468: Thomas Tull—Adjacent to Greatness

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

History, Society & Culture

4.9 • 40.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2026

⏱️ 106 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike chats with billionaire entrepreneur and producer Thomas Tull, a man whose career has repeatedly put him just one degree away from greatness. Tull talks about his ownership stakes in professional sports teams including his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, how he helped create a data-driven approach to marketing blockbuster films through Legendary Pictures and why understanding audiences mattered as much as the movies themselves. Along the way, Tull explains how it feels when his rock band, Ghost Hounds, takes the stage to open for none other than The Rolling Stones.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And welcome to another truly delightful episode of the way I heard it.
0:08.0	I'm Mike Rowe. This one is called Adjacent to Greatness.
0:12.0	Technically, I think it's called Thomas Tull, adjacent to greatness.
0:17.0	Chuck, that's how you want to put it in the...
0:19.0	That's the way it'll be written.
0:20.0	I see. Yeah. Well, it doesn't much matter how you write it. The facts around Thomas Tull and his reason for coming here today are worth really understanding. I think this hasn't happened before. I've talked to billionaires before. Yeah, there have been a few to Frank McCourt. Yeah.
0:37.8	Are there any other billionaires? No, I don't think so. I think that's basically it. Actually, Frank owned a chunk where all of the Dodgers and Thomas. And now he owns the parking lot. And now he owns the parking lot, right? That's true, yeah. Right. Thomas Toll, on the other hand, has an interest the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
0:56.0	Yep.
0:56.3	And if you don't know him from that, Right. Thomas Toll, on the other hand, has an interest in the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
0:56.2	Yep.
0:56.8	And if you don't know him from that, you might know him from a little startup called legendary films,
1:03.9	which he formed some time ago, sold it, I think, in 2017 for about, I don't know, three and a half billion dollars.
1:13.6	He made movies like The Hangover.
1:16.3	Oh, yeah.
1:16.8	The whole series, I believe.
1:18.1	Yeah, the whole series.
1:19.5	Inception.
1:20.4	Dark Night.
1:21.7	I'm Batman.
1:22.8	Yeah.
1:23.3	And 300, I think, was the first one that came out.
1:26.9	Yes, 300, yeah. What he did in the movie business is really interesting. He figured out a new way to market hits. He told me he once, not in this conversation, but why would I spend money? There's a 14-year-old kid wearing a Batman shirt. Right. Why am I going to advertise to that kid? He's coming no matter what I did. Right? And then, you know, there's my mom. I could give her two free tickets and $20 for popcorn. Yeah, not going to do it. And she's not coming. Yeah. So early, early on, Thomas figured out a better way to market films and legendary was born.
	...

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