Speaker 1: Well, this is exciting here today. Happy Monday everyone, Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: American Thanksgiving Week here. I thought we'd have a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks off here, especially getting through the holiday. We
Speaker 1: were waiting on the UFL schedule. We just got done
Speaker 1: with all our CFL coverage. But here we are today
Speaker 1: the UFL officially announcing you with their process for expansion
Speaker 1: here in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: So you know, I.
Speaker 1: Wasn't even going to do anything, quite sure if we're
Speaker 1: going to do this. We got John Lewis here. Max
Speaker 1: was like you got to talk about it today, like
Speaker 1: Mike Mitchell's like you got to talk about today. So John,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if we were going to do the stream.
Speaker 1: This time of year, there's sicknesses floating around, right, People
Speaker 1: get sick this time of year. John, I have a
Speaker 1: fever today, and the only prescription that can help it
Speaker 1: is expansion.
Speaker 3: And you got it, and you finally got it.
Speaker 2: And we got it today. But no, this is interesting.
Speaker 2: So John Lewis welcome.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of new subscribers going through all
Speaker 1: the CFL stuff. We just got done with our great
Speaker 1: cup show. John Lewis has his own YouTube. John Lewis
Speaker 1: Sports appreciate him coming on today. John does a really
Speaker 1: good job, but really kind of more manageable size to
Speaker 1: content coming out, which I think is always great. And
Speaker 1: then obviously we do a little bit longer form on here,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure John will be doing that.
Speaker 2: We will discuss everything today.
Speaker 1: I have the press release, we can talk about the
Speaker 1: Switzerland try out, we have going on next year, a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, so this is going to kind of
Speaker 1: a catch on John.
Speaker 2: How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. It's just amazing. We have have an
Speaker 3: international event with the UFL. We've got expansion now, but
Speaker 3: we still don't have the twenty twenty five schedule. Just
Speaker 3: anytime now, the coming weeks. It's coming. We've heard that
Speaker 3: for over a month now, so hopefully maybe this is
Speaker 3: they're kind of ushering us in with some news like, hey,
Speaker 3: expansion's coming. Then maybe next week we'll get hey, here's
Speaker 3: the schedule for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Well it's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's interesting time.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I know, and I well, I was
Speaker 1: doing that today because I put out the thing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: expansion in twenty five and I'm not going no, we're
Speaker 1: going into twenty five. The expansion twenty six, so the
Speaker 1: kind of and we'll pull it up here I have
Speaker 1: all the details and then we'll you know, we'll do
Speaker 1: we'll do a little bit more kind of a deep
Speaker 1: dive here through all this stuff. But uh, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is kind of a bizarre schedule release kind of here.
Speaker 2: We thought we were waiting on the schedule.
Speaker 1: I think we're waiting on MLS schedules here in December,
Speaker 1: so maybe we'll get all of that stuff going on
Speaker 1: and then we can kind of release all that we're
Speaker 1: obviously of like the extit foul or excuse me, if
Speaker 1: the UFL release like the Defenders scheduled and they would
Speaker 1: know games at Audi Field and that disrupts all the
Speaker 1: other plays going with all this. But John, I do
Speaker 1: think this is unique. Obviously we've had in the past
Speaker 1: the UFL talking expansion.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're taking away teams right, the USFL.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're putting the Tampa Bay you know, the Bandits
Speaker 1: on the hold. Okay, we're relocating things in the merger, right,
Speaker 1: we lost part of the franchises here we're bringing back.
Speaker 1: But to me, this is the first like we are
Speaker 1: looking to expand here for the UFL at lease as
Speaker 1: far as I know, kind of a recent memory of
Speaker 1: like actually written up kind of curiously.
Speaker 2: Your thoughts on that first and foremost.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was. I was interested to see that it
Speaker 3: was a press release. It wasn't, you know, And it
Speaker 3: was a it was a you know, as they usually
Speaker 3: do their media storm. There you see the press release.
Speaker 3: You know, it was on Instagram, it was on all
Speaker 3: social media. And you're right, something that you said last year,
Speaker 3: that we talked about in the preseason before it's you said,
Speaker 3: and I completely agreed. You need we needed to see
Speaker 3: some kind of progress from the UFL from season one
Speaker 3: to season two, and we thought maybe that would be
Speaker 3: expansion to kind of show that here's a signal that
Speaker 3: this is growing. So the expansion obviously didn't happen, but
Speaker 3: now we're starting to look at this and say, okay,
Speaker 3: they're positioning themselves to maybe add a couple of teams,
Speaker 3: maybe add four teams, as Mike Mitchell said, it could happen,
Speaker 3: you know, two teams in twenty six and another two
Speaker 3: teams in twenty seven. We'll see how it all shakes out.
Speaker 3: But the optimism of this to really put a press
Speaker 3: release out, you know, with quotes that it's open right
Speaker 3: now and that either we don't really know what the
Speaker 3: situation is as far as it does say launches the
Speaker 3: expansion process, we don't really know. I didn't get from
Speaker 3: this read that is it going to be the UFL
Speaker 3: is going to reach out to cities or they want
Speaker 3: cities to reach out to the UFL, Like what's going
Speaker 3: to be the process?
Speaker 1: Well, it looks like it is, and I think that's
Speaker 1: interesting to go through here. Something else can keep in mind,
Speaker 1: And I hate to be the DeBie on all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking to Switzerland Showcase next year and
Speaker 1: we're talking. I think there was like the under armor
Speaker 1: green meant to win through, Like this is all kind
Speaker 1: of fluid things. So the UFL goes through this year,
Speaker 1: if ratings aren't up, if anythings whatever. You know, this
Speaker 1: is very much like I'm on the rocks with my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: We're planning the vacation next summer. But we could still
Speaker 1: get like I understand, and this is super exciting and
Speaker 1: we're on board with all that stuff, like can subscribe
Speaker 1: to if you're checking this out the first time. I
Speaker 1: know we've got a lot of people coming in from
Speaker 1: the CFL hopefully, you know, all this alternati football stuff
Speaker 1: kind of fills you in with all that we should
Speaker 1: be pretty heavy UFL now and then trying to get
Speaker 1: some CFL off you know, off season kind of postseason
Speaker 1: whatever interviews. But like, I just want to emphasize that,
Speaker 1: like because I see this all the time, like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're talking twenty twenty eight, like that means we have
Speaker 1: a fight. Yeah, I mean, it's all plans on there.
Speaker 2: But as Stephen A. Smith always says, like, you know, kind.
Speaker 1: Of the list is fluid, and so this is good,
Speaker 1: but at least we're talking about it. And I said,
Speaker 1: we can talk about it today because of this was
Speaker 1: put out. I'll kind of do a little try my
Speaker 1: reading comprehension here and John you can pop in. We'll
Speaker 1: kind of get through this press release and then thoughts
Speaker 1: because I have very specific thoughts, hopefully not as negative
Speaker 1: as yours. UFL you defableaget out today. It's especially launce
Speaker 1: its first expansion process. The UFL is accepting proposals from
Speaker 1: perspective markets. We'll get to bring football spring football to
Speaker 1: their communities and be part of the growth of the sport.
Speaker 1: So I think that's interesting to kind of answer the
Speaker 1: initial question like, uh, hey, we're soliciting right, our doors
Speaker 1: are open. We saw the CFL with the XFL years ago, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know the XFL reached out to the CFL.
Speaker 2: Their doors are open.
Speaker 1: And now it's you know, Russ Brandon and company, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know you want to spring football here. Curious your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that first and foremost, because to me, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting way to approach this.
Speaker 3: It is you know when I read that, when I
Speaker 3: see that though accepting proposals again, I'd like to know
Speaker 3: what the process is. Do they contact you know, let's say,
Speaker 3: for instance, I don't know, I'll just throw out Louisville,
Speaker 3: Kentucky out there, which is where I'm sitting. So it's like,
Speaker 3: do they will they contact Louisville or do I just
Speaker 3: you know, Now, maybe we're getting into the weeds here
Speaker 3: and maybe I'm just out of a nerd and want
Speaker 3: to know, like really like what the process is. But
Speaker 3: I will say I do like that they want to
Speaker 3: It's there they talk about perspective markets looking to bring
Speaker 3: spring football to their communities and be part of the
Speaker 3: growth of the sport. I think they're seeing this sport grow.
Speaker 3: I mean, frankly, let's think about this. We're in see
Speaker 3: how many years now that we're going into of actual
Speaker 3: spring football that we're you know that's legitimate on network
Speaker 3: television spring football. It's it's been a long time since
Speaker 3: we've had that. So I think they are starting to
Speaker 3: see the growth. And you know, again, like I said,
Speaker 3: I like the optimism of this to to really just
Speaker 3: go out there. Not they're not doing this behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe there have been talks already, but they're
Speaker 3: putting this out front. So you know, maybe this is
Speaker 3: a call to you to UFL fans to start talking
Speaker 3: to their cities to say, hey, listen this they're looking
Speaker 3: for expansion. Maybe we're the right market. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of that can go a long way.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting to me about this, and I'll read
Speaker 1: the quote here in the second, but you know, Mike
Speaker 1: Mitchell has talked our UFL insider all the way back
Speaker 1: to all the XFL and the USFL stuff and everything that,
Speaker 1: even as far back as the USFL twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: that went in the.
Speaker 2: Place of the XFL.
Speaker 1: It's always been an audition, right for Like, if you
Speaker 1: would you like to own one of these franchises. Would
Speaker 1: you like to be a part of this trying to
Speaker 1: sell off or attract owners and things that way. We
Speaker 1: are in twenty approaching twenty twenty five. Now, clearly that
Speaker 1: has not happened yet. Right, there was talks with FedEx,
Speaker 1: you know in Memphis, right, and we're going to move
Speaker 1: everything in there and all that. But so this is
Speaker 1: kind of I feel like, been ongoing in some regard
Speaker 1: at least just to try to get people involved, at
Speaker 1: least on the ownership side. Now it seems like, okay,
Speaker 1: now we want to get cities involved, you know, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, you call your local congressman or woman,
Speaker 1: kind of get them involved. One thing interesting to point out, though,
Speaker 1: is when you start accepting bids, bids come or they don't. Right,
Speaker 1: we just saw the CFL twenty would be the twenty
Speaker 1: sixth Great Cup got awarded to Calgary. I think they
Speaker 1: were the only city of the nine CFL teams that
Speaker 1: bid on that that wanted to put together a proposal, right,
Speaker 1: and obviously hosting the Gray Cup is a little different.
Speaker 1: I would be curious kind of the qualifications of this.
Speaker 1: You are we looking at different stadium sizes or we're
Speaker 1: looking at demographics.
Speaker 2: Things like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can do you know more dive into that later.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you open it up for proposals,
Speaker 1: you got to be you know, not all of that
Speaker 1: were going to come in there.
Speaker 2: They might not be up to enough for what you
Speaker 2: what you're looking for.
Speaker 3: Well, and you have to go into a community too
Speaker 3: that you know, that can support it. I think obviously
Speaker 3: you know, we've talked about this being a TV product
Speaker 3: and that's true, but you need to go into a community,
Speaker 3: as he says, be part of the growth of the
Speaker 3: as the press release says, to be part of the
Speaker 3: growth of the sport. And you know, I think there
Speaker 3: are a lot of communities out there that are poised
Speaker 3: to do this that might you know, not have pro
Speaker 3: sports or they might be you know, be a larger
Speaker 3: you know, football community. I think that's what we've seen
Speaker 3: in Birmingham, you know, Forever, Saint Louis as well well.
Speaker 3: All I mean really, when you're looking at the at
Speaker 3: the eight teams right now, you know they're part of
Speaker 3: that community, even though the hubs in Arlington. So but
Speaker 3: you're right, you I mean, any I guess you know
Speaker 3: there are a lot of places that could say, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll put a bit in, but it's got to be serious.
Speaker 3: And I think you have to have some corporate backing
Speaker 3: to make this happen. And I think there are a
Speaker 3: lot of communities out there that are really right to
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 1: Right now, what I do like about this, and then
Speaker 1: I want to read this quote and I'll put this
Speaker 1: away so we can see both of our faces gone here.
Speaker 1: But what I do like about this is, at least
Speaker 1: now we're putting thought process into what cities do we
Speaker 1: want to operate in. My biggest criticism all the way
Speaker 1: back up into the USFL A twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: they relaunched, was well, these were kind of the trademarks
Speaker 1: we were able to get from the eighties and those
Speaker 1: were cities that kind of worked, and that's what we have.
Speaker 2: Now, let's kind of reuse.
Speaker 1: Those assets or that ip that we have, you know,
Speaker 1: no real thought to like, you know, does Tampa Bay
Speaker 1: want this spring football team?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And whatever? I know, the XFL is part of outlet,
Speaker 2: you know, like the Memphis thing.
Speaker 1: Kind of all these rolling out and now obviously through
Speaker 1: the merger, we've gotten this Miss mash and kind of
Speaker 1: the XFL franchises and the US and nothing.
Speaker 2: Really I've said this before in here.
Speaker 1: There's very few cities in the eight that currently play
Speaker 1: in the UFL that you would sit there on your
Speaker 1: top thirty list of cities that you want to be
Speaker 1: in and have a lot of those. So I at
Speaker 1: least like now that it's not leftovers from things that
Speaker 1: kind of work before we have it. Let's put thoughts
Speaker 1: into what we want. Let me just read this qull.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 1: As the UFL lays the groundwork for future growth, we're
Speaker 1: excited to begin exploring new markets for expansion expansion where
Speaker 1: spring football can not only live but thrive. The CFL
Speaker 1: uses that trademark now live and thriving, so maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have an IP dispute, UFL President CEO Russ Brandon. These
Speaker 1: expansion efforts validate our vision of early success, demonstrating how
Speaker 1: spring football resonates with fans, reinforcing our commitment to broadening
Speaker 1: its reach. With strength and structure of our ownership group
Speaker 1: along with our media partners, we are well positioned for
Speaker 1: the long haul and look forward to identifying communities that
Speaker 1: have the potential and desire to host the UFL team
Speaker 1: and it search to identify the strongest markets. UFL is
Speaker 1: looking at several core attributes including fan interest, existing sports culture, geography, population, venue,
Speaker 1: and infrastructure availability. And it talks about the eight right
Speaker 1: now and they will all be playing this year. This
Speaker 1: would be for a potential twenty twenty six season.
Speaker 2: Do we get everything through that press release?
Speaker 3: I think we've We've gotten a lot through there. And
Speaker 3: it's interesting that they put new cities in there, which
Speaker 3: you know, there was some concern I think on my
Speaker 3: end when I first saw this that they were going
Speaker 3: to expand it's like, well, they owned the IP as
Speaker 3: you talked about there with the USFL and you know,
Speaker 3: even the XFL. I do wonder if that, you know,
Speaker 3: do they lean on that, Do they try that again?
Speaker 3: Do they try Orlando again? Do they try to put
Speaker 3: a team in New Orleans because of the ip You know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I hope that they've that this is
Speaker 3: a process. Whereas they said in this release that these
Speaker 3: they have a desire to be in the communities, have
Speaker 3: a desire to be for the UFL to be there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just going to read exactly what James says there.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, the definition, because that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's just been this weird kind of miss mash the
Speaker 1: question that you brought up as well, and we were
Speaker 1: talking to the group chat kind of getting.
Speaker 2: Ready for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do we see like do we go back to
Speaker 1: New Orleans and maybe it's the Breakers or maybe it's
Speaker 1: something else.
Speaker 2: Do we incorporate you know, we.
Speaker 1: Have the LA Wildcats and the Guardians and obviously they
Speaker 1: went to Orlando, but like, yeah, are we like if
Speaker 1: I'm a Seattle fan, why I'm a Saffan but like
Speaker 1: if I'm my friends that texted me today, of course,
Speaker 1: like and this will get into why I think they
Speaker 1: did this, But you know, if I'm a Seattle fan
Speaker 1: knowing that the team got taken away and they end
Speaker 1: up putting the team in you know, San Diego or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: shout out and you're like, am I mad that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: San Diego got an opportunity at this before we did,
Speaker 1: and we were part of this and we kind of
Speaker 1: got mixed, you know, cut off in the chopping block there.
Speaker 1: What what do you make of if you're a fan
Speaker 1: of one of these existing franchises went away and then
Speaker 1: you don't get them coming back?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, are you going to
Speaker 3: have some sore people in Orlando, which you know that
Speaker 3: you know that was just such a bad team. I
Speaker 3: don't know that a lot of people wanted to show
Speaker 3: up to watch them. I mean, frankly, that's just you
Speaker 3: know how it was. But you know, are you going
Speaker 3: to have some some people who are going to be upset,
Speaker 3: you know in some of these other markets. I think
Speaker 3: Tampa Bay is another market where it sounds like there
Speaker 3: are a lot of people who really wanted the Tampa
Speaker 3: Bay bandits back, you know, in that community. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that's going to be no matter you know who.
Speaker 3: You mentioned that we're former XFL or USFL teams, So yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, you you do run that gamut of you know,
Speaker 3: or that risk of you know, maybe alienating a fan
Speaker 3: base and losing those fans because oh yeah, you gave
Speaker 3: us a taste of this and then you took it
Speaker 3: away and now we're not getting the back, so why
Speaker 3: would we be invested in it?
Speaker 1: My camera here is tricking that maybe there. I think
Speaker 1: I got like the hand control under and I think
Speaker 1: it's like tracking my head on here, so curious and
Speaker 1: then what we get I put in the comments, you know,
Speaker 1: cities kind of opportunities.
Speaker 2: We'll go through all that.
Speaker 1: We'll kind of workshop all that. This is fun kind
Speaker 1: of our brainstorming today. We'll get to all of that.
Speaker 1: So you know, where you live, where you want. I'm
Speaker 1: already seeing you know, New Orleans, Huntsville, Mississippi to put
Speaker 1: that in the comments.
Speaker 2: We'll kind of go through some of that workshop.
Speaker 1: But why now, John, I want to ask you, and
Speaker 1: I'll give my thoughts. Why now on November twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: we don't have any of this other stuff going on?
Speaker 1: Why why did we decide to announce this today and
Speaker 1: put out of official press release.
Speaker 3: The timing I don't understand, especially when we're still waiting
Speaker 3: for you know, this schedule, and maybe you know, as
Speaker 3: I kind of alluded to earlier, maybe it was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: well we're going to try to ease into we think
Speaker 3: the schedule release is going to be the big deal.
Speaker 3: But hey, let's you know, let's maybe try to get
Speaker 3: a few headlines here. Listen, And if that's what they
Speaker 3: were trying to do at work, go ahead. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you look up you know, UFL expansion right now
Speaker 3: on Google and hit the news tab. You're going to
Speaker 3: see a lot of a lot of responses, so it
Speaker 3: never hurts to maybe get that out there. I would listen.
Speaker 3: I was a little excited Sunday. Uh in the Fox
Speaker 3: pregame It's like, we're gonna return with a Fox exclusive announcement,
Speaker 3: and I thought, maybe they're gonna do it right now.
Speaker 3: But it was something about some race car thing and
Speaker 3: I don't know what it was, but you know, maybe
Speaker 3: that is Maybe it's they're trying to just you know,
Speaker 3: drum up a little, like Okay, let's get UFL on
Speaker 3: the headlines and then have the schedule or release coming up.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you're trying to you're trying to guess,
Speaker 3: you know, what they're doing. If maybe there is a
Speaker 3: strategy there, I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well that's what I think.
Speaker 1: And and we were talking in the group today because I,
Speaker 1: of course I wake up. Dorothy was doing conferences today.
Speaker 1: She's a teacher, and so I get up and I
Speaker 1: I just put in the group chat, you know what
Speaker 1: the F is wrong with this league? Like I just
Speaker 1: and I know that I get the mystery negativity and
Speaker 1: all the time I got, but I'm like, why are
Speaker 1: we focused on this? Can we just get into year two?
Speaker 1: You want these cities to you know, put the work
Speaker 1: in to get the bit. You haven't even really proven
Speaker 1: that you can do sustainable right. Year after year on
Speaker 1: all these we saw dwindling numbers on most of the markets, right,
Speaker 1: I mean even Saint Louis and DC, which Greg Parks
Speaker 1: just put out a good article on UFL board talking
Speaker 1: that they were at one of the Sports Business Journal
Speaker 1: conference or something. Russ and whoever was there and Greg,
Speaker 1: if you want to go look up Greg Parks as
Speaker 1: I was just reading that before you know, they're talking about,
Speaker 1: oh the success we had in Saint Louis and DC.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you guys didn't make that.
Speaker 1: None of the current successful UFL markets had anything to
Speaker 1: do with current management, right, that was all carry over
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty. So let's just put that mine. But
Speaker 1: it's this is like you said, this is free marketing.
Speaker 1: We're going into this season. There's not a lot of buzz.
Speaker 1: We don't have a new hub, we don't have a merger,
Speaker 1: we don't have additional cities, but like now, we kind
Speaker 1: of have the promise of a new of potentially new
Speaker 1: cities here in twenty twenty six and seven, like to me,
Speaker 1: like I said, my buddy's texting me this morning. Days,
Speaker 1: I mean, the sea dragons are coming back.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: You already have people that were last span and now go.
Speaker 1: And is it disingenuous? No, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: this is a real thing. I'm not saying that, and
Speaker 1: I understand why they're doing this, but this is a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot cheaper than actually expanding this year
Speaker 1: or actually adding cities, like hey, we're just gonna have
Speaker 1: a press release, like.
Speaker 2: You know, if you want to if you want to
Speaker 2: be involved in this.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like I see a lot on like
Speaker 1: Twitter now where someone will be like, well, if a
Speaker 1: team's looking for a football player or something like, well
Speaker 1: they're currently like looking at their options forever.
Speaker 2: And you see these people like hey, if Sidney Sweeney
Speaker 2: wants to day.
Speaker 1: Me like I'm available, Like yeah, sure, but you know
Speaker 1: the different than that, But I think that there's part
Speaker 1: of that in there, and you're setting up this like hey,
Speaker 1: we're so desirable now if you want us to come
Speaker 1: to your city.
Speaker 2: I like that, right.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of gravitas whatever, a little bit
Speaker 1: of like, hey, we have something to offer. I like that,
Speaker 1: but this does just feel like, how can we kind
Speaker 1: of get some buzz? And I would say, yeah, as
Speaker 1: soon as the MLS schedule comes out, and maybe we
Speaker 1: have something next week. Irregardless of that, just after the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving break, maybe we get another kind of random news leak.
Speaker 2: But it does seem like just kind of a way
Speaker 2: that this kind of a slow week people are around.
Speaker 2: Let's see him talking about the UFL.
Speaker 3: Well, and I will say too, you know, you talked
Speaker 3: about the success there, you know, of those markets, but
Speaker 3: you know, let's look at the success maybe some of
Speaker 3: the benchmarks of the UFL for maybe not just attendance
Speaker 3: but also for you know, TV ratings and revenue, And
Speaker 3: I think you have to if you look at that overall,
Speaker 3: you have to say that was successful, especially when you
Speaker 3: think about where that league started with the merger that
Speaker 3: seemed like it just happened overnight, and then they're trying
Speaker 3: to get off the ground and trying to get the
Speaker 3: you know, trying to get these venues going and trying
Speaker 3: to get these teams together. I think overall, that was
Speaker 3: a success. So you know, to me, maybe this is
Speaker 3: a little bit of you know, rah rah, Listen, we
Speaker 3: had some success last year. Now, look we are growing,
Speaker 3: so we want tell you that we're going to expand.
Speaker 3: And again I think, you know, we I think that
Speaker 3: the endgame here is to have franchise owners. So if
Speaker 3: you know, if that's the case, where there are maybe
Speaker 3: some potentials out there, some potential owners, they'll say like, Okay,
Speaker 3: they had their initial season after the merger, it was
Speaker 3: a success. When you look at a lot of different
Speaker 3: bench marks, maybe this is something that I will want
Speaker 3: to invest in because here's an opportunity.
Speaker 1: There's just there's a lot of double speak here, right,
Speaker 1: we were told in addition to the trademark kind of
Speaker 1: them having all that back, the USFL was putting cities
Speaker 1: in places where they thought they had potential ownership hasn't
Speaker 1: seen to be. You know, there's a lot of double
Speaker 1: speak here. And now as to your point, okay, maybe
Speaker 1: now we want the cities to reach out, but then
Speaker 1: do we have anyone in that city that wants to
Speaker 1: buy a team and franchise it.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen in.
Speaker 1: The CFL, and I don't know if I've always said
Speaker 1: that I hope that the UFL is starting to look
Speaker 1: at itself more like the CFL and not like the NFL,
Speaker 1: where hey, we can put on whatever we want any
Speaker 1: of the other the week people are going to watch.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We it's bde you know, come in here. We're going
Speaker 1: to kind of take care of everything. We're the CFL.
Speaker 1: It's we got to build in the local communities. We
Speaker 1: got to engage, you know, the communities. We got to
Speaker 1: send up players. If you own one of these teams,
Speaker 1: you got to.
Speaker 2: Put in a ton of work.
Speaker 1: We were just a great cup in BC ownership there
Speaker 1: put in a ton of work more so than the
Speaker 1: three previous We and no besmirchman on any of those,
Speaker 1: but like put in additional to kind of show like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're really invested in this. And so now, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: say you end up going to Tulsa and then you
Speaker 1: know you still don't have anyone there that wants to
Speaker 1: own the team, Like I guess the league can just
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. It still feels a little
Speaker 1: messy to me. It still feels like heart before the horse,
Speaker 1: and we kind of got to get something out here.
Speaker 1: But I don't you know, if you pick Portland and
Speaker 1: then you put a team there. Do you have anyone
Speaker 1: in Portland and wants to own a team in the
Speaker 1: next five years?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, uh, none of this is not unprecedented.
Speaker 3: I want to read you something here just really quick.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 3: Looking to add up to two new clubs to the
Speaker 3: eighteen league as early as next season. The XFL is
Speaker 3: put together a platoon of expansion experts that will visit Washington,
Speaker 3: DC on Tuesday. That was from March twenty third, two
Speaker 3: thousand and one. So, you know, like you, I don't
Speaker 3: want to be Debbie Downer, but these things have happened before. Now.
Speaker 3: I'm not comparing the UFL to XFL two thousand and
Speaker 3: one because that was a you know, that went straight
Speaker 3: that way. I think the UFL is going this way.
Speaker 3: But when we start to talk about expansion, you know,
Speaker 3: I think there will be First of all, I think
Speaker 3: there will be a league in twenty twenty six, but
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five is going to be very important to
Speaker 3: see if this expansion and these ideas and talking to
Speaker 3: these cities will work because they need to see something
Speaker 3: that they want to buy into. So I think there
Speaker 3: does need to be some maybe some benchmarks that they
Speaker 3: have to meet and exceed in twenty twenty five to
Speaker 3: make that happen well.
Speaker 1: And I guess that also leads me to kind of
Speaker 1: ass follow up because we've had Mike Mitchell on here
Speaker 1: a lot talk about Okay, this year is make or
Speaker 1: break for the UFL, for Fox, for everyone involved. Okay,
Speaker 1: last year we kind of got through it, and it
Speaker 1: was the late merger. We couldn't do any of that.
Speaker 1: We're still on kind of the delayed timeline again this
Speaker 1: year and we don't have the merger, so that leads
Speaker 1: to be desired. But I still think this is a
Speaker 1: make or break. I saw comments immediately with when Mike Mitchell,
Speaker 1: I think he quote tweeted the press release and then
Speaker 1: he was adding his additional context, and you had people
Speaker 1: asking like, oh, well, this means we're set to go
Speaker 1: this year. Absolutely not like I said, this could all
Speaker 1: go away in an instant.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was funny.
Speaker 1: I had because we're getting all these rollouts, and you know,
Speaker 1: we had the season tickets were available, and then we
Speaker 1: had like the home and away matchups, and then we
Speaker 1: had the theme nights and I don't I am nowhere
Speaker 1: near like a Mike or An Evan or a Sam Shady.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with a lot of players and coaches. I mean,
Speaker 1: people will reach out and I got I got friends
Speaker 1: that kind of I talked to, but I'm not I
Speaker 1: would never pretend that I'm in that whatever. But I
Speaker 1: did have a UFL coach reach out to me. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have coaches, but we have theme nights. So
Speaker 1: I just you know, I thought that was interesting. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a shared sentiment or if
Speaker 1: that's an individual opinion, but I thought that was interesting
Speaker 1: that like, yeah, you know, I mean, we're this is
Speaker 1: all kind of glitz and glamour, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, we want to we want to put
Speaker 1: that we still got to put football team on the field.
Speaker 3: So well, and you know, we're starting to close in here.
Speaker 3: I mean, what was in March twenty eighth is is
Speaker 3: going to be the kickoff? So yeah, I don't think
Speaker 3: it's going to I think the main thing is and
Speaker 3: I asked Darryl Johnson this question about does it feel
Speaker 3: like you're miles ahead already because the merger's over now
Speaker 3: and now you're starting to plan. So I'm okay with
Speaker 3: this rollout right now, because there are obviously some things
Speaker 3: behind the scenes that they have got to get ironed out.
Speaker 3: And you know, like you said, they're probably waiting on
Speaker 3: the MLS schedule so they can figure out with you know,
Speaker 3: DC and some other places and how they're gonna move
Speaker 3: things around. But but yeah, I'm okay with this because
Speaker 3: they can focus on these kind I think they can
Speaker 3: focus on these kinds of things, maybe not to our liking,
Speaker 3: but you know, to the to the fan base in general,
Speaker 3: where they can say, yeah, you know, hey, here's we
Speaker 3: got this happening. We're already planning for this, which were
Speaker 3: probably things that they couldn't even begin to think about
Speaker 3: this time last year as they got ready to go
Speaker 3: into the first season of the UFL.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also it's you always want to have a
Speaker 1: public out, publicly outward facing kind of positive image, right,
Speaker 1: And this does speak to you like, hey see we're
Speaker 1: looking we're doing as opposed to like had in hand
Speaker 1: them calling the CFL excuse me a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: like hey, would you like to talk about it? And
Speaker 1: stuff like this feels like, you know, like I'm a freelancer,
Speaker 1: I do weddings. When you go to events and you're
Speaker 1: like networking things. Everybody's doing great, right everyone. I got
Speaker 1: lots of gigs and I'm so booked, and I got
Speaker 1: all the like you know, it's it's a thing, I mean, perception.
Speaker 2: You know, you fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1: And I even like when I started the company, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of like we and us and whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, even though it was just me for a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: But so I'm saying all that.
Speaker 1: We have some comments here, and we kind of helped
Speaker 1: spur any any other conversation here talking about team numbers
Speaker 1: and cities and all that. I did, like this our
Speaker 1: friend Gregory, and then we were just talking about Gregory
Speaker 1: the other day. He goes, why expansion Now they fell
Speaker 1: at the Stallions competition. So I like that, like, well
Speaker 1: we beat all the teams. We gotta we gotta need
Speaker 1: some teams to be right.
Speaker 2: I like it. But you know, uh yeah, and I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm out, I can keep going to other comments here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, the Stallions have been the
Speaker 3: the Yankees of this, uh of these all these leagues
Speaker 3: here for a while. So uh uh no, I get it.
Speaker 3: You know, I think Birmingham, Uh Mike Mitchell wrote something
Speaker 3: I think it was before this past season started, about
Speaker 3: how Birmingham was the gold standard. Uh, and it's true,
Speaker 3: and it's just too bad that that city. I thought
Speaker 3: should have embraced Birmingham a little more. But I think
Speaker 3: some of that is comes to, you know, talking to
Speaker 3: some people in Birmingham when I was down there this
Speaker 3: past spring. It's they, frankly did some people in the
Speaker 3: general public didn't know that the Birmingham Stallions existed. So
Speaker 3: there's something, you know, there is there's something to that.
Speaker 3: To your point, as you were talking earlier, you got
Speaker 3: to get into these communities and you've got to really
Speaker 3: start working on these things. I you know, I got
Speaker 3: there the day before and went out to the stadium
Speaker 3: just kind of walking around. The only Birmingham Stallions sign
Speaker 3: that I saw was a small sign over the ticket
Speaker 3: window and the meet where the media passes were that
Speaker 3: said Birmingham Stallions. You know, media credential pickups. So uh,
Speaker 3: you know, there could be a lot more things, and
Speaker 3: I think that I think that was the case in
Speaker 3: a lot of cities, that the marketing efforts, you know,
Speaker 3: they need to be there and maybe not just be
Speaker 3: seasonal workers.
Speaker 2: What I would like.
Speaker 1: Is some sort of the DA to come out of
Speaker 1: like this is what a UFL team, Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: the pressure release sky, we're looking for you certain demographics
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: I would like that to be a little bit more public.
Speaker 1: I thought, just speaking to Birmingham, that really spurred my
Speaker 1: memory of when we used to have Roy S.
Speaker 2: Johnson. Then we could come on a lot and he
Speaker 2: wrote for al dot com. He did a lot.
Speaker 1: Of the research there with the Birmingham what was at
Speaker 1: the BJCC or whatever kind of the conglomberation around there,
Speaker 1: but you know he had numbers of it. You know,
Speaker 1: there was this much increase in attendance over a comparable
Speaker 1: period years before, and there was this much more revenue,
Speaker 1: and I think parking made this much more. We had
Speaker 1: all these different kind of infusions of that to.
Speaker 2: Show the benefits.
Speaker 1: There was of a spring foot at that point a
Speaker 1: USFL franchise being there, And so I would like, you know,
Speaker 1: can we get either from the league. What do they
Speaker 1: feel like some of these teams are worth?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I think obviously you were talking to CFL here and
Speaker 1: this is a very similar just having just gone through
Speaker 1: this bidding process with Winnipeg and the Calgary getting the
Speaker 1: great as you know, I just view it similarly that way,
Speaker 1: but obviously we have way more track record knowing what
Speaker 1: the Gray Cup kind of means to an influx. But
Speaker 1: what does this mean from the teams? And then, like
Speaker 1: you said, whether they looking for I mean, we have
Speaker 1: the press release and it says, you know, we want
Speaker 1: you know, we just put back up here. You know,
Speaker 1: we're looking for fan interest, exhibitions, sports culture, geography, population
Speaker 1: and venue and infrastructure availability. That's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: statement anyway. I don't know who rust is Ross, come on, Russ,
Speaker 1: but like what does that mean specifically? I would love
Speaker 1: to know. Fans of this league that are tracking its
Speaker 1: growth would love to know, like what exactly are you
Speaker 1: looking for? What kinds of fans are you looking for?
Speaker 1: What kind of populations are you looking for? Do you
Speaker 1: want to be in markets with an NFL team? Do
Speaker 1: you want to be in only markets that don't have
Speaker 1: an NFL franchise? Or like I would just love more
Speaker 1: transparency of that. I know that we always want that
Speaker 1: in the spring leagues, but like just more data and
Speaker 1: analytics that way, because we did get a really good
Speaker 1: picture and the USFL at least that first and I
Speaker 1: think it was the first two years there in Birmingham,
Speaker 1: Roy was able to track positive growth, you know, throughout
Speaker 1: even if you know, we poo poo the attendance or whatever,
Speaker 1: but it meant a lot to the city. So I
Speaker 1: would just be curious now, like now that we have
Speaker 1: even more years of kind of research under our belts
Speaker 1: and like, well, yeah, what does a DC Defenders home
Speaker 1: game average bring in? You know, what kind of revenue
Speaker 1: are we know, what kind of concessions are we getting there?
Speaker 1: What kind of gate revenue?
Speaker 2: I would just like to know that are people coming
Speaker 2: into town? Are there? You know, are you traveling with
Speaker 2: the team right to.
Speaker 1: Come in or are you live on the east goest?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm rambling there, but does that make sense?
Speaker 3: It doesn't you know? When I read that passage there,
Speaker 3: it sounds like they are looking for data, like whether
Speaker 3: they're trying to gather that data themselves or they want
Speaker 3: the cities to come back and give them that data.
Speaker 3: You know there, what should we be looking for?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 3: Right right right, It's right, It's like, can you give
Speaker 3: us this information or you know, how is that going
Speaker 3: to work again. That kind of goes back to my
Speaker 3: question of how this process that they were talking about,
Speaker 3: you know, really works. Are are they going into these markets?
Speaker 3: You know, is there is there some you know, corporate
Speaker 3: matchmaker happening here. I just I'd like to know, like
Speaker 3: those are the things they want when they talk about
Speaker 3: you know, infrastructure and they talk about uh, you know,
Speaker 3: really like population and demographics and the fan interests and
Speaker 3: the culture and all that of these cities, then you know,
Speaker 3: where does that data come from? And who's who's trying
Speaker 3: to gather that? Are they trying to gather that? Do
Speaker 3: they want the cities to provide that? I don't know
Speaker 3: a couple of questions here. This was for I'm do
Speaker 3: all this this funny a UFL with a lot of
Speaker 3: XFL the first week they probably would not the last
Speaker 3: week very true, you know, And I said, well, we're just.
Speaker 2: On it, you know, like it subscribe, joined the channel,
Speaker 2: help support.
Speaker 1: I think we can put them some new We got
Speaker 1: a ton of subscribers with the CFL S, which is great.
Speaker 1: I think we even added a couple of new members
Speaker 1: there that ninety nine cents of mind that's getting that
Speaker 1: extra twelve bucks or whatever in my pocket and all that.
Speaker 1: But John Tanner has a question here. I think it's
Speaker 1: really good. What do you think the team cap should
Speaker 1: be for their foreseeable few I become spoiled with the
Speaker 1: quantity of talent the UFL currently has. I don't want
Speaker 1: to delude it.
Speaker 2: I think it's very important.
Speaker 1: Right we're still dealing with this second third tier right athlete. However,
Speaker 1: you want to look at it here with the CFL
Speaker 1: and all these alt leagues, you know, we kind of
Speaker 1: can see that we can put a decent seven eight
Speaker 1: teams on the field here, But are you worried about
Speaker 1: expansion kind of deluding that talent base.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think Tanner brings
Speaker 3: up a good point because it's that's what's going to happen,
Speaker 3: Because I mean, when you look at what happened with
Speaker 3: you had the USFL and the XFL playing the one
Speaker 3: year at the same time. There were some bad teams
Speaker 3: in there, and we really didn't see that to that point.
Speaker 3: Or you know, even if teams didn't have a great record,
Speaker 3: you didn't see a lot of bad play. I didn't
Speaker 3: feel like like that was an exception rather than the rule.
Speaker 3: When you saw a team that just had, you know,
Speaker 3: just bad play or get overwhelmed by something. Now we
Speaker 3: did see that in the in the UFL Championship, But
Speaker 3: but you're right, I think there probably needs to be
Speaker 3: a little little bit of an influx of you know,
Speaker 3: you you want them to come in here to you know,
Speaker 3: all things being equal, you you're gonna have to have
Speaker 3: some more funds to pay these players. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: just math. But I think you want it where you're
Speaker 3: gonna get. Let's say there's ten teams in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: You want ten good quarterbacks, you want ten good coaches.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if there what kind of
Speaker 3: cap you're going to put on you know, the team
Speaker 3: as a whole, or is there going to be maybe
Speaker 3: a different cap or or just a straight salary for
Speaker 3: the coaches. That's you know, that's something I don't understand
Speaker 3: how any of the mathematics and finance finances work there.
Speaker 3: But I agree Tanner has a good point there. You
Speaker 3: don't want to just you know, bring in teams, maybe
Speaker 3: you know, lower how much you're gonna pay, because you're
Speaker 3: then you're gonna you're just not gonna have a great league.
Speaker 3: And that's the one thing that I really liked about
Speaker 3: the UFL last year was we saw a lot of
Speaker 3: good play over over the entire season.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there was a lot of comments when we
Speaker 1: when we had both leagues going back and you know
Speaker 1: the same time kind of compete, like there might not
Speaker 1: be sixteen spring football quality starting quarterbacks right now, right
Speaker 1: there might not be whatever that number would be offensive
Speaker 1: lineman quality. I remember we had Eric galco on years
Speaker 1: ago if you want to look at the past YouTube step,
Speaker 1: but we had him on the former DPP back in
Speaker 1: the XFL twenty twenty eight. They're involved in that with
Speaker 1: Sam and everyone, and like, you know, what were the
Speaker 1: biggest concerns for him in terms of roster building, the
Speaker 1: numbers and kind of all that stuff. Denzel, I see
Speaker 1: your question here. We'll talk AJ at the end. I want,
Speaker 1: I do want to mention the AJ stuff and I
Speaker 1: don't want to forget about the Switzerland and stuff. So Denzel,
Speaker 1: I've got your thing whatever, Gregory here and this is
Speaker 1: my other Seriously, now that the NFL probably wants to
Speaker 1: see her best springs football, every team wants their Jake
Speaker 1: Biggs and Brandon Aubrey side note, really a roller coaster
Speaker 1: for Reid yesterday. Oh, Dallas Cowboys special teams. I hate
Speaker 1: all of them just because they're the Cowboys. Brandon Aubrey's
Speaker 1: been on the show like great guy. We joke a
Speaker 1: lot in the chat about I hope he misses just
Speaker 1: because it's the Cowboys if he played for any other team.
Speaker 1: I hate the Cowboys Commanders fan. But we had Brandon
Speaker 1: Aubrey blocked field goal, missed extra point, and then I
Speaker 1: think he almost missed one of the field goals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like living life, living life. And then that damn
Speaker 1: Cavante Turaman with the game ceiling kick return, incredible ninety
Speaker 1: nine yard that spin movie went through his legs and
Speaker 1: they always talk about that disrupts the timing everyone's coming
Speaker 1: down that extra app Anyway, I was, I was. I
Speaker 1: almost threw my phone against the wall.
Speaker 2: I was very very much.
Speaker 3: I can imagine. And there, you know, there's a former
Speaker 3: New Jersey general right there who's getting it done. You're right,
Speaker 3: and when you you know, you saw like I can't
Speaker 3: remember what the final numbers were, but how many UFL
Speaker 3: players ended up you know, at least getting a shot
Speaker 3: at practice, you know, in camp, being a practice player
Speaker 3: ended up on a roster. I mean, there were a
Speaker 3: lot and I think I think he's right. I think
Speaker 3: the NFL does want viable spring football because it's it.
Speaker 3: You know, certainly college football, NCAA, college football that is there,
Speaker 3: that's their free uh you know, training camp, that's their
Speaker 3: free farm teams that for the NFL. But I think,
Speaker 3: you know, if you have some players who aren't NFL
Speaker 3: ready but could really enhance their play and become good players,
Speaker 3: as we've seen this year through spring football, why would
Speaker 3: they not want it. I do worry though, that if
Speaker 3: the NFL decides to dip in on it, if they
Speaker 3: lose a dollar, they're going to shut it down. We've
Speaker 3: seen that too often. So I'm kind of on the
Speaker 3: fence there about how much do I want the NFL
Speaker 3: involved with the UFL.
Speaker 1: It's just hard, like, and I know this would never
Speaker 1: happen just because of injuries and everything, but like we
Speaker 1: see what's happened this season with like an Anthony Richardson right, Right,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be awesome if you and I understand like
Speaker 1: football wasn't nearly as violent, right? You know, we see
Speaker 1: this all the time in hockey, right where you draft
Speaker 1: a player, even the Cracker right now, we draft a
Speaker 1: player they're not ready, we go send them to playing
Speaker 1: Europe kind of does the track that way. We send
Speaker 1: them to the miners, you know, and then we bring
Speaker 1: them up. Like look at someone like Ante and someone
Speaker 1: had just put Indianapolis and here was kind of maybe
Speaker 1: thinking about it in terms of teams. Send someone like
Speaker 1: him to the spring League, get ten weeks of rep,
Speaker 1: get you know, get kind of comfortable with it. You know,
Speaker 1: can the can the Colts loan someone? Can we make
Speaker 1: some relationships that way? I understand it's totally different, but
Speaker 1: like hockey does that a lot. I just think that
Speaker 1: works as you get all these guys coming in and
Speaker 1: they just aren't ready to go, and then you know
Speaker 1: they can.
Speaker 2: They kind of fall to that. I had a comment
Speaker 2: I lost on that.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, here was Indianapolis will be spending thirty thousand
Speaker 1: on MLS style stadium entertainment district.
Speaker 2: I believe they'll be interested. They already hosted half of
Speaker 2: the spring League back in what was that the.
Speaker 1: Tree one season. Brian Woods famously, Uh, how's the players
Speaker 1: there in the hotel district? Not pay his bills and
Speaker 1: left the city with like a one point two million
Speaker 1: dollars in debt. So Indianapolis might be a little bit
Speaker 1: on the fence about getting back involved in the spring football.
Speaker 1: If you missed, Brian Scott, a great Cup winning champion
Speaker 1: quarterback here a third third on the depth chart with
Speaker 1: the argos. His name will be on the trophy. Chack
Speaker 1: Hilles will not this season, which is interesting. Was part
Speaker 1: of the CFL show. If you want to catch up
Speaker 1: with Brian, that's on our it's all time coded on there.
Speaker 1: But wonderful talk with Brian about the CFL. You know,
Speaker 1: Brian Woods building a cardboard building this spremely out of
Speaker 1: cardboard boxes in his garage. Really great to catch up
Speaker 1: with Brian. My mom, he was the shining point. My
Speaker 1: mom said, I really that boy at the end was
Speaker 1: really nice.
Speaker 3: That's great. But yeah, you know, Andy, Indy could be
Speaker 3: one of those teams. You're right, they might be a
Speaker 3: little gun shot there with that, but I think there
Speaker 3: are a lot of opportunities. The question is, you know,
Speaker 3: if what and Mike Mitchell is in the know, you
Speaker 3: know is if it's going to be two in twenties
Speaker 3: twenty six and maybe two in twenty twenty seven, you know,
Speaker 3: who were the four and how how much of an
Speaker 3: eye are they going to keep on this? And you
Speaker 3: got to think about geography too. There's a lot that
Speaker 3: goes into this because more than likely, unless something changes,
Speaker 3: these teams aren't going to you know, be housed there
Speaker 3: in their cities. I mean, I'd love to see that
Speaker 3: because you just have so much community support, especially in
Speaker 3: a lot of places, you know, like I mean take
Speaker 3: you know, take Andy for example. Obviously their football crazy
Speaker 3: in the fall, but you know they have they do
Speaker 3: have a lot of spring sports there, but they could
Speaker 3: they can be you know, that could be community centric.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of there are a lot of
Speaker 3: places like that. As we were talking earlier, twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is going to be a resume for these cities
Speaker 3: and this expansion for the next two years.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's look here at cities.
Speaker 1: I had a comment from Leon and just speaking with
Speaker 1: Mike Bitch and all that. Yeah, here, the Ohio is
Speaker 1: a strong possibility.
Speaker 2: That's very true.
Speaker 1: So Mike Mitchell reporting before kind of the merger, and
Speaker 1: the cities came out and doubled down on that afterwards,
Speaker 1: Ohio very much in the mix there. I there could
Speaker 1: have been ten teams going into the merger. They ended
Speaker 1: up settling for eight, So you know, we bounce back
Speaker 1: to ten. Kind of do that slow impact, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of slow increase that way, you know, we do Ohio,
Speaker 1: Andy Murray, san Diego resident seems down on San Diego
Speaker 1: now do we you know, we've lived through Vegas. I
Speaker 1: don't think you go back to Seattle. Loom is too expensive,
Speaker 1: it's too far travel. Do you look in Oakland somewhere?
Speaker 1: I think that would be kind of cool spurred fan
Speaker 1: base there. I just John, where do you see if
Speaker 1: you do Ohio, which I think is like pretty a
Speaker 1: no brainer to add back into this just because it
Speaker 1: was originally. But where do you do that? East Coast?
Speaker 1: I don't think Portland works. I don't think Seattle works.
Speaker 1: I think that's too far north.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love Oakland, and I know there are so
Speaker 3: many issues there with California. There's been a lot of
Speaker 3: talk about a lot of governmental you know, there's restrictions
Speaker 3: and iNTS and a lot of things that happened there
Speaker 3: with California where it might price the ufl out of business.
Speaker 3: As far as trying to put a team there. But
Speaker 3: you know, all things being equal, it seems to me
Speaker 3: what what what worked for Saint Louis was a team
Speaker 3: that was jilted and they have a very strong base.
Speaker 3: To me, San Diego or Oakland would certainly fit that
Speaker 3: bill if you've got the right venue. So but the
Speaker 3: thing is, too, if you have a West Coast team,
Speaker 3: do you need two out there or do you try
Speaker 3: to do a you know, another Midwestern like Ohio, which
Speaker 3: I think Columbus would be the area to do it,
Speaker 3: and have you know, your two expansions be one over
Speaker 3: here and one over here. To me, the UFL needs
Speaker 3: a West Coast presence and if it's not Seattle or Portland,
Speaker 3: to me, it's got to be southern California.
Speaker 1: At the other Just and just to kind of go
Speaker 1: back to this is I'm in my head here kind
Speaker 1: of just trying to picture the map and everything and
Speaker 1: these teams and okay, of these we have DC right,
Speaker 1: we're not in New York and New Jersey, but we're
Speaker 1: kind of there right, trying to get the West coast
Speaker 1: this whole, like, Okay, we're soliciting, give us your bids,
Speaker 1: Like the contrarian, like, shouldn't the UFL kind of know
Speaker 1: what markets work for them now as opposed to like
Speaker 1: you tell us if you want.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be back to go back to that.
Speaker 1: But like, shouldn't they have analytics now? Shouldn't Redbird and
Speaker 1: Fox and just it's like the CFL with the Genius sports,
Speaker 1: like we have all this, Like shouldn't they know kind
Speaker 1: of where they want to where they want.
Speaker 2: To play now? You know?
Speaker 3: And maybe they do. I mean, maybe this is this
Speaker 3: is a press release to get a few headlines and
Speaker 3: and to let people know we are growing and we're
Speaker 3: going to start trying to look you know, in these
Speaker 3: different communities. I don't think they flew blind into this.
Speaker 3: I don't think someone woke up this morning and said,
Speaker 3: let's put out a press release. I think there's probably
Speaker 3: a little bit more thinking behind it. So I have
Speaker 3: to think that they at least have some target cities.
Speaker 3: I know, you know, even when the previous UFL back
Speaker 3: in the mid two thousands, you know, they aimed at
Speaker 3: like twenty I think there were twenty one different cities
Speaker 3: they were aiming at. It was it was weird that
Speaker 3: UFL was weird because they actually played in the fall.
Speaker 3: They didn't play against the NFL. They played, you know,
Speaker 3: around the NFL, which the commissioner, Michael Hughes said he
Speaker 3: didn't think spring football would ever work because of the
Speaker 3: time you needed to play in the fall. That's another story.
Speaker 3: But you know, so you have to think that there
Speaker 3: is they have a lot more information than hey, let
Speaker 3: us know, if you want a team, we'll come talk
Speaker 3: to you. I have to think there are some target
Speaker 3: markets that they have in some dossier somewhere that Redbird
Speaker 3: and Disney and Fox have put together.
Speaker 2: This is interesting.
Speaker 1: I was just kind of so a couple of things here,
Speaker 1: just what I'm working on in the back here. So
Speaker 1: you had talked about kind of just wanting to kind
Speaker 1: of get in the news period and all this that here.
Speaker 2: I mean, you look at that. This is more people
Speaker 2: they wrote about the US or UFL in you know months.
Speaker 1: You're right, I got sparied because Wort illustrated Bleacher Report.
Speaker 1: The newsrooms for a business journal. We even have you know,
Speaker 1: one oh four four point three. I hope I know
Speaker 1: what good you have there? You go, but you know,
Speaker 1: you're getting all these involved through You're having mixed, but
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting, so I pulled up obviously,
Speaker 1: friends with our people over at Sportico. I don't know
Speaker 1: Jason Klinkstale, but I've had a lot of the Sporting
Speaker 1: Core reporters on It looks like he did a phone
Speaker 1: interview with Russ Brandon kind of in conjunction with all
Speaker 1: of this, and so obviously they have the original quote here.
Speaker 1: This is from the press release talking about that. But
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting and phone interview. Brandon declined
Speaker 1: to reveal which city is The league is considering more
Speaker 1: information on expansion fees.
Speaker 2: We're going to stick with the integrity of the.
Speaker 1: Process, that is, that is having an open mind and
Speaker 1: good communications with our fellow markets to see where it
Speaker 1: takes us.
Speaker 2: Talked about Saint Louis having.
Speaker 1: Both, you know strong, I've given my thoughts on all
Speaker 1: that stuff, but Saint Louis has obviously been a model franchise.
Speaker 1: You've had tremendous support there from the legacy into the
Speaker 1: UFA Legacy, XFL into the UFL. We've seen across many
Speaker 1: of our markets will be patient, very disciplined with our process,
Speaker 1: and we'll can you internally to work through all the
Speaker 1: metrics that we've set ourselves.
Speaker 3: Uh that those are a whole lot of words. I
Speaker 3: don't know that it really reveals much of a strategy.
Speaker 3: That's good, open mind, good communication. I mean we should
Speaker 3: all have that in our professional and personal lives. But
Speaker 3: I mean it's it's fine. He declined to reveal which
Speaker 3: cities the league's considering. So to me, there a.
Speaker 2: Couple when you leak a couple of this to be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're thinking, well.
Speaker 3: You know, frankly, maybe maybe this is maybe they're they're
Speaker 3: floating this to see like, Okay, there was a lot
Speaker 3: of interest here, we're starting to see some returns. People
Speaker 3: are talking about that maybe we leak something out there,
Speaker 3: especially one that they might really like, a city they
Speaker 3: really covet that could very well, you know, be kind
Speaker 3: of the strategy behind this. You know, we're playing a
Speaker 3: guessing game because we're not in those rooms, so it's
Speaker 3: really hard hard to say, like what strategy is here.
Speaker 3: But at least you know they are talking international forum,
Speaker 3: they are talking to the fans and the general public
Speaker 3: in a press release. I mean those are all good
Speaker 3: things to me.
Speaker 2: Leon has a question here, and I have another inch.
Speaker 1: I'm not going I'm doing this, so then a sports
Speaker 1: business channel has some quotes as well, different quotes.
Speaker 2: I like that, I'm kind of doing this in the background.
Speaker 2: But Leon has a question.
Speaker 1: How many trademarks? I can put that very how many trademarks?
Speaker 1: Is the UFL still have the rights to a lot?
Speaker 1: I am on and you I can't even remember how
Speaker 1: the heck guy signed it. But you can sign up
Speaker 1: for like basically notifications of like any time the XFL.
Speaker 1: I mean now it's kind of been grandfather then, but
Speaker 1: anytime the exit the UFL. But I get stuff all
Speaker 1: the time, like I was getting stuff the other day.
Speaker 1: You know, the Orlando Renegades. They're still working through the
Speaker 1: check process. The Showboats are still working through. That was it.
Speaker 3: Denver Gold in there.
Speaker 1: Denver Gold's in there, Tampa Bay Viper is still working through.
Speaker 1: Let me just read through real quick.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is interesting, John Vaan for
Speaker 2: this is second why I pulled this up.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I mean that that was and I remember
Speaker 3: you told me the website and I started going in
Speaker 3: there and it was a rabbit hole of all the
Speaker 3: trademarks that they had, and you know, it started to
Speaker 3: cause a lot of speculation too, because people were going
Speaker 3: in there, especially like Denver Gold. I mean, I would
Speaker 3: love to see a team at Denver. That would be great.
Speaker 3: But just because you owned the trademarks doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: you're necessarily like that's that's you owned that to keep
Speaker 3: it in your back pocket, I think, not necessarily like Okay,
Speaker 3: they're going to go to Denver, or they're bringing back
Speaker 3: the Orlando Renegade or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I got quite a few domains and terry marks,
Speaker 1: and but yeah, I mean, just like I said, this
Speaker 1: is just going back to let's just go back.
Speaker 2: I get a lot of emails from this. I just
Speaker 2: kind of junk them all in the back.
Speaker 1: But got the Renegade, show Boats, Vipers, Alpha Entertainment, We've
Speaker 1: got the Bandits, Birmingham Stallions either all working through updates
Speaker 1: on their stuff, the La Express, the La Express, Denver Gold,
Speaker 1: New Orleans Breakers still working too. That the Blitz Arizona
Speaker 1: Outlaws the Gold in conjunction with the Denver Gold.
Speaker 2: I think Canton was part of that too, the Canton Gold.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're still working through.
Speaker 1: We have a fifth statement request for extension to use
Speaker 1: he hate Me. That was updated a as of October
Speaker 1: for the love of Football.
Speaker 2: We're so working there.
Speaker 1: I did want to buy that one. I was trying
Speaker 1: to at one point when they were working through. I
Speaker 1: was like, Man, if they let that lapse, I'm picking
Speaker 1: up for love of football. I want to have that
Speaker 1: trademark Jacksonville Football. So you know, there's a lot the
Speaker 1: outlaw is still working through. So yes, to answer Leanne's question,
Speaker 1: they still have quite a few. Like John said, they
Speaker 1: aren't all like guarantees. It's very cheap, especially if you
Speaker 1: have Fox lawyers to kind of file and work through
Speaker 1: all of these things.
Speaker 2: But it is something interesting to keep in mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, it's fun to talk about and
Speaker 3: it's fun to dream about, like, oh my goodness, can
Speaker 3: you imagine the you know again the Denver Gold which
Speaker 3: was which was an interesting franchise and the story in itself.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think you keep a lot of those
Speaker 3: in your back pocket just in case, and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe one of those cities are like, hey, you guys
Speaker 3: already owned this. Let's sit down and talk.
Speaker 1: So the other article wanted to pull up here, So
Speaker 1: this is from the Sports Business Journal. Again, similar quotes
Speaker 1: and everything from the pressure release, but talking get another
Speaker 1: phone interview.
Speaker 2: Brand In sided the league's ratings following.
Speaker 1: Its initial twenty twenty four season as to why it
Speaker 1: feels comfortable attempting to add more franchises. We've had a
Speaker 1: lot of early initial quote. Now, we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of early excitement around the league. Obviously that's been shown
Speaker 1: with our ratings all the measurements. From an engagement standpoint,
Speaker 1: the UFL average eight hundred and fifty thousand viewers over
Speaker 1: its forty telecasts in twenty four. You know it came
Speaker 1: from the merger. Spring football may have been too saturated
Speaker 1: with both. They averaged thirty four percent fewer viewers when
Speaker 1: you we both were in there. They believe they'll find
Speaker 1: an optimal number. We're going to see what the sweet
Speaker 1: spot is, continue to do our due diligence and see
Speaker 1: where that plays out. The league has not consulted any
Speaker 1: banks or lawyers on the expansion process. As Brandon leaves,
Speaker 1: its network of leaders and investors gives the league what
Speaker 1: it needs. We're doing everything internally right now with the
Speaker 1: power of the individuals that can prize our leadership group.
Speaker 1: We're going through this first phase initially, then we'll see
Speaker 1: what resources we need.
Speaker 2: That's interesting that was below the fold.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even gotten that far. I like that we're
Speaker 1: not involved in anyone We know what we're doing.
Speaker 3: We're just kind of sitting around a table at the
Speaker 3: office and talking about it, kind of like we're doing
Speaker 3: right here, right here, and trying to figure out that
Speaker 3: sounds right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that meme where it's the guy that's like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Like me nothing, just hanging around.
Speaker 2: That's what it kind of feels like what this is
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's more to this, I really think, uh,
Speaker 3: and hopefully we'll see that kind of unfold as we
Speaker 3: get closer. I don't think we're gonna hear a lot.
Speaker 3: This might be as much as we hear, unless they
Speaker 3: do leak a couple of cities that they might be
Speaker 3: looking at. But I think this was to get UFL
Speaker 3: in the headlines maybe and then you know, a schedule,
Speaker 3: so people are talking about the UFL and then you know,
Speaker 3: maybe we'll get a schedule release because you know, frankly,
Speaker 3: when the Home and Away you know schedule came out,
Speaker 3: that was just you know which teams are playing, which
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that did a lot of
Speaker 3: traction outside of our niche or that you might be right, like,
Speaker 3: I mean, how many people were really interested in that
Speaker 3: because it was like, Okay, well, you know, birming patslaying
Speaker 3: here and they're playing here. Well, I mean it's eight teams.
Speaker 3: You kind of got that figured out. But I think
Speaker 3: this could be a process of getting the name out there,
Speaker 3: getting the UFL and headlines even though it's we're in
Speaker 3: the middle of NFL c or UFL. We're in the
Speaker 3: middle of NFL season, and then as we kind of
Speaker 3: move forward, here is Fox have the Super Bowl this year?
Speaker 3: I can't ye, So so there's some opportunity there. There's
Speaker 3: some opportunity for the UFL once again to get you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of eyeballs and and maybe people who didn't
Speaker 3: even realize it was a thing last year. In fact,
Speaker 3: I had someone in sports media asked me today, the
Speaker 3: UFL is that the thing that Vince McMahon is involved in,
Speaker 3: So it's you know, this is someone in sports media.
Speaker 3: So they can get some more eyeballs and involved here,
Speaker 3: and hopefully maybe the Super Bowl can help that as
Speaker 3: well well.
Speaker 2: And we even have a Mike Mitchell was talking today.
Speaker 1: He's been talking with a lot of his CFL people,
Speaker 1: and you know they claim to know this or know
Speaker 1: that Andy and I and Evan had more people asking
Speaker 1: us about the UFL from the CFL media, so they
Speaker 1: don't you know, they.
Speaker 2: Sit there all this in the league and all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Yeah, Leon having comment here. What's Vince
Speaker 2: McMann doing.
Speaker 1: Definitely out on Vince, I hope even keeping track him
Speaker 1: all the news lately.
Speaker 2: But they just had a Vister McMahon documentary. I'm very
Speaker 2: out of that.
Speaker 3: It was really good. The Netflix documentary series was actually
Speaker 3: really good. But if you watch that, you don't want
Speaker 3: anything to do with Vince McMahon.
Speaker 1: If you did already abdul and bring back Vegas, I
Speaker 1: still think if you kind have figured out something with
Speaker 1: Sam Boyd or somewhere else, they had that loyal six
Speaker 1: thousand people there. The other comment I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up here, I don't know how long you want to
Speaker 1: stay on this, and you know, for a few minutes
Speaker 1: hopefully will kind.
Speaker 3: Of van I'm here with you, brother.
Speaker 1: The other there was in the article Greg's share then
Speaker 1: maybe I can pull that up, but they were talking
Speaker 1: about the it was about Russ Brandon talking this season
Speaker 1: about kind of the work they have going on in
Speaker 1: the markets.
Speaker 2: We've seen hiring for all that. I know Greg's been
Speaker 2: kind of tracking all of that, and just.
Speaker 1: Like, can we get two or three years of just
Speaker 1: like sustainable UFL offseason living. I mean, I know this
Speaker 1: is such the sugar rush and everything else, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: can we get eight people in each market just building?
Speaker 1: I think San Antonio is going to be awful this
Speaker 1: year just because of the lack of the additional home game.
Speaker 1: The four home games they have are really backloaded to
Speaker 1: the end of this season, Like there's already issues that
Speaker 1: play here without kind of anything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think it is a positive sign. I
Speaker 3: follow you know, you're on LinkedIn too, you know, and
Speaker 3: UFL will pop up and it's like, hey, we're hiring
Speaker 3: for this, We're hiring for that. I think those are
Speaker 3: all good signs. But I think too, as we started
Speaker 3: this conversation of twenty twenty five is make or break.
Speaker 3: So I think that you really could, you know, if
Speaker 3: this is another successful season they hit those benchmarks, meet
Speaker 3: or exceed a lot of other things that they're trying
Speaker 3: to look at this year. I think you do see that.
Speaker 3: I think you start to see more than seasonal hirings.
Speaker 3: I think you see them getting to the communities, especially
Speaker 3: if you're going to go into expansion, if you have
Speaker 3: an expansion team, and I don't care where it is. Again,
Speaker 3: you know, as we were talking about Birmingham were there
Speaker 3: were a lot of people in the general public that
Speaker 3: didn't know what the stallions were. So if you can
Speaker 3: get into these, you know, whatever expansion communities you want
Speaker 3: to get into. And maybe I'm putting the cart before
Speaker 3: the horse, but you've got to get it, get in
Speaker 3: there in the community. And you can't do it by
Speaker 3: hiring people. And you know, November and December or January,
Speaker 3: you've got to get those people in there, like you know,
Speaker 3: ready to go through the season, and then as soon
Speaker 3: as the season's over, you know, to start showing out
Speaker 3: at these you know, different events that are in the community.
Speaker 1: A couple of comments here abdual Santoni issue. We're just
Speaker 1: talking kind of the backlay. It could happen with Panthers.
Speaker 1: Ford Field is hosting the Final four in twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Let's get to twenty seven. That was like when the
Speaker 1: Kraken were looking for their offseason, they were hiring a
Speaker 1: new coach. In the off season, we were talking to
Speaker 1: like Rob Brendan Moore was over with the Carolina Hurricanes,
Speaker 1: and they.
Speaker 2: Go, well, Rob's good, but he's he can't make a
Speaker 2: deep playoff run. It's like, let me get a coach
Speaker 2: that can get us to the playoffs. Then we can
Speaker 2: deal with that. Let's get to twenty seven. Sam here
Speaker 2: loll twenty five is a make or break? Shut up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't need that kind of language, but I
Speaker 1: would like to know why Sam doesn't feel that way.
Speaker 3: And that's been bad vibes on a holiday week man.
Speaker 3: But you know, if you don't think that twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is not make or break, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean we're on completely polar opposite of opinion here,
Speaker 3: because if they don't have a good twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: do you really think that they're going to set They're
Speaker 3: going to put more you know, good money after bad.
Speaker 3: Now I'm optimistic. I think, you know, I was kind
Speaker 3: of you know, we used to talk about the welfare
Speaker 3: check when we would talk about before the season and
Speaker 3: with the UFL man who knew I didn't know. I
Speaker 3: didn't know but like, after what I saw in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, I'm certainly optimistic about twenty twenty five. But
Speaker 3: it can't be a disaster and it's you know, certainly,
Speaker 3: but it can't be below some a certain thresholds I
Speaker 3: think of ratings and revenue and those kinds of things,
Speaker 3: because they're not going to continue to invest in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's think the whole like, oh, we're working on
Speaker 1: merchandise and we're working on this, like we just need
Speaker 1: and people like read you just need to give them time.
Speaker 1: Spring football that never has the benefit of time, never
Speaker 1: has the benefit that we need to make the best
Speaker 1: we can run. Now, that's where we talk about it,
Speaker 1: because if you sit around and say everything is fine,
Speaker 1: then this that goes away. Here where's Leon? The twenty
Speaker 1: five is definitely make or break the other thing. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk to this sports business Shuril thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Leon caught the Sports Business Shott video. They seem very bullish. Again,
Speaker 1: every freelancer I know is booked all the time and
Speaker 1: business is crazy and all that stuff, but this was interesting,
Speaker 1: just some quote. So they were here at the SVETO
Speaker 1: Sports Business Journals of Media Innovators conference that's nice. We're
Speaker 1: talking through all this stuff, this rest brand, and it's
Speaker 1: about money and execution. Now with the backers we have,
Speaker 1: capital won't be an issue. Patients isn't going to be
Speaker 1: an issue, even though we're moving to expand here before
Speaker 1: maybe we were ready for it, but I don't think
Speaker 1: execution is going to be the issue. The other thing
Speaker 1: I just thought was interesting in this again, this is
Speaker 1: Greg Parks over here. I would encourage everyone to check
Speaker 1: this out on ufl board. This just came out today.
Speaker 1: We're set up as a single entity. We did so
Speaker 1: the maximized speed and flexibility for us as collective in
Speaker 1: terms of exits and how we think about return on
Speaker 1: there's number of outcomes we get. Definitely sell franchises, we
Speaker 1: keep it as a single entity. So it's just kind
Speaker 1: of I know, we know that, but I just always
Speaker 1: appreciate that kind of the vocalizing kind of just how
Speaker 1: they're viewing this, how they're viewing potential, you know, expansion
Speaker 1: and franchising kind of all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I liked that because this was in Sports
Speaker 3: Business Journal. You see that there were a lot of
Speaker 3: where they talked about, you know, some of the numbers
Speaker 3: behind it that we don't always see. I do want
Speaker 3: to point out something. If you'll scroll down just a
Speaker 3: little bit, you see that Dick Sporting Good UFL store.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna say that thanks to Greg's page. I
Speaker 3: was on there and I was like, what is this?
Speaker 3: And I clicked on there and they had like deeply
Speaker 3: discounted under Armor UFL stuff. So I hope that I
Speaker 3: really hope that Greg got like a cut of that.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was they had like some incredible prices and I
Speaker 3: went on there and bought some stuff. But yeah, to
Speaker 3: you to your point there about like you know, the
Speaker 3: Sports Business Journal, those forums are exactly like you said
Speaker 3: about freelancers. Those are to get up there and kind
Speaker 3: of market yourself because it's really kind of a marketing thing.
Speaker 3: But I love where they can really talk about a
Speaker 3: lot of the a lot of the numbers, and you see,
Speaker 3: like one of the things the digital users on the
Speaker 3: ESPN app, which sometimes we didn't get a lot of
Speaker 3: those numbers. I would love to know, like overall, you know,
Speaker 3: what's the you know, the the viewing public, not just
Speaker 3: percentage wise, but like who you know who's watching on
Speaker 3: these apps, and and that's where you get into demos too,
Speaker 3: and maybe that's just something I'm interested in, but it
Speaker 3: it feeds into the bigger question of how many people
Speaker 3: are watching the UFL and I'm sure they probably you know,
Speaker 3: put that into the eight hundred and fifty thousand, but
Speaker 3: you know, we really don't get streaming numbers that often,
Speaker 3: if ever, so that would be interesting to know.
Speaker 1: We're so Sam's the you know, they handter Sam so
Speaker 1: ty we have massive backers all this stuff. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: Disney just canceled the Accolade after one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: million dollar Star Wars here is here I think it
Speaker 1: was one hundred and eighty five million dollars Star Wars
Speaker 1: here as they were working on because.
Speaker 2: It didn't meet it didn't meet the viewership and.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of backlash and everything in terms
Speaker 1: of like kind of them kind of woking Star Wars,
Speaker 1: but like they just scraped that.
Speaker 2: They're like, we're done.
Speaker 1: So if you don't think they're having money involved in
Speaker 1: this from these leagues or from these companies, and now
Speaker 1: you know that's Disney ABC, right, obviously they're not. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're a part owner and kind of the stuff
Speaker 1: I mean use slash product products all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: this isn't just because oh we've put two years and
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars into the UFL.
Speaker 2: Like Acolyte was gone like that, and that's a lot
Speaker 2: bigger project.
Speaker 3: It's and it's not losing money. It's not the only factor. Uh,
Speaker 3: it is a big factor. Paramount has had layoffs. We're
Speaker 3: starting to see large you know, these large TV you
Speaker 3: know owner ownership groups who are starting to gut stations
Speaker 3: right now because and it's you know, and it's because
Speaker 3: it's all money. Start if you look at the media
Speaker 3: layoffs that have happened this year. CNN had an article
Speaker 3: recently out and they ran down all the media companies
Speaker 3: that had layoffs. Remember there are two media companies that
Speaker 3: are involved in this. So when you if they start
Speaker 3: losing money, it might not be the only factor saying,
Speaker 3: but it's going to be a big factor.
Speaker 1: The other enginesing thing here just to kind of round
Speaker 1: this out that the moderator, moderator, this is all of
Speaker 1: the panels. So the moderator took questions of the audience.
Speaker 1: One asked for a breakdown and focus between the local
Speaker 1: revenue and tickets versus television viewership, which I would that
Speaker 1: would also be my question.
Speaker 2: And why do we care about all this?
Speaker 1: They goes random told a story of the battle Hawks
Speaker 1: fan tailgate hours before home game. Be times about wanting
Speaker 1: to build the local markets, you know, using the hub
Speaker 1: and they wanting to get.
Speaker 2: People in there.
Speaker 1: They know they have staff of eight to ten people
Speaker 1: in each market building the basis for our league. We've
Speaker 1: enormously pleased with the reach and engagement by like that,
Speaker 1: Like Russ, what can you give us about this?
Speaker 2: You know the tailgates and say Louis are really crazy
Speaker 2: because we talk about that all the time. Do you
Speaker 2: care more? Is this it built for TV? Product? Talk
Speaker 2: about you know, we get all.
Speaker 1: The time the comments and all this. Oh attendant says
Speaker 1: it matter they're making so much money on TV. But
Speaker 1: then yet there's still now in all of these now
Speaker 1: this expansion, all these talks and what markets we want
Speaker 1: to go to is we need fans, we want hungry fans.
Speaker 1: This isn't just to tell I would love to know
Speaker 1: that the breakdown of that. But anytime anyone says that
Speaker 1: attendant says it matter because they make all their money
Speaker 1: on TV, is just foolish to me.
Speaker 3: Well, the USFL, you know that that was a TV product,
Speaker 3: and what was the big knock on the USFL. People
Speaker 3: didn't want to watch it because there was no one in.
Speaker 3: There were no one at There's no one at the
Speaker 3: games except for the Stallion's games. Those like in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, the Stallions games were packed. Everyone else it
Speaker 3: looks like they it was a high school practice, like
Speaker 3: there were a few people in the stands.
Speaker 2: I was there.
Speaker 3: I went there for an entire weekend and it was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Birmingham's there, It's like a awesome atmosphere, and then every
Speaker 3: other game there's like, you know, one hundred people there.
Speaker 3: So that was the big knock because the visuals weren't
Speaker 3: very good on network television and it was a TV product.
Speaker 3: The XFL, I felt, was trying to build a more
Speaker 3: traditional one with not just a great TV product, but
Speaker 3: they were trying to put these teams in the communities.
Speaker 3: And then that's what you have, the conglomeration of both
Speaker 3: these leagues together and it's not just a TV product.
Speaker 3: Because the USFL it didn't look good, it didn't work
Speaker 3: that way. So yeah, so I think attendance does matter,
Speaker 3: and maybe not even to the revenue side of it.
Speaker 3: It matters to the optics side of it when you're
Speaker 3: watching on television, because if anyone who's not who doesn't
Speaker 3: really know about the UFL and they turn it on,
Speaker 3: like well, nobody cares to show up, why would I
Speaker 3: care to watch it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? John, here, Jan just confirming with you. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was Fox. They were cost cutting first rather than I
Speaker 2: think any marketing. Put your comments in the chat.
Speaker 1: I want to touch on the Switzerland stuff, and then
Speaker 1: I want to touch on the AJ Battlehawk stuff, and
Speaker 1: then if anyone else has anything that way, I've lost
Speaker 1: my green break down here?
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: I want to see if I can just pull up
Speaker 1: the press release? What do you think of this showcase?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: Next fall in uh uh in Switzerland? I don't even
Speaker 1: think they put it on the website. Let me see
Speaker 1: if I can get the press release up?
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 3: I don't know what to think of it. It's like,
Speaker 3: what how much football talent comes out of Switzerland? Number one?
Speaker 3: Number two?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 3: Is that a market that you're trying to reach internationally?
Speaker 3: I just I don't understand why this is why this
Speaker 3: is happening. I mean, I really don't. And if there's
Speaker 3: a press release, maybe they are. They explained that I didn't.
Speaker 3: I don't remember seeing a press release. That's what I saw. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I don't, you know, mark your calendars for what?
Speaker 3: I don't understand, Like what we're marketing our calendars for.
Speaker 3: Is it going to be some kind of televised event.
Speaker 3: I mean that might be kind of cool, but I
Speaker 3: don't understand. Like why Switzerland, I mean, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Philip here says the UFL purchases ELFU the UFL wishes
Speaker 1: they had the intendants and hands and money and teams
Speaker 1: at elpads. I think that would be the that's the other.
Speaker 2: Way around of ELF moving into the stands for a movie.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you why the ELF is not. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine that the pay per view thing is really working
Speaker 3: out here in the States. How they don't have a
Speaker 3: TV contract here yet. I don't. I don't get it
Speaker 3: because I mean, when you see some of the highlights,
Speaker 3: and I watched some of the videos from over there,
Speaker 3: it's incredible. But yeah, uh yeah, you're right, it might
Speaker 3: be the other way around on that one.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, the I think that's interesting about this.
Speaker 1: And I had someone involved back in ACTUFL twenty twenty
Speaker 1: reach out to me when this came about, and they said, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, if you wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2: Germany or somewhere maybe that there was maybe a proven
Speaker 2: record of Tom.
Speaker 1: But to them it felt like this is executives wanting
Speaker 1: to plan a vacation, like we can so.
Speaker 3: Surprised the Hawaii or the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: But remember remember how pissy people were when the it
Speaker 1: was the XFL did the showcase in Hawaii because the
Speaker 1: Rock was there and they wanted to do a track,
Speaker 1: but a, I mean, the Rock lives there, so that
Speaker 1: was okay, how can we get the Rock involved in this.
Speaker 1: We're going to use this as a marketing thing, right.
Speaker 1: They utilized a lot of that, But then also like
Speaker 1: there is a lot of players like in Hawaii and
Speaker 1: the Islands and kind of in that area of the
Speaker 1: world that came in and they.
Speaker 2: Spoiler a little.
Speaker 1: I think that was the most the talent there signed
Speaker 1: to the League of any of the showcases, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it was it was high in terms of any
Speaker 1: showcases or part visibility, part making money, part trying to
Speaker 1: just you know, we're filling press releases and do whatever.
Speaker 1: But it actually was successful. But I just I can't
Speaker 1: figure out how this uh especial thing's gonna work out.
Speaker 3: I don't had the player fifty four episode from Hawaii
Speaker 3: was really good and that was like probably that was
Speaker 3: one of the most memorable ones that was. That was
Speaker 3: a really good episode where the where the Rock went
Speaker 3: back to some of his old stomping grounds. It was emotional.
Speaker 3: It was really good. Uh Switzerland, Yeah, I don't get
Speaker 3: Maybe it is a vacation. Like well, Adam Sandler signs
Speaker 3: these movie deals and he sets them all in Hawaii
Speaker 3: or all these tropical islands, so he gets to go
Speaker 3: there and you know, shoot for six months and something.
Speaker 1: We're doing a romantic comedy of a couple with but
Speaker 1: it's going to be in Africa. John, you know the
Speaker 1: story can only be told in the SENGANI you want
Speaker 1: to go on the planes here and we want to
Speaker 1: do all that stuff. Yelady did Hawaii. It's almost like
Speaker 1: Max maybe listening to the show, I don't know, Christina here, Hellelujah,
Speaker 1: it's great to hear newsback Spanshion. Now remember Christina to
Speaker 1: say a member here. You always get your comments right
Speaker 1: if you're remember here ninety nine cents a month.
Speaker 2: I appreciate Christina reaching out for that.
Speaker 1: I think I did see too. I think I'm eligible
Speaker 1: now for like the Twitter memberships. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to start making all my secrets. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: still here. I like this showcase episode in Switch.
Speaker 3: I did it. That's a that's a great ideas off.
Speaker 2: We did well, it is one, but we did. We
Speaker 2: did the showcase in Arizona.
Speaker 1: It just sucks because you can't you can't really tell
Speaker 1: what's going, you know, and they always get like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you seeing players or like you're not really they're
Speaker 1: running drills and stuff. We got to I mean, we
Speaker 1: had fun talking to the coaches and it was just
Speaker 1: more of a kind of a cool experience that way.
Speaker 1: But it's not like you're, oh, the secret unknown Swiss
Speaker 1: quarterback is just gonna be dye.
Speaker 2: I just isn't gonna happen that way. I think Uh.
Speaker 3: I think pat Rafino went to uh there was one
Speaker 3: in Saint Louis maybe, and like there was a lot
Speaker 3: of access to or in that area, and there was
Speaker 3: a lot of access to coaches and Uh. I don't
Speaker 3: know about players, but you know they got some really
Speaker 3: good stuff. He got some really good stuff with some
Speaker 3: of the coaches. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Pat's always in Saint Louis, except when we went
Speaker 1: to the championship game.
Speaker 3: Of course, be a say Louis. That was good saying
Speaker 3: when I was in Saint Louis, he was working or somewhere,
Speaker 3: he was somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of I want to touch on it. If
Speaker 1: anyone has an equatquestions about this, we'll probably get.
Speaker 2: Down here at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: Like this whole AJ battle Hawks thing, I am curious
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this. You've been to the battle Hawks,
Speaker 1: you know games, and obviously with the merch out like
Speaker 1: this to me is the biggest pissy pants story I've
Speaker 1: ever seen here.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on the AJ thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I didn't. I didn't really like it.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And frankly, I didn't like it from AJ mccern's perspective.
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe he was he was wronged, and
Speaker 3: you know that could have been the case. I don't
Speaker 3: think he handled it great. Uh, even with the response,
Speaker 3: like I think that the social media post it might
Speaker 3: have been on Twitter that he put out about like
Speaker 3: some about it, I didn't get a phone call or
Speaker 3: it doesn't work both ways, but thank you Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: And it was just it was, I just I didn't
Speaker 3: like it. I didn't like it from any part. Sometimes
Speaker 3: you know, I understand this is uh, this is not
Speaker 3: the NFL. I mean, even NFL players they sometimes don't
Speaker 3: handle things great. Uh So I just I thought it
Speaker 3: was I didn't like it. You're right, it was kind
Speaker 3: of pissy, it was, and I and and I think
Speaker 3: Beck tried to clean it up a little bit, but
Speaker 3: I mean they said they wanted to like send him
Speaker 3: out the right way, but they needed to do some
Speaker 3: other things. I don't know. Uh, it just I didn't
Speaker 3: like it. It didn't feel good. And I know the
Speaker 3: one thing he said about like not wanting to ride
Speaker 3: the plane with the opposing team, It's like, you can
Speaker 3: still be competitive and right now, listen, I've never taken
Speaker 3: a snap of professional football, but you can still ride
Speaker 3: the plane and be competitive with the other team. You know,
Speaker 3: you're all kind of in the same boat together here.
Speaker 3: You're all trying to work toward the same goal. I mean,
Speaker 3: you live and you live in the same city. And
Speaker 3: you're probably practicing. And I remember there was there was
Speaker 3: a I think it was with the with the first
Speaker 3: season of the UFL that there was some other players
Speaker 3: that kind of wandered into the stadium watching practice and
Speaker 3: didn't realize that they weren't supposed to be there. So
Speaker 3: it's you know, it is what it is. It's it's
Speaker 3: it's not the NFL, so but you can. I thought
Speaker 3: he could have handled it a little better, especially publicly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just have a questions or who you guys
Speaker 1: think replaces aj A y'all in here. Ag has to
Speaker 1: understand the stance of the league. It's development. If he
Speaker 1: wants more money or the NFL, go find another lead.
Speaker 1: You're tasting. I mean, that's what kills me. Philip here,
Speaker 1: silversus out the door. I wouldn't count on Bretty the
Speaker 1: White Night here riding into that, but that like that,
Speaker 1: that's what kills me.
Speaker 2: Is the like again, just talking to freelance.
Speaker 1: Saying, like I do a lot of gigs, and I
Speaker 1: do a lot of weddings, and some weddings a really
Speaker 1: nice and some weddings are not so nice, and some
Speaker 1: things are really like you know, going in and if
Speaker 1: you're a J McCarron and you're like, I'm going to
Speaker 1: into this UFL and I want my you know, my
Speaker 1: kids to see me play.
Speaker 2: Like then you can't then be like, well it wasn't
Speaker 2: for my kids, I would have walked the hell out
Speaker 2: of this league.
Speaker 1: Like right, okay, Like you can do that, Like you
Speaker 1: have your an adult man, and you can do anything
Speaker 1: you want. You chose to come, but I just don't
Speaker 1: like that later you knew what you're getting involved in.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like the whole pizza gate and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, Like you know you're going into these
Speaker 1: spring leagues. They kind of got the history. I like,
Speaker 1: I just I wouldn't be surprised by any of.
Speaker 3: This, but it you know, and he even asked for
Speaker 3: his release from the Bengals because he wanted to play
Speaker 3: in the He wanted to play in the UFL and
Speaker 3: you know, with his and his kids, and you know,
Speaker 3: I was, I was there before one of the games,
Speaker 3: and you know, he's coming in, walking in to all
Speaker 3: the fans and there's you know, his kids are there
Speaker 3: and his and his whole family and it was really
Speaker 3: cool and uh, but yeah, it's it's not you know,
Speaker 3: I I don't like to. I don't like to call
Speaker 3: the UFL minor league. A lot of people do. It's
Speaker 3: a professional football league. I don't think it's minor to anything.
Speaker 3: It's unless you're trying to compare it to the NFL,
Speaker 3: and I don't know a lot of people are doing that.
Speaker 3: But like you said, it's not the top tier of
Speaker 3: professional football. You knew what you're getting into, and then
Speaker 3: to compleat playing about it afterward because you kind of
Speaker 3: got jilted by your team, I don't I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean this, I just thought it was bad. But listen,
Speaker 3: here's one thing. If he does stay in the UFL,
Speaker 3: like he says he wants to, and he's not, nothing's
Speaker 3: gonna change. But he says, you know, he's gonna get
Speaker 3: an opportunity to beat the battle Hawks, you know, twice
Speaker 3: or whatever. So at least it gives you some kind
Speaker 3: of storyline.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, I just I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't like that.
Speaker 1: It seems a little weird to me. I phillip here
Speaker 1: Silvers is a legend rough actually the b Arlington if
Speaker 1: he had played rolling back to the the I guess
Speaker 1: the expansion talk today before we get out of here,
Speaker 1: anyone else has any comments, because like, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: over you know my thoughts on the battle Hawks anyway, and.
Speaker 3: Listene, I guess notorious USFL hater, notorious XFL hater, notorious
Speaker 3: Saint Louis BattleHawks hater.
Speaker 2: I got it, I did.
Speaker 1: I actually I did have one quick credit I forgot
Speaker 1: so I will be curious going forward here the rocks
Speaker 1: of involvement in this league, just because this Red One
Speaker 1: movie has totally flopped right shocked early. But like, also
Speaker 1: it costs two hundred and fifty million dollars, like I
Speaker 1: believe I saw like the first Avengers movie cost like
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty million, So like the fact that
Speaker 1: like Red One costs more than and don't quote me
Speaker 1: on that, but the Red One costs more than the
Speaker 1: first Avengers movie.
Speaker 2: But you know that crashed.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the Black Adam thing wasn't working out. They See
Speaker 1: You Universe. I watched that movie really bad. Rock just
Speaker 1: had an article about like he wants to do more
Speaker 1: indie movies and kind of disappear and he's kind of
Speaker 1: tired of always playing the same role and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I'm just curious, like where the UFL
Speaker 1: fits into this, like you know, the like this new
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five Rock's curious your thoughts on that, And
Speaker 1: I have another Russ Brandon comment we can go through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do wonder and if he is gonna maybe
Speaker 3: take a more hands because it felt like he and
Speaker 3: Danny Garcia were gonna be they talked about being really
Speaker 3: hands on with this and being involved. I never felt
Speaker 3: that they were that involved this year, certainly publicly. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wasn't there behind the scenes. I
Speaker 3: just thought I would see a lot more of them
Speaker 3: other than you know, kind of what we saw before
Speaker 3: the season started. And he's on you know, college game
Speaker 3: Day and he's on all these different shows on Fox,
Speaker 3: NFL pregame to talk about the league that I think
Speaker 3: it was like January first or whatever it was. But
Speaker 3: I do wonder, And frankly, like you said, like his
Speaker 3: I don't. I mean, he's still a bankable star, don't
Speaker 3: get me wrong, but like it's his his star is
Speaker 3: not as shiny as it was when he first came
Speaker 3: into this. So maybe I think. I think he's a
Speaker 3: really good actor. And if you've watched Ballers I mean,
Speaker 3: I thought he was great, and he's been good in
Speaker 3: a lot of movies. But I do wonder if maybe
Speaker 3: he will concentrate more on that and they have people
Speaker 3: there that they don't necessarily need or Daty Garcia for
Speaker 3: the day to day stuff. Frankly, I think Daryl Johnston
Speaker 3: might be more hands on involved with it than anybody
Speaker 3: of the public facing people that we've seen, for better.
Speaker 1: Or worse, I would say, sorry, I did. I did
Speaker 1: think it was funny that Brandon Aubrey missed. You know,
Speaker 1: there's not many NFL games this season where they missed
Speaker 1: the kickoff zone right.
Speaker 2: Either they right and they still.
Speaker 1: Touched back in or they land and then But I
Speaker 1: thought it was funny that Brandon Aubrey missed the kickoff
Speaker 1: zone and I.
Speaker 2: Was so that was the other thing. I forgot the
Speaker 2: gaps of the game.
Speaker 1: But like, hey, Brandon Aubrey was in the XMOL maybe
Speaker 1: he would have known how to do that stuff. The
Speaker 1: other Yeah, but just with the Rocks thing, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's kind of revamp here focusing on that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think his public perception has has really
Speaker 1: hit a dive on that. The other article I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about here, and I was just kind of
Speaker 1: looking through this news and a lot of these websites
Speaker 1: are just regurgitations of the press release. Front Office Sports
Speaker 1: has some quotes year and I thought it was nice
Speaker 1: to sport the Coen you know, sports business show, like
Speaker 1: they have a you know, additional kind of quotes on
Speaker 1: here talk about all this stuff. You know, this is
Speaker 1: uh right, Eric Fisher with Front Office Sports. But they're
Speaker 1: bringing the additional franchises, building, the a, the moving, and
Speaker 1: there's not a specific timetable governing the process or a
Speaker 1: targeted number of franchises. The UFL president and CEO Rush
Speaker 1: brandons that there'll be fewer than eight teams, and at
Speaker 1: least at least on the outset, something related to expansion
Speaker 1: might be in place.
Speaker 2: For twenty twenty six. We're open for business, very open minded.
Speaker 1: We are taking the very holistic approach to the market,
Speaker 1: look at the market and everything.
Speaker 2: That needs to be done to stand up to a
Speaker 2: new team. So it is kind of curious on that
Speaker 2: you no timetable.
Speaker 1: We've heard conflicting reports, you know, like just since today,
Speaker 1: you know it's at twenty twenty six seven.
Speaker 2: I just think we're kind of looking through.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like in the CFL XFL talks
Speaker 1: when it was we're talking about talking, and I think
Speaker 1: that was like, I think that was their public facing
Speaker 1: kind of like what what you know, Hey, the xbos
Speaker 1: calling the CFL, like what does that mean?
Speaker 2: And they go, well, we're talking about talking.
Speaker 1: That was their thing, and so, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: it feels very similar here where we don't really know
Speaker 1: what we're doing, but this is something kind of working
Speaker 1: on in the future.
Speaker 3: We're having a meeting about some future meetings that we
Speaker 3: might have later on. It's what that's a lot what
Speaker 3: it sounds like. But I will say it was a
Speaker 3: press release that was short on a lot of details,
Speaker 3: but it had one big overarching theme, and it was that,
Speaker 3: I think maybe the subtle theme of we are successful,
Speaker 3: we are we are growing, so people you need to
Speaker 3: talk talk about us right now even though it's ANFL season.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the more we've talked about this and
Speaker 3: like kind of diving into some of these articles, that's
Speaker 3: what it really feels like. It's like, hey, let's send
Speaker 3: something out there to get our name out a little
Speaker 3: bit and.
Speaker 1: Just you know, float it and see how it goes
Speaker 1: all right, last thing here, let's see the last ten
Speaker 1: minutes on this or more you know less probably, but
Speaker 1: figure out here.
Speaker 2: So in terms of like do we in your ideal
Speaker 2: world here? Right? So we get through this and we
Speaker 2: move forward, We're gonna have eighteens.
Speaker 1: We've talked to Ohio. We do we move the Roughnecks
Speaker 1: back over to the XFL conference?
Speaker 2: Do we redo that? Do we keep them?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Is that too disruptive? Yeah? Like I said, Seattle, kind
Speaker 2: of all that stuff in the mix.
Speaker 1: But where do you I guess ideally now as we've
Speaker 1: kind of read through everything before we get out, like,
Speaker 1: what would you like to see here moving into six
Speaker 1: and twenty seven?
Speaker 3: Well, I would like to see a West Coast presence
Speaker 3: like we talked about. I would like to see the
Speaker 3: Houston Gamblers come back and be in the and be
Speaker 3: in the USFL conference. I mean, I that was a
Speaker 3: We've talked about this a lot about how that just
Speaker 3: felt like a compromise somehow. I'm not sure the rough
Speaker 3: Necks ip was as strong as the gamblers or vice versa.
Speaker 3: Wherever the reason was mad chatter, thank you? Uh, but
Speaker 3: I think you know what I would like to see
Speaker 3: as we get into I would love to see four
Speaker 3: more teams. That might be a lot to take on
Speaker 3: an initial expansion. So what I do like about this
Speaker 3: is if they stick to the plan what we think
Speaker 3: they will, it'll be two teams in twenty six and
Speaker 3: two teams in twenty seven. Now, again let's hope they're
Speaker 3: still a league. I'm optimistic. I want to see a
Speaker 3: lot of good things happen this year. First. That's one
Speaker 3: thing I want to see is I want to see
Speaker 3: even if the viewership is flat, I think it was
Speaker 3: good enough that it was. It was successful with the
Speaker 3: eight hundred and fifty thousand, and again we don't know
Speaker 3: if that really included some of the streaming numbers. But
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of opportunity because as we know,
Speaker 3: it is a league of opportunity. But I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot of opportunity to have a stronger year than
Speaker 3: they had last year, which I still think was a
Speaker 3: very successful year and get to that where where expansion
Speaker 3: makes sense and that these are you know, it's a
Speaker 3: strong league that would will have a strong brand that's
Speaker 3: not just the people that are you and I and
Speaker 3: the people watching this. It's maybe a little bit more
Speaker 3: more so and kind of growing in public perception. And
Speaker 3: when you add teams, you add communities and cities, and
Speaker 3: I think you add fans and that all that's that's
Speaker 3: a rising tide right there.
Speaker 2: Curious your thoughts.
Speaker 1: And then Pat has a question about kind of reaching
Speaker 1: out to ownership here. But I think in the in
Speaker 1: the initial reports out and forgive me, now, it's like
Speaker 1: a fever dream of go. But when the initial reports
Speaker 1: came out of the merger and all that, and the
Speaker 1: Ohio was in the mix, But then I believe Arizona
Speaker 1: was in the mix, and I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, whether you know.
Speaker 1: You relocate Seattle there you add a team, is that
Speaker 1: far enough west coast? You're still Texas kind of adjacent there?
Speaker 1: You're you're building, you know, it's like the Oregon Trail.
Speaker 2: We're kind of building more. Does that do anything for you?
Speaker 1: I don't love Arizona as a market. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: the Cardinals are a great team, beat them yesterday, but
Speaker 1: like it doesn't arizonthing doesn't feel like a hotbed of
Speaker 1: I mean even the Diamondbacks like the World Series contending
Speaker 1: right two seasons ago, Uh, really big drop off, right
Speaker 1: and attendance all that. I mean, it feels like they're
Speaker 1: more of a casual kind of market. There is my
Speaker 1: point kind of thoughts on that of Arizona fits.
Speaker 3: That I I like it. If it's not gonna be Seattle, Portland,
Speaker 3: Oakland or San Diego. I think it is west enough.
Speaker 3: You know, the Las Vegas thing. We got to stop
Speaker 3: with this no more. But I mean, yes, it's west
Speaker 3: enough I think to have for me. Anyway, as you asked,
Speaker 3: if for a West coast presence, which I just think
Speaker 3: you've got to get, you you've got to get something
Speaker 3: more than you know, mostly Central time zone and a
Speaker 3: couple in the Eastern time zone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, in here says the Seattle, Oakland, San Diego, Vegas.
Speaker 2: H I like Oakland. I think you can ride out,
Speaker 2: especially falling off the A's now and everything. We were
Speaker 2: just there for the Mariners.
Speaker 1: Kind of last last homes, their last you know, whenever
Speaker 1: home playing in Oakland and kind of all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But man, that's a brutal market right now if you're
Speaker 1: a sports fan there right The Warriors have moved the obviously,
Speaker 1: the Raiders have moved that. The A's are moved, like
Speaker 1: I think that's a no brainer. If you do the Coliseum,
Speaker 1: they're probably not right.
Speaker 2: That's huge. But other areas, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think, to me, Oakland, if you're not going to
Speaker 1: do San Diego. But I do think I've heard this, like.
Speaker 2: You can't do California and the taxes, and they were like,
Speaker 2: you gotta suck it up and do it, like you
Speaker 2: you have to.
Speaker 1: I think at this point you have to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're making an effort. If we care enough about expanding
Speaker 1: and finding the right markets, we got to pay and
Speaker 1: maybe you have to play those players and extra eight
Speaker 1: percent or whatever the counterbalance that I don't think any
Speaker 1: player would argue. If you're like if you and I
Speaker 1: are both playing and I'm on the Texas team and
Speaker 1: you're like, you're getting paid an extra six hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a month, You're like, yeah, but they're going to take
Speaker 1: it down taxes Like okay, Like we understand these things,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And maybe this is the old school thinking that we
Speaker 3: don't need anymore. But to me, it's like, if you're
Speaker 3: going to be a league that is taken seriously. I've
Speaker 3: always thought you've got to have a Southern California team,
Speaker 3: and you've got to have a Northeastern team where really
Speaker 3: New York, I think you are New York, New Jersey
Speaker 3: to me, I mean maybe that's not the mindset anymore.
Speaker 3: I mean because again, we saw a lot of success
Speaker 3: I think in a lot of and they hit a
Speaker 3: lot of numbers here in the UFL this past year.
Speaker 3: Without that, I think that could only add to it.
Speaker 3: And when you have a place like Oakland. To me,
Speaker 3: on the surface, now again I don't know the financials,
Speaker 3: and as you said, I'm one of those guys like
Speaker 3: I don't know about the taxes and all that. I
Speaker 3: it to me just seems like, on the surface, what
Speaker 3: a perfect market to put a team in because there's
Speaker 3: so much opportunity there and there's got to be a
Speaker 3: fan base who's hungry for professional sports. Again that you
Speaker 3: know may be on any level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on here says, do you think they suck up
Speaker 1: a New York cost before a West Coast expansion?
Speaker 3: I if the West Coast is in California, they might
Speaker 3: be you know, again we're talking finances. You're right, but
Speaker 3: I think a New York cost would probably be a
Speaker 3: lot less because they're not going to be They're not
Speaker 3: going to be housed there. You know, they fly in
Speaker 3: and you know, play the game, then fly back to Arlington.
Speaker 3: So it might actually be cheaper to do that to
Speaker 3: be in the New York, New Jersey area, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of places that they go that might be
Speaker 3: a lot more cost effective than playing Unfortunately in a
Speaker 3: place like Oakland.
Speaker 2: Adil says, don't respect cashm and Field. John Lewis cash
Speaker 2: that place.
Speaker 3: A buddy of mine was on the broadcast crew of
Speaker 3: the of one of the Las Vegas games, and he
Speaker 3: does all kinds of of He he does all kinds
Speaker 3: of you know, from Major League Baseball to to everything else.
Speaker 3: He actually was worked. He actually worked on one of
Speaker 3: the Alliance of American Football crews, which was a story
Speaker 3: to itself, but he said Cashman Field was one of
Speaker 3: the worst places he's ever been and it just the
Speaker 3: sight lines were bad. The place was just not good
Speaker 3: and it was so weird in Los I guess they
Speaker 3: kept having bad weather there.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't remember who it was, if it was
Speaker 1: Matt Berry or someone else who was on the call,
Speaker 1: and like he was on our show that next week,
Speaker 1: like one of the guys that was I can't remember
Speaker 1: it was him or uh Tom lougan Beilt one of
Speaker 1: the guys they came on the show, but they were
Speaker 1: in that structure.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, how like what was that? They're like, dude,
Speaker 2: that was scary like watching it on the show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was very terrim I know, you know you can't
Speaker 2: do that, but no, I yeah, I'm with you there.
Speaker 1: But you know they got this stud ut vag we
Speaker 1: got look at this, We got Van checking in here
Speaker 1: in the chat. Van, I wore your jacket all over Vancouver,
Speaker 1: your Marcus jacket with the your sleeves. I didn't get
Speaker 1: as many comments from Evan and Andy as I would
Speaker 1: have liked, but I did. And there was a stop
Speaker 1: with San Diego. USSD has much less capacity, is currently
Speaker 1: doing carecter about I would play it like like what
Speaker 1: who was it is like we'll play in the parking
Speaker 1: all on the soide of the road.
Speaker 3: We don't right well? And I think, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 3: was it San Diego. There was one of the markets
Speaker 3: that had been kind of bandied about even you know
Speaker 3: before all this, where they were building a new a
Speaker 3: new soccer stadium that was either I think it was
Speaker 3: a USL Stadium, So it feels like, you know some
Speaker 3: of those venues, like well, there was some talk about,
Speaker 3: you know in this that Louisville was a place that
Speaker 3: had been brought up, and a lot of people were like, well,
Speaker 3: Cardinal Stadium sixty thousand people, which Cardinal Stadium would be
Speaker 3: great if you played a team there, but you also
Speaker 3: have Lynn Family Stadium, which seats fifteen thousand and is
Speaker 3: one of the nicest USL stadiums around. The only problem
Speaker 3: is you have a USL team and an NWUSL team
Speaker 3: that plays at Lynn Family Stadium, which would scheduling would
Speaker 3: be a nightmare. And I don't know if they'd ever
Speaker 3: let them do it, but I think some of these
Speaker 3: USL teams, even though they play kind of at the
Speaker 3: same time, there could be some opportunity to play in
Speaker 3: those kinds of places. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm still talking about New York and I agree.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot with Sath in the front of
Speaker 1: the show and all of that, and having both coasts,
Speaker 1: but especially having New York and LA but really helps
Speaker 1: your bottom line of TV ratings just having games from
Speaker 1: New York, from the New York market, even if you're
Speaker 1: only attracting you know, five percent of whatever the people like,
Speaker 1: I just it's no offense to the memphisis of the world,
Speaker 1: or even New Orleans or Birmingham. Like, you need markets
Speaker 1: with a lot of people, even if it's if it's
Speaker 1: the sixteenth thing on the minds of some of the
Speaker 1: people there. You saw the Guardians games kind of might
Speaker 1: cover them back in twenty twenty, Like even if you're
Speaker 1: only getting a fraction, which is is funny to me
Speaker 1: because that's kind of the thought process of spring football
Speaker 1: in general. Right, the NFL gets, you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: million people, and if we could just get a fraction
Speaker 1: of that, like.
Speaker 3: Here you go.
Speaker 1: You know, just even if you're into New York, even
Speaker 1: if you just get a fraction of that, Phillip, they're
Speaker 1: not doing another Texas team.
Speaker 2: We don't need more.
Speaker 3: No, that's enough. Yeah, And it's not a zero sum game.
Speaker 3: I mean you if you if you add a you know,
Speaker 3: team in New York or whatever, it's not going to
Speaker 3: take away from the Memphis or Birmingham's or Saint Louis
Speaker 3: or anyone. I mean again, it's it's to me, it's
Speaker 3: a rising tide.
Speaker 2: Let's see here, Matt chatter.
Speaker 1: I was talking about Buffalo and now we're getting some
Speaker 1: things about this and then you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: Rest branding, that's there is a Buffalo connection. You're right,
Speaker 3: absolutely get that.
Speaker 1: These I still don't understand that stadium they're building, Like
Speaker 1: we're building a stadium that's smaller than the one we
Speaker 1: have and it's not a dome and we're not I
Speaker 1: just I don't I don't understand the thought. That's the
Speaker 1: sorry for another day, Yeah, Jennifers. No, like it's I
Speaker 1: mean all the way back to the Guardians again, and
Speaker 1: people pooh pooh, right, like back in twenty twenty, everyone.
Speaker 2: Pooh poo oh. The XFL attendants here is terrible.
Speaker 1: Like you would die for Tampa Bay Viper attendants right now,
Speaker 1: you would die for New York Guardians attendants. You would
Speaker 1: die for the LA Wildcats attendants when you look at
Speaker 1: like Memphis, right, So it's all relative. And I know
Speaker 1: we talked the XFL viewership back in oh one versus whatever,
Speaker 1: but this is a lot more apples to apples, So
Speaker 1: you would.
Speaker 2: Die for some of these ones that were deemed not
Speaker 2: good enough back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know that was the twenty twenty. I mean,
Speaker 3: people will remember that was a that was kind of
Speaker 3: a huge deal when they were because it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, spring football is really coming back.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The AAF was just a non contender, like this is
Speaker 3: this is the real deal and yeah, and you you
Speaker 3: had the New York and the LA markets and it
Speaker 3: was just it was to me, that makes it bigger again.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's old school me thinking that when you
Speaker 3: have a league you got to have you know, a
Speaker 3: New York in LA. But it just seems to me
Speaker 3: like it just has always worked out that way.
Speaker 1: Uh, We're for thirty now. Anything else, anything else, we
Speaker 1: want to make sure I'm going to shower here before.
Speaker 1: We got money at football. We've got right rocking there playing,
Speaker 1: we got things having Dorothy's either way, anything else we
Speaker 1: want to touch on any other thoughts here today?
Speaker 3: No, But I'm always jealous of people on the West
Speaker 3: Coast who get to watch Monday night football at like
Speaker 3: what like five point fifteen. It's like seven thirty. It's
Speaker 3: seven thirty here in Louisville right now, so I got
Speaker 3: to wait, you know, it's I usually fall asleep by halftime.
Speaker 3: So I'm jealous of you. So, but you know read,
Speaker 3: I always love being on your show, and you and
Speaker 3: I talk a lot offline. It's fun to talk here
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, keep it PG rated as we
Speaker 3: usually don't in our uh in our text chains and everything,
Speaker 3: but it is it's always fun to talk about this
Speaker 3: and this is newsworthy. This is not trying to make
Speaker 3: something up. This is the UFL is talking about expansion,
Speaker 3: and I think that is really good news for a
Speaker 3: lot of Spring football fans because to me, spring football
Speaker 3: has been as viable as it's ever been, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe since the original USFL. And you know, even then
Speaker 3: it was it was iffy, and there are a lot
Speaker 3: of stories from that. But I just think that you know,
Speaker 3: with this network ownership and and everybody behind it, that
Speaker 3: it has an opportunity to grow. And we're starting to
Speaker 3: see players go to the NFL. I just think this
Speaker 3: is I think it's all positive right now, we'll see
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, I really in this in this space,
Speaker 2: and the same with the CFL. I mean, this is anything.
Speaker 2: I mean, even the NFL, but they have a lot
Speaker 2: of other stuff like this is.
Speaker 1: The biggest click bait sugar candy rush, we're board, let's
Speaker 1: talk expansion that you can do. So I hate to
Speaker 1: get on that all the time because I just clake,
Speaker 1: you know, even this Switzerland thing, like oh you're a
Speaker 1: Sperder and you're like, you know you can do but
Speaker 1: so but you know, when there's a press release, because
Speaker 1: again I weren't going to do the stream. I mean
Speaker 1: I I treated it out and I said, this leak's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm going back to bed, and Mac's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think we should talk about it, Mike, and they're all
Speaker 1: going in the chat all day and like I said,
Speaker 1: I was getting the text, but I laughed because in
Speaker 1: our group chat and John, if you if you ever
Speaker 1: got back on Twitter, we could incorporate you into that
Speaker 1: on the Twitter.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe maybe one of these days.
Speaker 2: But but but even on there, right, and this is
Speaker 2: like the you know, the the UFL media.
Speaker 1: I mean, as much as you want to joke about that,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is a group and all day
Speaker 1: in there, all the way about this and what about this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys, you know, because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, we're fans and we're all fans and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, like you're just like.
Speaker 2: You bought in. Like it worked. We're all talking about
Speaker 2: the UFL today. I didn't think I'd be doing the podcast.
Speaker 3: If that was the strategy, then yeah, it certainly worked.
Speaker 3: And that's what a lot of people need to understand.
Speaker 3: You know, we if we criticize the UFL or whatever,
Speaker 3: it's because we want it to succeed. We're not. If
Speaker 3: we didn't care, we wouldn't be talking. We wouldn't have
Speaker 3: talked for an hour and a half about it. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: we wanted to succeed. You're right, we're fans and you know,
Speaker 3: hopefully there'll be a lot more that come aboard of
Speaker 3: you know, in twenty twenty five, and you know this
Speaker 3: thing might take off.
Speaker 1: Uh So yeah, So anyone get ready for football. Everyone
Speaker 1: I like and give a thumbs up to the stream.
Speaker 1: Please if you can like and subscribe, subscribe if you
Speaker 1: have it, we're gonna give away. Actually hung out with
Speaker 1: Dustin in Vancouver. Dustin was there of Royal Retros. He
Speaker 1: was there with his CFL PA. They've got that big
Speaker 1: partnership now with Royal Retros.
Speaker 2: But he was up there.
Speaker 1: I we bysd with Dustin for about half an hour
Speaker 1: at the bar, had a beer, and hung out.
Speaker 2: Dorothy and I and him. So that was fun.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna give away two custom jerseys when we
Speaker 1: hit four thousand subscribers. We'll do a CFL one and
Speaker 1: the UFL or we can do see it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to me, but we'll do two. So if you are like,
Speaker 1: I don't I want to STFL, we can do all that.
Speaker 1: But that's again I got I mean, he's already on
Speaker 1: board and it's it's a great giveaway for me because
Speaker 1: then he can just ship them right out to you.
Speaker 1: You know, you can get custom whatever you want. I'll
Speaker 1: cover all the costs and he'll ship it right out.
Speaker 1: So like and subscribe if you want to be a
Speaker 1: part of that. And then we're kind of TBD right now.
Speaker 1: Once we get back into regular you know, kind of
Speaker 1: preseason UFL probably in the new year, we'll be doing
Speaker 1: the regular kind of weekly episodes, but right now it's
Speaker 1: just whenever news came out.
Speaker 2: I was traveling a lot this summer.
Speaker 1: We kind of did the tail end of the CFL
Speaker 1: through the Great Cup, but like, I wasn't home a
Speaker 1: Monday or Friday like any of September October, so it
Speaker 1: was hard to get all that done.
Speaker 2: But we're back on the horse now, John, anything else
Speaker 2: fround the plug? No.
Speaker 3: I just really appreciate you having me on. It's always
Speaker 3: good to talk to you about all things UFL and
Speaker 3: everything else.
Speaker 2: All Right, everyone, take care, let's go cracking. Let's go.
Speaker 2: Who do we got is this age? We need chargers tonight.
Speaker 2: We need Andy Murray, So we're pro.
Speaker 3: Chargers, pro chargers. Okay, I'll go with it.
Speaker 2: All right, We'll see you guys. John, Thanks, and we'll
Speaker 2: see you next time.