August 4, 2023 • 22 mins
Robots are entering our world more and more. We recently learned of a handful of NFL teams using a product called Turf Tank to paint the gridiron fields. Being inquisitive, we wanted to explore this a little deeper. Presto, we chat with Ryan Stubbe, Vice President with Turf Tank on this week's show for the inside skinny. You can follow this growing technology company on Twitter @Turf_Tank. Follow Danny G Radio on Twitter @DannyGradio, Follow Big Ben on Twitter @BenMaller, and listen to the original "Ben Maller Show," Monday-Friday on 500+ terrestrial Fox Sports Radio affiliates, iHeart stream, and SiriusXM Radio channel 83, 2a-6a ET, 11p-3a PT!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kabbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in
the a everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
It is the Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny
g in the Audio Dojo. Because four hours a night
are not enough, so we do audio content eight days
a week here from the secret podcast studio somewhere deep
in the north Woods. Now I should point out that
(00:55):
while you have found this show, and you have downloaded
this show, you've subscribed to the show, and boy with
thank you for that. This show is a spin off,
of course, of the Overnight Show. But we are available
all over the place, the vast power of the iHeart
Broadcast Company, the global reach of podcasting and all that,
and this weekend's going to be slightly different. Now, how
(01:18):
is this weekend going to be slightly different? I'll explain
so normally I do do the show with Danny G.
But my man, Danny G is on Daddy G duty
as he is awaiting the pending arrival of his son.
We're very excited about that. We've talked about it a
lot on the podcast over the last last year or so,
and the big moment is about to arrive, and so
(01:41):
Danny's standing by to do his husband lee duties. So
we'll hear all about that when he gets back. So
he'll be away for at least the next couple of weeks.
So this weekend today we have what I think is
a fascinating conversation. I hope it turns out to be
a fast and in conversation. You will be the judge
of that ultimately about some new technology. Will tell you
(02:04):
about that involving the NFL and sports and world, you know,
the entire world and all that. So we'll get to
that coming up in a moment also this weekend on
tomorrow's podcast in the Sunday podcast, my man, we were
very lucky to get this guy because everyone wants him.
All the networks want this guy. His name is Alex
(02:27):
the Vegan. We call him Alex the Vegan. That's actually
not his legal name, but Alex one of the great
rising stars at the company, and he's very active on
things like TikTok and all that, and he's got his
own following in the anime world, like a big following,
and say, he's like blowing up. We won't be able
to get him eventually, but we got him. So he'll
be on not today, he'll be on Alex with us
(02:50):
on the Saturday and Sunday podcast, and we'll be able
to hang out if you have any vegan related questions,
although he had fallen off the vegan wagon, so there
is that, but we look forward to talking to Alex's
gonna be a good time with him this weekend and
be hanging out with us. But today also a fun time.
So I saw this viral video at the beginning of
(03:13):
the week and we talked about it on the radio show.
It was a robot that was painting the fields at
NFL training camp, and for some reason, I was like
fascinated by this. I was like because I was flashing
back to my youth, and I recall in high school
in particular. I don't know this happened when I was
(03:35):
doing like Little League and stuff like that. But I
remember in high school and we were getting ready for
games and we were practicing, and then the groundskeeper. We
had one dude that was a typical high school groundskeeper
back in my day, you know, a little overweight, disheveled,
good tan because the guy's outside all the time. Big
massive hat, massive sombrero type hat that the guy would wear,
(03:59):
and he would ride around on a golf like a
golf cart type thing, and he always had in the
back random tools for the field. But this guy spent
hours and hours assessing with the field, painting the field,
doing all that making it wonderful. So our high school
football team could go out and lose by fifty points.
(04:19):
Just wonderful memories. So I bring that up because I
saw this video of this robot that was painting the
field that wow, it kind of to paint the picture
for our blind listeners it and you probably wouldn't know
it's either, but it's like a rumba, a roomba, I
guess is what it's called. Kind of like that kind
of thing, which I guess if you're blind, you don't
know what that is either, But it's a it's a
(04:42):
little robot, a thing that goes up and down the
field obviously, and so I was like, I kind of
want to know more about this, and I did a
little Google search and I found some things and whatnot,
and then I had a light bulb. Golf, you ever
had this happen here, that light bulb that I don't
want to say, come to Jesus moment, but you had
the great epiphany. Don't even know if this qualifies as
a good epiphany, but I was like, this thing's kind
(05:03):
of cool.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I want to know details on it.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So boom, I realized, you know, I have this great
platform on the fifth hour that we can do more
long form things.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We do not have to be beholden to the normal
restraints of the terrestrial radio show and Plus listen overnight.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
As you know, we take a lot of calls from zany,
wacky callers. Some say they're on the spectrum that's up
for you to decide. They seem to be having a
good time with people call the show. But we don't
do interviews on the overnight show because it's a caller
driven it's me barking doing monologues and all that. But
on the fifth hour we are able to expand our
(05:47):
horizons and see a whole new world that is out there,
and I tracked down with help. Wasn't all me, but
I had some help here. I was able to track
down the man, one of the big shots here at
this company. The company, by the way, is called turf Tank.
That's the name of the company, and they've been around
(06:09):
for a few years, but they're starting to blow up
now and they are the ones behind this product that
is called, appropriately enough, turf Tank. And so we're going
to be joined here in a minute by Ryan Stuby.
Ryan is a vice president, does some marketing, some sales
here at turf Tank, and he's going to give us
(06:31):
the complete and total inside skinny everything you need to
know and even things you probably didn't need to know
about this product. But again I am I'm fired up
because I want to hear all about it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I'm not against the technology now. I am against technology
that takes shops. This does not appear to be something
that's going to take someone's jobs. I think we're all
concerned about that, right AI. And oh no, you know,
eventually all these radio shows will be done by robots,
but not yet. But this is this is about the
paint on the field. So we welcome in now man
(07:08):
who's gonna give us all the inside skinny from turf Tank,
Ryan Stuby.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Ryan, welcome.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Good to have you here on the Fifth Hour with
Ben Mallar podcast. And so the first thing I think
we should start with this how does it work? Is
this a set it and forget it situation when it
comes to the robot on a football field.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yeah, that's a great question, Ben. First off, I wanted
to thank you and your team for this opportunity. You know,
we're certainly honored to be a part of the show
and just very excited not only here in the US,
but for our for our team globally as well. But yeah,
I mean to ask for your answer your question there,
you know, to keep saying simple, the product makeup of
(07:51):
this is a mixture between a proprietary software and hardware technology,
and the hardware components being the tap with the software,
the robots, as well as a base station which is
really set there to ensure the accuracy of the painting.
So basically what will happen is is our customers will
they'll set up the equipment, so they'll set up this
(08:13):
base station, they choose which field layout and sport type
they want on the appy and then we basically mark
a couple points on the field and then from there
the robot does this job autonomously.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
So I looked up a little information on the internet.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You guys have been around for a couple of years, right,
but this is a relatively new product. I had not seen,
as I said, before the last week or so. But
you guys have been around. The company's been around for
a couple of years. Is that correct? How who started it?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. So yeah, so we've been
around since around twenty fifteen, where the product was really
first developed and the technology introduced into the sports field
line marketing world. But that actually occurred in Denmark, so
at that time it was only available to some customers
in Europe, specifically Denmark, and then really has it's made
(09:03):
its way to the US around twenty seventeen, where turf
Tank was the brand and the product was really introduced
here in the States. But you know, as far as
growth for us in the US, it's really occurred over
the last two and a half years. I mean, we've
expanded our team dramatically in all aspects of the company,
from you know, product development to operations and really grow
(09:25):
in our salesforce primarily.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well and as far as the the NFL angle to it,
because that's what that got my attention this week. I
know the NFL can be slow to adapt to two
different technology and things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
They usually wait a while to get in on it.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
But what what was the process like to convince some
NFL teams to use this thing? Because it's you know,
it's it's obviously it appears to be very effective, but
the NFL does not like to go out in uncharted waters.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Shall we say, so, how did that work?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think you're spot on there.
Now I will say it's, uh, it's taken us time.
I think there's no doubt about that. You know, when
you think of an NFL organization, you know, and the
resources that they have, you know we're talking. You know,
they've got personnel, they've got financial, financial resources, they've got
all the equipment right, so they don't really have those
same problems and struggles as you would say maybe the
(10:22):
lower sports organizations. Do you know, they've got large ground
crews who all day, every day, you know, work on
maintaining their fields and making sure that their playing services
are in the best possible shape. So you know, now,
I do believe over the last couple of years, you know,
we've seen those resources change in somewhat of these organizations.
(10:42):
I mean even at the NFL level, right, I mean
I think clubs or I think these organizations are really
looking for ways to be more efficient in their own processes, right,
I mean when you think of facilities, teams and grounds
crews like their their to do lists continue to grow, right,
but their resources do not. So now I think there's
starting to, you know, understand that our product can be
(11:03):
a compliment to what they do, right, I mean, there's
so many things that are on their plate. They bring
in the robot, they let the robot kind of assist
them in that operation, and they're fully comfortable with you know,
the precision and the accuracy and even an improved quality
that they may not be able to accomplish, you know,
with with a manual machine or in those existing resources.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Very cool and Ryan, how many roughly how many NFL
teams are using this? I know there's a couple at
least right that using Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Yes, exactly, So we're right around a half dozen or
so NFL teams we got obviously, you know the Jacksonville Jaguars,
We've got Raymond James Stadium down in Tampa, the Seahawks,
and the Bengals to kind of name a few, and
hopefully that list will grow. What's kind of funny, as
I just saw on Twitter today Josh Allen talking about
(11:52):
his high school actually is buying a robot. So they
did a big fundraiser with Josh Allen and they're actually
going to use the money for surfing. So it was
new news to us, which we're really excited about.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Very cool, and it's also you guys have done a
bunch of college right, big college programs have used this
as well, so you you've grown in that area.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What are some of the colleges that have signed up
for the robot?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, so we're all over at the Division one level.
I mean, we've got some teams in the SEC, Big ten, ACC,
PAC twelve. We've got Alabama, Michigan, Clemson, Kentucky. Duke is
another big user for us. So yeah, we're definitely starting
to get more exposure at that high level. We've noticed
(12:36):
that there always been kind of like you know, the
NFL teams with all the resources at hand, but now
they're really starting to take advantage of the technology, which
is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
So again to go back and you talked about how
it works, and so you have a tablet, you kind
of put everything in there and then it just set
it and forget it. And how much how much time
does this thing? Because it looks pretty wild. I watched
the I Gues said, I watched the clip and looks
pretty crazy how effective it is. But how much time
can be saved by using this as opposed to and
I remember when I was when I was a kid
(13:08):
in high school and stuff, how much time the groundskeeper
spent to get the field ready for our games and stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So how quick does this thing actually work?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah? Absolutely So for a football field, you are looking
at around three and a half hours to paint everything.
And I mean some of our customers spend a half
a day on Thursday and then they finish up on
Friday right when they're doing it manually just because they
don't have the you know, the resources that need to
be able to knock it out quickly. Right, So we're
(13:38):
saving our customers a ton of times. One of also
the biggest value adds for the product is the paint savings, right,
So our system has a controlled sprayer, so the paint
is coming out the same flow every single time. So
they're able to save around fifty percent of the paint consumption.
So you're looking at around I would say five and
(13:59):
a half gallons of paint that they'll use for a
full football team, where they're probably today using double back.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Now this thing paints the lines? Does it also? I
know those end zone the logos and the end zone.
Is it able to do that? Is that advanced enough
or are you still waiting on that?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Absolutely? So the robot can paint you know, numbers, It
can paint end zone texts, it can paint logos at
the center field. It can do just about anything that
requires painting on you know, a artificial graphs or even
turf so or turf in natural graph Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
So so like those those nice logos at midfield and
all that and the end zone, this thing's able to do.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's wild to me that this thing, Yes, that's crazy.
How does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
You put you must put a photo or something in
the tablet to show it with.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I mean, that's wild to me that they can paint
those logos. Crazy.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, great, question there, So there is. It is kind
of an upgrade when it comes. You know, our top
customers have access to our logo feature. But currently right now,
there is a little bit of development work that we
do on our end to be able to kind of
get that logo into a into a language to where
the software can actually read it and we can build
(15:13):
a route for it. But yeah, I mean, majority of
logos we can do. There's definitely some more complex ones
out there to where the robot struggles with some things,
but overall, I mean we can. We can pump out
a ton of logos, which is really really cool for
some of these schools.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I know, it's it's it's awesome for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I mean I can't believe it's able that the technology
is even there to do it. And you mentioned mentioned
people hear robots, Ryan and the immediate thing, and we
all think, oh, you know, all those our jobs and
all that. But you guys have kind of said I've
said some I've seen some of the stuff you guys,
but this is actually not it's not taking groundskeepers jobs, right,
(15:51):
and it's just something in theory. This is enhancing, as
you said, not taking away, even though it's the most
advanced robot techn it's helping, not not necessarily taking people away,
is that correct?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Great question and short answer to that is, it's absolutely
not taking away jobs. You know. I think everybody still
has that feeling, you know, when we're approaching them, especially
the ones who are actually painting the fields right they're
they're a little bit hesitant. I asked the same questions
myself when I, you know, started with a company about
three and a half years ago. Is hen, are we
really going to be just kind of taking people's jobs?
(16:25):
And that the answer is no. You know that the
robot still requires you know, an operator to set things up,
to mix paint, to add paint to the robot, to
operate the software, right so that individual still needs to
be involved with the whole operation right now. What it
does do is, just like you said, it really frees
up these individuals to be you know, more efficient, but
(16:47):
then also frees them up to be able to do
other more important things that they're responsible for. Again, I
think eliminating a person's role has never been the intention
for us and never will be. You know, our mission
really as a company is we exist to make the
lives of sports field managers easier, and the robot is
one way I'm doing that.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
How did this affect businesses? I mean, so I saw it.
I had not heard of turf tank. I saw it,
as I said, the NFL training camp a couple of
days back, early in the week. There's some video that
came out, and so I got curious and I started
kind of looking some stuff up, and that's how we
ended up talking Ryan. But uh, yeah, how how's business matter?
(17:26):
I assume the publicity this has actually been good. It's
been a good week for you.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Guys, right, Yeah, it definitely has. Yeah, We've we've we've
had a lot of exposure, you know, over the last
couple of weeks. And and also you know, with football starting,
I mean you think about you know, all these schools
across the country or starting to go back to school
and getting their football fields ready for Friday night lights
and you know, Saturday football games. Right, So the exposure
(17:50):
for us over the last few weeks has been really awesome.
I mean, we've we've continued to grow quite you know,
quite aggressively over the past few years. I mean, we've
got roughly sixteen hundred customers here in the United States
and about two thousand globally and within about seven or
eight different countries. So we're excited about the future. You know,
(18:12):
we're we're trying to pump out new products. We're continuing
to evolve and innovate and trying to just you know,
improve the lives again for our sports field managers.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Well, the other thing too ryan about this.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I mean people see this, you know, robot, and they're like, Okay,
it's gonna be very expensive. I'm sure it is not cheap,
but is this I would assume you're opened, uh, not
just the big time players, but also the smaller like
high schools and stuff like that. Are they able to
get access to this? Is there a price point that
could be reasonable for those guys?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So right now, I mean around fifty six percent of
our customers are actually within we call it the education sector, right,
so you're looking at high schools, you're looking at small
colleges or you know, colleges and universities. So we do
there are two different ways to acquire the robot. Previously,
back when the company first started, you would only be
(19:07):
able to purchase the equipment and it was expensive. It
still is expensive to do it outright Now, what we've
implemented about two years or two and a half three
years ago was a subscription model. So what we've done
is we've really lowered that barrier of entry for our customers,
which now opens that up to a lot more organizations
that can be able to afford this type of technology
(19:29):
because it's it's needed. It's needed at all levels, right,
so it's definitely an affordable piece of equipment. Around eighty
five percent of our customers today are doing our subscription model,
so most are going that route, which is an annual fee.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And is it true that this turf take which I
saw for painting NFL films or NFL fields and whatnot,
that it also can do like parking lots? Is that
is that correct that this technology can be used in
parking lots?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yes, and no, it definitely can paint a parking lot. Now,
the one thing with parking lot is it's actually a
different type of paint, so it's a lot thicker that
lasts longer, which isn't truly supported with our existing robot today.
But that's again another piece of technology that we're going
to continue to work on and hopefully have a product
(20:22):
that is meant specifically for painting on those hard surfaces.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, and then the next one, I guess you'd have
to do basketball right now, that's hard, right because that's
I mean, I don't know how you would even pull
that off in basketball.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
But yeah, exactly, I'm a big basketball guy. That's that's
that's my sport, so I'm constantly asking for it. But yeah,
that would be a completely different type of operation for
us right now. We you know, indoors isn't something that
we are just due to the technology and the GPS,
and we're not really painting indoors right now for anything,
(20:55):
which hopefully over time that'll that'll change as well.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, I'm curious, do you know roughly how much pain
it takes to put down on a football field?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Like you know, how much? How many gallons of pain
are we talking about? It must be a ton, I
would think.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, Actually, you're again, you're you're looking at around five
and a half gallons of paint to do an entire
football field. What customers are usually doing today manually is
double that, if not more.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Okay, I got you? All right? All very cool?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
All right, Well Ryan, thing, how can people find more
information out about this? You guys have a website or
something that somebody's listening. Maybe they're like, hey, I work
at a high school, maybe we can get this at
our school.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How can they contact you guys.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Yeah, absolutely, So we're really everywhere on all all the
different social platforms. We've got a website, so it's turf
tank dot com. We've got plenty of locations on our
website to where you can kind of fill out a
form and we'll get in touch with you right away.
We've got reps that are located across the across the
US that actually go visit some of our prospects and
we do demos for them so they can actually see
(22:00):
it on their field and there's just a different there's
a different wow factor of what I call it, you know,
seeing it in person on your own field and you know,
seeing a video like you did or a picture. So
please get a hold of us. We'd love to come
out and paint a field for you.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And as you said, Ron, not just you know, obviously
you deal in the United States, but you guys are
a global company, right You got people all over the place,
not just here, all.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Over absolutely absolutely, So we've got operations right now in
the UK, Denmark obviously, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, France, and Canada
is kicking off for US as well.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Very cool, All right, hey Ryan, thank you for doing so.
I appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Fascinated by the technology, very cool to see it on
a football field, and I can't wait to see what
you guys come up with next.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But thanks for doing I appreciate Ryan.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Awesome, thanks man. Appreciate the opportunity
Kabbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in
the a everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Welcome in.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
It is the Fifth Hour with Ben Mahler and Danny
g in the Audio Dojo. Because four hours a night
are not enough, so we do audio content eight days
a week here from the secret podcast studio somewhere deep
in the north Woods. Now I should point out that
(00:55):
while you have found this show, and you have downloaded
this show, you've subscribed to the show, and boy with
thank you for that. This show is a spin off,
of course, of the Overnight Show. But we are available
all over the place, the vast power of the iHeart
Broadcast Company, the global reach of podcasting and all that,
and this weekend's going to be slightly different. Now, how
(01:18):
is this weekend going to be slightly different? I'll explain
so normally I do do the show with Danny G.
But my man, Danny G is on Daddy G duty
as he is awaiting the pending arrival of his son.
We're very excited about that. We've talked about it a
lot on the podcast over the last last year or so,
and the big moment is about to arrive, and so
(01:41):
Danny's standing by to do his husband lee duties. So
we'll hear all about that when he gets back. So
he'll be away for at least the next couple of weeks.
So this weekend today we have what I think is
a fascinating conversation. I hope it turns out to be
a fast and in conversation. You will be the judge
of that ultimately about some new technology. Will tell you
(02:04):
about that involving the NFL and sports and world, you know,
the entire world and all that. So we'll get to
that coming up in a moment also this weekend on
tomorrow's podcast in the Sunday podcast, my man, we were
very lucky to get this guy because everyone wants him.
All the networks want this guy. His name is Alex
(02:27):
the Vegan. We call him Alex the Vegan. That's actually
not his legal name, but Alex one of the great
rising stars at the company, and he's very active on
things like TikTok and all that, and he's got his
own following in the anime world, like a big following,
and say, he's like blowing up. We won't be able
to get him eventually, but we got him. So he'll
be on not today, he'll be on Alex with us
(02:50):
on the Saturday and Sunday podcast, and we'll be able
to hang out if you have any vegan related questions,
although he had fallen off the vegan wagon, so there
is that, but we look forward to talking to Alex's
gonna be a good time with him this weekend and
be hanging out with us. But today also a fun time.
So I saw this viral video at the beginning of
(03:13):
the week and we talked about it on the radio show.
It was a robot that was painting the fields at
NFL training camp, and for some reason, I was like
fascinated by this. I was like because I was flashing
back to my youth, and I recall in high school
in particular. I don't know this happened when I was
(03:35):
doing like Little League and stuff like that. But I
remember in high school and we were getting ready for
games and we were practicing, and then the groundskeeper. We
had one dude that was a typical high school groundskeeper
back in my day, you know, a little overweight, disheveled,
good tan because the guy's outside all the time. Big
massive hat, massive sombrero type hat that the guy would wear,
(03:59):
and he would ride around on a golf like a
golf cart type thing, and he always had in the
back random tools for the field. But this guy spent
hours and hours assessing with the field, painting the field,
doing all that making it wonderful. So our high school
football team could go out and lose by fifty points.
(04:19):
Just wonderful memories. So I bring that up because I
saw this video of this robot that was painting the
field that wow, it kind of to paint the picture
for our blind listeners it and you probably wouldn't know
it's either, but it's like a rumba, a roomba, I
guess is what it's called. Kind of like that kind
of thing, which I guess if you're blind, you don't
know what that is either, But it's a it's a
(04:42):
little robot, a thing that goes up and down the
field obviously, and so I was like, I kind of
want to know more about this, and I did a
little Google search and I found some things and whatnot,
and then I had a light bulb. Golf, you ever
had this happen here, that light bulb that I don't
want to say, come to Jesus moment, but you had
the great epiphany. Don't even know if this qualifies as
a good epiphany, but I was like, this thing's kind
(05:03):
of cool.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I want to know details on it.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
So boom, I realized, you know, I have this great
platform on the fifth hour that we can do more
long form things.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We do not have to be beholden to the normal
restraints of the terrestrial radio show and Plus listen overnight.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
As you know, we take a lot of calls from zany,
wacky callers. Some say they're on the spectrum that's up
for you to decide. They seem to be having a
good time with people call the show. But we don't
do interviews on the overnight show because it's a caller
driven it's me barking doing monologues and all that. But
on the fifth hour we are able to expand our
(05:47):
horizons and see a whole new world that is out there,
and I tracked down with help. Wasn't all me, but
I had some help here. I was able to track
down the man, one of the big shots here at
this company. The company, by the way, is called turf Tank.
That's the name of the company, and they've been around
(06:09):
for a few years, but they're starting to blow up
now and they are the ones behind this product that
is called, appropriately enough, turf Tank. And so we're going
to be joined here in a minute by Ryan Stuby.
Ryan is a vice president, does some marketing, some sales
here at turf Tank, and he's going to give us
(06:31):
the complete and total inside skinny everything you need to
know and even things you probably didn't need to know
about this product. But again I am I'm fired up
because I want to hear all about it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I'm not against the technology now. I am against technology
that takes shops. This does not appear to be something
that's going to take someone's jobs. I think we're all
concerned about that, right AI. And oh no, you know,
eventually all these radio shows will be done by robots,
but not yet. But this is this is about the
paint on the field. So we welcome in now man
(07:08):
who's gonna give us all the inside skinny from turf Tank,
Ryan Stuby.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Ryan, welcome.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Good to have you here on the Fifth Hour with
Ben Mallar podcast. And so the first thing I think
we should start with this how does it work? Is
this a set it and forget it situation when it
comes to the robot on a football field.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yeah, that's a great question, Ben. First off, I wanted
to thank you and your team for this opportunity. You know,
we're certainly honored to be a part of the show
and just very excited not only here in the US,
but for our for our team globally as well. But yeah,
I mean to ask for your answer your question there,
you know, to keep saying simple, the product makeup of
(07:51):
this is a mixture between a proprietary software and hardware technology,
and the hardware components being the tap with the software,
the robots, as well as a base station which is
really set there to ensure the accuracy of the painting.
So basically what will happen is is our customers will
they'll set up the equipment, so they'll set up this
(08:13):
base station, they choose which field layout and sport type
they want on the appy and then we basically mark
a couple points on the field and then from there
the robot does this job autonomously.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
So I looked up a little information on the internet.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You guys have been around for a couple of years, right,
but this is a relatively new product. I had not seen,
as I said, before the last week or so. But
you guys have been around. The company's been around for
a couple of years. Is that correct? How who started it?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Yeah, that's a great question. So yeah, so we've been
around since around twenty fifteen, where the product was really
first developed and the technology introduced into the sports field
line marketing world. But that actually occurred in Denmark, so
at that time it was only available to some customers
in Europe, specifically Denmark, and then really has it's made
(09:03):
its way to the US around twenty seventeen, where turf
Tank was the brand and the product was really introduced
here in the States. But you know, as far as
growth for us in the US, it's really occurred over
the last two and a half years. I mean, we've
expanded our team dramatically in all aspects of the company,
from you know, product development to operations and really grow
(09:25):
in our salesforce primarily.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well and as far as the the NFL angle to it,
because that's what that got my attention this week. I
know the NFL can be slow to adapt to two
different technology and things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
They usually wait a while to get in on it.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
But what what was the process like to convince some
NFL teams to use this thing? Because it's you know,
it's it's obviously it appears to be very effective, but
the NFL does not like to go out in uncharted waters.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Shall we say, so, how did that work?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think you're spot on there.
Now I will say it's, uh, it's taken us time.
I think there's no doubt about that. You know, when
you think of an NFL organization, you know, and the
resources that they have, you know we're talking. You know,
they've got personnel, they've got financial, financial resources, they've got
all the equipment right, so they don't really have those
same problems and struggles as you would say maybe the
(10:22):
lower sports organizations. Do you know, they've got large ground
crews who all day, every day, you know, work on
maintaining their fields and making sure that their playing services
are in the best possible shape. So you know, now,
I do believe over the last couple of years, you know,
we've seen those resources change in somewhat of these organizations.
(10:42):
I mean even at the NFL level, right, I mean
I think clubs or I think these organizations are really
looking for ways to be more efficient in their own processes, right,
I mean when you think of facilities, teams and grounds
crews like their their to do lists continue to grow, right,
but their resources do not. So now I think there's
starting to, you know, understand that our product can be
(11:03):
a compliment to what they do, right, I mean, there's
so many things that are on their plate. They bring
in the robot, they let the robot kind of assist
them in that operation, and they're fully comfortable with you know,
the precision and the accuracy and even an improved quality
that they may not be able to accomplish, you know,
with with a manual machine or in those existing resources.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Very cool and Ryan, how many roughly how many NFL
teams are using this? I know there's a couple at
least right that using Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Yes, exactly, So we're right around a half dozen or
so NFL teams we got obviously, you know the Jacksonville Jaguars,
We've got Raymond James Stadium down in Tampa, the Seahawks,
and the Bengals to kind of name a few, and
hopefully that list will grow. What's kind of funny, as
I just saw on Twitter today Josh Allen talking about
(11:52):
his high school actually is buying a robot. So they
did a big fundraiser with Josh Allen and they're actually
going to use the money for surfing. So it was
new news to us, which we're really excited about.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Very cool, and it's also you guys have done a
bunch of college right, big college programs have used this
as well, so you you've grown in that area.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
What are some of the colleges that have signed up
for the robot?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, so we're all over at the Division one level.
I mean, we've got some teams in the SEC, Big ten, ACC,
PAC twelve. We've got Alabama, Michigan, Clemson, Kentucky. Duke is
another big user for us. So yeah, we're definitely starting
to get more exposure at that high level. We've noticed
(12:36):
that there always been kind of like you know, the
NFL teams with all the resources at hand, but now
they're really starting to take advantage of the technology, which
is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
So again to go back and you talked about how
it works, and so you have a tablet, you kind
of put everything in there and then it just set
it and forget it. And how much how much time
does this thing? Because it looks pretty wild. I watched
the I Gues said, I watched the clip and looks
pretty crazy how effective it is. But how much time
can be saved by using this as opposed to and
I remember when I was when I was a kid
(13:08):
in high school and stuff, how much time the groundskeeper
spent to get the field ready for our games and stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So how quick does this thing actually work?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
Yeah? Absolutely So for a football field, you are looking
at around three and a half hours to paint everything.
And I mean some of our customers spend a half
a day on Thursday and then they finish up on
Friday right when they're doing it manually just because they
don't have the you know, the resources that need to
be able to knock it out quickly. Right, So we're
(13:38):
saving our customers a ton of times. One of also
the biggest value adds for the product is the paint savings, right,
So our system has a controlled sprayer, so the paint
is coming out the same flow every single time. So
they're able to save around fifty percent of the paint consumption.
So you're looking at around I would say five and
(13:59):
a half gallons of paint that they'll use for a
full football team, where they're probably today using double back.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Now this thing paints the lines? Does it also? I
know those end zone the logos and the end zone.
Is it able to do that? Is that advanced enough
or are you still waiting on that?
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Absolutely? So the robot can paint you know, numbers, It
can paint end zone texts, it can paint logos at
the center field. It can do just about anything that
requires painting on you know, a artificial graphs or even
turf so or turf in natural graph Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
So so like those those nice logos at midfield and
all that and the end zone, this thing's able to do.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
That's wild to me that this thing, Yes, that's crazy.
How does that work?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
You put you must put a photo or something in
the tablet to show it with.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I mean, that's wild to me that they can paint
those logos. Crazy.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, great, question there, So there is. It is kind
of an upgrade when it comes. You know, our top
customers have access to our logo feature. But currently right now,
there is a little bit of development work that we
do on our end to be able to kind of
get that logo into a into a language to where
the software can actually read it and we can build
(15:13):
a route for it. But yeah, I mean, majority of
logos we can do. There's definitely some more complex ones
out there to where the robot struggles with some things,
but overall, I mean we can. We can pump out
a ton of logos, which is really really cool for
some of these schools.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I know, it's it's it's awesome for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I mean I can't believe it's able that the technology
is even there to do it. And you mentioned mentioned
people hear robots, Ryan and the immediate thing, and we
all think, oh, you know, all those our jobs and
all that. But you guys have kind of said I've
said some I've seen some of the stuff you guys,
but this is actually not it's not taking groundskeepers jobs, right,
(15:51):
and it's just something in theory. This is enhancing, as
you said, not taking away, even though it's the most
advanced robot techn it's helping, not not necessarily taking people away,
is that correct?
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Great question and short answer to that is, it's absolutely
not taking away jobs. You know. I think everybody still
has that feeling, you know, when we're approaching them, especially
the ones who are actually painting the fields right they're
they're a little bit hesitant. I asked the same questions
myself when I, you know, started with a company about
three and a half years ago. Is hen, are we
really going to be just kind of taking people's jobs?
(16:25):
And that the answer is no. You know that the
robot still requires you know, an operator to set things up,
to mix paint, to add paint to the robot, to
operate the software, right so that individual still needs to
be involved with the whole operation right now. What it
does do is, just like you said, it really frees
up these individuals to be you know, more efficient, but
(16:47):
then also frees them up to be able to do
other more important things that they're responsible for. Again, I
think eliminating a person's role has never been the intention
for us and never will be. You know, our mission
really as a company is we exist to make the
lives of sports field managers easier, and the robot is
one way I'm doing that.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
How did this affect businesses? I mean, so I saw it.
I had not heard of turf tank. I saw it,
as I said, the NFL training camp a couple of
days back, early in the week. There's some video that
came out, and so I got curious and I started
kind of looking some stuff up, and that's how we
ended up talking Ryan. But uh, yeah, how how's business matter?
(17:26):
I assume the publicity this has actually been good. It's
been a good week for you.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Guys, right, Yeah, it definitely has. Yeah, We've we've we've
had a lot of exposure, you know, over the last
couple of weeks. And and also you know, with football starting,
I mean you think about you know, all these schools
across the country or starting to go back to school
and getting their football fields ready for Friday night lights
and you know, Saturday football games. Right, So the exposure
(17:50):
for us over the last few weeks has been really awesome.
I mean, we've we've continued to grow quite you know,
quite aggressively over the past few years. I mean, we've
got roughly sixteen hundred customers here in the United States
and about two thousand globally and within about seven or
eight different countries. So we're excited about the future. You know,
(18:12):
we're we're trying to pump out new products. We're continuing
to evolve and innovate and trying to just you know,
improve the lives again for our sports field managers.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Well, the other thing too ryan about this.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I mean people see this, you know, robot, and they're like, Okay,
it's gonna be very expensive. I'm sure it is not cheap,
but is this I would assume you're opened, uh, not
just the big time players, but also the smaller like
high schools and stuff like that. Are they able to
get access to this? Is there a price point that
could be reasonable for those guys?
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So right now, I mean around fifty six percent of
our customers are actually within we call it the education sector, right,
so you're looking at high schools, you're looking at small
colleges or you know, colleges and universities. So we do
there are two different ways to acquire the robot. Previously,
back when the company first started, you would only be
(19:07):
able to purchase the equipment and it was expensive. It
still is expensive to do it outright Now, what we've
implemented about two years or two and a half three
years ago was a subscription model. So what we've done
is we've really lowered that barrier of entry for our customers,
which now opens that up to a lot more organizations
that can be able to afford this type of technology
(19:29):
because it's it's needed. It's needed at all levels, right,
so it's definitely an affordable piece of equipment. Around eighty
five percent of our customers today are doing our subscription model,
so most are going that route, which is an annual fee.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And is it true that this turf take which I
saw for painting NFL films or NFL fields and whatnot,
that it also can do like parking lots? Is that
is that correct that this technology can be used in
parking lots?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yes, and no, it definitely can paint a parking lot. Now,
the one thing with parking lot is it's actually a
different type of paint, so it's a lot thicker that
lasts longer, which isn't truly supported with our existing robot today.
But that's again another piece of technology that we're going
to continue to work on and hopefully have a product
(20:22):
that is meant specifically for painting on those hard surfaces.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Yeah, and then the next one, I guess you'd have
to do basketball right now, that's hard, right because that's
I mean, I don't know how you would even pull
that off in basketball.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
But yeah, exactly, I'm a big basketball guy. That's that's
that's my sport, so I'm constantly asking for it. But yeah,
that would be a completely different type of operation for
us right now. We you know, indoors isn't something that
we are just due to the technology and the GPS,
and we're not really painting indoors right now for anything,
(20:55):
which hopefully over time that'll that'll change as well.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, I'm curious, do you know roughly how much pain
it takes to put down on a football field?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Like you know, how much? How many gallons of pain
are we talking about? It must be a ton, I
would think.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, Actually, you're again, you're you're looking at around five
and a half gallons of paint to do an entire
football field. What customers are usually doing today manually is
double that, if not more.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Okay, I got you? All right? All very cool?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
All right, Well Ryan, thing, how can people find more
information out about this? You guys have a website or
something that somebody's listening. Maybe they're like, hey, I work
at a high school, maybe we can get this at
our school.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How can they contact you guys.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Yeah, absolutely, So we're really everywhere on all all the
different social platforms. We've got a website, so it's turf
tank dot com. We've got plenty of locations on our
website to where you can kind of fill out a
form and we'll get in touch with you right away.
We've got reps that are located across the across the
US that actually go visit some of our prospects and
we do demos for them so they can actually see
(22:00):
it on their field and there's just a different there's
a different wow factor of what I call it, you know,
seeing it in person on your own field and you know,
seeing a video like you did or a picture. So
please get a hold of us. We'd love to come
out and paint a field for you.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And as you said, Ron, not just you know, obviously
you deal in the United States, but you guys are
a global company, right You got people all over the place,
not just here, all.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Over absolutely absolutely, So we've got operations right now in
the UK, Denmark obviously, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, France, and Canada
is kicking off for US as well.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Very cool, All right, hey Ryan, thank you for doing so.
I appreciate this.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Fascinated by the technology, very cool to see it on
a football field, and I can't wait to see what
you guys come up with next.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But thanks for doing I appreciate Ryan.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Awesome, thanks man. Appreciate the opportunity
Host
Ben Maller
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