UP492 Wedge Issue Live @ The Open Championship

0:00Hello, welcome. Richard Gillis here, Unofficial Partner. Thanks for finding us. This is a live episode of Wedge Issues, our golf business series, recorded at the Callaway Clubhouse at the Open Championship this week at Royal Portrush Golf Club, and it contains some stellar names. You're going to hear Niall Horan, who needs very little introduction. He is bringing his global fan base and pointing it at golf. And he's also deeply embedded in the game as co-founder of Modest Management Company. And as you'll hear, he's deeply knowledgeable and connected. Inci Memet is a former Ladies European Tour pro golfer and is now presenter of Sky Sports award-winning golf coverage.

0:39Dan Rappaport is one of the best of that new breed of golf journalist, broadcaster, content creator, formerly at Barstool Sports, but he's now at Scratch with Dan on Golf podcast, which is well worth checking out. I steal from it very regularly. Ben Sharp, president and managing director for Europe at Callaway Golf, and has been one of the leading executives across the game of golf for a very long time, joins us as well. The person you'll hear at the end is Chris Gregg, who is Marketing Director at Callaway Golf. And a huge thanks to the teams at Callaway and at MSQ Sport Entertainment for all their hard work putting this live show together.

1:16It's much appreciated. So here it is, Wedge Issues Live.

1:25Thank you very much. If you guys wanted to just take a seat, I'm just being, as Chris was talking now, just working out where I'm going to stand. But we will sort that out. I might even go down the front. Robert Kewa, Silkstar. Google it, kids. That's a millennial reference. We've got a fantastic panel, okay? I just need a bit of setup because the setup is the product of golf and the audience or the audiences of golf. And we do a business of sport series and wedge issues because I'm obsessed with golf. We've created a golf business series called Wedge Issues. The point of it is that it's taking that general sports business conversation and pointing it towards golf.

2:01And And I think golf's in a really interesting spot. The landscape, the event landscape, the tours. We're here at the Cathedral of Golf, the Open Championship, my favourite sports event, full stop. Fantastic venue, fantastic town. This is the epitome, this is golf of the big G. It's all about performance and winning. How typical is this week of the golf industry and of the golf product is one question I want to talk about. We've seen we're in the live moment. We've got that going on on one side. You've got TGL, you've got the tours, DP World. LPGA Tour, LPGA, LET. You've got a load of acronyms.

2:36And obviously people say, well, yeah, but I want to watch Dan Rapoport on YouTube. And I want to watch Bryson. And I want to do all of that stuff. So you've got different audiences. That's the point of what we're going to be talking about today. So Dan, I'm going to start with you because you said something a couple of weeks ago, maybe even a month ago about golf is having a cultural moment. I just want you to just sort of expand on that because I think I'm stealing that idea basically. And we're going to say, What did you mean by that? What do you see? Because I think we're sort of our proxy into this audience question.

3:06Totally. Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up always playing the sport, but I always played with my dad's friends. That was that was who played golf. And it was a nerdy thing to do. I almost like didn't even want to tell my friends that I was going to play golf because they didn't really understand. And now you've got rock stars and quarterbacks and footballers. I hope I hope I said that. OK, every time I say that, I get a little bit nervous because it's soccer players for me. but I think I did well. It's just cool now. You know, you've got every brand seems to be, even brands that aren't historically in the golf space, they're doing collaborations with golf brands.

3:38You know, you're seeing brands like Malbin do collaborations with, you know, Budweiser and doing collaborations with companies that you would just never associate with golf. So, you know, I think golf is very unique because if you look at football or if you look at basketball, the fans of the sport are typically just fans of the professional game. You might play in a Sunday League or whatever it is, but golf is so different because there's this sort of professional golf aspect of it, and then you actually play the sport. So there's a much more intimate relationship, I feel like, between a golf fan.

4:08It sort of gets inside you more than I would say the other sports do because you can actually do it. And so everyone's going to watch the best players in the world play Royal Port Rush this week, and you can go and do it. And you can do that same thing. You're not going to get onto the floor of Crypto Arena and shoot three-pointers. So it's everywhere. Everyone's a golfer now. My friends are hitting me up all the time now, wanting me to take them out there. I say, you've got to be able to break 100. That's my barrier. If you can break 100, we can go play. If not, get a little bit better. That's not because I'm a hard-o or anything.

4:40It's just a lot of people are asking. You've got to have a rule. You've got to have a rule. So, yeah, I just think anecdotally, I don't know the numbers as well as some of my panelists here, but I can say from my personal experience that the game, and when I say the game, like you said, that doesn't just mean the professional game. The entire sport just feels hotter and cooler, I think, than ever before. Okay, right. Ben Sharp, what do you think about that? Is that your lens into that question? Yeah, I mean, I think the world's changing fast, isn't it? And I think golf has changed very quickly over the course, probably the last 10 years, and certainly since COVID, where we had an opportunity to bring a new audience in, bring new players.

5:19At the same time, I believe we're probably the sport that tries to determine in how people can enjoy our game more than anybody else. And I think that's something we need to think about, something we need to do differently if we want to stay relevant going into the future. I think the way that people consume media, the way people consume information, the way people can play, there's so much choice now. And I think we've got to put golfer first rather than putting ourselves as in the industry first. And I think the people who embrace that will win. And I think the people who will still think, and I'll tell you what to do and what you can wear and how you can behave, I think they'll become dinosaurs very quickly.

5:59Did your job used to be easy and now it's hard? Is that what we're saying? I can see straight lines in the past. I can see pro shops stocking stuff. So Callaway running right straight through that line, and now it feels much messier. I think my job is as easy as the team I have around me, and I've got a great team, so my job's easy. Good answer. That's a chief executive answer, isn't it? That's a fantastic C-suite answer. But no, I think it's more fun because I think it's more varied. You know, it's interesting. We were looking at our business the other day and we were looking at some of our trading policies and some of our trading policies dated back to 2000.

6:39And there's a lot of things happened since 2000. Like the internet's happened since 2000. Pretty big thing. Yeah. It's very popular with the youngsters. But the pace is changing all the time. And you think about, you know, personalizing a bag. You know, we didn't used to do that. You think about sort of customization. Everybody wants to feel like they're important rather than this just homogenous thing that, you know, you're a number or we're going to treat everybody the same. And so to do that, you have to be agile. You have to act with speed. You can't just think like this is my course and I'm going to do this for the next three years because you'll die.

7:12and so that's the great thing about it and looking at all of the new media channels and all of the you know people who are coming into the sport and creating a sort of a newness and a freshness to what we do that's the fun parts is it harder no is it different yes is it more varied yes and so therefore I think it's a lot more engaging and and there's a lot so many more things that we can do and one size doesn't fit all okay right Incy Mehmet I've been watching you your work on the live at the range it's fantastic it's really i i love it what sky is doing this week i want to just get into that because what does sky think about when they think about golf and audiences now it's actually quite interesting because we had a whole day on an audience awareness course um because i think understanding who your audience is is actually really important and kind of as former golfers going into the media industry none of us are necessarily trained in how to communicate this very complex and ever evolving moving game so yeah fundamentally understanding your audience but also understanding that we're not trying to necessarily reinvent the wheel here I think it's all about evolving you know understanding that we're trying to target our next generation a younger audience but not also you know leaving out the traditionalist you know we talk about diversity in terms of our sort of production that doesn't mean male or female black or white or whatever it it means having the very tones in our production you know likes of Ewan Murray uh you know from a few years ago he's he's iconic you know the way he can tell stories is amazing I mean we have a whatsapp group chat within Sky we had to send a voice message of who are kind of outlandish picks and um off the chart picks would be and I just love listening to his voice because you just cannot get bored of it but then it's also important to target that kind of modern ever moving audience as well so how can we stay relevant how can we stay fresh so yeah for me it's very much not staying stale forever evolving having varied formats of the game you know we've got examples of live tgl like you touched upon and yeah so it just injected that kind of shorter format content because i think let's face it our sort of generation we've got very short attention spans and so it's very much just kind of targeting everyone and really understanding who your audience is because it's pretty varied now.

9:31There's a sort of blurring between you two in terms of again if I use you as a route into mainstream media and Sky television, the tournament Ewan Murray calling it down the stretch and that barstool world is blurring so I don't know how that is going to play out and it's quite interesting watching Sky because there's sort of play, there's a line there, there's a greying of that area you've got Peter Finch on you know wandering around yeah I think if you look at a few professional golfers right less so these days because I think more pros understand the power of social media let's say it's digital marketing right so back let's say go back uh maybe three to five years there'll be some pros who wouldn't really care about social media and I'm sure a lot of their managers are now really hounding in the importance of that so you would have the likes of I'm not going to name names of players but they'll have 10 ,000 followers and you got the likes of Andy Murray who's got nothing to do with golf but you know calloway is a great example of this where we've actually really implemented the on the course with series so if you haven't watched it please like and subscribe we'll see you there um but it's it's actually inviting people onto the channel that have that leverage and i've always said golf is such an incredible demonstrator of this where it does bring everyone from different industries into this game you know now on the panel right now is a great example of that and you're probably sick of people saying this about you but it's we invite it so much it's so welcoming it's so fresh it allows more people to set eyeballs into this awesome traditional game that is modernizing for sure and it's that balance as well because a lot of social media you've got the kind of clickbait stuff so how do you kind of juggle clickbait even like you know the likes of sky a mainstream production company would try and get eyeballs somehow so how do we not you know it's that tone as well isn't it getting that right not patronizing the viewers because if you're subscribing to sky they've probably got a decent knowledge base but if you're talking about growing the game and they don't already watch golf how do you tap into them as well so it's it's kind of thinking of all of that so i mean your job i think it's impossible but we've got to try i think let's bring niall in and and we need to act modest golf but there's what i like about when when you appear at a golf course there's a whole industry of people on there's a linkedin world they say it's okay go niall likes golf and therefore everything's going to be okay he's going to connect you all our problem all our problems are solved you know When you were at the par three at the Masters, that's fantastic.

11:51Imagine the audience. Just take us inside what it looks like, this conversation about audiences, because you must know a lot about audiences. I know a thing or two, yeah. No, but it's been so interesting. I've always loved the game, grew up playing it. I grew up in a time in a country where it was a bit more accessible, I feel, looking up to people like McGainley and Harrington and Clark. It was having Tiger on TV on a Sunday. It was very easy to get into the game in my head. it was cheap to join the golf club i just fell in love with it straight away and then as i got older i kind of did stop playing in my early teens and then took back up again and then like when we'll get into modest golf in a bit but i was just like getting into the game being around the game being mates with some of the players and spending a bit of time around the tour just seeing the demographic change over the years has been a very interesting thing and and now like we go into the golf clubs and they're they're even screaming at me out there i can't even hit a seven iron um but like it's it's been really interesting to watch the game grow and I've always kind of like said like I've got followers online and if I could tap into one percent of them and try and drag them along for the ride into the game of golf you know that's more people playing the game or watching the game or watching these guys in sky or watching Dan's thing like the more people we get into it that way the better and as Ben said one size doesn't fit all and I understand like the blur but that's okay like every other industry is working you know I'll sit down for 90 minutes and watch a a football match, or there's people in America who will watch a baseball game for hours or a cricket game, a whole test week.

13:19But they'll also then flip through their phone and watch the best moments and things like that. And as Ben said, one size doesn't fit all. And it's just been a really interesting evolution. Let's just talk about Modest because there's bits in it that I hadn't realised. So just take us through what the setup was, what the idea behind the business is. Well, it was 2014 or 2015, early 2015, I think. and just being around the tour again just like seeing and hearing so many conversations on the range which as we know is a very very small place of young lads and girls who are turning pro and don't really know where they're playing on a Thursday on a Tuesday morning I was just coming from music and how well I've been managed and the team that I've had around me for the years I could never wrap my head around it so I just felt like there was an opportunity in knowing a few people in the game like Mark McDonald my business partner who'd worked with Ben over the years.

14:15It just felt like there was an opportunity to really nurture and look after these young people because turning pro is not an easy thing. Financials, getting around the world, concentrating on your game while doing so. I just felt like there was an opportunity to really take what we have in the music business of travel teams, social teams, commercial teams, and just wrap our arms around. So it's full service. Full service, yeah. Yeah, and try and take away any worry, any encore. Like, let them hit the ball, put in the ball quicker than everyone else, and we look after the rest. Before I get Brennan, the difference between, it's interesting you mentioned there about the music career and the management in music and management in golf or sport.

14:58What is the difference? Do you notice a difference? Not really. You're dealing with people. You know, it's all about people, and I'll give my CEO an answer now. It's all about the team we have, right? You know, it is. It is. I've got it back. He's learning. It's all right. Learning from the greats. It is all about people who are doing different professions, but it's all about how you deal with people and the nurturing that goes on behind the scenes to allow them to, like in any business, to allow them to go on and do what they do best. Yeah, because we're sort of asking, to your point earlier, we're asking sports people to become entertaining.

15:31We're creators, and we're pushing them in that direction. I say we, but that's the incentive at play. We've got Bryson, who's done it brilliantly, and you can see that that's what's happening. And I wonder what the implications of that are. So Ben, you were going to jump in. Well, yeah, I mean, I think just listening to Niall talk about Modest and I know Mark and Mac pretty well, I just wanted to commend you for what you've done because I think everybody in this room remembers the guy gave him a shot. And I think sometimes in the corporate world, talent and the music and whatever, some people who are talented don't get that chance and so to give people a chance I think is really inspiring.

16:08I also just, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. And I think you're starting to see the fruits of your labor now. And it was a tough road to take, but it was a great road to take. So well done to you. Yeah, I just wanted to talk, kind of tough tail off what Niall was saying about accessibility and growing up. I just wrapped up an incredible golf trip throughout Ireland. And it was very eye-opening to me coming from the States, just the difference in accessibility and in golf culture. You know, over here, it feels like you join a club to sort of get into it. And you find this community. whereas in the states joining a club is almost like the last step on your golf journey because it's so expensive and so you know my my friends were picking up the game they wouldn't even think about joining a club because where i live in in california yeah it's you know over a hundred thousand dollars to join a golf club and then you're paying you know at least at least a thousand fifteen hundred in dues per month so you're thinking about twenty thousand dollars of post tax income and then you got to pay the caddy when you're out there and you know i was going through through ireland and and first of all all the best courses in the country you can play which is not a thing in the united states and the thing that maybe struck me the most was the difference in the sort of caddy culture the caddies over here are members of the golf clubs that that they caddy at they're tour guides and i couldn't believe that you know caddies in in the u.s at a lot of places are almost treated as this is going to sound a little worse than i really mean it but like a second class citizens they have their own separate entrance there's a caddy barn and they meet their players in the first tee and then they go out there whereas here you know i played at the island down in Dublin, which is amazing, by the way.

17:36Our caddy in the morning played in the medal competition. He's a member. Then he caddied for us in the afternoon. Then he came with us in the clubhouse for a beer afterward and then told us that he's also a member of Port Marnock. And I was just thinking, imagine if you were in Los Angeles and you're going to play Riviera. And the caddy played Riviera in a medal competition in the morning. And then he joins you in the clubhouse for a beer after. And then he tells you that he's also a member of LA Country Club. It just would never happen. So we're behind. We're behind when it comes to that stuff.

18:03And I think there's a bit of ego involved in the sport in the United States that doesn't seem to be the case over here. I think there's an ego about how exclusive is your country club? How far do you carry the ball? What's your handicap? It's much more communal over here than it is. And I think we're slowly getting there. As more people come into the game, there are these sort of clubs that are popping up, but they're not really attached to a golf course. so you'll have a men's club and they go play different private different public courses every week because that's the only way that people can really find this community because it's just still so damn expensive in our country welcome to europe buddy dan we have better better weather though i will say that yeah yeah yeah um tgl i don't i don't i sort of get it intellectually i understand it but i don't feel it is that uh is it just a distance thing from here what's happening there and what's your you're embedded in that i was very skeptical going in um it felt like almost a couple months before i was like is this even really going to happen because i mean literally literally the bubble burst right the the stadium itself it was supposed to launch a year earlier and it burst and then they had to build this this arena and i just didn't understand once you see it it's basically it's a it's part golf and it's it's a content studio that building uh SoFi center.

19:17There's cameras absolutely everywhere. It's perfectly lit. And so I think it was the PGA tours opportunity to viralize itself. There's so many words. There were so many. Yeah. I don't know if that's a real word, but it should be. Is that your word? Are you going to own that? I just first time I ever said it. First time I ever said it. It's brilliant. But it felt good. It felt good coming out. This feels like this is a Rappaport IP in real time. But I think, you know, so so Liv comes on the scene and their whole thing is golf, but louder. Right. And they're going to have music playing and it's going to look very different and it's going to appeal to this younger audience but I think one of the things they were kind of in the middle because they're trying to do this golf but louder thing but they're also trying to you know we're elite competition and we've got the best players in the world and so it's kind of trying to walk this line that I think is a very tricky line TGL you want to talk about golf but louder all the way on the golf but louder side it's not trying to be you know oh this is this is the the be-all end-all of competition this is the tip top of the sport it's a bit of fun and I think it's the PGA Tour with TGL is sort of flanked live on both sides because you've got the very uh sort of traditional 72 hole stroke play events where there's no music playing and they're wearing pants and it has that traditional aspect and then they've gone on the other side way even past how far live has gone with it's not even on a golf course but it is a you know a golf property with the best players in the world on espn which is massive in our country um so i do get it i think it's it's very it's very clip based which is you know something we were talking about in the back you know a lot of the content that i make we don't necessarily get the live audience that you know a sky would get but we think about it in terms of clips because those clips can pay the bills because audience is in different places it's not just linear television anymore so we can go to an advertiser and we can say we got this many eyeballs and yeah it wasn't on linear television but an eyeball is an eyeball to some extent so i i do understand it yeah it'll be interesting to see how it evolves get some hopefully some some ladies teams involved you know i think it'd be cool if they added more i think it was a bit of a hassle with the guys with travel this year having to go all the way to florida because they were i think they were told also it was all going to be on monday nights some of them were moved to tuesday you had some guys that were just it was a lot so but i think also that that arena is replicable i think if you put one of those in vegas or you put one of those in scottsdale people would rent it out for a bachelor party or stag do as you guys say uh i think corporations would would rent it out for for a night out because it is sort of the closest you can get to playing golf without being on a golf course in c are you a fan do you you can say no is that In all honesty, I've not watched an awful lot of it.

21:40What do I think of TGL? I admire change. I admire effort. I think it's really important in any industry that you're open-minded. So, you know, I do admire that. I think with, I'm going to take a slight swerve here. Go for it. With Liv Golf, for instance. Starting off with that, I've not watched an awful lot, but as a concept, I get it because it's still golf. I know you're not the biggest fan of Liv. so just to explain that I'm not but who cares what I think in terms of I care I'm obviously not the target audience but I got the we had Sean Bratches on who was one of the architects of it initially he left a week after coming on our podcast which I don't think was related to coming on the podcast the death of a career to come on the unofficial partner podcast sorry to break it to you the idea I thought there's a lot to like about it teams, international rather than America the absence of women was weird at the beginning, particularly for Saudi money.

22:35I thought that was a really strange miss. But I got it and I understood it. I just don't like the execution of it. I just don't, you know, not engaging. I do think on that, that also with TGL, because there's so much money that's kind of backing these organisations, these concepts, I think it's very easy to forget it's still a start-up. So for me, it's still having that open-mindedness of understanding the concept and what they're trying to achieve. It's only been, what, I mean, a couple of years? Yeah, a season. So I think it's also worth giving it some time. So I think just going back to the original point of that open-mindedness of this game evolving, I just think that's just a small injection of it that has the opportunity to grow.

23:12But obviously you're involved in, over to you, both parties. Yeah, no, I'm involved with Boston Common. What I just like about it is, first of all, apart from the travel issues that the boys were having last season, they do really enjoy playing in it. And I'm sure you've had a chat with Fitzy. And you can't fake that. you know you're mic'd up you're on camera for an hour live on tv you're the host yeah you know and and they're they're literally they really enjoy it and the more we can do to get these lads out of them like we're we're with a brand right now you know they're trying their best to get these boys you know to to activate the brand and uh if you enjoy it you'll want to do it and i think that that's what the biggest thing for takeaway for me was was seeing how much they loved it like all right you should be maybe home resting on a monday night after a long week but they're they're Shane Lowry had the best time of his life, but it looks a bit.

24:01And yeah, that was my biggest takeaway in terms of what happens next with it. It was like, right, if they're excited, you know, they've obviously got skin in the game, but at the same time, they're excited about activating the brand, and it should make for a good season. Obviously, they figure out the flow of things. As you say, it's a startup, so it's going to take its time to reel itself out. But yeah, I think it's an exciting prospect. Yeah. Ben, do you like it? Yeah, I mean, I've been involved from pretty early part of it, Mike McCauley is a friend of mine, Andrew McCauley, who's the chief technical co-operator, used to be a colleague of mine, top tracer involved in the event.

24:34Look, listen to what we're saying. You know, it's finding its feet. They're looking to look at a different way of doing it. We're not saying it's a dead duck, right? We're saying that it's got a future. And so it's a question of what that future is and, you know, and how we viralize it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you've learned anything today. But I think it's a content theater. I think from the first season, it was raw. It was interesting. It was different. And it will find its feet. And what that content will be in the future, we will figure out. And the fan will dictate what they want to go and see.

25:12And it will morph into something that I think has a place. And I think it's also a way to keep Tiger Woods in the sport. You know, we all know Tiger's health struggles the last four years or whatever it's been since the accident. He hardly plays golf anymore. But he still, I think, feels a sense of duty to be involved. And yeah, it's great when Tiger comes on a broadcast and talks for a couple minutes and says something kind of funny. But it's different when you can watch him out there in competition and interacting with other players. And so, you know, anytime Tiger's team plays, there's a bump in viewers because he's still Tiger Woods.

25:46And I think it's a really unique opportunity to showcase him. And I think that's one of the reasons why the first season did so well on ESPN. It's a really great point, that. And the other lens is the money likes it as well. So, you know, private equity, billionaire class, a lot of money going into the franchise, both across Live and TGL. And because there's something investable, there's a unit, you know, a team, a franchise, it's sort of easier to put the money in and then build. And it doesn't cost$10 billion. I mean, the Lakers and the Dodgers, you know, all these sports franchises, traditional sports franchises in the U.S., the valuations are out of control.

26:19And it seems like all the maybe not the richest Americans, but the next year are all buying like second division football teams because they can get their hands on it. And they can they feel like there's actually an opportunity there to grow something because if you get promotion, there's all this money. So it's an opportunity for people to have skin in the game. And I think ultimately, you know, professional sports, it's sort of like fantasy sports for rich people when they want to buy. They want to be as close to it as possible. and I think it's an opportunity with these franchises there's just like you said there's more entities for these people to have some skin in the game.

26:47I think TGL have done a really nice job with the teams. I think the teams mean something. Mark Lev at the Boston Common I think he's really looked at the detail in terms of what's our identity and the members of the team mean something to that team and I think they've built up a pretty cool brand Arthur Blank the same with his team. So I think they've done a nice job there What about the Live Team brands? I think the TGL guys have done a really nice job. Fantastic. I was listening to George Pine, who's obviously a prominent, I say obviously, he's a sport, he's quite a prominent investor, well, a very prominent sports investor, brewing sports capital.

27:23And it's quite interesting. He did a little bit on TGL and why he likes it. Again, why private equity likes this model and why that's an incentive in the marketplace and these things are developing. A couple of things. He said it's asset light, which talks exactly to what you just said about, okay, it's this thing and I can see it moving around and you can start your own one. The other one was betting. And I think betting in golf, I think is quite interesting. And this is a Barstool question because I think there's a strong link in there. But it's something we don't talk about. He mentioned micro betting around TGL.

27:55But it feels like, again, the existential question for the sports business, what happens when Sky stopped writing checks? okay what happens when the broadcaster goes away and where's the money going to come from and if you think about it where the billions going into investing in the assets teams against the backdrop where we're not watching television and my daughter has never watched a live thing of anything okay so if that stops then where's the money coming from and then you go to it's Ben Sharp and the Callaway budget is going to come in there how do we get more money from the brand marketing community and And the other one, well, one of the others is betting.

28:34What do you think about that in terms of a scenario? Because it felt like, okay, well, that's a slight door. Private equity people, you know, there's a clue in the name. They're private. They don't talk very much. But sometimes they reveal things, which I think are quite interesting. So what do we think about that? Yeah. So I was at Barstool for two years, just to be clear, left in September of last year. So Dan on Golf, go subscribe, like and subscribe. It's my new show. But no, it was very interesting because when I was at Barstool, it was owned by Penn Gaming, which is a gambling company. and you know gambling is a way to monetize fan interest a direct way to monetize fan interest you've got you know it's always been legal over here it was not in the states until just a couple years ago so you've had a you have a bar full of people who are either really invested because they are a fan of the team or you've got a you know some guy who thinks that he knows who's going to win he thinks he's a pundit and then now instead of them just you know kind of bs into their friend about it they can actually put their dollars on it it's it's been very interesting seeing the gambling companies start to get into the content space so pen with barstool didn't really work out because with uh an investment from a gambling company comes tons of regulations and as everyone in this room uh who's consumed any barstool content knows sometimes um not the best at following rules and so there were a lot of instances where you know they would say like you put your put your mortgage on this bet as a joke but you can't say that you can't say that um even if it's ingested you can't say that you can't say you know they barstool have for a while had a had a a parlay like a a bet that you could make on pen that was called a can't lose parlay which is like you know obviously you're gonna lose um so yeah they they but they have they have the cash they have the money and so you're seeing a lot of you know uh one of the big barstool podcasts you know goes over to fan duel um and and so yeah it's it's uh they've and there's you know fanduel tv and and draft kings is getting into the content space so it's going to be fast I'm glad I'm on that side of the business because I don't know how it's going to shake out in 20 years.

30:28Right. Are we are we watching the open on DraftKings? Are we watching the open on FanDuel? Because that's where the money is. It's it's definitely possible. Are those companies going to then partner with like a Sky? And I know they do already, but in a more sort of significant way. So it's still so early in the U.S. You know, there's a lot of states where sports gambling isn't legal. So there's stuff that they, you know, I don't think DraftKings could could be like an official distributor of, you know, the NFL because it's not legal in a lot of different places. So it's not the sexiest answer, but we're going to have to see how it plays out.

30:57But that's where the money's going. The majors. It feels like the majors have been elevated in the whole scheme of things. Interesting, Ben, the majors as a strategy. What do you think about the landscape now? Because it feels like this in amongst the tours, and you've got the, you know, we don't need to rehearse the conversations that everyone's having about the tours and live and are they, aren't they, and what they're trying to do. But above that, this feels like this event and the others. feel like they're elevated. Is that your sense? It's about the product. Last week was very good because we had Scottie Scheffler, we had Rory McIlroy, we had Xander playing in a tournament and the best were playing against the best and we want to see the best playing against the best and when they don't audiences go down and when they do audience go up and because what's happened over the last few years where the sport has said well you can't do that and you can do that the majors wins because it's the only time when the best play against the best and that's what we want to go and see right because you want to see the champion is the best golfer not just the best golfer in that league or in this area they want to see the best and they've stayed above the fray and i think it's a strategic decision one of the things that you know i think was a sort of a talking point before these guys went to live was are you going to still get to play in majors are you still going to get to play in majors you know you're not going to get world ranking points and you know the major is going to ban guys there's like 18 guys from live in the field this week we're three years into this they're all ranked whatever they're ranked in the world rankings which are completely irrelevant now, basically.

32:23And three years on, that threat hasn't come to life. And I think it's because of what he talked about. Why would the majors want to ban someone? Why would the majors go all out in support of the PGA Tour, knowing that it will damage their own products? So they've stayed above the fray. And you could argue that from a competition perspective, they've never been more important and never been more looked forward to. I mean, from our perspective, what are we trying to achieve? We want to get the right eyeballs on our brand. And so we're going to partner with people and with organizations who can help us do that.

32:50And, you know, we looked at the data. We looked at what the golfers were saying. And the majors is where it's at. And, you know, this year we've seen a tangible increase in the engagement with our brand. You know, business is pretty good right now. I mean, the sun is shining, so that does help. But just really showing up when the eyeballs of the world are on your sport, I think is important. Okay, right. Very aware that the sun is shining and one of the great courses in the world is just over the road and we want to all get over there. If you've got a question, just make yourself known. Yes, I'll come to you.