Dustin Heise 0:00

Right on. Larry, so good to get some time together today. Thanks so much for taking the time in this crazy world that we live in, a million miles a minute. But you know, we've been able to create some space together finally, and here we are. Today's guest is Larry Peters, Chief Revenue Officer at World of Dance and a longtime sport and entertainment executive who has spent more than 15 years building revenue, partnerships, and new markets across organizations connected to the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, and college athletics. Today he's helping shape how sport, entertainment, culture, and technology can bring people together on a global scale. Larry, we got some time together finally. How are we doing, man?

Larry Peters 0:40

Great. Dustin, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Dustin Heise 0:44

It's my pleasure. And you know, when we have you know senior leaders like yourself that can join and just share experience with listeners and those that, you know, we can all grow together, because you you've worked across MLB, NFL, NHL, MLS, and now college athletics as well. What have you learned about sport that's unique and its unique ability to bring completely different people together?

Larry Peters 1:06

Well, I think ultimately, more than anything else, sports creates a couple of things. First of all, it creates a shared identity with those individuals who are drawn towards it, right? It is a shared experience more than anything else. Fans have the ability over a very short period of time, and in that two or three hour window when they're with their team, that kind of breaks down between each other anything that separates them, right? At that moment, I am a fan of the Eagles, I'm a fan of the Bears, I'm whoever I'm a fan of. And next to me on either side, all that matters is you're with me in this, in this endeavor, right? In this in this experience, has nothing to do with your politics, your income, or anything else. I'd also say that sports have the ability to create an environment where fans not just take experience of watching and caring about their team, but they have a vested interest in them as well. More so now than ever, with all of the industry that wraps around the game itself, the podcast, the draft, the all of the content that drives around a team, literally you feel as though you're part of the experience, whether you're with the team as an employee or not. So you take a vested interest in what's happening, has the rare ability to not only have you as a fan, but you literally think you have input, you have an opportunity to create and support the outcome. So you're in the draft, you're you're you're watching the game, and I wear this because they score when I wear that. I can't go outside. Like everything is about you making a difference, and you don't have to be in the stands anymore to have that feeling. It's completely because of all the technology, it's everywhere around those teams. And it's really an interesting dynamic that takes place.

Dustin Heise 3:02

Yeah, I love that. And the ability that you'd mentioned and alluded to as far as like just that brand connection and the ability, like whether it's the league and the brand that the league is able to bring together, as well as the team that they support. I mean, everyone galvanizes through that. And it's it's so cool that you know, sport has that ability to unite. And now, you know, World of Dance also reaches massive global community across cultures and countries. You know, what does dance taught you that, you know, about building community without needing common language as well?

Larry Peters 3:32

Well, you know, it's interesting, you your background in is in um in kind of an action sports. I spent some time in action sports as well, early on, the early days of X Games. And what's really interesting about World of Dance and that action sports type community, lifestyle sports, I was an outsider to both, right? I I have no dance background, I have no action sports background, my background is much more traditional, football in particular. But there's a community around the competition. So in the traditional sports where I come from, although they're nowadays more than ever, there's a NFL is is a bit of a brotherhood. There's the NFL PA, they're in business together, even though they're on separate teams, quarterbacks and everything alike. Back then there wasn't that case. It's still, I'm gonna take your head off and I'm gonna pound you into the ground to win. What I really found interesting about action sports first, but now in world of dance, there's competition, but there is this experience of their competitors that are doing things to elevate the sport, right? They're going higher, they're doing, they're doing tricks. Dance is there's been an evolution in dance that has gone from I find a piece of music, World of Dance has been around for almost 20 years. I find a piece of music and I dance to that music, and that's my expression of my both in competition and how I feel, to where they're almost with AI creating sounds as much as music, and you're watching these young people elevate the competition by elevating the way in which they're performing, and you see it almost a camaraderie and competition at the same time. And I said the first time I experienced that was in action sports. So you watch the competitors on the half pipe, they were competing against this guy, but they were blown away with what he was doing, and then you see them all trying to emulate it because one guy elevates or one person, guy, female elevates the sport, dances the same way.

Dustin Heise 5:42

I love that analogy. I love hearing that the dance community, which doesn't surprise me whatsoever because there's that creative and there's that artistic component, the athleticism that's built within it. But because you want to see the best of your sport come to life, or your best of your creative art dance come to life, you want to see others to be at their best. Do you want to win at some level? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But you want to do that because you've elevated to be able to be the best on that given day, but you wanted everyone else to also be at their best and keep taking it to the next level so that the world can see the beauty of what you're doing. I love that, Larry. Thank you for sharing that.

Larry Peters 6:21

What's really interesting too, even going back to your first question, one of the biggest changes I've experienced in what I do from a revenue standpoint is helping explain that to brands. That's how how do you want to be a part of the experience as opposed to a logo hanging on a on a on a billboard or in the stadium? One of the biggest challenges or one of the most interesting components to World of Dance, for instance, and there is some of this years ago with action sports as well. Most live events, you have the you have the artist, you know, the the room fives on stage and 20,000 people are watching, right? You have the team on and then 75,000 people watching. What's unique about World of Dance in that environment is a majority of the audience is other competitors, right? When you're talking about our World Summit, you've got 20,000. The number of fans are mostly support family friends, which is a very, very small percentage. So what we talk to brands about is it's imperative that you be a part of the experience. Your makeup brands, you're in the back room getting these guys ready for to compete. Your shoe brand and your shoes are literally being worn in the event itself. You're part of the event as opposed to being a fan, a spectator and playing towards the audience. And brands are finding that that even in traditional sports, if I'm not engaging with fans on the experiential level, I'm not really taking advantage of all of that dynamic that's going on in the environment. It's more than impressions, it's now come down to engagement.

Dustin Heise 8:09

And I think that the way that you've built that narrative as well and shared the story, they're seeing it in real time when they see the friends, family, and then the artist and the athlete uh performing with it in real time. And then everybody's still able to engage with it. I I love that the way that you're building that narrative into it and even sharing that. You know, of all the deals of partnerships and opportunities that you've been part of, you know, what's the defining moment that changed the direction of your career, Larry?

Larry Peters 8:39

It's a great question. I don't know if there's one defining moment. I think it's been an evolution of how I've approached this business from the start. I'm very heavily drawn towards what's emerging, right? Much to the chagrin of my wife. I think it'd be easier to be at a big place being a transactional guy, but I'm much more drawn towards. When I was started at Live Nation, it was really SFX, and music was not a known quantity back then. Most brands who uh SFX was a new idea at the time. It was taking all of the local promoters, Delsner, Slater and Electric Factory, and Bill Graham, and bundling them all up into a big, almost like a sports platform and property. So we were had to kind of tell a story and educate the community, the brand community on what the value proposition was. Same thing with the X game, same things with MMA, World of Dance, even though it's been around for a long time, they've not really built a brand consumer identity. So, what is the what is the dance environment for a brand? So, in defining my career, I'm continually drawn towards those early days and drawn towards those opportunities. And that's continued to define how I kind of maneuver through my entire career. I've spent some time at Learfield, which is the big boy of college sports, and did that sometime there, but still tried to find drive new markets into that location. I've done a couple of deployments at Live Nation, the most recently when when they were well established, and again, same thing, kind of broke out into a multicultural direction for them as well. So when you think about it's not a single moment, it's kind of been a single mentality for how I've kind of gone through the world.

Dustin Heise 10:35

And as you've as you've continued to work with each of these entities, these sport properties, these dance properties, you know, what separates a partnership that's genuinely strengthens a sport community from one that just simply puts a logo on the front of the people or the jersey, so to say.

Larry Peters 10:51

Well, I think it's how we approach things now. I think part of it is that brands have learned that that really doesn't work anymore. We've we spent some time, you know, having to educate them about that. But most brands understand now that if I'm not engaging with my consumer, the logo isn't going to do as much. I also say this technology has been for you know, one of the through lines of my career also has been technology companies started to approach me about helping them get into sports, right? Tap it, which is a pay system through the team app. We had a uh facial recognition technology I worked with at one point as well. So all those had implications from a technology standpoint that would benefit the team in terms of data, in terms of speeding through the processing line, the concessionaire business, helping them raise their revenue that way. But they all opened up really closely engaged brand opportunities as well. So logos don't have as much value as consumer engagement does. This new brand company I'm working with is called Stadium, and they're building an entire infrastructure around data and being able to not only collect and engage with brand as consumers while they're at these events, but create an intent element around those brands, around those consumers after the event, which gives you brands a way in which they can communicate with those consumers based on their consumer interests. So technology has had a huge impact on changing that whole mindset of I'm gonna hang a sign where I'm gonna engage with consumers.

Dustin Heise 12:43

I love that. I mean, you've helped companies enter new markets throughout your entire career. But what would you say is the biggest risk that you've taken, you know, and that has now led you to the leader that you are today?

Larry Peters 12:54

I think it goes back to what I was saying before. Everything I've done feels from the outside risky, although it's kind of what's drawn me in my career, right? Working with startups are an interesting challenge because you have to do more than just the you know, sales is time on task, right? Sales is a process for the most part. It's building a cadence throughout the week with you, yourself, or your team that kind of drives the to the to the meeting. If there's an arc, you know, you're prospecting and you're researching and you're kind of building towards closing. But more than that, when you're with startups, the risk is you gotta tell a story. And you gotta tell a story in just so much time because you're you're working with investors' money or you're putting out you're putting out the front end to get to the back end. So the risk, the greatest risk I've ever worked with is going in, and how quickly can I understand what the property is, what the assets are, what's the story I'm telling the market, and how much time do I have to do it? That's always the question I ask. How much time do we have?

Dustin Heise 14:14

Larry, well well put. That's a great system, by the way. Just like and how fast your brain knows how to answer those questions because the consumer or the client or the investor, they're all asking for that in in as quickly as possible. And the way that you're able to be responsive is it's clear you're you're a master at your craft. Now, when you think about you know looking ahead, you know, in one year's time, what is a defining moment or where do you see yourself in one year's time? What do you hope to have achieved and and being able to look back on in one year's time? I'm gonna ask you the same sort of time horizon in five years' time of you know what what's the difference you want to make and where do you want to have the biggest movement over one year and then five years as you look ahead?

Larry Peters 15:02

So for in the one year, there's really two, there's really two. World of Dance has launched a new spin-off and associated with World of Dance called Dance First. Okay. It really is a novel, a novel, you know, what makes music and dance so incredible is it draws so much social media, so much audience. But for the standpoint of World of Dance as a as a business, the music really is controlled by the label. So while they have the video rights, they don't have the audio rights. So there's a kind of a disconnect between that song that put out 100 million views, and really, can they monetize that? And that's not just them, that's the dancers themselves. So they've created this dance verse, which will start to kind of break that, start to build their own music library, build their own connection. They've got the mu they've got the the dancers all over the world, build a whole music ecosystem. I'm helping them with their investors. That would be a year from now to have them fully vested the way they need to be, and help them have that build out. They've so they've launched beta, and we're trying to get them set up for the future. And on the same side, Stadium, which I just got to this in the last month, helping them, first of all, build out their entire data strategy, which which we've already got started over the next year and drive that revenue from that standpoint and set them up to have their assets start to drive revenue against it. There's these is a three-year deal with these schools. In year one, I want to set the floor and then start to build from there.

Dustin Heise 16:46

Awesome, man. And in five years' time, where do you see these guys? Where do you see Larry Peters most importantly?

Larry Peters 16:53

Exit, maybe? Or that's your thing. You betcha, man. I want to get the I love these people in both in both camps. I want to see them, me, have built this thing so I can look back and they are done, done. They are they are well established, so they're the best at what they do, and they're they're funded fully to do everything that they, you know, to do it at a times level.

Dustin Heise 17:18

Love that. And I know that they'll have an impact on so many people through the craft that, again, you're a big part of, but also the the impact that they can have on people's lives through dance, through athletics, and you know what sport is able to connect everybody towards. Larry, you're awesome, man. Thanks for taking some time today.

Larry Peters 17:36

I really appreciate it, Dustin. This was fun. You as well. Thank you.