Steve Feuerstein (00:01.696)
Craig Sloan, President of PlayFly Sports. What a pleasure it is having you on the transaction report today. So I've noticed that if I was with you a week ago, I would not be saying Craig Sloan, President of PlayFly Sports. So first of all, congratulations on your ascension in the company. It's obviously a very meaningful move. And please.

Craig Sloan (00:07.984)
Thanks for having

Craig Sloan (00:24.124)
Steve, sorry to interrupt you. So the move just went from president to CEO. So not that it's a huge deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's as, yeah.

Steve Feuerstein (00:30.208)
that's interesting. We had thought you were CEO and then we saw COO and that you were, that's adorable. Thank you. You're president COO. Right. Okay.

Craig Sloan (00:37.178)
Yeah. I was president and then yeah, I got moved. Yeah. Yes. But now I'm going to CEO as of September one. So sorry. Okay.

Steve Feuerstein (00:48.286)
That's right, right, adorable. And I had said to my colleagues in a pre -meeting that I said, you know, I thought he was certain he was CEO. So let me do that again. Here we go. So you were president and COO, right? CEO, So Craig Sloan, CEO of Placefly Sports. What a pleasure it is to have you on the Transaction Report today.

Craig Sloan (01:01.661)
I was and then now moving to the CEO.

Craig Sloan (01:14.236)
Thanks so much for having

Steve Feuerstein (01:15.908)
And if I were with you one week ago, I would be introducing you to our viewers as president and COO of Playfly. So as of Monday, I understand that it was announced that on September 1st, that ascension will consummate. So again, congratulations to you and a testament, to you and what you've done for the corporation and Michael Schreiber and really building out his vision.

Craig Sloan (01:42.49)
Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, it's definitely an honor for me to get this role. And Mike, our founder, has been the inspirational leader, but also this entrepreneur spirit that he's injected into the company. And I have certainly gravitated towards that mindset. It's been a fun ride.

Steve Feuerstein (02:01.472)
You know, it's for people like me what is so interesting when we look at sports marketing, and I know today our viewers are gonna enjoy greatly being joined by someone who's lived the industry as long as you have. And I've had the honor of being in this industry since 1990 on the event management ownership side, athlete representation and media and now technology for quite a while.

you know, what I feel is such a blessing here is that we can really get into the substance of what makes this industry tick and why are companies like Playfly that literally were not extant in 2020, it was your genesis in 2020, have become one of the most important players in many aspects of the sports marketing ecosystem. Let's go right to one of the fundamental precepts of your business.

Piper is a system of the way you view the world. I want to go into the eye of Piper, the system of people, innovation, partnerships, and results. That eye you spent a lot of time talking about. You do spend a lot of time talking about. And I want to unpeel, I really want us to unpack the concept in this first phase of our discussion of innovation. First, define innovation.

Craig Sloan (03:18.726)
Well, for us, Steve, I think that just the general thought for us had been looking at business areas of the sports sector that were literally from day one looked at in our estimation as needing some modification. So in our world, that's innovation. And that thought process basically allowed for us to go out and talk a little bit differently to property partners in the college space.

even the high school state association space, and certainly in the pro and media space as well, about things that we saw coming around the corner that hopefully we could give them the vision of what they need to be prepared for. And so our whole business is led by an insights group that helps us really understand.

what's happening, the trends that are going on in the sports industry. And then therefore we start to talk about the business in a little bit of a different manner, I think, than most and that allows for us to have some really substantive conversations with property rights holders, particular brands as well, about the ways to maximize the potential value out of this unique space.

Steve Feuerstein (04:21.952)
So when you speak to them, do they feel they're not innovative? And again, before we get to that question, I'm gonna back up and ask you, if you were to define innovation, or anyone in the business of sports, what is that term itself mean to you and your team?

Craig Sloan (04:38.618)
Yeah, yeah. I think the first thing that it means is this concept of understanding fan behavior and thinking about ways to.

create new opportunities and pathways to engage fans. And I think that's a key driver for us. So when it comes to innovation, it's thinking about products, services, new ways of engaging fans that I think teams, properties, even media rights holders have not traditionally been thinking about as much as currently needed. The competitive landscape has never been higher. So that part of our thinking, I think, is resonating at a high rate.

Steve Feuerstein (05:21.248)
So do fans, if we went to those two stakeholders, team owners as an example, or conference owners, representatives, commissioners, the fans themselves and those two parties, the property rights owner, do you think that before you met them, they would think they're not innovative?

Craig Sloan (05:42.618)
No, I wouldn't say so, I do think, I mean, if you sort of look at it, just a few things have been a stable way of a game presentation and or the ways that rights holders have engaged their fan base. It's been very much a speaking at them and not necessarily with

So I think aspirationally, a lot of property rights holders have said that they're either through data or through their use of fan panels that they were trying to create a feedback loop that would allow for them to understand their fans and the interests of their fans at a higher rate. And yet at the end of the day, I think a lot of them have admitted that.

the thought of the way that they have a relationship is speaking at them. They put on a game presentation, they push out content, and the fan traditionally engages. That's the good part. The fans have engaged at the venues, outside of the venues. But if you think about the ways that they're gonna need to thrive in the future, if most of the fan base, people who identify as a fan of a team, will never cross the thresholds of the building.

what does that property rights holder do to create a relationship there and don't allow them to escape their ecosystem, if you will. So there's gotta be this way of creating an engagement that happens in a two -way relationship, things along those lines.

Steve Feuerstein (07:04.0)
So when we look back when you and I were kids and if we were as fans of sports and we looked at the teams that we supported, the athletes whom we supported, what was our primary way of interacting with those teams and athletes?

Craig Sloan (07:19.438)
I mean, now you're talking about when we were kids. We couldn't even walk. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Feuerstein (07:22.255)
I saw you. I saw you came out of Iowa in 92. I'm UVM and in 84. So we're not so far apart, so.

Craig Sloan (07:30.906)
No, no, that's true. I think that the main thing and just looking at my own personal life and behaviors, I tried to engage where I could, but that meant through two traditional ways back when we were kids. One was through live TV, but we were in a game of the week format for the sports that we really cared about, particularly in the US on a traditionally, literally a once a week type of game format for a national perspective.

And local broadcasts were not available for all 162 baseball games, or let's call it 82 NHL or NBA games. And so we got what was served to us, which was a partial schedule. And we would watch the games when we could. And there were a lot of missed games, day games, West Coast swings for East Coast teams, things along those lines. And we had to sort of read about it then the next day. The second layer of engagement was in print.

And that was about it, right? We had our Sports Illustrateds that came to our homes every week. We had our news publications that came to our homes on the mornings, and we read the box scores, and we tried to keep up with what was going on with our teams. Fast forward today, the fans are winning in just a tremendous way. I they are being super served. So while we talk about innovation and ways to help our property partners, by no means does that mean that they're sitting.

resting on the laurels, fans have never been served at this level in our history. So the amount of content they're getting served, the idea that every single game is now on broadcast, certainly on radio, certainly in ways through digital streaming environments, TV over to our products that allow for them to always be connected to their teams. I find that really, really compelling. If you think about then...

the idea that we're now supposed to understand their team personalities and be able to serve content through social and other means, fans are totally engaged in different ways than they were when we were kids.

Steve Feuerstein (09:27.7)
And when you look at that next level with an innovative team, as an example, let's stay with the team. In today's fan engagement, what would be defined? Is there some type of definition or a yearning for innovation that can lead teams in different parts of the country to conclude that there is a singular path to innovation or?

Depending on the team, its history, its fan base, its stars, are there multiple paths, multiple stories to tell in innovation and achieving that objective of serving the fan at a higher

Craig Sloan (10:10.832)
Yeah, I think there's certain commonality, Steve, but I would argue that this is the traditional thought of every team as its own snowflake and the ways that their fans are thinking about how they're experiencing their relationship with the team is a little bit different. So I'll just give a quick example. And our insights team, I think, is just, again, outstanding. So we've been able to help teams understand that the expectations for fans today

Not only that they're gonna get every game like I was just talking about to be able to watch, review, or be in person for it. But now the expectations are that they're gonna have a better game day experience.

they're going to be able to figure out ways that their team directly will serve them more content inside the season, outside of the season. And their expectations are that the team will react to what their consumption needs are. And so each one of the teams will have slight nuances. Some of the feedback that we're getting is that they're more family environment oriented. And so they want to make sure that that venue is set up to be able to have

an easy ingress and egress as an example, just being able to support a family who needs to get in and back home so their kids can be ready for school the next day or whatever that need might be. As compared to other cities, major cities where that's sort of not the expectation. It's a little bit more about what's the entertainment value? What are you doing for me in my pregame environment? How am I extending that three hour game and making it a value perspective that's extending it hours before or hours after

It's just a little bit of a different mindset. So each one of them are unique situations.

Steve Feuerstein (11:46.418)
And what role does the corporate sponsor, the sponsor of a particular team or an athlete or a league, if there's any distinction among those three, I'd be grateful for your clarification. But what role do they play when you're working with a team itself? But we know we have these other key stakeholders who are also trying to really influence that fan.

Craig Sloan (12:08.3)
Sure, well a couple ways, right? I think one is just from a revenue perspective, sponsorship has become such a large portion of the total revenue pie for a rights holder. So from that perspective alone, the idea that the corporations and brands come in and sponsor teams at a high rate, essential to their existence today, but certainly for their future success, colleges, high schools as well. So it's not just necessarily at the pro.

level. is a commercialized area and opportunity. But brands can get that halo effect. The research clearly shows if you support your team in the right ways, fans of that community say you're supporting things that I care about. You're now part of the fabric of our community and I'm going to support you in different ways. I have a higher level of interest. I have a higher level of chance of trial. I have a higher level of loyalty to stay involved with brands who invest in these spaces. So

Long way to way to answer your question though, that I think that this is where again, innovation can come in. The idea that brands before just stamped a logo on a dashboard or on a cord or on an outfield wall sign and sort of called it a day and said, that is my sponsorship. I'm declaring

my affinity to this team and the fan base. Now it's such a different level. The brands are, their expectation levels are going up, but also the research is really getting interesting. So they have an ability today, I think in a different way, and the teams are more generally speaking, listening to this need, but to actually create fan enhanced experiences and then be thought of even more of a high or more favorable level than even just those that just.

are supporting through their cash investment.

Steve Feuerstein (13:49.002)
You know, it's so interesting as you say that, well, first of all, I have an obligation to say it's beautiful how you reference Dasher boards as stamping their logo on that, when we were engaged prior to coming into the industry, there was just a static board at best. Many of the leagues were purists. You didn't even see signage at venue. And when the advent of signage happened,

Craig Sloan (13:59.6)
That's right.

Craig Sloan (14:05.008)
That's right.

Craig Sloan (14:08.81)
Yeah.

Steve Feuerstein (14:11.464)
It was literally primarily either canvas or a wood board that was placed at venue and there it was literally stamped on. Let's talk about one of the great challenges in our industry which is clutter. First of all, one of the other challenges is innovation. When people see others innovate, we know that the innovator continues to have to stay a step ahead because others then copycat that innovation and it creates more of the clutter.

Craig Sloan (14:14.854)
Yeah.

Craig Sloan (14:18.726)
That's right.

Steve Feuerstein (14:38.794)
How do you, having worked with so many different stakeholders, and we can stick with the League for a moment, since I actually listened to an interview where you were on screen with the former commissioner of the ACC, Kevin Warren. It was a very interesting discussion. And I must say, you have great humility in how you permitted Kevin to speak about his background and personal experience as a child. I admired you for just participating in that conversation as well. You take a League.

You take a league, whether it's a college level ACC or you take an NFL with 42 official partners. Let's talk about that ability to innovate when you have so many others attempting to innovate and impact the same target market. How do you guide either a sponsor or a rights holder to navigate that clutter?

Craig Sloan (15:29.404)
Well, again, I'm going to be the repetitive person here today. the good news is that there is hard research showing what the path should be. Now, that being said,

I think everyone needs to choose their own path. So there are categories, there are brands who have looked at sport in a different way and found tremendous success. The idea that State Farm has continued to evolve as an example of someone that used to be a static logo on a stanchion around a basket and has evolved into essentially making contextually relevant commercials in every single unit that they air across the various sports that they invest in, showing the people

are evolving during this time period. But the idea of standing out above clutter is super important. It's probably the number one thing that we hear from brands today. You don't have to convince them like you used to maybe a decade or two ago about the importance of sport and investing in sport. But the idea that now that they believe everyone is, how do they actually create their own path? How do they create something that's going to rise above the clutter?

And so we've got a few different mechanisms in this space. So one, just at a very top line level, obviously there are premier assets, there are marquee assets that will allow for you to just rise above. It's a heavy investment, but it's proven time and time again that it's raising brand awareness, brand impression, brand lift, any of the metrics that these brands are hoping for as they come in and put their name on the outside of a building, on the patch of a sleeve.

a patch of a jersey, ways to actually embed themselves at just a little bit more of a noticeable level than perhaps other sponsors in the space. That all being said, then you get that secondary level about now digitalization of the environment that we're in in these venues, and every new venue comes up with new interesting ways to present the game, but also the idea that almost every building is now equipped with

Craig Sloan (17:35.258)
with LED through most of the venue does allow for sort of that takeover moment rather than just being one of many for a moment in time. And hopefully, again, for brands, they're seeing the value of this. They have a chance to have a dominant force within the venue. Also, if it gets picked up on TV, becomes TV visible, it just amplifies the amount of exposure and the amount of the ways that people can stand out above the clutter.

Steve Feuerstein (18:01.056)
Let's go a little deeper in that. You take the NFL, 42 official partners. The last time I checked, 42 official partners. There's no title sponsorship of any activity. There's no signage. They're the, if we will, the last purist in the game. Certainly even Wimbledon has a Slazl Zagran on the backdrop of the primary court. So it's microscopic, but it's there. If you look at NFL, we have no signage at venue physically on the field itself.

Craig Sloan (18:21.05)
Right. Right.

Steve Feuerstein (18:30.144)
How again would you, if you're counseling one of those 42 brands who have spent significant amount of money to be a part of that experience, how does innovation then play its way out when you don't have the ability to up your expense, meaning you'll become a title sponsor, you're gonna sponsor that patch on Jersey, you're gonna become more prominent because you've outspent your competitor or.

in this case your co -sponsor or your partner, another partner of that same league. The presumption is that the vast majority are looking to influence a similar target market, although there are multiple target markets obviously throughout the NFL. So how does innovation then play when you, let's take the use case of NFL if you would.

Craig Sloan (19:16.4)
think there's two different ways. So one is, you looking to use the shield of the NFL and think about that ability to think about the largest sporting

a sanctioning body in the US potentially in the world, EPL and others would probably argue that. But the NFL is a dominant force. If you're going to go into individual teams, I think your ability is still there. Not necessarily to your point on the field or in some traditional ways maybe that we see in other sports, but still an ability to use the IP of that local team and the fan affinity that's connected to that IP in a major way. I think the first question that any brand needs to ask themselves though, if it's going to be at that NFL level, right?

42 official partners that you reference, how am I going to actually activate the IP? Because what we usually will see is the people who are the shortest in their duration at a league sponsor level, and let's take the NFL out, could be any particular league, is that the investment level is so rich that it becomes difficult then to find ways to properly activate that and then be able to prove the return on that investment. So traditionally, you'll see the ones that will fall out.

are the ones that don't have that secondary activation spend. And I'd argue it's a multiple. It's not just sometimes the traditional way I've been thinking, if I'm going to invest X amount of dollars, I'm going to do 2X on the activation. I think it's even more than that. You have to have the resource saying enough to be able to figure out ways to actually put it into market and make it actually work for you on your behalf. But unless it's going to be on your glassware,

unless it's gonna be on your pack, unless it's gonna be in ways that fans are gonna be able to see that engagement outside of a video platform, I'm not sure that they're gonna get the same value out of it. But if you look at the people who have invested in that space, some who've been around for now decades, they're doing it in really interesting and unique ways, and they're using that IP and that affinity to drive the fan reaction that they're hoping for. But again, to your point, in today's world,

Craig Sloan (21:18.074)
The IP investment is a significant one. You have to have a plan. You can't figure the plan out after you already have your agreement in place.

Steve Feuerstein (21:26.72)
You know, we saw yesterday the announcement of the WNBA media deal at approximately 200 million year. Just last year, we saw the announcement that the most significant substantive media rights deal in the history of women's sports was for the National Women's Soccer League. And that came in at 60 million a year. Trends that you see since you cover all sports, it seems like your enterprise at Playfly

is poised or at least, and I don't, no pun intended, I don't mean this, but I'm not a fly on the wall at PlayFly, but it sure seems from everything that I've learned about you and Michael Schreiber, your founder and former CEO, or soon to be former CEO, is that you're becoming a behemoth, a massive corporation at every aspect of, every inflection point that I see having listened to

in the industry. Someone asked me, how are they gonna fare against one of the quote unquote bigger multi -media rights owners in our industry? And I said, I think they have bigger aspirations. That's what I hear.

When you see that type of landscape in the business of sports, where it seems to be one of the most disruptive periods in our history, and you're in the process of acquiring many businesses, you jump started your business by acquisition, what is the greatest threat to any organization that aims to provide vast services to vast numbers of stakeholders? As you see going into this,

period ahead that we are in the kind of next iteration of large language models of gen and advent of tech in all aspects of deployment for those stakeholders. What keeps you up at night? What keeps you thinking? What keeps you strategizing to become the biggest, which you may very well, and then sustain that magnitude? What is it you have to do and that the industry must receive from you?

Steve Feuerstein (23:35.422)
And if you will, the second part of that question is just simply, where are those dangers that come from that size and magnitude?

Craig Sloan (23:46.14)
Interesting question. I guess I first would answer it to say 100 % agree with you that there are dangers lurking out there, right? And not everyone is going to survive this current period. So some will come in and some will go out. So I'll just give you a quick example. The stick and ball sports that have dominated our...

zeitgeist in the US for quite some time in the sports landscape, I think are on solid footing. So you could argue that this or that might be happening to be disruptive to them. At end of the day, that they will still have a broad -based audience and be able to be predicting their business for at least a decade, if not two to come. And then there are others that have now become part of our social consciousness in ways that they just weren't just a few. You gave the example of women's sports, which has just gone through a tremendous Renaissance period here and the athleticism

that's on display, the idea of the competitive nature, the personalities that are being on the court or on the field in these particular sports, and then the investment that's coming into it are all just compounding today at a level that I don't think any of us probably would have anticipated, but it's tremendous to see. But there is still only 24.

hours in a day, there is only so much disposable income that people have to invest in. either their time or their actual compensation to where they're going

place the value of their sports fandom. And so, you the idea today that probably I wouldn't say keeps us up at night or myself even up at night, but is can we be the best listeners in the business? job is to not get overwhelmed by all that's happening here. It's actually to lean in and embrace it. So the idea of NIL coming into college is an example. There are people who in our space started to get defensive and thinking about getting on their heels and or just defending the turf that they're on. And we thought about it as

Craig Sloan (25:39.94)
tremendous opportunity to look at the difference, the different ways the student -athlete experience is going to be, the ways the brands can invest in this area, the ways that boosters can support their

the programs and the amount of interest that's going to happen in college is going to increase. So we still think college as an example is very much a value area overall for people to invest in. But all of those things are happening in real time. We're not talking about like literally over the course of a decade. This is like in the last couple of years, Tremendous amount of change and not everybody is going to survive. But if we can truly listen and start our process with the idea of what our partners are telling us and perspective partners of what they need to do to take weight off

organization to create new ways again paths to gaining fandom they've never all of them pro college doesn't matter high school they all are at a revenue need level that's that's never been seen before to keep up with the demands of the investments that they want to make in their businesses call it districts outside their venues call it players through free agency whatever those mechanisms are so if that's going to be the case and the driver how are

as PlayFly going to be able to help support them in that endeavor. And so for us, it's just making sure that we can take a moment after we've done a needs analysis and understanding of what our partners are really looking for. Are we set to be able to help them immediately? Do we need to make an acquisition? Do we need to make an acqua hire? Do we need to level up some skills so that we can be able to support them in that endeavor? I don't think today's world that property rights holders believe that they have to have it all in house.

I think that they're willing and probably more willing than before to be able listen to partners who might be able to help them through this and have expertise where they can advertise the cost of the investment that's necessary to be able to do it at a high level. And so we're finding these discussions to be really, really interesting and profound. But again, I don't think we're nearly done with this really crazy period. I think we've got at least a few more years in front of us of where there's going to be continual change.

Steve Feuerstein (27:41.248)
You know, we were talking internally and wanted to get your insight on, you have, I think, what, 30 schools as we see, we saw your website? 40. You provide enormous services to the actual college itself as an example of bringing them revenue through the sale of specific strategic advertising benefits you can then extend to third parties, to particularly corporate brands.

Craig Sloan (27:50.716)
Close to 40 now at this point. Yep.

Steve Feuerstein (28:11.188)
Why is it we've never seen that model extend primarily to the main ball sports and pro sport?

Craig Sloan (28:17.564)
It's a different financial construct, think, one. It's just a little bit of a different look at what was happening. I think it's changing even in college, though, Steve. mean, truthfully, again, you're talking about a generation or a couple of generations

where colleges and their athletic departments were run by administrators who came up through the ranks and understand the policies and the bureaucratic components of working within a university, especially a public university that might have different needs and different thought process. Today, you're seeing a lot of athletic directors that are coming in with very much a business mindset and or a business background that are allowing for them to think about.

more ways to be able to create opportunities. again, if you're in a budget deficit today and you're thinking about, boy, I'm getting pressured to cut sports and you're to get pressured from your alumni and fan base to not cut sports and things that you're going to need to do, you can only cut so much from your cost structure. So really it becomes that idea back to your original question about what innovative ways can we create new products and new pathways for revenue growth to allow for us to offset some of the needs that we finally find ourselves in today.

Steve Feuerstein (29:28.456)
know, bringing the discussion to innovation for this discussion with you today to a meaningful, let's just call it not close, but an insight from you about where innovation is perhaps at its peak right now, particularly in college sport, and particularly in the conferences and the shakeup that we see all over the country right now, and what's happening in major conferences.

that five, 10 years ago were unassailable, that you just assumed these were conferences that would never go away or never change dramatically in their constitution. I think my interest is to learn from you as a sponsor, if you're one of those sponsors of let's take ACC, having just seen Kevin Warren, who's now over at the Chicago Bears. But if we were to look at the ACC,

And you see other conferences that are changing. They're changing by their constituent members. Some have increased, some are diminishing. There are threats for some to be further diminished. How do you go about keeping those brands happy that have been part of it? What are the major discussions that are taking place between the actual property, between the conference and the actual member?

schools that are part of their conference, but the sponsors of those schools or conferences, and I'm gonna just redirect and I'll edit out what I just asked you, so I'll make it far more concise. When you look at the brands that have put their names, the companies that have put their names behind conferences, and those conferences are in such flux today, and we have been talking about the ACC, and we don't know what the composition of that conference is gonna look like.

Craig Sloan (31:10.972)
Mm Mm -hmm.

Steve Feuerstein (31:20.936)
What do you hear, since you mentioned and I heard it before as well, and I believe you are an outstanding listener, what are you hearing in the field, in the trenches, from sponsors who put their money for years, in some cases decades, behind conferences and behind schools that tomorrow might be playing different teams or that particular conference may not have that breadth and reach and dynamic that it had yesterday?

What's happening with the sponsors today? What do you hear on the streets?

Craig Sloan (31:53.382)
There's a couple of main areas. So one, as a proxy for value, the idea of TV contracts are more interest to sponsors than ever before. So in the past, I think you thought about, again, what we were talking about earlier, the value of the IP. How am I activating that IP either at the conference mark level or at the school level of both?

and how am I going to culminate in some conference championship event where I'm going to have a standout presence and I'm going to get the value out of my investment and making sure that I'm having a really interesting product that I'm bringing to market with the conference.

Today, lots of questions about the predictions of what's going to happen in the TV future and the viability of a super conference, if you will. The idea of some really innovative, but also potentially concerning levels about, could this ever be a space where there would be a model with a super league and relegation and some of the things that people have bandied about.

They want us to understand it. The TV contracts and the TV visible components of those deals through all sports, not just football, but certainly through the ones that are most broadcast, so men's and women's, basketball, football, some of the spring sporting events.

Are they going to be in the haves or in the have -nots? Because clearly today, there are windows on a Saturday that are delivering tremendous audiences, and there are windows that are not. And or have been pushed to smaller networks and or streaming environments that might not be at that same scale. the questions typically have started with that idea again of value as defined by the TV contracts and the amount of exposure they anticipate to get. So some schools have now moved into major Power 4 conferences, Power 5 conferences.

Craig Sloan (33:43.548)
have tried to figure out how they can get in. That's a big topic of discussion.

The only other one I would say that comes up today again is, how am I going to figure out more activation points outside of those championship events? So specifically when you're coming and talking about the conference level. So we work directly with Val Ackerman and the Big East. We work with Brent Ormark and the Big 12 in a different capacity. But things that we're doing at conference levels, it is with that idea of, how can I create activation points that go outside of the championship events?

Steve Feuerstein (34:15.008)
So, you you broke the news here on the transaction report, Craig Sloan, future CEO of Playfly Sports. You just put the pieces together for me and I had forgotten that you work with Brett Yormark over as commissioner of the PAC -12 and the Big 12 rather. what I understand based in our earlier part of our conversation, your reference to all state.

then I'm gonna have to say to my listeners and viewers here that you heard it from Craig that there's a high probability we're gonna have our first conference title sponsorship and keep all eyes on the prize on Allstate because I saw through the rumor mill that one day we might see a title of a conference.

and the actual name that came to the fore was Allstate. And I'm not suggesting, and I am doing this a little tongue in cheek, but I would certainly now not be surprised if we see a radical change in the upping as you referenced, the importance of taking a bigger stand in the activation process and sponsorship presence and no better way to do it than all of a sudden seeing a rebranding of a conference and that name Allstate behind perhaps,

speculative. I won't ask you to confirm and corroborate, but I would say it would not surprise me if somewhere down the line in our relationship I send you a note congratulating on formulating a very meaningful deal for a conference that will benefit greatly as well as the brand Allstate if it chooses to mutual, if they so choose to mutually engage one another. but fascinating.

Craig Sloan (35:36.274)
Yeah.

Craig Sloan (35:55.866)
Yeah, I I can't and truthfully in this scenario, Brett, the ultimate innovator is directly involved and is the only one probably in the know about what and when something like that would occur. think if you look at what's going to continue to happen in this space.

Sure, mean, anytime you're starting to put yourself, you said the word clutter before. It is a concern of marketers. It is a concern of even rights holders about how are they going to distinguish the partners who are investing most in

in their individual property and you have to create distinct pathways to be able to do that. And if you think about the value, we calculate that, we've got an insights team that again looks at the value through social, digital, certainly through linear and through presence marketing opportunities at venues of the value of a naming rights over a conference, over a patch, over different areas.

At that conference level, it is, it's tremendous. No one will actually be able to probably, I shouldn't say ever, but be able to pay what the actual value is because it will calculate a number that's so astronomical, it'll be outside of the realm of possible. But same breath, if the conference is willing to be able to have someone, the partners at that level, tremendous amount of exposure, admittedly.

Steve Feuerstein (37:08.362)
Greg Sloan, president and CEO presently at Playfly Sports, soon to be CEO of the organization. What a distinct pleasure. I really enjoyed the time we spent together and I do sincerely hope that we'll follow up on another topic in the not too distant future. What a pleasure. Thank you, Craig. Thank you very, very much. We'll be in touch. Okay, take care. Bye

Craig Sloan (37:24.661)
Thank you.

Steve Feuerstein (37:34.976)
Chandler, you're there? We're all good to go? Okay.

No, think we're good. We're good. We're good. We're good. So Craig, yeah, yeah, I know you went