Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Well, hi everybody, it's Simon Halliday here. Welcome to the latest edition of Haller's playbook. And as we approach the latter part of this sporting year and we look towards the autumn internationals because you've had a sensational rugby championship and now the likes of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina coming our way to take themselves against the Northern hemisphere. So that is super exciting.
We've also just had a massive meeting in London to discuss how to build on the success of the rugby Women's World Cup. So hundreds of delegates coming because you've got to build on this stuff because it was such an incredible event. So as ever, plenty going on. We're actually here in the offices of Mass Group and I'd like to say thank you to massgroup for supporting this podcast, Multi Asset Solutions.
Trading across foreign exchange gold. Anyone notice where gold is going at the moment? And silver, so plenty of activity in the markets. Digital assets, which are increasingly common in people's investment parlance and fund strategies. So thank you to Mass Group.
We're also talking the day after a very comprehensive win at Wembley by the LA Rams against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who were, I think, favourites, but they certainly didn't look like it from the off. And incredible opportunity for us also to meet with and talk to my guest today, Drew Bledsoe. Hi, Drew. Who basically helped the New England Patriots come from a very disadvantageous place some years ago, created a huge franchise and performance and then following that, Buffalo Bills and Dallas Cowboys, but first time here, debut appearance at Wembley, obviously the home of football, but for yesterday, the home of NFL. And Drew, first of all, welcome to London.
Secondly, how was it being watching NFL?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: It was fantastic. Unfortunately it wasn't a very competitive game.
And by the way, I love the way that you say Jaguars. Like it just sounds so elegant.
In the US It's Jaguars.
It just doesn't sound as cool. So you make it sound sound much cooler. But obviously being at a such a famous venue like Wembley and watching some NFL football was great. I just wish it had been a little more competitive game.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: And so when you watch something like that, given the history that you've got in the game, which is pretty legendary, I mean, do you focus in on the quarterbacks, which is where you primarily played, or is it you look at the whole game and just take a view on it.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: I really enjoyed being up high and being able to see the whole field because when you watch on tv you get to see a lot of the quarterback and you get to see the ball thrown and the ball caught, but you don't get to see everything unfold, you know, which is probably, I would imagine is similar for you, you know, watching, watching rugby where, you know, you just get to see the ball without seeing how everything's unfolding. So I really enjoyed being at games and you know, really seeing what's going on and seeing the whole field. And we were, you know, we were a little bit busy yesterday because we're drinking wine, but.
Which is hard work.
But yeah, when we did sit down and watch the game, I really enjoyed being up on being able to see it.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Well, we will come on to the fact that you're now very much in the wine industry and one of those special moments at Wembley was for people watching NFL to be drinking NFL wines. And this is sort of how the narrative builds and we're going to come on to that. But just, just before we do, for those NFL watchers and supporters of the two quarterbacks, what would you, how would you say that? I mean, obviously one of them seemed to have the, the rule of the place and so scored all the touchdowns. But I mean, do you see talent there and from your.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You know, and that was one of the reasons I like to sit up high and watch because I can see what's unfolding. And yesterday Matt, Matt Stafford obviously, obviously played very, very well.
But Trevor Lawrence, you know, sitting up high, you know, he actually played well with what he was presented with. He just didn't have guys open and he had guys in his lap all the time. Where, where the Rams seemed to, game plan wise they were, their play action passing game was, was, was firing and they had, they had guys open. Matt had some time to throw the ball well.
But you know, Trevor, Trevor Lawrence with the Jags, he just didn't have much to work with yesterday. It seems like the, the Rams had them locked down defensively and, and you know, we all like to, as quarterbacks, you know, we, we accept all the praise and we take all the blame. Uh, but when you sit up high, you can see what the guy was actually dealing with, you know. So I'm sure Trevor doesn't feel like he played very well, but I'm watching it and like, yeah, actually with what he was presented with, he did, he did just fine.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: It's funny in the, in the rugby world, of course, you know, you get caught in possession as a center three quarter, I was always, not always judged, but you know, do you get caught in possession? Can you get the ball away? Do you make good decisions? And of Course, when you see a quarterback being sacked all the time, you assume they're doing something wrong. But it could be that these big guys are coming at you and you can't really see the pitch because all you've got is a face full of linebackers.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. When you have these 300 plus pound guys, you know, trying to rip your head off while you're trying to do something accurately and with precision, it's complicated. And what happens when you have, when you have a lot of pressure on you? What, what happens is you have to make decisions faster and sometimes you have to make decisions on where you're going to throw the ball before the guy is actually open. So you're like, oh, this guy's coming. I got to get rid of it. So I'm going to throw it to where he's supposed to be. I hope he ends up there, you know, and so there it becomes a little bit of a guessing game when you don't have much time for sure.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: And I think the.
I want to move on and talk about the wine in a second, but just before we do that, I reminisce for the fact that when I was playing for England, you know, as we were moving into our most successful era, which, so we had two, you know, back to back grand slams, which means beating everyone in a particular season. And. But the night before our big games, we always tuned into the crunch. Course, you probably never heard of that. I never have a collection of hits from NFL.
And it wasn't just the fridge because obviously, you know, he was, he was notorious. But Lawrence Taylor and others. And so we, we literally watched this and it almost like got us going for the big day when we saw how hard you really can be hit was it gave us a kind of a sense of, okay, we're getting into something super physical here. So NFL in those days was, was very popular. I mean, it's obviously grown hugely.
They had NFL in Ireland, it's going to Australia, it's in Ger, you know, so the, the globalization of NFL is happening and that makes this even more connected. So I, I wanted you, you when you finished playing and we'll go back to your playing career and go down memory lane a bit. But you moved into the wine industry and obviously that's partly why you're here. Or you could say the whole of why you're here. So double back Wines from Walla Walla Valley. I mean, what a sensational story it's been. Give us a sense of your, your NFL career is coming to A close.
And then you think wind.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it actually started earlier than that, Simon. You know. You know, I watched, and you've witnessed this with people that you played with or people that you know of. You know, it's a really hard transition when you. When you're an athlete. And then, you know, I played for 14 years, so I got to play for a long time, but I was still only 35 years old. And looking at the rest of life and some of the horror stories that you hear about guys going bankrupt or getting deep into drugs and alcohol or divorce and, you know, all these things, when I looked at that, I was scared.
I was nervous about, okay, what's the rest of life look like? Am I going to screw this up? And the guys that are. The people that I looked at that were successful at that transition, they had something else to apply themselves to. They have something else to do.
And thankfully, Mara and I, we had this passion for wine, started collecting wines from all over the world, and it was very intriguing to me, and, I think to both of us.
And coincidentally, my little hometown, which, by the way, sounds Australian. Walla Walla. Right. And it doesn't sound. It sounds Australian. Right. It could be. It could be an outback or something. I don't know. But the.
But it's actually not.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: There's lots of space there, isn't there? Which is.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: There is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But it's.
But it's actually not Australian. It's. It's a Native American name, meaning two waters. But it was the place that I grew up, and that's where I was raised, where I went to high school.
And it turns out that my little hometown was making some of our favorite wines in the world, and we were buying fancy, expensive wines from all over the world, including Australia. Big, big Australian wine fans.
But we would do blind tastings at the house with our friends. We put them all in paper bags with Napa and Bordeaux and Australia and even Argentina. And we would line them all up. Well, I would put something from Walla Walla into this blind tasting against these very expensive, famous wines. And every time we did that, we would vote, and the Walla Walla wine would win.
And so for me, it was like, wow, okay, we like wine. I need something to do. My hometown is actually kicking ass, making great wine.
It became sort of an obvious choice to go back home and start a wine business in my hometown.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: And that. That decision, because, I guess you explained that really well. But the. For many, many people in the sporting world, and, you know, I'M sure NFL would be that different to any other global sport.
Not everyone is so well prepared, are they? Or are there? I mean, just give an insight. You know, we're all focused on how we prepare people for life after sport.
In the US does that happen?
[00:10:05] Speaker A: It's getting better.
You know, in that era that I was playing, there were not a lot of resources. You know, for athletes, I think it's gotten a lot better in recent years where they're starting to prepare guys for the next phase of life and starting to understand that, hey, this is a really finite period of time.
And of course, when we're in the middle of it, we're 10ft tall and bulletproof. Right? But it's never going to end.
And for almost everybody, it ends before you think it's going to end.
And so I think it's gotten a lot better in recent years. There's still room for growth in preparing guys for what's next, but it's a really hard transition. You start out when you're young, in whatever town you grew up in. You're sort of God's gift to everybody because you're a great athlete. And then you go to college and that adulation grows, and then you go to the pros, and now you have all that, plus money and this very seductive lifestyle where everything is at your beck and call. You also have a very tight schedule. You're told where to be, what to eat, you know, what to do on a regular basis. And when that ends, it all ends, and it ends very suddenly and usually before you're ready for it. And the schedule goes away, the money stops, all that fame and adulation goes away. And there, you know, it's. It's. To me, it's. It's something that's a sort of a psychological examination that should be done and treated more seriously.
Too often, what we get to see are the cr. Are the. Are the car crashes we have to see.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Earlier.
And it's also when people look at it from the outside, you know, nobody's going to feel sorry for us. You know, we got paid to play a game, which is such a blessing, and, and nobody should feel sorry for us. But it's also something that, you know, there's some real psychology behind why people fail when they make that transition. It's. It's not a simple thing.
So, you know, back to my own story.
That's what I was concerned about. I didn't want to screw up the next phase, and so we really wanted something to dive into to keep that competitive juice flowing, keep your brain working and have something to apply all that passion and work ethic and discipline and so on, that was required to be a quarterback. I had a place to put those energies.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: So when you feed all that passion into the wines and the Walla Walla wine is winning the blind tasting, and obviously it's a region that's. That's well known for wine, that whole strip leading all the way down. I mean, so you've got that going for you, but how do you. At what point do you realize, because you're making some of the best wines in the world now, you know, that's not to say anything other than decanter have already said, and Oz Clark and others have already said, so at what point? And I want a passion going in there. I've got something here. This is. It's the region's great, but. But you're doing something else, aren't you, to elevate it even more?
[00:13:04] Speaker A: So, yeah, you know, it's the region's great. We're blessed with great soil, great, great weather.
So we've got that piece.
But then it becomes. And this is where it starts to go back into tying into sport.
Then it becomes, okay, what kind of team can we put together around us? You know, how do we build that out? So how do we. How do we. How do we put together the right team and then grow the right culture within our company, you know, grow a culture of excellence so that everything that we do is done at the highest level. And we try to be best in class at everything that we do. And that ties straight back into my experience in the NFL, because in the NFL, most of the games are very, very close.
I forget the percentages, but it's something like 70, 75% of the games in the NFL season will be within one score, right? And so when you look at that, if you don't execute every piece of it with great precision, you know, then you're going to get beat. And so you take that into the wine industry.
You know, the separation between, you know, the elevated place where we are, which is, you know, pretty rarefied air in terms of our wine quality.
The difference between producing those wines and producing, you know, just merely good wine comes down to the smallest of details. And how you farm, how you manage your fermentation process, what barrels you use, you know, what, you know, other aging techniques you use, and then blending trials and all of that, it comes down to these very minute details. And those minute details add up over time to Produce something truly great.
But if you miss a step in between, you know, if you're not diligent about cleaning your wineries, you know, you get Britannomyces into your, into your, into your winery. If you're not, if you're not diligent about every piece of it, then all of a sudden you become a second tier wine. And we, we're never playing for a second. You know, I've never, I've never.
Was it.
Yeah. Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights, you know that. You know this movie about nascar?
I don't, but if you're not first, you're last is the quote. That was, that was his dad, his dad pointed out, if you're not first, you're last and said, which is you.
We're, you know, we're really trying to be best in class at everything that we do from beginning to end. And in order to do that, you have to have a team that buys into that whole thing and you have to have a culture of championship, championship level culture in your company in order to take, you know, these blessings that we have and turn them into truly great wine.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: It's a, it's a great analogy because when you think about, and any elite sports person for sure will tell you that it's what they do at the detail level and how, that, how much they practice. And it doesn't just happen when you go onto a field of play, it doesn't just happen that you are a great business because you've got to get the detail right and it's the attention to detail and then that team spirit that brings it all together and actually puts it up to the top. And those analogies are huge. But then you've still got to persuade people. I remember you saying previous time that they kind of look at me and obviously I've brought the whole concept of sport and wine through, through an organization. But the people still question you, don't they go, yeah, okay, so, but you're an NFL legend. So wine, I mean, is it. Yeah, there's a component, seriously?
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a component of it that like, okay, this is, you know, some dumb jock, what the hell does he know about wine? Which you know, honestly, especially at the beginning was, was kind of accurate. You know, I knew that I liked wine and I knew that my hometown was making kick ass wines, but the, the, the amount of information that I didn't know was you could fill a library with and in many cases I didn't even know what I didn't know, didn't Even know what I was supposed to learn. But thankfully, I was able to surround myself with. With great people that did know.
And then I've learned over time a lot, A lot. But, you know, wine, you can never. You can never know it all.
But there was a component when we got into it of people not taking athlete wines seriously.
And in many cases, with good reason, because there were a lot of quote, unquote, athlete wines that existed that were merely kind of endorsement deals, if you will, you know, where you just lend your name to a bottle of wine to try to sell some wine.
And in many cases, you know, these.
These projects weren't serious. I think that's changed. I think there are a lot more. And you know this, you know better than anybody. There are a lot of athletes now that are very serious about actually making real wine.
But that wasn't necessarily the case in the 90s.
And so when we came out, we didn't immediately put Bledsoe on the front of the bottle.
And partly because, you know, I like wine, and we were collecting wines, and when I saw an athlete wine, it wasn't something that I pursued to put in my cellar.
So when we launched, the first wine that we made and released was called Double Back.
And the reason we called it Double Back is not a football term. People have asked that in the past. Is Double Back. Is it a football tournament? No, it's not a football term.
Was because I grew up in Walla Walla, I got to go live out my childhood dream and play in the NFL. And then it doubled back and came back home. So it's about returning home.
And then it was very important to us that this project be truly authentic. This is a real project. So Mara and I got out with our. With our four kids back in 2007. We actually put vines in the ground with our own hands.
We had a crew of true professionals that did most of the planting. But there are three or four rows that we put in the ground with our own hands. We started with a bare piece of dirt with the idea that eventually this would become an estate vineyard. That would be the foundation of our business. And that's really what it has become. From there, it's grown. We have three different wineries now. We have 400 acres of property and over 200 of those acres planted.
And so it's really grown and changed in ways that we wouldn't have envisioned back then. But it was important to us at the very beginning that our entire business is fundamentally based on the wine, on what's inside. The bottle, not on what's on the outside of the bottle. We really wanted it to be about the juice first.
And that still is foundational in everything we do. If the wine quality is not there, then, you know, then. Then we failed. And so we focus on the quality of what we do. Very first and foremost.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: It's. It's fascinating because I, I, when I got into wine, because I knew very little about it, but I said, but there's lots of people that do, so I'll just, I'll feed off them. But. But those two strap lines, which we brought in because everyone accused it of being very gimmicky. And I said, listen for us, authenticity. So. So our strap line is to have an authentic connection to sport for any of the wines that we stock. And secondly, the wines have to be made and bottled on the estate. That's in the. That's in the written piece. Because we were also. I was very worried about the fact that people would say, well, you've just got some wine from around the corner and stuck someone's face on it and sort of said, it's sporting wine. So I think, you know, it's incredibly important that. And you've just, you've just emphasized that. So obviously I've done a bit of research on you, Drew, and I'm scared. Obviously it was obvious you were going to be a quarterback because you won discus championships and all such.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: So clearly you knew you had. You had a strong throwing arm. Now, I'm not going to make those connections necessarily, but as you decide, it's NFL and it's. You talked about living out your dream.
So as a young man, you pitch up and to anyone listening to this when you know they have an ambition, aspiration to get to the top of their sport or anything, actually. But let's, let's keep it at sport.
It's scary. You go into something and you don't know whether you're good enough, and you think you might be. There's a confidence thing or perhaps you're super confident or what was. Just take us back down memory lane a bit. Say right here. I was at that age, and particularly as you went through the college process, obviously.
So do tell us about that. But as you pitch up at New England Patriots, who've been a significant underperformer for a long time, so give us an insight as to what you're thinking and what help you had along the way. That's the other thing, that no one gets the top on their own. Do they get a lot of help?
[00:21:31] Speaker A: No. Well, first of all, I'll go back a little bit farther. If you've. If you'd seen me when I was, you know, 13, 14, 15 years old and. And somebody said, that's going to be an NFL football player, you would have laughed. You know, I was tall, I was skinny. I had big feet, big hands, kind of clumsy, you know, big head, you know, just like. I just. It was not. It was not. That was not the guy that. That anybody was going to point to. And so that's obviously a professional athlete. They're like, no, that's. That's definitely not. It looks like a, you know, baby deer trying to run around.
And so. But as I grew and started to figure out where all my limbs were and. And.
And then turns out I could throw it pretty good, you know, started to. To get some recognition and. And then went off to.
To Washington State. But still not. No. I was from a very small town, and all of a sudden, you know, I go up to the next level, you know, and I had a sense that I was. That I was decent, but I didn't know how I was going to. You know, all of a sudden, everybody's good, right?
But then my freshman year, partway through my first year of college, got tabbed to be the starter halfway through that season, and at the end of that season, there was one of the draft gurus that projects into the future at the end of my first season said, this guy's going to be the number one draft pick in two years.
And turns out he was right. You know, so. But, you know, you don't know until, you know, you know, I had. I had, you know, a good level of confidence, but at the same time, I was 18 at the time. This guy says, I'm going to be a number one draft pick, and then.
And then had enough success that I was drafted number one overall.
And for those that don't know the NFL when they have the draft, the first draft pick goes to the worst team from the year before.
And so when you're.
It's a. It's a blessing and a curse, you know, you're like, oh, great, I'm the first. First pick, which means I'm going to the worst team. And the Patriots have been pretty bad for quite a few years.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: And that's a franchise. That's. That's kind of what happens in franchises. Yeah, they gotta level it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: And they. Yeah. And they were. They were kind of historically awful. They just hadn't had any success for for many years. And I was fortunate to be around some.
Some young teams that had some young and hungry guys. But we were. Man, we were. You know, you see some of the cathedrals that they have these days for. For training and for. For playing. We were not that. We. We were the. We are. This is. This is. True story. So I'm in the NFL. I'm at the very pinnacle of football.
And when I was there for practice, we would get dressed in all of our pads and all of our stuff. We would get in our cars, we would drive five miles to an abandoned mental hospital, and that's where our practice fields were. I mean, this was not. This was not. You know, I'm like, hey, I'm in the NFL. Like, these are high school facilities. You know, it rained in our training room. If I did a long press conference after a game, I would have to take a cold shower. I mean, this was not what it was now, but we really embraced with those. We embraced that underdog mentality when we were there, we were like. We were. Nobody took us serious. Our facilities were terrible. You know, it was all of that, and we really embraced that underdog mentality. And my second year, we made it to the playoffs, and my fourth year, we made it to the Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, we ran into the packers, and they were. They were better than we were. And we didn't win that first super bowl, but. But we really did turn the corner to becoming a successful franchise. And then obviously, you know, beyond that, they went on to become, you know, the greatest dynasty in NFL after that. So, unfortunately, the other guy was playing quarterback when they were winning all those championships. But. But I know that. That we. The teams that I was on, we built the foundation for that, and so we still take a lot of pride in that.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: And I think, you know, the. The story is often about who built the building blocks, and it's not always.
And that is just a fact of life, isn't it? Across sport and anything else that. But the. I would say the people that know.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's the people that. Yeah, the people that know, they know. I always ask people, when they say they're a Patriots fan, I say, okay, since when? Because if it's after 2001, then you're not a real Patriots fan because you didn't have to live through the pain and agony that. That the. The old, old fans did. So you really deserve it. And that.
But it was. Man, it was a. It was a great ride. I mean, I loved every minute of it, and I even really while I was in it and even more after I was done, really look back with fondness on the hard times because you're going through something that's extremely difficult with millions of people watching and caring what you're doing.
And when it's hard, you have a bad player to, or a bad game or two or whatever, can you fight through that? Do you have the mental strength and the emotional strength to fight through a hard time and get to the other side? And just really took a lot of pride in embracing that challenge.
And again, that's informative to business.
You know, I don't know anybody in the business world who's had complete smooth sailing. You know, maybe you, I don't know. But, but, but, but I bet it. But if you are, if you invest in, if you are, if you're, if your business life was complete smooth sailing, then you're the only one I've ever met.
And we have a mantra at our company. We embrace adversity.
We, you know, not to the point where we try to screw up on purpose, but every time we've been faced with adversity, we've come out the other side as a better company.
And, you know, so it's, it's. We. Anytime something goes wrong, we look at that as a great opportunity. And that comes straight from sports as well. You know, when you, when you're, when you're in sports, sometimes it's really difficult to improve on success if you're winning.
There's a natural tendency to just rest on your laurels a little bit and to, well, we did that last week, so it's obviously going to work again this next week.
When you fail, it hits you in the face. And that's, and that's easier to improve when you, when you have that adversity. So, you know, we've really learned to embrace those times.
And each time we've done that, you know, the interesting thing that we've discovered, and I don't know if you would see this exactly the same way, but adversity never comes by itself.
Adversity always brings friends.
And for some reason, for us, the law of three has been universal. Anytime there's something that goes wrong, there's going to be two more with it.
So we know this. And so we, you know, actually just happened recently. We lost one of our key employees, and we're like, oh, shoot, okay, what's coming next? And sure enough, we lost two more. And so we lost three employees in a period of about two months that were key to us but again, that's forcing us to rethink how our company is formed in our org chart. And it's also allowed room for growth from within where people can rise up to a new challenge. And so that adversity, we're in the process of using that adversity to reform our company a little bit and be a better company coming out the other side.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: Oh, that's fascinating. And I wonder whether you would have that strap plan if you hadn't been in the world of sports. Embrace diverse adversity is something you've taken into your business and people talk about adversity and resilience etc and I guess you've got many types, but you've got the performance side which you reference. So when things don't quite go, it's no straight line and you need to almost embrace defeat sometimes and use the pain to do better and et cetera. And certainly, you know, we've all been through that undoubtedly. But then you've also got sort of personal resilience that you need to have because you're in a contact sport and you know, you, you've had your fair share of injuries, you know, one or two particular ones. But is it the.
When you're, because you're one injury away from never playing again potentially, or you're being deselected or something is. So how would you compartmentalize those two things? That performance resilience, where you've got to say we've lost that game, we're going to rebuild and come back and then your own scenario where you get hurt, you get bad press, whatever happens to be, you've got to put yourself in a mindset of I'm going to get through this.
And you need help too, don't you? You can't just do it yourself.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, one of the benefits honestly of being an athlete and particularly being a high level athlete is that your successes and failures are right there for everybody to see. There's no hiding, right. And so you learn fairly quickly.
You know, number one, if you succeed, it's not about you. If you succeed, you know, that's about your team and that's. And you share that glory. But you also learn, you know, very quickly and very directly that if you screw up, you own it.
You don't hide from it, you just, Yep, I screwed up. I'm going to be better next time. And I think that there's, I'm going to sound like an old man now when I talk about the, the, the younger set coming up. But some there's there's, there's some cultural things that we're seeing, particularly in the US of you know, participation trophies, you know, where, you know, you show up and you get a blue ribbon for showing up.
That's not the way the world works. And it's certainly not the way the world works in sports. You go out there, there's a scoreboard. Did you win? Did you lose? You know, and then you go back and watch the video. Did I perform well? What did I screw up? And you own those mistakes.
And that really is formative in our company. We have very high performing people.
But when there's a mistake, you step up, you own the mistake and you get better.
And if you repeat the same mistake over and over again, you're no longer part of the team. Right. You know, I mean, it's, it's, it, it's. We have a very clearly defined mission statement. We have a very, very clearly defined set of morals and values within our company. That really makes it easy for us to determine, you know, who's on the team and who's not. And by defining that culture and making that, you know, making that something that we all look at and live and talk about on a daily basis makes it pretty clear, you know, who's part of the team and who's not.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: And when you going back to the, the world of NFL. So as you had a long career, 14 years or so, and then as did you end it on your terms.
That's the other thing for sports people. You know, I remember I had that scenario of I was suffering longer term injuries, et cetera. And I was, I was a bit worried that I'd get the tap on the shoulder saying you're not good enough anymore. And you know, how do you ever finish things on your own terms?
A lot of sporting people talk about that they want to finish when they, because you're a long time retired.
So we've got rugby players playing on now till the mid to late 30s because they're fit enough and they can and you get to know when it's time.
Do you think sports people do that?
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Well, no, I would say in general people don't do that. Well, you know, for most, I would say probably 99% of athletes, it ends before they want it to end, it ends now. I, it didn't end entirely perfectly, but I, but I had opportunities to continue playing and I got to choose to retire, which puts me in that very small 1% where you have to choose to walk away. Yeah, Part of the reason I Left.
Honestly, Simon, there were a couple reasons, but number one, actually, our kids were getting to an age where we wanted to be in one place, and I actually did want to be present with them. I got to coach their teams and got to coach high school football, got to coach youth football, got to be around and be present in their lives, which I would never trade that for anything in the world.
But I was also ready to go on to the next thing. And we had started.
We already owned a piece of land, we had planted a vineyard, and I wanted to go see if we could have success in a completely different arena that wasn't based on my right arm.
And so I was really excited to move on to the next thing.
So when I retired, I say it was more of a graduation.
And when graduation is not the finish, it's this next step into a new thing. And so I graduated from the NFL and then went on to the next thing. And I was really excited to, to embrace that new challenge and see if we could, if we could, you know, if we could do something else successfully.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: So, Drew, we've mentioned the word franchise a few times, which obviously NFL is, and that's a huge topic over here in England right now, because it's no secret that rugby is struggling to globalize and there's been some high profile bankruptcies and financial pressures, and they feel franchising will.
Will make things better.
The question I've got for you on franchise, other than anything else you might want to say about it, is in your mind, does that stunt aspiration because it closes off opportunities for other.
You know, America's a big country, you know, and you've got cities that probably aspire to be something in NFL.
How does that work? Can you still aspire to the top if you're not part of that embedded franchise?
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Or, you know, are you talking specifically with the NFL?
So specifically with the NFL, I mean, it's highly competitive and each of these teams is their own franchise.
And our system there is actually set up, I think, in a pretty fair way, where it's not tiered like you have maybe in English football or in European football, there's revenue share across the teams. So your small market team still has essentially the same dollars, at least from tv, which is where the biggest dollars are. As like the Dallas Cowboys, for example, that everybody knows.
And within that there are other revenue streams that some of the teams can maximize. But you know, when you look at the, at the NFL, I think what they've done is they've allowed even these small market Teams to at least have a fighting chance to really, truly be competitive. And it's created a good system where each of these teams in each of these cities, they are aspirational, they do want to rise to the top, and they can, you know, it's, it's possible, you know, you're not, you know, stuck in a small market with no money. You can be really competitive across it.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: And it's through performance or through application, through, you know, become very successful on field and that's enough. With some help or.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, so the, the financial performance of the teams, like you can, you know, you can lose and still make a lot of money. As an NFL owner, you know, you don't have to pay out the big signing bonuses. You don't, you know, but you also are required to spend a certain amount of the revenue that comes in. I think it's two thirds of the revenue that comes in is required to go out to, to pay your players.
So you can't just come in and lose on purpose and never pay anybody and get away with it. You actually have to spend the money as an owner.
And it's created an environment, honestly, where, you know, the worst team in the NFL on any given Sunday, as they say, can beat the best team in the NFL. You know, it's, it really is a fairly equitable system from that standpoint. And then obviously, you have teams that rise up and have periods of success. That's why the Patriots were such an aberration, because they were successful for over 20 years.
And the league is not set up for that. You know, it essentially in some ways is set up to punish the teams that are at the top because then their free agents, you know, can go get paid by another organization. They. They get lower draft picks to replace guys.
And so it's really not set up for one team to be dominant forever and ever. Amen.
It is set up to be a competitive team where.
Competitive league situation where, where these other underperforming teams can rise up.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: You know, it's. This is absolutely fascinating because the, the, the fear in this country is that the franchise system will destroy competitiveness and aspiration. And NFL's often quoted as, look what happens in the NFL. Whereas, you know, listening to you, NFL franchise encourages. In fact, it demands competitiveness and aspiration. I might have to pick this up somewhere else, Drew, but it's a, it's a very interesting.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: I mean, it's the opposite in baseball, in American baseball, it's not the same way. You have the Yankees and the Dodgers. And you know, where, you know, right now they, you know, they're, they're spending so much money where you have other teams, like the Oakland A's, for example, There was a, there was a time, what, two years ago, where the entire payroll of the Oakland A's was less than that of like five individual players on other teams.
And so that's where you see in baseball you don't have parity, but in football, they have it set up where there's at least there's an opportunity. You know, now some franchises are run better than others, and so they'll continue to win while other franchises will continue to lose.
But it's not because of the dollars. The dollars are very equitable.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Very interesting. And, and I, I want to come on something that's a very, very important aspect for sport on a slightly more serious note, which is the issues of concussion, head injuries. And obviously with NFL, you made a lot of big changes to try and address some of those issues.
Rugby certainly, and we're all sport, but rugby particularly is going through this at the moment in terms of certain players, sadly, you know, being diagnosed with sort of head injury issues in the post career and how do we do better in the inside the career to make things safer so that they don't get. Now you've been through that as a sport and, you know, just where is that now?
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Because, yeah, it's in a good place now. And the biggest thing that happened in the NFL, and this is, this comes all the way down to all levels of American football now, is an awareness that head injuries are not like other injuries. You know, there's an ethos in football like rugby and like the words tough guy sport, you know, like, you know, you sprain your ankle, rub some dirt on it, get back in there, whatever. And they now have raised awareness to the point where a head injury is not that way. When you have a head injury, you actually have to allow your brain to recover and heal before you can go back out. Because the science, at least to my understanding, is still somewhat inexact in terms of brain physiology. And different people have different physiology and can withstand more. But the one thing they know for sure is that if you have a brain injury, you are at the most risk immediately following that injury until your brain is entirely healed. And so they've done a really great job at all levels of American football of recognizing when somebody has a hard hit and taking that decision away from the player.
Because as players, we're going to go back in, right? We're going to go back in. I'm tough. I'm fine. We're going to go back in. They've taken that decision away from the players, and they've actually taken it away from the coaching staff. And they have an independent doctor on every sideline that is in charge of analyzing and diagnosing a player. And if that doctor says you're out, you're out, and nobody else has any say. That doctor is the final word.
And so what you're seeing now is, I think you're seeing at least a step in the right direction where some of the bad stories that, that we all know of are going to become less and less common, which is. Which is a great thing. It really is truly a great thing, because American football was on the verge of probably not existing because of the head injuries. And at some point, your guys keep getting bigger and faster and stronger. And if you just head contact like that, you know, there was going to be something really bad that happened at some point, just because when you have that much mass, you know, coming out, somebody was going to die. And. And so the rule, the rule enforcement that they've, that they've instituted at every level has been entirely positive, which is great to hear.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: And of course, you want to inspire kids and want to keep playing the game, don't you? And you don't want mums not wanting their kids to play the game, which is. Which is where we got to in rugby a little bit. And until they make what I see as fundamental changes, continue to make more fundamental changes, and I think we've got a way to go on that. But it's great to hear that news from, from, from NFL. And of course, there's a few people who have tried to make their name in NFL from the English rubby system and, you know, Louis Reese, summit trials with the Jags, and, you know, one of the top wingers in Europe, probably in the world, you know, and he made a bit of a play. And. And then you, Christian Wade, who I think went to the. The Bills and scored a touchdown in his first touch. And I thought, wow. And the commentators going, whoa, is this guy from England turned up and he's just done a touchdown. But it's hard, isn't it, to make it? And so anyone coming in, doesn't matter who they are. So our two of our top players have had a go and they've failed.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: Because it's just the athletic, the athletic talent, the size, speed, strength of the guys in the NFL is absolutely astounding.
You know, I mean, these Guys are biggest, strongest, fastest guys in the world. And, and you know that, that just is. Yeah, it's extremely hard to break in. I've just, I've said it at times, you know, you sit in some of the locker rooms I sat in, you're like, man, that guy's not from the same planet I'm from. You know, that just doesn't, you know, it doesn't even look like me. You know, guys from a different friggin planet, you know, and like Larry Allen that I played with in Dallas, who, God rest his soul, but even amongst the strongest guys in the world, when Larry came in to work out in the weight room, other guys would stop to watch Larry. He, his, his bench press max was £715.
So he would come in and he would put £400 on the bar and that's what he would work out with like this. And so other guys are in this, this weight room and like Larry's lifting, so they, they'd stop and watch because even the strongest guys, they'd watch this guy. And so they're just, you know, it's, it's a, it's a remarkable thing. It was so cool to be around that, you know, and I got to kind of be the conductor of the orchestra and like, you know, been.
And it was just a really cool thing to be a part of where you got these, these, these, these genetic freaks of nature that, that are on your side and the same on the other side.
And to, to get to watch that be a part of it and be in the middle of it was just such a cool experience.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: But of course you're, in the meantime you're telling your, your, your quota of that fruit. Yeah, keep the other lot away from me because ultimately that's, that's your support.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: That's the deal. Yeah. I was like, hey man, keep that guy off of me. And sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: 100 that sport. So we're almost out of time. But I, I just wanted to ask you, is there some defining objective few years out that, that you've got within the wine business or is it more of the same? When we say more of the same, we mean more of the best. But is there something out there that's eating you up to, to keep.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: I think at a, at a, at a high level it's about continuing to incrementally improve every year, which as we talked about earlier, you know, if we sucked at making wine, it would be way easier to improve. We've been making Truly great wine. And now we're continuing to try to improve. But one of the biggest pieces that's really important to us, informative for our continued growth, is around the word sustainability.
And sustainability is a big word in the world, as it should be. But a lot of times, as you know, it's greenwashing, a lot of times it's marketing. Well, for us, it's always had a very deep meaning and it's become an even deeper thing to us in recent years. The environmental piece is the obvious piece to sustainability. That's the one that everybody talks about, and we've embraced that from the very beginning.
We've always believed if we're going to make a product that comes from the land, we should take care of the land. That was just obvious to us. And we've been very proactive in that and how we farm and how we ship and how we do everything in our business.
But the bigger piece to us in recent years is around people sustainability.
So when you think about agriculture, particularly in a northern latitude where we're farming, you're generally talking about seasonal labor, you're talking about migrant labor, where you hire people to work for you for seven to nine months, and then they have to figure out how to put food on the table in the wintertime, whether that's going on welfare, whether that's going south to find work, whatever that is. In 2019, we started our own farming company. We now have 25 people in our farm team and we hire them year round. They have full time employment, we pay them better than anybody else in our region.
They have health benefits and they have retirement benefits.
And we set out to do that because it was the right thing to do for our, our families. And we like to be proud that we do the right thing.
But what we've discovered is that taking care of the land the way that we do and then now taking care of the people the way that we do has allowed us to continue to improve at everything that we do. Our vineyard team now, they talk about the vineyards as if they own them.
They talk about our vineyards, they don't talk about the boss's vineyards. And they know these vines and these vineyards better than anybody else on the planet because they work them every single day and every year.
And so that's allowed us, with all of the wines we're making, to continue to improve and to continue to grow.
We do have some, specifically some fun projects. We've got some bubbles that'll be out next year.
We did selfishly plant a little bit of Nebbiolo, because we love Borrello and we just couldn't be in the wine business without knowing if we could replicate something close to what comes from northern Italy.
So there are some fun kind of small projects that we're on that we're excited about, but in general, as a company, it's about continue to incrementally grow and improve every single year. And our team, going back to the football, the sports illustration, we have a lot of athletes on our team, you know, either high school or college or I'm the only one that played in the pros. But the. Those athletic people, they understand that ethic of continuing to improve.
You know, you play, you practice, you play, you watch the film, you look at what you did wrong, what you did right, and then you try to improve each week. In our business, across the board, at every single level, we are continuously striving for improvement. Even though we're trying to improve from a pretty high perch, we're continuing to try to improve everything.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: Well, that is a wonderful way to finish because it comes across very strongly and this is the ultimate team statement. So more power to your elbow. Thank you for being here. Thank you for helping bring the NFL story to more and more places, which it's going to do. And, you know, I look forward to hearing more. And particularly those little wine projects will be. Will be all over them when they come. So thank you, Drew. Much appreciated.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Awesome. Always such a pleasure. Because I'm really, really enjoyed it. And yeah, I love spending time over here in the uk.
We're going to go. I think it's like tomorrow night we get to go watch some, some Arsenal. Last time we were together, we watched Arsenal Man City.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: I knew you were going to bring that up.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: I can't remember how that game ended. How did that go? How did that game go that year?
[00:49:52] Speaker B: I was going to reference that. When people say, how long have you been supporting Man City? Back to your question about, you know, they've been so good. I mean, I was supporting them 50 years ago, so I've seen the good and the bad and the ugly. And yes, Arsenal scored a late winner and I was tail between my legs, but there were 75,80,000 Arsenal fans who were super happy, including you and your dear wife. So let's hope you see a repeat of that.
And we'll talk to you again. But for now, that's it from Hallis Playbook.
Thanks for tuning in.
