May 1, 2025 • 49 mins
The seed for Ozark United FC was planted as "a crazy thought" in co-founder Chris Martinovic's mind years ago, and today, that seedling has grown into a full-fledged plan to bring professional soccer to Northwest Arkansas. In this candid conversation with Managing Director Wes Harris, Martinovic gives listeners unprecedented access to the behind-the-scenes journey of building a professional sports franchise from scratch.
What stands out most is the unexpected enthusiasm from all corners of the community. "I had no idea how excited people would get about it," Martinovic reveals, noting that even self-proclaimed non-soccer fans expressed excitement at the prospect of professional sports entertainment in NWA. The conversation illuminates how the project has evolved from its initial conception, including the exciting announcement of an expanded stadium site that doubles the land footprint and transforms the vision into a sports-anchored mixed-use development.
The financial realities of sports ownership take center stage as Martinovic explains the investment model that drives professional teams. Unlike traditional businesses, sports franchises aren't primarily cash-flow generators but rather appreciate significantly in value over time. This perspective has shaped their approach to finding the right investors, culminating in their newly announced partnership with Prospect Park, a group with extensive connections to family offices and experience in professional sports investments.
Throughout the discussion, the passion for community building shines through. "This is Northwest Arkansas's club, this is your club, this is not our club," Harris emphasizes, highlighting the collaborative nature of the project. From "closet soccer fans" finding their community to children playing pickup games with makeshift goals, the soccer culture in NWA continues to grow organically alongside the more formal development plans.
The vision extends beyond just professional matches to hosting World Cup base camps, creating pathways for youth development, and contributing thoughtfully to the region's growth. But to get there, they need continued community support. Wear the gear, attend events, show up to council meetings - these seemingly small actions make a tremendous difference in demonstrating community buy-in to potential investors and local officials.
Ready to be part of this journey? Follow Pitch to Pro on social media and visit ozarkunitedfc.com to stay updated and find ways to support Northwest Arkansas's path to professional soccer.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United
FC.
This will be our platform totell our story about the club
and the special place that wecall home, northwest Arkansas.
This is a journey we want tobring you along for the ride.
We'll share what's going onbehind the curtain, help educate
the community at large aboutsoccer, our league, and give
(00:25):
updates on the progress of theclub along the way.
Together, we'll explore andunpack our journey to
professional soccer, the magicthat is NWA, our community, and
talk all things soccer from onthe pitch to behind the scenes,
telling the story of our club.
Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudlysponsored by PodcastVideoscom,
(00:45):
by PodcastVideoscom.
Podcastvideoscom is NorthwestArkansas' premier podcast
recording studio, equipped withindustry-leading equipment.
The recording studio andservices save you time, money
and hassle.
They are dedicated to helpingyou create, record and publish
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Be sure to check them out todayat podcastvideoscom.
(01:07):
Hello everybody and welcome backto the Pitch to Pro podcast.
I'm your host, wes Harris,managing Director, ozark United
FC, northwest Arkansas'sprofessional soccer club playing
in the United Soccer League.
Welcome back, guys.
We've got a great episode foryou guys today.
Today, just a really coolspecial edition episode on deck
for everybody.
We've got a great episode foryou guys today.
Today, just a really coolspecial edition uh episode on
(01:27):
deck for everybody.
We've got our very own mr chrismartinovich, co-founder of
ozark united fc, here in studiowith me today.
Chris, thank you so much forjoining me, man wes couldn't be
happier to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Man, how you doing with your one arm uh, we're six
weeks in.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I got another two weeks in the sling and another
four weeks after that of noactivity, and then we'll maybe
think about PT or physicalactivity again in any restricted
sense.
So it's a long process.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But, as you and Warren talked about last time,
the game often tells you whenit's over and that's not often
almost all the time for allathletes.
So we all have our moments ofwhen we remember when it ended,
and some are.
Some are more memorable, likeyour fall, but glad you're on
the mend and getting better yeah, this is.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Uh, it certainly told me, wish it would have told me
less.
Uh, it screamed it more subtlyyeah, yeah, the gentle tap would
have been nice yeah, gentle tapwould have been great on my way
out the door.
But no, listen, I think you knowthis episode is going to be
very conversational, as theyalways are.
But this is just going to be alittle bit of a build on what
(02:34):
our last episode was with Warrenand kind of.
You know, we released the newLAN site, we had a bunch of
announcements, we released a newstadium site and then concepts
for what we're trying to buildan increased scope and really,
really exciting things.
Um, and then we brought warrenin and kind of gave people a
little bit of a peek under thetent.
(02:54):
I want to do the same with youtoday and kind of hear from your
perspective too.
Um, so, man, this has been a.
Nobody has worked on thislonger than you.
Like this has been your passionproject, your baby, for a long,
long time and you've beendriving this longer than any of
us.
You know from where we started,where you excuse me where you
(03:16):
started to where we are now.
Just talk a little bit about,like some of the themes, your
journey.
What are the themes that strikeyou, Maybe some learnings or
just even observations that youthink might interest people as,
like, behind the scenes views,right like, yeah, I know that
that's a loaded question andmaybe a lot, but yeah, talk a
(03:38):
little bit about that that's it.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I think one of the themes, um, I think one of the
themes is like two themes.
One theme in this whole processwas the excitement of the
community and people.
We talked to about the idea,even when it was purely a crazy
thought in my brain and Istarted talking to the first few
people and I had no idea howexcited people in the community
(04:02):
would get about it.
I had no idea how excitedpeople in the community would
get about it.
Obviously, I thought it was agreat idea because I loved it
and it was a concept that Ithought our community could
really help take us to the nextlevel.
Right, we don't have that prosports vibe and opportunity in
our market, and so I did it, youdid it.
We all drove three, four, five,six hours to go watch pro
(04:23):
sports and get entertained, andso it was always something in
the back of my brain.
But I think I was almostsurprised how much the common
regular folk in our communitywas like that's a great idea.
I don't even like soccer, bythe way, chris, like I would
hear that sometimes.
Right, obviously, the soccerfan is through the roof Like
those.
We knew that that was going tobe the case.
When I started to realize thatthis was an idea we could really
(04:44):
move forward with was when aneutral fan, a kind of just a
sports fan, maybe not even asports fan was just saying man,
this is great Saturday night I'mlooking for stuff to do.
I'd love to go, and so thathelped me kind of build the idea
more and more.
So I thank all the hundreds ofpeople that I talked to about my
crazy idea where I didn't knowhow to do it, I didn't know when
(05:05):
to do it, I didn't know who totalk to.
I didn't know a lot right, Istill don't know a lot, but from
Warren's expertise, from yourexpertise, I'm learning all the
time right, and so we're alwayslearning right.
But, I think that was one of thesecond part was it's harder
than I thought it was, butthat's my mindset.
(05:29):
I'm kind of like, yeah, let'sjump in.
I'm super positive about ideasand initiatives and it's how I
treat a lot of things in my lifedoesn't mean that I'm always
right in them, right, um.
But I was like, yeah, we coulddo this and we absolutely can it
.
Just, it's taken a long timeand that's okay.
And what I've learned fromWarren and other markets the
good thing about SOC communityis everybody talks to each other
(05:51):
and we help each other.
We talk to other projects andthere's projects that happen in
three years and that's reallyfast, and there's a lot of
projects that happen in five,six years.
That might be kind of the endwhere we all are right.
Think about it.
We launched our our um.
July of 2023.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right was when we first said here's our intentions
of what we need, what we wouldlike to do in this market yeah,
right, and to be clear too, ontime, like you've been working
on this since 2019, but thereare conversations and like, yeah
, feeling it out, then we havecovid a lot of you know, lose a
year there the beginning time isme exploring right, learning,
talking to the league, the, youknow the three, the three to
(06:30):
five to six.
That is like starting trulyworking on 23.
Ish kind of you know but that'salso the average of like, when
teams actually decide like we'redoing this.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's right, we're gonna make a real.
There's, underneath the icebergthere's a lot.
Yeah, that's there that peoplejust don't see, and that's okay,
and that's kind of what we'redoing here right.
Sharing some of that beneath theiceberg, beneath the water of
the iceberg, sharing, kind ofwhat that is.
So at that point it's just meexploring me, figuring out, me
talking to other markets.
I have a pretty good connectionof soccer folks and they help
(07:01):
me.
Just, hey, talk to this guy,talk to this guy.
Next thing, you know, you endup getting some feedback from
five different teams andcommunities that started up and
founded and those are allhelpful points and hints, right,
until Warren becomes part ofthe project.
Right, and so we wouldn't bewhere we are without.
You know somebody who's donethis four or five times
successfully, every single time,by starting from scratch in
(07:23):
almost all those cases andbuilding stadiums, building
teams, building franchises, mostof which are all existing and
very successful.
Right, led by SacramentoRepublic, which arguably is the
one or two most successful teamin USL.
Right there with Luce City.
Right, luce City is reallyspecial there.
They have a really specialprogram there, led by John Neese
and that organization.
But I mean what Warren did atsac republic was was a model for
(07:46):
for a lot of other umfranchises that that have
expanded, including this right.
It just we've evolved fromwhere that was.
I talk on my hands a lot I needto be careful, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Whacking the technology, it's all good.
Um, I mean so.
Passion from the community,even from the casual soccer fan,
and talk about I know you saidyou're.
One of my favorite terms islike you.
Through those conversations youfound we're going to call them
closet soccer fans, where peopleare like wait, you're a soccer
(08:20):
fan too.
Oh my gosh, we can talk soccerLike oh, this is awesome and you
would never have known.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Crazy we wouldn't have never known.
And some of those people werepeople that I knew, that knew
that I had a soccer background.
I played in college, played inthe USL, like a fan I go to
games.
But it never even came upbecause they were removed from
their soccer experience by five,10, 15, 20 years from the
community that they came fromright or even just played as a
(08:47):
youth and then they trying tostruggle of how to fit their
soccer passion into theNorthwest Arkansas community
right, and so we kind of coinedthem the closet soccer fan.
There's a boatload of them andsome of them were quasi closet
soccer fans.
Maybe they played in middleschool or high school and were
fans.
And other ones were wow, youplayed college soccer.
(09:08):
Some of them played pro soccer.
Yeah, and I think through ourconversations I'll give
ourselves a little bit of credithere.
We've pushed the game up and upand up.
Great example I'm drivingthrough my community about a
couple months ago and I come toa stop in the middle of the road
and I look over and I see fouron four soccer going on near a
(09:32):
golf course in a non-lined field, that they put up garbage cans
and put up little bags to makegoals.
I was like this is like whatthey do in Brazil, this is what
they do in Italy and Croatia andEurope.
I was like this is awesome.
So I actually stopped by and I'mlike this is like, this is like
what they do in Brazil, this iswhat they do in Italy and
Croatia and Europe.
Like I was like this is awesome, you know.
So I actually stopped by and Iyell like oh good job guys.
They probably thought I wasgonna yell at them to stop
playing or something.
Yeah right.
And I was like great job, keepplaying and listen.
(09:55):
We probably didn't drive thatone person, but there is, um,
our vision of having a team atthis level on the boys and girls
and men's and women's side,like that.
That that I think that inspiresyoungsters at some level
somehow, some way.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I believe that, I really believe that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, it feeds the bubbling of the soccer community
, and so, as you work through aprocess and there's a lot of
this, right, we'll talk aboutstuff, right, yeah, yeah, I mean
it's just, it's a hard projectto start from scratch, and so so
that in our brains I know thethree of us, we all think about
that a lot Like okay, today wasnot a great day, maybe this
happened and that happened.
Well, what are we going to do?
(10:34):
Well, we're just going to getback up and but we did this, we
moved these other needles and wethink about those positives.
And then we think about having8,000 plus folks in our database
that are passionate, and again,some fans, some not soccer fans
, some just people that want tosupport cool things in Northwest
Arkansas, right, and so thatreally keeps us going.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
We're going to ask him for more though we are, and
I think, well, I mean, let'stalk about it now.
That's a great point, becausethese projects are hard and one
of the biggest, you know,realization not realizations
maybe, but you know, cause Iknew it wouldn't just be the
three of us, you know, orwhatever our internal group is,
but man does it take a village,yeah, and I mean there are
(11:20):
countless, almost countlesspeople that we should thank and
will thank.
You know, along the way, um, wehave some incredible
third-party partners that arehelping us get through this in
different aspects of the project.
Amazing um fans, supporters,group, like huge shout out to
(11:40):
colin and carlos and thestarting 11 of the hellbenders
and everything that they do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
a lot of feedback from them like, like we take
their feedback with with utmostimportance yeah, but like talk,
talk I mean talk more about the,the help that we've got.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Like, hey, we're.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We're a small team and we need help, like level set
right, there's three of usdoing this right now as our
project.
You're the only full-timeemployee that we have in the
organization Congratulations,employee number one.
And you literally do everythingfrom A to Z.
There's no job description.
It's whatever this takes.
This is a startup.
(12:18):
You have dedicated literallyyour life to this, and your
family has as well, which iscommendable and amazing and
awesome, right, but it's a lot,you know.
Yeah, and you're doing it withone arm, by the way.
Yeah, so, um, please excuse histyping errors on his hand yeah,
exactly, but, um, you know.
And then warren and I,obviously we're fully committed
to this, but we also have otherthings we're doing.
Right, we have jobs in otherareas, so you're the glue in
(12:41):
terms of day-to-day keeping thisthing going right.
And then think about greatpartners right, we couldn't do
this without Colliers for manyyears Stone Ward for my branding
marketing support.
We just talked to them aboutsome other initiatives that we
have, right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We're not going to go through the list because
there's there's so many localgroups.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, I will shout out am, group am group and her
team on the media and socials.
Yeah, yeah, amazing, crystal,crystal managing with the street
team.
So we want our objective is toget out to many more events.
Like, we're always pushing thatenvelope on what we can do and
how much more we can do.
Um, we just can't do what wewant to do yet, right, like
we're always pushing thatenvelope on what we can do and
how much more we can do.
Um, we just can't do what wewant to do yet, right, but we're
never happy.
We're always.
Okay, cool, we did one greatevent, let's do three.
(13:28):
All right, we can't do it.
I mean, we settle in on two.
That's usually how we kind ofthink about it.
But as we grow, right, thinkabout, this is an organization
that eventually will be 40-ishemployees, right, like you know,
a legit business that has it,has people that work here, that
that live it, and part of thatis community support and and and
(13:48):
engagement.
And so when, when we are atthat point, right, then, then
you're gonna see this, us andthe brand even everywhere, right
, oh, yeah, um, for, yeah, fornow, our ask is how can you guys
help us be out there even more?
I mean, this is a silly ask,but like if you bought gear and
you have gear, wear it, wear it.
It is so awesome.
(14:09):
You don't understand how greatmarketing that is, right, yeah,
and how happy we are when we seeit.
By the way, like I'm in theairport sometimes and I like see
someone and I usually go up tothem and just talk to them, you
know, and it's just awesome.
And then guess what thatbecomes like cool and normal and
like everyone, oh wow, they'reozark.
Okay, this is like a cool lookat our colors.
Maybe I'll go buy one too.
(14:29):
And it's not about the revenuefor us we're making a lot of
money off of these.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
This is about just building our message and getting
getting the brand and allowingfans to support and show their
pride.
I mean a fun story.
Brett from Stoneward, shout outBrett.
He texted me the other day andhis buddy was in 30A in Florida
and was walking just around inthe shops and he was wearing his
(14:54):
green Ozark United FC t-shirtOne cool to just have that out
in, like Florida One.
Two he passed somebody else didnot know them at all with a
green OZFC hat and then theystopped each other and met and
talked and like oh my God, isn'tthis great?
Like, and this is happening inFlorida, like not you know
(15:15):
Northwest Arkansas, and there'sa bunch of other stories like
this.
You know that we, uh, andthere's a bunch of other stories
like this.
Yeah, um, you know that we kindof get texted and and learn
through others and it's it'sawesome to see.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It's so cool.
That's that's like our firstask, right, yeah, like, just be
proud and and and support, andand do that.
Second one is, like we're goingto try to keep having these
events.
We need you guys to really, youknow, engage and you do and you
show up.
But, like, we're gonna even askfor it even more now, right,
things are gonna start happening, like council events and things
like that, where proposals needto get approved, like showing
(15:47):
up in numbers.
You don't have no idea howimportant that is.
Yeah, for support from from apolitical standpoint, from an
investment standpoint, from aleadership standpoint.
It goes a long way, right, itdoes more that we show community
engagement because we have thefolks involved.
We just got to provide you abetter platform on our side and
(16:07):
and opportunities at a greaterrate, um, to be able to come and
voice your opinions there.
Um, you voiced a lot to us whenwe ask you, which is great.
Like it's so much great dataand feedback and that's how
we've kind of tried to build ourplans for the stadium based
upon what we have heard from thecommunity.
Right, and so we want to keepdoing that.
We want to push that envelopeeven further.
(16:28):
So those are really the asksthat we have, kind of our of our
, of our super passionatecommunity.
Who's just been awesome.
And listen, we don't have ateam yet, right.
So, like, right, we're askingpeople to support something
that's gonna happen in thefuture, right, right, and so I
get it like it's not, like.
It's not like we can go and say, hey, here's our starting 11
and then it's real.
But what we do have, we do havesome great youth opportunities,
(16:51):
right, yeah, and they'replaying.
And, by the way, we're gonnahave some great local sponsors
on our on our on our youthshirts and gifts that are from
really big local communityleaders that want to be a part
of what we're doing, right, andthat's just an opportunity for
us to kind of start to put ourstamp there.
And then that leads to whatdoes the premier teams look like
(17:12):
?
Right, and those discussionsare going great, by the way.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, with those, with those sponsors I think it's
a big shout too on.
You know, one we hadn'tmentioned on.
It takes a village.
It also takes corporatepartners and villages there like
investors yes, yep.
Like thank you to every singleone of our seed capital.
Like yeah, and we'll talk aboutthat in a second.
But you know, we could not bewhere we are.
I love the like they've neverraised money.
(17:36):
Comments like guys, we couldn'tlike we, we couldn't like it.
For anybody that ever hearsthat I would not be employed if
that was the case.
Like you would not continue tosee us operate if that was the
case.
Guys Like so just, it's okay,and we'll get into that.
Um, you know, but I think thatthat's so important for people
(17:56):
to hear is that, yes, you knowwe're, we're the ones that are
in the weeds day to day andwe're the ones that people see.
But like this is northwestarkansas club, this is your club
, this is not our club, and whenwe say we need you, we mean it
and it is your team.
And it takes a village.
And only through thatcollective effort will we be
(18:17):
successful.
And so that's the only way thatwe've gotten to where we are
now and it's the way that we'regoing to get to where we're
going.
So I think that that's a hugepoint to hit.
So, thank you Moving into youknow we had a great discussion
with Warren.
He like brought us under thetent after our he is, and a lot
(18:40):
has happened in the last sixmonths.
Um, you know, with the updatedscope for the project, I'll just
blanket it with that.
Right, there was a lot thathappened, but just would love
your thoughts about now that wecan talk about it like what gets
you excited about the new kindof improved version scope of of
what we're trying?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
yeah, for first, I wish that we could have talked
about it even sooner, but whenyou're going through this
process, you just can't.
There's yeah, there's so manyvariables and there's a lot of
risk that you, you just have tokeep um, your head down and and
driving towards what we'retrying to get to, which was this
awesome piece of of multipleproperties, right, yeah, I mean,
(19:20):
we that's anybody who's everbought a house and try to
multiply that by by by.
It was nine, I guess, andyou're talking more than houses
and a lot of these properties,right, and?
And there was still a couplemore that we were even
negotiating with.
Right, that we'll put off forthe back burner, but, like it's,
it just was was a process, Imean late last year, when we
(19:41):
first said publicly like hey,we're gonna go and explore other
options, right, like, we justwant to be transparent.
That's why we said that what we, what we realize is so many
people are so passionate aboutit, like, well, what does that
mean?
What's gonna be next?
You know, yeah, and so in ourspirit to be transparency, we
have caused some more confusion,but I think that's still the
(20:02):
way we want to handle it.
We want to be as transparent aswe can, right, and we'll tell
you about the ups and downs.
And that was a period of wherewe had to kind of go down and
retool and figure out what doesthis look like.
So we went on a search again,right, right, we went to
multiple locations, multiplecities, multiple, I mean we just
like we did in the years back,yeah, right, and, but we knew we
needed more space, we knew weneeded better access, we knew we
(20:23):
better, better, moreconvenience and more opportunity
for development around it, likewe knew all those things.
If you look at any pro sportsproject that's happening now
rhode island, a great example ofbrett johnson um, who warren
and brett are have a great longrelationship you know, like
that's what they're doing thereand this is what's happening in
most markets.
When you're you, you just needthat um infrastructure to
support stadium, right, it, just, it just goes together really
(20:45):
well and then, when you're doingit together, you can help build
infrastructure that supportsthe stadium, versus just having
development that doesn't supportthe stadium, right, right, and
so, um, that's the really coolpart about it We've doubled the
size of the land, obviously, um,and gives us um.
I guess the most important partis that probably would have had
to move out of that property atsome point pretty soon, right,
(21:06):
yeah, as as good as it was, likewe were, like we're gonna make
this work, right, that's that's.
But when we had an opportunityto get better location and
better long-term growth, that'swhat we had to go for.
Yeah, I mean, that just tooksome time and it just is it does
.
But now we're at a whole notherlevel, right, and so now this
um still led by soccer, led bystadium 100, doesn't happen
(21:31):
without it, right, right, um,but what the development does?
This helps broaden theinvestment.
Um, right, folks, there's realestate development tied into pro
sports, anchored facilities,multi-use facilities, especially
that are going to have 60, 80,100 nights a year of events.
Right, that's really attractive.
(21:51):
We did, and that helps usexecute our project and our goal
of bringing a profession insoccer here.
So it goes together really welland it helps us achieve the
objectives that the communitywants us to achieve, which is
bringing pro soccer here.
So it goes together really welland it helps us achieve the
objectives that the communitywants us to achieve, which is
bringing pro sports here,exactly.
So we're really excited aboutthat.
I think one thing that's reallyimportant is you just elaborate
.
You mentioned our initialinvestors, right?
(22:12):
I mean, we have local andnon-local folks that have
believed in this project fromthe beginning, still believe in
it now.
Um, when you start a projectlike this or any business, right
, any startup, you have astartup plan, right, and there's
capital that's needed to startthat up.
That's usually called seedmoney, pre-money, first money,
(22:36):
whatever you want to call it.
Different industries havedifferent titles and the
business doesn't grow withoutthat, and so same with us, right
, and so, to do what we've done,we've raised significant
amounts, right, yeah, you know.
And so we, you know, don'tmention those individual names,
uh, for piracy reasons, but youguys know who you are and, um,
and, and we just we always tellyou that and we communicate with
(22:57):
this group often and keep themupdated.
We just got off of a call on oneand they couldn't be more
excited about what the future ofthis looks like in the new
property, in the new vision Samestadium just now, with the
support around it, and so really, really excited.
But thank you guys for that,because we wouldn't be where we
are.
That allows us to put thisproject together, to go talk to
(23:19):
the larger money, and that'sthat's.
That's where the next year isspent for us.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah exactly, exactly .
Well, we'll get to that, yeah,uh, as someone who because I
want to keep building on this assomeone who has lived here, for
, I mean, you're getting closeto 20 years in march, talking,
aren't you?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I'm just talking about that, yeah, 2006.
I mean close, right, yeah.
So end of next year, end of 26,is going to be almost 20 years
in the market and I'll be 50 in26.
So this is like getting closerto it, close to half of your
life in NWA, which ismind-blowing.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
But there's probably so many.
I'm in the same boat, just notas not as, uh, decorated yet,
but as somebody who has beenhere, though, like when you came
, you came the day that thepromenade mall opened up, yeah,
I remember.
So you've been here for a whileto see this area grow crazy.
How do you see this sportsanchored mixed use entertainment
district or whatever we want tocall it uh, fitting into the
community and where the regionis going?
(24:27):
Like, I think that there's acouple of different things that
this helps, you know.
Yes, you talked about enticingand diversifying the portfolio
for investment.
It also opens the pool to maybeinvestors that are really
attracted by what asports-anchored real estate
development might do versus justthe sports on its own and how
(24:51):
those two interact together.
All of a sudden, that opens upmore interest and different
things on that front.
But from a community standpointand where we're going and all
of that talk about how that kindof fits into and what we've
heard from city officials, right, like that's not just us saying
that, you think about theeconomic development, the
(25:13):
tourism dollars that come withthis right, the just everyday
opportunity for local folks tocome and enjoy a place, a new
place.
Placemaking.
Placemaking is a newterminology, right.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, you know we're not developers, we just pretend
to be.
Yeah, but these are the areas,and we work with great partners
that are leading us and drivingus from a.
What is does the rightdevelopment mix look like, based
on community needs, based onall those things, and so we are
really, really supportive of andthankful for those groups.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And being very intentional in the way that
we're approaching it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, very, very intentional and thoughtful in
terms of what's the right mix,and we have a lot of feedback
and input in that and a lot ofit driven by data and like
what's what's needed in thecommunity, right, but you have a
community that's growing sofast.
You have a community that hasso many transplants.
Still, you have a communitythat, um, you know, is still
underserved from entertainment,um, and and, and you still put
(26:16):
all those things together andthen and then there's still a
lot of land and housing.
We hear a little bit right, welive here and you hear a little
bit from some folks thattraffic's getting worse, it's
all relative.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
It's all relative.
It's all relative.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Try going to New Jersey or wherever.
It's.
All relative Now.
We love it here because wedon't have to deal with all that
stuff.
All relative now.
We love it here because wedon't have to deal with all that
stuff.
And and the community, um,leaders are doing as good of
jobs they can withinfrastructure and support and
building out, and you know it'sit's it's hard to keep up when
you ever grow like community.
It just really is, yeah, likeit doesn't, you know.
(26:51):
And so, um, sometimes, new yorktimes wrote that article, right,
it said you know, we're nextaustin, and some people say I
don't want the next Austin,right, and so, and hopefully, we
have the right mix and theright players involved, and I
think we do that we can do thisthe right way.
Right, I still feel like we haveenough people here that love
our community.
Yeah, that even the folks thatare, you know, making some of
(27:14):
the big decisions about ourcommunity, they really love our
community, yeah, you know.
And so I couldn't be moreconfident because we've had
discussions with almost everyone of these folks, from
families to politics to councilleaders and all of them right,
this is again, our project isall encompassing, and so I
couldn't be more bullish on theway they're thinking about it
(27:35):
from, you know, the NWA counciland Nelson Peacock and all these
right.
The way they're thinking aboutit is yeah, we want to grow, but
we want to grow.
They're smartly it's not aright word but, um, you know
carefully, um, strategically,and and and do the things that
our community wants us to do,and so, from all our feedback,
this is something that communitywants us to do, and fits right
(27:57):
into things that we'll need,like going vertical with housing
and building these districts 40, uh, 40 story buildings, but
you know, but you talk aboutthree, four, five, six.
You know that's reasonable andwe see that in pinnacle hills.
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right, you're just the way it is the expansion
outward, flat horizontal canonly go so far.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's right, um, and so you know we got a lake that
will stop us in one direction,so can't go.
Can't go east, very much right.
We can't go west and north.
And that's happening, yeah, inthe cities that want to kind of
build their downtowns or youknow those type of centers main
street type of things toothey'll.
Fayetteville did years agoright Exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Exactly, yeah, exactly.
So I think that that all playsin really nice.
I wanted people to hear thatthat it's not just us saying
like, oh, we think this is great, no, like it is great, but
we're also excited because ofthe feedback that we're getting
from community leaders, plannersyou know you name it and fans
(29:00):
as well.
Right, like you know it's.
So it's very exciting and we'resuper bullish on this now.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
We couldn't be more thankful to the Rogers community
Planners mayor.
I mean just unbelievablesupport and we couldn't, we
would not be where we arewithout them.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, no, a ton of just incredible input and advice
along the way, as well as justgreat working relationship we
have had.
And this goes to I think we justtalked about this, but like,
maybe a little bit more on thosetypes of discussions and you
kind of hit this on the on thebeginning too.
(29:38):
We have talked with communityleaders, city officials,
investors, both current andpotential fans, development
partners, corporate partnerdiscussions, local business
leaders.
The list goes on and on and on.
I think you hit on it on likegive people a sense for these
conversations.
(29:58):
And maybe one of the things youhit on it on like give people a
sense for these conversationsand you know, maybe you know one
of the things that we talkabout is that we're still a, um,
not necessarily infant, butcertainly adolescent, maturing
soccer community, both from afan and a kind of leadership
corporate, whatever standpoint,um, we'll talk to people that
(30:21):
have never kicked the ball intheir life, never watched a game
in their life, and we get agreat reaction.
And we've talked to people thatare, you know, ultra fans and
everybody in between.
So talk a little I mean, keepexpanding a little bit on those
conversations, if you will, andhow they kind of go and what we
talk about.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I think, um, I think the the important part
about our conversations is umless even about soccer.
Yes, oftentimes it goes therejust because it's kind of fun
and cool to talk about and weended up thought how do you get
players and teams?
And we're like that's like step48 of where we need to get to.
It's actually not the hardestpart of the project.
(30:58):
There's a lot of players thatare available.
We have contacts that are ready.
Our inboxes are flooded withcoaches, players, agents that
are reaching out.
We're like hold on, we're notthere yet.
So we actually don't have a lotof um concern over that part at
all.
Actually, yeah, but that'susually where a lot of our
discussions start from a soccersymbol.
How do you do this?
Everyone wants to know.
(31:18):
But what we realize because ofthose questions is that that's
pro sports is a newer kind ofconcept to the region, to the
state.
Right, think about it.
Right, so we have minor leaguebaseball, which is very
different because it's directlyaffiliated to the mothership.
Right, funded wise, you knowthat stadium was built.
Even player strategy anyway,right, it's a different strategy
(31:40):
than we had.
Uh, we have and, um, yeah,players could disappear on a
friday because they got calledup and then your favorite player
is gone and so it serves itspurpose of what it's supposed to
be like to admire leaguebaseball.
It's just different.
It's not good or bad's justdifferent.
Ours is our players are going tolive here.
They're going to be in thiscommunity, they're going to be
part of this community.
They'll do clinics with yourkids and be literally livid
(32:01):
right Now.
It doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to be here.
They're free agents,potentially after a year or two,
whatever their contract runsout, but disappear in the middle
of july, right, right, and goplay somewhere else, right, um,
they're they're.
They're really going to begreat in the community.
And then we think what happensis, as people discover, just
like we all did, northwestarkansas, they're going to go.
Huh, you know what?
It's not a bad place to live.
(32:21):
My dollar might go a littlefurther and play in the
metropolitan market.
I might not have all of thethings of a metro market, but
every month, as we know, there'smore and more and more right
and and it's like.
It's a nice community, it'sgrowing.
People are super friendly andengaging and the fans are now
behind.
We think there's a lot ofreasons that once players get
here, they're going to want tostay and be part of it.
(32:42):
So we talk about that with alot of people just to educate
them.
And then we talk about,especially from the larger
investor standpoint.
We talk about sports as anasset class right standpoint.
We talk about um sports as anasset class right, which is
different.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
This is different, and I say different, um, it's
very steady in terms of growth,reliable, very safe but
generally like it's largerwealth.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
you know individuals, families, you know that have
been benefiting from the growthof pro sports, and why is?
Because they see a steadyreturn on their valuations.
Right To be clear on that, itdoesn't mean that pro sports
teams are cash flow machines.
No, most of them are not.
You flash Even in the majors,majors.
(33:27):
Now, when you have massive mediamoney, that helps a lot, right,
you have Apple contracts andmega million dollar deals with
premier league, like, yeah,listen, they're gonna, they're
gonna be able to turn a profit.
However, if they choose to takesomeone and go buy the best
player in the world or spendthat money like that's, that's
their decision in their pnl, andthere goes that profit back to
break it even, maybe, or noteven break it even, right, yeah,
(33:49):
it's not that uncommon.
Barcelona, what are they?
They had years where they werelosing cash.
Think about that, oh yeah likenot to go down.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Not to go down a crazy rabbit hole.
Super soccer fan, yeah, butthere's financial fair play
rules in place to prevent thesemega clubs all over the world
just from just spending bukucash beyond the business's means
and operating at hundreds ofmillions of dollars of losses.
So they had to tell them tostop.
(34:19):
That's how unprofitable theywere.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It's crazy, because there's so much passion to win
and support these clubsworldwide that it's like you've
got to spend and get that player.
So why do we say that?
Why did Chris just tell us thatthey're not going to make
cashflow?
Doesn't he want to getinvestors and all?
Yeah?
The beautiful part about sportsif you can get close to break
even, you're at a great place.
And that's why we set the modelup the way we did with having a
(34:45):
stadium, having aninfrastructure around the
stadium that supports thestadium on game days.
That's really important becausethe valuation growth of pro
sports is about the franchisegrowth.
Right, jerry Jones acquired theCowboys.
I don't know what the number was.
It was something really big.
You know, 35 years ago Peoplelaughed at him, said what are
you nuts?
He spent 300 million.
I mean, yeah, it was a fewhundred and now it's 9 billion,
(35:08):
I think in the latest valuation.
Right, you know, an MLS club,the next one's probably going to
go for closer to a billionsomewhere in that range.
Three quarters.
They go in for 500.
Like this is now becoming, youknow, mega, mega wealth, wealth
that can be.
And why do they do that?
Because there's a prettyconsistent return on valuation.
(35:29):
It's also a whole bunch ofother benefits tax and
depreciation, all those thingsright.
So we've found ourselves kindof educating on that as well, a
lot, right, even all scales ofinvestor levels right, just to
provide feedback and input onwhat that is.
Now it's an investment.
We never sit here and tellanybody that we're guaranteeing
(35:50):
anything, right, everybody knowsthat what we can do is show
track record and show proof andshow trends, right, and so those
are all very positive, right asconsistent, more consistent
than the stock market, right.
Just because you don'tnecessarily have this, even
during ups and down times in theeconomic and macroeconomic
issues generally, pro sportsvaluations creep up right,
(36:14):
depends on the league.
Sometimes it's single digits,sometimes it's 10, sometimes 15%
right.
Our sport is still growing andnewer, we're in the 10 plus
range, generally speaking, right, annually kind of evaluations.
So I think it's important tokind of give that context.
This is some of the innertalkings that we have with folks
, and again it's just a littledifferent.
A lot of investment inNorthwest Arkansas has been
(36:36):
about land, about real estateand about development, right,
and that's been a really goodinvestment and it will continue
to probably be a really goodinvestment in our region, right,
and so why not partner thesetwo things together?
Right?
So it's still one umbrella.
You're still the investment,and we'll talk about a lean
investor in a second.
But when you bring a leaninvestor on, it's one entity
(36:57):
over everything, so that there'sconsistency and strategy
between development and thestadium.
You don't have competinginterests.
You can't do that.
That's a really challengingenvironment if you have a
development and a stadium groupand then they're not serving
each other.
So we're targeting an approachwhere we're kind of aligned.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah that's got to work together.
No, so that's phenomenal,fantastic, thank you.
And uh, we obviously can't, youknow, we, we, we can't, out of
respect for privacy, we can'tshare names, confidential stuff.
But we've talked to a lot ofpeople I'll just leave it at
that, right and we've raisedthose, those c capital funds.
(37:38):
Uh, as you kind of discussed,talk a little bit more about,
like, what does it mean to be alead investor or a primary or
principal or whatever that means?
And you have to have that.
Per us soccer rules, right, andthe league which obviously
operates underneath us soccertheir rules as well.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So the US soccer mandates that you have a lead
primary investor.
They call it right.
So it's X percent of theinvestment into a franchise.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And it's less than half.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Won't share percentages, but why that's
really important is that yearsago we have launched, before
soccer was ready to really growin the States, leagues like the
NASL when Pele came and thestars of the world came, had no
infrastructure, no foundation.
They had owners that couldmaybe afford to just get a team
and support it for a year,because, remember, you're trying
(38:29):
to build this thing to cashflow and get to break even, and
that takes several years to doso.
If that investor came in, let'ssay in 1975, in a team and put
a million dollars, but then theyneeded another million dollars,
did that investor have thatability to do that?
And that's where things foldright.
And so the NSL had this massivespike and then poof, it was
gone.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but if you're interested
(38:52):
it's pretty cool.
Cos, gotten this great doc onit.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but if you're interested
it's pretty cool.
Um cosmo is leading that wayright.
And so, as they built the mls,the smart thing they did was it
was really um one.
They had some really committedgroups of investors in the
beginning.
They talk about people that gotalmost laughed at at the
beginning because they couldn'tturn a profit for years, for
years.
I think it was probably again,we don't know.
(39:12):
You know in a working, so we'reall till we talk about
speculation.
What we hear and what we knowjust from being in industry is
you know the, the beckham effectin the mid 2000s or right,
right and the 22 the 2002 worldcup was also a big one at bruce
arena just talked about thatactually how that world cup
really buoyed mls growth, andthen beckham, and now you see
(39:32):
Messi, kind of right and so, andwhen we say MLS growth, that's
just US soccer growth as well.
Right, that was, that was whatthe model was back then.
And obviously USL has taken awhole new, a whole new growth
and had to be a cell, and that'sas well.
Right, so those things don'texist 15, 20 years ago.
Right, because because forthose first 10, 15 years you
have ownership groups thatdisbelieved so passionately what
(39:53):
they were doing that they wereliterally bleeding cash, that
were in the red, they couldn'tget to green.
But now those valuations ofthose franchises that they
bought at making it up $20million, whatever those initial
MLS franchises were, I mean,they were nothing by standards.
Nowadays they're worth hundreds, and I think Inter miami is
close to a billion now, like itis there's ones over.
(40:15):
So again, it just speaks to ifyou have a willingness to be
patient in pro sports, alignedwith an area that's growing,
aligned with a group that has agood passion and understanding
of how to do this, you have areally good opportunity for
long-term valuation growth.
Right, that's, that's the play.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Never without risk, we always say that, oh yeah, of
course I mean, any investmentisn't so that leads to where we
are now.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
So we have now partnered with a really really
exciting group.
So we had a group calledProspect Park reach out to us
through.
Again, the soccer community isunbelievable and helps each
other.
We had a partner, kevin Willerlet's say his name.
He was a Chicago guy, beeninvolved in a lot of soccer
teams, a lot of soccerfranchises.
(41:02):
We had some connection toNorthwest Arkansas and we got in
touch.
And then turns out Warren andhim had crossed paths several
times and so we started talkingand had some really great points
of feedback from him.
One of them at at the end ofour conversation was like you
should reach out to this or thisother group is actually
interested in kind of talking toyou guys.
They're really interested inUSL and they have some
investment ideas, right?
(41:23):
I said, yeah, sure, we're opento talk to anybody.
And that was Prospect Park.
We didn't know anything aboutthem at the time and this was
several months.
So we've been filling eachother out for several months and
exploring them, exploring theproject and us.
We lost learning about them andhow they work.
And they have an immensebackground in family offices,
right, they relationships withfamily offices nationally.
Um, so this is this search isfor for a primary is is really
(41:47):
going to be local and regional,national, right and um, and they
have have been just tremendouspartners with us, helping us in
terms of kind of how we can setthis up, and then they have a
massive network, right, this iswhat they do, so we can go and
keep building our project andsupport them.
But they're the ones that knowhow to execute this and have the
(42:08):
relationships and know how tocommunicate with other family
offices, right, this is a reallyimportant part for us and so we
just started that, like,literally, you're about to
announce it and so, hot off thepress.
Hopefully this, you know podcastwon't precede anything.
It will not.
Wes will make sure, um.
But you know, that's reallyexciting for us because they, as
(42:29):
a group um, have worked in prosports already.
They've worked particularly atUSL as well, and they really
like our project and that'simportant because they're going
to spend time on it.
So if they didn't think thatthere was a pathway to success
here, they probably wouldn't beon our list to work with and be
(42:50):
great partners for us.
So we could be more excitedabout that and that's their
objective is to find thatprimary and that's you know,
let's call it a year from thistime window.
That's kind of you know wherewe think we can get to, and that
usually then just snowballsright.
So we've had several folks thatwe know, that you know, really
(43:12):
interested in being part of this, just maybe not wanting to be a
primary Right, and so that'sreally important Come back and
talk to me.
This is not a one person, onefamily.
It just doesn't usually workthat way.
In almost any pro sports Right,it's usually the structures and
percentages that get broken outbehind a primary, right.
So we have a pretty goodfeeling and a pretty good
(43:37):
opportunity to engage.
Some of those other folksre-engage, that said, they want
to be part of that, but we gotto get that primary to kind of
put it over there.
Once that primary comes on board, they go through a long and
extensive process with the USL.
It's background checks, it'saccess to liquid capital,
understanding net worth.
There's really strong criteria.
They're very strict about itbecause they don't want to have
these ups and downs.
Right, they need someone who'sreliable and can come through
(43:59):
and manage something like COVIDCan you sustain no fans for a
year and you can be able tosupport that and get through to
next year.
And that's something that'simportant, right.
And so, anyway, we're reallyexcited about that next phase.
It allows us to really focus onbuilding what we need to do and
just supporting them and theirsearch, and then we'll engage
once they kind of say, hey,here's the groups that are
really interested and that we'regoing to get back to them.
(44:21):
So that's how that process willwork.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, really, really excited about this partnership
and these guys and this team.
They've been absolutelyfantastic and I think again
another.
I get reassurances all the timebut seeing that, like this
group is what they do, they putdeals together in this space all
day long for their you knowclients and and and relations
(44:46):
and they have been just chompingat the bit like so excited
about what this project could beand represents for the region
and for their interestedinvestors.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
And much more interested in our newer scenario
new land, new development,mixed in multi-use facility
versus where we were in the oldprogram.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yes, much more so.
So that's again going back tothe importance of that shift in
scope.
But last question, because Iknow we do have to jump here but
what keeps you so optimisticabout us going forward?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
One, you and Warren.
Well, thank you, yeah, I mean,there's again, you go through
any project like this.
Anybody who's built anythingsmall or big, right, and ours is
big in public, right.
So there, there is.
There's, you know, visible upsand downs that that people are
aware of.
Sometimes you're just, you know, launching a product or doing
(45:42):
an entrepreneur.
People don't really seeunderneath, like here it's, you
know, we're, we're and we'repretty open about it, right,
yeah, um, and so having you guysjust kind of be consistently
like this is what the communitysaid, this is what the community
wanted.
Whenever we hit those moments,we go back to some of those
lines and the feedback and thelistening sessions and seeing
(46:03):
the kids play, and all those arejust like, man, this is what we
can do.
And then you think about whatwe can become, right.
So Oklahoma City just announcedthey're going to host a base
camp for a World Cup.
Yes, like, how sad, right?
So they're not big enough, ornot?
They don't have theinfrastructure yet to like, host
the World Cup.
That's like Dallas and New Yorkand Kansas City is probably one
(46:24):
of the smaller markets.
That's how it's going to be Forsure, right?
But, by the way, those are twogreat markets for our local fans
to be ready.
Tickets will probably come onsale end of this year.
Go to fifa, sign up, get yourname in there so that you get
notifications.
It's a raffle, so submit for asmany tickets as you can.
That's my advice, having doneit before.
So none that I want to createcompetition for myself, because
I'll be submitting too.
(46:44):
I want as many north kansasarkansas fans to to to get that,
and so it's um.
It's just really cool that that, um, that vision of what we can
become is so cool.
So, okay, we can't do it for 26because obviously we're not
going to be ready yet.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
But 2031, we have the Women's World Cup.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
So, again, we're probably not at that stage as a
community population size,infrastructure size to host
World Cup games.
Yet those are mega stadiumsstill, but could we be a base
base camp, like no brainer?
Right, then you have a facility.
Right side project to this isone that we need place to
practice, right, and maybethat's more of a complex.
(47:24):
And so there's things that wewant to do above and beyond what
we're doing, that the communitywants us to be a part of, right
, it wants us to lead, and sothere's, um, that could be those
that are cool things.
When you just think about andthey think about, you know, the
first game, oh yeah, what isthat going to feel like?
And then you get, you knowmen's and women's going, and and
the opportunity then that givesto youngsters to see, you know,
(47:47):
both of the boys and girls side, looking up to a team wearing
the same colors, same crest, asyou know, like that gives me
kind of goosebumps and chillsand motivation to keep going
forward.
But and then, lastly, it's,it's just the continued support.
No, we're still here, you know,I think we would.
There's listen, there's 35different reasons that at some
(48:09):
point over the last severalyears, we probably could have
said, ah, you know, you knowthis might be too hard, right,
like this is, but we always keepfinding another reason to keep
this project up there, becausethere's so many people that are
so excited about it.
Right, and so, again, just toreiterate, we're gonna try to
get out as much as we can.
We want you guys to help us andsupport us.
(48:30):
Show up, wear our stuff, bevocal.
This is what it takes.
Political leaders and townleaders need to see that more
and more and more.
The more you see that moresupport, more things happen
easier.
We already have great support.
We want to keep pushing that,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Chris, a heck of a time chatting with you, man.
Thank you.
That's going to do it for thisepisode of Pitch the Pro.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Be sure to catch all of ourepisodes on pitchtheprocom, or
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wherever you get your podcasts.
For more content Until nexttime.
Cheers, northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Pitch
the Pro podcast.
Be sure to tune in again in twoweeks for the next installment
and check out the Stoppage Timeseries for a recap of today's
episode.
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No-transcript.
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United
FC.
This will be our platform totell our story about the club
and the special place that wecall home, northwest Arkansas.
This is a journey we want tobring you along for the ride.
We'll share what's going onbehind the curtain, help educate
the community at large aboutsoccer, our league, and give
(00:25):
updates on the progress of theclub along the way.
Together, we'll explore andunpack our journey to
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(00:45):
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(01:07):
Hello everybody and welcome backto the Pitch to Pro podcast.
I'm your host, wes Harris,managing Director, ozark United
FC, northwest Arkansas'sprofessional soccer club playing
in the United Soccer League.
Welcome back, guys.
We've got a great episode foryou guys today.
Today, just a really coolspecial edition episode on deck
for everybody.
We've got a great episode foryou guys today.
Today, just a really coolspecial edition uh episode on
(01:27):
deck for everybody.
We've got our very own mr chrismartinovich, co-founder of
ozark united fc, here in studiowith me today.
Chris, thank you so much forjoining me, man wes couldn't be
happier to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Man, how you doing with your one arm uh, we're six
weeks in.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I got another two weeks in the sling and another
four weeks after that of noactivity, and then we'll maybe
think about PT or physicalactivity again in any restricted
sense.
So it's a long process.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But, as you and Warren talked about last time,
the game often tells you whenit's over and that's not often
almost all the time for allathletes.
So we all have our moments ofwhen we remember when it ended,
and some are.
Some are more memorable, likeyour fall, but glad you're on
the mend and getting better yeah, this is.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Uh, it certainly told me, wish it would have told me
less.
Uh, it screamed it more subtlyyeah, yeah, the gentle tap would
have been nice yeah, gentle tapwould have been great on my way
out the door.
But no, listen, I think you knowthis episode is going to be
very conversational, as theyalways are.
But this is just going to be alittle bit of a build on what
(02:34):
our last episode was with Warrenand kind of.
You know, we released the newLAN site, we had a bunch of
announcements, we released a newstadium site and then concepts
for what we're trying to buildan increased scope and really,
really exciting things.
Um, and then we brought warrenin and kind of gave people a
little bit of a peek under thetent.
(02:54):
I want to do the same with youtoday and kind of hear from your
perspective too.
Um, so, man, this has been a.
Nobody has worked on thislonger than you.
Like this has been your passionproject, your baby, for a long,
long time and you've beendriving this longer than any of
us.
You know from where we started,where you excuse me where you
(03:16):
started to where we are now.
Just talk a little bit about,like some of the themes, your
journey.
What are the themes that strikeyou, Maybe some learnings or
just even observations that youthink might interest people as,
like, behind the scenes views,right like, yeah, I know that
that's a loaded question andmaybe a lot, but yeah, talk a
(03:38):
little bit about that that's it.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I think one of the themes, um, I think one of the
themes is like two themes.
One theme in this whole processwas the excitement of the
community and people.
We talked to about the idea,even when it was purely a crazy
thought in my brain and Istarted talking to the first few
people and I had no idea howexcited people in the community
(04:02):
would get about it.
I had no idea how excitedpeople in the community would
get about it.
Obviously, I thought it was agreat idea because I loved it
and it was a concept that Ithought our community could
really help take us to the nextlevel.
Right, we don't have that prosports vibe and opportunity in
our market, and so I did it, youdid it.
We all drove three, four, five,six hours to go watch pro
(04:23):
sports and get entertained, andso it was always something in
the back of my brain.
But I think I was almostsurprised how much the common
regular folk in our communitywas like that's a great idea.
I don't even like soccer, bythe way, chris, like I would
hear that sometimes.
Right, obviously, the soccerfan is through the roof Like
those.
We knew that that was going tobe the case.
When I started to realize thatthis was an idea we could really
(04:44):
move forward with was when aneutral fan, a kind of just a
sports fan, maybe not even asports fan was just saying man,
this is great Saturday night I'mlooking for stuff to do.
I'd love to go, and so thathelped me kind of build the idea
more and more.
So I thank all the hundreds ofpeople that I talked to about my
crazy idea where I didn't knowhow to do it, I didn't know when
(05:05):
to do it, I didn't know who totalk to.
I didn't know a lot right, Istill don't know a lot, but from
Warren's expertise, from yourexpertise, I'm learning all the
time right, and so we're alwayslearning right.
But, I think that was one of thesecond part was it's harder
than I thought it was, butthat's my mindset.
(05:29):
I'm kind of like, yeah, let'sjump in.
I'm super positive about ideasand initiatives and it's how I
treat a lot of things in my lifedoesn't mean that I'm always
right in them, right, um.
But I was like, yeah, we coulddo this and we absolutely can it
.
Just, it's taken a long timeand that's okay.
And what I've learned fromWarren and other markets the
good thing about SOC communityis everybody talks to each other
(05:51):
and we help each other.
We talk to other projects andthere's projects that happen in
three years and that's reallyfast, and there's a lot of
projects that happen in five,six years.
That might be kind of the endwhere we all are right.
Think about it.
We launched our our um.
July of 2023.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Right was when we first said here's our intentions
of what we need, what we wouldlike to do in this market yeah,
right, and to be clear too, ontime, like you've been working
on this since 2019, but thereare conversations and like, yeah
, feeling it out, then we havecovid a lot of you know, lose a
year there the beginning time isme exploring right, learning,
talking to the league, the, youknow the three, the three to
(06:30):
five to six.
That is like starting trulyworking on 23.
Ish kind of you know but that'salso the average of like, when
teams actually decide like we'redoing this.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's right, we're gonna make a real.
There's, underneath the icebergthere's a lot.
Yeah, that's there that peoplejust don't see, and that's okay,
and that's kind of what we'redoing here right.
Sharing some of that beneath theiceberg, beneath the water of
the iceberg, sharing, kind ofwhat that is.
So at that point it's just meexploring me, figuring out, me
talking to other markets.
I have a pretty good connectionof soccer folks and they help
(07:01):
me.
Just, hey, talk to this guy,talk to this guy.
Next thing, you know, you endup getting some feedback from
five different teams andcommunities that started up and
founded and those are allhelpful points and hints, right,
until Warren becomes part ofthe project.
Right, and so we wouldn't bewhere we are without.
You know somebody who's donethis four or five times
successfully, every single time,by starting from scratch in
(07:23):
almost all those cases andbuilding stadiums, building
teams, building franchises, mostof which are all existing and
very successful.
Right, led by SacramentoRepublic, which arguably is the
one or two most successful teamin USL.
Right there with Luce City.
Right, luce City is reallyspecial there.
They have a really specialprogram there, led by John Neese
and that organization.
But I mean what Warren did atsac republic was was a model for
(07:46):
for a lot of other umfranchises that that have
expanded, including this right.
It just we've evolved fromwhere that was.
I talk on my hands a lot I needto be careful, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Whacking the technology, it's all good.
Um, I mean so.
Passion from the community,even from the casual soccer fan,
and talk about I know you saidyou're.
One of my favorite terms islike you.
Through those conversations youfound we're going to call them
closet soccer fans, where peopleare like wait, you're a soccer
(08:20):
fan too.
Oh my gosh, we can talk soccerLike oh, this is awesome and you
would never have known.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Crazy we wouldn't have never known.
And some of those people werepeople that I knew, that knew
that I had a soccer background.
I played in college, played inthe USL, like a fan I go to
games.
But it never even came upbecause they were removed from
their soccer experience by five,10, 15, 20 years from the
community that they came fromright or even just played as a
(08:47):
youth and then they trying tostruggle of how to fit their
soccer passion into theNorthwest Arkansas community
right, and so we kind of coinedthem the closet soccer fan.
There's a boatload of them andsome of them were quasi closet
soccer fans.
Maybe they played in middleschool or high school and were
fans.
And other ones were wow, youplayed college soccer.
(09:08):
Some of them played pro soccer.
Yeah, and I think through ourconversations I'll give
ourselves a little bit of credithere.
We've pushed the game up and upand up.
Great example I'm drivingthrough my community about a
couple months ago and I come toa stop in the middle of the road
and I look over and I see fouron four soccer going on near a
(09:32):
golf course in a non-lined field, that they put up garbage cans
and put up little bags to makegoals.
I was like this is like whatthey do in Brazil, this is what
they do in Italy and Croatia andEurope.
I was like this is awesome.
So I actually stopped by and I'mlike this is like, this is like
what they do in Brazil, this iswhat they do in Italy and
Croatia and Europe.
Like I was like this is awesome, you know.
So I actually stopped by and Iyell like oh good job guys.
They probably thought I wasgonna yell at them to stop
playing or something.
Yeah right.
And I was like great job, keepplaying and listen.
(09:55):
We probably didn't drive thatone person, but there is, um,
our vision of having a team atthis level on the boys and girls
and men's and women's side,like that.
That that I think that inspiresyoungsters at some level
somehow, some way.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I believe that, I really believe that.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, it feeds the bubbling of the soccer community
, and so, as you work through aprocess and there's a lot of
this, right, we'll talk aboutstuff, right, yeah, yeah, I mean
it's just, it's a hard projectto start from scratch, and so so
that in our brains I know thethree of us, we all think about
that a lot Like okay, today wasnot a great day, maybe this
happened and that happened.
Well, what are we going to do?
(10:34):
Well, we're just going to getback up and but we did this, we
moved these other needles and wethink about those positives.
And then we think about having8,000 plus folks in our database
that are passionate, and again,some fans, some not soccer fans
, some just people that want tosupport cool things in Northwest
Arkansas, right, and so thatreally keeps us going.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
We're going to ask him for more though we are, and
I think, well, I mean, let'stalk about it now.
That's a great point, becausethese projects are hard and one
of the biggest, you know,realization not realizations
maybe, but you know, cause Iknew it wouldn't just be the
three of us, you know, orwhatever our internal group is,
but man does it take a village,yeah, and I mean there are
(11:20):
countless, almost countlesspeople that we should thank and
will thank.
You know, along the way, um, wehave some incredible
third-party partners that arehelping us get through this in
different aspects of the project.
Amazing um fans, supporters,group, like huge shout out to
(11:40):
colin and carlos and thestarting 11 of the hellbenders
and everything that they do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
a lot of feedback from them like, like we take
their feedback with with utmostimportance yeah, but like talk,
talk I mean talk more about the,the help that we've got.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Like, hey, we're.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We're a small team and we need help, like level set
right, there's three of usdoing this right now as our
project.
You're the only full-timeemployee that we have in the
organization Congratulations,employee number one.
And you literally do everythingfrom A to Z.
There's no job description.
It's whatever this takes.
This is a startup.
(12:18):
You have dedicated literallyyour life to this, and your
family has as well, which iscommendable and amazing and
awesome, right, but it's a lot,you know.
Yeah, and you're doing it withone arm, by the way.
Yeah, so, um, please excuse histyping errors on his hand yeah,
exactly, but, um, you know.
And then warren and I,obviously we're fully committed
to this, but we also have otherthings we're doing.
Right, we have jobs in otherareas, so you're the glue in
(12:41):
terms of day-to-day keeping thisthing going right.
And then think about greatpartners right, we couldn't do
this without Colliers for manyyears Stone Ward for my branding
marketing support.
We just talked to them aboutsome other initiatives that we
have, right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
We're not going to go through the list because
there's there's so many localgroups.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, I will shout out am, group am group and her
team on the media and socials.
Yeah, yeah, amazing, crystal,crystal managing with the street
team.
So we want our objective is toget out to many more events.
Like, we're always pushing thatenvelope on what we can do and
how much more we can do.
Um, we just can't do what wewant to do yet, right, like
we're always pushing thatenvelope on what we can do and
how much more we can do.
Um, we just can't do what wewant to do yet, right, but we're
never happy.
We're always.
Okay, cool, we did one greatevent, let's do three.
(13:28):
All right, we can't do it.
I mean, we settle in on two.
That's usually how we kind ofthink about it.
But as we grow, right, thinkabout, this is an organization
that eventually will be 40-ishemployees, right, like you know,
a legit business that has it,has people that work here, that
that live it, and part of thatis community support and and and
(13:48):
engagement.
And so when, when we are atthat point, right, then, then
you're gonna see this, us andthe brand even everywhere, right
, oh, yeah, um, for, yeah, fornow, our ask is how can you guys
help us be out there even more?
I mean, this is a silly ask,but like if you bought gear and
you have gear, wear it, wear it.
It is so awesome.
(14:09):
You don't understand how greatmarketing that is, right, yeah,
and how happy we are when we seeit.
By the way, like I'm in theairport sometimes and I like see
someone and I usually go up tothem and just talk to them, you
know, and it's just awesome.
And then guess what thatbecomes like cool and normal and
like everyone, oh wow, they'reozark.
Okay, this is like a cool lookat our colors.
Maybe I'll go buy one too.
(14:29):
And it's not about the revenuefor us we're making a lot of
money off of these.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
This is about just building our message and getting
getting the brand and allowingfans to support and show their
pride.
I mean a fun story.
Brett from Stoneward, shout outBrett.
He texted me the other day andhis buddy was in 30A in Florida
and was walking just around inthe shops and he was wearing his
(14:54):
green Ozark United FC t-shirtOne cool to just have that out
in, like Florida One.
Two he passed somebody else didnot know them at all with a
green OZFC hat and then theystopped each other and met and
talked and like oh my God, isn'tthis great?
Like, and this is happening inFlorida, like not you know
(15:15):
Northwest Arkansas, and there'sa bunch of other stories like
this.
You know that we, uh, andthere's a bunch of other stories
like this.
Yeah, um, you know that we kindof get texted and and learn
through others and it's it'sawesome to see.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It's so cool.
That's that's like our firstask, right, yeah, like, just be
proud and and and support, andand do that.
Second one is, like we're goingto try to keep having these
events.
We need you guys to really, youknow, engage and you do and you
show up.
But, like, we're gonna even askfor it even more now, right,
things are gonna start happening, like council events and things
like that, where proposals needto get approved, like showing
(15:47):
up in numbers.
You don't have no idea howimportant that is.
Yeah, for support from from apolitical standpoint, from an
investment standpoint, from aleadership standpoint.
It goes a long way, right, itdoes more that we show community
engagement because we have thefolks involved.
We just got to provide you abetter platform on our side and
(16:07):
and opportunities at a greaterrate, um, to be able to come and
voice your opinions there.
Um, you voiced a lot to us whenwe ask you, which is great.
Like it's so much great dataand feedback and that's how
we've kind of tried to build ourplans for the stadium based
upon what we have heard from thecommunity.
Right, and so we want to keepdoing that.
We want to push that envelopeeven further.
(16:28):
So those are really the asksthat we have, kind of our of our
, of our super passionatecommunity.
Who's just been awesome.
And listen, we don't have ateam yet, right.
So, like, right, we're askingpeople to support something
that's gonna happen in thefuture, right, right, and so I
get it like it's not, like.
It's not like we can go and say, hey, here's our starting 11
and then it's real.
But what we do have, we do havesome great youth opportunities,
(16:51):
right, yeah, and they'replaying.
And, by the way, we're gonnahave some great local sponsors
on our on our on our youthshirts and gifts that are from
really big local communityleaders that want to be a part
of what we're doing, right, andthat's just an opportunity for
us to kind of start to put ourstamp there.
And then that leads to whatdoes the premier teams look like
(17:12):
?
Right, and those discussionsare going great, by the way.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, with those, with those sponsors I think it's
a big shout too on.
You know, one we hadn'tmentioned on.
It takes a village.
It also takes corporatepartners and villages there like
investors yes, yep.
Like thank you to every singleone of our seed capital.
Like yeah, and we'll talk aboutthat in a second.
But you know, we could not bewhere we are.
I love the like they've neverraised money.
(17:36):
Comments like guys, we couldn'tlike we, we couldn't like it.
For anybody that ever hearsthat I would not be employed if
that was the case.
Like you would not continue tosee us operate if that was the
case.
Guys Like so just, it's okay,and we'll get into that.
Um, you know, but I think thatthat's so important for people
(17:56):
to hear is that, yes, you knowwe're, we're the ones that are
in the weeds day to day andwe're the ones that people see.
But like this is northwestarkansas club, this is your club
, this is not our club, and whenwe say we need you, we mean it
and it is your team.
And it takes a village.
And only through thatcollective effort will we be
(18:17):
successful.
And so that's the only way thatwe've gotten to where we are
now and it's the way that we'regoing to get to where we're
going.
So I think that that's a hugepoint to hit.
So, thank you Moving into youknow we had a great discussion
with Warren.
He like brought us under thetent after our he is, and a lot
(18:40):
has happened in the last sixmonths.
Um, you know, with the updatedscope for the project, I'll just
blanket it with that.
Right, there was a lot thathappened, but just would love
your thoughts about now that wecan talk about it like what gets
you excited about the new kindof improved version scope of of
what we're trying?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
yeah, for first, I wish that we could have talked
about it even sooner, but whenyou're going through this
process, you just can't.
There's yeah, there's so manyvariables and there's a lot of
risk that you, you just have tokeep um, your head down and and
driving towards what we'retrying to get to, which was this
awesome piece of of multipleproperties, right, yeah, I mean,
(19:20):
we that's anybody who's everbought a house and try to
multiply that by by by.
It was nine, I guess, andyou're talking more than houses
and a lot of these properties,right, and?
And there was still a couplemore that we were even
negotiating with.
Right, that we'll put off forthe back burner, but, like it's,
it just was was a process, Imean late last year, when we
(19:41):
first said publicly like hey,we're gonna go and explore other
options, right, like, we justwant to be transparent.
That's why we said that what we, what we realize is so many
people are so passionate aboutit, like, well, what does that
mean?
What's gonna be next?
You know, yeah, and so in ourspirit to be transparency, we
have caused some more confusion,but I think that's still the
(20:02):
way we want to handle it.
We want to be as transparent aswe can, right, and we'll tell
you about the ups and downs.
And that was a period of wherewe had to kind of go down and
retool and figure out what doesthis look like.
So we went on a search again,right, right, we went to
multiple locations, multiplecities, multiple, I mean we just
like we did in the years back,yeah, right, and, but we knew we
needed more space, we knew weneeded better access, we knew we
(20:23):
better, better, moreconvenience and more opportunity
for development around it, likewe knew all those things.
If you look at any pro sportsproject that's happening now
rhode island, a great example ofbrett johnson um, who warren
and brett are have a great longrelationship you know, like
that's what they're doing thereand this is what's happening in
most markets.
When you're you, you just needthat um infrastructure to
support stadium, right, it, just, it just goes together really
(20:45):
well and then, when you're doingit together, you can help build
infrastructure that supportsthe stadium, versus just having
development that doesn't supportthe stadium, right, right, and
so, um, that's the really coolpart about it We've doubled the
size of the land, obviously, um,and gives us um.
I guess the most important partis that probably would have had
to move out of that property atsome point pretty soon, right,
(21:06):
yeah, as as good as it was, likewe were, like we're gonna make
this work, right, that's that's.
But when we had an opportunityto get better location and
better long-term growth, that'swhat we had to go for.
Yeah, I mean, that just tooksome time and it just is it does
.
But now we're at a whole notherlevel, right, and so now this
um still led by soccer, led bystadium 100, doesn't happen
(21:31):
without it, right, right, um,but what the development does?
This helps broaden theinvestment.
Um, right, folks, there's realestate development tied into pro
sports, anchored facilities,multi-use facilities, especially
that are going to have 60, 80,100 nights a year of events.
Right, that's really attractive.
(21:51):
We did, and that helps usexecute our project and our goal
of bringing a profession insoccer here.
So it goes together really welland it helps us achieve the
objectives that the communitywants us to achieve, which is
bringing pro soccer here.
So it goes together really welland it helps us achieve the
objectives that the communitywants us to achieve, which is
bringing pro sports here,exactly.
So we're really excited aboutthat.
I think one thing that's reallyimportant is you just elaborate
.
You mentioned our initialinvestors, right?
(22:12):
I mean, we have local andnon-local folks that have
believed in this project fromthe beginning, still believe in
it now.
Um, when you start a projectlike this or any business, right
, any startup, you have astartup plan, right, and there's
capital that's needed to startthat up.
That's usually called seedmoney, pre-money, first money,
(22:36):
whatever you want to call it.
Different industries havedifferent titles and the
business doesn't grow withoutthat, and so same with us, right
, and so, to do what we've done,we've raised significant
amounts, right, yeah, you know.
And so we, you know, don'tmention those individual names,
uh, for piracy reasons, but youguys know who you are and, um,
and, and we just we always tellyou that and we communicate with
(22:57):
this group often and keep themupdated.
We just got off of a call on oneand they couldn't be more
excited about what the future ofthis looks like in the new
property, in the new vision Samestadium just now, with the
support around it, and so really, really excited.
But thank you guys for that,because we wouldn't be where we
are.
That allows us to put thisproject together, to go talk to
(23:19):
the larger money, and that'sthat's.
That's where the next year isspent for us.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah exactly, exactly .
Well, we'll get to that, yeah,uh, as someone who because I
want to keep building on this assomeone who has lived here, for
, I mean, you're getting closeto 20 years in march, talking,
aren't you?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I'm just talking about that, yeah, 2006.
I mean close, right, yeah.
So end of next year, end of 26,is going to be almost 20 years
in the market and I'll be 50 in26.
So this is like getting closerto it, close to half of your
life in NWA, which ismind-blowing.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
But there's probably so many.
I'm in the same boat, just notas not as, uh, decorated yet,
but as somebody who has beenhere, though, like when you came
, you came the day that thepromenade mall opened up, yeah,
I remember.
So you've been here for a whileto see this area grow crazy.
How do you see this sportsanchored mixed use entertainment
district or whatever we want tocall it uh, fitting into the
community and where the regionis going?
(24:27):
Like, I think that there's acouple of different things that
this helps, you know.
Yes, you talked about enticingand diversifying the portfolio
for investment.
It also opens the pool to maybeinvestors that are really
attracted by what asports-anchored real estate
development might do versus justthe sports on its own and how
(24:51):
those two interact together.
All of a sudden, that opens upmore interest and different
things on that front.
But from a community standpointand where we're going and all
of that talk about how that kindof fits into and what we've
heard from city officials, right, like that's not just us saying
that, you think about theeconomic development, the
(25:13):
tourism dollars that come withthis right, the just everyday
opportunity for local folks tocome and enjoy a place, a new
place.
Placemaking.
Placemaking is a newterminology, right.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, you know we're not developers, we just pretend
to be.
Yeah, but these are the areas,and we work with great partners
that are leading us and drivingus from a.
What is does the rightdevelopment mix look like, based
on community needs, based onall those things, and so we are
really, really supportive of andthankful for those groups.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And being very intentional in the way that
we're approaching it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, very, very intentional and thoughtful in
terms of what's the right mix,and we have a lot of feedback
and input in that and a lot ofit driven by data and like
what's what's needed in thecommunity, right, but you have a
community that's growing sofast.
You have a community that hasso many transplants.
Still, you have a communitythat, um, you know, is still
underserved from entertainment,um, and and, and you still put
(26:16):
all those things together andthen and then there's still a
lot of land and housing.
We hear a little bit right, welive here and you hear a little
bit from some folks thattraffic's getting worse, it's
all relative.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
It's all relative.
It's all relative.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Try going to New Jersey or wherever.
It's.
All relative Now.
We love it here because wedon't have to deal with all that
stuff.
All relative now.
We love it here because wedon't have to deal with all that
stuff.
And and the community, um,leaders are doing as good of
jobs they can withinfrastructure and support and
building out, and you know it'sit's it's hard to keep up when
you ever grow like community.
It just really is, yeah, likeit doesn't, you know.
(26:51):
And so, um, sometimes, new yorktimes wrote that article, right,
it said you know, we're nextaustin, and some people say I
don't want the next Austin,right, and so, and hopefully, we
have the right mix and theright players involved, and I
think we do that we can do thisthe right way.
Right, I still feel like we haveenough people here that love
our community.
Yeah, that even the folks thatare, you know, making some of
(27:14):
the big decisions about ourcommunity, they really love our
community, yeah, you know.
And so I couldn't be moreconfident because we've had
discussions with almost everyone of these folks, from
families to politics to councilleaders and all of them right,
this is again, our project isall encompassing, and so I
couldn't be more bullish on theway they're thinking about it
(27:35):
from, you know, the NWA counciland Nelson Peacock and all these
right.
The way they're thinking aboutit is yeah, we want to grow, but
we want to grow.
They're smartly it's not aright word but, um, you know
carefully, um, strategically,and and and do the things that
our community wants us to do,and so, from all our feedback,
this is something that communitywants us to do, and fits right
(27:57):
into things that we'll need,like going vertical with housing
and building these districts 40, uh, 40 story buildings, but
you know, but you talk aboutthree, four, five, six.
You know that's reasonable andwe see that in pinnacle hills.
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Right, you're just the way it is the expansion
outward, flat horizontal canonly go so far.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's right, um, and so you know we got a lake that
will stop us in one direction,so can't go.
Can't go east, very much right.
We can't go west and north.
And that's happening, yeah, inthe cities that want to kind of
build their downtowns or youknow those type of centers main
street type of things toothey'll.
Fayetteville did years agoright Exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Exactly, yeah, exactly.
So I think that that all playsin really nice.
I wanted people to hear thatthat it's not just us saying
like, oh, we think this is great, no, like it is great, but
we're also excited because ofthe feedback that we're getting
from community leaders, plannersyou know you name it and fans
(29:00):
as well.
Right, like you know it's.
So it's very exciting and we'resuper bullish on this now.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
We couldn't be more thankful to the Rogers community
Planners mayor.
I mean just unbelievablesupport and we couldn't, we
would not be where we arewithout them.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, no, a ton of just incredible input and advice
along the way, as well as justgreat working relationship we
have had.
And this goes to I think we justtalked about this, but like,
maybe a little bit more on thosetypes of discussions and you
kind of hit this on the on thebeginning too.
(29:38):
We have talked with communityleaders, city officials,
investors, both current andpotential fans, development
partners, corporate partnerdiscussions, local business
leaders.
The list goes on and on and on.
I think you hit on it on likegive people a sense for these
conversations.
(29:58):
And maybe one of the things youhit on it on like give people a
sense for these conversationsand you know, maybe you know one
of the things that we talkabout is that we're still a, um,
not necessarily infant, butcertainly adolescent, maturing
soccer community, both from afan and a kind of leadership
corporate, whatever standpoint,um, we'll talk to people that
(30:21):
have never kicked the ball intheir life, never watched a game
in their life, and we get agreat reaction.
And we've talked to people thatare, you know, ultra fans and
everybody in between.
So talk a little I mean, keepexpanding a little bit on those
conversations, if you will, andhow they kind of go and what we
talk about.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I think, um, I think the the important part
about our conversations is umless even about soccer.
Yes, oftentimes it goes therejust because it's kind of fun
and cool to talk about and weended up thought how do you get
players and teams?
And we're like that's like step48 of where we need to get to.
It's actually not the hardestpart of the project.
(30:58):
There's a lot of players thatare available.
We have contacts that are ready.
Our inboxes are flooded withcoaches, players, agents that
are reaching out.
We're like hold on, we're notthere yet.
So we actually don't have a lotof um concern over that part at
all.
Actually, yeah, but that'susually where a lot of our
discussions start from a soccersymbol.
How do you do this?
Everyone wants to know.
(31:18):
But what we realize because ofthose questions is that that's
pro sports is a newer kind ofconcept to the region, to the
state.
Right, think about it.
Right, so we have minor leaguebaseball, which is very
different because it's directlyaffiliated to the mothership.
Right, funded wise, you knowthat stadium was built.
Even player strategy anyway,right, it's a different strategy
(31:40):
than we had.
Uh, we have and, um, yeah,players could disappear on a
friday because they got calledup and then your favorite player
is gone and so it serves itspurpose of what it's supposed to
be like to admire leaguebaseball.
It's just different.
It's not good or bad's justdifferent.
Ours is our players are going tolive here.
They're going to be in thiscommunity, they're going to be
part of this community.
They'll do clinics with yourkids and be literally livid
(32:01):
right Now.
It doesn't mean they're alwaysgoing to be here.
They're free agents,potentially after a year or two,
whatever their contract runsout, but disappear in the middle
of july, right, right, and goplay somewhere else, right, um,
they're they're.
They're really going to begreat in the community.
And then we think what happensis, as people discover, just
like we all did, northwestarkansas, they're going to go.
Huh, you know what?
It's not a bad place to live.
(32:21):
My dollar might go a littlefurther and play in the
metropolitan market.
I might not have all of thethings of a metro market, but
every month, as we know, there'smore and more and more right
and and it's like.
It's a nice community, it'sgrowing.
People are super friendly andengaging and the fans are now
behind.
We think there's a lot ofreasons that once players get
here, they're going to want tostay and be part of it.
(32:42):
So we talk about that with alot of people just to educate
them.
And then we talk about,especially from the larger
investor standpoint.
We talk about sports as anasset class right standpoint.
We talk about um sports as anasset class right, which is
different.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
This is different, and I say different, um, it's
very steady in terms of growth,reliable, very safe but
generally like it's largerwealth.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
you know individuals, families, you know that have
been benefiting from the growthof pro sports, and why is?
Because they see a steadyreturn on their valuations.
Right To be clear on that, itdoesn't mean that pro sports
teams are cash flow machines.
No, most of them are not.
You flash Even in the majors,majors.
(33:27):
Now, when you have massive mediamoney, that helps a lot, right,
you have Apple contracts andmega million dollar deals with
premier league, like, yeah,listen, they're gonna, they're
gonna be able to turn a profit.
However, if they choose to takesomeone and go buy the best
player in the world or spendthat money like that's, that's
their decision in their pnl, andthere goes that profit back to
break it even, maybe, or noteven break it even, right, yeah,
(33:49):
it's not that uncommon.
Barcelona, what are they?
They had years where they werelosing cash.
Think about that, oh yeah likenot to go down.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Not to go down a crazy rabbit hole.
Super soccer fan, yeah, butthere's financial fair play
rules in place to prevent thesemega clubs all over the world
just from just spending bukucash beyond the business's means
and operating at hundreds ofmillions of dollars of losses.
So they had to tell them tostop.
(34:19):
That's how unprofitable theywere.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
It's crazy, because there's so much passion to win
and support these clubsworldwide that it's like you've
got to spend and get that player.
So why do we say that?
Why did Chris just tell us thatthey're not going to make
cashflow?
Doesn't he want to getinvestors and all?
Yeah?
The beautiful part about sportsif you can get close to break
even, you're at a great place.
And that's why we set the modelup the way we did with having a
(34:45):
stadium, having aninfrastructure around the
stadium that supports thestadium on game days.
That's really important becausethe valuation growth of pro
sports is about the franchisegrowth.
Right, jerry Jones acquired theCowboys.
I don't know what the number was.
It was something really big.
You know, 35 years ago Peoplelaughed at him, said what are
you nuts?
He spent 300 million.
I mean, yeah, it was a fewhundred and now it's 9 billion,
(35:08):
I think in the latest valuation.
Right, you know, an MLS club,the next one's probably going to
go for closer to a billionsomewhere in that range.
Three quarters.
They go in for 500.
Like this is now becoming, youknow, mega, mega wealth, wealth
that can be.
And why do they do that?
Because there's a prettyconsistent return on valuation.
(35:29):
It's also a whole bunch ofother benefits tax and
depreciation, all those thingsright.
So we've found ourselves kindof educating on that as well, a
lot, right, even all scales ofinvestor levels right, just to
provide feedback and input onwhat that is.
Now it's an investment.
We never sit here and tellanybody that we're guaranteeing
(35:50):
anything, right, everybody knowsthat what we can do is show
track record and show proof andshow trends, right, and so those
are all very positive, right asconsistent, more consistent
than the stock market, right.
Just because you don'tnecessarily have this, even
during ups and down times in theeconomic and macroeconomic
issues generally, pro sportsvaluations creep up right,
(36:14):
depends on the league.
Sometimes it's single digits,sometimes it's 10, sometimes 15%
right.
Our sport is still growing andnewer, we're in the 10 plus
range, generally speaking, right, annually kind of evaluations.
So I think it's important tokind of give that context.
This is some of the innertalkings that we have with folks
, and again it's just a littledifferent.
A lot of investment inNorthwest Arkansas has been
(36:36):
about land, about real estateand about development, right,
and that's been a really goodinvestment and it will continue
to probably be a really goodinvestment in our region, right,
and so why not partner thesetwo things together?
Right?
So it's still one umbrella.
You're still the investment,and we'll talk about a lean
investor in a second.
But when you bring a leaninvestor on, it's one entity
(36:57):
over everything, so that there'sconsistency and strategy
between development and thestadium.
You don't have competinginterests.
You can't do that.
That's a really challengingenvironment if you have a
development and a stadium groupand then they're not serving
each other.
So we're targeting an approachwhere we're kind of aligned.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah that's got to work together.
No, so that's phenomenal,fantastic, thank you.
And uh, we obviously can't, youknow, we, we, we can't, out of
respect for privacy, we can'tshare names, confidential stuff.
But we've talked to a lot ofpeople I'll just leave it at
that, right and we've raisedthose, those c capital funds.
(37:38):
Uh, as you kind of discussed,talk a little bit more about,
like, what does it mean to be alead investor or a primary or
principal or whatever that means?
And you have to have that.
Per us soccer rules, right, andthe league which obviously
operates underneath us soccertheir rules as well.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So the US soccer mandates that you have a lead
primary investor.
They call it right.
So it's X percent of theinvestment into a franchise.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
And it's less than half.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Won't share percentages, but why that's
really important is that yearsago we have launched, before
soccer was ready to really growin the States, leagues like the
NASL when Pele came and thestars of the world came, had no
infrastructure, no foundation.
They had owners that couldmaybe afford to just get a team
and support it for a year,because, remember, you're trying
(38:29):
to build this thing to cashflow and get to break even, and
that takes several years to doso.
If that investor came in, let'ssay in 1975, in a team and put
a million dollars, but then theyneeded another million dollars,
did that investor have thatability to do that?
And that's where things foldright.
And so the NSL had this massivespike and then poof, it was
gone.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but if you're interested
(38:52):
it's pretty cool.
Cos, gotten this great doc onit.
I can't remember what it'scalled, but if you're interested
it's pretty cool.
Um cosmo is leading that wayright.
And so, as they built the mls,the smart thing they did was it
was really um one.
They had some really committedgroups of investors in the
beginning.
They talk about people that gotalmost laughed at at the
beginning because they couldn'tturn a profit for years, for
years.
I think it was probably again,we don't know.
(39:12):
You know in a working, so we'reall till we talk about
speculation.
What we hear and what we knowjust from being in industry is
you know the, the beckham effectin the mid 2000s or right,
right and the 22 the 2002 worldcup was also a big one at bruce
arena just talked about thatactually how that world cup
really buoyed mls growth, andthen beckham, and now you see
(39:32):
Messi, kind of right and so, andwhen we say MLS growth, that's
just US soccer growth as well.
Right, that was, that was whatthe model was back then.
And obviously USL has taken awhole new, a whole new growth
and had to be a cell, and that'sas well.
Right, so those things don'texist 15, 20 years ago.
Right, because because forthose first 10, 15 years you
have ownership groups thatdisbelieved so passionately what
(39:53):
they were doing that they wereliterally bleeding cash, that
were in the red, they couldn'tget to green.
But now those valuations ofthose franchises that they
bought at making it up $20million, whatever those initial
MLS franchises were, I mean,they were nothing by standards.
Nowadays they're worth hundreds, and I think Inter miami is
close to a billion now, like itis there's ones over.
(40:15):
So again, it just speaks to ifyou have a willingness to be
patient in pro sports, alignedwith an area that's growing,
aligned with a group that has agood passion and understanding
of how to do this, you have areally good opportunity for
long-term valuation growth.
Right, that's, that's the play.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Never without risk, we always say that, oh yeah, of
course I mean, any investmentisn't so that leads to where we
are now.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
So we have now partnered with a really really
exciting group.
So we had a group calledProspect Park reach out to us
through.
Again, the soccer community isunbelievable and helps each
other.
We had a partner, kevin Willerlet's say his name.
He was a Chicago guy, beeninvolved in a lot of soccer
teams, a lot of soccerfranchises.
(41:02):
We had some connection toNorthwest Arkansas and we got in
touch.
And then turns out Warren andhim had crossed paths several
times and so we started talkingand had some really great points
of feedback from him.
One of them at at the end ofour conversation was like you
should reach out to this or thisother group is actually
interested in kind of talking toyou guys.
They're really interested inUSL and they have some
investment ideas, right?
(41:23):
I said, yeah, sure, we're opento talk to anybody.
And that was Prospect Park.
We didn't know anything aboutthem at the time and this was
several months.
So we've been filling eachother out for several months and
exploring them, exploring theproject and us.
We lost learning about them andhow they work.
And they have an immensebackground in family offices,
right, they relationships withfamily offices nationally.
Um, so this is this search isfor for a primary is is really
(41:47):
going to be local and regional,national, right and um, and they
have have been just tremendouspartners with us, helping us in
terms of kind of how we can setthis up, and then they have a
massive network, right, this iswhat they do, so we can go and
keep building our project andsupport them.
But they're the ones that knowhow to execute this and have the
(42:08):
relationships and know how tocommunicate with other family
offices, right, this is a reallyimportant part for us and so we
just started that, like,literally, you're about to
announce it and so, hot off thepress.
Hopefully this, you know podcastwon't precede anything.
It will not.
Wes will make sure, um.
But you know, that's reallyexciting for us because they, as
(42:29):
a group um, have worked in prosports already.
They've worked particularly atUSL as well, and they really
like our project and that'simportant because they're going
to spend time on it.
So if they didn't think thatthere was a pathway to success
here, they probably wouldn't beon our list to work with and be
(42:50):
great partners for us.
So we could be more excitedabout that and that's their
objective is to find thatprimary and that's you know,
let's call it a year from thistime window.
That's kind of you know wherewe think we can get to, and that
usually then just snowballsright.
So we've had several folks thatwe know, that you know, really
(43:12):
interested in being part of this, just maybe not wanting to be a
primary Right, and so that'sreally important Come back and
talk to me.
This is not a one person, onefamily.
It just doesn't usually workthat way.
In almost any pro sports Right,it's usually the structures and
percentages that get broken outbehind a primary, right.
So we have a pretty goodfeeling and a pretty good
(43:37):
opportunity to engage.
Some of those other folksre-engage, that said, they want
to be part of that, but we gotto get that primary to kind of
put it over there.
Once that primary comes on board, they go through a long and
extensive process with the USL.
It's background checks, it'saccess to liquid capital,
understanding net worth.
There's really strong criteria.
They're very strict about itbecause they don't want to have
these ups and downs.
Right, they need someone who'sreliable and can come through
(43:59):
and manage something like COVIDCan you sustain no fans for a
year and you can be able tosupport that and get through to
next year.
And that's something that'simportant, right.
And so, anyway, we're reallyexcited about that next phase.
It allows us to really focus onbuilding what we need to do and
just supporting them and theirsearch, and then we'll engage
once they kind of say, hey,here's the groups that are
really interested and that we'regoing to get back to them.
(44:21):
So that's how that process willwork.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, really, really excited about this partnership
and these guys and this team.
They've been absolutelyfantastic and I think again
another.
I get reassurances all the timebut seeing that, like this
group is what they do, they putdeals together in this space all
day long for their you knowclients and and and relations
(44:46):
and they have been just chompingat the bit like so excited
about what this project could beand represents for the region
and for their interestedinvestors.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
And much more interested in our newer scenario
new land, new development,mixed in multi-use facility
versus where we were in the oldprogram.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yes, much more so.
So that's again going back tothe importance of that shift in
scope.
But last question, because Iknow we do have to jump here but
what keeps you so optimisticabout us going forward?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
One, you and Warren.
Well, thank you, yeah, I mean,there's again, you go through
any project like this.
Anybody who's built anythingsmall or big, right, and ours is
big in public, right.
So there, there is.
There's, you know, visible upsand downs that that people are
aware of.
Sometimes you're just, you know, launching a product or doing
(45:42):
an entrepreneur.
People don't really seeunderneath, like here it's, you
know, we're, we're and we'repretty open about it, right,
yeah, um, and so having you guysjust kind of be consistently
like this is what the communitysaid, this is what the community
wanted.
Whenever we hit those moments,we go back to some of those
lines and the feedback and thelistening sessions and seeing
(46:03):
the kids play, and all those arejust like, man, this is what we
can do.
And then you think about whatwe can become, right.
So Oklahoma City just announcedthey're going to host a base
camp for a World Cup.
Yes, like, how sad, right?
So they're not big enough, ornot?
They don't have theinfrastructure yet to like, host
the World Cup.
That's like Dallas and New Yorkand Kansas City is probably one
(46:24):
of the smaller markets.
That's how it's going to be Forsure, right?
But, by the way, those are twogreat markets for our local fans
to be ready.
Tickets will probably come onsale end of this year.
Go to fifa, sign up, get yourname in there so that you get
notifications.
It's a raffle, so submit for asmany tickets as you can.
That's my advice, having doneit before.
So none that I want to createcompetition for myself, because
I'll be submitting too.
(46:44):
I want as many north kansasarkansas fans to to to get that,
and so it's um.
It's just really cool that that, um, that vision of what we can
become is so cool.
So, okay, we can't do it for 26because obviously we're not
going to be ready yet.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
But 2031, we have the Women's World Cup.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
So, again, we're probably not at that stage as a
community population size,infrastructure size to host
World Cup games.
Yet those are mega stadiumsstill, but could we be a base
base camp, like no brainer?
Right, then you have a facility.
Right side project to this isone that we need place to
practice, right, and maybethat's more of a complex.
(47:24):
And so there's things that wewant to do above and beyond what
we're doing, that the communitywants us to be a part of, right
, it wants us to lead, and sothere's, um, that could be those
that are cool things.
When you just think about andthey think about, you know, the
first game, oh yeah, what isthat going to feel like?
And then you get, you knowmen's and women's going, and and
the opportunity then that givesto youngsters to see, you know,
(47:47):
both of the boys and girls side, looking up to a team wearing
the same colors, same crest, asyou know, like that gives me
kind of goosebumps and chillsand motivation to keep going
forward.
But and then, lastly, it's,it's just the continued support.
No, we're still here, you know,I think we would.
There's listen, there's 35different reasons that at some
(48:09):
point over the last severalyears, we probably could have
said, ah, you know, you knowthis might be too hard, right,
like this is, but we always keepfinding another reason to keep
this project up there, becausethere's so many people that are
so excited about it.
Right, and so, again, just toreiterate, we're gonna try to
get out as much as we can.
We want you guys to help us andsupport us.
(48:30):
Show up, wear our stuff, bevocal.
This is what it takes.
Political leaders and townleaders need to see that more
and more and more.
The more you see that moresupport, more things happen
easier.
We already have great support.
We want to keep pushing that,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Chris, a heck of a time chatting with you, man.
Thank you.
That's going to do it for thisepisode of Pitch the Pro.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Be sure to catch all of ourepisodes on pitchtheprocom, or
look for Pitch the Pro onYouTube, spotify, apple or
wherever you get your podcasts.
For more content Until nexttime.
Cheers, northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Pitch
the Pro podcast.
Be sure to tune in again in twoweeks for the next installment
and check out the Stoppage Timeseries for a recap of today's
episode.
Be sure to find us at Pitch toPro on YouTube, instagram and
everywhere you get your podcasts.
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True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.