The ROAR Podcast: WNBA Innovation Summit

# The ROAR Podcast: WNBA Innovation Summit
**Guest:** WNBA Innovation Summit
**Date:** 2026-07-24
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfzKlPALLi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfzKlPALLi0)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

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[00:02] This episode is different and it also makes me a bit envious. For the first time, Adam and Caroline sat down together [music] and they did it on location in Chicago at the WNBA Allstar Media and Innovation Center. The setting also matters. They record on Homecourt, the new basketball facility at the Obama Presidential Center, a purpose-built venue on a huge swath of land that captures exactly what this show is about, a place where sports, real estate, and revenue meet. And that word

[00:34] purpose-built becomes a thread running through the whole conversation because the story of women's sports right now isn't only about growth. It's about designing for it from the ground up. Adam and Caroline dig into why Pinket and Trinket is the wrong playbook and what it actually takes to build products, performance, and content made for women's sports, not borrowed from the men's game. They get into the data behind the business case, why AI has

[01:04] been underinvested in on the business side of sports, especially women's sports, and what fans really want from athlete creators, which it turns out isn't always the biggest names. Caroline brings the fan communication lens. Adam brings the data and revenue lens. And where they meet is where the episode lives. And the thing they keep coming back to this is never charity. It's good business. Difference now is that the data can finally prove that. I'm Bryce Clinton and this is the ROAR podcast.

[01:37] >> Welcome to the Roar Podcast. I'm Adam Gman >> and I'm Caroline Balardi. Well, we're here in Chicago at the WNBA Allster Media Innovation Summit. We thought we'd give our live reaction. And since we're not usually together, we thought we would try to record one together and see how it went. So, welcome to our first combined podcast and where better to do it than in Chicago at the WNBA Summit. So, Caroline, good to have you in Chicago. >> Yes. Amazing. And should also mention we're currently at the new Obama Center.

[02:07] So getting to check out this whole new facility in Chicago, which is pretty cool. Lots of public space and the media and innovation summit that we're at now is at their home court facility. So in the background, festivities are being held right now with different panels and such. But yeah, it's whole basketball court. So pretty cool. >> Well, I think before we jump into what it's like to be at one of these events, I think Caroline, you have a long history with the Obama Center and it's just stationation to where it is now. It'd be good to hear more about it and your background with it. >> Yeah, that's a little stretch. No, I I just it's now being in the kind of

[02:39] sports real estate side of things and having come from a community development background in my previous role, spent a lot of time in Chicago, um we had a lot of member organizations who are community development financial institutions who were funding small businesses and community facilities in Chicago. And so there was probably four or so years ago, I want to say, we were here and I remember we were visiting some of the sites that were funded around here, small businesses. I know there's one Bronzeville Winery, which is not too far from here, but uh but yeah,

[03:11] we went on a whole tour and it was amazing. But I remember them being like, "Oh, that's where the Obama Center is going to be." >> And then you realize how long these projects take. And so now, now being at Surge, we as we work on our projects, you realize, yes, how much it takes to really get these things off the ground, but very cool to see it now and being here, we haven't even fully walked the grounds, but just lots of people are able to come here. The public space and just these beautiful facilities now. So, it's um crazy now all up and running. So, >> yeah, I totally agree. And it's it's a

[03:42] beautiful location and they've done a really nice job. There's a huge amount of land, too, to host it. And as Keller was saying, like you know, obviously given what Serge does to see swath of land and we expect to be development around this has happened and will continue to happen. It's really interesting and exciting. But we are here for the WNBA and the WNBA is having its media innovation summit on home court, which is where President Obama recently christened home court and played basketball on. But part of the reason we were excited to be here is all the topics that were being covered at

[04:12] the event. the the growth of women's sports, the rise of using of data, AI, the idea of athletes as brands, particularly as women's athletes. We heard the backstory of some of the star NBA players, both current and former. We had multiple including Asia Wilson was here talking about her story. So, there's a lot we wanted to talk about and we thought to do a podcast on location given decision makers and our clients including the Chicago Sky, which you can see in the background are here, we thought that would make a lot of sense. So Caroline, I'd ask you, what's been your impression of these summits so

[04:43] far? >> There's so much to take in. So it's almost overwhelming of what all the different insights and just being in this facility. And I think this is my fourth WNBA all-star, I believe. So I went, my first one was in Las Vegas in whatever it was 4 years ago, so that would have been 2023. And then Phoenix, and then last year was Indianapolis and now Chicago. And so just seeing each one the growth and the sophistication and I think still the conversation is very much around it's all growth and a huge

[05:16] piece of it though too is now is all the data behind it because that's what makes the case for why it is you know a good business opportunity and >> the panel we just heard with Candace Parker was also interesting. There's just so many layers to it. So that one was about research and women's health research and they have the shirts which I think it was 6% of sports science research is focused on women and so to create elite athletes it's like shoes this the mold of shoes is based on a man's foot and all these things that really do impact the sport and so many

[05:47] different elements so it's interesting there's a lot of research and data discussions actually I find this time compared to other stuff I've been to asked so >> yeah I think that's I mean that is definitely a theme of the conference is purpose building for women, whether it's women's health, women's sports, promotions, content. The things we do like to talk about is that not only women are fond of women's sports, men, families, all different demographics and backgrounds and personas are interested in women's sports. But I think it is really important that one of the insights is there's a common thing

[06:17] called uh pink it and shrink it. Like that was the kind of the theme is like if you made everything pink and you made it somewhat smaller that that would be something that women would like where if you actually listen to what preferences were and and look at behaviors and look at what women were caring about. It wasn't just make things pink, right? People just wanted clothes that fit. They wanted things whether it's apparel, shoes, health. It should be personalized and customized to women. That's something obviously we're talking about and clearly as a man I'm one talking about that right now but as a joke I make constantly about these types of things. or obviously age is a theme.

[06:49] This is something that impacts you. You've played basketball. You're an athlete. >> I still try. >> Yeah. Exactly. We we've seen some of your injuries on some of the calls. Yeah. Which we won't we won't go beyond that. But the scars heal. >> Yes. Exactly. But like for you, you're obviously in the industry and a consumer of content and a fan of women's sports. How does personalization and really making things organic for women, A, have you learned things from the conference and B, how does that impact your fandom? I think growing up it I always played basketball and that was normal and I didn't think as much actually about the

[07:20] men versus women and that's just the way it was. But I always was happy to have the opportunity to play and love playing. But then as you get older and you start to see the world in a different way and you and then being in the business world and sports and even real estate, it's very male-dominated and you start to notice those differences more in a different way. Now that women's sports are actually on TV more, I'm consuming them more and I'm realizing how it affects me in ways that I didn't even realize before. And overall, it's just incredibly inspiring

[07:52] and empowering. And so I think one of the panels now as we're podcasting, I think, is uh JP Morgan about athletes and financial empowerment is always something that's been very interesting to me too. I mean men and women, but particularly women too. And so there's all these different elements that definitely bring an empowerment lens and then it also drives the business case too because it's inspiring and there's a social shift and social change element but also for years this is from the earliest allstars I've been to the conversation around it's not charity this is good business too and so just

[08:24] all these elements combined is u very powerful and then just one other point I mean Candace Parker touched on this at the end is women as leaders and personally I think women make some decent leaders the emotional quotient and how you manage people and a lot of things that generally speaking there's always spectrums but that women that men always don't and I think the shift too that was another really I don't I won't get the stat exactly right but I think they were saying before title n almost all coaches were women and now it's shifted so much

[08:54] it's don't quote me again but it was something like 30% or something are now women and because more money has been brought in and men see the opportunity and now men are taking a lot of the spots so it has to recalibrate right now too to make sure that women have those spots too because it does make a difference sometimes. So yeah, just more balance I think. >> No, I think you're hitting on something else. You know, a lot of what we've seen in the conference again which is a little bit even surprising for me is a focus on women in leadership roles and the ability to bring a different perspective, different background particularly on topics of media

[09:25] innovation. And one of the things that we um talked about, one of the earliest conversations was with uh Boa Construction, which is a minority owned construction company that helped to build and was the lead firm on building a home court at the Obama Center. And the lead project manager was a woman and they were talking about what is the impact that having a woman on the whole process as representative of what could be done and that seeing women in non-traditional management role and traditional management roles can make a big difference. So just from your perspective obviously as a woman in

[09:55] business and being in a leadership role at Serge, how does this resonate with you and what have you been taking away from the conference so far? Yeah, it is really interesting hearing more conversation around women in leadership and the impact that that has and it is inspiring because there at at least at this stage there the women's leagues and emerging leagues and women's sports in general does have this intrinsic nature to it where it's having to fight against some of the challenges of being in more

[10:25] powerful roles or being able to be the decision makers. And so I think it is kind of cool to see more of these players too having the platform and speaking out. Candace Parker was on the panel that she was just on was speaking to that and the drop actually in the number of women's coaches now as leagues was I think at the professional level and college level are becoming more male-dominated again whereas in the past it was mostly women coaches you know before title 9 and things like that. And now as it becomes more commoditized, there's more money in the industry, there's more men becoming coaches, which

[10:55] I didn't realize that trend so much or wasn't paying attention. And so, but there is this importance of having somebody of similar gender who can relate on a lot of different ways, but where there are differences between men and women um and men and women's sports um and all the implications. So I think people have talking about it and that's something on this last panel with Candace too. They're just saying being able to talk about certain things and things that affect women that don't affect men in the same way and now we talk about purpose-built facilities and training centers and the stadiums and of

[11:25] course that relates a lot to our work at surge of course on the sports real estate side and then I think generally speaking a lot of people bring up the I think it's deote their research about it's high 90s 94% or something of women who played sports are in end up in sea level positions or I don't know if that's the exact right phrasing the data. I'm sure I know that it has to be very specific to say the right way, but but something along those lines. Essentially, women who end up in sea level positions have played sports. And so, I think all those conversations are really inspiring.

[11:56] >> Obviously, as a stats person, there could be a correlation versus causation where women who are more likely to be in those positions are more likely to want to play sports in the first place. But putting that aside, I think it still makes particularly for women, but whether you're male or female, the idea of sports building in the types of skills that would help you to be successful in leadership roles in business or otherwise is really important. I think women having access to those opportunities, particularly young women and young girls, I think is really important. That's obviously something we've talked about. And I think to your point about purpose built, I think that's also something that's really important. Again, going back to

[12:27] what we talked about with personalization of apparel or nutrition, medicine, health, all of that feeds into performance centers that should be purpose-built for women. I also think it's interesting obviously from my lens from a partnership perspective. I think purpose-built performance centers really allow for a integration of potentially new and different partners and sponsors into performance centers, but also in terms of organic use cases and showing the organic use cases that are really critical to partnership success. purpose-built for specific women's teams

[12:57] allows for those types of organic content creation, but also shows how this can really be beneficial in a women's sports context. And that's something that we emphasize in our work with the Sky and other women's sports is when you can show people performing at their best and you enable them to perform their best, there's a lot of uh revenue multipliers, content multipliers, uh fan multipliers that happens from those types of things and making that a part of that is really important. Obviously, we're transitioning a little bit, but uh we're at a media and innovation summit. If you're talking about innovation, you're talking about AI. And there definitely was a lot of talk about AI, including

[13:29] specific panels about how teams, leagues, partners, vendors are all thinking about AI. Obviously, I'm immersed in AI. We do a lot of work with AI. Roar, which is obviously part of Serge, we have our own purpose-built AI solutions for sports, entertainment, and real estate. But as somebody who is, I guess I want to say not less AI [laughter] definitely word. What have you Yeah. What have you taken away from AI and data conversations so far? >> I think data technology is so interesting. Those words don't automatically make me jump up and be

[14:00] like, "Oh, I'm so excited to talk about this." I know. But since Adam surge and with all of the roar data analytics platform that we have and seeing the receptivity and interest among all the teams and other partners in this data I realize how powerful and useful it is and particularly for women's sports in particular again driving the business case around it too and you need that research and the data to give the legitimacy. I think a lot of times we feel and I think some of this was

[14:30] mentioned in some of the panels too. You can say something and feel very strongly about it anecdotally and yeah it's probably truth to it but it's like until you have the data backing it some for someone to actually invest money in it and people get behind it you need >> that piece of it. So I think you can see from the >> continued progression of more and more data to back a lot of the claims that are being made about women's sports and the growth in women's sports and just more investment in women's sports and as you have more data you are seeing more

[15:02] investment too and so >> I think for me it's yeah there's been a so so much of it has been focused on data and research and you just see the importance of of why that is and how that's help continues to help things Yeah, one of the things I was surprised about and brought up in the panel is that AI has been underinvested in women's sports. I think there's a case for AI specifically in sports. Maybe there's been an under investment in AI particularly on the business side of AI. The the types of things they were talking about whether it's audience analysis, talent evaluation, how you can

[15:33] think about doing different types of reporting or tracking different KPIs. Uh I do think one of the reasons that it's helpful to come to these types of events. Yes, I think you need to look at data. You need to look at things in large scale. But hearing people's stories even around data AI, how they're using it, how they're thinking about it directly from the decision makers is something that makes these conferences worthwhile from a content perspective. Obviously, it's nice to see a bunch of different people. We've seen too and met some new friends and seen some old friends which has been nice and it's exciting to see them. But on the panels

[16:04] themselves when you really hear from people directly about what their lived experiences are particularly in a digital or AI context it really can shape how you think about it and how this can move forward. Obviously even a couple years ago and you were talking about the first when you went in Las Vegas clearly there was no AI panel and now at the same time that AI is pervasive it's still not being used as much or as well as it could be. And one of the conversations that I've had repeatedly here is people have ideas about how they can use AI. They're being asked to use AI. They have access to all

[16:35] this data, but they're not seeing necessarily the features and benefits of using AI to drive revenue growth, to drive fan engagement, to help with player decision-m and panels like the ones that we had today help to articulate how and why that can be useful. So, I think that's really interesting. Uh I think there's still significant runway to go obviously given what was being talked about but it is interesting again from an AI perspective to hear directly from people on how they're using AI data and digital use cases. I don't know if you had anything

[17:06] else to say on that. Obviously I was a little bit on my soap box here. I think another piece we haven't probably touched on so much that is shifting a little bit but not necessarily directly related to your question but I was just thinking of kind of the different topics and one area I find interesting is the content the creator piece and >> athletes in particular as content creators and with brand endorsements and partnerships and how there are some differences or at least I don't know if it's men's versus women's sports or just the stage that kind of the WNBA and some

[17:37] of these leagues are at But um I thought the one data point was interesting. I think it was the 60% of again I'm going to get this wrong but uh something to the effect of a majority of fans want to see content from not the most famous players and are looking for the less known players are just really interested in the storytelling the behind the scenes. And that's what has created and what creates the outside of the game highlights is people get very invested in people's stories and when there's

[18:07] yeah the social media you can see what they're wearing, who they're dating, all that personal interest stuff that gets people to watch and gets you to doom scroll. Uh [laughter] so >> but not too much dig but yes that is. So that piece of it too is interesting and it shows how much opportunity there is because there are so many players whose stories haven't been told and there are so many brands out there that can align with some of that and some of the sponsorship opportunities. So >> yeah, outside of the number that they talked about about people wanting to see athletes that aren't as famous or aren't

[18:38] as wellknown. We've seen that throughout our research at Roar, one of the things projects we're working on right now and coming to the end is the World Cup and looking at topic and sentiment around the fan experience around the World Cup. But that is consistently what we find in that research and other research is organic content is the most valuable content and people talking about their organic lived experiences are the things that generate the most interest and passion. From an athlete and creator perspective, it's exactly what you just said. It is can you talk about your own

[19:08] story authentically in ways that will resonate with audiences who want to engage with those stories. Sports in particular gives content creators, athletes can often do and rightfully so think of themselves as content creators, but the sports and the platforms like the WNBA give athletes the audience and reach and awareness that other content creators. There are a lot that do and there are a lot that don't, but being an athlete organically gives you that platform. So being able to um talk about what your lived experience is and a lot of things that you talked about and

[19:38] there's other things just in terms of your interest and passions and being able to see that does drive substantial engagement, views, impressions on that kind of content. And one of the things I was surprised to hear is owning the content and particularly the ability to own content in a variety of different ways and having athletes being able to own content is something that's still a big uh challenge. And one of the panelists was talking about that some athlete content creators are spending even tens of thousands of dollars if not uh per day per week capturing or trying to capture their own content. Um, and

[20:09] being able to enable other athletes, particularly less or not as famous athletes, to have access to content and be their own content creators is something that is definitely of interest to multiple WNBA players, but women's sports more broadly. And obviously given your background in communications, curious to hear more about like a did that you think a that's a good idea, but b is that resonate with you given your background and experience? I'm also thinking of another topic as you're speaking too which is sorry not only

[20:39] questions but as you were talking I find it interesting too because they talk about like the authenticity of the content and you can just go live whenever you want and so I think of the produced versus not produced but there's definitely like a strategy behind it and a business behind how do you monetize social media and your brand and all these things and so it's not exactly question but it it's interesting to think about the highly produced versus the not produced. What is the right blend? Because people want to feel like they're part of your story and people

[21:10] are just naturally in their lives and we're doing this >> quote unquote live and it's a little rough. We're in the media room and people coming in the room and that makes it feel a little more real and we're here on site and people just want to feel like they're part of the whatever that live experience is or that person's >> real life and it's not this >> super produced commercial. that there is time and place for certain kinds. So anyway, yeah, so it's always like trying to figure out what is the right blend, but there is always a whole machine behind it of like Yeah. >> Well, I think one, yes, you guys got a

[21:40] little bit of behind the scenes of where we are, how we're producing this, but two, I think it's organic is interesting in the context of organic versus produced content, right? So there are times where I think organic content makes sense there. Exactly what you're saying, produced content. And I think you want to use it where it makes sense. I think having like a real-time experience at a conference so people can hopefully get a view of what we're doing and feel like they're part of the experience can be helpful. But there's other times where you don't want that, right? And that's where produced content and like when you're talking about being at a game and game footage that should

[22:11] be produced and that should be something that's more produced. Or if you're talking about certain types of brand campaigns, those should be produced and are more produced. >> Maybe don't use highly produced content when it doesn't call for it and use produced content when it does. And that does not every time but holistically work better. >> Yeah, because there is definitely a whole business behind all of it. And yeah, my brother is a content creator, so I learn a lot of stuff from him and just it's like the constant evolution of but some of it looks like it's but it's like there's to do it right and for the long term like you got to keep up with the trends, but there's a lot behind the

[22:42] scenes and with technology and AI things continue to change too. And I know there's different tools we've talked about that you know when you think about promoting your social media posts or ad placements and things like that on different platforms is changing. there's like new tools that are going to disrupt that whole way of doing ads on social media and promoting content and all these things. It's changing a lot. And then of course that affects and which you're much deeper into but like how that affects sponsorships and partnerships and how the sports and the other piece I mean there's a lot more

[23:13] conversation too now on the sports side too of content creators being the celebrities and I think someone on stage brought that up too and how that whole universe is changing >> versus Hollywood celebrities now it's like content creators are the people that the kids recognize and like oh that's yeah so and so. So >> yeah, I mean by definition content creators, they have large platforms. There are examples of content creators that just stream actual games directly through their uh channels. The NBA has leaned into that as well among and the WNBA I believe has uh potentially leaned into that as well. But and particularly

[23:44] for international and global reach pairing with content creators can make that happen. But is exactly what you said on the content creation side. athletes have an opportunity to be content creators and I think it's something that will continue the blend of athletes as athletes, athletes as content creators and athletes pursuing other ventures off the court is something that will continue to happen and I think something we'll continue to see at these types of conferences and events. So those are some of the main topics. I don't know if there's other topics that you thought >> I actually just have a question I thought of for you. So a lot of my

[24:15] expertise and experience around like digital marketing, there are so many digital marketing companies and services and now with AI this whole other swath of new services coming your way like that make themselves sound magical and will do anything you want any way that you want in the drop of hat. So when you look at budget what do you spend towards? cuz that's always something I've struggled with as how do you evaluate services now to be like okay let's you know when you're looking at a budget or a marketing budget or a team or something what type of I just feel like it's even more of the wild west or

[24:46] hard to evaluate yeah how to >> Well I think it's a really good a it's a really good question yeah you know I don't know if there's one answer that's oneizefits-all in general when you're thinking about content creation or just when technology is enabling business what are the features benefits and objectives you're trying to accomplish sometimes it can be the talent right you spend money on the talent because people will want to see and engage and interact with the talent and they want to hear what they have to say. So that can be from an ad perspective. Obviously the Super Bowl being one of the areas where that has happened where you know there's somewhat of an arms race to find the right talent for the ad and paying money

[25:17] for talent can be helpful. Sometimes to your point about production it there are times where production values make a big difference and depending on where you are you have to spend money on production. Obviously, I'm a little biased to this, but doing the research ahead of time can help you to make better decisions, particularly from a how do you allocate your resources to the point we brought up earlier, from a talent perspective, talent might not be the biggest star. It might be you find the right person. And if you find the right person, you don't have to spend as much on talent uh or creative. people can talk about organically their

[25:47] experience and have an audience that is substantial that is your target audience because they can organically talk about your product, your offering, your service. That can be really helpful as well. And then obviously you mentioned digital marketing. Are you talking about digital uh marketing going into ad networks, going into social, having live content? Are you talking about obviously activating from a sports perspective within a stadium at a game on a patch? Are you talking about product integration? So there's a lot of different things you're looking at, but obviously we're trying to do complex things with artificial intelligence,

[26:20] modeling, and data. At the end of the day, it really comes back to features, benefits, like what are you actually trying to do and what are your objectives? And if you can orient around that, that will help to do that. And then one of the things I talk about in my class also, there is only one model for revenue that's ever existed in the history of mankind and continues to exist, which from a mathematical perspective, revenue equals volume times price. So either you're trying to sell more stuff or sell stuff at a higher price point. There's a zillion different ways you can do that. But if you think about well what are we trying to do if

[26:50] revenue is our primary objective then how do you think about what you're trying to do and then you can layer your up or you can use that as your foundation and layer up from there even from a content and digital creation. One of the things that we focus on at ROAR is a lot of advertising and marketing particularly in sports but not just in sports in almost any industry there's a lot of focus on brand objectives which is there's absolutely a value to that but I think we really want to make it more revenue oriented particularly sports partnerships and sponsorships but marketing and advertising more generally

[27:21] and the reason that companies like Meta and Google have become now trillion dollar plus companies is because they figured out a way to leverage data to drive better content creation, better decision- making, and better ad placement that drives real revenue generation, whether that's through new customer acquisition, customer retention, or making things people more likely to move down the customer funnel. And I think if you know what you're trying to do, then you can optimize your campaigns around what you're trying to do. So, [sighs and gasps] again, a little bit of a soapbox answer, but I

[27:52] think it's something that uh is very important. I'm glad you asked the question. >> Great. Well, thank you for answer. Yeah. So, I feel like that Yeah. was a that's say a lot of being at the media innovation summit. I'm like, "Yeah, there's a lot of that content." >> Yeah. Well, well, other thing I was going to say, we've talked a lot about media innovation, but there's a lot of events going on. Anything in particular you're excited about? >> So many. So, when I when I first came, I was kind of on a whim. I came by myself in my previous role in community development work. So, I've been trying to bring those worlds together for a long time. And I >> Yeah. So, that was I forget which

[28:24] casino, but one of those one of those. I'm not a big gambler. I can't Yeah. But it well it's where the aces play. Why am I blanking on the name of their Michelob? >> Yeah. Michelob. >> Yeah. So it's in whatever that complexes are. So you could feel the buzz and things growing. And when I walked into the convention center where they had the expo was incredible the brand activations and being kind of in marketing space and branding. It was like being a kid in a candy store like walking around all these different brand activations. And then there's a few events and I wasn't working directly in the sports space and so I'm sure there's

[28:55] other stuff going on. But but now the past few years having gone, it just seems like there's more and more events and everybody's trying to get in and you have these all-star weekends for most sports. There's a lot of business events that happen. But now this weekend there's almost too much like there's like what do I go to and so many overlapping things and so there's lots of cool stuff though seeing that Chicago Sky one of one of clients is super exciting to get to participate in some of their stuff. But then I'm very excited to I think it's tomorrow. I forget the full schedule, but there's

[29:25] peace players event. I think Candace Parker may be speaking at that one as well, which which is a really cool program. So, it's like nonprofit working with a few sports and teaching life skills and conflict resolution, things like that. So, it's a really cool organization. They're doing something Lindustries. They're a partner of the Chicago Sky and a few of the other WNBA teams. They're doing a small business contest, I believe. So, that would be cool to see some I guess some of the local businesses. Um, yeah, we're doing like a pitch competition. That's cool. There's female quotient I know has has really nice events, a lot of female empowerment. So, lots of other stuff,

[29:57] too. It's almost overwhelming. You're like, "What what do I go to?" But yeah, lots lots of good people and it's very energizing. We're in Philadelphia last week for the Major League Baseball All-Star game. Obviously in Chicago this week for the BMA All-Star game, and it just reinforces there's a power of sports every day, but particularly for these marquee events where you see the energy and people coming to cities to to go to these events to have these interactions to reinvigorate old friendships and really learn what's going on in the industry. It's always great to talk to people and feel the energy that comes from having these uh events. Um, so as somebody who is a

[30:29] native of Chicago now since I've lived here longer than I lived in DC than than growing up, but it's really great to have everybody in town to see all the cool stuff that's happened in Chicago. Not everybody's seen the development in downtown Chicago, which is cool for people to see as well. So excited for everybody to take part in what's going on in the city. So I don't know anything else. >> It's beautiful. Always always nice in the summer in Chicago. So yes, wonderful to be here. That's how they That's how I That's how they got me the first time originally. It's coming in the >> summer. Yeah, they only come in the summer. >> Yeah, you can always You think you can

[31:00] deal with the winters and then when it's in the summer time. It's the best time to deal think about dealing with the winter. >> Yes. No, it's wonderful here and yeah, really looking forward to the next few days and continuing what we started with today at the Media and Innovation Summit. So, >> yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for thanks for listening. We'll try to do more of these events [music] so everybody who listens can get real-time feedback of what's going on these events. Thanks for uh tuning in to the Roar podcast.