Iconic Dealmakers Part 3: Cash & Carry Pyle Continued

Charlie "Cash & Carry" Pyle trains his dealmaking skills on the world of professional tennis, entering a deal with 5x French Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen, establishing the precursor to the ATP and WTA Tennis Tours of the 21st Century.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Music Row Deal Makers, where we explore our world of making deals from Nashville's famed Music Row. In the heart of Music City, we are the Deal Makers, from composing to closing. Now, here's your host, Barry Neil Schrump and Dennis Disney.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hello there, and welcome to our fourth episode of Music Row Dealmakers from Composing to Closing. We're coming to you live from Music Row Nashville, straight from the heart of our offices here on Music Row. My name is Barry Schrom. I'm your host, and I will be welcoming in my co-host, Dennis Disney and Smith, when we get ready to talk about some of these deals that I'm going to introduce right now. In our last last episode, we explored a man by the name of Charles C. Pyle, sometimes referred to as Cash and Carey, and the deals that he put together regarding the football player from the fighting Illini Red Grange, which ultimately led to the popularization of professional football through his tours with the Chicago Bears, and then ultimately led, of course, to the popularity of NFL. After Pyle's success in the arena of football, no pun intended, Pyle turned his attention to the world of tennis, which, like golf, had its origins in the elitist world of country clubs. And of course, in that world, professionalism was frowned upon. Pyle's dealings in the tennis world were ultimately a precursor to the ATP model for tennis tours that we have today for men's tennis, and of course the WTA model as well. Pyle, in particular, his deal involves the French legend, Susan Langlin. And as I'm recording this uh this episode, the French Open is in full swing. And of course, the second court there at Roland Garros is the Susan Langlin court. And so it was named after this famous French player. She became a world champion and champion in 1914, just before her 15th birthday. Six years later, she won her first Wimbledon title in 1919 at the tender age of 20. And then she went on later to win five more of those Wimbledon titles, in addition to numerous gold medals and other world championships. So she was a very established player. Despite its elitist roots, 1920s era tennis in the U.S. was exploding in popularity. People were picking it up just as they're picking up pickleball these days. Thanks in large part to the emergence of stars like Langlan and the graceful American Bill Tilden, both of who glided across the court like gods. So they were celebrities in their own right already. And so this attracted Pyle, just as he had seen in Grange and professional football and the potential there a few years earlier, he saw a similar deal-making opportunity in the world of professional tennis, something else that he could exploit to make money. So fast forward to 1926, and this is around the same time that Pyle began to organize the American Football League, if you recall from our last episode. And it was also the same time that Langlin was mounting sort of a comeback by defeating the reigning American champion in straight sets to retain her world hardcourt championship status. Now uh w during her comeback tour, as it were, she m entered into Wilmelton for the seventh time, but in the midst of all of that, she in her s indicative style committed a faux pas at Wilmelton by by keeping uh Her Majesty the Queen waiting too long after a match. Queen sometimes greets certain players and and and Miss Langland didn't really respect that that tradition. So this caused a lot of uh backlash in England and ultimately led to her demise, and she withdrew from from this seventh run at a title, never again to return to Wilmelton. So Langland was that kind of a rebel in a day when when many women still wore ground length dresses to play tennis, she wore a dress just above the calf. How how how verboden and she shook up the uh amateur world by sipping brandy between sets, something which um you know, at least at that time, was a little bit frowned upon. Uh these days when you play tennis, you might see somebody bringing beer onto the court and sipping it between sets, but uh back then it it it wasn't a thing that you did. And then like John MacInroe of the eighties and nineties, or seventies and eighties actually, she would often pout and weep and and go into antics when a call went went against her. Now, in in MacInroe's time this was seen as endearing, and it still is. But back in those days, amateurs were supposed to be trim and proper and and and and not do things like that. So she was a loved player, celebrity in France, but in the rest of the world, because of her antics, the world kind of frowned on Langland or despised Langland. So this was the opportunity that that Pyle recognized. And when he began to talk to his friends and colleagues about his idea of using Langland similarly to Grange to set up a tennis tour, they began to question why would you engage this woman who people hate? She's controversial, she's too toxic and and a little too exotic and strange for the American market. But Pyle recognized something that they didn't. He said, uh all of this backlash actually encourages me. We use a phrase sometimes in the entertainment industry that even bad publicity is good publicity, right? This is what Pyle was picking up on. He said, People will pay to see someone they hate. And a lot of people in his circles agreed with him. For example, one sports writer that that Pyle often uh consulted with was Damon Johnson, and he recognized uh Langland's magnetic personality and the attraction, and saw her as a a bona fide star and and recognized that with the proper promoter like Pyle, they could make literally a fortune. So Langland's brand of controversy and and her toxicity is exactly what Pyle wanted and exactly what he saw. And so he began to plot to to sign Langlan similarly to what he did with Grange and began a nationwide tour. Now there were a couple of obstacles to achieving this kind of a deal. First of all, the the amateur uh status of tennis had to be overcome. And uh for for that, Pyle faced a significant challenge. For example, Edward Moss, the the current or the then secretary of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, the US T LTA, communicated that that organization would never allow a professional promoter to quote unquote soil the ranks of amateur tennis. At the same time he was saying those words, however, the the US LTA was negotiating with Langlin and her alleged American manager to present Langland on a U.S. tour of their own. So Pyle faced competition directly from these people who were were poo-pooing his idea. And there's a lesson there for negotiating as well. You will always, almost always, face competition from other people who are seeking the same deals that you are, particularly in the entertainment industry. So the the other obstacle, of course, was as I referenced earlier, is that amateur amateur tennis players, because of the the bias toward professionalism, would often make a living under the table by taking under the table payments from promoters and others and and involved in setting up quote unquote exhibition uh exhibition tournaments at various private clubs. And of course, what you can't see, you can't object to. So this was uh a way that that, for example, Bill Tilden, the American Sensation, would would make a living. And to to have a professional promoter coming in and doing that just didn't seem right. So those were two obstacles that that Pyle would have to overcome. So, like any good businessman, Pyle had a number of confidants and colleagues that that he would consult with when he was thinking about making deals. One was a man named Bill Champ Pickens. He was a Hollywood mogul and producer and a close friend and colleague of Pyle. And Pickens was one of the people who encouraged Pyle to negotiate with Langlon and uh secure a deal. And they talked about it and uh decided that it would be Pickens who would go to Paris to to meet with um with Langlin to negotiate the deal on behalf of Pyle. So he goes there, meets indeed with the um the famous tennis player, and said that Pyle will be your manager in everything but tennis. This he thought would avoid the the uh the moral objection to turning professional and the stigma that was attached to it. He said, You, Miss Langland, will will take the US by storm as an artiste, not an athlete. Of course, he dropped hints about Broadway plays and Hollywood movies, and and he could tell that that that was um uh appealing to the um overdeveloped ego that Miss Langland had. And so he asked Miss Langland, you know, what is your I don't want to do this deal number. And she threw out the figure of 200,000, to which Pickens immediately said, Okay. And they began, and of course, Pickens, of course, pulled a contract out of his pocket, filled in the number, and they signed it. Now, before he could uh catch a boat back to America, when he got back to his hotel room, he received a call from the frantic uh Langland saying, Wait, wait, wait, I I made a mistake, we need to talk about this more. So Pickens agreed, and he goes back to Langland's house. And this time Langland had her quote unquote American manager there who was demanding to see the contract. And uh Pickens, of course, being the Hollywood mogul that he was, shrewdly refused and said, That's a private contract, you have no right to see it. And so ultimately they compromised, and and basically the manager and Langlin requested that Pyle come to Paris to to in fact secure and close the deal, to which Pickens agreed. So in in in preparation for that that meeting in Paris, Pyle, of course, being the flamboyant person that he was, decided to find uh a good lawyer to take with him. And he he picked Colonel Bill Hayward. He wasn't just any lawyer, Hayward was a well-known, prominent member of a of a big family in New York. And more importantly, he was a French hero and had been awarded the French Legion of Honor. So that is a lesson in negotiating as well. When you when you know your the party you're negotiating with, learn something about them, find a connection, and stroke that connection. If they like fishing, talk about fishing. If they like football, talk about football. You get the idea. So here for the French celebrity, she he took a flamboyant Colonel Bill Hayward. So the two of them, the the pair, formed a very uh dashing and and charismatic set of Americans uh strolling through the streets of Paris. So the two of them, Hayward and Pyle, met at uh met Langland at her summer house. Strangely enough, the American manager was nowhere to be seen. And so Pyle picked up where Pickens had left off, and he did most of the talking, and of course he appealed to Langland's vanity, as Pickens had done. This time, however, Pyle addressed the elephant in the room, and that is the professionalism. And he explained to her that playing tennis in America didn't carry quite the same stigma when you got paid as it did in Europe. And getting paid, he said, would allow you to control your destiny and maintain your social status and standing in the community. And so he said, look, you're not always going to be sitting on the top of the world. You are at your peak right now as a celebrity. And in the entertainment world, we've heard this a long time. We talk about the next big thing. And of course, we all know that there are places where retiring celebrities go to retire, like Las Vegas. And so you you have to take advantage of your fame, of your celebrity, when you can. And so Pyle emphasized that to use that leverage of timing to his favor. After that meeting, Suzanne finally signed a revised professional contract, a management contract with CC Pyle, and he agreed to take her on what was called the Suzanne Langland North American Tour. And that was, in fact, the first professional tennis tour in the United States. Although we don't really know the final advance, it is rumored that that Langland didn't get the $200,000 she had originally demanded, but most sources say it was closer to $50,000 to $75,000. Still a lot of money in the 1920s. So finally, in October 6, 1926, Pyle negotiated for her to debut at the Madison Square Gardens in New York as the first quote-unquote professional tennis player, where she played another player that Pyle had negotiated management with, and that was Mary Kay Brown, who had been the U.S. singles champion from 1912 to 1914. Pyle also hired four other men, male players to complete the quote-unquote barnstorming tour, which played a lot of major arenas in the country and a few country clubs, and was by all accounts a huge financial success. Following the the New York event, he he actually took her up into Canada, made stops in Toronto, Montreal, and the U.S. leg continued in Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver, and even out to Colorado. Ultimately, of course, as a lot of things did with Pyle, things began to fall apart during the the height of the success. And usually, or in this case, it was because of a boyfriend of Suzanne Langland, a California Playboy by the name of Baldwin M. Baldwin, who was portrayed as her quote unquote business manager. Never trust a person with the same last name and first name, as I would always say. But but nonetheless, Baldwin created some friction between uh Langland and Pyle. And after meeting this new love interest, Pyle reported that uh in an interview in the New York Times, he said shortly after meeting him, I noticed that she was getting advice contrary to what I regarded as for our mutual best interest. And that's something else, uh a lesson in deals that we can take from this, and particularly in the entertainment industry. It is usually the spouses of the celebrities that that get the celebrity off track. So ultimately the tour ended in February of 1927, and they allegedly parted on amical, amicable terms. So we're going to explore this this deal in the same way we we explore all the deals, along with Dennis Disney.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

It kind of kind of brightens the afternoon.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

It does indeed. So for this particular evolution of Pyle's career, his his foray into the uh professionalization of tennis, shall we say, I think it's important to observe how Pyle synthesized the successes that he created in all of the deal making he did with Red Grange and football, and then took what he learned there and incorporated it into the professional tennis tour.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Yeah, the the one of the distinctions here for me ends up being on the one hand, obviously with a lot of lessons he learned with Red Grange, but football is a team sport, right? And so when you deal with that, hence him creating the league, him doing other things, completely different dynamic. Whereas professional tennis over here, and you have Zach Lincoln, which by the way, I'm struggling with that last name. So we're just gonna call her Stones, if that's okay. I love that. So we have Stoons over here, who's an individual. And interestingly, she to be called a professional tennis player was anathema to her. It's just when you read about her, that's a bit shocking because on the other side of her personality, she was really full of herself.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Yeah, she was a problem.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Yeah, but she didn't look as a professional, drinking between sets and all that stuff. It's kind of interesting, but as you start crossing those disciplines of representing someone in a team sport versus representing someone in an individual sport, and and by the way, most sports agencies have struggled with that over over time from when they begin, because they have they're under such different dynamics, you know, on a team sport, and we may touch on this later, but on team sports, especially in today's modern world, you're dealing with collective bargaining agreements and the players' unions and those sorts of things. Whereas with tennis and golf, there is not not in a per se way anyway, a union. I mean, they have golfers' associations and player associations and some things like that for sure, but they're very individualized.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

And so very much so. And I I I you know you know I played tennis, uh and that's one of the things I really like about tennis is the distinction between it and and team sports. You know, if you're if you're on a team, sometimes if you if you make a mistake or you you do something incorrectly, you feel bad because you're letting the team down. And perhaps you get ridiculed for it, or you know, maybe they build you up or whatever. It it you know, there's a different, like you say, a different dynamic. But when you're out there on the court, on tennis court, particularly in singles, but in doubles as well, it's you. And that ball comes your direction. You are the only one that makes that point or loses that point. So it's it's a very different sport. And and if we carry that, and not to get too far afield into that thought, but if we carry that into the music industry, it's very much like representing a celebrity as opposed to representing a band.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Yes. So I have I used to work years ago with a label, and we had a a vocal group, a boy band, if you want to call them that, before boy band was being bantied about. And one of the things that that I was since I was running marketing, one of the things I kept trying to look to is we need to position these guys in the mind of the consumer that we're targeting very similarly to what the Beatles did. Now, that sounds very grandiose because you know my my gosh, it's the Beatles. But everybody knew John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Correct. And they knew their faces, they knew their names, they knew stuff uh you know in their backgrounds. And so that's one of the things that we kept trying to do. We we would create posters back then you could put them up in retail stores. There are no retail stores telling music these days, really, to speak of, but but we did that, and we always make sure that we put the group name, you know, of big and bold, but identify the individuals. For this very reason, it's you've got to a band and even a team, and not not the team. Brand name, but the team collective of players, it's really difficult to set that aside. You don't do a sponsorship of the offensive line, you could, but the offensive line of the Tennessee Titans. Maybe you there are anomalies with some of that for sure. But you identify key players. So on a team, it's really hard to get a particular player to stand out, especially if the team is not performing well. They get lumped in with the rest of the that mediocrity if they're not performing well. Whereas with individual sports, you're either winning or you're losing, right? So you can't hide at that point. And so the dynamics of putting deals together are a little different between those two things. And I think what people like uh Cash and Carrie Pyle, though, recognize is that's okay. We can have differences, and we can take a guy like Red Grange and get him to stand out, if you will, especially at that time, and create certain things. But making that work across the board for an extended period of time, creating the league, that's pretty daunting when I can turn around and find a tennis star and probably make the same amount of money.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Well, and that's the thing, I think that's one of the greatest lessons we can learn from from this segment of Pyle's career is that economies of scale that that you're referring to, right? With with with the league, you had all the dynamics of the coaches and the the owners and and now, as you say, the collective bargaining agreements and and and everything that's associated with this essentially a conglomerate. You can take all that away. And when when those Cs part, as it were, and and you're Moses standing there in the middle of it, you can see a singular sport like tennis being the way to reduce those economies of scales. And that's that's essentially what he did. He he took it down from managing a team of 16 or more players to managing one person and then perhaps a person or two to play along the tour. So that's economies of scale. And and and that reduces not only the things we just talked about, but but the uh the levels of competition too. You don't have to worry so much about arranging the schedules of other teams. You you are in control. So all of that helped him save additional cost and, like you say, make a lot more money on this deal than he did with the NFL deal. So that that allowed him to make more money.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Yeah, it's sometimes I think deal makers lose sight of the bottom line, they pay attention to the top line. And they look at that top line, and and and and Pyle probably did that as well early on, and goes, wow, look at how much potential revenue we can generate. Awesome. But then you start taking up those expenses, and you get down to that bottom number, and it's like, oh, well, I put in a whole heck of a lot of work for that, I want to say small amount, but but that much lesser amount than what I thought I was getting. I used to, when I was in management, I had a client who every at least once a month, he would say, okay, send me the updated report on my concert guarantees that are contracted for the rest of the year. Great, be happy to do that. I said, but you gotta remember, that's the gross amount. We've got to factor in everything else. That's not money you get to put in your pocket, okay? Keep that in mind. And it was like a regular conversation. He would then eventually come back to either me or his business manager going, but I thought we were making more money. Well, on the top line, you were, but you keep wanting to run these huge expenses up, so your net that you put in your pocket to go pay for your family and your house and all that keeps getting cut, man. So don't get so caught up in the big number without understanding all the stuff that has to come in underneath it. And I think that's what you you look at at what happened with Sue's here, and he signed her for roughly $200,000, let's say. I think that was something like that. Like that. Yeah, his NFL team probably had multiples of that on the top line. Right. But not on the bottom line. Whereas with her, that is the number, and I take my my money off of a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

So well, and that that brings up you you you you coming from in from a management perspective like that, I I think back to this to Pyle's dealings, because he was still representing Grange when he brought on Langland. So I'm wondering, you know, and I don't know that there's anything out there about this, but I'm wondering if Grange perceived this and said, okay, well, each game I was making, let's say $10,000, right, when I split the 50-50 of the net with Pyle. And then I'm wondering if he's looking at Langland saying, okay, well, she's getting fifty thousand dollars per game, right? Why is that fair? So uh there's got there may have been some of that going, you know, that that's currently.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Yeah, that's a great question. That's like when you're in any sort of representation business, whether you're a sports agent, uh, a booking agent for an artist, a movie agent, a lawyer, uh, and definitely a manager. Right. You keep those numbers sacrosanct. You don't let one client know what the other one is is grossing or netting, either one, for this very reason, because it sets up this inherent competition. Well, hey, if they pay more attention to me, I can make that kind of money. Well, no, not necessarily. And, you know, it's not that we're being arbitrary and saying, well, we want this client to make X and we want this other client to make X minus 10. No, it's it's really what the market bears, but I gotta tell you, creatives don't always see it that way.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Well, and the funny thing is, particularly in sports, people's salaries tend to be known, at least most of the details. So there is that dynamic in particularly collective bargaining and the NFL, and even in tennis, right? There was this thing, I don't know how long it's been now, but but the women players, the women's tour, were saying, look, we're not making as much money as the men. And men are over here saying, Well, we have to play five sets, and you only play three, and therefore we deserve more. And and but you know, that kind of awareness, and and in our world with the internet the way it is, people know each other's salary, so it's kind of hard to keep the uh the competition.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

You know, the the A lot of the tournaments, golf, tennis, et cetera, they publish the pot that's being played for right. And that becomes part of our marketing. Oh my gosh, so-and-so is playing for a million dollars in this tournament. And then on the team side of it, because of collective bargaining, there's a publicly known structure. I mean, that's what was negotiated by the players. We want to know if I'm a a kicker coming in, I have I'll get a minimum of X.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

I can get a maximum, but now we've got to deal with the salary caps that are out there that helps the smaller market teams not get dwarfed by the bigger market teams who can get local television money to to boost their coffers. And so that becomes just public information because it it has to be. It's it's a unionized scaling, but again, it's also part of the marketing when you think about it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

It is, and it's part of the the dynamics of a large-scale money-driven sport like football. Right? When when there's more revenue coming in, there's inevitably going to be more infighting and more rules about what people can and cannot make, right? It's the old golden rule. Now, for you listeners out there who are thinking, uh, do unto others, that's not the rule I'm talking about. I'm talking about the golden rule of business, which is he who has the gold makes the rules. Right? So we get a lot of that in sports these days.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Well, you know, and I and my I'll pick on my wife a little bit here. She she's an above-average sports fan, she likes sports, grew up playing some sports in high school and things, and our kids have been involved with sports, and she doesn't study it necessarily, but when she hears some of these numbers, she goes, Oh, that guy's not worth that. He's playing a sport, he's making, you know, for quarterbacks, you know, 30, 40, 50 million dollars this year in on the contract. And I have to keep reminding her, dear, it's not because that he plays here for the Titans, let's say, and there's 65,000 people that come out every Sunday to watch him. It's the fact that there are millions of eyeballs that are watching this. And when you multiply that across each market, you know, all the what, 32 teams, and and the the type of media deals you can get, yeah, it makes sense. It shouldn't all let rest with the owners because people aren't tuning in to watch any given team based upon the owner. That's right. They're watching for the players.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

And it's the same in entertainment. I mean, you think back to uh Big Bang theory when each of those actors started making over a million dollars per episode. Yeah. There was that same kind of thought. Well, why are they making so much money just to pretend to be somebody else, right? So but it is because the network was making that kind of money. That's right. There's so many eyeballs on them, right? They're in front of that many people and they can sell that much product.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Well, and then that goes to not to open this up to women's sports, the argument of women's sports versus men's sports, and that it is all market driven. And that's what all deal making is. It's it's driven by what the market will bear. And people say, well, what will the market bear? What someone is willing to pay.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

That's it. There is no set number. But when you start breaking down the analytics and the and the statistics, and you start looking at, like in women's tennis, it's three sets versus five for the men. That's only one element of it. The other part of it is how many people are watching. And as much as I think women's players, and I love women's soccer and and especially love women's college soccer. I mean, they th those girls are amazing, honestly. They are. I love watching that, but they don't draw the same eyeballs. They just don't, they don't draw the same level of sponsorship and endorsements because they're not drawing the same amount of eyeballs. And so in doing these deals, that's the one thing you have to always keep in mind is what will the market do? Now, if you remember with with piles coming back to him, who was the male player that he wanted to bring in at the same time?

SPEAKER_02 32:54

I think his name was Bill Tillman. Tillman.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

We want to bring the same dynamics. Yes, Sue's was very popular, everybody knew her, and as he said a couple of times, people want to come out to see the people they hate play. Exactly. You know, but they also want to come out and see the people they love, and they love Bill Tillman, apparently, only he chose to do Davis Cup when he wanted to bring them, come bring them together here in the States. Again, the market. What will the market want? So had he gotten Tillman added to it, he probably would have done even better.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

He may have done a little bit better, but I think um to his point, bringing in it's kind of like the rubbernecking thing, right? If you're on the interstate and and there's an accident, everybody slows down to look at and see if they see any blood, right? We like the we like the controversy. We like to see things we don't like to see for some reason. And that's why people like horror movies and those kinds of things. Well, Till, I mean, um Langlin was that kind of person. People, she just had that personality that people didn't like. And of course, to top that off, she was French. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but but uh I think people wanted to see her. So from that perspective, I think she probably was the perfect choice for what he wanted to do. So, what lessons can we draw from this? How can we summarize this this um this second deal? Is there anything we can garner from this uh about applying prior negotiations and our prior experience with deals and applying them to what we're working on now?

SPEAKER_03 34:45

Yeah, every situation is a new learning experience, really. And so you need to take that lesson that you're learning and don't forget it because it will have application down the road, somewhere even very directly. But here it's understanding the economics of what we're trying to work on. He obviously being piled saw the economics of putting the red grains into the team sport area and what that meant. But with Sue's, he came back and said, on an individual level, I can change up the calculus, so to speak, and make it work even better in terms of the net revenues and what needs to happen there. So that's a big part of it. The you know, the the economics of these things and and you use the term earlier, the economies of scale apply to all of this. You know, interestingly, I tell some clients who are looking for a record deal, let's say, and they're in a particular genre, and they go, well, why would this label give me the the $5 million advance? And I go, well, because you're in this genre, they don't really do that genre. And for them to do that genre, they gotta blow up their internal economies of scale. And they go, Well, what do you mean? I go, well, all companies are set up to have a level of staffing and a level of expertise that fits a certain channel, if you will, of style in terms of music. So you've got a country label, their people know country. They can't go too far outside of that, then they've got to start bringing in other people, or they start taking away from what they're already doing, they lose efficiencies. And so those economies come into play as well. And you have to look at that. So going with Pyle, going from what he was doing on the team side to adjusting to an individual, you have to make some adjustments. When we're putting deals together, we have to keep that idea in mind as well. Not the least of which is understanding that when you pitch, especially on record deals, when you're pitching to a label, you have to have an understanding of where they are in terms of the number of artists that they have, how those artists are performing for them, etc. What's the ratio of male to female, band to solo, you know, that type of thing. Labels will look at it and go, we we don't want too many females because they sort of get grouped in together. We don't want too many male. The old joke here in town used to be uh, you know, males with black hats, you know, because they all got grouped together.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

I have acts.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

You you have to pay attention to what they can do because the economies that they have to operate under are dictating their signings. And you may have real interest from an AR director, don't get me wrong, even AR VP or whoever say, Man, we really want to sign you. However, just three months ago we signed someone that's a little too close to you. You can't do anything about that.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Well, and when you bring up the economies of a record label like that, I mean, and this applies even now, perhaps even more than it did back then. A record label will only invest in so many people. And so if you've got a new artist that's coming along and he wants a large advance, you have to explain, look, this is an investment for this label. They're not bringing you on simply because they like you, they're bringing you on to make money for them. And if they have to invest $10 million in you, they want to make sure they can get a return on their investment for the shareholders. So a creative tends not to understand though that language.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

They tend to have read the headlines in the industry press about so-and-so just signed a multi-million dollar record deal and I'm as good as they are, and yada yada. And but the realities are are just what you're saying. The realities are this is an investment. Even though everyone, and we do the same thing, would argue yeah, but it's a recoupable investment. Yes, but they are funding the money, and if it goes south for them and this doesn't work, they're not coming to you to repay it back. That's not how record deals work. If if you get to the end of your contract and you're still unrecooped, you're just unrecooped. You can go off and sign somewhere else, they're still recouping the money. And so there's huge risk for them in that. And I get that. But this idea of well, hey, we're I'm recouping it as an artist, so it's only my money after all, so why don't why are you putting a governor on the amount of money you're spending? That's just a bad premise to start with. And and and honestly, people don't really understand how the business economics work.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

They really don't, and this this applies across all the industries. I mean, when when I teach about the economics of a movie being produced, you know, most major conglomerate will spend upwards of $200 million on one movie. And only about 10% of those movies will be blockbusters. But they've done the calculations. They know, okay, if we spend this much money on 10 movies and we have one huge success, it will more than pay for all of that loss that we have, even though a lot of that loss is recoupable as it is in the record deal. Right? So they're looking at that, that they're they're playing the game, but they're doing it judiciously.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

But they also look at it from a revenue strata perspective, meaning we need a certain number of films that we can produce in that five to twenty-five million dollar range, because in that five to twenty-five million dollar range, we will profit ten to fifty million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

Now the the big blockbuster that we spent two hundred, three hundred million dollars on plus PA money that's gonna add another fifty percent to that or whatever. Yeah, it's got to it's gotta do multiple hundreds of millions, maybe a billion plus worldwide. And that's great. And that man, everybody cheers those on. But you don't get many blockbusters.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

No, it's it's the meat and potatoes that really make the money, and that's where you know, at least traditionally, the foreign releases of the American films made the money back for the production.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Exactly. I used to tell a friend of mine who was an aspiring author at the time, and he had all these great marketing plans behind it, and they were always like these one-off swing for the fences plan with no follow-up. I said, buddy, you're striking out a lot. Now you might get a home run somewhere down, you haven't gotten one yet. But you need to change your thinking and understand sometimes you've got to use a baseball analogy, sometimes you've got to manufacture runs. Get a bunt single, still second base, do this, do that, sacrifice fly. And you go, well, that's just two outside created, yeah, but it generated two runs. And at the end of the day, we're looking for runs. That's what we're trying to do. And I think the same thing applies here in entertainment in general. It's it's okay to have the big blockbusters, but those are hard to come by. But those that are in that, as you call them, the meat and potatoes area, and this applies to music as well. That's why you will often see say a country label. They wish every one of their artists were blockbuster artists, but but they know they're not going to be. But they need those in that lower third, let's say, that are going to be profitable at lower levels because that keeps the lights on, that generates cash flows, that does all these things, and then they hope that they get that one artist or that one album that year that really busts through. But as you and I both know, the the stats for this has been this way for decades, somewhere between eight or nine albums released every year are not profitable. And it's about nine out of ten, nine out of ten films are not profitable.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

And so those ones that are really have to generate something, but in the meantime, you gotta have those manufactured runs, man, to keep the lights on. You gotta have that consistency.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

You gotta practice the batting.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

So another lesson I think we can learn from Pyle here is a lesson about overcoming obstacles. There were several obstacles, and we've already kind of referenced one, which was uh Langland's disdain and the culture's disdain, quite frankly, for an amateur player receiving money directly as a professional. And you know, the idea of professionalism and sports didn't mix back in the 1920s. So Pyle, together with his attorney, Champ Hayward, recognized this cultural bias against professional sports, and they developed a strategy, particularly with regard to Langland, to overcome that obstacle that they knew they were going to face. So we can take that lesson to to to heart and say, okay, in a deal, you've got to know what obstacles you're gonna be facing. So for them, they had to overcome her idea that receiving money for playing tennis was not a kosher. And then there were cultural obstacles the the country as a whole. didn't accept professional sports. And in Hayward was the one who kind of pitched the idea to Langland that, and and Hayward was a Hollywood mogul. He was recognized as being in that those circles who made stars and those kind of things, perhaps in his own right, one of the early entertainment attorneys, as it were. And he said, You're going to be more than just a tennis player, you're going to be an artist. You're going to be a star, right? I don't know if they used that term back in those days. That was perhaps his Kale Gibron moment, his moment of prophecy. So in today's world, we we recognize that overlap, that a sports figure is a celebrity, a, you know, a commentator is a a celebrity, a social media influencer is a celebrity. But back in those days, celebrities were something else, right? And then you had the people who actually did real things. So they had to overcome that thing and that that cultural bias so that people would recognize this professional sports as something more than just a novelty. And then there were political obstacles as well. They had to overcome pressure from the tennis association, the lawn tennis association that was existent at that time. And for them, they wanted to do exactly what Pyle wanted to do. They wanted to bring Langlon over and mix him with their players and do the same kind of tour. So Pyle had to overcome that political obstacle as well. And that was just a matter of beating them to the punch, I think. So for Pyle, this this provided him with the opportunity and confidence to convince Langland that look, the U the US LTA wants to do this. So it's not such a bad thing, right? And so that that gave him the the putzbah, I think you said last last uh episode, to to go in and and and convince her that it wasn't such a bad thing. I'm sure you've had to overcome similarly significant obstacles in your time, particularly in your involvement with the Christian music space.

SPEAKER_03 46:21

Yeah, it and it's a different dynamic sometimes in in the faith space. It's not necessarily political in the broad sense of our country's politics, but it becomes political in terms of dominational politics and doctrinal issues and things like that. So coming up, I'm I got in town in 84 and spent a lot of time in the faith-based world, and I can't tell you, I mean, it's countless conversations with church leaders and concert promoters and booking agents and on and on. We can't bring in a particular artist to our church. Why? Because they belong to a different denomination and we don't agree with what they talk about. Okay, well, you know, they're not going to proselytize to convert to their particular denomination, but they you all believe the same major elements, right? It doesn't matter. I mean, that's one thing I will say, and I'm a I am a strong believer, and I've have been for since age 12, I guess. But I can tell you, man, we um we we're not very gracious amongst our brethren of other denominations sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

I got a good story that illustrates exactly what you're talking about. I grew up, as you know, Church of Christ. Church of Christ, one of their major tenets is you got to sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord. It's from Ephesians. And the belief is that means you're not supposed to use instrumental music in the church house. Well, okay, I I get that. So when I was a younger person, I I went on a missions trip with one of the um deacons in the church to Trinidad and Tobago. And of course, at that time I was a photographer, so I took literally hundreds of slides. When I got back, I had just discovered Inya. And so I put this slideshow together over a soundtrack of Inya, right? And so me and the deacon were going around, you know, to the churches that had supported us in this missions effort to show them slides of the baptisms and and all the things we were doing. And I know it was over an hour long. It must have been literally boring. It's like sitting through somebody's vacation slides, but uh I put it to music. So the first church we went to, the deacon felt like he should explain that to the church. And he did. And he said, Okay, well, wait a minute. We're gonna have to have a little brief service, and then you could show it afterward. So it's not in the service. So it's not in the service, it's adjacent to the service. So that was quite a fine denominational line we were splitting there.

SPEAKER_03 49:07

At the artist management company I was at uh a few years ago. And I got a call one day from the booking agent said, Hey, we got a problem on this concert that got booked that was being sponsored by a church up in Pennsylvania, and I go, what is it? Well, because the artist is on staff at at a particular megachurch, I won't mention the church, that they absolutely disagree with that pastor's, he wasn't even the pastor, but he was on staff. That pastor's Sunday presentations, I'll put it that way. Then they're gonna cancel the concert. I said, Are you are you serious? He said, Yeah. And now we had told the artist when he first went on staff there, said just be prepared. You're gonna get some pushback in some circles. But that was, I think, the eight years I was there, maybe twice, we got pushback. But that one really stuck out to me as, well, that's just odd, because he's not going to be up there espousing all the positives of his church and his pastor and all that. He's there presenting his interpretation of scripture, if you will, through the music that he does. And it's entertaining, and uh I mean it's pretty mainline, if you will. But no, because of that affiliation, that association, that's a problem. I remember back in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, when Amy Grant was coming and crossing into pop music out of almost exclusively Christianity. Yeah. I got a call one day from my mother, and and she said, I can't believe what's happening with Amy Grant. And I go, Well, what are you talking about? Well, she's left the church and she's going all mainstream pop. And I went, No, she hasn't. And I know Amy. I said, No, she hasn't, mom. She's expanding what she does. And if you're a person of faith and start thinking about, well, if God is leading you a certain way, aren't you supposed to go there? And my mom said, Well, yeah, and I go, and by the way, if we're just talking in purely in terms of evangelism, let's say, would you rather have her doing the music she's been doing for 10, 15 years and just stay in the church, or have her in meetings at the mainstream record labels in LA talking about all that she does and having an influence on them behind the scenes like that? Oh, I never thought of it that way. In the world, not of the world, the scripture says, right? So you get these political and cultural and doctrinal in the faith space, especially especially doctrinal obstacles that you have to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Well, and it's not just the Christian space, let's point out. I mean, there have been numerous examples where artists have overstated, let's say, their political beliefs. Yes. And in the country space, uh, as you probably know, they're they're deep red. And if you come out against a deep red president, you're gonna lose some fans. And that's happened. I don't want to name any names, but uh, and it's not just her. This has happened with a lot of different people. So you've got to recognize those obstacles, and as a celebrity, you need to be a little bit more agnostic in everything, not just your personal beliefs, your faith, but in your political space as well. You know, you can't go out with with everything on your sleeve the way we tend to do in today's society.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

What was the line that Michael Jordan used about his shoes? Somebody had asked him, do you remember that? I don't remember the line. Someone was saying, talking about he ought to be donating all this money to African-American causes, and you know, why are you marketing to white people as heavily as you do? And he basically said, Well, white Republicans have money to spend too. And so that's the idea. And you can then take your earnings and do what you want to do, you know, behind the scenes, obviously. But even now, one of the obstacles that that's being dealt with, and I just heard this on the news today, I think it was, it was really more of a side comment. But the whole immigration issue that we're having and and debate and battles that are going on right now apparently is really starting to impact getting some foreign artists into the states. Now, you can, you know, there are parameters around the O and the P visas and stuff like that, but it's becoming increasingly hard to get some of those who are not well known, not well established, and then you know, and that sort of thing. It would have been easier a decade ago, let's say. So you got those challenges you deal with as you're putting these deals together, and and not only even if you're taking people overseas, I've done some international tour deals, and the expenses just to get over there and to play and to tour properly are just outlandish. Now, once you get into Europe, it's it's actually fairly easy to move around cost-wise. But from here to there is it's really challenging and debilitating.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

It's a major obstacle.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

A major obstacle, and you have to be aware of that as you're putting various deals together out there. Always run a PL. Of course. And a lot of people don't, and put the budget together. Don't worry, don't focus in so much on the top line. You gotta look at that bottom line because you can have a huge top line and come out bankrupt if you're not careful.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

That sounds exactly right. So let's talk about the last little lesson I think we can learn from Pyle, and that is uh about developing a rapport with the party you're negotiating with. Did you ever hear the old adage? I'm sure you have, he could sell ice to a, well, let's say an Inuit, okay, to be politically correct. Maybe the modern equivalent of that might be he could sell a cyberpunk NFT to a netizen for $23 million. I'm told the cyberpunk NFT is one of the highest selling of all time. But deal making is about that moment when you're in the initial stages, the opening game of the deal, right? And that's when you're building rapport. And people talk a lot about the initial lobs that people throw out in a deal. You know, if we're talking about a number, somebody might say, Well, I'll give you a thousand, and the other person might say, Well, I need ten thousand, right? Oftentimes a true negotiator knows neither of those numbers are serious, and neither of those numbers are what either party wants to end up at, right? They're throwing out extremes. What I tend to say is they're setting the parameters. So if that's the numbers, then we know that the deal can be reached somewhere between a thousand and ten thousand dollars. So you've just established the the in post. And that process I think of as developing that rapport that Pyle was so good at doing.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Yeah, I think you touched on this a little bit the last episode, I know, but I think you're you're spot on with that. And I know if you're the one trying to get money from somebody, as we talked last time, you set a number that doesn't run them off. And and and candidly, I've been involved in those as well, where my client has said, I really don't want to do a deal with them. For whatever reason, I don't want to come out and directly just say no, get out of my life. So what can we do? And I go, well, we can we can put a price that's so high that we know they can't even counter it, and that's you're basically telling them take a hike. But if you're gonna pay me that, okay, I'll go do it. But you can you set a number that's high enough so that you can easily come down to where you're gonna you think you're gonna be comfortable. If you're the one paying the money, you you yeah, you do the opposite. You set the the bottom number, but you know you're gonna come up. But you're trying to send a message that, hey, it's not gonna be an easy, I'm just gonna roll over on you. We're gonna have to work this through. And and both of those are fine as long as, and this has been my biggest thing over my entire career, have a strategic reason why you're coming to that number to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

And if you do that up front, you have to work that out with your client, explain to them why this number seems to be the right number to accomplish what we're looking for, that will get them dialoguing and massaging, and then you get in there and you do the trade-offs of things and the negotiation to get the money right. And but know why what the strategic reason for getting to that number or starting with that number to begin with. And I've been around way too many people who just throw out numbers without any real thought. Well, I think it's worth that here, boom. Well, why would you think it's that? And they can't really support it. That's not what you want. You you want that, and that goes back to the rapport, because if I come at it with a strategic reason while I'm here, I can explain my reason. And now we've got some dialogue going. We can we can you can tell me if you think my reasoning is right or not, that's fine. But we can work with each other if we have a an understanding and and we know why we're coming out it this way to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

Right, and one of the one of the the parts of the Susan Langland story that that kind of illustrates this, I think, is when the lawyer went over in advance of Pyle to negotiate for him, and he was talking to her, and he had said, Oh, you're gonna be an artist and all that stuff. Basically, he asked her what she wanted, and she said, I'd I'd like $200,000. And I think, I have no way of knowing this, of course, but I think she was throwing out a number so large that she thought, well, there's no way they're gonna give me that. And he said, Sure. So what do you do when they've met your price, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:00

That's when you go back and go, well, crud, man. I should have gone higher. But yeah, but until you've done your research and you've experienced a few of those, you really don't know. But even so, she needed a better reason than just I'm gonna throw out a big number. You know, that that'd be my comeback to her is why did you pick that number to begin with? And maybe we need to go higher and talk this through. Unless you, again, unless you're either wanting to get the deal done, so I'll I'm willing to go cheaper, or I really don't want to do the do the deal, let's make it a really high number that they can't even bargain for. Fine. But if you really want to try to get the deal done, you need to have a real strategic and very clear strategic understanding of why you're coming at them with this first number.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Oh, I think that's a very good point because uh, you know, a lot of people misunderstand these initial volleys, and some people even get insulted by them, right? And and some people consider them sophistry, right? And you and I talked about this word sophistry before the show when we were researching and all, and it it's not the exact right word because the the people are not intending to be falicious. They're not they're they're they're they may be exaggerating, but but certainly you need to understand the difference between that and and so pyle uh used Pickens was the name of his his uh counterpart that that went to to Paris. So he intentionally he saw this obstacle that that he was having to overcome that we talked about earlier, and so he intentionally sent Pickens, this well-known movie producer, to Paris because he knew Langland was sort of I don't know if she was narcissistic, but she was sort of self-centered. She uh like a lot of celebrities are, they're focused on themselves, which they have to be to be at that kind of level. And so he sent the movie mogul and saying, Look, look what you can have, right? And and that's um that worked so well. So he it appealed to her need to be a celebrity. So and then later on, when Langland shot that volley and said, Okay, 200,000, Pickens said, Okay, we'll take that. And he, of course, pulled a contract out of his pocket and they signed it. He gets back to his hotel room, she she calls him up and said, Oh, I made a mistake, you know, I don't wanna I don't want this deal. And so he goes back out, and now she has with her her quote unquote American manager. I don't know exactly who it was. He ended up not being part of the deal at all, but she demanded, and and this manager demanded that Pyle come to Paris to close the deal. So when he came back, he still used a little technique, a little bit of rapport building. This time he brought his lawyer, who was as charming as Pyle was, dressed the same way, and then walks this pair like the men in black, you know, just addressed to the hilt. But Hayward wasn't really there because he was his lawyer, he was there because he was a French war hero. And Langlin would recognize him, right? And and that would build some credibility, some pathos. So this the reason I bring up the word sophistry is because uh Plato talked a lot about sophistry, and he countered that with some things in his rhetoric, something called pathos, and you've probably heard that word, it's a Greek word. And along with ethos and logos, those are the three things that help deal makers persuade. All three of those are important in a negotiation. Logos, of course, refers to the logic, what you call the strategy earlier. The ethos refers to your credibility. If you don't have credibility, and we talked about this in the last episode, if there's not trust between the parties, you're not going to get a deal. And then pathos, in contrast to sophistry, is what you need to close the deal. It is the rapport building that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:30

Well, you know, we talked, uh I think I brought it up in the last episode with Mark McCormick in one of the TV deals they put together for a golf tournament, and the way they got it closed was understanding the pa pathos or pathos of the CEO of the primary sponsor they were trying to land. They knew there was some ego there, huge ego. And one of the things they could do is give him time on national television to talk about his company and have all of that adulation and adoration thrown at him by employees and friends and family and all that. It didn't cost them anything, right? But it's understanding that will get my deal done. If I can give him that, because that's important to him.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

And that's really what what we're we're we talk about. It's using these emotional appeals to tap into what the person the other person wants and needs and desires, again, not in a manipulative way, but but in a way, I mean, at the end of the day, we're still all salespeople in this regard when we're doing deals. We're trying to sell somebody on why they should sign the deal I want them to sign. So it's that same idea. And so as you start getting into these negotiations, and you and I deal with this every day, we we we see that there are certain emotional levers that should never get pulled, and others that could get pulled to move this along because it gets that out of the way of the person's thinking and decision making. I've just been recently working on a podcast agreement with a client, and her biggest concern is that this one show they're wanting to get done is a good friend of hers, and she's so afraid of offending that friend by putting a business contract together. Even though her friend went out and hired a higher power high-powered agency to represent her in this, she's still really nervous. And I've had to sort of walk through with her the emotional aspect of why what we need to do or say isn't going to affect their relationship. But if we put together a bad deal, that will ultimately affect both the relationship from both sides. And so we can't do that either. You can't be going to a two, three, four year, five year deal going, hey, you're my best friend, but you're screwing me out of my money left and right. That's that's bad for the relationship.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

And you know, you you and I both know, you know, celebrities are in that mindset. You know, I I just uh we want everybody to get along kind of thing. And it's not that a lawyer has a different mindset than that, but a lawyer does understand that the deal has to be beneficial for both parties. And if you can't make it that way, it doesn't matter if you're friends, right? Exactly. Uh you you've gotta uh understand that. And I I've had a client recently who, you know, they're doing this this big deal on the internet, and they they they're helping service other people's things, and they say they they came to me for a contract, and their their words were okay, we just want something really simple, you know. Make it simple. One page, and can you have it to me tomorrow? Exactly. No, it doesn't work that way. So before we leave the uh the story of Pyle, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

No, I was gonna say let me interrupt you real quick. So on this very item about relationships, if you recall, we had a litigation matter last year, we had a couple actually, but this one were two friends who had gone into business together to create this company, and our client came to us because he thought he was really getting screwed over in many, many ways. So we filed suit on his behalf, and it fortunately went into settlement discussion, so we didn't have to actually go to court. But as we're going through the settlement, I remember telling him, I said, Man, you have to understand as we're walking through this, we will come out with something. I should let me say it this way. Don't expect to get what you want out of this. Expect to get something you can live with. And that's really it. So even in in negotiating uh settlements, negotiating and mediation, negotiating and trying to put a deal together, understanding that the the relationships and the emotions and things tied into these things can get in the way of making the right deal. Get in the way of making the best deal possible. And in the cases of settlements, and that's I'm a firm believer, don't expect you're gonna come out of that with what you like, but can you live with it and then move on? And that's just another part of what we have to do as attorneys is explain that to clients, manage that expectation.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

Yeah, you have to um I guess um condition their expectations. And many times a lot of times a lawyer is playing playing a psychological game and helping people understand those kind of things. You gotta balance your perspective, make sure what we're getting is something you can live with. Maybe it's not that seven-figure number you wanted, it's probably not going to be. But if you can live with six figures, then let's do that. But we did get that seven-figure one last year. We did. So Langland's involvement with Baldwin, this is um sort of a segue. It's not really so much of a lesson in deal making, but it is certainly something that is a critical component of what we do with celebrities. And and in this case, she allowed her interest, let's say, in Baldwin, Baldwin. I always say never trust a man with two first names. But that was two last names, too. Or two last names, whatever it was. It doesn't matter. You know, that's just weird. But anyway, she had a relationship with him, and she allowed that to spill over into her professional contractual relationship with Pyle. Boyfriends, girlfriends, parents who want to pay for the legal fees and control their children's careers, or just pay for the support they've done over the last 20 years or so and expect something out of it. Brittany Spears and her parents, Lynn and Jamie, Drew and Jade Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Dinah, I mean, all of these examples that we all know, that we all see in the tabloids, all examples of young professionals whose lives were marred psychologically, financially, and in many other ways by some significant other. And you know, even in the best of circumstances, the this interaction between family members, the family dynamics, and professional lives can be incredibly complex.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

Very.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

And in many circumstances, that can break a family apart. And some of those examples I talked about, some of those people still don't speak to each other. And you overlay that with a stressful career in a competitive industry like the entertainment or music industry. You've got a recipe for disaster. I've got a number of examples of mom and jers and sugar daddies and overbearing spouses. I'm I'm sure you do as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

It's it's I would like to say that they're the anomaly, but they're they're really not. I mean, when you when these artists are starting out and performers are starting out so young, totally understandable why mom and dad are involved. The problem is mom and dad don't have expertise about the business. And they may actually even be really good business people, but they don't understand this particular business. It's got a lot of eccentricities and idiosyncrasies to it, that you just have to get in there and learn. Doesn't mean they can't develop to that, but they come into the to this whole thing thinking they can do it all and control it all and know it all. That's very, very rare. At the same time, you do have a few. I remember Barbara Mandrell's father managed her for decades. Her and all of her sisters. And all of her sisters, and obviously hugely successful in that regard. But I have experienced a few momagers, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

And when I was in management in particular, a few momaders, more so spouses, who Yeah, for every example of a Barbara Mandrell who and and the Mandrell sisters, whose father was a pretty competent and pretty pretty successful manager. You have an example of Reba and her husband, who they were successful, but that ultimately ended in their separation. So, you know, you can be successful and still wreck your marriage or wreck your your family relationships and all that.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:17

No, I will say spouses working together day in and day out is always an interesting dynamic if you're not prepared for it. I had a business many years ago, ran it for 13 years, a consulting business, and very, very small, and my wife was my office manager. And so that was fine, you know. However, people I had to laugh, I would joke with people sometimes to go, yeah, I love I love my little business what we're doing. Don't tell anybody, but I'm sleeping with my secretary, but uh or she would then smack me when I would say that out loud. As she should. Yes, she should. But but those dynamics are hard, and and especially if you get into high stress, high pressure situations, people get outside of their competence for the role that they're in, but they won't let go because they're the spouse or they're the parent or whatever. And and those are very difficult to manage through sometimes for sure. But you know, if a manager and a lawyer and an agent even are doing their jobs, they have to speak truth to those clients and say, this is why this isn't working. And andor, as I know, several manager friends of mine have had to say to spouses, I don't deal with you. I didn't sign you, I signed your husband or your wife. That's who I deal with. We had one of those, my last agency I was at, and I had to tell the husband, you came into the picture, first of all, after we had signed your wife, uh, you weren't even married at the time, uh, weren't even dating at the time that we signed her. You're not the manager. And if you're saying you're gonna step into a quasi-manager role, then you can take her with you because we're not gonna we don't do that here. We just can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:59

And he backed off. He understood that. He said, No, no, that's not really what I'm meant to do. I've got my own work. I said, Well, then you need to get out of our business, basically. Well, very nicely, of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:08

Yeah, sometimes that's the role of an attorney. I mean, there are laws that deal with this. Sometimes it gets so egregious that the law has to step in, like in the case of Jackie Coogan back in the early part of the 20th century. He was Uncle Fester on the Adams family, you'll probably recall. But but he started his career as a as a child star with with uh Charlie Chaplin in the film The Kid. In that case, his mother and stepfather were so overbearing and ridiculously egregious that they just wasted away all the multiple, probably millions of dollars that that kid earned. And by the time he was of age, the age of majority, he didn't have anything left. And so California ultimately passed what's sometimes now referred to as Coogan's Law that says when a child is an actor, you gotta register with the state and you gotta deposit 10% of of their revenues into a trust that you can't touch, that you can't do anything with. So the law does accommodate that. And Tennessee, of course, has a similar statute. But as an attorney, and in the context of deal making, uh sometimes it's incumbent upon us with our ethical obligations to explain to a parent who's sitting in the room with the child as you discuss their contract, this could be a conflict of interest. And it may get to the point where you actually have to have a waiver of conflict with them.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

It gets so bad. I will say I was such a fan of Uncle Fester that I decided to get the same haircut.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:43

I think that's the best line of the night.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

All right. So we're coming into our 1420s here in just a moment to leave you, but please, if you have questions or comments and you want to call us, the number is 833 DealMaker D-E-A-L-M-K-L or 833-D-E-A-L-M-K-R, or if you need the digits, 833-332-5657, and you can send questions to email us at questions at musicrowdealmakers.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:24

All right, Dennis, let's kind of sum up some of the deal the walkaway points as we always do. What what are some of the takeaways you think we should give us?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:34

Well, I think the the first one is to you have to identify obstacles and and put together a strategy around that. And we we that's sort of core to every deal that we put together, but if you don't understand the lay of the land, you don't know how to navigate it. So you have to understand what those obstacles are, you have to have a strategy on how to overcome any objections to those things, be ready to address each one individually. I mean, you can't just whitewash several at a time. You really have to to get in there and and deal with each one because if there are an obstacle, that means they're material to what you're trying to get done.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:16

Yeah, sometimes it's as simple as putting together a list of points that you think they're going to raise, right? And and um and going over that and understanding, like you say, the lay of the land, and then developing some way of overcoming those obstacles. I think that's a a great first point to to start. One of the points I think we could should take from this is always negotiate with the decision maker. There's uh several points in the story of Pyle and Langlin where where that came up, you know, they they sent back and wanted Pyle to come directly. A lot of times you are negotiating or we are negotiating with an intermediary. And in those situations, if I pick up on that, I say, well, you know, can I talk to the big G's, as it were, the person who can make the decision, right? In federal court, a lot of times they have pretrial meet mediations, and in those instances the judge will tell the parties, look, you gotta bring somebody to the mediation that can make a decision that day. And with a deal, you gotta do that.

unknown 1:18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:23

No, you do. The other another point is to understand the desires of all the parties in the negotiation.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:30

And oftentimes it's not money. Usually it's money, but it's not always money, as we know.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:36

Well, it's tied to money, but but you know, a record deal. Let's just take something as simple as that we deal with all the time. The artist is is wanting money, obviously. They want stardom, but it's more than that. Their desire is to reach people with their music. And sometimes it's hard to look at it that way when you get the money involved.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:00

Exactly, but then you have to educate them on defining that desire. I used to tell clients in management managers cannot give you the vision you have for your career. You have to bring that to the table. We can help you define it, we can help you refine it, but we can't give it to you. But then on top of that, you have to understand the terms you're asking for. I've got one client in particular, every time he had a new book deal come up, he would say, Well, I don't want any advances, I want to put that money into marketing. And I keep saying, dude, they don't do it, that's not the way it works. Just because they don't give you an advance, they'll tell you it is, but it I'm I've been at these companies, I've worked in these companies. The advance monies are really separate from the investment dollars they're supposed to bring to the table because your advance is fully recoupable. And in most deals now, for the last 10 years, even the marketing is recoupable, you know, and we can't get around that. Exactly. But but my point is know what you're talking about, understand the kind of saying he doesn't want the advance, he wants a bigger marketing commitment. Great, we will work on language for that. No company, or very few, will ever actually put a number in the contract. No, and I'm not sure I want them to, because if you say, hey, I need $500,000 in marketing promotion, that's all they're gonna spend. That's all they're gonna spend. Exactly. Yeah, that that doesn't become the floor, that's the ceiling.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:26

This is what I call a Google problem, Dennis, because you know, these days the clients may think they know their desires, like your client, but that's because they've been on the internet reading about these types of deals, right? And that that's where the one of my favorite coffee cups is don't mistake your Google search for my law degree. So I think we'll end on that note. Audience, I hope you had a great time. We certainly did.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:58

Music Row Dealmakers is a production of Trump Disney and Associates.