Ari Emanuel on the Future of Entertainment in the Age of AI

Ari Emanuel, Founder & Principal Investor, MARI: Now, this guy is like the biggest studio, negotiating all these big deals and he's like fighting with me over $2,500. And he says to me, fair is where we end up. Now, get out of my office.
 
Christine Anderson, Global Head of Corporate Affairs, Blackstone: Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Inside Blackstone. I'm Christine Anderson, Global Head of Corporate Affairs, and here's this week's lineup. First, we have a very special guest for you, Michael Chae, our Vice Chairman and CFO. He comes in to help us unpack a crazy week. And then, my conversation with Ari Emanuel, legendary agent and one of the most influential people in Hollywood. Tune in to hear how AI may reshape media and entertainment and why live experiences and sports are becoming more and more valuable. To close out our episode, I've got Chris James, Head of our Tactical Opportunities business, he's gonna join me in the Debrief. Now, over to my conversation with Michael.
 
Christine Anderson: All right. Michael, welcome to Inside Blackstone.
 
Michael Chae, Vice Chairman & CFO, Blackstone: Christine, it's great to be here.
 
Christine Anderson: It's such a treat to have you here.
 
Michael Chae: I feel like I’ve made it.
 
Christine Anderson: Youfinally made it, Michael, after nearly 30 years at Blackstone, right? You started as a senior partner in our private equity business, and then you ran our Asia business. Now you're our CFO and Vice Chairman and play a big role in setting the macro here. So curious how you would unpack the last week.
 
Michael Chae: Well, it's been a wild ride, as we both know. You know, last Wednesday, in terms of market reaction, we saw a big relief rally with the uncertainty of events behind us. We saw more optimism on the prospect of geopolitical resolution and therefore oil prices, inflation, and rates potentially easing and the market not really minding the prospect of gridlock. The next day, of course, we saw a pretty massive de-risking. That was actually quite technical in nature, and a lot of so-called de-grossing and reduction of risk on the part of hedge funds and levered ETFs. And then the next day we saw, you know, some stabilization in the market and a rebound in AI-related stocks that had been so beaten up in the context of uncertainties about the build-out. So obviously, in terms of fundamentals, investors are, you know, wrestling with: What does this all mean for earnings next year and beyond? Especially given the importance of the technology and semiconductor sectors for earnings growth in the market overall.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay, so obviously hard to know, but you're guessing a little bit more stabilization continues this week?
 
Michael Chae: We can only hope, but that would, I think that would be reasonable.
 
Christine Anderson: All right, so give me your take on the macro more broadly.
 
Michael Chae: Well, the fundamentals have been very strong. We've been in a real earnings boom. The S&P is, you know, in the middle of posting a year where it'll have the highest earnings growth in five years. In our own portfolio, we’re, you know, we've been seeing double-digit revenue and profit growth.¹ The drivers, from my perspective, are this, you know, very positive one-two punch of first, the investment boom, and then second, a healthy American consumer, 70% of the economy growing at over 3% real, albeit somewhat K-shaped. And we've also seen, really importantly, real strength in productivity and margins in the market at large and certainly in our portfolio, and this is largely all ahead of the AI productivity boom that we think will be coming, you know, over time. So those are the positives and the tailwinds. In terms of the headwinds, first, a rising cost of capital through most of this year. I would call it a cost of capital shock. And now, of course, uncertainty is about, you know, the sustainability and shape of the investment boom that I referred to.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay, so we've also seen moves in rates. What's your outlook for that?
 
Michael Chae: You know, in the last handful of weeks, we've seen a welcome easing. I think it's actually, you know, close to 50 basis points in about five weeks. There's a number of factors at work, but at the heart of it is, of course, inflation. At the heart that is energy and oil prices, and at the heart of that is geopolitical conflict and uncertainty. So, outside of energy inflation, we continue to see the other inflation factors as basically under control. Wages in balance, wages in labor markets in balance. Shelter cost inflation measured in real time is actually pretty muted. And actually, you know, a bit of cooling in the economy, which, you know, has been running somewhat hot, would probably be viewed as constructive for the rate outlook. So, if, and this is a big if, we do see some geopolitical resolution, we do think the Fed has room to be less restricted over time.
 
Christine Anderson: So overall, you seem cautiously optimistic to me.
 
Michael Chae: Yes.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay, you're just back from this big Asia swing. Let me see if I get this right. You were India, Japan, Korea. What am I missing?
 
Michael Chae: Those three.
 
Christine Anderson: Those three.
 
Michael Chae: Yep, yep. Then a little West Coast.
 
Christine Anderson: Those three and then a little West Coast.
 
Michael Chae: Earlier this week, yep.
 
Christine Anderson: What are you hearing?
 
Michael Chae: Well, it was a great trip. We have, as you know, great people and businesses in each market. And just quickly, I'd say, you know, India is such a dynamic, important economy and market, and has such a robust talent pool, important to the firm. And we've, you know, just built an extraordinary investment business there in private equity and real estate and with a lot of, I think, growth areas from here. You know, for Japan and Korea, I’d say a big takeaway for me, after meeting with a lot of folks, is that many large corporates, in both countries, are more in need of private capital solutions than ever before. In Japan, because of the focus on shareholder value. For Korea, because there's actually a lot of large-scale investment needs for the biggest companies there as well. And so I think our firm is gonna have some really exciting opportunities ahead of us in all of those markets.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay. Well, wonderful to have you on. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you'll come back.
 
Michael Chae: I would love to come back if you’ll have me.
 
Christine Anderson: All right, I will, we will be calling upon you. And now we're gonna turn to my conversation with Ari Emanuel.
 
Christine Anderson: My guest today is Ari Emanuel. He's a legendary Hollywood agent, who became one of the most influential figures in entertainment and sports. For three decades, Ari's been at the center of an industry in transformation. From talent agency William Morris Endeavor to TKO, the company behind Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment. Now, he's building again with MARI, his new live events and experiences company. He's also the author of the bestselling memoir, Roll the Calls, a fascinating look inside the industry and his remarkable career. Ari, thank you so much for being here. Or you're not here.
 
Ari Emanuel: No, we're here, we’re here. We’re here.
 
Christine Anderson: Thank you so…
 
Ari Emanuel: This is here.
 
Christine Anderson: Thank so much for doing this, I really appreciate it. Ari, I wanna start with this. I don't know you well, but you just don't strike me as a guy who would write a personal memoir. So I wanna hear about that. And I also, I'm fascinated by the fact that most people in personal memoirs, they tend to sand down the edges a little bit, whereas you lean into the edges. Curious why ya did that?
 
Ari Emanuel: Well first of all, I, it started, it’s been ten years. And it was started with my head of communications and the head of the lit department, the book department, who said, you know, if you don't write it, somebody gonna write it, you’re gonna be pissed off and it's not going to be what you want to say. So I said, okay, I'll try it, because I've read other autobiographies, you know, they just gloss over all this stuff that actually happens in one's life. And, the only way I think anybody was gonna learn anything or care about this book is if you told them the honest truth that it's been brutal. I wanted to be really honest about what it takes and my journey and everybody can pull out what they want from it and they have to figure out their own journey.
 
Christine Anderson: Talk to me about the quote at the beginning of your book where you say, work is the true story of Hollywood. Why did you choose that?
 
Ari Emanuel: Well, you know, I think people think that we don't work really hard in Hollywood. I mean, this place…
 
Christine Anderson: You're hanging by the pool, sippin’ cocktails.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, this place, people are, I mean, you might not think it's work. It is constant work. Like most businesses, this is a 24/7 job. There's hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, constantly, that you're playing around with.
 
Christine Anderson: You also, I loved your story about watching your dad leave the house every day at six and sort of what that meant to a kid.
 
Ari Emanuel: I mean, I don't know. Do you have kids?
 
Christine Anderson: I do. I have four of ‘em.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, I have four kids and you know, somebody asked me at one point, did you feel guilty every time you had to leave? I don't feel guilt about it now, but at the time when I was going through it, cause I had never gone through it before, I felt guilty having to miss stuff and thinking that I'll have screwed stuff up with them because they saw how intense their father was. But at the end of the day, my ex-wife and I have four touchdowns, so we’re good.
 
Christine Anderson: So your intense client focus comes through loud and clear in this book. And for all the people that you have like harsh words for, your clients, you don't. And you're intensely loyal and…Where did you develop this ability to sort of put them at the center of everything?
 
Ari Emanuel: Well the job on the representation side, I'm do or die for clients. If I'm gonna get in business with somebody, it's my reputation, and I'm their partner, on the business side of their life. And if they're giving me their dreams, which is a script, their acting career, their directing career, book, you know, whatever. And I've said, yes. That's the job. The job is, I'm the partner, you've given me your trust, and I'm gonna show you, kind of, what that means to me. That's 24/7, seven days a week. And when my head comes off that pillow, I think about ‘em, and when it goes down right before I go to bed, I think about them.
 
Christine Anderson: So I work with some pretty intense people here, as you know. And yet, hearing…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, I do.
 
Christine Anderson:  …you know, you do. And hearing about the way that you pursue your day and this like 300-ish calls that you might make on a day.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, well, you're cutting it down now for an hour.
 
Christine Anderson: Well, I know, I don't even know what your phone's gonna look like when we get off this podcast, but, you know, apologize in advance for that.
 
Ari Emanuel: It’s okay.
 
Christine Anderson: But what, how does someone make 300 calls in a day, and like, why? There's certainly successful people that don't have to work the phones as much as you've sort of decided to do.
 
Ari Emanuel: Well, I have clients, right? So there's everybody from Mark Wahlberg or Jonah Hill or Marty Scorsese or Pete Berg or Aaron Sorkin. I mean the list, which is people I care about, that have been with me for a long time. Then there's MARI, which is 16 businesses. And then there's TKO. And they all, kind of, there's concentric circles so when you're talking to Netflix about a movie, which is on the WME side, and then you're also talking about WWE, it's just, it’s a collision course, which is exactly how I like my life.
 
Christine Anderson: You talked about having, during this period when you were economizing, you had to like learn to do a short phone call, you wouldn't even say goodbye.
 
Ari Emanuel: Right.
 
Christine Anderson: What’s…
 
Ari Emanuel: We didn't have money.
 
Christine Anderson: What's the beauty in a short phone call though?
 
Ari Emanuel: I was talking to, way early in our career and the WB had just started, the Warner Brothers Broadcasting. And there was an executive at Warner's, who was the head of the studio. And he would always start the call, like, how's your family? I'm like, it's okay, we don't have to do that. We just have to say, here's what I want. Here's what's going on. And not all the surround sound of nothing. Oh, how’s your family? I don’t care about your kids. I hope they’re healthy. Don’t act like you care about mine. I was never that guy. I'm not trying to be...
 
Christine Anderson: But it sounds so transactional, and yet everyone I talk to likes you.
 
Ari Emanuel: You’ll know if I’m your friend. You’ll know if I’m your enemy. I’m good with it.
 
Christine Anderson: Your approach is often quite startling. So it seems like being a character in the hit show Entourage, right, being parodied, that didn't, that didn’t hurt.
 
Ari Emanuel: I thought it was gonna be the worst thing in the world for me. And then, Steve Levinson and Mark Wahlberg said, this is gonna be the greatest thing that ever happened to you. And over time, kind of during it, post it, it’s been an asset, yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: My favorite story in the book is when you met your partner, Mark Shapiro. You see this guy…
 
Ari Emanuel: The best.
 
Christine Anderson: …typing away on a computer, you go over on an airplane, you see this guy, you wonder why he's up late typing like relentlessly. You kick the sleeping guy out of the seat next to him.
 
Ari Emanuel: No, here's what happened. Here’s what, let me tell you the story. So, there’s, I was flying back Friday night, to LA, on United. And United at the time, first class, you had, two, one, two. That's where the seats were, so there was only two rows. So I was in the second row, I was in the middle, cause I didn't want to talk to anybody. I just wanted to get my reading done, I had a lot, I had scripts, I had articles, I had things, I had my agenda. So I'm working, the guy right to my right, on the aisle, both on the aisle, these two fingers typing away. I'm like, wow. I'm just reading, getting everything done. This guy for three and a half hours has not, with these two fingers, not stop typing. Not, just not stop typing. I just can't it anymore. And I get up and there's a guy at the window. You know, he's next to this man at the windows.
 
Christine Anderson: He's had three glasses of wine. He's asleep.
 
Ari Emanuel: Probably, you know, and I say get up. I stand over Mark, who's typing and he's looking up at me. I say, get up and come sit in my chair. And the guy at the window, now, if it was today, they would land the plane and arrest me. The guy gets up. Now Shapiro at this point is typing away and he's like, what is going on?
 
Christine Anderson: What just happened?
 
Ari Emanuel: And I turn to him and I go, what the F are you doing? And he was from a suburb of Chicago, like I was from a suburb, he's, like my younger brother, he was a couple of years younger than me. And we just became fast friends. And for the last hour and a half of the flight, just, you know, comparing notes of people we knew, what we did in Chicago, our businesses. And from that period of time, we've been friends. And that just went on for…
 
Christine Anderson: Stranger stories of two business partners…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: …meeting each other. So wild. Give us a quick background on MARI.  
 
Ari Emanuel: I had built the businesses with Mark. So I said, I want to be in a live events business because it’s the opposite bet of AI. And I went and raised $2 billion of equity, approximately, and $900 million of debt from different players.
 
Christine Anderson: Right.
 
Ari Emanuel: So that's how it started.
 
Christine Anderson: I love it.So building sort of a preeminent of live experiences.
 
Ari Emanuel: There's nobody around in the world that's live events. We're in the holiday entertainment, meaning Winter Wonderland, food festivals, flower show, all that, right? We're in the collectible business, Frieze, Barrett-Jackson, Collect-A-Con, which is in the Pokémon space. And then we're in sports like the Miami Open and the Madrid Open, plus participatory sports like Escape from Alcatraz, the Melbourne Marathon, and marathons. And underneath all that, driven by our ticketing platform, which is TodayTix, which is probably the best ticketing platform now. And then a discovery social channel called Bucket Listers that takes, if you're going to London and you wanna go to the theater, you want to go to Winter Wonderland, you wanna go to Frieze, wherever you wanna go you can go in there and then we can help you figure out what you wanna do. And so we're gonna be for live events, attempting to be a long way to go for what Live Nation is in music. And so far, so good.
 
Christine Anderson: You’re kind of playing in multiple different arenas. Where are you most excited?
 
Ari Emanuel: Well, live.
 
Christine Anderson: Live.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah. But I mean I think the traditional business of movies and television is gonna be incredible. There’s going to be a lot more of it. Cheaper. It’s gonna take many different forms. I think AI is gonna have an incredible unlock of creativity. I also think pricing’s gonna come down.
 
Christine Anderson: Pricing for, which part of it?
 
Ari Emanuel: Production.
 
Christine Anderson: Production.
 
Ari Emanuel: Production costs, yeah. Which is gonna enable more content to be made. You have now have something that didn't exist. You have social, you have podcasts, you have microdramas, and that depth trends gonna continue to happen. There’s gonna be a huge push with advertising, which is one of the big things that both Pluto’s growing substantially for David Ellison. I think it’s one of the requirements for Netflix and et cetera. So, there's gonna be some dislocation, of course, because production, below the line, is gonna be challenged and we're gonna have to readjust. But judgment and taste, and that's actually what really matters. And I think, you know, we, as humans, you know, recursive self-improvement can happen with the AI. It also has to happen with humans.
 
Christine Anderson: So, but as AI obviously means content can be created so much faster and more efficiently…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: Does it get, does that get commoditized then? I mean do you see, you know, the…
 
Ari Emanuel: No, I mean when you see the…
 
Christine Anderson: …once you have obviously, see the supply-demand, you have more supply…
 
Ari Emanuel: In China right now, microdramas have surpassed new movies, and a lot of them are being done by AI and economics. I think people don't want full AI movies, but at a certain price for the production, there's an economic model that works. There's just gonna be a balance that people say is this gonna be, it’s not a, I don't think it's gonna be black and white and how it's gonna be, and how it’s gonna function and how it’s gonna be implemented. But it's definitely gonna be implemented to bring down costs, which is a good thing. And I think it's gonna help creativity. And the creative people, people with ideas, new thoughts, are gonna use it in a really incredible unlock.
 
Christine Anderson: So, you made the shift from representing talent to obviously owning the underlying assets. So in an AI world, do you think sports become even more valuable?
 
Ari Emanuel: My belief is what I said in the starting of MARI also. You cannot disintermediate live, whether it be live sports, live music, live events. As my son Leo says to me, Dad, you know what they call Thursday? They call Thursday, baby Friday. So you have three-day workweeks, which is a third more revenue. And probably you're gonna go down to Wednesday so that you're gonna have a lot more free time.
 
Christine Anderson: So Ari, did I hear you correctly though? You think we're gonna get to a three-day workweek?
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, I do. I mean, if the trend lines continue the way they're working, we're at four-day workweeks now.
 
Christine Anderson: Not at Blackstone.
 
Ari Emanuel: Okay. You're at four-day workweeks across the globe when you look at all the data, hotel reservations, drive times, restaurant reservations. I mean, the NFL books a Thursday night game now in their schedule. One, they wanted to get a new day, but also Thursday night is when people were going out. So you're at three-day workweeks. It's a third more revenue into disposable. And I think it's gonna grow from there.
 
Christine Anderson: So AI creates…
 
Ari Emanuel: So…
 
Christine Anderson: …a world with more, more leisure time…
 
Ari Emanuel: More free time.
 
Christine Anderson: …more consumer spending…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: …and all that leads to…
 
Ari Emanuel: Drive times in the United States right now, you know what drive times are in the United States?
 
Christine Anderson: No, what? 
 
Ari Emanuel: Average? 11 to 4. So, in the morning you're doing, you’re on the phone, you're doing all your stuff that you would do for the weekends…
 
Christine Anderson: Listening to your podcasts.
 
Ari Emanuel: …then you're leaving at 4, you’re also doing it. That means Thursday night you're ready to rock and roll.
 
Christine Anderson: What do you want to do? You want to go to a venue?
 
Ari Emanuel: Hotel reservations, restaurant reservations, everything is, just look at the numbers, are exploding on Thursday night. Travel.
 
Christine Anderson: So interesting.
 
Ari Emanuel: Maybe I'm not at Blackstone, but I can have a conversation with all the employees, to go talk to Jon for you.
 
Christine Anderson: Well, let's see that, I might challenge you to that Ari. Okay one question I do have about your approach. Obviously, you know, entertainment is art, right? It’s not science. And so how do you gain conviction around these assets that you’re buying? Whether it be a show that you’re, you know, a series, or a show, or a movie, how do you put a sort of monetary value behind it and get real conviction that it’s gonna be a winner?
 
Ari Emanuel: Well, I’ll answer the first question. So, my first negotiation when I was just became an agent at CAA, I was working for this guy, Bill Haber. And he gave me a play from one of his longtime clients. And he said, go make a deal at Warner Brothers. They want to option this. And the head of Warner Brothers Television, Business Affairs, he was, you know, negotiating license fees for ER and Friends and everything. And then, so this negotiation was this big. I think Bill was just testing me. And we're negotiating this 18-month option with an extension for 18 months, and it's like $5,000, it's nothing. So we're in this middle of the negotiation. I think I'm trying to get from $5,000 to $7,500. And he just won't move. And I say on the phone to him, this is not fair. I'm working my tail off to get this deal. And Art Stolnitz says, young man, come out to the Valley. So I get in my car, I go to the Valley, I walk into his office. Now, this guy is like the biggest studio, negotiating all these big deals and he's like fighting with me over $2,500. And he says to me, fair is where we end up. Now, get out of my office.
 
Christine Anderson: I love that he calls you in to tell you that.
 
Ari Emanuel: And that's true in every negotiation. At that point I knew it was a learning lesson and he’s right, fair's where we end up. You don't pay what you, the number I want unless you think it's incredible. And I accept because you can't get any more. And so, that little life lesson of negotiation answers your question. I think, my job is to create the environment that the bids go up and I'm selling what I think is a really great piece of material with the package that I put together. Sometimes it's with an actor and a writer and a director, sometimes not. And my job is to kind of find out what the marketplace will bear and what, you know, what fair is for everybody. And that's, that's my job as a representative. And you know I do it as good as other people and I think I do it pretty well and it's worked out.
 
Christine Anderson: Ari, in an AI world, do you think the work of an agent changes?
 
Ari Emanuel: Oh yeah, I mean, I think, right now, for the first time, you are gonna see brands become content creators and you could be in the podcast space, it can be in the microdrama space, it can be social with a social person endorsing it but doing it in a different way. So, yeah, that's the great thing about an agency. And, yeah, we're constantly evolving here, and probably our competitors are too.
 
Christine Anderson: Do you think Hollywood's afraid of AI and what's coming?
 
Ari Emanuel: We’re in, as you guys probably would say, and you guys are trying to figure out where your place is and Jon and the team are doing incredible. Like we're not even in the bottom half of the first inning. It's going to move and change and get bigger and probably faster than we all believe and the effects are gonna be greater in a more positive way. But, you're gonna go for, lack of a better way to say this, both in the agency business and the finance business and AI in general, there's gonna be, as I like to say to people about my career, it wasn't like straight line up. It was a lot of bobs and weaves, but in the aggregate for all of our businesses, I think it's going be a net positive.
 
Christine Anderson: Do you think investors largely understand sort of how AI will impact…
 
Ari Emanuel: No.
 
Christine Anderson: …the entertainment industry? No?
 
Ari Emanuel: No. I don't think anybody yet completely understands the speed, the magnitude of, across the globe, the dislocation that's gonna happen, and then the upside that's gonna happen.
 
Christine Anderson: I’ve heard that Elon Musk, who I know is a friend of yours, once told you that AI couldn’t disrupt live entertainment. Is that true?
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah. You know, he said it’s the one thing that can’t get disintermediated is live. I don’t need much more than that. I’m not smart, I’m just not stupid.
 
Christine Anderson: Think you’re pretty smart.
 
Ari Emanuel: He’s been pretty right a lot more than he’s been wrong.
 
Christine Anderson: I wanted to ask you one question. You started in the mailroom. Obviously it was a very different time in Hollywood. With the onset of AI, do those jobs exist anymore? Is that the place where people…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: …should start?
 
Ari Emanuel: We have a mailroom, I just saw them take the cart around and...
 
Christine Anderson: But that, so does that…
 
Ari Emanuel: I don't know if they're…
 
Christine Anderson: …does that hang in there?
 
Ari Emanuel: I don't know if they're, I don’t know if they’re, you know, in the training program. I should have known that before I got on the phone call, right. I should've thought through that you were gonna ask me that question. But yeah, there's a mailroom. Yes, I was just down there.
 
Christine Anderson: So if you're a young person, you're in college, you wanna go work in, you know, in California, in entertainment.
 
Ari Emanuel: You should get into the trade, try to get into the training program. Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: But what would you have them study?
 
Ari Emanuel: I would have them study the arts. You can't underestimate the value of taste and culture and literature and actually being a creative thinker. Because those are values that AI doesn't do. They don't do it. And then you just have to, over time, learn how to stand up for yourself and believe in what you believe in. And be willing to go through the hell that it takes to, kind of, start a business or, you know, kinda operate a business within a company. Taste, culture, style, ideas, those are, those are unique talents.
 
Christine Anderson: That…
 
Ari Emanuel: And you have to realize it takes time to refine those things and you just have, that's recursive self, where you have to keep on working at that.
 
Christine Anderson: Cultivate it, exactly. All right, so I'm fascinated by wellness habits of highly successful people. You are 65, even though you don't look like it.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah. That's sweet of you.
 
Christine Anderson: Clearly no sign of slowing down. How much is this crazy routine, which you should summarize quickly for us, been so…
 
Ari Emanuel: I'm not going to summarize it. Here's what I would say to you is. If you want to be. I mean, Jon does this, he runs, you know, he's got his routine.
 
Christine Anderson: Right.
 
Ari Emanuel: He and I have talked about our different routines.
 
Christine Anderson: Yours is a little more intense, I think.
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: I don't think he's digesting gut worms, as far as I know.
 
Ari Emanuel: I don’t. You know what it is… I sleep probably six and a half, seven hours.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay.
 
Ari Emanuel: I work out every day. I sauna every day. I… Today's a fast day.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay.
 
Ari Emanuel: Once… Every Monday I fast, every quarter, I fast three days.
 
Christine Anderson: What's the most essential part of your routine if you had to, could only keep one element of it? Like what do you think…
 
Ari Emanuel: You have to sleep.
 
Christine Anderson: You have to sleep. All right, sleep's the thing. What’s, how do you manage stress, beyond all this?
 
Ari Emanuel: Every day, every day in the sauna, because I do a 20-minute sauna every day. 20, 25, 30. I do a breathing meditation every day, in the morning.
 
Christine Anderson: I was sort of thinking you were on the, you know, on your phone in there, but no you…
 
Ari Emanuel: No…
 
Christine Anderson: …tap out.
 
Ari Emanuel:  …I do a, I do a pretty intense breathing meditation.
 
Christine Anderson: Impressive.All right, anything I haven't…
 
Ari Emanuel: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
Christine Anderson: …asked you in the five seconds we've got remaining? Anything I haven't asked you that you wanted to talk about?
 
Ari Emanuel: No.
 
Christine Anderson: Okay.
 
Ari Emanuel: But I did enjoy this, actually.
 
Christine Anderson: You are so fun…
 
Ari Emanuel: …and I didn’t, I actually didn't think I was going to enjoy it actually.
 
Christine Anderson: Oh, I don't know if you're offended or not.
 
Ari Emanuel: And your actually, and your actually…
 
Christine Anderson: But…
 
Ari Emanuel: You’re actually good at it!
 
Christine Anderson: Oh, thank you.
 
Ari Emanuel: You’re actually good.
 
Christine Anderson: You are as hilarious as my colleagues tell me you are and as intense and smart. And so, thank you so much for being here. This was a lot of fun.
 
Ari Emanuel: Thank you for having me. I actually had fun!
 
Christine Anderson: Well, I'm glad.
 
Ari Emanuel: Shocking.
 
Christine Anderson: Thank you for that, Ari. I appreciate it. All right, go return all those phone calls.
 
System Voice: Your call has ended.
 
Christine Anderson: Yeah he, just like clicks off the phone. It’s like his thing. Signature style. Over and out.
 
Chris James, Global Head of Tactical Opportunities, Blackstone: Peace.
 
Christine Anderson: Yeah. Peace out.
 
Christine Anderson: And now I have one of my favorite people at Blackstone, Chris James, CJ, the Head of our Global Tactical Opportunities business, Tac Opps, here to talk to us about all things live experiences and sports. CJ, welcome.
 
Chris James: Glad to be here. Nobody can interview me better and do the Debrief better…
 
Christine Anderson: Thank you, thank you.
 
Chris James: …than Christine Anderson herself.
 
Christine Anderson: Thank you for coming on.
 
Chris James: I'm flattered to be here.
 
Christine Anderson: I'm very happy to have you here.
 
Chris James: Excited.
 
Christine Anderson: All right. CJ, you were the first person that I ever heard talk about live experiences as this big investable asset class. I will never forget our big investor conference this past year where you walk onto the stage, huge, full, you know, full-room screen to the music of Lil Yachty. I didn't know Lil Yachty is a rapper, at this big festival.
 
Chris James: He's an artist.
 
Christine Anderson: He's an artist that I just am not cool enough to know. But, the crowd is going wild. It's this amazing sort of priceless moment. And you used it to kick off your presentation. And, which was a little nontraditional for a Blackstone investor conference, but...
 
Chris James: It was, but it was quite on point because it kind of captures, I think, the key thesis, the key gist of that presentation, which is, in live entertainment, you have these scarce moments and this emotional connection. And you could hopefully, in that 30-second clip watching him walk out, you could really see and feel that, which was what we're trying to convey, the value of live entertainment. That emotion and that scarcity.
 
Christine Anderson: I love it. What’d you make of Ari?
 
Chris James: I was really into Ari just more because of his intensity. Like, the guy's got a lot of, it feels like, points of view on people.
 
Christine Anderson: Strong views.
 
Chris James: Strong views on people, and I respect that. And he's also got a level of intensity around what he's doing, and particularly, what he’s doing on behalf of his clients, his partners, his businesses, and this broader, kind of, vision he has in live entertainment. It's like invigorating to see somebody with that type of energy exciting you about what he’s doing.
 
Christine Anderson: Ari leaned into live events and experiences and sports early, much like you have done as well, almost as a bit of an AI hedge, if you will. What are you seeing there?
 
Chris James: There's a lot of levers in live entertainment to create value and enhance the asset that you are buying. So for us, live entertainment, apart from AI, is a very attractive space to be invested in as a private equity investor.
 
Christine Anderson: And the scarcity factor is a big one as well, right?
 
Chris James: Massive amount of scarcity and in a world of digital abundance and consumption patterns in entertainment where you can, online, consume a lot of entertainment, wherever you are. Live entertainment is, has the fact that it is scarce and the connection with other people, the emotional, kind of, quotient that you can share, that makes it distinct and separate in a world of digital abundance. And that, by itself, I think makes it an interesting place to invest given the demand that is behind that.
 
Christine Anderson: And then talk to me about sports specifically. So that's an area that we've spent a lot of time looking at and have invested in. Same with Ari. It's the ultimate unscripted content, right? You don't know the ending and so he's leaning in, in a big way, with his UFC and World Westling investments and it's something that you've spent a lot of time on as well.
 
Chris James: Totally, but in respect of the sports ecosystem, it's not just investing in a team. There's a variety of ways that you can invest in sports, whether it's the arena, whether it’s the infrastructure around the arena, whether it’s the online components, whether it's the premiumization of the experience. So when we think about live entertainment, and particularly sports, we're thinking about it like with a variety of things you can do and invest in beyond just investing in a team.
 
Christine Anderson: Is there any one of those specific areas that you like better than others?
 
Chris James: We love this modern venue infrastructure, which is to say, investing in kind of real assets. Maybe it's an arena, maybe it's a building, what have you, that anchors a broader entertainment district. The thing about live entertainment, there's a lot of things you can do there.
 
Christine Anderson: Super helpful, thank you so much for being here. I hope you'll come back as we talk about this theme in the week... Oh my God, you’re pulling an Ari on me. And that was Chris James. Thank you, Chris, for joining us and thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Inside Blackstone.
 
Chris James: Love you.
 
Christine Anderson: Follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Notes:
1) Blackstone proprietary data for Q3 2026, as of October 14, 2026, from 77 PE operating companies. Excludes select public investments, select FIG investments, certain new investments, investments where YoY growth rates are not comparable due to divestitures and certain other companies for which timely forecasts are unavailable.
 
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