Welcome to Tickets to Travel, the business of travel experiences, the podcast where we just don't explore the world of travel and entertainment. We unpack the stories, innovations, and occasionally sports fandom heartbreaks that make this industry tick. I'm Mario Bedouin and today we've got a special one, guys.
It blends passion, partnerships, and a full court press to put lacrosse on the map ahead of its first ever Olympic appearance at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Our guest today is Will Blake, Vice President of Corporate Partnership Development at USA Lacrosse. What's Will's mission? It's a big one.
To grow the sport, not just across the U. S., beyond the lacrosse obsessed Northeast, where the sport's already a way of life. But also globally, where the challenge is introducing an entirely new audience to the excitement of the game. Imagine trying to turn curious spectators into die hard fans, one face off at a time.
All while balancing regional quirks, cultural barriers, and a ticking Olympic countdown clock. It's like building a sports empire from scratch. With a shot clock running, and as if that wasn't enough, Will's also a diehard Chicago White Sox fan. We're not saying that makes him the ultimate underdog storyteller, but let's just say he knows a thing or two about perseverance.
Will, we feel your pain, man. Tickets to travel is a safe space. With more than a decade of experience in partnerships, strategy, and revenue development, Will is no stranger to turning ideas into big wins. He's worked with WWE where he built global partnerships and at major league baseball, where he helped connect brands with some of the most passionate fans in sports.
Now at USA Lacrosse, he's doubling down on expanding the sports footprint and creating partnerships that could change the game entirely. But why should this matter to you, our loyal listeners in the online travel and ticketing industries? Curators of unforgettable travel experiences? Well, because lacrosse is growing, and with growth comes opportunity.
From creating fan experiences that drive travel to building ticketing ecosystems for a new wave of passionate followers, this conversation is about more than just sports. It's about the business of making unforgettable moments happen. So buckle up, because today we'll talk about breaking out of regional strongholds, building fan bases from scratch, and why partnerships are the secret sauce of success.
Why lacrosse might just be your next big ticket to success. And yes, we'll also give Will some air time to process the white socks trauma. We all have our coping mechanisms, but as always, ladies and gentlemen, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because tickets to travel starts now.
Hey, welcome to tickets to travel. The only podcast that talks about the. Business of travel experiences. I'm your host Mario Bedouin and today we have Will Blake from USA Lacrosse. Will, thank you for coming to the pod. No, thank you for having me. It's uh, it's great to be here. Well, you're probably a pretty busy guy because I heard USA Lacrosse is now going to be in the Olympics. Is that right?
Yes, sir. Big run up. LA 28. That's when the USA and the rest of the world lacrosse takes the Olympics by storm. Well, I mean, we're going to touch on some of that stuff because obviously you have had a career where you've seen a bunch of different entities sort of develop their strategies around this.
And you're probably taking some of those cues into your current role. But a lot of the things that we've been talking about lately on Tickets to Travel is really about 2025 being the year of the superfan. If I'm not mistaken, you're from Chicago, right? Yes, sir. So that makes you a Cubs fan? Oh, God. No. Uh, so, no.
My, my family is all Southside Irish. Oh. And when my, when my grandfather moved the family up from Bridgeport to Lincoln Park, he was nearly excommunicated from the family for moving north of Elston. Is that right? Oh, yeah. And then my father took us to the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Right. And I'm kind of all over that greater Chicagoland area, all through Cubs country, but good guys wear black all day long.
You'll stand on that. Last year made it tough. Last year made it a little tougher to stand on it, but no, I mean, best jerseys in the league, man. Yeah. I mean, but it's been a while since you guys have been good. I mean, I, yes, I actually have one tie to the white socks and it's that I think the last time you guys were good was like 2005.
That's not the last time we were good, that's the last time we won. But kudos to you for remembering that, because CSPN usually forgets. Well, no, the other reason is because Jermaine Dye, the big J. Dye guy, is, he went to the rival high school of mine. Really? He's from Vacaville, California, and I lived in Fairfield, California, and we used to see him just dominate everybody.
So, even back then, I mean, that's like How many years? I was like, that guy is amazing. So I always sort of tracked his career. And that was, I mean, he got MVP, I believe. Yes, he did. 2005 World Series MVP, Jermaine Dye. Look at that. Look at that. Well, I mean, that's probably created a couple of opportunities being a fan of the white sides. Have you ever traveled to go see them?
Yes. So what I used to do was I would go with my dad to Cleveland to, uh. The Jake, uh, now Progressive Field, and we'd catch, we'd catch the Sox at, the Sox at Indians, and it'd be awesome. It was, it was great. You get to experience a whole other city, whole other area surrounding the stadium, like, and my dad went to John Carroll, so Cleveland is always sort of near and dear to his heart, so he got to kind of show me around like a, another city that was important to him.
Because if you know anything about people from Chicago, the first thing that they love to tell you about is that they're from Chicago. Yeah. The Bears. Yeah. Uh, which type of, you know, thick pizza you eat as well as, uh, obviously the White Sox or the Cubs. I mean, that clearly is a, is a divide in the city.
It is. That is absolutely a line of delineation, right? Like closest analog is Yankees and Mets, like the White Sox, you know, the Mets of, of Chicago. Chicago. It's one of those things that it's a badge, right? That that whole town is, you know, like if the bulls are good, they're in it when the Hawks were in their run, like, yeah, sure.
We're on board summer. It's, are you wearing blue or are you wearing black? There you go. And then from Labor Day, through the new year. Everybody's wearing Navy and orange. Of course, of course. But that's interesting because I say the same thing to my kids and that your dad probably wouldn't have gone to Cleveland on his own.
He, he wanted to make sure that, Hey, I appreciate Cleveland for what it is, but we're going because the socks are there. And so did he, did you guys just pack up the car and drive out or did you Yeah, we would either pack up the car. I had a buddy actually who would go by himself as like a 16 year old, get on the Amtrak from Chicago union station, take it into Cleveland and he would just, he would go to two out of three games, stay with some families that was out there.
But no, for us it was pack up the car, head to Cleveland. It's not that bad of a drive. Yeah. So I mentioned it. It was great. No, cause I say this to my son all the time. I was like, cause you know, we're big NBA fans. And Donovan Mitchell's actually from this area, you know, and so my son's been going to his camps and he's like, why can't we just go to Cleveland and see them?
I'm like, actually the ticket prices and the flight to Cleveland are pretty reasonable. And it's a good way to see America. Yeah. Associated to, to, uh, a particular team, whether it's, uh, New Orleans with the Pelicans or Atlanta with the Hawks, like just because you have that fandom, right? That the fanaticism along with that sport, it also drives the travel, it drives wanting to explore the destination, like you said.
And so I'm curious, you know, you've, you've, you've had a pretty good career working for various sports entities. Uh, whether it be the MLB or, uh, the WWE, which I think is probably pretty fun because talk about a company that can put together an amazing event. Where has that been the strategy of one putting on the event and maybe the travel around it?
Were these pieces that you guys evaluated at all or was it sort of in a vacuum? Let's put on the, on the event, let's market the ticket sales. And then organically, we're gonna, we're gonna get travel out of it. Like, how is that scene, or whatever comes to mind about that? Sure, so, I always think that there's, there's going to be a contingent of that superfan, like, audience makeup, right?
That very nucleus of that, that larger audience. That is going to ride or die with you no matter what, right? So, and, and the team doesn't always have to be good. The entity doesn't always have to be top tier or championship level in order for that person to care enough to go, right? Cause like, whether they're going or in the parlance of a lot of White Sox fans last year, if they're not going, they're telling you that they care, right?
So when you have people telling you that you care, you have to cater to them and you have to make sure that it's accessible to them and you have to make sure that you're putting a quality product on the field, on the stage, on the court, in the ring for them so that they get their money's worth so that they come back the next time, right?
Tickets aren't cheap anymore. Right? Like you mentioned it. I have plenty of friends who would rather go with a bunch of guys to Minneapolis to see the next play in Minnesota because airfare plus tickets to a Wolves game isn't as much as getting into MSG these days. So, and we saw that a lot of WWE, right? Like, The thing that was really fun about WWE fans is that an average WWE fan put a Die Hard Anything fan to shame. And it was just the most fun thing to see and it was, it was everybody.
I don't know about anybody else, but I remember distinctly waking up on Saturday morning and waiting for the cartoons to end so that I could watch the WWF and see Hulkamaniacs go nuts, Ultimate Warrior, Junkyard Dog.
These are icons. Yeah. And, and they're the drivers, the characters that drive these events. And so just reflecting on that experience, what, what were some of the big takeaways you did? Because I have a very good friend who did, who does production at, at WWE and you know, he tells me when he won't be on this podcast cause he's like, I got a non compete, I can't say anything.
I can't wait till that thing ends cause he's got some great stories about how they put on the production and such, but what were some of the takeaways you learned about putting on the event and how they market it at ticket sales? Sure. The thing about WWE, right, is like it's 52 weeks a year and it's two nights a week.
And now they have NXT, so it's three nights a week. So I never thought about it that way. That is like the NBA season times two, right? There's no, there's no off season, there's no syndication, there's no reruns. It's all live, right? And people go there for that live experience. They want to see how the stories play out in front of them.
They want to see the good guy beats the bad guy. They want to see if the bad guy does win. Like how does he cheat to win because he's not supposed to win. There's a folding chair over there. Watch out. Or, and I think what really sets WWE apart, and I think a lot of other sports entities especially can, can draw from, is that the fans are essentially the third character in that one on one WWE matchup.
right? Like the people watching at home, they react based on the in stadium crowds reaction. They know when to cheer, they know when to boo, or they react to the cheers and the booze of those fans in the stadium. Accordingly, right? The characters, the superstars at WWE. are trying to elicit certain reactions, right?
And the fans play off of that and it's, it's a ripple effect. Now, in terms of making sure that people know that they can be a part of it and people can, people can take part in the show in an active way like that. It's just making sure that wherever market you're going to be in, especially for something that's essentially a traveling circus, you got to be there with enough time ahead of you.
You got to know who your audience is and you have to go where they are in order to speak to them and engage with them properly. Oh, so there's a fair amount of whether it be television analysis done to whether or not they would put a specific WrestleMania or main event or whatever it is in a certain market. So. They did a bunch of almost destination analysis around that. Is that true?
Yeah, so Wrestlemania is a really interesting creature to sort of analyze from an evolution standpoint. That was something that would, that would come across or, or come to life. At any given arena that they would typically do it at, right, like the all state arena in, in Chicago or MSG or, you know, take your pick.
Now, that's part of an overarching strategy for their, their tentpole events, their four tentpoles, whether that, that's WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. to take part at NFL stadium and NFL venue so they can really blast it out. So I was there at AT& T stadium in Dallas with 135, 000 people there over the course of two nights.
I was there at SoFi and was just totally taken away about how many people just showed up on a night to night basis. Even a couple of friends of mine who are out in LA have no interest in wrestling. I even went to college with one of them and when I would put Monday Night Raw on in college, she'd be, she would come into the room, she'd be like, what, what are we watching?
No, turn this off. We have, we have an econ midterm tomorrow. What are you doing? She, she texted me. She was like, I have been seeing nothing but Wrestlemania. And they did it, they did it organically. They did it paid. They did it earned. They did it owned. Like they went into the morning shows on CBS and Fox and got their talent in there to speak directly to the people who are waking up every day in that market.
So it's out of home, it's everything. Like you have to make sure that you are canvassing the marketplace, especially if you're not there all the time. You're canvassing the marketplace so that as many people as possible can say, I might not go, but I know it's happening. Right. It's a, this subconscious sort of strategy, right? Like it's always there. You can put the energy towards it or not, but you're always aware Wrestlemania is happening. And you got to
be smart about the own assets that you have, right? Like you have three hours of live TV on a Monday night. Use it. You have two hours of live TV on a Friday night. Use that. So it really is a matter of, of being resourceful with what you have, what you own. And, and thoughtful and, and deliberate and defined about what you go out and purchase and who, how you go out and widen that net to get as many people there as possible.
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there, Mark. So just 60, 000. Yeah. So what, what's really interesting about lacrosse, right? Is that we have plenty of super fans, right? We have plenty of people who's. Lives are dedicated to the lacrosse youth circuit, the travel circuit, the rec league circuit, the camp circuit, the recruiting circuit.
Like we have people that are every single weekend and a couple of nights a week engaged with the game. Right. So, and if we back up and we tie this into the, the USA lacrosse mission, it's three pillars, 11 words, feel the growth. Enrich the experience and field the best national team. So, what's really interesting about the success of the organization now and why I think we're in a really good pathway to start driving a lot more of that travel experience relative to our events.
Is that we have more elementary school age kids playing now than ever before. That's amazing for me to think about. I mean, I've lived in the Northeast for about 20 years or so, but I'm from California. What does the data say about West coasters versus East coasters? Which I think will put you right back on track to where your thought process was going, but I would think it's pretty challenging to convert someone like myself into becoming a lacrosse fan.
Sure. So there's always, there's always going to be that stigma until we fully break it down and we've been chipping away at it. Where lacrosse is that Acela Corridor sport from DC to Boston, New England, the Northeast, Long Island, Baltimore, Philly being the hotbeds. Why is that? Why is that Northeast Corridor such a hotbed for lacrosse? Like what is the kind of historical reason? I mean, if you don't know, I get it, but
no, no, it's a great question and it's a lot of fun to dive into. So lacrosse is by origin, right? A Native American game, an indigenous people's game. It's the oldest game in America, and it has various names and various formats based on the tribe or the community that, that invented their version of it at the time.
But what would happen in, in a Long Island, for example, is back in the day, 60 years ago, 70 years ago, people, kids, guys wouldn't make the baseball team. So they would just be told, why don't you, why don't you try lacrosse? Okay. Well, how do I get my, how do I get lacrosse gear? Like, well, okay, so this tribe comes down with a huge truck this date, go buy it there.
And that was the only place you can get into it, open up a big pickup truck, big box truck and just sell all the gear, all the equipment that they made right at home that they've been doing for centuries. Amazing. That's how it would, that's how it started to infiltrate right through Long Island. Now in Baltimore, it started as a sport at a lot of the prep school.
And then continued up the Acela Corridor to Philly, and it kind of took that sort of pathway north. And even going into Connecticut, which is a crazy hotbed now, Wilton High School was the first sanctioned, first state sanctioned lacrosse program in Connecticut. And they would have to play St. Anthony's and Chaminade in Long Island just to round out their schedule.
So it's, it's a really, really fun question that goes back centuries that, that we're still trying, that we're still seeing in the evolution of the game, especially as it moves westward. Yeah. That, no, that's interesting. I didn't know that. That's, I mean, I knew that it was a Native American sport, but just in terms of the, the equipment being built or created and then having basically their own wholesale business, right.
Yeah. To sort of spread this out. So you started in about the kids and so what does the membership base for USA lacrosse kind of look like? And obviously you've got a huge opportunity coming up in 2028. What are your thoughts around, I guess, the, the various initiatives that you guys are looking at to grow it?
And of course, we're always going to circle this back to how travel and ticketing sort of works in this way. Sure. You're reaching, uh, an audience of people who, who know these type of industries. So I think it's, it's really interesting to kind of go down to see at the very beginning of this process, because hopefully as we lead up to 2028, I mean, things should evolve pretty quickly, right? Absolutely.
So when we talk about the membership base, it's. It's primarily a product to ensure that the kids are safe, secure, and insured right when they're on the field, right? Insurance, insurance product is a big part of the membership. But what goes beyond that is that for all those elementary school age kids that we have playing more than ever before, in addition to, you know, some of the older ages, we also put together from, from that revenue, we do, we derive a lot of curriculum, a lot of programming, a lot of education, a lot of background checks for coaches and officials, right?
So that is, that's a lot of the membership there, right? So if you're a coach. And you're, and you're a USA lacrosse member, your background checked, all the parents can feel good about the fact that you've been cleared to be around kids. If you're a parent and your kid is playing lacrosse, they have a USA lacrosse membership.
God forbid something happens to them on the field, you're covered through the insurance of the product. What we are looking to evolve into, right, is a little analogy as to what U. S. ski and snowboard does as an NGB. Is creating a very aggressive, a very well thought out affiliate marketplace. Like if we can, if we can grow our positioning in the lacrosse world from simply being the foremost authority on content and analysis through our magazine, through our digital and social channels.
Simply being the, the insurance provider and the protector of the, of the players and coaches and officials and parents playing the game and broaden that out to USA lacrosse being essentially the shepherd for everybody going through this lacrosse journey. It's a really, really interesting way to further define our super fans, but make more of them and give them, make it easier for them. Yeah.
I mean, if I, if I'm a fan, my, my kid is playing, I want to get to Philadelphia to a tournament. I mean, I see this in basketball. My son is an AAU basketball player. There's a couple of overnights in Massachusetts, maybe in Pennsylvania. What that made me realize, and especially getting to know you over the couple, these last couple of months is that USA lacrosse, USA basketball.
They're really marketing and events companies to build up fan bases and to support them. And so I think travel and obviously the ticketing aspect of it is supportive of that. So whether it's creating a tournament package with a local hotel to that area or just creating very special experiences that are at a different tier. Are these all strategies you're, you're, you're looking at?
Million percent, right? Like, and if we're looking at the AA, the AAU is very similar to what our lacrosse parents go through, right? So there's a lot of travel, there's a lot of early mornings, there's a lot of late nights, there's a lot of hotel stays.
What we are aiming to, right, what we're scaling towards is an affiliate marketplace where somebody can easily transact on a Bonvoy property. because of their USA Lacrosse membership. Got it. Somebody can easily transact on some luggage because one thing or the other broke down as a result. So, right.
Somebody can easily transact on a rental car. A Jersey Mike sandwich. Yeah, a Jersey Mike sandwich. It's something that's super easy that makes sense for the experience that they're in. Right? And I think we have a bunch of different types of events. Whether it's youth tournaments. Or it's, you know, something like National Lacrosse Hall of Fame or our gala in, in the city in June or the USA Lacrosse Experience, which is essentially like the only owned and operated like demonstration of top tier international competition in the States here.
So in total, I mean, going back to the fact you're the marketing arm for the fandom or the membership, you have a number of events that are happening throughout the year. What's that look in total? And then how do you guys measure success with those events? Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, when we're talking about events first.
metric that anybody's going to look at is a 10. Did people show up? Do people care enough to show up? That's been something that we've been scaling over the last couple of years. Like we had the first version of the USA lacrosse experience as sort of like a growth mindset in Indianapolis this past year.
And it was great. We had a bunch of kids show up for Uh, youth clinics and they got to interact with our national team's players, get some hands on training. We also had, you know, some international competition there between the US, Great Britain, Columbia and Puerto Rico, right now. And that was in Indianapolis, right?
So that was more of a growth strategy. What we are doing this year is we're evaluating something that's in more of an endemic lacrosse market and really looking to maximize the attendance for that top tier international competition. So in these different strategies that you have in this mode, you've obviously have already proven in the last 10 minutes or so that you have a very firm strategy of how to build up fan support and build up the fan base, come up with these various mechanisms.
I guess, top line, how's it going in terms of that strategy? And I think even deeper because of the audience that we're speaking to here, whether it be a ticketing company, a hotel brand, a travel seller, maybe it's an OTA, or it's a travel agency. What should they know about lacrosse that's going to make it easier to work with you or to get access to that fan base that's going to create value overall for everybody?
So the value for us and the way that we're trying to make it easier for brands, especially in ticketing and travel, right, is to get in on something that is about to explode. Right. Right. So if I had to, if I had to drill it down very simply, lacrosse is growth in this country and we've already talked about like the westward expansion of it, but still needing a lot of work there.
We're at the hockey tape of the hockey stick growth. And to contextualize that a little bit, lacrosse is better positioned for growth and sustained growth than soccer was in 1994. So in 1994, U. S. hosted, I remember that, the World Cup, Tab Ramos, right? And Alexi Lalas. Yep. And then a couple of years thereafter, there was the MLX, right?
And there was a, there was an expansion. of soccer participation, like beyond that, that very, very youth, young youth level lacrosse by contrast has been a fast growing sport for the last 30 years. We already have two viable professional leagues with a third one coming with the WLL. The lacrosse on the girls and the boys side are the number one and number two most added sports at the high school level.
And then over the last 20 years, women's lacrosse at the college level has grown by 97 percent. Men's lacrosse at the college level has grown by 60 percent. So we already have a lot of growth to speak to and for the expansion of the game for the number of people that are playing, whether it's on a rec or a travel club, AAU type level, the amount of travel, the amount of ticketing options that are going to present themselves are going to be are going to scale upwards by a wide margin.
Yeah, so this is like buying Apple in the 90s. Exactly. Precisely. Like, the number of parents, just on my street, the number of times that they have to drive to Springfield, Mass., or they have to, or they have to drive up to Hartford, and those are long days. Yes. Those are long days. A lot of times they stay over.
If we at USA Lacrosse can make it easier for them by, by way of partnerships with a Bonvoy, with a IHG or make it easier for them to, or make it easier for them to come to our events through ticketing, right? Just make it a more, just make it a simpler access point. Yeah. Right. That's, that's where the benefit comes in.
Amazing. I, I, I think. Yeah, it's very rare that you get an opportunity to come in early on a brand, on a sport where you can already telegraph where the height of it's going to be when all of the Olympic stuff starts to hit, right? So clearly there's going to be an opportunity to expose that sport to the entire planet.
So what's, what's kind of going on right now in terms of like prepping for that? I mean, obviously you have all these various sponsorship initiatives, operational initiatives, taking all these different things that are happening, but just from a fan's perspective, like what are the key things that people should know about lacrosse leading up to the Olympics?
I'll tell you, I'll tell you that. For parents watching, lacrosse is different than any other sport and it's, it's, it's to a benefit to get your kids involved because lacrosse offers a pathway to lifelong sustained success more so than any other sport. Strictly athletically, Tyreek Hill will tell you, lacrosse athletes are the most athletic.
athletes out there. Most transferable skills. You'll see, you'll see lacrosse players play for the Patriots, play for the Golden State Warriors. Come on, Pat. Let's go play for the play for the fight in Irish last Monday night with Jordan Faison, his younger brothers coming up to he'll be a freshman in Notre Dame next year, playing football and lacrosse.
Incredible. That transferable skill also applies to life, right? So the, the skills they learn on the field. Right. And this is true of sports in general, but the skills they learn on the field translate to the classroom because of the academic outcomes that lacrosse players have. They go on to, they go on to college and the top 25 of NCAA division one lacrosse looks a lot different than the top 25 of football or basketball, right?
You don't, you don't see Johns Hopkins. And the 20 top 25 and in, in, uh, in basketball. So because of the academic outcomes, they're more prepared for professional outcome. This is especially true for our girls that play and the girls that matriculate through the, through the years or through the game that turned into just bad ass ladies.
And then what really is fun about the lacrosse community, and this is where our partners benefit a great deal from aligning with us is that lacrosse is just. It's driven by culture and community. It's a very tight knit group that just want to help each other succeed, right? They, they cheer for their teammates.
Everybody's so gung ho about helping each other out. And for us as the NGB, they want us to succeed as well because when we succeed, then the USA succeeds on the international stage. When we succeed, the coaches and the officials are better than ever before at the youth stage. When we succeed, the, the players are, the players at the youth level are better than they ever have been before.
The parents are having more fun with it. The kids are having more fun with it. And that sort of camaraderie and that sort of positive That sort of positivity and enthusiasm bleeds out to our partnerships, whether it's in travel, in ticketing, and like just trying to get people to kind of see that earlier, have that light bulb moment.
That's when like the, the blood, sweat, and the tears that goes into it versus the value that they extract from it from just a consumer playing the game or a parent having their kid go through the game. That puts us in a position to give a travel partner, a ticketing partner, a lot of access to people who, because of all these positive outcomes as a result of La Crosse, very affluent, a lot of disposable income, they're highly educated, they're shot callers at work.
Like, this is. That is a core audience that you really, really want to align with. These are needle movers. No, no, absolutely. I mean, uh, just living in Connecticut, you, you see that you see the social impact of lacrosse and that social network that it creates. Um, you, you touched on something very brief. I just want to ask you about as well as just in terms of international exposure, this is a purely American sport, you know, from the very beginnings.
Where is it popular else? Are you mentioned Colombia and Brazil? I think earlier, but what are some of the initiatives you're looking at? Internationally to sort of build out the fan base. Sure. So listen, I actually think there is a fairly a pretty healthy International lacrosse team. It looks similar telling the FIFA rankings right in terms of the countries involved.
You'd be very surprised Our friends in Uganda have a great lacrosse team. Israel's got a great lacrosse team. Australia has really come on strong. And hot tip for anybody, keep an eye on Japan in 2028. Like they're, they're going to be in the medal rounds. You think they're going to be like in the final four?
Yeah. Wow. I mean, they're, they're legit. They're really, really good. Like what's really interesting about lacrosse is that on the women's side, like it was, it was really started primarily in Scotland. So it started in Scotland, made its way through the UK and as a result of all the, the origins here, like it started picking up a little bit here too, but you know, it has a, it has a, women's lacrosse has a lot of roots in Scotland and the UK.
So the international lacrosse scene is actually a lot. It's more robust than you would imagine, but it's, it's the U S it's Canada. It's the Haudenosaunee nation. It's, and those are all like North American soiled teams. Great Britain's legit. Like Germany's legit. This is very interesting to hear about, but USDA lacrosse should bring home the gold.
I mean, listen, and it's a really good opportunity for me to lean into this one because lacrosse gets lumped in with. Soccer or hockey or whatever, anything that's not baseball, football, basketball, right? But that's where the analogy stops. USA lacrosse, our national teams are more analogous to USA basketball insofar as our men and women get off the bus hunting for gold.
If they don't win gold, it's a disappointment. And if they don't, don't blow people out along the way, it's a surprise. Like, and our women's team right now is a very, very special group, like it's a special group. I'm going to have to watch some of these games. Yeah, dude. Yeah. I mean, this is like a mic drop.
I gave you the layup, you just alley ooped it, really. Man, very educational piece here because I'm not a lacrosse guy yet. Yeah. And my kids are sort of like sitting there going, I don't get it. You know, I don't understand it yet. So obviously with this relationship, we'll start to kind of open it up and think about it.
Right. Because just having the context of in the understanding and just how homegrown it is and some of the initiatives leading up to the Olympics, of course. I, I can already see this start to compound over the next couple of years. It's going to be fun, man. There's, there's a very wide fairway ahead of us to, to spray.
It's going to be really, really fun. And for folks that are less familiar, cause I'm not. I wasn't just new to USA lacrosse, you know, not too long ago, I was new to lacrosse. I grew up in Chicago as a baseball kid. Yeah. Right. So. Establish that. It wasn't, it wasn't until, it wasn't until high school that I really kind of got to see the game a little bit.
Didn't really understand. It's, the best way it was explained to me is that it's an amalgamation of all of our favorite sports. Right. Right. It's got the contact of football. It's got the speed of soccer and basketball. It's got the spacing and sort of like the passing, moving the ball movement of a basketball. So Yeah. Yeah. If you can think about it through the lens of one of those sports, probably basketball for you. Like you'll understand it pretty quickly.
Yeah. No, I think you are the number one lacrosse salesperson and I for coming to tickets to travel because it, no, it was very educational and then there's so many opportunities and implications there for our industries, whether it's a online travel or a travel agency that wants to put together something special.
And again, that whole hockey stick sort of evolution that's happening that's going to culminate in a gold medal for Team USA is really exciting to watch. And so, you know, hopefully you'll come back and chat with us. What I always like to end Tickets to Travel with is if there was no budget, Will, what would be your perfect ticketed travel experience?
Any destination, any event, where would you like to go either by yourself or with your family? I don't, you know, you don't need to be stuck to the family on this one. But it's always interesting to find out where and what you would do, you know, lacrosse aside. But sure. What do you think? It's a great question.
I, I get killed for this all the time. It's okay. People say Super Bowl. I say you can keep the Super Bowl. No Super Bowl for you. No. It's just suits. It's suits and sponsors. World Series. World Series are great. Okay. Here's what I'll tell you. NFC Championship game, Soldier Field. I want to be with all of those mustachioed, sausage eating, deep dish pizza crushing animals that I grew up with. Yeah. While the Bears punch their ticket to the Super Bowl.
We're going to be waiting a while for that one. Eh? I mean, I Hey! Did you think the commanders were going to be in the NFC championship game last year? I didn't know, but I called that they were going to do what they're doing right now. I mean, this Ivy, this is a different team altogether, but very true. I mean, you like Caleb, I suppose, as your quarterback. I mean, listen, Caleb was one of the lone bright spots of the, of the 20. He just
needs time, right? And an offensive line. Bro, he had 4, 000 yards with two head coaches, three offensive coordinators. Yeah. 20 touchdowns, six interceptions. Yeah. But this is, you know, it's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a long time. We're still, we're still replaying the Super Bowl shuffle. It's been tough. Oh man. Those are the 85, man. Those were the days. Refrigerator, Perry. My guy was Richard Dent. Richard Dent was your guy? My guy was Richard Dent.
Willie Galt. Willie Galt. Yup. Yeah. Super Bowl shuffle. I mean, I used to play. L. A. Mike Richardson. Yeah. Leslie Frazier. Hey man, thanks for coming out. I appreciate you, Mario. Take it easy, man. Thank you. We'll talk soon. Attention travel and ticketing innovators, whether you're a startup disrupting the industry or an established company ready to take your distribution strategy to the next level.
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