So I will ask the owner Mogul about owner mogil questions and we'll bring him and Michael Parker's hanging out with us.
It has been entirely too long, my friend.
Great to see it has been My apologies, John. It's been busy summer, but.
I mean, but busy summer is a good thing.
Though it's been a great thing. It sure has.
Well.
We just got back from a week in California.
So it was oh, oh, oh oh a week a week in California? Were there beaches? Was their golf?
There are no golf but beaches? Yeah, great family vacation. We did San Diego and La and Joshua Tree.
It was amazing San Diego. Yes, we know of San Diego.
What I was discussing before you came in and kind of the opening kickoff set up, it's I was discussing the Tiago Al model situation, and this is where I wanted to to kind of ask the owner Mogul about things when it comes to economics and contracts and all of the shenanigans that are there. And I wanted to ask specifically when it comes to like dealing with contracts
and players and all these kinds of things. Have you had to deal with so much legal stuff in your life in having to deal with player contracts and legalities and making sure that things get paid and everybody knows the the the the numbers on the bank accounts and everything. What is it like dealing with financials and players and trying to honor agreements. What's that like for a mogul and training and a club that is working its way off the ground.
Well, I think you're asking me from my current.
Yes, yes, the current job in relation to you know you with your current gig, just what it's like to have to deal with all these different machinations and everything, because I know that folks will sit there. We were specifically discussing the Thiago thing and where they're at. Land United's owned thirty million dollars and it's being slowed down in the courts and the guy doesn't want to pay and it's like I'll gladly pay you tuesday for jiagu Almada today and all these kinds of things.
And I was just trying to kind of.
Pick your brain a little bit about what it's like to be in the in those rooms and negotiating contracts and honoring deals and being a solid businessman that kind of thing.
Yeah, And I think that we take the stance that soccer is a small world and so relationships are super important, and so you know, we know that not every negotiation is going to be perfect and there's always some feelings involved, But can we just be truthful and open and honest about situations and when an agreement is made, that's the agreement and there's no backtracking. So yeah, we've got, for example, we've got two players who we told we'd get green cards,
and that's a long process. They might not even still be with us when we finalize these green cards, but it's important for me that we follow through with said commitment because that's what we said we would and so that's important. And we haven't obviously dealt with a lot of transfers yet, we're just maybe getting involved with things like that, and so those conversations are always a little bit more tricky, I would assume, you know, as far as when the players already gone and trying to get
sell on fees and all that stuff. But again, I just feel like you do the right thing and that's it comes back to you one way or the other, good or bad.
Yeah, and there's always you mentioned the whole thing about it being a small world, and it's just one of those where your word is your bond, and I mean there's hand there's the handshake and your reputation and those kinds of things. And I would imagine that that in your time dealing with the the new avocation, that you might come across some dudes that you might sit there in the spider senses go up and you're like, no, I don't know if we want to deal with that guy.
You know.
It's it's like rude awakenings at points from a business perspective, where you sit there and go, Okay, that's a guy that I really don't want us to mess with because that could take us down a bad path. And especially with finances being what they are these days, you don't want to sit there and look at the dude and go yeah, I'll do that and then get jeopardized for going down that road for sure.
And where it becomes more complicated though, is so especially for South American and African players, it's they could have three agents, uh, you know, three people that think they
are players agent. And I just remember hearing things when he signed Barco about the how things went down and just the degree of difficulty and just the situation and the people that expected to get paid and there's just so much and so I doubt that's unique to Barco, right, And that's where I think it becomes more complicated, is
who's getting what out of these deals? Because you know, for some of these guys, they're, yeah, they're setting their life on one player or two players, and so this is life changing money for them and they don't want to miss it and they will do anything and everything to make sure they get what they think they deserve.
And that's yes.
And to to Alex's point, using the technical jargon of the back rood, no take backs, Yeah, there's no takesie backsies, there's there's no takebacks in these kinds of negotiations.
Yeah.
And so right now with Rhode Island FC, Sir, I look at the standings. Actually, I was told to ask a question and you may not have an answer to it, but I was supposed to ask you about the situation with Conno on the roof.
Yeah, he got a red card at halftime of a game a few weeks ago and he was trying to figure out where he was going to watch the second half of the game and decided that he wanted the best view in the house, so he went on the roof and then you know he was up there with another assistant coach, and then the photograph came with him and just yeah, it got a little bit of a notoriety.
Well, when you're on the roof in your new building, is it an easy thing to access?
Can you get safely up and down? Can you watch?
Or is it like NASCAR and spotters where you're kind of like nineteen floors up.
I would not be watching the game from up there personally. I understand it's a good view, but my fear of heights would not allow me to go stand on the roof. But I know that, you know, he didn't have a pre set location to go, and he wanted to be by himself and not bothered with anyone. So he made the most of it and it kind of blew up a little bit, which was in a good way.
Yes, understandably.
So you're in the playoffs right now, You're in the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. Your takeaways right now at being five nine and five and working the chaos of the East where it is Louisville, Charleston, and then a lot of you other folks.
Yeah, it sure is. Yeah, we haven't been thrilled, honestly, it's been a disappointing season so far, if I'm being honest. We had high expectations to really push to get into the top four and we just haven't been good enough. And we've had some injuries and that have hurt us. And we're relatively healthy right now, which is good, so hopefully we can make a run here. We did just sign another player, a Jamaican player who was with them for the Gold Cup, who I think he'll help us
out in the attack, which is where we're struggling. We're struggling to score goals this year and so we need to we need to move things in the right direction there and it's been a struggle though. So we've got a month left in the window. We will be active
and try and right this ship. Because yeah, it's to your point, there's not a lot of space in between three and twelve, so anything can happen, which is a good thing when we're having a season that we're not proud of yet, so we know we can turn it around and make a run.
Yeah, and so we had to we had to get those questions out because of the well rounded, three dimensionalness of Michael park Kers.
We had to get those questions in this.
Morning with all of the stuff you mentioned going to Joshua Tree in California and spending time with family. When it comes to mentoring, how important is it, I guess to a recharge and be reassess where you were during the previous season and school year and everything so you're ready for the twenty five twenty six beyond goals minering rush that you and Greg and the still to be publicly an outstand or named in an individual that you're adding to the stacks are being added to the stacks.
Yes, it's it is important, and it's been a constant battle for me this summer a little bit where it's kind of hit me that, hey, I've got four summers left with my kids before they're out of the house, and I'm so balancing, Hey, getting some work done, but also if they want to go do something, I want to be available and hang out and they still want to hang out with me, which is cool. So to be able to do that, and so I haven't been as productive this summer as I envisioned myself. But I've
also really enjoyed the summer, which is important. And it's the same thing for athletes, right we know that, hey, you need to get ready for next season, but you know, being in a good space mentally is just as important, and you know, taking advantage of some time off is super important. So yeah, it's it's been nice. And that said, I mean, even when I'm on vacation, I'm answering a couple of texts and I you know, a kid got two college i D camps this week, so I talked
to him on Monday. So it's it's little things. But you know, I definitely have slowed things down a little bit over the past few weeks and trying to step back a little bit, which is important sometimes.
Yeah, I was going to ask, do your mentee still circle back here when it's the summer and the calendar?
Do they have that kind of constant contact?
Are they checking in those kinds of things even if even if they don't have anything going on. Are they still just checking in randomly to sit there and say, hey, I had a question about X, Y or Z.
Yeah. Yeah, And it depends on the age. It's some of the older players who are doing college things in the summer becomes a little bit more important. You know. I think the younger kids are kind of checked out a little bit, which is good. We tell them to check out and make sure they do check out a little bit, which is which is great. So, yeah, it's more of the older crowd in the summer of preparing for college and ID camps and you know, maybe some
showcases and big tournaments. When we were down at San Diego, the Surf Cup was going on, so uh yeah, there's there's I mean, throughout the summer there's always these big tournaments and showcases and things. So just helping kids get prepared for those things.
What did you learn about yourself as a mentor last season? I guess we'll phrase it that way. What did you learn about yourself as a mentor last year that you might not have known or that got reinforced about what you thought you knew about yourself.
You know, I think that even though I've got a confidence about my knowledge and what we're doing, I still think there's sometimes this doubt that creeps in of Hey, you know, am I really making a difference, Is it getting through? Is this what we envisioned it could be
or what we thought it could be. And so every now and then we get really really good feedback that says that it just validates kind of what we're doing in division and how we're helping players, And I think that's that's always nice and that's always important to get because there's sometimes where we have sessions and we don't know, you know, we think session went great with a team or an individual, or even four sessions with an individual, but maybe they're just on the quiet side, or there's
just not a ton of feedback, and that doesn't mean it hasn't gone well and it hasn't been successful. So it is nice sometimes to get that validation to know, oh, Okay, hey, we're on the right mark here. And I think that's some of the conversations we've had with partnerships and different events and things in the future, I think has shown us that hey, we're on the right path. We just need to continue to grind in it and grow slowly.
But that.
What we set out to do we are doing.
How do you and Greg and Beyond goals as an entity gauge success? How do you grade that considering all of the individuals that you touch, all of the individuals that you consult, all the individuals that you mentor all of the organizations that you're in bits and pieces with. How do you and Greg and everybody there at BGM gauge success? And you can take that word and put it wherever you want, but how do you gauge success for what you've been doing over the last.
Couple of years.
I think there's there's a there's two different aspects to success. One is obviously financial, and then two is the motivational success. So are we growing the company year over a year? That's important, you know. I think the next big piece of growth is our sales inbound instead of us finding an outbound, which is slowly occurring, which would be nicer when that fully transitions. B g TV is not the success yet that we want it to be, but I
think it's going to grow. But then, to my point earlier, is just the feedback from athletes from families of hey this is making a difference, or hey you really helped my child, or hey this really helped me prepare for this upcoming season, for this tournament, for this tryout, for this ID camp. The more we hear that that's that's the SSS for sure. And then anytime a player or a family lets other people know about us and we
get more sign ups from that that we know as success. Right, if we're getting word of mouth sales, we know that we're we're making a difference, we're doing good things.
So then how difficult is it for you and Greg as you're growing to be patient considering we know where ground zero was? Yeah, for sure, we know where you are now. We know how competitive the two of you were on the field, and obviously that carries over into business life and wanting to carry on in the next stage. Is how difficult is it to be patient? Because you mentioned BGTV as an example, it's about investment up front, you know, whether it's elbow grease or what have you,
knowing what you want it to be. So how difficult is it to be patient knowing how you were on the field as an athlete.
Yeah, it's challenging because it's not necessarily Hey, the more work you put into it, the more success you have right away. And I guess that's true on the field as well. Sometimes for some players you just have to wait for your moment. But yeah, I think that's where the marketing group that we work with helps out because
they know that. For one example is the blogs that we do for the website, and they always said, hey, once you start this, you won't see results for about eighteen months, right, but the SEO and all the algorithms and stuff will eventually lead more people to the website, which will lead more to inbound sales and things that you know, we don't have to put the work in to go find the players or to really spread the word.
The word will spread by itself. And so you know, we've stayed committed to the blog, and same thing with BGTV and staying committed to doing the videos every week even though we probably have twenty thirty members right now, but the goal is to get two thousand or three thousand, and so yeah, but we've had some conversations recently with a club and then an organization who are interested and
want to figure out some way to institute things. And so then you get the spark and you're like, okay, hey, this is this can be what we think it can be.
And I would imagine that the feedback is cool and you're like, yeah, you know, it's but just the anxiousness of wanting to succeed and wanting to continue to help, and wanting to aid, wanting to continue to help, be wanting to continue to grow. See you know what you want to do, all these kinds of things. It's it's
got to be. It's just this difficult mix of you want to sit there and it's like, ah, I know what we're doing, I know what's going to work, and it's just like, come on, let's get this thing going the where to the level that you want it to.
I imagine that you're like that.
There are some days where you're just kind of like, come on, man, we got to get this done.
Let's most people, some conversations are very frustrating, and yes, test patients with huh, not only organizations but people, and you're just like, gosh, let us help you or let us help your kids, and you'll see it. But we know, hey, not everything is for everyone, and not everyone's going to see the bigger picture or honestly want to see the bigger picture.
Yeah, it's like they just you know, don't tell me about the birth, show me the baby. Basically one of those kind of things. It's just like to there, what was the last book you read.
I have a book that I brought on vacation that I read zero pages of John.
So, what's that book that you want to read?
It's John Wooden's book. I can't remember the title, but his book I wanted to read, and.
So I heard he was pretty good at what he.
Did, as have I. So that's why I thought I needed to read it. But I haven't gotten there yet. But kids start up school next week here in Columbus, so i'll I'll have a little bit more time to get back to reading.
Do.
One of the things that I know I need to get in the picture frame is the pyramid of success when it comes to and I know that they exist because look if Ted Lasso has it in his office at AFC Richmond. I know that I can get the framework of the pyramid of success somewhere.
You know, when it comes to.
Keeping up to date with the latest things and reading, I know that that's something else you need. You need to kind of clone yourself at points I would imagine to sit there and it's like I need to have this version of me do this and get back to me. I need to have this version of me do this and get back to me. How difficult, is it to juggle all of the different use to make sure that you are devoting the amount of effort that you want to devote to all of these different us these days.
Yeah, there's a challenge for sure, because you know where they're in the Rhode Island hat and then the mentoring hat, and then obviously the dad hat. And yeah, it's sometimes you know, there's overlap and decisions and I could do a lot more traveling to Rhode Island to Atlanta two events and things, but that takes away from the dad hat a lot. And the Dad hats the most important
hat right now. So you know, there's always decisions to make, and I've learned to say no and that's important and so you know, I do what I can and know that, hey, that's the best I can do right now.
Tom Ayo, the Executive director, League's Cup joining us in about ten minutes after we have our Friday free Kick conversation. I guess catching up with Cap is probably the best way to phrase what we're doing today.
Is this true, sir?
What Ropes has brought to the table, The Big Red is going to be a part of BGM.
Is this true?
Big Red was originally part of the conversation when we were starting BGM.
Okay, it was the three of us that we're.
Going to start BGM, and then he decided, you know what, I'm going to focus on on the field coaching and I'll leave them mentoring to you all. So he was part of it at the startup, helped us build the websites and do some things and had discussions, but then he just decided, no, I'm going to focus elsewhere. So he's not joining us. No, but we will have I believe John, and I've said this for a few weeks
I think. But Monday or Tuesday we're supposed to announce our newest mentor so we're excited for that.
I bet you know, I mean, you know. I mean, it's just this is part of the growth that we talk about.
It's h holding holding us, holding us hostage Informationally, it's like, hey, wait a minute, wait, this is promised.
Who is this individual?
How difficult is it to make sure that this information doesn't get leaked.
We're not that big, We're not that important, John, Come on, So I think only the five of us know the Greg, Greg and I the marketing folks that help us out and I'm oviously the lady that's going to join us.
So how important is it to make sure that you have the representation both male and female sites, considering what WOSO has been doing and building here in the States, and to make sure that that it's that there's an equal representation, I guess is probably the best.
Way to phrase it.
Yeah, the women's game has grown tremendously, and yeah, I've got a big respect for NWSL now that I watch a lot more games, I watch a lot more highlights for the BGTV, And so first it was like, hey, we need to include as many or almost as many highlights of the women's game as we do men, right, why not? And but that led us into hey, we know that younger soccer female soccer players want probably to
be mentored by fellow female, so that's important. And so yeah, we always thought, hey, if we grow or when we grow, we want to add a female and so we're at that point now, which is great, and so we're excited to bring her on and see what Kaa can do for the growth of BGM.
Well, and is there a universality of messaging and mentoring or are there things that when you bring in someone who is from the women's soccer side that are different than mentoring from the side that you and Gregor coming from it, other than another voice in the room, or there are other things that we're missing out on not knowing the women's soccer side and the perspective coming in.
I'd assume. So, I mean, I don't want to be dumb to think that, say, hey, you know, soccer player is a soccer player. Whatever I know can help you if you're a male or female. You know, I'm sure there's things I don't know for certain, but I think that the growth will tell us if all of a sudden our numbers increase significantly. On the word them inside, we know, okay, yeah, they definitely would rather be mentored by a female than Gregor I, which is totally fine.
Can we still help them for sure, but maybe they feel more comfortable, so, you know, whatever it is where we want to explore that.
I bet you didn't think you were going to get into a big philosophical discussion this morning about BGM and all the growth and everything leading into the new season.
Digit very open minded coming on to your program, John, because we never know, you know, there's different trails we go down sometimes.
True, but it's just it's one of those things where it's fascinating to see your to see BGM grow, to see the two of you branch out in this way, to see what you're tackling as you're learning and growing from a business perspective and bringing the athletic perspective and reaching out to those new generations. To me, it's just been the whole growth curve has been fascinating and building a business and all those kinds of things. And what folks may not know is that, like I said, it's
the whole thing about the dog in the pond. You know that analogy that I bring sometimes where you know, if does Deacon like to chase sticks in the water.
She's not around the water enough honestly for us to really know she's gotten in before, but not a ton.
Okay, Well, on those instances where we see the stereotypic dog and the stereotypic owner on the side of the lake, owner throws the stick in, dog goes and gets the stick, what do we see above the water line? We see basically stick in the mouth of the dog. Dog just kind of huffing and puffing and getting back to shore. What we don't see is the dog doing all this underneath the water line to make sure that everything's fine to get back to shore.
And so it was just it's.
An opportunity sometimes is the beginning of a new season to find out about everything going on below the waterline that folks don't get the chance to know about, to learn about what it's like for folks that they've seen as an athlete go into this new part of their lives. And so that was I guess part and parcel to when that door got opened this morning. I was like, Oh, let's go there and see what's going on. That was why I brought it. I love it, but okay, before
you go. Atlanta Nighted gets out of League's Cup. They scored a lot of goals up against Atlas. Obviously, it's been along slog slog continues to be long.
What have you seen?
Yeah, it's good to get a win hopefully that obviously can provide a little momentum going back into the league play. It's good to see Alexi playing well. Latte laugh. I don't know. I still think he's a good player, So I think that I still think the attack can get it done. I don't. I don't know why it can't. With Miguel lat Sava and Alexi, it just seems like I don't know what's holding them back. But the talent is there, and so yeah, on one hand, you think, hey.
I don't think you're alone in that assessment with their.
Yeah, it's just frustrating because it's it's like why, And it's disappointing to be in the situation that we in because now it's kind of like, well, I guess we're looking forward to next year because I don't know if
the playoffs it's still doable, right, this playoffs is still doable. Yeah, you can't have many losses, and just given how the season's gone so far, it's so unlikely, but crazy things have happened, so you know, Shoot, they beat Miami last year when nobody gave them a single chance, so you never know. But for me, it's more probably getting ready for next year, seeing who's going to be part of that roster and who's not, and who can you rely on and what youngsters do you want part of the team,
giving them more time and things. So that's probably the focus. As disappointing as that is.
Yeah, two weeks left the transfer window. We see what happens with five out and four in, we'll see where we go from here. As always, my friend, it's great to see you on Fridays and find out the growth of Beyond Goals Menering b GMTV and we'll hit the trumpet when the announcement is made about the third member of the group.
So looking forward to it, my friend.
It's always great to see you enjoy the time that is left before school starts and it gets running all over again.
Thank you, John, have a great weekend.