David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…At that point, I was thinking, “You know? Maybe we don't have to pay a royalty because there isn't any one athlete that can really represent football.” I could work with a coach, and that would actually help me fill in gaps in my own knowledge, but maybe we just pay a coach a consulting fee. We’re just going to make up our own brand and own the brand. I thought, "If we're going to have a brand name, and we're going to be paying a royalty, who's the biggest brand human being?" I instantly thought of Madden because look, the guy had already won a Super Bowl and proven to be a Hall of Fame caliber coach. He'd been a player also, and then he'd become a multiple Emmy award-winning broadcaster, and he was in the middle of what would be a very long career, that guy was always going to be on TV, he's the Ace Hardware Man, he's in the Miller Lite beer commercials breaking through barriers. I think public most listeners don't remember this, but his Hall of Fame coaching career was with the Raiders and Al Davis, the Just Win Baby era. He checked all the boxes and credibility. Yes. I thought, “Okay, well, let's just go to the top of the food chain and talk to them.” By this time, we had enough contact with enough agents, so it was easier to find out, “Okay, who do I talk to?” I had to fly to New York City to meet with his agent. She agreed that it was a good proposition and then she sold John on it, and not too long after that, I got turned over to a more junior agent who really became John's personal agent, this guy's Sandy Montag, who's worked with John for decades and we had signed the deal. At that point, “Okay, we have a signed agreement. We need to start actually doing the work.” That's when a couple of colleagues and I flew to Denver and got on the train.…

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