to watch. It's you know, the athleticism is clearly apparent. But we have a whole bunch of other ideas on how to do that, and the more you do that, the more success you have, the more that gap will narrow.

Speaker 2: 33:39

Yeah, yeah, that's. And what do you? What do you? I know you're a big advocate for for women's basketball, the WNBA. What do you feel like the on the conversation of lowering the rim? How do rim? How do you feel about that?

Speaker 1: 33:52

I've been beating that drum for 20 years. I mean, you know it's interesting, lisa Leslie, my client first game WNBA game we were part of the launch of the WNBA she gets a breakaway, she dribbles down, she goes, tries to dunk and gets pinned on the rim Okay, she was eventually the first woman to dunk in a game. But, and gets pinned on the rim. Okay, she was eventually the first woman to dunk in a game. But I don't know if you know the history of this, but when they started the sport of basketball, this guy, Naismith, put up peach baskets. Okay, and the first college, women's college, that played it was Smith College in 1905, I think, and they played with peach baskets three feet above their heads and so that's how they play it.

Speaker 1: 34:35

But what ended up happening? The sport, you know, exploded and they started putting rims up everywhere at men's height. So they didn't have funding to make lower ones for women to compensate for their difference in height and they just had to play on a men's size. In volleyball the net's lower, women can spike because it was easier to lower the net In 1962, they lowered the net so that women could spike and it was easy to do that in every gym. But in basketball until recently, you couldn't put the rim up and down really easily, so they just had to play on men's rims. So I always felt like 56% of people, by the way, say that dunking and alley-oops are their favorite part of the game. So I have always been an advocate of that and that's one thing. On our roadmap, in our incubator we're going to do a game, a really cool game, with a knife, a basket.

Speaker 2: 35:22

You'll hear about that later yeah, yeah, no, we're we're excited, um, we'll definitely keep people updated um with that, and so I want to do a quick, a quick segment here.

Speaker 3: 35:35

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Speaker 2: 36:09

We just want to talk about. Have you ever been to Milwaukee? What is your experience? Has been in Milwaukee and are you coming back?

Speaker 1: 36:21

Yeah, and, by the way, I have been to Milwaukee and what ended up happening is many years ago when I first started the ADP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour. The ADP was a men's only tour. This was long ago and the sponsor primary sponsor of that tour was Miller Brewing Company and it was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Back to Milwaukee and on Friday night I remember they had fish fries and I remember that everybody enjoyed having beers there and Milwaukee was a really hospitable city. You know, didn't realize it was right on the lake. It had this really cool little culture there, but always had good experiences in Milwaukee and, you know, had a number of friends that were there. Kevin Wolf was the head of sports marketing at the time for Miller Beer and I'm still friendly with him. He went on to be the general manager of Nike and, you know, actually ran a company called Mitchell Ness until recently. Yeah, he's over to Fanatics, you know, kevin.

Speaker 2: 37:22

Yeah, no, I'm familiar with Mitchell Ness. I'm very familiar with that.

Speaker 1: 37:27

Yeah, so you know I haven't been back to Milwaukee lately but have fond memories of the city.

Speaker 2: 37:32

So you know I haven't been back to Milwaukee lately but have fond memories of the city. Yeah no, that's incredible. A lot has changed throughout the years, especially with the redevelopments of the arena and obviously the Bucs are playing fantastic. So there's a lot of buzz, a lot of new things. So if you ever make it back in Milwaukee, definitely let me know, you know, so that way we can get together. So, lastly, I want to talk. So now you've built up this enterprise, you've, you've, you've done a lot in your career. What's one thing that you know people can really walk away with with? Maybe a harsh, harsh learning lesson that you had to go through through your time to really help them. If they're trying to get from you know that point had to go through through your time to really help them. If they're trying to get from you know that point A to point B, or even if they're at B, how do you get to C? What's something that you can say hey, this is one of the best learning lessons that I grabbed through my tenure.

Speaker 1: 38:25

Yeah, I think you have to build a personal culture for success. So before you can really make anyone else successful, you have to really focus on yourself and be able to navigate. You know the in our society today, a lot of people are suffering from anxiety and you know there's so much coming at you Information's doubling every year and you always sort of like there's a chasm and on one side of the chasm is empowerment and confidence and you feel great. The other side of the chasm is anxiety, where you're paralyzed and you can't do anything and you've got to put yourself over on that confident side of the chasm and you have to constantly do things to reinforce your best self. You know I start by creating a manifesto and I don't know if you've read our manifesto. I have, I have, I have.

Speaker 1: 39:13

You know the short version of it is our chief aim is to improve the lives of others and enable greatness in everyone and everything we touch. You know we always inspire each other by working with remarkable people on remarkable things and exceed expectation at all times, leading with compassion, not judgment, with humility, not ego. And with compassion, not judgment, with humility, not ego, and with love, not fear. And you can use that as a lens to govern every single thing that you do in your personal life, in your business life, in every aspect of your life. If you establish that culture and you maintain a lot of positive energy every single day, you're going to be successful, even though you're going to go through a certain degree of adversity. So that's what I would say establish a culture of excellence for yourself.

Speaker 2: 39:57

Wow, it's just those morals, values, your core principles of what drives you, because then, when you have to make decisions, that's your compass, that's how you're going to, that's how you're going to navigate. Absolutely amazing, leonard. I mean thank you so much for for being on here, um, on on the podcast, I mean I could go in so many other different directions. I think you've done so much in your career that it's uh, there's so many like you know micro things that I want to kind of pick at.

Speaker 2: 40:27

Um, we'll do it next time, yeah, but this has been absolutely incredible. Where can people find you at, how can they get connected and what are you looking to do next? Just share at least with people so that way they know how. I always tell people know how to add value to somebody. So how can people add value to you?

Speaker 1: 40:44

Yeah, so well. What we're doing next is we're creating an incubator for high growth women's sports opportunities, and we're down the road on doing a number of those. Right now we have a whole slate of them, so we're going to be announcing a lot of that, so that's something people can kind of lean into if they feel it's important. You can reach me by email at lampecom, or my social handles, you know LinkedIn at Leonard Armato, Instagram at Leonard Armato, Twitter or X at Leonard Armato, so it's easy to find. But I'm really excited about this next chapter. I think it's going to be the biggest thing I've ever done, actually because our culture right now is transitioning in the sports space to where women are actually being perceived as truly valuable, when in the past they've been a sideshow. If you just think about Instagram all the top Instagram, you know, let's call it people are athletes LeBron, James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, all those okay.

Speaker 3: 41:45

On the women's side.

Speaker 1: 41:46

It's all like pop stars and models, and you know the Kardashians and Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift. So if you think about it, you'll all of a sudden start to see female athletes move up that chart and then you'll see a lot more equality. And that's our mission, that's our aim, so that women's sports is truly valued in our culture.

Speaker 2: 42:08

Awesome, awesome. Anyway, we can support you, man. We love what you're about, love what you're doing For everybody watching, listening. Please take notes from this podcast, definitely drop comments of your questions and really engage in conversation. Subscribe to our podcast, follow us on everywhere that we are, on every single platform. So if you're listening, watching, subscribe, be a part of this. Get connected with Leonard. I told, I told every single person the people that we have on here. They are just one connection away from you ultimately changing your circle to change your life. So, thank you so much, leonard, for being on the podcast and, yeah, we're going to have to do this again, especially to hype up the incubators, and you know just all the events and everything you got going on. So, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 42:58

Well, thank you, Jamar. It's a pleasure and hope to see you again soon. Awesome Take care, take care All right, see ya.

Speaker 2: 43:05

Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe. And don't forget, you can change your circle to change your life.