The ROAR Podcast: Brice Clinton

# ROAR Podcast: Brice Clinton
**Guest:** Brice Clinton
**Date:** 2025-12-04
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4dlOnDRHk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4dlOnDRHk)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

---

(0:01) [Music] As we mentioned, it's just me today. Typically, we'd introduce the guest and start our interview. And we've been so fortunate to have so many great guests. It's an honor for Adam and I to be able to do this and talk to such amazing people. Many of us are well ingrained in sports and sports business every single day. Beyond just being fans, I think that what's so interesting is there's the separation of the fandom component, but also the component of education, the component of work, the component of things that you study and consume and look at the data around.

(0:49) In some ways, I often see those as two separate tracks, but there's such a great overlap and a the vin diagram of those things when you hit that sliver of the phantom component, but also things that you do from a work perspective or from an education perspective, from a research perspective. It's really fun and it's a fun thing to do, I think, too, because sports is fun. It's inherently designed to be fun. It's an entertainment product that makes it all the more enjoyable. That's why it's so cool for Adam and I both, and I don't want to speak for Adam, but I think on this one, I certainly can.

(1:32) It's amazing that we get to to speak to all of the folks that we've had the opportunity to interview over the past five seasons, which is why to even say that there have been five seasons of this podcast. Today, what I wanted to do is twofold. One, have the opportunity to pull back the curtain to talk about the mechanics of this podcast. Not necessarily the nuts and bolts. How we do the recording, how we do the editing, interesting stuff. If you're in that path and you want to do something like this or it's something that you may be using your job or in your education or entertainment, but more why the why around why we started the podcast, how has it evolved, how we thought it would evolve, but then from a personal perspective, what it does for me and the enjoyment that I get out of it, the growth and the knowledge that I get out of it along with that, the student component of it.

(2:40) Obviously, I'm both instructors at Northwestern in the Masters of Sports Administration program and a big part of the podcast is to help educate the audience in general and more specifically students. So I think that we'll talk about why that became so important to us and why we continue to do that because of it. I think the other component of it is the ability to try new things and to do something different. We all talk and have these conversations in personal settings when we're with friends. And I think what's so interesting with what Adam and I do here is that it toes the line between your enjoyment, your entertainment, and your work. And what I mean by that is if you look back or if you look at your friend, your family, even people at work, the time you spend people you spend the most time with, we get in discussions about sports all the time. I had a fascinating discussion the other day with my son who's almost seven and is very into basketball seems to be the only one that he is well baseball but he's gotten more into basketball and is a player from Michigan State Carr who if you haven't seen him play is I'm terrified for the infrastructure every time I watch him play cuz he seems like he's going to rip the rim off the backboard every time he ducks, which is often.

(4:20) You could argue with about the rest of his game. He's a very high energy player. But I was having a discussion about this player with a good friend of mine who went to graduate school Michigan State. And I who is it comparable from our era, me being 44 years old, who tone car? And we both sat there and thought and immediately at the same time said Jason Richardson. And then that spur us into conversations about different players. We thought it was so interesting that we had the same person come to mind. But that's what I'm getting at with the conversations around sports, but the podcast has given us the ability to do those things in a sports business context. I know that many of us are nerds, for lack of a better term, around sports business and the business of sports and how it's constructed. And I think it's fun to be able to have these conversations and engage in them and get some of the smartest people that we know or that we can find to talk about so many of these subjects. I'd be remissed if I didn't say I'm incredibly fortunate that I get to talk to Adam about these things all the time. And I think our listeners are incredibly fortunate to get his expertise.

(5:31) Last week we had the conversation with Adam, excuse me, two weeks ago because we took a nice break for Thanksgiving. and hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had the discussion with Adam about the acquisition of his company, which is the second time that's happened with Adam. He is an incredible builder of businesses and ideas and brands. And the path that he's going down now is so cool because as sports fans and people that work in this space, we think about those venues, the areas that we come and interact with the teams and the leagues and the venue itself.

(6:14) There's a feel to that. Think about Wrigley. For those of us that are in Chicago, I think back to when I originally moved to Chicago in 2005. The experience at Wrigley was still incredible. It was Chicago's best outdoor bar, but it was much different than it is now. And I'm not putting a value judgment on that in any way. There's merits to both sides of those things. But it has evolved and it has become different. And I think a big part of that and a really cool thing about it is one of the big differences in it is all the things to do around Wrigley. When I first moved to Chicago and was interacting with Wrigleyville as a whole, it was a you're in your early 20s, mid20s, early 30s type of place.

(7:18) And I took full advantage of that. I was telling my wife the other day having nostalgic feelings about sitting in my office and it'd be noon on Friday and be like, "You know what? Forget this. We want to reglet. You got to go to the 120 afternoon game on a Friday." Still do that. It's still great. But now you can do other things. As a matter of fact, I took my kids last year to see Santa at Wrigley, which was cool. It's a cool thing to do and it's cool to see how it's evolved. But as Adam's company is going to help surge and the larger company there do and evaluate those sports anchored mixeduse developments.

(8:00) Now Wrigley we wouldn't in Wrigleyville itself we wouldn't traditionally call like the battery in Atlanta where it's built for purpose for that mixeduse development with the anchor of a sports venue. But it naturally evolved in that way by happen stance or maybe by geographic constraint which is such an advantage for Wrigley being nestled and situated in that neighborhood. But then they did a great job of building around it. And so we're all incredibly fortunate to be able to listen to Adam talk about these things to interact with what he does in that sense. I think it's so cool to see all the things that he has done and evolve with and it's going to be amazing to see what he does going forward, what Serge does going forward with the acquisition of Adams Company, the data that Adams company can provide through the entire life cycle of those sports anchor mixeduse developments. And so I'm very excited to see the kinds of guests that we get going forward because I am certain that there's going to be amazing people that are involved in these types of projects, Adam included. But in addition to him, the people from a development perspective of real estate, the construction, Adam had an incredible conversation with the CEO of Populus previous episode this season. if you haven't listened to that. It's one of my favorite episodes in the five years that we've been doing this podcast because he stepped back and talked about how creating the venue is really designed to create the experience for that individual's fan. We think so much about how it sight lines and concessions and restrooms and parking flow, all of those things contribute to the individual fan.

(9:52) But what was cool was he looked at it at a much more individual level, at a granular level, but he also talked about in-person experiences. And I don't know about everybody else, but I'm a better human being when I have in-person experiences with other human beings. We are designed as social beings and we draw energy from that. Now, you can be an extrovert or an introvert. Even here in my own home, my partner is she's much more of an introvert, which doesn't mean that she doesn't like to be around people, but I think she recharges from resetting and getting alone time to collect her thoughts. Whereas, on the flip side, I grew up in a huge family, lived in a fraternity house in college, always had roommates.

(10:43) So, being around people is what recharges me. which may be a big part of why I love the in real life experiences, but I think it's also from a human perspective, we need that. We need that interaction. We're blessed to have the technology components that we do have to be able to do things like this podcast where all the jobs that I have are predicated on technology, but being in meet space with someone, there's something to that. And my hope is we see that coming back. We continue to see it coming back. So again, listen to that episode. It's some really interesting insight from someone that you would think would be really into the nuts and bolts, which I'm certain that he is, of this is how we construct and put together this physical venue. But the really interesting part of it was the human component. And I was fascinated by that.

(11:43) talking about the human component. If we step back from this podcast, I mentioned a couple times we are in our fifth season now. And I'm shocked about that. Shocked may be too strong of a word in many ways. There's no illusion that what we're doing here is this American life or serial. And we never intended it to be that. But it's become an incredible outlet for both of us, but also the listeners. I think it's become an incredible outlet to have conversations with them, to spark conversations, whether that be in our courses, in the work that we do externally from teaching or with friends and family around sports or sports business. And that was one of the original intentions.

(12:32) If we rewind it all the way back to prepandemic times, the podcast itself was an outgrowth of Adam's course and Adam used it as an assignment, which is an excellent idea for an assignment. I think that for so many folks that whether you're in sports or sports business or something that tangentially touches sports or if you're a nurse or a farmer, whatever it is, the skills around podcasting are really interesting because it helps you do a lot of different things. One, construct a narrative that you want to get across and how do you outline that? How you put it together to be able to then articulate it back to folks is really useful. For me, one of the biggest things is the art of being more concise.

(13:19) There's the silly saying, I think it was Mark Twain. Most things that we don't know who came up with them often get attributed to Mark Twain, but this one could be true. He was writing a letter to someone, Mary Todd Lincoln, I believe it was, and said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Lincoln. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." which I always find fascinating because he's very right that being concise is hard and especially in our microwave society that we have today being concise is incredibly important. So again, as Adam's class and the outgrowth from this course, that was one of the vital components of doing the podcast as an assignment, we wanted to make it bigger from there.

(14:02) and by bigger a wider audience put it out to folks originally from a university perspective from the masters in sports administration program because they thought there was a lot of merit to the topics we were covering as it related to the coursework the educational development of the students and then the interviews so much of any job in sports itself is no outlier in this for is a networking component in understanding the space, who works in that space, how they got to that space. And so we wanted to give the students the opportunity to make those connections, reach out to those folks, do the interviews, but then also as it grew, give the listeners those as well. We get to the throws of the pandemic, and that became the primary focus. And what I mean by that is we all got stuck at home. For those of us in Chicago really got stuck at home.

(15:08) The first year of this podcast, I recorded in a walk-in closet. Worked in that walk-in closet for a very long time because we were all stuck at home and didn't have the opportunity to get other spaces. Adam and I had grand plans of recording these things in person at my office because originally Adam and I worked across the street from each other. We had just built a new office and in that office was a media space and in that media space there was a production studio from a video perspective but there was also a podcast studio and our goal was to do it in person which would have been amazing would have been great to sit at rostroom people and have these discussions but we were stuck at home.

(15:51) So much of again any job is networking and we wanted to give students the opportunity to network in the way that they could, the way that we could when we were all stuck at home and that was to be able to hear these conversations with people that do things that many of our listeners aspire to do someday down the road. Another component of that and why we wanted to continue to grow the podcast beyond the outgrowth from Adam's course is an understanding. What I mean by the understanding is to use an example. Our program, the masters in sports administration program at Northwestern, students come in from all over the place, different educational backgrounds, geographic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds and wanting to do different things. But if you survey those students, the three most common things that students will want to do postprogram are, an athletic director, a general manager of a professional sports team in some capacity, or an agent.

(17:00) All three of those are incredible occupations, incredible paths to follow. I still want to meet the general manager of a baseball team. I don't believe where I currently sit that is in the cards, but it is a great aspiration to have. What we wanted to use the podcast for in addition to the networking components and getting students and mechanics around recording audio, editing audio is show all of the jobs in sports business or that tangentially touch sports that oftent times if you have that tunnel vision view of learning to be an athletic director, a general manager, an agent, again, great roles, but if you have that tunnel vision, you may not see or you may not And the interviews have done an amazing job at that. And the reason for it is our guests have been so gracious with their time and opening up to how they got to where they are. And if you look back at those 100 or so episodes that we've done, a really common theme across them is there's no linear path to really anything.

(18:13) But certainly in sports there is no linear path to becoming a general manager of a professional team whether it be baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, an athletic director at any capacity or any level or things that tangentially touch sports marketing, events management, athlete representation, NIO, any of those things. There isn't a direct path. And it's so interesting to see the path that so many of our incredible guests have taken. And what's gratifying for me is you see the light bulb turn on with listeners, but then it translates to the coursework and in the classroom to see students say, "Wait a minute.

(18:54) Your job as an example on paper does not look like a sports job at all." For nearly 20 years now, I've worked for the same company. Our company the remit is really around direct to consumer entertainment. We're consumer entertainment in the home infrastructure somewhat around that entertainment. So think cable companies, telecom companies, but also direct to consumer streaming platforms. Inside of that, I get to work with people like ESPN or Formula 1 or the Bundesphy or La Liga or D UFC or WWE around creating their content experience and the delivery of that content to consumers in the way that is most readily available to them than being those consumers. So, I get to touch sports every day in that sense.

(19:42) But if you looked at my job on paper, you'd say you're in a basement writing code, which is not true at all. And so I think to be able to see the students understand that and realize the vast amount of jobs that are out there in this space is incredibly gratifying. A perfect example of this and I was really fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to do this with a student. A student was really strong looking for a role postprogram and he had such wide range of skills. He was the polymath in many ways. My background is in technology. I said do you have you looked in the technology space that could potentially overlap with me? I said no not really because I'm not a tech forward person but you don't necessarily have to be these days.

(20:34) But we found him a job at Cameo for the tech platform that you can work with celebrities or athletes or public figures. Have them create a custom message for a friend, family member for some special occasion. So typically you see this a birthday message or congratulations for graduation or whatever it may be. There's a huge sports component to that because of the athlete piece and working with those athletes to get them set up working relationships and the financial perspective, the contractual perspectives there within a technology perspective, meaning how do I actually do this? How do I record these messages, upload them, get them to those folks that have purchased them? And so we found him a job in working with the athletes that are on this platform. And it was one of those things that he thought, "Wow, I had would never have thought of something like this when I was thinking about a job in sports." And so for Adam and I both, it's incredibly gratifying to be able to have these conversations with really cool people that talk about the paths that they've taken to their roles.

(21:50) that then brings up the different diversions or different routes they've taken on their path that have led to something really interesting. Again, it's really great to have that end goal in mind and to push toward that. The thing that I always say to students, especially but listeners to the podcast and even my own children is to be open to the diversions on the path because it may be the best thing that ever happens to you. Doing that requires some level of faith that you go off that path and be away from something you driven so hard after so long.

(22:31) It requires some flexibility to use your skills in a different way. And I think it also requires some foresight to say, is this forwarding my end goal or is this something I really enjoy or could those two overlap? I use the highway analogy all the time of you have to know where the exits are, but you also have to know where the entrance ramps are. And if you're using one of those diversions on that path and you think it may be something that's really interesting to you, that's amazing. But know where the re-entry ramp is back to the highway if that is something that you want to do, need to do, or get the feeling that it's the better path for you.

(23:18) And so the personal connection and the ability to help the listeners and the students understand these jobs in sports has really been incredible for me. is something that I had done in my class, but this plat platform through the podcast has given both Adam and I the ability to much more widely get that message out and I think done a great job of helping students to understand what roles they can have postprogram and to help prospective students who are coming into the program that come into it with their eyes wide open but also to craft their educational experience when they're there to give a diversity of understanding and knowledge. And then from a wider perspective for listeners of the podcast to say there's a lot of listeners that are doing something else or inspired by or something sparks them from one of the guests in an interview and they want to make a career change.

(24:13) Understanding the differences and the all of the different path that you can take is incredibly helpful for them as well. And so we are extremely fortunate to be able to do those things. I think lastly from my perspective we hope or we endeavor to elevate the thinking in the discussion around sports business. There's so many talking heads around sports. Can go turn on the television now and I guarantee you we can find someone that's yelling about sports. Why is everybody yelling? There's so much yelling about all kinds of things, especially in sports. And I understand that it needs a hot take to create that content, to create a viral moment, to create the engagement, but I promise not everything warrants yelling.

(25:04) And none of these things at the end of the day are life and death most of the time in sports for sure. But also, I think that conscientious consumers of sports and sports business and the content that goes along with that want a nuanced discussion about sports, the actual playing of sports, the player personnel component, the statistics component, the matchup component, but also the business of sports, which there's an enormous amount of nuance in. And when you get to the hottake culture, which again I understand, the nuance kind of goes out the window because you have to grab that consumer and grab that fan and get their attention going. We'll talk about technology later, which is such an important part of my life. But technology has created this because you have to grab that attention to create those moments because we have in essence fried our brains in many ways that we can't sit and watch the conversation unfold.

(26:21) Which is also interesting to me. It makes me think of something that my son does. 27 when he consumes content, he watches people do stuff. I didn't do that. Not to say again that's bad. Things evolve and they change. What I mean by that is if he watches a YouTube video, it's usually someone building Legos or it is Dude Perfect or Crunch Labs, which is a physics lab that they build experiments. All interesting, but the narrative content has gone out the window. When I was a kid with watch PBS, I grew up in a really rural area. We didn't have even cable television. So I think when I was a kid, we had three networks, four if you counted PBS, and we would watch things like Mr. Rogers or Reading Rainbow, and then my mom said, "Go outside and play."

(27:22) There's still that still happens today for sure, but the content had much more of a narrative component to it where now everyone can be a creator and the content itself is watching those people do things. I don't have the patience for it as much because I would rather do the thing than watch someone else do the thing. But I do understand that I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth now because I love to watch sports. And I promise you, I am not doing the thing at the same level as Kevin Durant or as Shay Otani or Dak Presca. insert athlete here because I can't. It's a different level. It's a different level of athleticism and ability that those folks have. So, I'm watching them do the thing. Now, I do love to play pickup basketball still.

(28:16) Can't say that I get in a whole lot of pickup football games anytime or baseball for that matter. Do play a lot of catch, but no games. And so again talking out of both sides of my mouth but things that we commonly do building Legos and all those things I think that I again don't have the patience for those as much as the younger generation. So it'll be interesting to see how that content evolves. The goal in that and the conversation again elevating the thinking around and having that more nuance conversation. I think a big thing that Adam has done along with that conversation around elevating the thinking and elevating the nuance in that is to make things more accessible.

(28:58) For Adam, he's done an incredible job of making analytics and strategy and the data that goes into that more accessible to all of us, myself included. Obviously with block six analytics they did an incredible job around valuation of sponsorships using AI and machine learning to do that valuation. What he's doing now has a huge data component to that in the sports anchor mixuse development. And I think the conversations he's had with the great guests that we've had, but also the way he speaks about it as well make it more accessible to the average lay fan or even take that a step up. Someone who's not just the average lay fan, but also is not in the weeds of it every day. For me, a goal has been to make the technology component of it much more accessible.

(29:48) What's really interesting about that is if we were running the clock to when I started teaching, which was 14 years ago, it is vastly different. Meaning that my technology and sports course, students came in and they had a much lower level of technical acumen than they do now. And I think that's a great thing. Part of that is in the 14 years since most people have lived their lives on the internet. I do remember a time this is going to date me of life before the internet barely. He's just barely, but I do remember that time. Again, not making a value judgment on it in any way.

(30:37) But the knowledge in the steel and the ability to interact is much different with technology now because being a digital native makes it that way. Again, I use my kids as an example all the time. But if you hand them a device, they know how to use it and they don't have their own. And I wouldn't say that we certainly don't encourage the use. Actually, we don't encourage it at all for travel and being sick. So, they don't use them that much. I'm a little more laxed than my roommate, their mother. But even with not using them constantly, they still intuitively know how to use those devices. And I think that is partly by design, partly by the creation of those tech platforms, but is starting to become ingrained in people. And so the technology component is becoming much more approachable, much more accessible to students and listeners of the podcast because inherently we interact with it more. But I think conversations like myself and Adam have with the great guests that were able to get on the podcast make those things much more approachable. The one area that we continue to have conversations around that are going to continue to evolve is around AI and particularly large language models and the output of large language models and we'll talk more about that later in some of the forward-looking things from a sports perspective. But there is the approachability component definitely rears its head in that sense because I think that many people scared is not the right term but are intimidated in some way about AI and using it themselves but also the end goal of AI and the end result of what will happen if and when this becomes very ingrained culture. So, anything that we can do to help create a level of accessibility and approachability to AI is definitely a goal that we have and will continue to do as we go forward this season in upcoming seasons as well. I think from a mission perspective, I think that great conversations around sports and sports business can do so many things. They can change the outlook that someone has around their career, the trajectory of their career.

(32:53) how they work with someone today in a current job, how they approach a different situation, how they step back and use a different lens. And so I think these conversations that we're able to have and the guests that have been so gracious for their time give us the opportunity to spark those things and really creative people. I'm so encouraged all the time with the graduate students that I get to interact with in the innovative things that they're doing and how they look at sports and sports business. And I think the other component of it, and this is selfish in some ways, but I think we always look at it through our own lens, is these conversations have a hopefulness to both of where we want to see the sports industry go and how we want to continue to see it evolve. A great example of this is the college athletic space right now which if you sat down and tried to understand not knowing anything about it and just try to understand today you would be so confused because it's shifting and changing minute by minute.

(34:02) Is that bad? I don't know. There's great components to it. I think it's incredible that student athletes who for years and years created such a value stream for universities and conferences and television networks with lower economic incentive. I say no economic incentive but free education is a pretty high economic incentive especially if you know how to use that. But in a capitalistic economy, free market society, your time and talents are what you have to capitalize on. And those student athletes obviously were not capitalizing it in the highest form. And so I think it's great that they're able to do that.

(34:44) On the flip side, I don't understand who's in a conference half the time any ingrained in this every day. I don't understand how student athletes get paid to its fullest degree. And I'm not ashamed to admit that even as somebody who's in this space every day because I think it's a problem. I think it's a problem that is very prevalent in college athletics today and one that how it evolves and how it is solved for lack of a better term is going to fundamentally change college athletics as a whole. And so there's no was this better back then or now. I think that everything is on a continuum. continues to shift and change. And there are those goals and personal things that we want to see the sports industry evolve into because it hasn't given us so much. It's given me so much from a fandom perspective, from a family perspective, the connection with my late father, with my brother, with my mother even. My mother, God love her, she never missed a sporting event.

(35:55) My brother and I both played football, basketball, baseball through through high school. My sisters were swimmers and volleyball players, tennis players. They were at every sporting event. Now, there were some complaints about being out the cold in football, but beyond that, they were always there. And there's a connection to that because of it. And I think that I want to see that same thing happen for my children, for their children. And sports would be such a prevalent part of people's lives if they're interested in that for the foreseeable future. Again, sports has given me so many things. I think back to high school itself. I don't remember much besides sports. I think that being able to play a team sport teaches you so much about those dynamics of being in a team and working with a team. So, it's a really valuable experience. And I think youth sports has become an incredibly bastardized version of what it used to be. And again, not making a value judgment on that at all, but giving kids the opportunity to play sports is vitally important for so many things. And my hope is that we can continue to do that. And hopefully with some of these conversations that we get with some of these amazing guests, we can see how the sports landscape will continue to be shaped, giving those opportunities to one, the current students that we have that are going to be the ones that shape that, but two, our kids and their kids as they they go on. From a personal perspective, I'm eternally grateful to be able to do this podcast because it fuels a curiosity. It fuels a curiosity around what people do, how they do it, how they got there, why they do it, and the value it provides to them internally, to their organization, to the wider economic environment in this country or our sports. And so I think that curiosity is such a great way through the podcast to be able to really drive into that curiosity.

(37:54) I mentioned the podcast that Adam had with the CEO of Populist recently. There's so many great insights that we garnered from that podcast. We had a podcast just this year with Noah Henderson. I apologize for the recency bias that been so close that he was part of writing the NIL legislation state of Illinois. I learned so much from that and that gave me a baseline understanding to better know how these things have evolved. And so even from a personal perspective, it's incredible insights that we get to sports sports business. It also ties back into the classroom and the work overall.

(38:33) I mentioned my day job being in the direct to consumer content technology that supports that content. All of these things and the great conversations that we get to have with the guests or I get to have with Adam or I get to have with listeners of the podcast that reach out to me play back into that job and make me better at that day job because it again peaks that curiosity and makes me look at things through a different lens. It expands the view that I previously had. And so the ability to do those things and have the conversations with people like that or people like the listeners makes me better at my day job and it makes me a better educator.

(39:13) The remitt of our program is to prepare students for what they would do when they leave us. And being able to have a deep understanding of not only the space itself, but the people that work in sports business and the makeup of those people helps me to be able to translate that to students who can then use that to get into the industry or evolve their career as they continue down that path. I think there are some unexpected benefits too. again, the conversations that you see, but I've learned an enormous amount about my own vocal cues, how I speak. If you ever want to be humbled, record a podcast and play it back to yourself.

(40:00) Nothing is more cringeworthy than hearing your own voice for an hour and all your vocal ticks, all the filler words that you use. For listeners of this podcast, you will both notice that Adam and I both say right all the time. We both say all the time. I'm proud of us both because we don't say like very frequently, but understanding and viewing those vocal ticks helps me become a better communicator. Again, being concise is hard, but in the environment that we live in today, being concise is also really important. So, that's been an enormous benefit for me. It's also helped to build an enormous amount of confidence about speaking and not only speaking in front of people but speaking to people, reaching out to these guests, speaking with these guests, setting up the time to speak with them. It helps to create the muscles that build the ability to say, "I'd love to have a conversation with you. Here's what I want to talk about." Which can be a daunting task, especially for students.

(41:05) So many students come to me when they're trying to get down that career path through their journey and they say what do I do and the default answer is networking and all of them you can see their shoulders sink and a little bit deflation in that because everyone knows that but it's not always easy but it is valuable and to be able to do this podcast have those connections with people but build the mechanic to be able to make those connections has been a benefit that I didn't think would be there, but has been incredibly important for my development as an educator in my day, Jeff, and as a human being in general. I think that it's great to be able to have these conversations. I think the last unexpected benefit for me personally is that ability to talk to someone like Adam all the time and plan these podcasts, plan the guests, plan the narratives that we want to continue to forward or dig into is really interesting to have that connection and deep work with someone that is so ingrained in the sports industry.

(42:22) but also has a deep understanding of finance and data technology. Again, makes you better across the board. So, it was an unexpected thing that came out of it. Not that I didn't think that I would enjoy the time doing the podcast and working with Adam on it because I knew that I would because he's a fascinating person to work with and to have conversations with, but I didn't see the building of the skills in me directly from that. And so I'm eternally appreciative of it. I think finally the thing that I'm most appreciative of is all of you and everyone that listens to this podcast.

(43:01) When we originally started again and outwrote of Adam's course, we didn't have any expectation going into it. After it got started and grew beyond Adam's course, I thought it would be friends and family. And sometimes it still is, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's definitely not. And the amount of people that we reach on a week- toeek basis to me is mindboggling sometimes because I never thought that the conversations we have or the path that we go down would reach that many people. And so it's a credit to all of you for the listening component of it, but the feedback that you give us around what is important, what works, what doesn't, what conversations you want to see, what conversations you want to hear, because that makes us better. And we're incredibly appreciative of the engagement that we get from the listener base, from all of the folks that listen in an audio format or view it in an online format.

(44:09) and we cannot thank you enough for that. As we move forward in this fifth season, we have some incredible guests coming up. Obviously, we're going to lean hard into some of the components that Adam's been working on around sports anchor mixeduse developments. and he has some great guests around those spaces that we'll continue to talk to and build our knowledge collectively around those sports anchor mixed use developments and the benefits that they bring to teams venues but also communities and all the way down to the individual humans that interact in those spaces.

(44:42) I have been really interested in the continued development in college athletics and NIL is not all of that. It's not all-encompassing but at the top the legislation components that are there that will have enormous impacts and I owe this there the payments that can be made directly from universities the conference realignment components of the television and media rights that go along with it there's so much wrapped up into that so many facets of sports sports business sports content sports fandom are touched by how college athletics is continuing to shift and movement so we're absolutely going to have some guests we have some athletic department executives coming in future episodes. We have people from the Big 10 from a commissioner perspective, the commissioner's office perspective coming in the latter part of the season. And then we'll try to bring in really interesting guests that again may not be the very down the middle this is a sports shove type of person or role but that help open our eyes collectively to all those great things in sports.

(45:56) Thank you I think is the biggest thing that I would want to say. Thank you for the opportunity to do this, to be able to speak by myself for this amount of time, which if you were round the clock to when we started this podcast, one, I would have been terrified to do, but two, it couldn't have happened. I just would not have been able to facilitate it. And five years on, I'm so honored that I get the ability to do that and have the folks like yourselves interact with that. So, thank you very much and we look forward to all the great content coming the rest of the season.

(46:34) [Music]