How can one entity gather so many companies under one umbrella in such a short space of time, oversee all the different technologies, organisational structures, and environments - from land-based to online and sports betting - and effectively cohesively manage everything as one business?
Soohyung Kim,
In an extensive and insightful interview, Soohyung Kim, Chairman of Bally’s Corporation, explains how and why. Detailing his vision for what’s next on a fascinating and, from an outsider’s perspective, unpredictable, Bally’s journey, Soo directly addresses the challenges facing the operator as it amalgamates and morphs into a regional casino-entertainment company with a fast- growing omni-channel presence of online sports betting and iGaming offerings in the US.
Kicking off the interview, Soo explains his personal background in gaming, technology, and media – the three areas Bally’s has poured hundreds of millions into procuring.
I am a turnaround investor who does a lot of restructuring to organisations, predominantly structural and financial. Whilst we invest capital, we also get involved as an investor to bring an owner-operator alignment to companies and clients that have lost it.
I have spent a lot of time in traditional media such as television broadcasting, cable channels, radio, and billboards. If you see an old-line media company, I’ve probably looked at it in the past and been invested. Gaming is also a space I have spent a lot of time in - it’s a field that goes through a lot of booms and bust and has its own set of challenges. We have done several gaming turnarounds so it’s a space we know well.
I’d be the first to say that I have very little background in technology. It’s interesting you ask that question because there is one common theme I see in companies today, especially in old-line companies having problems: the Al Gore invention of the Internet that is growing every day, flattening the world, and making everything easier.
To a lot of management teams, it’s a mystery. It’s this mystical thing – it’s technology, it’s the web. It makes sense because these teams got their jobs through being good at something, whatever the core business was, and not in technology (unless they are a technologist). One common theme that we have come across is that many teams say they don’t understand technology or outsource it.
Every old business is also a new business. Every company is a technology company and needs to be to have a future. If you are not incorporating all the wondrous benefits of connectivity and communication into your business and customer base, then someone else is going to do it for you and take your old business with it. It’s so interesting that these new businesses with almost no capital led by relatively young and inexperienced people are destroying the incumbents and it’s happening across every space and field.
Tis comes down to the self-limiting that comes Chairman, Bally’s Corporation
Soohyung Kim has served as an independent director of Bally’s Corporation and the preceding entity Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc. since 2016. Mr. Kim is the Founding Partner of Standard General L.P., an investment firm, and is the firm’s Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer. Mr. Kim has been investing in special situations strategies since 1997, including as co-founder of Cyrus Capital Partners from 2005 to 2007 and at Och-Ziff Capital Management from 1999 to 2005, where he was a Principal and co-founder of its fixed income business.
Prior to joining Och-Ziff Capital Management, Mr. Kim was an analyst for the Capital Management Group at Bankers Trust Company from 1997 to 1999. Mr. Kim is a Director of Coalition for Queens, a Director and Treasurer of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the President of the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association. Mr. Kim is a former member of the board of directors of Greektown Superholdings and Media General, Inc., and the board of managers of ALST Casino Holdco, LLC.
“Every old business is also a new business. Every company is a technology company and needs to be to have a future. If you are not incorporating all the wondrous benefits of connectivity and
communication into your business and customer base, then someone else is going to do it for you and take your old business with it.” Soohyung Kim
from the incumbent management teams who say they don’t understand technology or technology is not their business. Every company is a technology company. Every management team needs to embrace it and a lot of what we do is to make sure that they are embracing it. It’s not necessarily that we are technology experts who have the answers. We are investors, but we believe that we can add a sense of perspective.
Here are the resources, let’s get educated, look at where customers are going and deliver great experiences. At the end of the day, that’s what it is all about: the customer experience. Every old
business was built by creating a customer experience that worked in its environment. What people must understand today is that in a technology enabled world the customer experiences have to have that with it, or it doesn’t work.
Are you incorporating the latest capability? Tat’s the divide. A lot of what is empowering customer experiences are common goods. Terefore, a management team shouldn’t be incapable of incorporating them into a next generation customer experience.
Are all the elements of Bally’s omni-channel offer weighted equally? Is gaming as important an aspect as technology and media - or does one trump the others?
Tat’s interesting. I would define the problem as such – we have a licence to game and that’s a special, but limited, thing. We need to make sure that we have the technological expertise to deliver a next generation customer experience. Every company is defined by what the customer journey is, and gaming is the same. Te journey had previously been going to a horse track, buying a lottery ticket, or going to a casino table. Te advent of phones and universal connectivity changed that. Regulation is coming along slower, but along the same pathway.
Tis may not answer the question directly, but I think the customer experience trumps all. Gaming is the licences that we have, media are some of the assets that we have access to, technology is a means to an end. But in the end, all we are is the sum of our customer experiences and we want to offer great ones. Let’s use technology to improve the current experience.
Is the customer experience Bally’s competitive advantage?
Not today. Te experience we imagine our customers to have we’re not able to deliver yet. Our competitive advantages are that we have brought together a number of assets in different disciplines. With our gaming businesses we have the licence to game both physically and online. Trough our Sinclair relationships we have access to a tonne of distribution to major sports such as baseball, basketball, and hockey, but also a myriad of other sports that play on their local TV channels and Stadium platform.
Sinclair has the largest collection of local sports rights and so we are very happy to integrate into and contribute to that. Part of the deal is promotion and branding, but also included is the ability to influence what goes on with their distribution on their cable and TV channels when it comes to sports and gaming.
Under the Bally’s flag, we are not only going to focus on the established, big sports, but also card sports. We bought a property called Live at the Bike which is a streaming poker game. Tere are several different things we want to do with that and saw it as an interesting kernel we can build upon in live gaming media.
We also purchased the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) in the US because it is a
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