From Class Project to $40M Valuation: Adam White on Building Front Office Sports

0:08 I want to start with the founding story because we were just talking before we hit record. You know, it's really only been like 5 years of like the business being the business. >> but you were a freshman at the University of Miami in 2014. >> Yep. >> You got assigned an informational interview for a sports admin class and instead of doing one, you did a bunch of them and turned it into a website. You said it was built to get a job, not become one. At what specific point did it stop being a class project and start becoming a business?

0:36 >> well, once I graduated and I didn't have a job, a full-time job because I thought I was going to be work for a a league, that I had went like 12 rounds of deep interviews with, and, for whatever reason, it just didn't work out. And so for me it was like okay well if that's not going to work out then I have the opportunity to really think about the business and and you know I told myself back when I was going into college you know I did everything as we all do in high school where you play sports and you do this and you do that but you never really focused on one thing. So I was like, well, what if I just focused on one thing? I was 20, what, 21 at the time and 22? And I said, I have no responsibilities. I have nothing. I can live very cheaply. Like, let's just see what happens if I focus on this. And so focused on it for a year. Worked as a TA at the university after I graduated, waited tables at a restaurant in Miami as well. And then I met our first investor on Twitter of all places when it was Twitter, not Xed.

1:32 And you know, they invested in the business at the end of 2018. and I moved from Miami to New York in 2019 and then, you know, we started to build the business actually. So, for the most part, yeah, it it's been something I've been doing in some way, shape or form since, you know, June of 2014. So, it'll be 12 years and in a few months here. And but really a business is a full-time business since the kind of what is the end of 18 early part of 19.

1:58 >> And are you originally from Miami? >> I'm from Arizona originally. I joke with people, I tell people I do the reverse retirement, Arizona, Miami, New York. Usually people go the other way. so yeah, Arizona from went to school in Miami and then moved up here when we got investments and lived here since. >> Yeah. You don't give me the classic stereotypical Miami guy. So I guess >> I think the stereotypical Miami person has probably changed a lot in the last few years too because Miami has changed as a city a lot too.

2:21 >> It's all that crypto money. >> Yeah. >> >> so 2018 you raised some money. You were you So your your co-founder was Russ. >> Yep. >> Was he already part of this with you or did he not join until after the final? He was part of me with he was part of it with me until about this time a year ago. so we had like a great 10-year run and so he was like the first person really the only person the way him and I got connected was over Facebook group. We had a there was a University of Miami Sports Administration Facebook group and he and I I put in there, hey, I'm working on this thing. It's really nothing right now. I have no idea what's going to come of it, but let's see. And and let's, you know, and if anyone wants to help, you know, I'm down to to have people help out. And he was the only person who responded, and we had a great 10-year run. And now he's the COO at college sports company.

3:11 It's kind of an upstart media company focused on NIL and college sports and kind of helping athletic departments do athleteled content. and so he's got a great role over there. But yeah, I mean, a decade with a partner is a really long time and it was really fruitful and we had a lot of wins together and it was great. It was great. All you could ask for in a early stage startup partner. >> Why why did Russ leave?

3:32 >> It was just at the time, I mean, it was opportunity, right? Like, you know, we had the the ability to continue to think about what the management team looked like. He wanted to step into a bigger shoes and have more control and more say. And so, we just had the opportunity to have a conversation, say, "Hey, what's next? What do you want to do? What are you what are you excited about?" And, you know, it was just more of like, "Hey, like this is a natural time, transition period, Redbird coming in, all of this stuff." like it's it's a good transition period in time and it all it all worked out.

4:00 >> One of the things you'll hear from super experienced entrepreneurs is be very careful with your equity. Y >> right because like there's only so much of it and once you kind of sell it or give it away or anything like that like you really can't get it back. so this idea was yours. Russell kind of joins in >> as a founder, you know, and you guys were co-founders, but as like the guy with the original idea, how do you think about equity when bringing on a co-founder in that sort of a situation that you guys were starting in?

4:27 >> I mean, I think for us it was very different because it was never supposed, again, I said it's never supposed to be a company or business. So, I'm not saying I threw out equity like candy, but there was a lot of early stage people who got equity, not not Russ, obviously he deserved it, but probably didn't deserve it. and that, you know, made for a little bit of a messy cap table that we have cleaned up over the over the time period. But yeah, I mean, again, it's a totally different ballgame for me now if I was starting a business than when I was at the time.

4:56 And, you know, the first round we ever did was for 51% of the business. It was a strategic true strategic partnership. if I was 23 and I said look at this point if as long as we have a partner I think we can make a run at this and you know I'm willing to give up a more significant part of it and because of the fact that if it's successful then that partner and that investor if you know they make a ton of money I can always go back to them again in my second venture or my third venture because I've always told myself this is my first thing not my last thing and if there's other things along the way and I help make people successful along the way then hopefully you know that I'll come back in in in more ways than one so yeah I think the mindset now is very different than the minds mindset was then, which the mindset was then is like, man, if you're just helping me out, I'll give you some some equity because I can't give you anything else.

5:39 So, it's just a little bit different. >> And so, that first investor was SE Holdings. >> SC Holdings. >> And so, you found them on Twitter, >> Jason. Yeah. On Twitter, >> you know, and sent him a DM and >> one thing led to another and he basically invested and bought 51% of the company. >> Yes. what complications kind of arose from selling to a non-operating partner or was he an operating partner 51% of your company?

6:02 >> Yeah, I mean he was effectively an operating partner. I mean we were meeting all the time. He was in the mix on everything. You know that was their that was you know what him and I's discussion was is he's like I've done this. I've built and sold a business and multiple businesses and this is kind of what I want to do next. we were one of the first investments that they made out of the the family office and they've been incredibly successful since then with some of their other holdings that they have. And you know, for for us it was really just like, hey, we want someone who's been there who's done that. We want someone who's going to get in the weeds with us because I don't think at that time we would have been able to succeed with probably like a let's call it passive investor. Like it was very active and you know helping you know set up the discipline and the structure and a lot of things. And so, I mean, at the time, you when you're 23, you'll take any money you can get.

6:45 And we were able to take money from someone who believed in the brand, who believed in me, and, you know, was there to help us through the process, right? I think that's the big thing is that we've been blessed, I mean, throughout the last five, six years that we've had great investors. I don't think everyone gets blessed with that. but we've had great investors who are always, you know, looking in our corner. I think we've deal built a great relationship with all of them and have been very open with them where we have challenges where we have opportunities, where we can work together, where things are are are something that we really want to lean into. But, you know, again, like that's where as we've thought about all of our investors, we've always wanted to lean into and make sure that if we're going to take money, we're taking money from the right people. I think very often so many people take money probably from the wrong people or in the wrong valuation or in the wrong thing. And it's just like it creates a lot of problems. And of course, there's always going to be something. is never going to be always rainbows and stuff like that, but for us, we've been able to have really great investors who've been really supportive and and Jason and them were kind of the first part of that.

7:44 >> Was the business making any money when Jason invested? >> Yeah, a couple hundred grand I think something like that. >> How did you guys value the business? It's kind of like a you know like you know basically I was like we know we can do this essentially is what we told him and I said I have four years of people I have done interviews with who've told me that this is what they want to see and if we want to see if we want to do this this is what it's going to take and you know for the most part they believe that and and they understood and and saw and then did some diligence and talked to people and they had a sense of like okay yeah this is this is legit and you you know, we quickly proved that out, right? You know, we the first year I think we almost did a million bucks after they invested and it was just like, oh, we were right. Like we we said if we could get money to do this and then we did got money to do this and we did it and it worked in a way. So, yeah, it was it was great. I mean, like they again, it was more of like a it was Jason wasn't betting on the business, he was betting on me, right?

8:45 >> And that's what happens early stage. You have to bet on whoever the person is that's that's running the business. And thankfully I didn't let him down. I haven't at least at this point which is great for any of our investors. And so you know I think that's that was it's a different quantum for early stage investors than it is for an investor now where we have you know five years of track record. >> Is Jason still involved or has he been is he out now?

9:07 >> No he's he's out. Red Bird Red Bird bought him out in 23. >> So all right. So he comes in you're making a couple hundred grand. What does he invest into the business to kind of get you guys going? >> Yeah. We raised I think I've been pretty open about this. We raised $750,000 at a million and a half dollar valuation or something like that. >> Nice small, you know, here we go. We're about we're about to get going. Which for you, you were probably like, "This is like rocket fuel. We're going to >> I'm like, this is amazing." You know, I can I can pay I can I can pay myself some money.

9:32 >> It is nice to take a salary. It's nice to take a salary. I own my business outright, but I still have to pay myself a salary and every every two weeks I get that paycheck and it's kind of like, oh, >> we're doing something here. >> Great. It feels great. One of the things I think about, so you you spent you basically got your start interviewing people like you just do these interviews and that that's how you kind of got your start.

9:53 >> Do you think that that is for anyone who is thinking about starting a media company? That is the way to get started from ground zero is like could I tomorrow go into healthcare and just start interviewing healthcare execs as long as I know what I'm talking about. Like that's how you get in. Like is that how you would do it? >> I mean I would say like I wouldn't say it was probably how I would do it again.

10:11 I think there's a lot of lessons learned. I don't think it's a bad way. It's a pretty low friction way to get in and start to do things. I mean, look what you know what I believed at the time was that there's all these stories about athletes, but there's never been stories really at scale about the people, you know, behind the scenes. And that was the whole pitch. It was the original slogo we had of the business was the game behind the game, right?

10:34 Like that's what we were calling it and talking about. And so for me, yeah, I mean, like with if you have no audience, no money, no experience, I think it's a no-brainer way to go into it because you can do it at low cost, you can do it in a way where you essentially use other people's audiences to drive audience to you and you can build kind of a flywheel from there. I mean that was the whole thing is like you just incrementally every single day you interviewed another person and another person and another person and they you know every single day they got better in title and bigger in stature and more in audience and then they would share that stuff and then you by default would get you know kind of tailwinds off of that right so I think it's a it's a great way to do it I think it's a way that can work in some ways and I also just think it depends on what industry you're trying to do and and everything like that it was this hard-hitting journalism that I was doing. No, I was just doing informational interviews with people who worked in sports, right? But no one was doing it at that time and people liked it and people shared the heck out of it.

11:32 And then, you know, one person led to four people led to 12 people led to, you know, I did 120 or 110 informational interviews in that first year and, you know, subsequently more after that. But again, because of the fact that it wasn't something that I started with an idea of, oh, this is going to be a media company. This was just me like saying, well, I did one informational interview. what if I did more because I want to make sure I have a job and that was really more about what it was to have a job not you know become a job as I've said multiple times and so I think that changes the approach but I think there's no reason why people can't do a similar approach in similar verticals you can build authority very quickly you build relationships very quickly you can kind of fit in a space you know again how many health care professionals today are being interviewed I have no idea I'm not in healthcare but I would say there's probably a lot of demand and you start doing it and then after a while you know one two 3 months in your inbox is going to be flooded oh I want to talk I want to talk I want to talk I want to talk so I mean as you as we all know the one thing that people love to talk about is themselves right so if you can give people a platform to talk about themselves whether it's to you know promote something or show off experience or thought leadership or whatever you'd have it it's usually going to be in a good place so yeah I mean I think it's certainly a tool of where I think new media or media in general can be but would I do it the same way I don't Well, so let's let's brainstorm for a second.

12:54 You're starting FOS all over again from scratch. How would you do it this time? >> How would I do it this time? I mean, I think I would have gone much harder on YouTube sooner and faster. I mean, that's a resourcing question. Obviously, video is a little bit different, but I think I would have gone much harder on on YouTube and and things. I think, you know, I would have gone harder on the more visual consumerf facing platform.

13:17 FOS is a totally different business today than it was when we started, right? So, if we're talking about FOS today, like it would, you know, it would probably look a lot more of like the approach we have today, but probably a little bit more ratcheted up on some platforms, you know, I would have leaned into, you know, hiring the right people right away from a reporting standpoint. Again, this is like how do you do it now for for everything? And so, I think I would have leaned into expertise, originality, video, right? I think that's I mean especially now Google zero all the things that are happening that's the only stuff that cuts through expertise originality stuff that you can't get anywhere else right and it doesn't matter what that stuff is right for some people it's you know really insider insight in the media business for other people it's you know who for us it was you know Skip Bis and and Stephen A are getting back together and that's a huge story from a media standpoint from a entertainment standpoint personality standpoint all of this stuff >> and so you Luckily, we did that early on and have continued to do that. So, I think that's where I would start and I think where people if I was doing it again and again now content creation is so different than what it was, you know, even two years ago, let alone when I was starting 12 years ago, you know, I was banging away keys on trying to figure out a way to to build a Wix website, right? And that's I can put that in Claude now and it'll build it for me, right? Or whatever it is. So, I think it's and you have to, you know, you have to really focus on the brand. I think specifically nowadays, brand is so important. It's more important than ever before in my opinion because if you have a brand that matters and a brand that stands for something, I think people will gravitate towards it. Like it's a way to stand out in this in this ecosystem. So, I think expertise, originality, content that tells a a story that isn't just something that you can get anywhere else because I think what we've seen with other media companies like a mainstream like general news publication today in 2026 is not going to work. Like people have tried and unsuccessfully tried because people already have those habits built whether it's the New York Times, whether it's the Wall Street Journal, whatever it is, right? Like those are what people are looking to for that. And so to build something and so I think if you have lanes of expertise and areas in which you're focused on you're building in those. I always say it's like everyone calls it niche. I always call it like focused cuz I think niche gets a bad rep. Like everyone's like oh it's a niche media company. Yes. And I'm like no no no no. I said just because we're niche in focus doesn't mean we're niche in scale. There's a lot of people that care about this thing and this thing happens to be the business of sports but you know I think that's what it's like I I focused media brands not niche media brands right? You need to build a focused media brand, especially now because platforms reward focus, right? Like whether we like it or not.

16:00 Like a lot of the algorithms are based off of the successful accounts are you go on the account and you know every single time what you're going to get >> and they that's where you can see audience growth and and things like that. And so I think those have been the the things. And then, you know, I think how do you invest more in the creator side of things and build more of the faces around the franchises, which I think we've done a good job, you know, recently in the last year or so as we shifted the strategy to that. But yeah, I think that's that's the only way you're going to win today. And I think if you do that, you can win in big ways. We've seen that. Like sure, like you're not going to have, you know, the next Vogue or something like that, but you can still have a very influential fashion publication that can be 10 people that can make a ton of impact and that can be bought for a lot of money.

16:48 >> I think people forget about Vogue. Like that took a long time to build that brand up. Like these are these are multi-deade. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it's like every >> media media specifically is is a I mean, it's not a 10-year game. It's a 20-year game. I mean like for us you know we really didn't start to feel the snowball impact until 10 years right like especially as someone who didn't come from media right and like I was a real outsider like it just takes that much time energy effort for people to see the brand to understand the brand to feel the brand to connect with the brand to go back to the brand to trust the brand right media in in so many ways is really trust dependent and so I think for that standpoint like if you're getting into media today there is no shortcut cut.

17:31 >> No. >> And look, there are some success stories that are faster than others, like a TBPN or whatever it is like that. And but like if you look at it, John had been building online for so long before that. And like they've been doing all of these things for so long before they were doing what they were doing. And even then, it still took them a couple years in the category in which they were. And they did a great job. And obviously they had the open AI stuff. But like media is just a long game. And I think people for the most part aren't ready for the long game. It's not even just a long game.

18:03 It's a long game and an everyday game. >> You got to make new product every single day. >> Every single day. And I think people just like, "Oh, I'm going to be a content creator." Or, "Oh, I'm going to get into media." And then they quickly realize, "Oh I have to do this every day." And it's like a Yeah. It's not like you can just code something and then have people buy the software. And you don't have to. I mean, obviously there's other things you do every day, but like it is an everyday always on 24/7, especially if you want to, you know, if you want to be the best and you want to be in the mix of the industry and space that you sit in, like you got to be at the events, you got to be producing the content, you got to be on social, you got to be talking to your audience, right? There's just so much today where you have to do and and be.

18:44 And I think people just underestimate that so much, which is why I think you've seen a lot of people who have come in with big ambitions from outside of media trying to do something with media or save media and then not quickly realizing like, oh like there's a lot of work on a daily basis that goes into this and it's just not an overnight success ever. >> You mentioned brand a couple of times and you've you've long cared about FOS as a brand or Front Office Sports as a brand. I don't actually know which one you you kind of go with these days.

19:13 the >> goal is we we every everyone's entry point is front office sports but the more people that know us as FOS's the better. >> So you've always sort of really you've cared about brand for a long time you know >> even from a young age like you don't come from media you don't come from this why was brand so important and you were consistent with that brand for pretty early on. >> Yeah. I mean look for me I always said and I still think it's true like if we were ever to sell to a strategic or whatever it is like sure they could buy me but what do I do? They there needs to be something to buy, right? You need to buy a brand, right? What does that brand stand for? Especially in journalism, like what does that brand stand for? Can that brand nowadays can you be a brand that convenes people? Do you if you if you're a brand that can get the right people in the room, like you're an actual brand. Do you have a brand that people read every day? Do you have a brand, you know what I mean? Like I think there's a whole difference between like people are, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like I got a media company and I have all these numbers. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, you have an audience, but like do you have a brand? And I think that's the big question that people should really ask like do we have a brand that matters? And if we don't, how do we make it matter without being salacious and things like that? And I think that has been a focus of ours is because I think about like you know and as we've grown it's it's continued to evolve. But you ESPN is is the parent brand, right? And then ESPN has all these other brands and faces inside of them who make up ESPN and they all rely on each other, right?

20:34 Like Stephen A relies on ESPN, ESPN relies on Stephen A, right? It's kind of a symbiotic relationship for the most part. How do we do that now? Because we're at a point where the brand is, I think, really strong and people know and recognize and respect the brand. And so, how do we bring in other people that we can help provide those platforms, provide those things and be able to like kind of equate them together where it's great reporter, great creator, great brand, right? And then it's like, oh, like FOS hires these people or these people work at FOS. Like that's what we want. And so, I think yeah, I mean, for us, brand is everything. It's always been everything, right? Like it's the way you stand out. It's the way you feel. I mean, it's how our events come to life. We talk about like premium, elevated, timeless. Like, that's how we talk about all of our stuff. How does it feel premium? How does it feel elevated?

21:15 How does it feel like something that people want to continue to come back to time and time again, whether it's what they see on.com, whether it's what they see on social channels, whether it's what they see in or experience in an event standpoint. I mean, we've invested heavily early on with a creative strategy team. We have like a sixperson creative strategy team. for a company our size, like that's probably too big, but like it's just they've been so great and so critical in the success of a sales team, especially because we had to go up market from a sales standpoint. The quote unquote like let's call it I I the sports business, which is different than the business of sports in my opinion, but the sports business is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. the true industry of sports, especially in North America. You have 32 pro teams in every league. You have college teams and everything like that, but there's really not a ton of of people in there. So that means from an endemic advertising standpoint, there's not a whole ton of dollars. Very different from like a media industry, an advertising industry, like all these other industries where you see three, four, five, you know, 30, 40, $50 million a year trade publications, right? like advertising, you know, can handle ad week and ad age and digit day and all this stuff, right? Because there's enough ad tech money to go around. There's all this stuff where in sports, we quickly found out there wasn't because it's just not that as big of an industry. So, you know, I always talk to partners and it's like, oh yeah, well, we spent XYZ dollars and that's our entire marketing budget for a year.

22:45 And I'm like, oh, all right. Like, that's great. I'm glad we got that. But that barrier was a signal to me very quickly like we have to find other advertisers because there's just no way we can succeed in this in this in this category if if we don't. And so by bringing in the creative strategy team, all of a sudden, you know, our decks from day one look like a million-dollar deck, even if it's not a million- dollar proposal. And it just adds so much validity and brand you know recognition and everything in the room meeting because like the biggest thing for us with ad buyers especially you know a year ago two years ago less so now I mean but still in in our first meetings like it's all about trust.

23:24 >> The first deck they see if they can say oh wow this deck looks really good like if this is the deck they're putting in front of me I can't imagine what the rest of the stuff they're going to do because it's the first time I'm talking to them. And so, you know, again, like that that it's different for us from a media company standpoint because of where we play and the brands that we play in and who we're competing with from an advertising standpoint now.

23:43 so we have to have that, but we invested in it early on. I think it's paid dividends. >> So, you are probably the first person I ever use heard use the word proumer. >> That's what I like to hear. I like to hear that. >> I think I learned that word from you. >> All right. Trademark it. >> now everyone talk uses that word. Everyone loves the proumer. >> Everyone loves the proumer. which is this idea that you're not you're not true B2B, right? Which is like a sports business journal or maybe a sportico or like that, but you're also not like a true consumer sports site.

24:12 It's like you're not the athletic or like that. You sit in the middle, right? >> >> when you introduced that concept to me, it was 5 years ago. That's when we had that's think this first podcast. I think you were like my third guest. It was the pandemic. I'm sitting in my bedroom on an uncomfortable chair. >> We all were. >> Yeah. Maybe it was 2020. Whatever. It was early days of of >> you know you compared yourself to Politico which was to some extent like a proumer business, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg. All right.

24:38 >> Y >> 5 years, six years since we had that first interview. >> Is that thesis true today for what FOS is? >> Yeah. I mean I think undoubtedly I think you know we if you looked at the way our business is I would say 90% of our ad revenue comes from let's call it consumerf facing brands. Yes. They sit in areas where you wouldn't say necessarily they're consumerf facing but like State Street Erade Morgan Stanley these are major brands right they're advertising with us because our audience is 25 to 54 average age 39 elevated household income white collar workers in every major category of industry across the board and you know we really started to validate it was you know in 20 probably 2023ish we started to really go pretty heavy on LinkedIn and the best thing about LinkedIn is that for those who care about audience is LinkedIn tells you who these people are.

25:32 >> I don't know who you are on Instagram. You could be Twinkle 12 on Instagram, but you're Jacob the CEO of you know just guess you know Jacob the CEO of media operator on LinkedIn. I can see your following and I can see okay this is who this guy is. And so, you know, two two or three years ago, we started to pretty post pretty aggressively on that platform and all of the sudden we saw like all of the audience was coming from outside of what you would call quoteunquote the sports industry. It's people who are in finance, people are in law, people who are in media, advertising. I mean, at this point, sports is at the intersection of every major industry. and intersecting in a big big way. The biggest moment in advertising for most people is the Super Bowl, right? Like that's just the truth, right? And you start to see even like the Met Gala which was recently a lot of sports integration. I mean even speaking about the Met Gala you go to someone like Anne Hathaway who obviously was a star of that Devil War Prada she's an owner of Arsenal now right I think don't quote me on that but I think it's 100% right. and so it's like you have all these celebrities who are now team owners. You know, you have the Ryan Reynolds of it all. You have all of these things like sports in some way has become culture and that was the kind of belief at the time is like hey we know we have the audience in this one category. How do we go out and get the audience in the other categories that is going to make it really interesting from a brand standpoint that we can then have a great pitch for advertisers which is hey advertiser XYZ you can extend and amplify what you're already doing in sports into our audience in a way that's a little bit differentiated different point of view or other advertiser you can't necessarily afford live sports or some of the bigger players but we have a solution that has real real meaningful scale that you can also plug into because you want to be around sports Right. The World Cup. We have so much demand right now for all these brands and advertisers who want to be around the World Cup but don't have millions of dollars to spend on a 7-second ad and a on a game that's at 10:30 at night that is between people that probably aren't really watching it domestically here in the US. And so I think that was the the ultimate positioning and idea was like, hey, like there is a lot of green shoots per se into the professionalization of sports, the sophistication of capital coming into sports and and on and on and on and on. And if we're covering it from that more Wall Street Journal lens, that more Bloomberg lens that this is something that we can have those brands and advertisers align with and it's brand safe. It's interesting. So we can play the sports angle, we can play the business angle, we can play both of them. we can play the culture angle.

28:01 So yeah, I mean I would say now more than ever it's true. I think we have the the north star is I think brighter and more clear than it's ever been. Our whole new slogan it was, you know, used to be the game behind the game. Now it's sports is big business and we kind of apply that to everything else and it really is right. So how do we think about it, talk about it, sell it in that way all the time. because like the business of sports was a category that like Darren Rell like was the only guy five years ago, six years ago doing at scale and now like it's us right that are doing it at at scale and you know Yahoo we just did a partnership with them and you know they have a sports business hub now and I think like everyone has started to wake up to the fact that like oh this is like interesting and we should be talking about it and we should be doing it and and you know for us it's been our main course for the last you know we're 70 full-time employees now. Like, this is what we do, talk about, post about all day long. We have 2 million crossplatform followers. We're the number one sports publisher on LinkedIn.

28:58 We have, you know, a relationship with them and they've been such great partners for us from a brand link standpoint. And so, like it's like kind of validating to the fact that like, yeah, like this is real and luckily we've, you know, been on the train for the last 10 years, 10 plus years. >> So, one of the things that I've always struggled with with regard to this idea of a proumer publication with I know exactly who my target audience is. You are my target audience. Your team is my target audience.

29:23 >> Your readers are not my target audience. And I can very clearly state that. >> And if I'm a consumer brand, a general news brand, they say everyone's their their audience. But even like a consumer brand like a a men's health, you can kind of define, you know, with proumer >> your business, but your consumer like how do you not lose sight of still who your target reader is and start to make decisions because well bigger is better.

29:48 and if I just make this one shift in my content, I can get bigger. How do you how do you manage that? >> I mean, look, I think >> for us now and for probably everyone, like I don't think bigger is necessarily better nowadays, right? Like there's only there's only so big you can get. And I think again, like as we've seen by so many publications who were so big because of Google and stuff like that, like doesn't necessarily mean better, right? And so for us it's all about okay we we have we've done so much data and research and we've worked with so many partners to develop these you know kind of three audience profiles.

30:25 One of them is like the casual cultural fan. I don't have the other two off the top of my head but like those are the three to core target demographics or target audiences that we've built our business around. Some of them look different on this platform. Some of them look look different on the.com. Some of them look look different here. So, at this point, sure, if a gen pop consumer wants to look at our Instagram and follow us, amazing, great. But the real core grouping is 25 to 54, average age 39, elevated household income, typically white collar workers in every industry you can think of. Like, that's the that's the audience. Outside of that, if other people come into our ecosystem, great. That's the content that we're creating for. That's the audience we're creating content for. That's the audience that we're promoting to. That's the audience we're, you know, marketing to. that's the audience we're selling tickets to, whatever it may be. And so that's been the focus. It's might be a little bit bigger, but we've narrowed it down to where it's like, okay, we have three very dedicated segments and each of those audiences are served differently. like we may have more of the casual cultured fan on like Tik Tok, but maybe we're executing Tik Tok differently and we're selling Tik Tok differently to a different type of brand whereas our events are a little bit more heavy professional side of things and we're talking to different brands about events and selling events differently and so I think yeah I mean look luckily for us we never built the business on like Google arbitrage or do display inventory and things like that. We've always built the business on somewhat of a direct relationship with our audience, whether it was on platforms, which is not necessarily the most direct relationship, but you're still getting real audience data or on the newsletter or in other ways at events. And so, because of that, we've been able to say, okay, like this is a kind of general idea of who it is. Now, let's go look at it and enrich the data with epsilon and let's go take a big audience survey and see what these things are and kind of segment it into, okay, here, these are three three categories. Here's how we're approaching them. here's how we're creating content for each of them. This is our our kind of core audience. This is our growth audience and this is kind of like the audience that will hit around these key moments.

32:26 >> But so you don't actually to be a target reader of of FOS, you don't have to work in sports, be tangentially related to sports. Like I am a target reader because I'm 37 years old. I make more money than the average person does. And >> you care about sports and business. Yeah. You like you care about money. You And again, like are you going to be an everyday eater? I I I don't know, right? but are there going to be headlines and things that interesting you because of the fact that you care about a team or whatever? Like for example, we broke the news yesterday that Mark Cuban was the guy who funded Fernando Mendoza's NIL deal to come to I keep hitting that.

33:00 I'm sorry. that Mark Cuban was the guy who funded Fernando Mendoza's deal to come to Indiana. Like that's an interesting business story. That's an interesting college story. There's probably college people who are reading that. There's probably people who are interested in Indiana who are reading that. There's probably just other people who are like, "Oh, Mark Cuban. I'm a Mark Cuban fan. Like, I want to read this." Right? So, yeah, I mean, look, like there we we have a core audience and we know what that core audience wants and what they consume and they care about big numbers, big companies, big names, big headlines.

33:28 Like, those are what they care about. And then there's things that are around that, you know, the the hoop where it's like Ed Sheeran who was an owner of a, you know, a third division or second division English soccer team. They won and I think they got promoted or something like that and he was in the locker room singing with them and they just happened to be singing a song. We posted that. It's got 150,000 likes and someone has like 75,000 shares, right?

33:53 But like that is a perfect story for us. It's a celebrity owner. It happens to have like a little like human interest to it. He happens to be singing his song, right? Like but he owns the team. He's interested in the team. Like it's an owner story. It's a money story. It's an entertainment story. It's a sports story, right? Like there's so many of those tentacles in there. And so if we can bring new readers in by covering something like that or new audience members by covering things like that, great. But like the through line is the idea that again sports is big business.

34:20 What is in that ecosystem? Everything that's off the field at this point. Sometimes it's a little more cultural looking. Sometimes it's hard business looking, right? It just depends. >> All right. So SC Holdings is your first investor. They sort of ride this with you for what is it? Four years and then Crane comes in. yeah, Crane came in I mean Crane came cranium in 2021 so it was two years. Okay. But Crane was just a small small minority partner. They you know Casey and I met each other and you know they were kind of in a place after co where they had a ton of success and you know saw you know had some money to invest and they said hey like let's let's find a way to invest. And so they invested and then they were in for like a year and then the Redbird conversation happened and I said, "Hey, look, like I have an opportunity for you guys to get a nice return quickly in a year if this is something that you'd be interested."

35:09 And they said, "Yeah." So they made money and and then Redbird came in and and it was Red Bird and SC and then it was so it was Red Bird and SC for a year and then Red Bird bought out the rest of SC and now it's just Red Bird. >> So when Crane got in $25 million valuation. Yeah. >> Okay. A year later, Redbird comes in. Y 40 million. First round was 40 or >> 40. Yeah.

35:29 >> And then >> then a year later, they bought out SC entirely. >> Y >> was that always the plan or did they see something and they were like, you know what, we want to get let's just get rid of everyone else, just us. >> I mean, I don't you you can talk to them about that honestly. I mean, >> I think they always thought that there was an opportunity to own everything. I think SC kind of knew at that time that they were at the tail end of their hold period, right? Three to five years typically for companies and SC wanted to move outside of media into more consumer stuff. And so it was just an opportunity where like SC and credit to Jason kind of understood like, hey, we had we had gotten the business to this far. We probably don't have a ton more value to add at this point. Maybe a little bit, but like let's steward this into the next chapter. let's give Jeff and Redbird what they what they're looking for and what they need and and let's, you know, exit with a with a great return. And so, you know, again, I I would assume that I haven't directly ever asked them directionally. That's what I think it is is that they knew at that point it was the end of their whole period. They were shifting focuses. They had a great asset. They had someone else who wanted to put more time, energy, and effort into that asset if they had more control of that asset. And and then we just, you know, figured it all out.

36:43 So, yeah, it was great. So Redbirds in now, what percent of the company do they own? >> We haven't like necessarily disclosed it, but like it's it's a clear majority of the business. >> Clear majority of the business. so obviously Jeff Zucker is a dominant operator. Yes. Like >> truly dominant operator. >> Yes. >> I don't think I would ever want Jeff Zucker to be over my shoulder simply because he's just, you know, that kind of >> I think I think once you get to know him, you would you would you would you would >> All right. Well, if he listens to this episode, I am absolutely raising at a $40 million valuation.

37:17 you you heard it here first. I love it. How has his involvement tangibly changed how you run this business? >> You know, I think part of the thing that we did with the SC stuff was was great from getting us from zero to one. I think the Red Bird deal was about how we get from one to two. And I think it's just operational rigor, sophistication, trust. You know, Jeff and I we just had our meeting today, but we meet on a weekly basis and we talk about the business. There is no surprises. I I I just remember like hearing from him.

37:50 He's like, "This is what I want. I want this, this, this, this, this on a weekly basis. This is because I don't want any surprises in the board meeting. We're going to meet quarterly. This is what the board meetings are going to look like. This is what this is going to look like. This is what this is going to look like. And if we do this during a weekly basis, then everything else will be easy." And I was like, "Okay, great."

38:08 you know, like that was awesome. Like makes my life easy. And so I think it's just taught me so much about how to manage up. >> he's always been again like super supportive for us and and has, you know, leaned in where he needs to and leans out when he does when he when he needs to, right? Like it's not like he's like pressing his finger on anything or or anything like that or in the in the weeds 247. Obviously, he loves sports and he loves news and he loves media.

38:31 And so like I mean realistically I think we're we're blessed to have you know him and the Red Bird IMI group as as part of this because we are like far and away the smallest investment they have by by like far from a pure sheer dollar amount standpoint. I think from a visibility side of things you could argue that like we're probably one of the more visible you know investments that that Jeff has on the Red Bird IMI side.

38:52 >> That's the point with all media, right? We we our valuations never quite hit our our reach. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that's the that's you know that's that's been great and just to be inside the ecosystem to meet with the people to learn from them you know like Redbirds you know they've always said that you know they they incubate businesses and they've been true part I mean the business has quadrupled almost essentially since we since they invested what three years ago right and so like it's just like pretty ridiculous growth especially at this time in the in the world and what kind of last few years have looked like from a macroeconomic standoint. point and I think that's just come down to like operational rigor and sophistication and trust and the ability to to give us the kind of leash to to operate but not too much to just do whatever we want right not that we would because you know as any you know operator knows specifically like if there's capital involved like you're a fiduciary of the capital and I take that job very seriously you know for from my standpoint for our investors is you know we run the business tight because like that's how we should be running and that's how we've been, you know, have learned to run it. And so I just think for Jeff, it's just, you know, the immediate validation we got, especially because someone like me, I'm not a a media guy.

40:08 Like I'm I'm completely out >> at this point. You're a media guy. >> At this point, I'm a media guy, but like I I wasn't and and the validation that's like it's just kind of like every little thing helps where it's like, okay, Jeff validated the business, now XYZ brand validated the business. Then we signed the deal with the NFL and NFL validated the business. Anda da da da da. And it's like all of those things build on the fact that you can go into an advertiser and say, "Hey guys, all of these people trust us, so you should trust us." And our business today still is, you know, everything basically 99% of the business outside of some ticket sales advertising supported or sponsorship supported. And so you look at it and you say, "Okay, if this is what we we're going to do, we need the validation of these people, these brands, these leagues to then tell those brands who are spending money like, oh, FOS is a place that I should be spending money because all of these other people, as much as I can tell them that, it's just like, you know, a mom or dad thing.

41:03 Like you go and ask your mom for something it goes that day, go ask your dad, ask your dad, you know what I mean? It's just the same thing." And for for us, like that was that was a huge unlock. But I can't say enough good things about about the Redbird team and I think they've been they've been awesome. >> So Redbird Capital which I think so I guess the structure is like Red Bird imi is like a >> yeah Red Bird IMI is a JV between Redbird and International Media Investments which is the Abu Dhabi arm of which is an Abu Dhabi media company >> and then so then Redbird Capital so they own a number of sports assets >> correct. Is there any does any tension exist between like stuff that you might report on which are their assets and them owning it like >> No, I mean look like you know we've always had and and and this is with everything all of our partners like the journalism comes first >> that there is no FOS brand without the newsroom without the journalism without the reporting that we've done. We don't have that. Like nothing else matters.

41:59 Literally not a single thing. And so again luckily Jeff is a news guy. Jeff is a journalism guy. Jeff has been beating the drum ever since day one. More reporters, more reporters, more reporters, more reporters, which is great. Like that's what we want. and so never, you know, I don't think there's ever really been any tension because they understand the role that we play. And they know that if for whatever reason it was seen that we weren't reporting something or we weren't saying something because of their influence, that would immediately devalue the asset, right? Or it would change people's perspective of things. And so, yeah, there's never been any issues, which is which has been great. and they've always, you know, been forthcoming about that stuff and and we've always been forthcoming about them. Like we work with them just like we would work with any other company that we cover. You know, the reporters reach out, ask for comment, this da da da da, and you know, and then we're then we're moving forward. So, yeah, again, I think that is the one big advantage of having someone who was a true media operator, pun intended, true media operator investing in the business. They get it. They understand the es. They understand the flows. I think that's the one thing that like Jeff understands the seasonality of advertising what you know where like from an event standpoint reporting stories this that you know like all of those things. Sure. Have we broken stories? It's probably made people's lives harder. Yes. But like that we're doing our job right and and that's why they made the investment and that was the calculus that >> that they made along the way.

43:23 >> So let's let's talk a little bit about the numbers. So in 2024 Brian Morsy said that you guys were on track to hit 10 million in revenue. Yep. >> That year. >> Y >> Redbird invested in 2023. >> Yeah. >> You said you've quadrupled the business since then. >> Yeah. >> So, where is revenue in 2026 projected? >> Yeah. I think we'll end up between 20 and 24. >> That's a great growth, man. >> Yeah. Yeah.

43:43 >> Not bad for a couple hundred grand, right? >> Not bad. Not bad. Yeah. I mean, look, like it's we have a ton of tailwinds. You know, sports sports is big is big business as we like to say, and it's only getting bigger, you know. I mean, everyone talks about it. there's just an an in insatiable demand for sports and now there's an insatiable demand for the off the- field storylines and because of that I think again like the Yahoo thing is another validator to the market. Oh, if Yahoo the one of the largest consumer internet brands ever is putting their thumb or their stamp of approval on the business of sports like maybe I should really be looking at this more and so yeah I think we just that that it's just been a great kind of story. the business has diversified a ton. You know, our our our revenue mix has gone from largely newsletter to more like actually diversified across the, you know, newsletter, social, branded content, events, all of this stuff, right? So, I think that is because of what we've been able to do over the last three to four years. And you know, I think that I mean, I don't think that there's no reason why the business can't be, you know, $50 million business, you know, in a in a few years based on what we're looking at and the opportunities that that lie ahead. So yeah, I mean they they've been great partners and have been a catalyst for that for that growth, but also again the tailwinds that we've seen and the fact that the you know to bring it all back the investment in the brand side of things.

45:05 You know again like a lot of people are trying to get into this space now for obvious reasons and you know what we have is we have 10 12 years of of brand you know and audience and you know like you know we had Mark Cuban in the office the other day. He's like, "Yeah, I read your newsletter every single day." Right. Which is great. And and has for five years, right? And and I think like that's something where again like you that's the one thing too in media. You just can't fake it anymore.

45:34 >> Like you have to be a brand that matters to some people in some way, shape or form. And if you don't, it will be very difficult to succeed. I think we've all seen the brands that have tried to blit scale their way to this or that. And it's just so difficult. And I think, you know, again, that that we we always knew the brand had this opportunity from a revenue side of things. We just always had to catch the commercial side up to the brand. And that's a good place to be. I would rather that versus like trying to catch the brand up to the commercial side. Depends on the day.

46:03 But, you know, for most part, the brand being where it is, it has allowed us now to really start to take meaningful strides. Especially as we moved up market from a revenue standpoint and advertising standpoint, you now start dealing with brands, agencies, RFP cycles. You're not winning your first RFP cycle. The first RFP cycle takes six months. The second one takes three months. The second take one takes a month. You're looking at a year just to crack into a brand. Well, now you have those brands and now and it just becomes a bit of a snowball. And so, you know, last year we had, I don't know, maybe one two million dollar partners.

46:40 >> This year we probably will have five, you know, and it's just because of the fact that we've gotten at bats and we've had these things and now we're getting partners who are spending a million dollars first shot with us, which never, you know, has happened before, right? And so it just changes the quantum of all of that stuff. >> So, you guys do a lot of different things, right? still pretty heavily advertising. We also have events now.

47:02 you got a studio business, right? You're bringing back your your daily show. >> We're bringing back a we're launching a nationally syndicated TV show. Yeah. >> So like all of these things, if you had to look at that 24 million number, how would you break it apart into those different buckets? >> Yeah. I mean, look, I think like you have like digital, which like digital we'll call.com, newsletter, stuff like that, probably 20% of the business. You have social which is probably like another like 20% of the business. You have branded content which is like 30% of the business. So it was kind of se separate things. So that's 20 that's 70.

47:43 And then the other 30 is like events, right? The show honestly was something that we've cooked up this year. So it wasn't even built into the budget which is great. So that's all upside for us. and then so yeah, it's like it's like 20% digital, 20% social, 30% branded content. Sometimes those fluctuate just depending on the quarter, and then 30% other, which is events and some other things that we that we have. >> So, you've mentioned a couple times this Yahoo partnership. Yeah.

48:11 >> what does this deal do for you? Is it a revenue driver? Is it just a validator? Does it drive traffic? >> It's a mix of everything. I mean look like again for us the more that our brand is out there the better right is it going to be something that you know does a huge deal for us from a revenue standpoint no there's a revenue share component to it yes which is which is great but the I can always tell when things cut through and I have like my uncle or someone like that who may not go to our.com all the time but is a avid MSN user we're distributed through MSN and he's like oh I saw Front Office Sports on MSN and sends me a screenshot like is there a quantifiable impact to that to the business maybe right you know there's some levels of it but like perceptionwise all of that stuff then that like that that is where it is so I mean look yeah like there is a risk in in some of these partnerships where you're distributing content on those platforms and you're not necessarily getting the audience or you're not necessarily getting the first party data or whatever it is like that but the other side is a real opportunity where like our brand is now in spaces that it may not have been previously for people who you know Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance like Yahoo Finance the people who are reading Yahoo Finance are probably the people we want knowing what Front Office Sports is and if even there is a clickback one or two or whatever it is back to our site and they get into our ecosystem great right so I think it's a great partnership I mean that one is great the LinkedIn one we did with them is is great where we can you bring advertisers into LinkedIn for the first time in a real meaningful way so that that's been huge and I mean, this whole year, the first part of this year is really about all of these strategic partnerships, whether it's on the league side of things, whether it's the distribution side of things, whether it's advertising focused, because again, it just gives us more, you know, kind of quivers in the in the in the bow, so to speak, that where we can go to advertisers, and we will go to advertisers now where it's like you can buy everything by September. You can buy linear TV with us, you can buy targeted social with us, you can buy extensions on platforms, you're already spending money with us, right? So, there is going to be no friction at that point and I think it, you know, again, that's how we take that next that next step.

50:24 >> Yeah. You care about the story in the back office, you're going to want to spend with you guys anyway. >> Yeah, I would hope so. Right. And even if they don't know that yet, like it's our job to inform them as to why they should why they should be. >> So, I'm pulling some quotes from other interviews you've done. Right. So, you've said that FOS is quote solely focused on this idea of faces and franchises.

50:43 >> Yes. >> you've cited ESPN as the model, right? And you said it before, ESPN is like this top model when then you've got Sports Center and, you know, first look, first take and all that. How is that buildout going for you at FOS with these faces and franchises? >> It's great. I mean, like again, like I think we built we spent a lot of time building a very strong parent brand >> and that was purposeful and now how do we find other people who can enhance that parent brand and who that parent brand can enhance, right? We had a a reporter who came from the Chicago Sun Sun Times. Her name was Annie. she was great great and she came in was our women's sports reporter. Went from a national or went from a local kind of space to a national space with with us.

51:25 And you know was breaking news left and right. Like she was adding a ton of value to to our brand and I think we were adding a ton of value to her by giving her a national platform to break big news, break big scoops. And all of a sudden, Annie went from someone who was covering the, you know, the Chicago Sky to someone, holy is breaking all these news and then eventually broke the the WNBA CBA news with us. We were the first I mean like that just doesn't happen, right? And so we were the first ones to do that and and and look like she went to she actually just got hired by The Athletic and is there and is now their like I think either their top one or two national WNBA reporters or women's basketball reporters. That is an ideal scenario, right? Like obviously we didn't want to lose her and but like if if if that's what's happening that means what we're doing is working for whoever is working for us >> and so how do we do that you know and replicate that over and again like again I would love to keep these people but life is life and we can't you know she had a great run here it was mutually beneficial for everyone involved how do we find the how do we find the next Annie or the next xyz person and so I think yes the faces and franchises because like you look at all these things and you think okay again back to the ESPN example like College Game Day, great franchise. Home Depot owns that franchise. ESPN probably goes to market and says, "Hey, brand XYZ, this is how you align with this franchise." I think the other thing too is that the way we see advertising specifically, it's like, "Okay, turnkey stuff, right?" Which you can you can do pretty easily. It's branded content, which you know is a means to an end in a lot of ways and of course we'll do it, but I don't think we want to sit around and make commercials for brands all day long. or there's IP alignment and the ultim that's the ultimate occasion, right? So, how do we have brands align with the IP that we're creating that we know is going to be successful that we know if they align with it's going to continue to amplify that and that it's going to be better for them, right? Like we want and and there's so many examples of brands that have done this well, right? Like I think Bar stool is a great example like they create all this content, they create all these shows, they integrate brands into the shows, right? They get them, you know, integrated into what it is what they're doing. Whether it's like John Gruden doing, you know, whatchamacallit, u, Gruden's QB class and Chevrolet is on his hat, right? Like Chevrolet is not telling them what to do. Chevrolet is just like, "This content is so good that we want to be on it." And how do we be on it? And ideally, that's where where it is for us. And so, yeah, I mean, we have we have multiple franchises now that are million-dollar franchises, whether it's an event franchise, whether it's a content franchise, whether it's a social first franchise. we have a Caroline and Vic which is you know Caroline is our head of content strategy or director of content strategy and Vic is head of marketing and strategy has done a great job building out what this matrix is and this is a a franchise is a you know this is a piece of IP right like this is a a piece of content this is how this is a vertical right so we have all of these things that we kind of align to and then say okay this is what we're going to do like the most great example of this is we kind of incubated we always knew that people care deeply about stadium stadium food and we kind of incubated it internally on the main kind of front office sports social handles like you know posting about stadium food posting about stadium food and after a while we're like okay this stuff is overperforming by a large margin so like let's just create a franchise around stadium food and so that's Stadium Eats and Stadium Eats now Pepsi was a partner Craft Hind is a partner blah blah blah blah blah and it's literally just because of the fact that we can go to the brand and say this is what it looks like what we were talking about earlier something that's focused something that's dedicated this is what it looks like. This is what we do and this is how you as a brand are going to integrate into it and why it's relevant to you.

55:01 And again, like I think that that will be a million-dollar plus franchise this year, right? And it's, you know, it's nothing that we hadn't been doing. We just put it on an Instagram account, a Tik Tok account, and a YouTube channel dedicated to itself. That's the content. That's always the content. And then we're using it as an opportunity to sell into brands. >> Yeah. It's it's it's a packaging kind of conversation more than anything. >> Yeah. Yeah.

55:22 >> So, when you think about these franchises are, >> you know, a lot of media companies, you know, we we look at let's say like Vox, right? Vox is building up a ton a big podcast network. >> Maybe they're selling. So, >> maybe they're selling. you apparently the rumor yesterday or whenever we're recording this was Murdoch, James Murdoch's buy. We'll see by the time this episode comes out. That could be 10 other buyers. Yeah, it might be old.

55:45 so that model is very much like a personalityled, you know, like their biggest show I think is Scott Galloway and Cara Swisser stuff. >> if Cara disappears, she decides there's risk there. Are your franchises not quite that same way? Like can you can a can a person leave and you'll be okay? >> I mean, it depends. I think there's a level to that, right? I think yes, one would say yes that we have built the the franchises to where people could leave.

56:16 This is a time will tell, right? Like I think that we today like we have multiple faces who play a role in stadium meets, whether it's reporters who happen to be on the ground at events, whether it's our creators like Daryl, who's done a great job and and has kind of been like the spearhead face of that. So ideally, yes, right? Like that's what we want and and and hopefully that's the case. But, you know, again, like you just have to plan for it. And as I'm sure Vox has planned for it, like you you got to make sure that if Yeah. you have enough things in place that if Cara was to leave, you either have someone next up or you have something else or, you know, you can reallocate that spend to other creators who can kind of fill that gap.

56:54 >> So, you've mentioned a couple times the events business, which is still a pretty small from a revenue perspective part, but you've got >> four million bucks this year. >> Four million bucks. So, you've got you've got some pretty cool products, right? You've got like Huddle in the Hamptons, which is like this cool concept. You've got Tuned Inset class. >> You know, when at tuned in, you've got the nice thing I sometimes compare our events. Yeah.

57:12 >> and the one thing that I I find about the show we do, besides the fact we do it at the exact same venue, >> I think we did it there first to be fair. No, I'm just kidding. >> you might have done it there first. By I think like a month. I think by a month is when you did it. is like you get absolutely rockstar people to speak at these events, right? You've had Adam Silver, who I have some negative thoughts about him only because of tanking and and all that. Rob Manfred, Stephen A. Smith, like these are legit people.

57:39 >> Talk about the event strategy. Like how are you getting these folks? Like how do the events kind of fit into the portfolio? Like what's their purpose? >> Yeah, I mean they're they're a physical manifestation of the brand, right? And also they are, if you're, you know, a smart media company nowadays, they're they're a content opportunity, right? They're a much they're more of a content opportunity really than they are purely an event side of things. Yeah. there an event opportunity where we can bring people together and and curate rooms and stuff like that. But for us, like we have, you know, we have events like tuned in and asset class are like our quote unquote newsmaking events. Like the focus of those events are to interview you people who will make news.

58:20 Like that's pretty self-explanatory. So, we bring people in like Adam Silver, Rob Manfred, you you mentioned it, Jimmy Potaro, Eric Shanks, like it was a sick lineup last year and I think it's going to be similarly this year. And like the goal is to have like a legitimate conversation and we actually were on with sponsors earlier today and it's like in those cases we have no sponsored sessions. No sponsored there sponsored integrations but no sponsored sessions because one it just kind of takes the air out of the room >> and two like people are there to see things and hear things that they aren't going to hear in other places. Like that is the one thing too is there's so many events now because events make money.

59:00 events are great. Like I I mean there's just a a der of events wherever you go. And so it's like how does our event stand out in the other event category and space? And it's like for us it's all of the stuff that we know from a journalism standpoint. It's big news. It's big names. It's big companies. It's, you know, it's big headlines. It's like that's the stuff that moves the needle. So how do we get those people in a room? Luckily, we've built a brand that people trust and want to speak to because they know what the platform is going. I mean, that's the pitch, too.

59:29 It's like, "Hey, XYZ brand, you're going to be in this room with 500 people and, oh, by the way, it's going to be live streamed and we're going to have all these social clips and it's probably going to be seen by millions of people, right?" That Yeah. Okay, great. Like, that's something that we want. On the flip side, we have other stuff like Huddle in the Hampton's, Breakfast Ball, which are more like I wouldn't are very less so focused on making news and are more so focused on community, are more focused on opportunity, are more focused on commercial side of things. How do we, you know, bring brands into the ecosystem? that's a little a little more, you know, maybe integrated that's separate from how we do the newsmaking events, right? And the newsmaking events are essentially franchises that are built around the faces, right? Tuned in is our media vertical. Tuned in has a newsletter and tuned in has an event.

60:12 And we executed on social, too. Asset class is our finance vertical, asset class has a newsletter, asset class has an event. Ideally, we do that across every industry and vertical, but you know, that comes as we get more as we have more success from a business standpoint. So, yeah. I mean, look, like for us, like we want people to come. I think what happens is people come to our event and they're like, "Oh, I that person reads you. I didn't know that person. I read you that, oh, whoa, whoa, I didn't know that." Right? And I think like that is like what it is is like a true eye opener for a lot of people who may not be as intimately familiar with the audience like we are, is that they get a sense of like, oh, if these people are in the room, then I should be in the room or if this person's speaking at the event, then I should speak at the event, right? And like, look, it took time. That was our second year. But like there's no reason at this point like we can't get anyone that we want from a speaking standpoint unless their schedule doesn't work. And you know that's where we run into sometimes. But at this point they know, okay, they're going to go on a page.

61:08 They're going to get a fair interview. It's not going to be softball for the most part, right? They're going to be real questions. but you know, they're going to be there because they want to be there and they want to be in the room with all the other people that are in the room because >> if they're if someone else is in the room and they're not in the room, people are going to ask, "Why isn't that person in the room?" and they don't want to have that question.

61:25 >> Yeah, I had I had Katie Kirk speak at this past AMO summit. >> the the fear I live with now is how do I beat that just because of how like well-known Katie was? Yeah, Katie is. so that's that's the biggest fear. How do you how do you get a better event the next year? >> Yeah, I mean I don't know. We've been talking a lot about this. I think it's tough and I think you just can't compare sometimes as much as like we would, you know, everyone says comparison is the thief of joy. It is in a lot of ways from an event business too because there's only so much you can compare, right?

61:58 >> And there like again like one year it might work for them, one year it might not. Sometimes people don't want to speak at the same event twice. Sometimes they want to mix it up, right? There's just so many things like our goal is focused how do we have a great guest experience? How do we have a great speaker experience? How do we have a great content experience? and let the rest take care of itself. Like I I cannot control when a a media or not a media company. Yeah. Media company or a league has a board meeting.

62:26 >> It just is what it is. >> It just is what it is. So like yeah, if someone has a board meeting and can't make it, it's not an indictment on us or the event. It's just the fact that like >> that just how you know the cookie crumbled that way. But then okay, how do we get them involved in other events, right? So, yeah, I think for us now it's like how do we build an event that a room that matters, an event that matters, and then like we want to have the people who are that matter in in those spaces and so I think for us that's that's what we're focused on and I think yeah, it's tough like we think about it all the time like last year was a great event and how do we top it? I think you know I think there's little things you can tweak. How do we make it better from a guest experience standpoint? How do we make it better from you know speaker experience? Do we add a dinner? you know, there's things like that where you can kind of level it up a little bit. but again, sometimes the cookie crumbles and it's like these people just can't speak and it's nothing against us.

63:13 >> So, in September 2025, you announced that content partnership with the NFL, which is something you've mentioned a couple times. Yep. >> you guys pay the NFL for access to IP, logos, and behind the scenes access. >> Talk about why talk about a little bit about why that mattered. Yep. >> what did you have to pay and how these deals come together? >> Yeah, I mean look, it matters because again we talked about this multiple times, validation side of things, right?

63:41 Like the NFL is the biggest sports league in North America and arguably the world. Depends on who you ask, but certainly in North America. >> I think FIFA would disagree with that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Depends on who you ask. But them saying Front Office Sports is a worthy publisher to use our logos and our IP and have access and create content and do that stuff sends a signal that we couldn't signal, you know, without, right? And it's it's just so I think that is it was just it was it was really and for them it's smart because like they want to they you know you can look around and see their other content partners and it's like batches or something else and it's like hey here's all the audience categories where we want to find more audience and that we can do that and again for us like editorially no no impact on that. We've always talked about that. Totally separate sides of the house. But like as we moved up market with brands, brands are like, "Hey, if you want to do stuff around the NFL, we need you to have this because we want to use our marks and IP." US Bank, Pepsi, whatever it is.

64:46 Like probably we're not going to get them to spend money with us if they can't activate their marks and IP that they already pay for in a much larger way. And so like that's the fundamental value exchange here is that you know we come in we say hey here's this you're going to give us this and we can go to advertisers now and say hey Pepsi hey this hey that hey whatever it is we have access to marks and IP if we shoot content at these places we can include marks and IP we don't have to go around things we don't have to do this that and the other and everybody wins we create content they make money we make money great right and so I think like that's the stuff where It's it it it is a product of the fact that we've had so many conversations with advertisers and so many of the sports endemic advertisers at scale. Not like the trade endemic advertisers, but the like Annheiser Bushes of the world and things like that.

65:39 >> A large majority of their advertising spend is tied up with their leagues and their contractual spend. So outside of contractual spend, you run into kind of headwinds where it's like, well, we have to find net new incremental things like that. This doesn't necessarily apply to a lot of the brands that may not spend as heavily in sports. So that's a different conversation. But if you look at all of the partners in sports and you say, "Oh, Asensure is a massive NFL partner." As Centure makes a ton of sense for us for a v variety of reasons.

66:08 We now can go to Asenture and say, "Hey, Asenture, see you're an NFL partner. We're an NFL partner. Here's some ideas that we have. XYZ, you know, what do you think?" Oh, that's great. Didn't know you were an NFL partner. Right? So, you know, you do that with NWSL, you do that with WWE, PGA Tour, we just signed too. And it's really just a function of like I remember Mastercard came to us and said, "If you're a PGA media partner, we'll spend XYZ dollars with you." I said, "Okay, well, I need to figure out how to be a PGA media PGA."

66:37 >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Six months later, here we are. So, you know, I think like >> it's just a it's just a you know, kind of not a cost of doing business. It's just how to if you want sports advertising dollars that and compete in the sports advertising community, you have to have access to the marks and IP of the teams and leagues that you may be using from a a commercial content side of things, right? Doesn't we can get we can go and we have media credentials from a editorial side of things and things like that, but immediately if we put a brand on something that has IP or whatever it is from another league, like one, we can't do that if we don't have those relationships. too. If we do have the relationships, then great. It makes it so much easier for our team.

67:18 >> And so are those deals like six figure licensing deals? Are they like how do those >> It just depends. All of them I mean all of them are very different. I mean we we don't we have you know strict stuff where we don't desri disclose any of the stuff but all of them all of them range. Some of them are known no MGs. Some of them are some MGs. Some of them are a mix of both. Right. It just depends on the league the structure >> MG being minimum guarantee. Correct. So they they they're kind of getting like a cut of revenue. If you sell 10 million bucks in NFL related content, they're going to get a cut of that.

67:46 >> Yeah. >> Cool. >> I hope to send sell 10 million bucks of NFL related stuff. If that's the case, >> everyone's having a good day. >> Everyone's having a good day. But whatever whatever the number is, they they get they get some semblance of a cut. if there's an MG, they're getting that no matter what. >> Yeah, we have rev shares and stuff like that. >> all right. So you you've you launched FOS Studios. Yep.

68:04 >> Almost a year ago. >> talk a little bit about this business. The idea is you're going to be doing films and documentaries. What's the business model and a year in? How's it going? >> Yeah. So, scripted, unscripted, and branded content. It'll now be our TV show, which will be the big, you know, kind of project that we're that we're under. And I think that one is is great. and we're really excited about that. The advertiser demand already has been significant. So, I think that show will pay for itself.

68:28 And then some very quickly, which we're excited about. But, yeah, I mean, look, again, like this is just a function of brands and other things happen. Like a year ago, we you know, two years ago really, we had we were breaking the news of the Brett Favre welfare scandal, and we talked to Ever Wonder, which is a sister company of ours who we share an office with, and they're like, "Do you have anything on the Brett Favre stuff?" I'm like, "Do we have anything on the Brett Favre stuff?"

68:52 "Yeah, we have all of the stuff on the Brett Favre stuff." >> Yeah, we broke it. >> We We broke it and we've been covering it. >> And they're like, "All right, let's put it together and let's pitch a bunch of people the story." And we pitched a bunch of people the story. Netflix bought it. We created it. We produced it. we launched it probably a year and a couple months you know ago maybe it was like I think it was April of last year.

69:11 >> it was the number one movie on the platform and from what I've seen or what I've been told like outperformed a lot of other things that that are far more expensive than that that movie was. And so you know that kind of got us thinking well how can we do more of this? And so, you know, and we in the Redbird ecosystem, there was Bright North Studios and inside of Bright North Studios company, A-Frame, and it's started by this guy Pat Diamond who used to do Full Swing was the EP on Full Swing and Showrunner and HBO Sports for a long time. And Dan Dfano and Morgan and we said, well, we have a brand that people really know and recognize from a content side of things. You guys have the capabilities and the expertise and things like that. Let's just combine those together. Let's create a studios brand effectively white labeling all the stuff that we're doing and then let's go to market with a slate of ideas and programs and content and all of this stuff where we can find ways to to win together and we have the audience, the distribution, you know, the kind of cache and credibility and you have the production skills, the backend stuff and all of that stuff. So really asset light kind of approach where we're each value exchanging on each other. and it's been great. I mean, we've we've we're up for a couple awards at this financial communication society on the branded side of things for some of the work we did with Bobby Bonia and New. So, we're really excited about that. And and then we have a ton of other projects in in the works, whether it's, you know, scripted stuff, unscripted stuff. And the beautiful thing for us is the studios business is just icing on the cake. Like, it's not our core business.

70:47 >> For places that are studios, it is their only business. And as we've seen, this can be challenging, especially now when you know, you sit in these rooms and all the studio buyers are like, "Well, what brands are going to support this?" And then all the brands are like, "Well, what studios are going to support this?" And I'm like, "Well, we need to know your commitment before we go to the studios." Well, we need to know the studios commitment before we commit. And so, we go to the studios and say, "Hey, these brands might be interested." Well, I'm the studio. I need this person to be interested. And so, like, it just becomes a chicken or the egg. And it's a very interesting dynamic now that like I think still hasn't been solved and I think will be interesting to see what happens going forward because you're just not seeing the level of buying activity that you used to from from the the studios or streamers or whatever it is. And so but yeah, I mean look like it's an upside bet. It's a bet on the brand. Yep. It's a bet on the fact that we have IP from our editorial content from all these other things that we can create. It's a bet on the fact that we have access. I mean, we get pitched all the time stuff, right? It's just a bet on that the halo of the brand and the front door of the brand and the opportunities of things that we get in, whether it's reporting or whatever, that we can then turn into something that's scripted, something that's unscripted, or that we can go to our advertisers and say, "Hey, we have a studios business.

72:06 Here's some stuff that we've done in the past. Here's things we've won awards for. Maybe we can charge a premium for." >> And so, is the business model like how does this make money? Is it are you making money on advertising? Are you making money on like the sale of >> It depends. It depends. Yeah. I mean, again, like all these things are so, you know, some of it is like, yeah, if we sell something to New, right, we'll make money there. If we sell something to a platformer or streamer, maybe we'll make a production fee and a backend fee, right? Like it really just depends.

72:32 >> It's like that Netflix show about Brett Favre. Like that's >> Yeah, we got a production fee for that. And is there a back end up on Netflix or not? Really? >> that wasn't on that one. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That's kind of cool though. not bad for starting this as interviews. And now here you are. You got shows on Netflix. >> Yeah. >> I mean is that like an oh moment for you? Like you wake up you're like holy crap my show's on Netflix.

72:50 >> Yeah it was. I mean again it's just another validating thing right of again like all of these things were like oh okay like we can be on Netflix. we can do anything. And so yeah I think I think it was was it as much as probably in the moment? No. But yeah it certainly is. You know you think back at like the things where like oh wow this is this is this is legit. It's like that was legit. And you know, us again, Netflix validating us opens the conversation to every other platform.

73:21 Just like if one auto brand advertises with you, you can go to every other auto brand and say, "Hey, this brand advertises with us. Here's what we did. Here's what we can do for you." It's the same thing. >> So 99% of your money comes from the marketer, if you will. Mhm. >> most publishers at this point are trying to figure out how to either get reader revenue from subscriptions or like for me half my summit revenue comes from tickets. Yep.

73:49 >> Right. >> you experimented with paid subscriptions at one point I think and then pulled back. >> Yeah, we tried. It was like a platform we tried to build far too early. We saw some actually early good green shoots like like legit people subscribing. We're staffing it with one person, right? It was like a postcoid experience experiment this that and the other. We were trying I mean we've done so many experiments that we believe we we tried to launch like 12 different sports newsletters at one point and be like a sports newsletter ecosystem and again but like you got to try and I think that's the other thing too is like so many people the bad thing about media is that it's it's so front-facing and people see everything. I always joke that like working in media is like working out naked. Like you like everyone sees all your blemishes, but the nice thing about that is they also see the fact that you're getting better and you're getting stronger and you're making improvements and they appreciate that, right?

74:38 >> And so, you know, for for us it's like I do think that's one of the pitfalls of media is that people don't test enough stuff because they don't want to have the story that comes out that was like, "Oh, I tested this but it failed." You know what I mean? Like, >> yeah, we I mean, we've done so much stuff. I mean, we had an awards business. We don't have an awards business anymore. We, you know, we had a a like a platform pro business that was way understaffed. She told us some good things, but we pulled back, you know, like it's just you got to try these things and see what sticks and what doesn't. And some things may stick. Like our event, our our awards business used to be a big part of our advertising business. Now it it it was, but now it's not. So, it's like why are we doing this, right? Like it doesn't it doesn't make sense for a couple hundred grand a year. Is free sustainable forever?

75:26 >> I don't see why not. I mean, I think it like certainly I think if you run the business effectively and and and and correctly, I think why not? I think free is a differentiator. Like that's I mean that's the other thing too is like >> everything today you go there's friction pay while there friction there's friction that friction. So like for us if we don't need to have that and I'm not saying we won't ever have that but like at least in the near future in the next 18 to 24 months I can't imagine us having that because again like the business of sports is still a net new category. So for us to wall that off to audiences right now I just don't think is the right strategy because so many people are coming into this space engaging it for the first time this that and the other. Like some guy randomly the other day like tweeted about like, "Oh, I just came across FOS. I feel like I'm late to the party, but like these guys are awesome." Like if we were paywalled, maybe that guy didn't come into the ecosystem and maybe we would never have a fan and now he's telling his people about it and you know, we DM'd and then I told him I said come and get some merch and like we're going to hook him up with some merch. But like I don't know if that guy would have found us. And so for us like yeah I mean maybe but also again like the infrastructure that comes with it the team that you need the platform that you need. Yeah, of course you can do other things and there's, you know, self-service platforms and there's substacks and there's all this stuff, but like at scale as like a legitimate media company like we would probably need to invest two, three, four million just in, you know, making sure we have the right product, making sure we have the right audience team, making sure we have the right marketing, make, you know what I mean? all of these things. Whereas like why not just keep it free and like for right now, knock on wood, the advertising business is continuing to grow and it's it's relatively resistant to a lot of the things.

77:11 Certainly there's been some es and flows, but there's no reason why we can't still, in my opinion, have a long runway of free content, especially now when, like I said, free is a differentiator. >> Is FOS profitable? >> We will be this year nicely. Yeah, >> that would be great. >> What is nicely? >> What is nicely? >> Couple mill. >> Couple mill. >> Yeah, >> that'd be sweet, dude. >> That'd be sweet. >> This the first time you'd be profitable?

77:37 >> Yeah, we break even last year. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's awesome, dude. so we've talked about all the different aspects of the business. You know, >> 2024 you were you were hoping you were looking to hit 10 million, 24 million this year. You know, if you guys do your job right, >> we got to it's always always is couch on if we do our job right. >> We're not even halfway through the year. We're not even halfway through the year, but we're we're in a good place.

77:57 >> You hit that, you're going to make a couple million bucks in profit, which you know, >> you know, maybe your your board meeting will be fun that that that that time. what should we expect to see from FOS over the next few years? >> I mean, the next few years, it's just doubling down on what we know works. I mean, like, you know, how do we make the best things bigger? I mean, that was our whole conversation with the team. I present to the team kind of our approach to the year in November every year prior. So like our approach to 2026, you know, we presented that in November of 25. And it's like we know what works now. Yeah.

78:33 >> So like let's just make the best better. How do we make TuneIn better? How do we make asset class better? How do we grow some of our other things? How do we continue to invest in digital, social, video where we're winning, right? How do we think about, you know, building an app, which we're doing? you know cuz we want to have that consumer relation. Right now we have a a relationship with our audience in the morning and in the evening when our newsletter comes out.

78:53 Obviously if they're on our ecosystem are around like they're still consuming or engaging with the brand but realistically like we need to have an all day relationship with our audience. How do we have an all day relationship with our audience? How do we build you know other products where we can reach net new audiences the TV show everything like that? You know, you have a upside down pyramid and you start to think about where are the layers of the funnel and of those layers of the funnel, which ones do we have things for and which ones do we not have things for and how do we start to how do we get people in the top and then bring them down and that the more that we can continue to get people in the top and bring them down without them leaving or even if they leave they come back but maybe they're down a rung when they come back. So, I don't think it's going to be anything groundbreaking. I don't think it's going to be anything like holy we've never seen this before. I think it's just going to be more of the fundamentals of what makes media if done right really good, which is really good content, really good audience, really good events, really good experiences.

79:49 Like if we can do that in this category, in this way, you know, we have the Olympics in two years, right? Like the the tailwinds continue until really I would say the next till the Olympics and I think even after that because there's a lot more stuff to come after that with the Olympics in 2034, I think some rugby stuff like all this stuff like sports is not slowing down. No, >> it's just not. And there is more money every single day. KKR, anyone you want.

80:12 Apollo just put $225 million into pickle ball. if these guys who are, you know, fundamentally and traditionally the most sophisticated capital allocators are looking at sports and saying that's a place where I should put money. Well, then okay, great. Like then we, you know, we should put money, right? Like you know what I mean? So I think like that's that's the approach is just how do we make the best stuff bigger. How do we, you know, continue to find ways to integrate more people, more reporters, more talent. We kind of have the foundational operations side of things in place. We need a few things that that still are are in works, but you know, like you you can run a pretty a pretty successful media company in a way that you don't have a ton of a ton and ton and ton of people. but you have the right people. And I think that's that's the core thing is how do we find more of the right people to put into the ecosystem that we've built to then have success because I think that's the ultimate indicator of the health of the brand is that people like we talked about earlier who can come into the brand who maybe some people know but are are maybe a bit more unknown have a ton of success and then either we build with or they go on to have more success somewhere else.

81:22 >> So Redbird imi private equity this will be three years in October. >> Yeah. At some point >> some point >> they're going to sell you >> some point. >> Is there a is there a road map to that? >> I mean there's a road mapap to everything. It just depends on who calls and when right like yeah I mean look for us it's focused on how do we can just continue to execute against the business. I think this is the one thing that Jason always told me and it's like >> if you build a great product everything will take care of itself. Like don't don't worry about it right just build a great product. And I think that's what Redbird is focused on and everything is focused on. We make these announcements.

81:57 We do these things. People call us all the time, right? Like anyone you can think of, imagine, hey, what's going on? What's going on? What are you guys doing? What, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. We'd like to talk. We like, you know what I mean? Like, so like I I there's probably been like 20 inquiries in some way, shape, or form over the last, let's call it, 12 months. Are we ready to sell? It's going to have to be the right number, and it's going to have to be the right buyer. But I think that's the whole thing too is like we've been so focused on the right investor and luckily we've got lucky with those people in SC and in Crane and in Redbird and things like that like the next buyer has to be the right buy or the the buyer has to be the right buyer, right? It has to be someone who's going to invest in the platform. It has to have someone who's probably going to have an infrastructure in place. It's going to have to be someone who's like sees this as a growth opportunity for them and maybe fills a hole that they don't have, right? because like that's that's really important because again like what's the what's the worth of spending the last decade plus of a life doing this and then going to a place where the brand just like fizzles.

83:00 >> Yeah. >> Like that to me is not worth it, right? Like no matter whatever money there is like the the the ultimate outcome is that someone buys it and that the brand can be bigger, better, stronger for ever, right? Like that that's the goal, right? like how do we build the brand of front office sports into something that in 10 15 20 years even if I'm not around or whoever is not around is still breaking news is still known as the space is still having great events is still doing that stuff and like that's where the buyer needs to be and so yeah I mean look like the product is in a great place the audience is in a great place we're growing double digits on a revenue standpoint we already talked about more you know high double digits we're growing mid double digits on an audience standpoint. So like it has to be something where it's like okay this is the right buyer at the right price and the right opportunity.

83:54 >> So at the top of the show you made this comment that one of the reasons you're okay with the fact that you gave up a large chunk of equity >> when SC invested was >> if you make them money they'll be there for your next Yep. >> thing 12 years in you're still doing the same thing. Theoretically someone buys you guys you're going to have to stick around there. Is there a point where you go like I'm done?

84:18 >> Yeah, I mean certainly there probably is a point. I don't think we've reached that point yet. I mean we still have so much stuff to do, right? Like we got to launch an app, we got to launch a TV show. Like there's a few more partnerships out there that we got to do. I mean luckily like we've gotten into that phase. But yeah, I mean like if if any entrepreneur has has never said that, oh yeah, man, I thought about like this was this was it. But like I mean this is why you run the race, right? You run the race. But we we got to finish the race, right? You're a mile 26.1.

84:47 There's still another 0.1 mile to go to finish the race. And arguably is probably the hardest.1. >> And so for us, like, yeah, I mean, at some point, sure, but like I'm 31. this has been, you know, something I would have never imagined. It's given me access to people I never thought I would have access to. we have a great team that I care very deeply about. out of me at this point like sure it's as much about me but it's we have 70 people that every single day like you know there is something that we have to think about or care about or something like that and at this point like that's you know us landing the plane less about me is more about okay I want to make sure that wherever we go that those 70 people feel really good about it and those 70 people are going to be excited about it and they're going to have opportunity right like beyond even what our opportunity is and so yeah I just think like at this point it's you know I you always think about it and you joke about in and Russ and I would joke about it back in the day because there was a Chick-fil-A right next to our our first office and we'd always walk by and that was packed. Always packed.

85:48 Sorry, I didn't mean to cuss, but I don't know if there's cussing allowed. bleed me out. Cussing aloud. >> and it was just always packed. And we would joke. We said if we ever were to write like an autobiography, it was it was going to be called If Only We Sold Chicken Sandwiches because we always thought, damn, this is so easy. like why did we choose the hardest ever in media where it's like you have to build an audience, then you have to build revenue, then you have to do this every single day for the rest of your life and blah blah blah blah blah. And I was like, damn, if only we sold chicken sandwiches. so maybe eventually, but yeah, I I think for this like luckily we continue to be challenged. We continue to have new opportunities. We continue to build great relationships and great partnerships, continue to grow. You know, we just opened up a new office. We're going to have studio space on the floor above us that we're finalizing and and you know in the next few weeks and so like that growth I think people see it. People get excited by it especially nowadays. I mean there's not that many media companies >> that are growing. You know most are contracting and so to be a media company in 2026 that's growing. It's really exciting. There's a lot of fun things and to be in a category that's like sports and business and finance like also a lot of fun and cool. And so we have a great management team in place which I think has helped elongate the the desire and the journey right I think that's the one thing that people don't talk enough about is that like every step of the journey like there has to be a level of support in place to like help you and make you and drive you to go longer because yeah after a decade of doing this every single day for 12 years and the only time I've taken off was my honeymoon which was a week of Of course it wears on you for sure.

87:28 >> but it's also like what else would I be doing? You know what I mean? I could be doing a lot worse. >> And so it's it's it's been great. And again, like I said, we have great investors. We have a great team. And because of that, >> you know, why not why not keep going, right? And and just see. And then again like if once we get bought we also want to have a great team because like I don't have any like yeah certainly I've thought about ideas and other things that I would do but there's nothing where I'm like man if I sold this tomorrow I want to go do because you know again in my heart of hearts I think yeah business will do 20 to 24 million in revenue this year like I want what I think this can be 100 million right how many media companies ever got to 100 million right like and so one of my other founder friends has always told me it's it's such a good anecdote is 0 to 1 million is impossible. 1 million to 10 million is improbable. 10 million to 100 million is inevitable. And I always I told our team I was like well you know we crossed 10 million a couple years ago. I said look like we've made through the impossible stage and the improbable stage. I said the rest of this 10 to 100 is up to us. We're in the inevitability stage. And so whatever we do, however we execute, that's up to us. And you know like why not? And I think that's like the cool thing is that all of the hardest work is done. It's still hard work, no doubt about it, but all the hardest stuff is done. So now, let's just keep going.

88:50 >> I want to end the last couple minutes with the same two questions I ask every operator that comes on the show. >> First, so we've talked about your ownership structure, we've talked about the NFL deal, we've talked about all the different new business units you're launching up, we've talked about Jeff, we've talked about them all. Yeah. >> for a media operator trying to figure out where to place their bets right now, what's the one thing you tell them to focus on? I mean, I think I would I think again like I would talk you just have to do something focused, right?

89:14 Whatever it is, it needs to be focused on something. Whether it's trash, whether it's sports, whether whatever it is, like I just don't think today that people will have success trying to be too broad. Yes, you can be focused, not niche. You can be focused and if you are focused, there is an awesome opportunity for you and there could be very large audiences in whatever that focus is, right? Like for example, ma jang all of a sudden absolutely going ballistic.

89:43 Everyone is playing ma jang. Maybe there's an opportunity for someone to focus on ma jang specifically. I'm not going to do it. I don't know why it's going crazy, but like all of my entire feed are people people playing ma jang. Very weird. but like there's a lot of people who play ma jang, right? Like it's so funny. We cover stories, track and field stories sometimes and it's like I don't think people really realize there's a lot of people who run and there's a lot of people who care about track and field. Yes, it is like a small thing of coverage standpoint but there is a a lot of stuff in there and I remember one of our highest performing best pieces of content ever was how like all of these kind of endurance athletes are using Rice Krispies instead of like goo or whatever it is.

90:24 >> D it went it went crazy. hundreds of sh hundreds of thousands of shares and comments and this and that mega viral and it's like well wait a second there is like a real audience of people who care very deeply about this stuff. so I think it just it needs to be focused but I don't think people need to be turned off by focus. I think they need to understand that focus, yes, may seem small in the beginning, but there is a huge world out there and there is a lot of people that care about things that, you know, people may not be caring about from a gen pop or a broadly, you know, more mass media standpoint.

90:56 >> I've always said that niche is the future of scale. So, you know, >> just don't call it niche. >> I we we'll work on that. We we need to, you know, we need to adjust it. It's okay. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. >> all right. Second question, the last one is what is something that you are absolutely obsessed with right now? It could be personal, professional, something you're just absolutely obsessed with. >> Absolutely obsessed with oh my interesting. What am I absolutely obsessed with? That's a good question. I was not expecting it man.

91:33 trying to find a new apartment to live in. that's like the personal side of things. I wouldn't call it an obsession. >> New York City real estate's a problem. >> Yeah. I wouldn't call I wouldn't call it an obsession, but certainly is is top of mind. >> I mean professionally wise, I think it was crazy, but just like the office was an obsession, you know, just trying to like we had been in a sub lease space. Like this is the first time we were in a space that like there's a five-year lease, there's a real buildout, there's this that and the other. And so I think that has been an obsession for a while because we just wanted to make it, you know, again, we had someone in today and they're like, "Wow, this is a really cool space." And I was like, "Nice." You know, like that.

92:07 Like people's office was like that for us. >> Yeah. People see that and it's like, "Holy like these guys are legit." Right? So I think the the obsession right now for me at work is how do I how do I do things that make our employees jobs easier, right? So from a partner standpoint, like how do I find focus on things like the NFL deal or other things like that that make our sales jobs easier? How do I focus on other stuff that make our content people's jobs easier, right? Like how do we use all that stuff to make their jobs easier is probably like the biggest use of my time. And so I think like that's the obsession right now outside of the office is like what is the next thing or the next things that we can do that can create value or opportunity that makes the teams and our jobs easier.

92:47 >> Sweet. Well, thanks for coming on the show. >> Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. >>