Time to catch up with our friends. It's Sporting Jacks. And you want to know why we're catching up with our friends at Sporting Jack So it's because, well, frankly, I mean right, you look off my right shoulder and you see that the evidence is always here, so it's always close to the headset and we have to find
out what's going on with our buddy Steve Livingson. So all right, my first question for you, sir, is right now you've got two teams that are on the field in the W League and in USL League two, so you're kind of getting your feet wet into this whole thing with League two right now as we're talking first four matches, you're in a street fight in the Southeast,
which you kind of anticipated you would be. And then in the W League right now you're running rough shot, winning your first four and you've only given up two in your first eighteen with eighteen that you've scored in your first four.
When you look at the W League and USL League two so far, what do you think.
I think we've been unlucky with the two losses that we had in League two, to be honest with you, with a couple of close calls, they are in a penalty on a debatable decision on the women's side, they're crushing it. There's no doubt they're crushing it, and they're crushing it without two of our leading W League players that we thought would be in the squad this year, but they've just been pulled in for international duty in
Ashton Perth and Georgia Brown. So arguably the you know, the best two players on the squad out Yet those girls that are on the squad have stepped up and filled it out and are doing an amazing job. Are getting ready for a game tonight uncharacteristically Thunder has rolled in here to Florida, so then delaying that one. But no, I think in terms of the w League and lead two teams, we'd like to take credit for it, but we really can't. It's it's been what was there before
with Florida Elite Sean Bubb and his team. Michael and Levo, the two coaches of those two teams have done an amazing job and they've done it over over a number of years. We've been fortunate to kind of move the brand into those two teams at you know, just a good time and being really grateful to to kind of ride the ride the wave of the development that they've put in. We are hopeful that a number of those players that are playing W League in League two will
be Super League Championship League players of the future. We are at the moment implementing a program that will link our pro teams into our youth development squads through into League two and W League as well. We just announced the acquisition the signing, if you like, of Steve Fell
the US national team pay Performance. Luckily for US, Steve lives here in the Jacksonville areas in August team and only spends about thirty percent of his year on his international duty, so we get him for the other seventy
percent and he's an exceptional fellow. What he's going to bring normally to our pro teams, but also extend that into the youth programs, the youth set up, the youth organization, and the structure that we're building through Mark Warburton, through Sean bubb I think is going to be exceptional.
How do you keep all of this straight considering that you have a runway for leagues coming up in the future. You've got two going on right now, You've got Super League coming up. How do you keep all of this straight with all the personnel and all of the players, and all the contracts and all the negotiations.
Do you have a big float chart that I don't see there in the office?
How are you right here? Right over here? I'm not going to show you, but there's a considerable whiteboard up there that is broken into maybe I don't know, sixteen sections, and I call it. I call it the splate, the splate, the plate spinning board, because each of those sections kind of represents a particular plate that we're spinning, whether it be investment for the team, ticketing, soccer, ops, partnerships, preparations at unf you know, whatever it is, it's up there
on the board. I think, you know, I am fortunate, extremely fortunate and blessed to have an amazing, amazing front office team. We're now up to about twenty two in our front office, which is great. Our ticket sales team have been killing it, knocking out the park. Our partnerships team are being out doing an equally good job. We've got something in the region of about thirty different potential
sponsors that we're about to close on. You know, We've just excellence across the board, our operations people or soccer people. We're just truly fortunate. So yeah, I couldn't handle all of us without them. So those are the guys that do it.
How long did it take you in your career to understand the importance of delegating and not being like hovering over shoulders and things like that, Knowing that you have all of these chainsaws, specifically in this case that you're having to juggle, how long did it take you to just sit there and trust the folks that you bring in to do their job and understand that their focus is on the path that you all want.
It took me a while. I mean, I'll be honest with you, probably you know, in a thirty year career, it probably took me twenty to figure that one out. You know, being a younger guy, you always think you can do everything and anything and can handle anything, and you know, I think it takes time experience to develop that wisdom and realize that you're only as strong as the rest of your team. And you know, again, I
put a lot of credit to them. I'm really just the conductor of the orchestra here, just making sure that everything's in place and everything's working and the plates continue to spin. But those are the guys that are doing the job. I think hiring and selection is really important as well, making sure that you get the right people and then you know, the idea is to let them go on and get out their way and support them
where you can. And yeah, I think a lot of CEOs and management executives will tell you that that's fairly straightforward. But it took me a wee while to figure that one out. And we're here now though.
So when you have questions, I mean, obviously, since you're at the top of the you know, the top of the pyramid, do you have faults that you reach out to outside the organization that you have as peers or role models that it's like, hey, I've got a question, can you you know, then they're going to pick up the phone.
Yeah. I like to think of myself more is the one neck to strangle John rather than being at the top of the top of the file. But yes, absolutely, I think you know, internally, we spend a lot of time collaborating and talking. I think that's important. I think ultimately it's my job to drive things forward and make decisions and help but you know, when I get into areas where I need help, the great thing is that we've got an incredible ownership group that I can turn to.
We've got investors kind of across the spectrum. Some of our investors are our leaders in their industry that have done extremely well, whether it be in event management or marketing, sports marketing for example. And I really turned to those guys a lot to chat with them. I think. Also, you know, our ownership team read by led by Ricky Kaplan.
He's a younger guy than me, but Ricky is a visionary and does a is always thinking about things, always looking at ways that we can approach things and do things, and challenging the state is quot To be honest with you, I'm a big believer in best practice, but even at times that can be challenged, and you know, Ricky does a great job of that. I mean, he definitely is a visionary and thinks big. You know, he likes to say we're all Andrew will have a big God, and
you know that's why he likes to think big. So really, without Ricky's thinking, without that that group of support, we just we wouldn't be where we are right now.
When you have something that you're building from the ground up, like you've been doing there, that's sporting Jacks, and you want to be visionary in your approach, but you understand that you're in a league framework, and you want to break down barriers, and you want to do all these new things, but understand that you're doing it within the framework of a sport and a professional sport and a league.
How difficult is it to juggle trying to maintain a status quo and at the same time be a visionary in something.
That's new, that is established. Does it make any sense?
Yeah? It does. I think you know, there's a basic foundational level. No matter what you do, you've got to take care of the fundamentals, the x's and o's. You know, you can't sell tickets unless you've get a ticket sales team. You can't develop sponsorships unless you get really good people that can go out there and drive partnership sales for you.
I think generally speaking, you know, we try and we try and take care of all those fundamentals, all those foundational things to start with, and then I think, you know, once we get comfortable there, we can start then looking at other better ways. Of doing things. You know, is there an easier way of doing things for us? We're doing a number of things you know, as we start up that some people would probably say, you know why you can wasting time on that, You get enough in
your plate. But I think it's important to continue to challenge that. And again, working within the league structure, we like to keep the league informed of what we're doing. We just don't go out and do stuff. We like to talk to them. We like to share that we'd love to be again a case study for other teams around the league. And anything that we get right, we'd love to share that. Anything we get wrong, we love to share that too. And you don't always get it right.
But you know, again, I think we're kind of proud in that respect that we tried to do things the right way. We try to do them, you know, and I considered fashion where we're going to give ourselves a chance of being successful. But again, we're happy to share any of that with anybody that wants to know.
So, what was it like for you and for the organization to have the big reveal where you get to show off the kike and the jersey.
In front of all of those things.
To finally have that step of this process out there in the open. It's like, hey, here's what we're going to look like, because that's part of it.
That was awesome. I mean, it took probably about three months of planning for that one, but you know, and there was a lot of different components to that, a lot of different people. Adidas obviously, we are presenting partner on that one, and we're a huge support I think, you know, our early discussions with Adidas were, hey, guys, we'd like to do this, We'd like to do it big, we like to do it with the city as a backdrop,
and they were incredibly supportive of that. So they got it really from it from an early point, and and we're supportive throughout. You know, the city of Jacksonville were great, Our partners or sponsors came in and supported that event. It really was truly a kind of it's flipping to say it, but you know, a team, you know, pursuit and we all work together to make that event so successful, and you know, I think, you know, just the event
itself as we rolled it out was fun. It was just a lot of fun because we put a lot of work into it. Obviously, we were kind of biting our nails a little bit because of the weather partners that were passing, you know, downtown Jacksonville at you know, five o'clock on a Thursday evening. But we got away with it. And the best thing about that whole event was when we introduced the league too. In w League
team players. These these are kids that range you know, between sixteen and twenty two, and for some of them, this is the first time that they'd ever stepped on a stage or are being showcased in a way, and it was just it was wonderful. It was just great to introduce them to the community. And you know, as a result of that, I mean, had we had a game a couple of weeks ago, our first home game, we had close to three thousand people turn out for
that game. So it's all about kind of making it, you know, pertinent, making it real, introducing those players to the community, and encouraging the community to come out and support them.
Steve Livingston hanging out with us for the Sporting Jacks update and how much Super League are you watching these days?
Well, we're getting down to the end of it, so not as much as as has been watching but to be to be honest with you, John, I don't get an awful lot of time. I mean I kind of relegate that again to our technical teams to go out and look at that. They've got this wonderful program called why Scout where they can dial up any player at any time and take a look at them. They've been spending some time traveling to some of the games, you know,
taking in you know, the atmosphere, doing some scouting. Technically, we can't can I sign anybody until I think it's July the first or something like that. From other teams, we have a free agent list that we're looking through. So yeah, I leave that to them that they are the they are the experts and that. But again I think I think the announcements that we made in the past couple of weeks are going in to kind of indicate,
you know, the level that we're working at here. And there's been a lot of local involvement in that, you know, with our first to Ashland and Georgia, terrific players that were then called up for international duty, you know, then announcement today on on Zara, who's a local girl as well, plays at UNF and then Caroline and part of the
two more kind of experienced players. I think you'll see as we go through these announcements a nice mix of local, younger, more season professionals, and then we'll get an international players to come as well. So I'm really excited about the work that's been done around that, and you know how how that roster's been built. We'll see how it goes.
Ye have a like worth Caroline Murray from New Kind of Connecticut. Parker Rabbits with Kansas, has the relationship with Allen kirkup there with Sporting Jack's associate head coach. When international players are dialed up in might be something that you might have a conversation with Warburton about.
Or just want to let involve.
Would you have international players either reach out or are interested? What's that like to sit there and now that they're interested in something new and conquering what you guys want to accomplish coming out of the Blacks.
I think it's been terrific. Again, his international reputation, he's a name out there, has certainly opened, you know, additional doors for us that maybe we wouldn't have got. And I think you'll see that reflected in international players when we make the announcements on them. We're just going through the visa process with a lot of them right now. But I think it's been a nice combination as well. Mark has really focused a lot on those international players.
But we've then you know, been complemented by you know, the work with Stacey and Allen and Becky Burley are consultant have done as well in identifying US players and younger potential players. And then we've had a lot of input as well from our academy. Sean Bob and his team have done a great job of identifying, you know, some diamonds and they're off there as well that can command to help us. So I feel really good about you know that that group that's that's put us together.
All right.
So now that you've got lightning to dance around and it kind of shocks everything going on where you've got to go to generator power, what are the next things to cross off on the are you.
Going to hire?
I guess my next question, are you going to hire Tim Degan as your official staff mediologist?
We probably, we probably should. We do have we do have a television partnership with First Coast News. Tim's old Tim's old station and Lewis his his replacement. We'll probably recruit Lewis and to do our pre match Whaler forecast. You know that we that we show in the video board in the stadium. So yeah, we would have been would have been nice to have Tim there. We just just missed him. He could have he could have hung on for another, you know, another ten months. Tim do is a favor.
I mean, come on now, I mean you get you get Chris Porter over there to hang out with you, and uh yeah, Chris is uh I've known Chris forever, but it's it's really good to see how everything continues to grow and involved. I just wanted to poke my head in the door and see what's going on and have you survived stuff that never happens in North Florida in the middle of an afternoon, late spring and early summer.
As always, my friend, great to see it. We'll catch up soon.
Thank you, John, all the best as always,