Speaker 1: Time to catch up with our friends. It's Sporting Jacks.
Speaker 1: And you want to know why we're catching up with
Speaker 1: our friends at Sporting Jack So it's because, well, frankly,
Speaker 1: I mean right, you look off my right shoulder and
Speaker 1: you see that the evidence is always here, so it's
Speaker 1: always close to the headset and we have to find
Speaker 1: out what's going on with our buddy Steve Livingson. So
Speaker 1: all right, my first question for you, sir, is right
Speaker 1: now you've got two teams that are on the field
Speaker 1: in the W League and in USL League two, so
Speaker 1: you're kind of getting your feet wet into this whole
Speaker 1: thing with League two right now as we're talking first
Speaker 1: four matches, you're in a street fight in the Southeast,
Speaker 1: which you kind of anticipated you would be. And then
Speaker 1: in the W League right now you're running rough shot,
Speaker 1: winning your first four and you've only given up two
Speaker 1: in your first eighteen with eighteen that you've scored in
Speaker 1: your first four.
Speaker 2: When you look at the W League and USL League
Speaker 2: two so far, what do you think.
Speaker 3: I think we've been unlucky with the two losses that
Speaker 3: we had in League two, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: with a couple of close calls, they are in a
Speaker 3: penalty on a debatable decision on the women's side, they're
Speaker 3: crushing it. There's no doubt they're crushing it, and they're
Speaker 3: crushing it without two of our leading W League players
Speaker 3: that we thought would be in the squad this year,
Speaker 3: but they've just been pulled in for international duty in
Speaker 3: Ashton Perth and Georgia Brown. So arguably the you know,
Speaker 3: the best two players on the squad out Yet those
Speaker 3: girls that are on the squad have stepped up and
Speaker 3: filled it out and are doing an amazing job. Are
Speaker 3: getting ready for a game tonight uncharacteristically Thunder has rolled
Speaker 3: in here to Florida, so then delaying that one. But no,
Speaker 3: I think in terms of the w League and lead
Speaker 3: two teams, we'd like to take credit for it, but
Speaker 3: we really can't. It's it's been what was there before
Speaker 3: with Florida Elite Sean Bubb and his team. Michael and Levo,
Speaker 3: the two coaches of those two teams have done an
Speaker 3: amazing job and they've done it over over a number
Speaker 3: of years. We've been fortunate to kind of move the
Speaker 3: brand into those two teams at you know, just a
Speaker 3: good time and being really grateful to to kind of
Speaker 3: ride the ride the wave of the development that they've
Speaker 3: put in. We are hopeful that a number of those
Speaker 3: players that are playing W League in League two will
Speaker 3: be Super League Championship League players of the future. We
Speaker 3: are at the moment implementing a program that will link
Speaker 3: our pro teams into our youth development squads through into
Speaker 3: League two and W League as well. We just announced
Speaker 3: the acquisition the signing, if you like, of Steve Fell
Speaker 3: the US national team pay Performance. Luckily for US, Steve
Speaker 3: lives here in the Jacksonville areas in August team and
Speaker 3: only spends about thirty percent of his year on his
Speaker 3: international duty, so we get him for the other seventy
Speaker 3: percent and he's an exceptional fellow. What he's going to
Speaker 3: bring normally to our pro teams, but also extend that
Speaker 3: into the youth programs, the youth set up, the youth organization,
Speaker 3: and the structure that we're building through Mark Warburton, through
Speaker 3: Sean bubb I think is going to be exceptional.
Speaker 1: How do you keep all of this straight considering that
Speaker 1: you have a runway for leagues coming up in the future.
Speaker 1: You've got two going on right now, You've got Super
Speaker 1: League coming up. How do you keep all of this
Speaker 1: straight with all the personnel and all of the players,
Speaker 1: and all the contracts and all the negotiations.
Speaker 2: Do you have a big float chart that I don't
Speaker 2: see there in the office?
Speaker 3: How are you right here? Right over here? I'm not
Speaker 3: going to show you, but there's a considerable whiteboard up
Speaker 3: there that is broken into maybe I don't know, sixteen sections,
Speaker 3: and I call it. I call it the splate, the splate,
Speaker 3: the plate spinning board, because each of those sections kind
Speaker 3: of represents a particular plate that we're spinning, whether it
Speaker 3: be investment for the team, ticketing, soccer, ops, partnerships, preparations
Speaker 3: at unf you know, whatever it is, it's up there
Speaker 3: on the board. I think, you know, I am fortunate,
Speaker 3: extremely fortunate and blessed to have an amazing, amazing front
Speaker 3: office team. We're now up to about twenty two in
Speaker 3: our front office, which is great. Our ticket sales team
Speaker 3: have been killing it, knocking out the park. Our partnerships
Speaker 3: team are being out doing an equally good job. We've
Speaker 3: got something in the region of about thirty different potential
Speaker 3: sponsors that we're about to close on. You know, We've
Speaker 3: just excellence across the board, our operations people or soccer people.
Speaker 3: We're just truly fortunate. So yeah, I couldn't handle all
Speaker 3: of us without them. So those are the guys that
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you in your career to
Speaker 1: understand the importance of delegating and not being like hovering
Speaker 1: over shoulders and things like that, Knowing that you have
Speaker 1: all of these chainsaws, specifically in this case that you're
Speaker 1: having to juggle, how long did it take you to
Speaker 1: just sit there and trust the folks that you bring
Speaker 1: in to do their job and understand that their focus
Speaker 1: is on the path that you all want.
Speaker 3: It took me a while. I mean, I'll be honest
Speaker 3: with you, probably you know, in a thirty year career,
Speaker 3: it probably took me twenty to figure that one out.
Speaker 3: You know, being a younger guy, you always think you
Speaker 3: can do everything and anything and can handle anything, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think it takes time experience to develop
Speaker 3: that wisdom and realize that you're only as strong as
Speaker 3: the rest of your team. And you know, again, I
Speaker 3: put a lot of credit to them. I'm really just
Speaker 3: the conductor of the orchestra here, just making sure that
Speaker 3: everything's in place and everything's working and the plates continue
Speaker 3: to spin. But those are the guys that are doing
Speaker 3: the job. I think hiring and selection is really important
Speaker 3: as well, making sure that you get the right people
Speaker 3: and then you know, the idea is to let them
Speaker 3: go on and get out their way and support them
Speaker 3: where you can. And yeah, I think a lot of
Speaker 3: CEOs and management executives will tell you that that's fairly straightforward.
Speaker 3: But it took me a wee while to figure that
Speaker 3: one out. And we're here now though.
Speaker 1: So when you have questions, I mean, obviously, since you're
Speaker 1: at the top of the you know, the top of
Speaker 1: the pyramid, do you have faults that you reach out
Speaker 1: to outside the organization that you have as peers or
Speaker 1: role models that it's like, hey, I've got a question,
Speaker 1: can you you know, then they're going to pick up
Speaker 1: the phone.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like to think of myself more is the
Speaker 3: one neck to strangle John rather than being at the
Speaker 3: top of the top of the file. But yes, absolutely,
Speaker 3: I think you know, internally, we spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time collaborating and talking. I think that's important. I think
Speaker 3: ultimately it's my job to drive things forward and make
Speaker 3: decisions and help but you know, when I get into
Speaker 3: areas where I need help, the great thing is that
Speaker 3: we've got an incredible ownership group that I can turn to.
Speaker 3: We've got investors kind of across the spectrum. Some of
Speaker 3: our investors are our leaders in their industry that have
Speaker 3: done extremely well, whether it be in event management or marketing,
Speaker 3: sports marketing for example. And I really turned to those
Speaker 3: guys a lot to chat with them. I think. Also,
Speaker 3: you know, our ownership team read by led by Ricky Kaplan.
Speaker 3: He's a younger guy than me, but Ricky is a
Speaker 3: visionary and does a is always thinking about things, always
Speaker 3: looking at ways that we can approach things and do things,
Speaker 3: and challenging the state is quot To be honest with you,
Speaker 3: I'm a big believer in best practice, but even at
Speaker 3: times that can be challenged, and you know, Ricky does
Speaker 3: a great job of that. I mean, he definitely is
Speaker 3: a visionary and thinks big. You know, he likes to
Speaker 3: say we're all Andrew will have a big God, and
Speaker 3: you know that's why he likes to think big. So really,
Speaker 3: without Ricky's thinking, without that that group of support, we
Speaker 3: just we wouldn't be where we are right now.
Speaker 1: When you have something that you're building from the ground up,
Speaker 1: like you've been doing there, that's sporting Jacks, and you
Speaker 1: want to be visionary in your approach, but you understand
Speaker 1: that you're in a league framework, and you want to
Speaker 1: break down barriers, and you want to do all these
Speaker 1: new things, but understand that you're doing it within the
Speaker 1: framework of a sport and a professional sport and a league.
Speaker 1: How difficult is it to juggle trying to maintain a
Speaker 1: status quo and at the same time be a visionary
Speaker 1: in something.
Speaker 2: That's new, that is established. Does it make any sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It does. I think you know, there's a basic
Speaker 3: foundational level. No matter what you do, you've got to
Speaker 3: take care of the fundamentals, the x's and o's. You know,
Speaker 3: you can't sell tickets unless you've get a ticket sales team.
Speaker 3: You can't develop sponsorships unless you get really good people
Speaker 3: that can go out there and drive partnership sales for you.
Speaker 3: I think generally speaking, you know, we try and we
Speaker 3: try and take care of all those fundamentals, all those
Speaker 3: foundational things to start with, and then I think, you know,
Speaker 3: once we get comfortable there, we can start then looking
Speaker 3: at other better ways. Of doing things. You know, is
Speaker 3: there an easier way of doing things for us? We're
Speaker 3: doing a number of things you know, as we start
Speaker 3: up that some people would probably say, you know why
Speaker 3: you can wasting time on that, You get enough in
Speaker 3: your plate. But I think it's important to continue to
Speaker 3: challenge that. And again, working within the league structure, we
Speaker 3: like to keep the league informed of what we're doing.
Speaker 3: We just don't go out and do stuff. We like
Speaker 3: to talk to them. We like to share that we'd
Speaker 3: love to be again a case study for other teams
Speaker 3: around the league. And anything that we get right, we'd
Speaker 3: love to share that. Anything we get wrong, we love
Speaker 3: to share that too. And you don't always get it right.
Speaker 3: But you know, again, I think we're kind of proud
Speaker 3: in that respect that we tried to do things the
Speaker 3: right way. We try to do them, you know, and
Speaker 3: I considered fashion where we're going to give ourselves a
Speaker 3: chance of being successful. But again, we're happy to share
Speaker 3: any of that with anybody that wants to know.
Speaker 1: So, what was it like for you and for the
Speaker 1: organization to have the big reveal where you get to
Speaker 1: show off the kike and the jersey.
Speaker 2: In front of all of those things.
Speaker 1: To finally have that step of this process out there
Speaker 1: in the open. It's like, hey, here's what we're going
Speaker 1: to look like, because that's part of it.
Speaker 3: That was awesome. I mean, it took probably about three
Speaker 3: months of planning for that one, but you know, and
Speaker 3: there was a lot of different components to that, a
Speaker 3: lot of different people. Adidas obviously, we are presenting partner
Speaker 3: on that one, and we're a huge support I think,
Speaker 3: you know, our early discussions with Adidas were, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: we'd like to do this, We'd like to do it big,
Speaker 3: we like to do it with the city as a backdrop,
Speaker 3: and they were incredibly supportive of that. So they got
Speaker 3: it really from it from an early point, and and
Speaker 3: we're supportive throughout. You know, the city of Jacksonville were great,
Speaker 3: Our partners or sponsors came in and supported that event.
Speaker 3: It really was truly a kind of it's flipping to
Speaker 3: say it, but you know, a team, you know, pursuit
Speaker 3: and we all work together to make that event so successful,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think, you know, just the event
Speaker 3: itself as we rolled it out was fun. It was
Speaker 3: just a lot of fun because we put a lot
Speaker 3: of work into it. Obviously, we were kind of biting
Speaker 3: our nails a little bit because of the weather partners
Speaker 3: that were passing, you know, downtown Jacksonville at you know,
Speaker 3: five o'clock on a Thursday evening. But we got away
Speaker 3: with it. And the best thing about that whole event
Speaker 3: was when we introduced the league too. In w League
Speaker 3: team players. These these are kids that range you know,
Speaker 3: between sixteen and twenty two, and for some of them,
Speaker 3: this is the first time that they'd ever stepped on
Speaker 3: a stage or are being showcased in a way, and
Speaker 3: it was just it was wonderful. It was just great
Speaker 3: to introduce them to the community. And you know, as
Speaker 3: a result of that, I mean, had we had a
Speaker 3: game a couple of weeks ago, our first home game,
Speaker 3: we had close to three thousand people turn out for
Speaker 3: that game. So it's all about kind of making it,
Speaker 3: you know, pertinent, making it real, introducing those players to
Speaker 3: the community, and encouraging the community to come out and
Speaker 3: support them.
Speaker 1: Steve Livingston hanging out with us for the Sporting Jacks
Speaker 1: update and how much Super League are you watching these days?
Speaker 3: Well, we're getting down to the end of it, so
Speaker 3: not as much as as has been watching but to
Speaker 3: be to be honest with you, John, I don't get
Speaker 3: an awful lot of time. I mean I kind of
Speaker 3: relegate that again to our technical teams to go out
Speaker 3: and look at that. They've got this wonderful program called
Speaker 3: why Scout where they can dial up any player at
Speaker 3: any time and take a look at them. They've been
Speaker 3: spending some time traveling to some of the games, you know,
Speaker 3: taking in you know, the atmosphere, doing some scouting. Technically,
Speaker 3: we can't can I sign anybody until I think it's
Speaker 3: July the first or something like that. From other teams,
Speaker 3: we have a free agent list that we're looking through.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I leave that to them that they are
Speaker 3: the they are the experts and that. But again I
Speaker 3: think I think the announcements that we made in the
Speaker 3: past couple of weeks are going in to kind of indicate,
Speaker 3: you know, the level that we're working at here. And
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of local involvement in that, you know,
Speaker 3: with our first to Ashland and Georgia, terrific players that
Speaker 3: were then called up for international duty, you know, then
Speaker 3: announcement today on on Zara, who's a local girl as well,
Speaker 3: plays at UNF and then Caroline and part of the
Speaker 3: two more kind of experienced players. I think you'll see
Speaker 3: as we go through these announcements a nice mix of local, younger,
Speaker 3: more season professionals, and then we'll get an international players
Speaker 3: to come as well. So I'm really excited about the
Speaker 3: work that's been done around that, and you know how
Speaker 3: how that roster's been built. We'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: Ye have a like worth Caroline Murray from New Kind
Speaker 1: of Connecticut. Parker Rabbits with Kansas, has the relationship with
Speaker 1: Allen kirkup there with Sporting Jack's associate head coach. When
Speaker 1: international players are dialed up in might be something that
Speaker 1: you might have a conversation with Warburton about.
Speaker 2: Or just want to let involve.
Speaker 1: Would you have international players either reach out or are interested?
Speaker 1: What's that like to sit there and now that they're
Speaker 1: interested in something new and conquering what you guys want
Speaker 1: to accomplish coming out of the Blacks.
Speaker 3: I think it's been terrific. Again, his international reputation, he's
Speaker 3: a name out there, has certainly opened, you know, additional
Speaker 3: doors for us that maybe we wouldn't have got. And
Speaker 3: I think you'll see that reflected in international players when
Speaker 3: we make the announcements on them. We're just going through
Speaker 3: the visa process with a lot of them right now.
Speaker 3: But I think it's been a nice combination as well.
Speaker 3: Mark has really focused a lot on those international players.
Speaker 3: But we've then you know, been complemented by you know,
Speaker 3: the work with Stacey and Allen and Becky Burley are
Speaker 3: consultant have done as well in identifying US players and
Speaker 3: younger potential players. And then we've had a lot of
Speaker 3: input as well from our academy. Sean Bob and his
Speaker 3: team have done a great job of identifying, you know,
Speaker 3: some diamonds and they're off there as well that can
Speaker 3: command to help us. So I feel really good about
Speaker 3: you know that that group that's that's put us together.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So now that you've got lightning to dance around and
Speaker 1: it kind of shocks everything going on where you've got
Speaker 1: to go to generator power, what are the next things
Speaker 1: to cross off on the are you.
Speaker 2: Going to hire?
Speaker 1: I guess my next question, are you going to hire
Speaker 1: Tim Degan as your official staff mediologist?
Speaker 3: We probably, we probably should. We do have we do
Speaker 3: have a television partnership with First Coast News. Tim's old
Speaker 3: Tim's old station and Lewis his his replacement. We'll probably
Speaker 3: recruit Lewis and to do our pre match Whaler forecast.
Speaker 3: You know that we that we show in the video
Speaker 3: board in the stadium. So yeah, we would have been
Speaker 3: would have been nice to have Tim there. We just
Speaker 3: just missed him. He could have he could have hung
Speaker 3: on for another, you know, another ten months. Tim do
Speaker 3: is a favor.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on now, I mean you get you
Speaker 1: get Chris Porter over there to hang out with you,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, Chris is uh I've known Chris forever,
Speaker 1: but it's it's really good to see how everything continues
Speaker 1: to grow and involved. I just wanted to poke my
Speaker 1: head in the door and see what's going on and
Speaker 1: have you survived stuff that never happens in North Florida
Speaker 1: in the middle of an afternoon, late spring and early summer.
Speaker 2: As always, my friend, great to see it. We'll catch
Speaker 2: up soon.
Speaker 3: Thank you, John, all the best as always,