"Mother Nature is the Main Character" · CEO Carter Westfall on Building the Natural Selection Tour

0:00 It's really this platform bet on what we've been talking about, which is live events, irl, anti AI bet, bringing people together, gathering community and then trying to really place a real bet on an organic grassroots culture and community that is snowboarding, skiing, outdoor action, sports,

0:26 Foreign.

0:34 We are back for another episode of under the Number. Today we've got something a little bit different. We've got a friend of the POD joining today. I've got Matthew Jester on the line. We're going to give you a nice overview on Jester here before we get to our guest, Carter Westfall, who is the founder of Natural Selection Tour. But before Carter jumps in, Matthew, welcome.

0:56 Thanks for having me, Brent, man, I am a friend of the pod, but more importantly I think I am a friend of Brent Payas. So I just, I'm excited to be talking with you buddy.

1:06 I'm fired up. I think this is long overdue. You are pretty much the perfect profile to come on as a co host in this case. Tell people about your background, where are you from? I know you were a baller back in the day and you've had some interesting in your, you know, young career, you've already had some interesting stops and some very interesting exposure when it comes to sports media and entertainment.

1:29 Yeah, certainly. Well, my background is that I grew up in Houston, Texas, so I'm a Texas native in a very, should I say Friday Night Lights kind of culture. And then I went to Princeton where I played football there and studied economics and finance. And then coming out of college I bounced around the NFL for about a year or so. And while I was bouncing around the league I started working with what was at the time an early stage venture capital firm that was focused on human performance and like sport adjacent technologies, all early stage seed series A stuff.

2:05 So aura ring levels, health ladder, fitness, stuff like that. But at the time, I mean sports as an asset class was starting to become more institutionalized like it is today. And so when I stopped playing football I came on full time, was their chief of staff and, and that's what moved me out to Los Angeles where I currently am now I live in Santa Monica, California and where I spent the last two plus years was building that firm up into more of a sports media entertainment private equity firm, multi strategy investment platform, let's call it.

2:41 And then one of the things that happened is over that two year period I started to get my reps on the deal side like really understanding capital structures, how institutions think about the space, where's the alpha, what even makes for a good governance model, commercial model, capital model, et cetera, et cetera. And now what I'm doing is building out an investment platform alongside a senior partner friend of mine that focuses on what we call cultural capital assets.

3:11 So this is any IP that is culturally relevant, we would say, across the entire ecosystem. So sports, media, entertainment, any adjacent experiential categories. And so typically my day to day is like I'm sourcing, I'm diligencing, I'm transacting on our deal flow alongside our capital partners. And then I'm also pretty close with the number of agencies and management production companies out here in Los Angeles. And so I'm typically sort of helping them build out their strategies.

3:41 I'm facilitating different partnerships. I'm just trying to stay active in the space. And so it's really like meet interesting people, do interesting work kind of job, and it's a fun spot to be in. As a former athlete myself, kind of, I would say, the perfect marriage between what I'm passionate about and what I'm good at. And I think I offer a unique perspective, having been a former player and then having built up these investment strategies. And I would just describe myself as someone that is very actively building from within the ecosystem and simultaneously trying to navigate this myself and sort of become a better investor and operator of the space.

4:19 And that's why I'm sort of grateful to be on today. Brenda's. I've read your stuff for a long time. I think it's incredible. I think the guests that you have on offer, incredible insights that I've certainly used to become a better practitioner of the space myself. And so that's why I'm a friend and fan of the POD is Under the Number Man. It's a show by a practitioner for practitioners. And so that's. I'm incredibly excited about today.

4:47 I appreciate it. So you're the Texan turned Californian. I'm the Californian turned Texan. I'm in California today. I'm sitting here in a hotel room in Palm Springs. I'm out here for a wedding. But talk a little bit about Rick, who you work with. That's that senior partner you described. I know he has a very unique background. Just to go a little bit deeper on this cultural capital thesis. Go, you know, take us down that, that rabbit hole a bit.

5:11 Definitely. So. So Rick's got a very interesting background. He actually started his career out in film finance. So he moved out to LA when he was a youngin, started working at CAA way back in the day and led and launched their film finance division. And so he cut his teeth financing Quentin Tarantino films. And he'll often say that the first culturally relevant piece of IP that he ever worked on was Pulp Fiction. And the moment that Pulp Fiction broke into the zeitgeist of America, he said, oh, there's that pixie dust, there's that X factor.

5:43 That's, that's cultural relevancy in a nutshell. And so he was at CIA and then what he did was he launched their investment bank, which is now CAA Evolution. And when he sold that bank, he brought TPG in to buy CAA, you know, 15 years ago. And then he went and worked at TPG for 12 years and did all of their buy side sports media entertainment funds in conjunction with TPG Growth. And he was doing a lot of growth equity sort of tech investments across the sports media entertainment industry ecosystem and kind of figured out how to manufacture this cultural relevancy, I would say.

6:18 And that's, that's what he does now. He, he makes an investment Formula E puts Mr. Beast in a Formula E race car and when he crashes it, it does 100 million views over a weekend. Like that's sort of his, his bread and butter.

6:29 Well, yeah, and I think one thing that you, you mentioned earlier, well one, Rick's resume and history in his career is incredible. What an amazing overlap of companies and exposure and combination of experiences. You also are a true, like super connector already. And I think that when you said, like, I'm doing both what I like and what I'm good at, it's totally true. The amount of young people, like, if I find someone who's 25 to 35 running around hustling in sports media and entertainment, the odds are they already know you and you've already reached out to them.

7:04 You've already made some sort of a connection and added legitimate value to them. I think there are a lot of people who like to be the kind of, you know, connector in the background, but you're, you're also in it. And so it's very appreciated that you're so proactive in the space. I mean, you reached out to me, what, four or five months ago, you know, in the DMs, and we've talked so many times since then and you've assembled a killer group of, of young guys that you've been kind of a, kind of a glue guy, to be honest, which is very appreciated.

7:31 I like to think of myself as a glue guy in the locker rooms that I was A part of back in the day, not the best player, but a glue guy certainly. And I like the idea of saying, you know, 20 years from now, Brent, hopefully we are the leaders of sports media entertainment, right? And so I like the idea of saying, oh yeah, Brent and I go way back. Like we came up together. I came up with Brent, I came up with our friends at the fourth quarter.

7:55 Sit in Siraj. I came up with these other guys, right? Like that's, that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. And I know that someone like you, you're gonna, you're gonna be a leader of the space very, very soon here, if you aren't already.

8:09 Well, amen. And that's nice of you to say about me. I was, I agree with, with Sid, Siraj, Chase, a bunch of these guys that you've plugged me into, they're, they're killing it. It's very fun to watch and fun to, you know, help them out as well. So we'll get plenty more on, on, on your background. I'll get woven into this next thing. Let's talk about our guests that's about to jump on Carter Westfall. Tell me how you know him and you're better suited than I am to give the flyover of the Natural selection tour this amazing company that he's building.

8:39 Well, let me start by saying Carter Westfall is a Princeton football grad and alumni. So that is how we got connected. He's class of 96. And, and one thing just to jump

8:50 in, when we did a one other call with him and people watching this will see him, he casually, like 15 minutes into our last call mentioned that he was a 300 pound offensive lineman, which, which really caught me off guard because he does not look at these days. But go on.

9:05 No, no, he was in the trenches. He was in the trenches and I feel like he'll get into his career, but he's been in the trenches his entire life. He still lives and he's, he's really building in the trenches now with Travis Rice. So we got connected through the Princeton football flywheel network and have really just built up a rapport the last few months and he's building something incredibly, incredibly interesting. I mean as somebody that diligence is a esports properties that are out there and I see team sales and league sales and sport adjacent business sales and people sort of looking to raise capital.

9:41 You kind of build up your own theses about the space, right? But when you see something and it matches a number of the theses that you've built up, you are able to recognize it pretty quickly. And I saw that in Natural Selection Tour. So I think what would be a helpful exercise is to first kind of go through the outdoor action extreme sports world to sort of orient us and orient our listeners so that we can have a quick lay to land so that we can understand how it is that Natural Selection Tour is like and dislike or counter positioned against what else is out there.

10:17 Does that sound good?

10:18 Absolutely. Lay it on me.

10:19 Yeah. So let's start with the X Games because they are the clear incumbent legacy player in the space, right. Launched in 1995, ESPN. It was originally called the Extreme Games. And fun fact, this was geared towards Generation X to trying to get the Generation X because at the time it was a younger demographic that was not bought into the traditional sports. And so ESPN was like, we got to get these young guys X Games. We're going to go and do these really exciting extreme sports and we're going to go and get this younger demographic.

10:48 And for 15 years it worked. I mean it was, it was Tony Hawk's 900 and then his video game after that that I played growing up. It was Sean White's perfect scores on the half pipes. Like those, those were. You talk about cultural relevance. X Games was culturally relevant for a kind. And then the mid-2010s kind of came around and it started to plateau and they tried to franchise it and take it global and it didn't really work.

11:11 And their, their cultural relevance just wasn't the same as it used to be. And so then they sort of pulled back a little bit and started doing winter in Aspen, summer in Austin, sometimes Minneapolis. That was really it. And in 2022, ESPN was like, okay, this has been great, but we're kind of burning a lot of money here. How about we sell this to a private equity firm that thinks they can take it to the next level?

11:35 And that's what happened with MSP Sports Capital. So John Najafe, who owns the McLaren race team or used to own and just made a fortune selling it. He bought his, his company bought the X Games and they've really revamped it. They brought in Jeremy Bloom, former NFL player and he was a Olympic skier, to come be the CEO. And they are relaunching it now as the X Games League. And so they're transitioning it to a team based format.

12:01 And Aspen this year drew 15 million viewers. They're really shaking things up. They're turning things around. Now the open question that I would say for the X Games is does this league model actually unlock that commercial step change that they need and are they able to successfully raise the capital necessary at this franchise level and execute on this specific sort of league? First model, that's the X Games. I'll pause there. They're the dominant player and an emerging

12:29 player, the Snow League. I've had Brian Kopp on the podcast from Ryan Sports Ventures. They're an investor. We both know Mackenzie Chapman from three five nine. They're an investor. They're a big cop table in terms of. In the, in Sean White Snow League. But you mentioned the format and that was a very helpful breakdown when it comes to X Games. Talk about the format of Snow League which has a lot of similarities but that's one that's pretty buzzy.

12:51 They've had, I know they had a big event in China recently.

12:53 Yeah.

12:54 They're doing things in Aspen like give us the, give us the Snow League breakdown.

12:58 Yes. So the Snow League is the emerging powerhouse, let's call it the new character in the space founded by Shaun White, snowboarding legend and global icon. Founded in 2024 so only two years old. It is snowboarding and ski halfpipe. It is a global event circuit. So think F1 of snow is sort of what they're trying to be. They've got an NBC and a Peacock deal. What they've done is raise 30 to 40 million bucks like you just laid out left lane 359 wise which is the Wilf family, Cas, Will ventures, Aries, Ryan Sports Ventures, the list goes on.

13:38 They are clearly following a venture capital model raising money hand over fist to scale quickly. They have iterated on this sporting format in a really interesting way to make it more of a league. They are head to head bracket structure rather than scoring each run like the X Games and the Olympics do. And so the sporting sort of structural insight is that they have organized every possible variable really to orient themselves to maximize for layman understanding and minimize execution risk.

14:13 So NBC and Peacock do not want a variable product on their, on their broadcast. They want something predictable that's going to draw eyeballs and that is what the Snow League has done. They are clearing clearly building from first principles a commercial product which is coherent and it's. That's a decision that makes sense. Right. It's a league that have, has raised as much capital as they have. That's sort of what they need to do. And so their inaugural event was in Aspen.

14:40 They've got big prize purses. They've expanded to China And Switzerland, like you're talking about the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics just happened, that's a huge tailwind for them. And their sponsors are kind of luxury. I mean, they've got casamigos, Tiffany Company, the wristwatch, Hublot, they just got ramped. So. And it's just, it's moving fast. They're executing their firing on all cylinders and clearly, clearly oriented towards a mass participation, but almost like rich fan base.

15:09 When you mentioned the media piece, and this ties into the cultural relevancy thesis, you have the mass appeal, the something that you can replicate and forecast repeatably on the peacocks of the world, which obviously it doesn't hurt to have Shaun White helping you land these big media rights deals. But at the same time, and I have to give credit to Ben Gardner, who pointed this out to me on the podcast a couple months back, he's a partner at Will Ventures, another one of their investors, he said, look, there's no question about it when it comes to engaging Gen Z and Gen Alpha, that type of high flying extreme sport, when you had the combination of all the friction falling through the floor on video and media technology, being able to fly a drone above a half pipe for basically the lowest cost it's ever been said, it makes for such amazing short form vertical video.

15:59 And like, that was totally something that was very much part of their calculation, the investment. So like, okay, the kid who's 14 and just getting into snowboarding is probably not going to sit down on the couch with their mom and watch this on Peacock. However, are they going to watch these clips in 8k of people, you know, flying, flying over the half pipe on their iPhone, on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube shorts. Absolutely. So there's a lot of structural tailwinds as well.

16:25 Just like as media has evolved and the ability to produce this media, let alone distribute it literally for free, it just makes a ton of sense that this is a growth category that is taking a venture capital approach.

16:38 That's right. That's exactly right. And that's the direction that all of these emerging leagues need to go. Right? Like short form content. We're in a new age now. You gotta meet Gen Z and the Millennials where they're at, which is on their phone, which is vertical video and clipping. And highlights are much more watchable than long form. It's the reason baseball is struggling, for example. But some of these high flying, exciting dunks that you see in the NBA are thriving, right?

17:05 Like that is, that's a trend that's Certainly happening across the board and the

17:10 final thing to hit on. And we've, we've both written about it. I need you to plug it because you have a great newsletter that you just started up a couple of months ago. Talk about that. But before make it a two part question, give us the breakdown of the newsletter and then two, the live component of this is just fun. Like you, they're these event, the curated events that are rooted in the community that cares most about these things, which I know Carter is going to be able to elaborate on extensively.

17:37 It starts with such a like true rich community following and then you have the, you know, relatively more casual people on the outsides who get intrigued. But I think that from what I understand about natural selection, they're taking the right approach in building that hardcore community first and making it very organic and authentic as they then scale across these different sports and across their different media strategies and event strategies. But two things. Tell me about the newsletter and what are your thoughts on the live community element?

18:08 Amazing. Well, let me start with the newsletter. I write a bi weekly long form newsletter publication called at the Center. And what I'm trying to do there is learn how to better navigate this ecosystem. So I talk about the structural patterns I would describe that are underneath sports culture and capital. And so what that means is I think sports media and entertainment and live events and experiences and all the different assets that we're talking about in this ecosystem, I think they're very emblematic of something deeper about the human experience.

18:44 Meaning when we watch some of these games and we come and gather at a stadium and we collectively participate in whatever that game is. If you're a fan of the Dallas Cowboys or the Los Angeles Lakers, you are really expressing something deeper that is identity and belonging and meaning and purpose. And consistently when we look at sports, you see themes of transcendence and hierarchy and ritual all sort of playing out repeatedly at scale for decades.

19:15 And I think that speaks to something very innate about the human experience. Why do we gather the way that we do? How and why do these themes reveal themselves so tangibly in sport? And then if I'm able to understand what are those underlying patterns that explain this broader ecosystem? And then I can recognize and I can remember those patterns and then I can apply them in my day to day as an investor or operator or executive in this ecosystem, well, then that's going to make me a better investor, operator and executive.

19:46 So it's a bit of a public study, I would say for myself, trying to figure out what are the Actual things that underpin and underlie this entire industry. And why do they recur? And why can you make a structural comparison from, like the NCAA to the Catholic Church? Why does that make any sense whatsoever? Well, it's something I'm going to investigate. So that's the newsletter, I think. To answer the second part of your question, let me first cover the World Surf League, because that is sort of the third player in this outdoor action space that needs to be mentioned.

20:19 And when you understand their business model, you'll understand better natural selection, tours, counter positioning. And so with the World Surf League, their story actually begins back in 1976, and they were called the ISP. And then later the aspect. And across 36 years, it wasn't even a league. It was just a federation and a governing body of the sport. And so they would just put on all these events across the globe and they'd have a little bit of a prize money.

20:46 But think nonprofit governing body. The way that that was financially supported was that the big three surfware brands, Quicksilver, Billabong, RIP Curl, our favorites, essentially bankrolled the whole thing as a marketing vehicle. So that is how the sport was thriving for a long time. And then those three brands started to hit a real steep decline in their brand value in the late 2000s. And so the circuit started bleeding like 30 million a year.

21:19 And then in 2012, 2013, this Florida billionaire named Dirk Ziff, who's the heir to this ZURF publishing media empire.

21:29 Like Ziff Davis, right?

21:31 Zd, nas, Zif Davis. That's right. That's right. So he acquires the whole thing for effectively $0, and then he rebrands it to the World surf league in 2015. And since then, they have just poured money into this league trying to build a global platform. But they are 13 years in, and the jury's kind of still out on it. It's still privately held by Ziff. He's still bankrolling the whole thing. And they are, I would say, struggling to turn profitable and relate to the core surfer community that they're trying to commercialize.

22:05 They do a lot of things well, let's be very fair. They do a lot of things well, chief of which I would say is they have this huge youth development pipeline. But think federation governing body transitioning to a commercial league, which is a difficult transition to make.

22:21 I didn't know that about the Ziff ownership with World Surf League. And it's funny because the newsletter that I put out yesterday was looking at a trend of these, like, billionaires looking for the cool, culturally relevant and relatively scarce assets. Unfortunately for me, I put out this piece very I kind of had to gather my thoughts, scrap them together. I was working on it super late on Wednesday night, I put it out Thursday morning and I end up with a matchup Nightmare.

22:51 And Packy McCormick has put out literally a like 10,000 plus word breakdown on the same topic. One hour within one hour of my publishing. Which I should be happy about that. You know, thinking that great line, great minds think alike and then we're on the trend who's who's just an epic follow. But he did an excellent job of breaking that down and saying that these are the types of things that people are going to continue to be more and more drawn to in a super automated and AI forward world.

23:22 Kind of a side note, we'll see if that plays out. This. This 13 year slog that you mentioned might be kind of a counter argument or example that it's not always that simple. Bring it home here. Before we bring on Carter, I want to hear the natural selection breakdown. How do you understand it? Why are you fired up about it?

23:40 Yes. So we've seen now the X Games which I would describe as a legacy product that really bet heavily on media and reach and then now they're trying to reinvent themselves and become a league. We have seen the Snow League which has gone a bit of a different route, which is a lot of venture backing, sort of sexy F1 commercial model and then that is clearly the direction that they're going. And then you see the World Surf League which is federation government body, turning into a commercial league privately held, bankrolled by one singular billionaire.

24:13 And these are all in the extreme outdoor action sports landscape. And then inter Natural Selection Tour which I think is counter positioned across all three of these and has made a different bet entirely. So Carter co founded it with Travis Rice who is one of the greatest snowboarders in the world. In the world of snowboarding you think of Shaun White and you think of Travis Rice and I don't know if you've ever watched the Art of the flight in 2012, which is a documentary that walks through sort of Travis's insane snowboarding experiences and he's doing these runs off of mountain cliffsides.

24:52 They are not really building a league, which is interesting to say, but what they're really trying to do is build a platform. And let me explain what I mean by that. I want you to think about Teton Ridge. Structurally, Teton Ridge is set up as a multi entity hold Kill. And they dominate the western and rodeo niche all across America. Teton Ridge is bankrolled by TWG Global. So Mark Walter and his partner Thomas Toll have a lot of money and they have bankrolled Teton Ridge.

25:24 And what Teton Ridge does is they have a live events arm. So they own the American Rodeo, that's all live events and it's gathering people together. But then they have a full Teton Ridge entertainment. It's in house production and content. And so they bought the rights to Lonesome Dove and they're creating a lot of content around the western niche. Think Yellowstone, stuff like that. And then they own the Cowboy Channel, which has a bunch of podcasts about western lifestyle.

25:54 They also own a PBR team. And so they have a full on team in a professional bull riding league. They at one point literally owned a horse breeding farm for horse, like for racehorses. Okay, so this is a, this is a platform. Think of Teton as a platform, not a league. And I want you to think of NST as the Teton Ridge of outdoor action sports. But more than that, I think NST is trying to be a brand and even sort of go above and beyond that model.

26:23 And so as I'm sure Carter will lay out, the events are tentpoles. And at the end of the day, really though, the brand is the asset and the brand is the platform. And so you have live events, but you also have in house production and content and then you have media and distribution through Red Bull tv. And then he'll get into some interesting things later, but they're even thinking about real estate and then they're thinking about CPG and pushing products using the NST brand.

26:49 And so it's really, it goes above and beyond just a typical league structure, I would say. And it's really this platform bet on what we've been talking about, which is live events, irl, anti AI bet, bringing people together, gathering community, and then trying to really place a real bet on an organic grassroots culture and community that is snowboarding, skiing, outdoor action sports. And so they sort of zig where others are zagging, I would argue.

27:21 And I think that's really indicative of the trajectory that that property can go if they're able to execute on some of the commercial things that are in front of them.

27:31 All right, I love it. I'm fired up to talk to Carter. Let's go ahead and bring him on. We've got Carter Westfall, CEO of Natural Selection Tour, jumped on with us. Thanks so much for joining us, Carter.

27:41 Thank you, Brian. Great to be here.

27:43 Start us off though. Give a flyover of your windy career that is taking you to this point. I know that includes time on Wall street, time with the Sacramento Kings, NBA league office, time in China and working with Olympics. Like give us the breakdown because it is pretty epic.

28:00 I'll give you a breakdown. I try to be brief. It is a winding career and hopefully I'm 52 now, graduate, graduated from Princeton 30 years ago in 96, but hopefully inspiring for maybe younger people who want to break into sports or what have you that there is no, you know, even though there's no clear path or there are ways to, you know, kind of make it happen. And I think it's part of the fun of life and a career is, you know, not knowing what's around the corner, even though that could be kind of anxiety inducing, missing at times.

28:29 But yeah, I mean, I graduated from Princeton 96, played football there. Really had no idea what I wanted to do with my career. I was an English major, got a job on Wall street, traded bonds for two and a half years and kind of quickly realized that I, you know, I wasn't going to be great at that necessarily and wanted to spread my wings. So I moved to Seattle in 99. This was the first wave of the dot com and really just wanted to push myself, get outside my comfort zone, work for a dot com out there for a year and a half.

28:57 And then I had a unique opportunity to coach some college football. My offensive line coach took the head job at Davidson College where of course Steph Curry played basketball. I spent a year coaching there and then a year coaching college football at Rutgers University undergrad. Shannon, who's, who's still the head football coach there, got my NBA at ucla. Kind of knew that I wanted to explore something into the sports business realm. So went to ucla, which has a great entrepreneurial program, obviously in a mecca for sports and entertainment.

29:25 And then linked up with a couple of guys who had deep Olympic chops. They were based in Atlanta. They had worked on the Atlanta 96 Olympic Games and they were starting a small consultancy. So I joined them, worked for free for about three months. But quickly we started picking up clients and I started flying to Beijing, China. We were advising sponsors of the Beijing Olympic Games. So this is 2005 now, three years prior to the 2008 Olympic Games.

29:48 And that was a wonderful experience. Traveled to China probably, I don't know, 40 different times. We built a small office there. We started advising sponsors of the London Olympic Games starting in 2007. 2008. So I actually moved to London and started working with some of those clients and then parlayed that into an opportunity to work for the NBA in the league headquarters in New York. So that was now 2000 and roughly 2009, 2010. And that was a wonderful experience.

30:16 The NBA is kind of a gold standard within sports business world. Very well run organization. My time straddled when David Stern finished up his career and then Adam Silver took over. And Adam's obviously done an incredible job. So at the NBA, I was working in international on the international strategy and business development, working with their 13 international offices and, you know, got to experience some new things. Traveling to Johannesburg to work with the guys in Africa, down in Brazil with the Rio office.

30:43 Their two biggest offices are in Beijing and London. So there were some, you know, there's some rationale there. And then my wife and I decided to move to California. I spent some years with the PAC12 conference, who started doing some stuff internationally with Alibaba Spearhead, spearheaded by Joe side, who wanted to bring the kind of college business model and really kind of the college collegiate sports experience to China. So we started doing international PAC 12 basketball games in Shanghai, as well as a couple of football games in Australia.

31:14 So that kind of brought me up to the segue into natural selection. Kind of. Throughout my career, I've been a snowboarder, and about eight years ago was introduced through a mutual friend to Travis Rice, who for snowboarders is kind of the snowboarder. Snowboarder with films like the Art of Flight. I mean, he's kind of Shaun White's the global icon. Travis Rice is kind of the Pied Piper in snowboarding.

31:38 Now with Natural Selection, you've got this biking, surfing, ski, snow brand. You said you got into it about eight years ago. How does a New Jersey native find himself doing that?

31:51 Yeah, great question. I grew up skiing. My father grew up in southern Virginia, so he did not grow up in winter sports, but he always wanted his kids to experience skiing and that sort of thing. So I did grow up skiing. And then when I lived in Seattle, I transitioned to snowboarding. So I was very familiar with Travis Rice. I was a fan. And the Art of Flight, which is probably to this day the most watched action sports film of all time, came out in 2012, premiered at the Beacon Theater.

32:21 I attended it. You had folks like Justin Timberlake there kind of crossed over into the mainstream. I was pretty inspired by the film and connected with the director of the Art of Flight. We developed a loose friendship and then he introduced me to Travis Rice about eight years ago when Travis was getting serious around filling this void in snowboarding where there were no competitions that took place in the actual mountains. I mean, there was really nothing that the elite snowboarders competed in.

32:48 The ones that were filming in Alaska and British Columbia and Japan. There was just no competition format out there. And Travis's competitor, and he had done some beta events going back to 2008 in Jackson Hole, where he was born and bred. He did a couple of events in 2012 and 2013 in British Columbia. So there was, there was a foundation and I was familiar with it and, and it was just the right opportunity for me and the right time to combine my passion and love for snowboarding with my business experience, you know, over those years in my network.

33:18 And, and I think early on saw the opportunity not necessarily just to build a competition series, but really to build a brand that was very authentic and culture driven and athlete driven in the outdoor arena. And with Travis being a big surfer, friends with guys like John John and Nathan Florence, being friends with everyone in the freeride ski community, we, we saw after the first year or so that we could expand into these other sports and build something that, you know, that, that grew horizontally versus just doing more and more snowboarding events.

33:56 Yeah. So, Carter, across all the times that I've chatted with you, you've been consistent, I think, about one thing, and that is that you are building a brand. And so how do you figure out which sports fit in that brand? What is the brand? And then how did you grow that brand from the early days, starting in snow, to then going to ski, bike and then so on, and then what does that trajectory look like going forward?

34:22 And then what other sports, what sport fits the NST brand? And what is the NST brand?

34:27 Yeah, it's a great, great question. I mean, at the heart of the brain, we always say Mother Nature is the main character with our content when we're looking to build our business. They're not necessarily great comps in the traditional action sports industry. I mean, the World Surf League, I think, is known. You know, it's Dirk Ziff, who's the owner there. They, you know, they've let a lot of cash over the years. I think they're still trying to shore up the business model.

34:52 There's been rumors that they, you know, they're looking to potentially sell. I think if you look at these, a lot of these quote unquote action sports individually, they're still seen as very niche. So the opportunity we Saw is like, well, let's build a brand that kind of galvanizes all these communities. There's a lot of overlap between the communities. And let's build an events and media platform that leverages the strengths of the kind of community in general.

35:14 In terms of the expansion, we've been somewhat strategic, somewhat opportunistic. We started in snowboarding. We met one of the early visionaries in mountain biking, this guy named Todd Barber, who, who helped launch Red Bull Rampage, which in mountain biking is kind of the super bowl of big mountain, kind of free ride mountain biking. And so that was the first step of expansion. We, we thought it'd be two. We thought that our snowboard community might balk if we just expanded into skiing right off the bat.

35:47 So we felt like mountain biking was kind of an easier transition. And then last year was a big flex. We, we expanded into ski and surfing. But really we're building a brand that has brand license and brand permission to I think, expand into other sports. Kind of like anything in the outdoors that checks certain boxes in terms of, once again, like Mother Nature needs to be the main character. There needs to be some elite component to it.

36:12 We'd like to feel like we're filling a void in whatever respective sport that we're going into. But I think that's what's fun and exciting about the brand platform that we're building is that there is no, you know, right or wrong answer necessarily. And we've even explored in the state of Wyoming, which is where we're based, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this multi day backcountry horse race, right, where it would just be great content.

36:39 There's an elite nature to it. There's a mother nature component to it. There's great storytelling around it. And so I think that's what's fun about our future, is that we can be opportunistic in the expansion as long as it, you know, fits the brand.

36:56 Yeah. Well, when I think of Natural Selection Tour, obviously the thing that pops out is natural selection. And that thought gets at the idea of pushing humanity to its boundary. Like how do we sort of display the, the uppermost threshold of human potential? And this is extreme outdoor action sports.

37:16 Right.

37:16 And so talk to me a little bit about some of the brands and the sponsors that want to get behind nst, that want to align themselves with that ethos, because as you've mentioned, it's a bit of a zig where others are zagging other other sort of leagues in this ecosystem have a Very, I would say different culture and community that they build their fan base around versus natural Selection has a bit of a different sort of grittier ethos I would say.

37:42 So what are some of the sponsors that want to come in and, and

37:45 back that for sure. It started with Red Bull. Travis has been a Red bull athlete for 20 plus years. They had gotten behind some of the earlier beta events. So it started with them as both a sponsor, but then a our media rights distributor. So you know, Red Bull has Rebel tv I think, you know, they're in as many homes as Netflix around the world and we knew that that would offer us credibility. Right. If something's going to be on Rebel tv like you know, it's going to be held to a certain standard and that was pivotal.

38:16 One of the first calls we made was to a guy named Bill Neff who's the CMO of yeti. And yeti, you know, had shown that they were really committed to investing in unique projects, to investing in very culture driven events and athletes in the outdoor space. And, and you know, keep in mind, we launched this thing basically 2019. We went into business in September 2019. In March of 2020, Covid hits.

38:48 And so we were just trying to keep the lights on early days. But in the fall of 2020 we hosted Matt Reinsch, the CEO of Yeti, and Bill Naft, the CMO of Yeti out in Jackson Hole and presented our vision for what we want to do at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. And they were like, look, we're all in. We know there's a lot of risk here in terms of execution, but we also know that whatever Travis puts his mind and powers behind is going to be pretty epic.

39:14 And that was a big domino to fall. They came on board as title partner of our snowboarding events and then we leaned into the endemic community within snowboarding and eventually in these other sports. But we also recognize that a lot of budgets are limited within the endemics. And so part of the rationale with the expansion is we need to unlock more like minded non endemic brands. If you look at the Olympic Games, the NBA, the NFL, these kind of traditional sports properties is pretty clear the, the Big Ten to 14 categories that are spending traditional sports marketing dollars.

39:51 So we want the right partners. But as an example, we, we, we pulled in GMC as our official truck this year and it's a, it's a very, it's a great partnership in the sense that we can, they can activate, we can activate them, we can create content that's very organic to what we're doing and you know that's, that's critical, critical for our success because it is heavily dependent on sponsorship revenue. We're trying to build a diversified business that brings that overall, that percentage of revenue down in terms of the overall revenue pie.

40:22 But you know, we're making a lot of traction with, with non endemic brands who, you know, are taking note of what we're building and want to check a big box in the outdoor community.

40:30 On the event side, Jester gave a nice overview of the overall format of Natural Selection and how it differs and is similar to some other groups in the space. But when it comes to a specific event, take a surfing event as one example. If I want to go and I want to watch and you know, be an attendee, what does a surf event look like? Just to take one of your categories, how is it designed and what can you expect as somebody who wants to actually get there and get involved in a, in a, you know, real life moment with natural selection.

41:01 So it depends on the event and depends on the sport. Our snowboarding events. So our biggest event is up at Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia. So it's, it's, the venue is, is side country, it's adjacent to the main resort but, but we had a couple thousand people who basically all you had to do is take up a chairlift and then it was about a 10 minute kind of skin or walk to get to the base of the venue, which was ideal.

41:26 So the, the, the terrain remains kind of preserved because we want the best conditions for these athletes. But attendees could access it for surf. The event that we pulled off in year one was so remote, it was in the middle of Micronesia, like literally in the middle of the Pacific. So it was a very streamlined production. We streamlined as much as possible. Attendees could not, yeah, you couldn't access it. So our mountain biking event takes place in Queenstown, New Zealand that is accessible to, to viewers.

41:54 So look, it's, it's a tricky one. Ideally you bring as many attendees as possible or you have venues that have as many attendees. But once again, Mother Nature is the main character. I mean part of the magic of Natural Selection is the remoteness the of these venues. And so sometimes, I mean if you're going up to Alaska, the reality is it's not going to be feasible that people can attend. We have on kind of VIP trips that have generated revenue around these events and ideally we're, I mean we are talk host partners that the venues would be more accessible.

42:28 But it's yeah, it's, it's a bit of a tricky one.

42:31 So then talk about the content side a little bit for those fans that can't meet you where you're at because you're on a cliffside in Alaska or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Micronesia. Justin. I've never been to Micronesia. I'm looking forward to going next time that Carter invites us out. But for those fans that can't make it, how are they engaging with. With nst? Is it through a sort of, of content and then where is that content placed?

42:56 Right? Exactly. I mean, it's, it is currently a heavy content play and so social media plays an important role. Right. We want to lean into the storytelling as much as possible. I mean, I grew up in New Jersey. You know, it was kind of a fat, pasty white kid, but, but I was, you know, every Saturday I'd go down and like flip through Surfer magazine, right. Because I was entranced by that serve culture, even though I wasn't a surfer.

43:21 Right. And, and a lot of it was, you know, looking at these beautiful places, these beautiful people, they're doing cool things like all that storytelling. So we really, we lean into the storytelling a lot through social and then through our Red Bull TV partnership that's been the, the primary distribution hub. So some of our content is live streamed, such as our snowboarding event which took place over across two days. And then some of our content is post produced because given the remote nature, it's just not economically nor logistically feasible to try to live stream.

43:52 It's getting easier with things like Starlink. And just as we all know, you can, you can live stream from your iPhone and it's pretty high production quality. Right. But we've kind of held ourselves to a gold standard on the production. So if we, we don't want to do, we haven't wanted to do scrappy live productions. Although I do think there's a, there's a time and a place for that. But yeah, Red Bull TV, YouTube. I mean, we've had secondary distribution with folks like Eurosport and ESPN even.

44:25 And that's, and that's a big part of the, the business model is how do we maximize revenue around meteorites and maximize distribution. Right. And eventually, you know, be able to splice up the rights, you know, on a territory basis. But it's, as we all know, the media landscape's a tricky one and things are constantly changing. And we are not the NFL and we're not the NBA. Just through my network, we can get conversations with a lot of those folks.

44:54 And we are having interesting conversations with folks like Skydance and Paramount around concepts that maybe aren't necessarily the event themselves, but something that's more episodic. We have an interesting surf concept that it's kind of surf meets Survivor and putting a bunch of competitors on a boat in Indonesia to travel around for six weeks. And, you know, as. As they're traveling around, we're kind of whittling down the field from eight down to two, and then kind of a winner takes all at the end.

45:25 And. And we think that's an interesting concept such that we can package that away in a way, call it eight episodes and lean into the storytelling so that it expands our audience from kind of a core outdoor fan to a more cas. Casual fan who. Who would. Who would lean into it.

45:44 You talk about the investment in content and media and storytelling, and it makes a ton of sense as you try to build, like allow people to wrap their arms around the ethos of what natural selection is. And so they. There's a feeling associated with it. They just get it. They know what's. They know what to expect when there's something downstream of a natural selection brand. Tell me, as you, you know, if you were to draw it out on a whiteboard, the different business lines and how the kind of flywheel works, whether it's stuff you want to do down the road in apparel or real estate or cpg.

46:17 Give us the walkthrough.

46:19 Yeah, I think there's three big buckets. There's the content, there's the experiential, and then there's the commerce or the product side. And I look at a business model like Disney in the sense that years ago, I mean, it started off with just feature films, right? And that's. That was the tent pole of the brand. And then they expanded into other forms of content. They built valuable ip, all the licensing, and then ultimately they had their reviews in parks.

46:48 And that's, you know, somewhat the business model that we want to evolve into and I think the opportunity with the brand that we're building. And so at the heart of it are these. These very elite events. I mean, that's kind of our moat, right, with the brand that we're building. I mean, we have access to the top athletes in the.

47:04 In.

47:05 In the outdoor industry. And not everyone can pull off these very elite events. And so that. That is our kind of our competitive moat, and that is the temple of our brand. But there are opportunities to. For us to expand and produce adjacent forms of Content that we can monetize. You know, I look at a brand, kind of a business model like a barstool sports, and I think that those are some of the conversations we're having like how do we, how do we kind of build out something like a barstool within our, within the outdoor industry?

47:36 And then Experiential is a very interesting one. I mean you're seeing these huge macro trends around experiential. People play, you know, spending more disposable income on experiential. You know, whether you're a billionaire or whether you're someone just out of, out of college. I mean there is more and more percentage of your disposable income being spent on experiential. Now you're seeing really big funds, whether it's Ari Emanuel who launched this fund, Mari who we've spoken with, or you know, Data Blitzer.

48:04 Investing a lot in experiential, I mean you're seeing private equity is definitely like investing in this trend. And we, we believe it as well. And for us, experiential can take a couple different turns. One is how do we package Natural Selection, the experience into a theater? So this fall we're going to be launching five to seven experiential kind of events, theater style that brings content, the athletes, music, the culture of these sports and produces a, you know, a two hour show and provides our sponsors an opportunity to activate IRL in real life with, with our fans.

48:40 We have also been in discussions with a couple partners around launching a destination hospitality fund that would be separate from Natural Selection. So this would be a dedicated fund of roughly 30 to $50 million that would invest in boutique adventure destinations. Whether it's heli operation in Alaska, that would be the first one we would fold in heli lodges, cat lodges in British Columbia. We're looking, we're seeing deal flow from Japan. I mean there's, there's a lot of these places out there that we feel like our content can serve as a marketing flywheel to drive demand to these, to these destinations.

49:22 And the best comp out there in our world is a place called Bald Face in British Columbia. Travis has spent a lot of time out there. He did some beta events out there in 2012 and 2013 and that's how it got on my radar. And now you can't really book a spot out there. It has a very talented owner who's kind of an icon in the outdoor industry. So that's part of the secret sauce. But the point is we want to have more skin in the game around these destinations, we know that we can use our marketing flywheel to drive demand there.

49:53 And then another component within Experiential is just like kind of guided trips. There's funds out there like Milky Way park who are doing a roll up in kind of guided tours. They've acquired a business in the cycling space that I think primarily Europe. Yeah. One in kind of another one called Alpenglow which does kind of more traditional ski and snowboarding tours. Very fragmented business. I think their, their approach is like well let's go out and buy like kind of best in class but just there's a huge addressable market in you know, in, in that kind of experiential space.

50:27 And then yeah, the third side on the commerce side, I mean we have our branded apparel. We, we know that can be a, you know, a very valuable source of revenue. We're also playing around with like other derivatives of the natural selection brand called like Natty Select. A lot of our fans reference natural selection as Natty Select. It's like well you know, could we one day launch a consumable like whether it's in the gummy space or maybe it's trail mix that's under this kind of derivative brand Natty Selects that feeds into our ecosystem and really it goes back to like let's build a very authentic, credible brand that has a license to operate in these different areas and that they're all.

51:06 There's synergies that everything is kind of pulling back to you know, one another. And look it's, it's a big vision, not easy to execute. Will take a long time. Our, the capital we've raised we probably raised $15 million to date or the last seven years. 15 1.5 through you know, series of convertible notes, a series seed. We're closing off a series A right now. It's patient capital. It's been primarily all kind of individual based, high net worth individuals.

51:35 We are on the radar of private equity and VCs who I think see what we're doing and recognize the brand that we're building. Maybe we're a little early for a lot of them and but we you know, we want to be careful in terms of you know, having the right investment horizon with whomever gets on board because this thing will take time but we feel like we're building a business model and a brand that will stand the test of time.

51:56 Yeah, I think that brand brand first and remembering that order of operations, if you nail that very clear that the sky's kind of the limit on the extendable opportunity there.

52:07 Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot that's on the horizon that is, I think, achievable. It's how can we grow the brand, our audience, the business in a, in a fiscally responsible way to give ourselves a shot? I mean, come September, we've been in business for seven years and, and that's something we're proud about and we're, we are close to being profitable. All it would take is a couple of, a couple of big brand partners, you know, all things kind of being equal.

52:35 That being said, we do want to invest in certain parts of the business, but like investing in terms of like singles and doubles, like we're not taking any kind of crazy moonshots at this, at this stage. I think down the road the brand will be well positioned to do. You know, right now we're kind of in the organic building phase and I think where things could get interesting is like, do we go out and raise a bunch of capital to go in the, the buy phase?

53:00 Yeah, Carter. So one of the things that kind of screams at me is just multifaceted platform, doing a lot of interesting things and trying to own this niche across sort of all the different sports, all the different licensing abilities, all of the different boutique real estate roll ups, all the, the Disney flywheel, so to speak, applied to outdoor action sports. And then really trying to put at the center of all of this is a brand that connects really deeply and truly to this community that powers the entire thing.

53:36 Talk to me a little bit about the future and the direction of where NST goes over the next decade. I think you've raised some capital from some really interesting parties. It sounds like you want to start moving into this buy phase. When you sort of build this thing out over the next 10 years and you look in the rearview mirror, what are you going to be proud of saying? We built NST into this?

53:57 Yeah, I mean, I'll start there. I mean, I think I'll be most proud about building a very authentic, incredible brand that people really love and appreciate in a small way. Kind of like the Olympic rings, right? When you say the Olympics, people watch the Olympics. It, it does it, it kind of brings out your, your emotions, right. It's a, it's a special property and that's why they command hundreds of millions of dollars from sponsors to associate themselves with the ring.

54:22 So yeah, I think it's a com. A very authentic, incredible brand. Like we've got our North Star, right? We don't. We don't want to ever deviate from that in terms of the authenticity, elite athletes, Mother nature being our main character, that sort of thing. And then ultimately, I mean, you know, 10 years from now, are we, do we have a sustainable business? Right? Are we, you know, it's, I don't think we want to build something that is just bleeding cash every year.

54:49 And the only reason we're in business is because we've unlocked, you know, X number of billionaires who are willing to kind of support this thing. I don't think that's the goal. We do want to, I've got friends who have invested. We, we're trying to build something that has a return on investment. We don't necessarily have a targeted exit strategy to date. Like we're not building something that we can sell in five years. I do think there's, you know, whether it's on the private equity side or strategic, I think there could be a strategic exit at some point.

55:15 But we're, we're very much focused on the process versus kind of the end, the end result, you know. But I, I spoke to kind of these three buckets, whether it's on the content side, on the experiential, on the product side. So yeah, I think over the next 10 years it's, it's kind of just trying to be smart in terms of how we expand. We, we recognize that it can be dangerous to lose focus. So if you start kind of like, you know, spreading your wings or trying to do too many different things like that's a recipe for disaster.

55:46 So we are hyper focused on the events and finding unlocking like really great destination partners. As an example, we're in very positive discussions with Reed Hastings team at Powder Mountain. They're doing some incredible things with that resort on both the public and private side. They're taking a very creative approach to building a community there. We're very aligned in terms of our vision. So we see a long term partnership there. We see kind of a potential hub at Powder Mountain.

56:13 Same thing with Revelstoke Mountain Resort up in British Columbia. We're also speaking with an interesting group in Japan called Patience Capital Group. The former, this guy who used to run the GIC Singapore Sovereign wealth fund raised a couple billion dollars and they're building the next great destination for, for summer and winter in Myoko, Japan. And we've beta tested a couple of the small events in Miyoko and the Japanese community. I mean it's a huge destination. People go there.

56:44 You know, obviously summer and winter has become this kind of Mecca for Snowbo. So finding the right destinations, kind of creating some, some anchors for, for our events and content, I think is something in the short term. And yeah, we'll continue to lean on some of these other revenue streams, like whether it's the apparel, this real estate fund, which will create recurring revenue. A recurring revenue stream for us. And yeah, playing the long game, you

57:11 talk about this patient and focused approach, which certainly makes sense. I'm curious, maybe this can be kind of a history lesson for us, for us young bucks here. But when you're dealing with a cultural capital brand, something in that universe, there are so many examples of brands that were so hot, reached the pinnacle and completely flamed out and they just fell out of the zeitgeist. It just didn't work out. What are some of the watch outs that you are keeping in mind?

57:43 And maybe what are some examples that you specifically remember of like, oh my gosh, this was an epic brand that had a huge community and a great following. And whether it was that they lost trust or they just took their eye off the ball, this is what we can't allow to happen here. I'm curious because obviously these cultural pieces of IP and brands that can be very fleeting and based on, you know, fast changing externalities. So tell me about that.

58:09 Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing comes to mind, you've seen a lot of brands in the kind of traditional action sports space. I mean you're seeing it with like Quicksilver and Volcom. I mean some of these brands have been acquired by Authentic Brands Group who are really maximizing the licensing value out of those brands. But I think some people would be critical in terms of saying that the cultural soul of these brands has been stripped away.

58:34 We see that as an opportunity because at least on with the brand that we're building. And if you look at just hats and T shirts and that sort of thing and how people want to embrace the brand, we feel like, well, there's, there's kind of a void there because a lot of those brands used to be the ones that were running these events and being the cultural torchbearer of these sports. So now there's a little bit of a void in the marketplace that we feel like we can, we can carry that torch.

58:59 But yeah, I think the cautionary tale is like, yeah, but all of a sudden becomes purely about money or return on investment, that sort of thing. Then I think that's prob. Probably a pretty easy way to, to lose your DNA and to kind of Torch the brand. So yeah, I think it's like, how can we build a long term sustainable business model that is healthy and you know, just kind of, yeah, we're able to keep the DNA of our brand intact.

59:27 I think we have the right pieces in place from a management style. I mean, speaking for myself, like, I'm not in this to like flip a coin, quick buck, like it's not, it's just not going to happen. I'm in this, I've kind of built a career now. This, this is kind of like what I want to be doing for the next 20 years. Travis Rice has been a very successful athlete. He is trying to build something that is, yeah, that's sustainable and, and also I think an important part with, with all of our content, like something that's educational, like we call it edutainment.

59:54 Like we, we want to use our brand and our content as a way to, you know, I don't know, inspire other people to embrace Mother Nature. I mean, we all, all recognize a lot of the issues that the planet has. And is there some small way that we can use our microphone as a way to. Whether it's raise awareness or just inspire people to embrace the outdoors, whether it's, you know, the hardcore people who are going to be doing like things like going on crazy, you know, ski snowboarding trips or skiing trips, or to just people who are just spending more time outdoors in their, their free time.

60:23 I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, it's critical for us to stay true to our kind of our origins.

60:30 Yeah. Carter, if you can put a bow on the entire NST pitch. I mean, a lot of the listeners that are listening to this right now are sports investors, operators, executives building around the sports problem. If you were to say one thing to them, NST is, what is that message that you want?

60:50 Yeah, I think it's, you know, at the end of the day is, you know, we're building a definitive, authentic global platform in the outdoor industry. Something that's very culture driven, very athlete driven, and there's a huge addressable market in terms of the amount of people that participate in these sports that spend money in the outdoors. So the outdoor industry is massive and we feel like we are building the most credible, influential brand that's going to service that industry in these three big buckets of content, experiential, and then call it product or commerce.

61:27 I love it. What is the next big. Whether it's an event or milestone, kind of on the, on the roadmap for nst.

61:36 Well, we're kind of, you know, we're finishing up the heart of our season. We've, we've executed our snowboarding events, we, our ski event, we are premiering our Queenstown New Zealand mountain biking event on May 5th. So hopefully you can tune in Rebel TV. This summer we will execute a surf event that's likely to take place in South Africa. Kind of an adventure travel surf, surf event that's going to blend kind of that storytelling in surf with the competition and then hyper focused on closing off this series.

62:07 A. I have a couple million to go but we'll probably have a close in the middle of June and then executing this fall, our first fall theater style experiential tour which will be, be you know, roughly five to seven cities. So that yeah we'll be doing some, you know, strategic planning as we always do. Kind of end of May and early June recalibrate. Probably have some pieces to add in terms of personnel but we remain lean.

62:31 I think that's also a good, a good outcome of I think just the nature of what we've been building. We've had to be really scrappy the last six or seven years. We've raised capital from individuals kind of hand to mouth. We've never had $15 million in the bank to provide X number of years of Runway which you know is good. It can also be dangerous if you kind of spend it quickly and perhaps unwisely. So I mean our, our core, our core team's about 15, our full time employees is 7.

63:02 So it's, it's a lean operation and then I think that's healthy for our long term prospects.

63:08 It's fantastic. Matthew, you got anything else?

63:11 I got nothing else. Just that. Carter, I hope Brent and I can come to your experiential tour this fall.

63:16 Yeah, please do. We're going to use it as a catalyst to you know, whether it's partners, investors, etc as well as our fans. So we'll, we'll keep you posted. But I appreciate your guys support and, and your inputs and yeah it takes a community to build something special like this but we're getting a lot of the, the right like minded folks on board. Yeah. Yep.

63:36 Well, congratulations on the progress. Excited for what's ahead. That would be pretty awesome to get a pod done at an NST event. There's always that pod. Get some content on site. But Carter, thanks so much for the time.

63:48 Thank you for your time, Brent. Thanks Matthew.

63:50 Thanks Carter.