Revolution in Pro Sports Industry? With Jon Patricof
When it comes to the future of sports and entertainment, Jon Patricof is always trying to innovate and disrupt. He’s had the added challenge of launching a business from scratch on the eve of the pandemic.
Jon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Athletes Unlimited, a network of professional sports leagues. Launched in March 2020, Athletes Unlimited now operates leagues in pro women's softball, volleyball, lacrosse, and basketball. By the end of this year, if current estimates hold, Athletes Unlimited will have conducted over 120 games that will be broadcast in over 150 countries.
Before launching Athletes Unlimited, Jon was president of Major League Soccer’s New York City Football Club, where he currently serves on the board of directors. And before that, he spent over a decade as a member of the board, President and COO of Tribeca Enterprises, the owner and operator of the Tribeca Film Festival and other media platforms. He created the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival.
Prior to Tribeca, he worked in media private equity, and in Corporate Strategic Planning at Disney.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] When it comes to the future of sports and entertainment, Jon Patrickoff is among the most thoughtful and contrarian people I know. He's always trying to disrupt sports and entertainment, and he's had the added challenge of launching a business from scratch. On the eve of the pandemic, John is the CEO and co founder of Athletes Unlimited, a network of professional sports leagues.
Launched in March 2020, Athletes Unlimited now operates leagues in pro women's softball, volleyball, lacrosse, and basketball. By the end of this year, if current estimates hold, Athletes Unlimited will have conducted over 120 matches. That will be broadcast in over 150 countries. John was a business school classmate of mine.
Yes. Our 20 year reunion is around the corner. Yikes. [00:01:00] So we've been pals for a couple of decades and Jon's career has been fun and fascinating to watch unfold before launching athletes unlimited. Jon was. President of Major League Soccer's New York City Football Club where he currently serves on the Board of Directors and before that he spent over a decade as a member of the Board and President and COO of Tribeca Enterprises, the owner and operator of the Tribeca Film Festival and other media properties.
He created the Tribeca ESPN Sports Film Festival. Prior to Tribeca, he worked in media private equity. and in corporate strategic planning at Disney. This is Call Me Back.
And I am pleased to welcome my old friend, not my old, not old, longtime friend, you're young, like me, uh, but, but multi decade friend, Jon Patricoff, to the conversation. Hey, Jon. Hey, Dan. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I've been a longtime [00:02:00] fan since the beginning, and, uh, it's great to finally be on and be a guest.
I'm honored. I actually, you won't remember this, but I remember the night before I interviewed Billy Bean for one of our first episodes about professional sports during the pandemic, I called you to pick your brain on, uh, on, on what would be interesting questions for Billy Bean. So you were also a, a research resource, whether you realize it or not.
Um, okay. So Jon, I want to, uh, I think it was late 2019. Sometime in 2019, second half of 2019, you and I were having lunch in Midtown Manhattan. You probably won't remember this. We were at one table, and I had just finished a meeting with Paul DiBadesta, who you had gone to college with. Uh, he was sitting at another table at the restaurant.
Uh, Paul DiBadesta, who now works for the Cleveland Browns, and he, and, and Billy Bean. He was with Billy Bean, we just mentioned Billy Bean. And, uh, he was Billy Bean's You know, protege, and, uh, you and Deepa Desh that were classmates, and you and I were at another [00:03:00] table, we were talking about sports and the sports business, because I just come from meeting with those guys, and you told me about this idea you had for a new sports business that would really put the athletes at the center, the individual athletes at the center of the business, and you were kind of walking me through it, and it sounded like it takes the sports business and turns it on its head, and it was a real innovation, And now here we are today with, uh, with this league that's, you know, this business that's, that's up and running and flourishing.
So I want to talk about the business, your idea for the business. Uh, but before we do, just a little bit on your background. How did you, can you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in the sports entertainment business and, and the jobs? I know you had some, a couple of pretty important jobs in that world.
So talk a little about those two. Sure. Um, so. You know, coming out of college, I worked at Disney and I actually had the good fortune to go and work in the Disney Corporate Strategic Planning [00:04:00] Group, which back in the late 90s, um, was actually really a hotbed for, for media and entertainment, industry talent, and a lot of people who went on to do really interesting things.
And it was a great time in the media industry. Um, Disney had just bought ABC and I was kind of right there sitting, uh, in Burbank, uh, helping to be. You know, at that point, an analyst, but really working on corporate strategy for, for the Walt Disney company, very exciting time. Everybody knows what was happening in terms of digital technologies and the impact it was having everywhere.
And I got to spend time because Disney had just bought ABC thinking about what the future of ESPN and ABC were going to look like coming out of that. You and I went to business school together. When I got out, I did what everyone else seemed to do, which was I went and worked in private equity for a year.
few years. Um, again, focused in media and entertainment. And after three years, really decided that I wanted to be back in an operating business and got very excited about the idea of live events. And what I thought was a potential wave of opportunity for more media advertisers to really get involved in the live event festival world.
[00:05:00] And I, and I went and worked with Robert De Niro and his partners at Tribeca Enterprises. And over the course of what turned out to be 11 years, I helped grow and build the Tribeca Film Festival, uh, into a multi dimensional business. We ended up bringing in Madison Square Garden as a 50 percent equity owner, uh, and then I got recruited to go, uh, into the pro sports world.
Um, and I got the opportunity Okay, before you get there, so what, what, what about Live events. What about the live events business? Did you? Were you? Why? Why were you so long on it? Yeah, because it was really due to the ideas of a great media entrepreneur whose name was Bill Applebaum, who had come out of the outdoor advertising industry.
He had come into the industry. into my private equity firm I was working at with the idea of buying a chain of movie theaters. And he really said, why don't we take this chain of movie theaters instead of just running movies? Why don't we think about how we can integrate and create a really robust experience in the theaters for people?
And maybe this seems very like obvious now, but I'm telling you [00:06:00] back then it wasn't. And it was this concept of why don't we bring in directors and why don't we bring in actors and we'll have. You know, advertising and multidimensional experiences and all of a sudden I started to think about kind of, okay, not only would you be running the movies in the theaters, not only selling tickets, but you could actually have advertising and marketing opportunities that could come out of building this network of theaters.
And how could you really think about them as a network of events? And, um, I, through that time, I actually went to the Tribeca Film Festival and I went and, you know, again, maybe seems obvious now, but back in 2000, um, Uh, for 2005. Um, I hadn't been to a film festival. Um, and when I got to see the filmmaker stand up and talk about his movie and kind of all of a sudden soak it in, I mean, it was, I don't want to take it too far, but I all of a sudden had these visions of.
Disney World and Disneyland and how powerful they had been for the Walt Disney Company and creating intellectual property. He said, what about, you know, in a different way, if you could walk [00:07:00] into a, uh, a theater or a film festival and come out the other side saying, I am so passionate about this movie, this actor and, you know, where I'm seeing it.
That's a, that's a really powerful concept. And so that was really the genesis of the idea. And actually Bill's idea, um, to give him a lot of the credit was. Let's take this chain of movie theater and let's actually rebrand them the Tribeca theaters and let's infuse kind of what had started with the Tribeca Film Festival and into this theater chain.
And that was the genesis of the idea for me that even though we lost out on the deal, we were the cover bid to buy the chain of theaters, I couldn't let the idea go. And so that led me to kind of continue the conversations with everyone at Tribeca. And really think about, okay, they had started the film festival, it was this amazing act after 9 11, but they knew they wanted to and had to make it sustainable, and, um, and that really was the opportunity that I saw, to come in and build and create something.
And then you go from there to work for [00:08:00] the City Football Group. Yeah. So, tell us what the City Football Group is and why you made that, that migration. Yeah, so, I had been at Tribeca 11 years. It had been an absolutely amazing experience. And, um, in, in the, uh, basically in the fall of, uh, of 2015, I got approached about going and running the New York City Football Club.
I have to say, at that time, um, Uh, it was through, through somebody who was on our board of directors at Tribeca and also the board and for, for our American listeners, the soccer. He's talking about soccer. We're, we're talking soccer. We're talking soccer, right. Um, yeah. Thankfully, I think we have to do a lot less of that explaining than we did back in 2015.
I's amazing promise. It's, you know, and, and, and, um, but, but you're right. Um, and. Um, I had, I truthfully knew almost nothing about soccer. I knew almost nothing about major league soccer and almost, I really didn't even know very much about New York city football club, even though it was in our backyard. But when I got the opportunity all of a sudden to say, here's somebody [00:09:00] who, um, you know, is coming to you with an opportunity to, you know, to take on a leadership of a pro sports team in your, in your backyard.
And then literally right after that, finding out that the ownership group was city football group and the Yankees, um, Like my eyes lit up and I started to do certainly the research on City Football Group, which for those who don't know, has truly been an organization that has transformed, you know, global football, soccer, you know, over the last 10 plus years around the world and really, really Really transformed an industry in a, in a, in a very major way.
Uh, I went over to Manchester. I got to meet the executives. I was just all of a sudden. So just that. So City Football Group owns, uh, Manchester Man City, the, the, the Premier League, man. City and teams, and teams all over the world, and Australia and Japan and, and Eay. I mean, you, the list goes on and on Spain, um, many of the teams have been bought since, uh, you know, since then.
So. When, when I joined, there were really, there were four teams. There was a team in Australia, there was [00:10:00] the teams in, in, in Manchester, and there was a team in Japan and, and New York city was the fourth in that network on the men's side, there was also women's teams in Manchester and, and, and in Australia as well.
And so the opportunity around soccer just hit me. The truth is, uh, when I went and talked to people, I knew in the sports media industry, there were not many people who had nice things to say about major league soccer or the opportunity in the United States. So I. Didn't listen to them. Um, you know, I don't know.
I maybe I have this a little bit of a habit of this. I mean, I do, do try to talk to people a lot and get a lot of advice, but I'm not always so sure I'm so good at actually taking advice. I think that's probably the idea. You listen, hopefully you judge it and then you make your own decision. And I think that was definitely the case because a lot of people.
Turned down that job or said, listen, soccer is going nowhere. Major league soccer is in this tough spot. And I just, you know, had this instinct. Um, it was a little bit, honestly, like when I joined Tribeca in the early days and people said, this is a film festival, what are you doing there? And you've been in private equity, but at Disney, what are you doing?
And I [00:11:00] said, I really believe there's an opportunity here. And the same thing happened with soccer and long story short, I was there for three years and had an incredible experience and got to really have an amazing seat. Um. Growing New York City Football Club, working with City Football out of Manchester and around the world, uh, getting to think about the globalization of the sport and what led now to this chapter, which, you know, I wanna, I wanna talk about with Athletes Unlimited, was along that journey, saw MLS, you know, Major League Soccer team valuations dramatically skyrocket, the interest in team ownership dramatically skyrocket, and when I looked around at the sport of soccer, one of the things I saw was the power of the women's game, and yet The benefits and the interest level and the desire to own franchises had not transferred over in any way, shape or form to the National Women's Soccer League or to women's soccer in general, and it was really surprising to me, and maybe as my career path [00:12:00] tells you from the Tribeca days or MLS, you know, that immediately sparked an interest in my, in my mind, because I said, here's something that I see that doesn't seem like a lot of other people are confident in right now, and so that could be an opportunity.
Okay, so you announced the launch of Athletes Unlimited in early March of 2020. Yes. Three weeks later, less than three weeks later, the NBA, you know, Rudy Gobert, the, the Utah Jazz basketball player gets, gets, uh, test positive with COVID while he's walking onto the court, uh, for, for a game and the NBA cancels that game and then cancels all its games and suddenly the sports world like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, grinds to a halt.
And you're sitting there thinking, I'm launching a live sports business now. So, March 3rd, 2020, we announced that we are going to be launching our first league. And, uh, you know, we'll get into the concept behind Athletes Unlimited, but the idea is a [00:13:00] network of pro sports leagues. Um, and the first was going to be professional women's softball, and it was going to be launching in August of, of, of 2020 in, in Chicago.
Uh, what went through my mind was two things. I mean, one, it was obviously a period of tremendous uncertainty. I have, you know, we were, um, I think slightly unique, you know, relative to most organizations back then we'd use zoom a lot. We were actually a lot. We weren't all in one office together. So the team that was put together, there were some, some of us were all over the country.
So we're actually in this case of using zoom already. So yeah. In March, uh, we I have the I have the zoom meetings all recorded. Um, remember in March of 2020, we had already signed a few players. We signed a venue agreement. We had some media partners lined up, so some of the pieces were in place. We had a lot more work to do to get ready for August of 2020.
But what was unique about Athletes Unlimited was our entire strategy, um, on the operational side was focused around playing in one city in one venue for [00:14:00] five weeks at a time. So I will tell you that while it was a very frightening time for us, all of us personally, um, of course there was uncertainty in the market.
What was it going to happen? I think I, you can probably finish, you know, the sentence in the respect that when we all kind of looked at ourselves, we said, is it really happening that we've designed a model that actually could work extremely well in a COVID environment? It is like, it was like the NBA's bubble for the playoffs.
Correct. But that was the whole. Concept. That was the whole concept. So the fact is it was challenging, but we actually never stopped the planning. We just honestly continued on the exact, almost the exact same path we were on prior to the prior to COVID. The only change was instead of having fans in the stands, we didn't have fans, but our business model from the beginning was all really focused around media.
Content collection, you know, national and global audience, not so much about getting peep butts and seats. And, [00:15:00] um, that was the whole theory that, that again, that had was a foundational concept behind athletes unlimited. So in some respects, COVID opened up new opportunities because when we launched in August, um, one, there'd been enough disarray with pro other pro league schedules that some TV time had opened up on networks like ESPN and CBS.
And we benefited some parts, some sponsors and corporate sponsors who. Fuel sports in a big way, um, didn't have clarity on some of the properties they already invested in. So some money freed up and was coming our way. And then finally, I think in fans minds, when we finally launched in August and you turned on the television and you saw a stadium with.
you know, a small stadium with not many fans. It wasn't so abnormal. And I think that is probably a major, major change. Um, and a major benefit to us. And thankfully, you know, we got great athletes. Unfortunately, the Olympics were canceled, but that actually meant some more athletes came to us that some, there were, there were some in softball who were planning to play in the Tokyo [00:16:00] games in 2020 and then retire and we're going to play.
They actually didn't. Stuck around and decided to join us. So a lot of things actually, um, came our way. And I think, I think in the world of sports has been permanently changed, you know, post COVID, um, you know, and I can give you some other examples, but things we're doing today, um, that we always plan to do that.
I think other people who've started businesses, even since, since athletes unlimited launched have adapted and focused on. Okay. But before, so I want, I do want to drill down on athletes unlimited and I, and I do want to talk about, uh, Well, let's talk about some of these changes in sports taking place generally, because I think they shaped how you thought about Athletes Unlimited.
You had identified trends in fantasy sports leagues, in, in social media, and how people engage with athletes, with professional athletes on social media. Can you talk about those two trends in particular, and any others that made you think that, that the sports business was ready to be, Turned upside down.
Yep. So so the foundational concept again going back a little [00:17:00] bit, you know 2018 I'm at NYC FC. I really see this opportunity in pro women's sports In January of 2019. I partnered up with Jonathan Soros and the two of us really came together on from two directions one I saw the opportunity in pro women's sports and Jonathan Who I'd known a while and was an investor in Tribeca said, you know what?
I love the idea, but I actually don't want to be an owner and investor in a traditional league. If I want to create something, I think we should create something that we have control over that can kind of address where fans are heading and what athletes need. And I don't want to be beholden to a whole set of other owners and commissioners and He actually didn't like a lot of what he saw in the dynamics and pro, pro team ownership.
And that was an idea I had to get my head around, but I eventually did. And I said, that's really interesting, Donovan. So you're saying we can start with a blank sheet of paper and design what a sports league could look like for the future, um, with no. kind of, um, limitations upon our imagination. And the good news was, [00:18:00] you know, despite the fact that, um, it was women's sports, it had so many troubles in the past 20 years.
In some ways that created an opportunity for Athletes Unlimited because when we went out and talked about some of the new ideas and I'll get to them in a second, there was actually a relatively receptive audience because people said we've tried to launch women's pro leagues in the past and they haven't worked.
So Yeah, sure. This is a crazy idea or different idea, but we're willing to listen. And and the idea that we really came around was twofold. One was the concept that fandom was changing. Um, and I don't want to speak for your boys and kids, but like, you know, one of the big trends I believe that is out there is that fans are following athletes more than they're following teams or leagues.
You know, I still love the Yankees. There's teams in New York that I still love besides them. They those types of things exist, but on the margin, there are more fans of athletes today who are who really care less about the teams that they're playing on. So we noticed that and we said in women's sports, you have such [00:19:00] incredible athletes.
It was one of my big observations. I realized that in American soccer, there were more women players you could identify than men in the United States. And I said, this is This is a real opportunity. So that was a big piece on the fan side. The other piece on the fan side was importance of values. The fact that fans really wanted to align with organizations that they actually believed in and thought were doing the right thing.
And then finally that seasons were too long that all of a sudden what had happened is regular seasons that got longer and longer and they meant less and less and teams were tanking. And so what if you could create a five week season that really had it. Athletes at the center rather than fixed teams.
Um, and as you said, with fantasy sports and with this concept of, of, of, you know, again, the excitement of every moment counting and every play counting. What if we create a system that would work that way? And that's what we came up with. We decided, let's invite Four teams were the best athletes to one city, and the season will start on week one with a draft.
Four captains will be identified, and they [00:20:00] will pick their teams for that week. The teams will play each other, and every Player will get points based on how well they do and how well their team dumps and they'll move up and down a leaderboard That would look like a NASCAR leaderboard or look like a golf leaderboard where every play Someone's either winning or losing points a lot of your points will come from how your team performs but some of the points will come from how you perform and at the end of week one leaderboard will come captains for week two And we'll do the same thing and we'll go for five weeks and at the end of week five, whoever's at the top of the leaderboard, who should be the person that's been on a winning team and has performed very well, which turned out to be the case, will take home the prize and they'll be the champion and everyone will get rewarded based on where they end up in the leaderboard.
So that was the competitive model. Um, and operationally, the idea was, how do we play in one city, relatively small venue? Be much more operationally efficient, avoid travel costs, avoid big venue costs, and focus on media and [00:21:00] social, digital, and live coverage of the games rather than selling tickets and popcorn.
And the, and the direct connection, this trend of direct connection with individual athletes rather than teams that you had identified, would, could not have happened, I don't think, without social media, right? Over 330 million Instagram followers. Messi, 256, I'm looking at now, 256 million Instagram followers.
And these are, you know, players overseas. You look at, you know, these players in the U. S. Like, it's not uncommon. 50 million, 100 million. Tom Brady, Steph Curry, LeBron James. Um, these are people with massive followings. And then you have athletes that you and I, professional athletes, who've never heard of who could still have millions.
of followers on social media. Social media did enable this, this phenomenon. Yeah, I think in a, in a very, very significant way. But, but I, I actually go back probably to the, you know, even 30 years before. I mean, I think of the advent of free agency and [00:22:00] what that did to sports. And, you know, I, I, I am a very big believer, um, you know, that, that, that, they're.
There has been a, I believe there's just been too much criticism of professional athletes out in the world. I'm a huge supporter. Obviously, I've now built Athletes Unlimited very much in partnership with the athletes. And that's another part we can talk about that's unique. But what we found out early in the planning, originally, we started out thinking we were going to launch a league.
We'd have an executive team. You know, Jonathan, myself, we'd find the right people and we'd put things together. We'd have commissioners and coaches. That was actually the original idea. But what happened is we actually went out and started to say, okay, we're going to launch softball. Let's talk to the players.
So we had our first meeting. Again, this goes back to 2019. Um, and we brought four players, softball players in and we spent a day talking. And all of a sudden we walked out of the meeting saying, this is crazy. Why don't we just work with them to actually design what the league should look like and come up with a model where we can work with them, consult with them.[00:23:00]
And every step of the way, we just kept saying, all right, here's a decision. Why don't we ask them? Why don't we, what should we do? Who should the players be? Well, why don't we ask them? How should we set up the competitive system? Why don't we ask them? And it continued to work every step of the way. And so, so I've become a huge believer because over the last two and a half years, I've now worked hand in hand with athletes across, you know, Softball, volleyball, now, which we operate lacrosse, um, and, and basketball, and I've seen it, but I do think in society in general, um, athletes haven't been given enough control.
Um, they haven't given enough say. There's been too many limitations put on them and, and yes, some of it's social media, some of it's the way, the way in which contracts have changed. I mean, we, we've seen that, um, with players moving from city to city in a lot of cases, there are very few players that start and end their career in the same city anymore.
And. The fact is fans care a lot about the players. Okay, so now let's talk about the, uh, this, this [00:24:00] economics, uh, issue where you make the athletes the real partners, which you, which you touched on. So can you just go a little deeper on that? Because to your point, I think most people see athletes as, you know, particularly if they're successful, as very well compensated, uh, not to mention the, You know, the income they generate from their contracts with, with the team on top of sponsorships, advertising, et cetera, et cetera.
So, what's wrong with that model? Well, well, there are two things. I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing per se wrong with that model, um, for those that it works for. I think that what we observed early on, um, is that, you know, especially in women's sports, we had a, a clear realization, um, that women's professional athletes had been, Undervalued, um, had been knocking on the platforms that they rightfully deserve that I can explain this and I and I and I mean this in a commercial sense, not in a societal sense.
I mean that, um, I am a [00:25:00] very big believer that, um, while it is true that the best product rises to the top eventually, it does. It does not happen without Um, a tremendous amount of support from institutions, organizations, for profit enterprises, and a lot of them make decisions, um, for, for, for, for a variety of reasons that aren't always the most rational.
So what I mean by that is I fundamentally believe that the, the, the competitiveness, the excitement, the energy of certain women's sports that we're active in is as good, um, You know, or better than some of the men's sports, but has not been given the type of airwaves, the type of press coverage, the type of visibility, the type of support that those sports have been given and that to create a successful business.
in a successful sports business, you need all of those things. It is not simply just about putting on the best product on the field. It's about the media coverage. It's about the press. It's about the sponsor involvement. [00:26:00] All of that. It's about the societal perceptions and how fandom is created and what it means to be a sportsman.
All of that. So that was my one of our starting points was that you had tremendously undervalued athletes. Um, as for You know, broadly speaking, what does it mean for athletes, whether they be men or women? Um, I think the question of why there is such a strong divide between labor and management, um, is something that's probably not just a question for sports.
It's a question for all industry. And I think we're seeing that now. And one of the reasons, you know, myself and Jonathan are so excited about what we're doing. Uh, and I think others is. You know, I think we have a, sports has an ability to impact culture and business and organizations and a lot of things, same, same as, so does art and media.
And I actually am hopeful that, you know, that, that we can have some small contribution to that overall debate that, that I think will be going on and will be more prevalent across business and society. As [00:27:00] fans, future fans. You know, interested fans, interested possible fans listening to this, uh, want to figure out, A, how to follow Sports Unlimited, and also, I'm sorry, Athletes Unlimited, and, uh, and what, like, the next, say, year will look like for your business.
What would you say? As a reminder, Athletes Unlimited runs four pro sports league. We run the only pro softball league in the United States. We run the only pro women's lacrosse league in the United States. The only women's pro volleyball league in the United States. And we run a basketball league as well.
A pro basketball league that, um, is largely, uh, participated in by WNBA players who historically have gone overseas in the offseason. And this year, for the first time, they had the opportunity to stay in the United States. Um, the, all of our games are televised. Um, so you, we just announced, uh, yesterday, a major deal with ESPN, uh, ESPN will be broadcasting, um, our softball season and our lacrosse season [00:28:00] on their traditional cable networks as well as on ESPN plus.
So there, every game this season will be, will be televised over the summer. Um, and you can tune in on ESPN and you can obviously, of course, follow us on, on social media. What we focus on is incredibly high quality, uh, game broadcasts. You'll see 10 cameras, you'll see mic'd up players, you'll see great interviews.
And then. We are doing all the storytelling that again, I think you would typically see, um, done by third party media companies, um, for other sports leagues available on our social channels available on our website, um, and increasingly, you know, creating great, great fan engagement opportunities. And I think for a lot of fans, um, you know, They probably have seen, if they're a sports fan, they've probably seen college softball on ESPN's airways.
I mean, it is predominant. There are over 1, 500 games a year that have been shown, uh, on ESPN. College lacrosse on the women's side is all over ESPN. And now there's this professional, there's the Premier League [00:29:00] lacrosse, right? That's on the men's side. Premier Lacrosse League, exactly right, is on the men's side.
So now ESPN's really created a very significant presence in the sport of lacrosse, both the college and the pro level. Um, and, you know, we're a big part of it now. Where do esports fit into, uh, your world, if at all? You know, they don't, um, listen, they don't per se. I think that, What I guess I would say is that when you think about the scoring system I designed, uh, you know, I designed that I outlined on the call earlier.
I think what you will see is as a fan of Athletes Unlimited, if you try it and you watch it, I think what It is a fan experience that evokes a lot of the same emotions and elements and feelings that fantasy sports would or maybe sports in the sense that every moment counts that if you just pay attention to it, you will see this leaderboard, which is moving with every play and you will start to follow the players and you will start to [00:30:00] identify.
Hopefully, even if you don't come in with a favorite player, you'll find a favorite player and then you'll be able to watch them go through the regular season. And again, I think what people love, um, About the Premier League as an example, um, or they love it about eSports. I love it. A fancy is that is that concept of their stakes on every play and every kind of every moment matters again.
It's why college football, you know, so popular now they're going to probably dilute it with the playoffs and everything else. But this concept, the regular season really matters. Every game matters. And that's something that we are really. Going deeper and deeper into and are even more and more committed to and so that's that's the fan experience The fan experience is you can watch you learn about the players you hear about their stories You get to know them as people but from a pure, you know Dynamism standpoint of the of what you're watching competitively.
You're watching a league where every moment counts All right, we will post, uh, information in the show notes on, on how to learn more about, uh, Athletes Unlimited and, and also the, the social media links. Uh, John, we're going to have to have you back on, [00:31:00] uh, call it in a year or so to update us on, on how The, you know, these, these sort of seasons or tournaments or however you, whatever, however you call them, play it out.
Uh, are there any, just before we let you go, are there any particular athletes, and maybe that puts you in an awkward position, you don't want to single anyone out, but are there any athletes that are sort of becoming stars already that, uh, you would encourage listeners to look out for? Oh, I definitely won't won't pick any.
Um, but I think it is exciting. Um, that, you know, we have this combination of both people who've played the sport for a long time, that play on the US national team, have competed in the Olympics or medals. And then also, you know, next week we'll be conducting our, our, our softball college draft. And later this summer, we'll be doing our lacrosse college draft.
So you'd be able to see, you know, both rookies who are coming right out of school and also veterans who've played and will again, competed the highest levels around the world already. And so, um, there's something for everybody, but, but I think, um, it's incredibly high level of competition and I'm [00:32:00] guaranteed that, you know, people will find it exciting and fun to watch.
All right, John, thanks for doing this. Congratulations on launching an extremely innovative business in an extremely uncertain time. It's, it's, it's like, uh, no small feat. Take care. Thanks, Dan.
To keep up with Athletes Unlimited, go to their website, auprosports. com. That's the letter A, the letter U, prosports. com. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.