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Hassan Moore on American Football's Growth in Romania · Scene Projects Sports Network

• 0:15
  Welcome into the Scene Project Sports Network.
• 0:17
  I'm your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:19
  And with me today, the founder of Accolade Sports and general manager of the Bucharest
• 0:24
  titans, Hassan Moore.
• 0:25
  Hassan, welcome to the show, brother.
• 0:27
  What's going on, Bubba?
• 0:28
  Thank you for having me, man.
• 0:30
  I have well, I mean, I have, like, a little bit less going on than you at the moment, but, you
• 0:35
  know, that's only because the football season just recently ended for you guys overseas.
• 0:40
  Really incredible.
• 0:41
  We're gonna have a great talk about everything that you're working on now.
• 0:45
  But, always like to open up the show, getting a little bit of your backstory, Hassan.
• 0:49
  So let's start there, and then we'll pick up the conversation down the road.
• 0:53
  Yeah.
• 0:53
  Yeah.
• 0:53
  Absolutely.
• 0:54
  So my, my introduction to sports started back in, like, 2016, 2017.
• 1:00
  I was actually a a filmmaker back then, predominantly a screenwriter, but I was doing
• 1:04
  some of my own projects as well.
• 1:06
  Very kinda indie stuff, just, you know, having fun.
• 1:09
  And a friend of mine said, hey.
• 1:10
  You love football.
• 1:11
  City College of San Francisco is looking for a guy to do a work in their media department.
• 1:15
  So I did that, like, very stereotypical, filmmaker to sports sports route for a while.
• 1:21
  I was with them for three seasons, and it was really, really incredible toward the end of it.
• 1:24
  Ended up working as a team manager too, and that's probably when the, the football or
• 1:29
  sports management bug bit me was in that process.
• 1:31
  You know?
• 1:33
  Then fast forward, fast forward because that doesn't always pay the bills, worked in a bunch
• 1:36
  of different industries.
• 1:38
  I was working in, in tech sales, and I realized that every day with my coworkers, all I was
• 1:43
  talking about was sports.
• 1:45
  So I decided at, so four years ago, a little over four years ago, I decided to make the leap
• 1:49
  and say, you know what?
• 1:50
  I'm, I'm quitting my Silicon Valley job.
• 1:53
  Like, I'm a Bay Area guy.
• 1:54
  So I'm quitting my Silicon Valley job, and I'm gonna I'm gonna start my own sports media
• 1:58
  company.
• 2:00
  Very much built on the premise of I saw a lot of really interesting sports programs that
• 2:04
  needed some management assistance.
• 2:07
  At the time, we were calling it the fractional front office, where it was like, you need a you
• 2:11
  need a general manager for a very specific thing or you need some management for a
• 2:14
  specific period of time.
• 2:17
  That's how Accolade Sports Media was born.
• 2:19
  Most of what people needed was media, but there was some some management involved too.
• 2:23
  That's, that's how I ended up going full circle right back into sports, but but found the the
• 2:28
  kind of the alignment that worked best for me.
• 2:30
  You know?
• 2:32
  Yeah.
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  Really incredible.
• 2:33
  And I in many ways, I'm seeing myself on some version of that journey right now, right, where
• 2:39
  I was
• 2:39
  like, okay.
• 2:40
  You know, I I was a musician, and then we wanted to get away from having to work the nine
• 2:45
  to five in the factory to have a little bit of fun on the weekends.
• 2:48
  Yep.
• 2:49
  Starting the podcast, really falling in love with interviewing and just meeting new people,
• 2:54
  realizing that it's really the networking even more than the interviewing.
• 2:57
  I just love networking and making new friends and getting to go to really awesome events.
• 3:02
  Most of them centered around sports these days, and it just evolves.
• 3:06
  Right?
• 3:07
  And Yeah.
• 3:07
  And we all find the things that that we are, you know, better at.
• 3:11
  Me?
• 3:11
  Do I take pictures?
• 3:13
  Yes.
• 3:13
  Am I a cameraman?
• 3:14
  No.
• 3:15
  You know?
• 3:16
  Do I ever call myself a photographer?
• 3:18
  That's not on my list.
• 3:20
  But now I'm able to provide some of those opportunities for others.
• 3:23
  And I'm sure for you that you are seeing opportunities that you're like, man, I could do
• 3:28
  that job better than that person or or to the same level.
• 3:32
  And maybe it would be a little bit more rewarding whether financially or just on the
• 3:36
  soul side to what I'm doing now and being able to move.
• 3:40
  And and I think that's something that I admire immensely about you is your, one, your
• 3:45
  willingness to adapt and the ability to kind of fit yourself into different roles, albeit from
• 3:52
  the outside, at least, pretty seamlessly.
• 3:54
  Yeah.
• 3:54
  Yeah.
• 3:55
  Yeah.
• 3:55
  And and kinda what drew me into it, they say that, like, every great business should should
• 3:59
  be based on a need.
• 4:00
  Right?
• 4:01
  And I saw this need in the market where there were so many great companies doing a lot of
• 4:05
  different things in sports.
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  Like, some of the earliest ones I worked with were just, you know, passing academies and,
• 4:09
  like, pickleball was starting to to really blow up at the time.
• 4:12
  And you could see these organizations that were that were founder led and were growing rapidly,
• 4:17
  and eventually, they kinda reached the limits of their understanding in business or in their
• 4:22
  connections or in one of those things.
• 4:24
  And you saw that there was this, like, thick glass ceiling that was preventing them from
• 4:28
  getting to the next level.
• 4:29
  And it was just a matter of, like, being able to come in for a short period of time, help
• 4:32
  them navigate something that's outside of their immediate wheelhouse, and then get them to that
• 4:36
  next level where they can now start to really thrive as business people.
• 4:39
  So so, yeah, it was to me, I always wanted to, maybe it's the filmmaker in me.
• 4:44
  I like going project to project.
• 4:46
  You know, I like approaching a new challenge.
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  I I I've since then realized that I I've I've had to build a team around me who are really
• 4:55
  good administrators long term because I'm, like, very much a conqueror, not a ruler.
• 4:59
  You know what I mean?
• 5:00
  So, well, you know, you learn about yourself going through business.
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  But yeah.
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  No.
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  It's been an incredible process of getting to work with, so many different, companies on five
• 5:08
  continents now.
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  So yeah.
• 5:10
  Yeah.
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  Really, really cool stuff.
• 5:12
  Yeah.
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  Incredible.
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  I always equate it to, like, a ship.
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  Like, I'm the guy up in the crow's nest looking for the next land.
• 5:18
  I'm not the guy behind the wheel whatsoever.
• 5:21
  Now am I functioning kinda running up and down the pole right now?
• 5:25
  Yes.
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  But it's gonna be really nice to add add some teammates that can drive the ship long term and
• 5:30
  make sure we we don't run aground.
• 5:33
  So Exactly.
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  Really awesome stuff.
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  But now, you've taken it, like you said, you know, five five continents.
• 5:39
  You're working overseas now.
• 5:41
  The Bucharest Titans, championship, you know, hopes fell a little bit short this year, but
• 5:47
  talk about being general manager of a, you know, a new team, in a new league and and
• 5:54
  really bringing American football to Europe at at the ground level.
• 5:59
  Talk about what the experience of the last, you know, few months of the football season have
• 6:03
  been for you.
• 6:05
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  So, it's it's been a very, very fascinating story.
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  So feel like some of the coolest things that have happened in my life have happened, like,
• 6:12
  almost by accident, and this was one of them.
• 6:14
  Right?
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  So after, you know, three and a half years at that point of actively seeking out, oh, I wanna
• 6:20
  work with this organization.
• 6:21
  I wanna work with that organization.
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  I came across the Bucharest titans completely by accident and ended up falling in love with
• 6:26
  the team and taking on a bigger role than I ever have.
• 6:29
  So my my girlfriend's from Romania and the previous so last year, I'd come out twice just
• 6:35
  on trips just to kinda kinda city see the city, see the country, get to know the place a little
• 6:40
  bit.
• 6:41
  And I think it was on my very first trip, a friend of mine here told me, hey.
• 6:44
  You know, like, American football exists here.
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  Like, you're an American.
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  You should go see a game.
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  And I ended up you know, it's the season, everything didn't line up perfectly for me to
• 6:52
  come and visit, but I had heard of the team.
• 6:54
  And I think it was between one of the trips I reached out, and the team said, yeah.
• 6:57
  You know, like, we're in the we're in the process of looking for a couple of things, and
• 7:01
  maybe you could help us out.
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  You know?
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  Like, we're looking for a head coach.
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  We wanna professionalize.
• 7:06
  Our team's really been struggling.
• 7:08
  At that point, like, actual regular season, especially in, international play, the team had
• 7:13
  never won a game.
• 7:13
  You know?
• 7:14
  The team was just trying to find its footing and and understand.
• 7:17
  But it was such a passionate group.
• 7:19
  The the organization, some of its members had been been with the organization for a decade.
• 7:23
  So they were very, very dedicated to just keeping it alive, keeping things going, and
• 7:27
  we're playing absolutely, you know, to to to to try to avoid the cliche, but can't for the love
• 7:32
  of the game.
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  You know?
• 7:33
  So, yeah, when I when I came out here full time, I was working on a contract in sports
• 7:38
  cybersecurity at the time.
• 7:40
  They reached out to me, they said, hey.
• 7:41
  We'd love if you were more involved.
• 7:44
  You know, a couple of weeks past, I was executive vice president.
• 7:46
  And couple months past, and I was general manager.
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  You know, that's how it happens.
• 7:49
  Right?
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  I I I loved it, fell in love with it, ended up doing it every single day.
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  And then, yeah, by the time I became general manager in March, I was doing it full time
• 7:58
  because I could see that there were some really, really interesting opportunities here.
• 8:02
  So, yeah, American football's existed in Romania for depending on who you ask between
• 8:07
  twelve to fifteen years.
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  So very, very new, very, very young.
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  Like, team current active teams currently in Romania is six or seven of them, and they're
• 8:16
  kind of scattered all over the place.
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  Being here in Bucharest is nice because there are two teams right here, so we get to have a
• 8:22
  little bit of some rivalry, have a bit of a derby.
• 8:24
  And, yeah, the expectation going into the season was grow.
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  That's it.
• 8:29
  It was a simple grow.
• 8:30
  Right?
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  And right out of the gate, coming into it, and there's there were so many challenges that
• 8:34
  happened even leading up to that first game.
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  We ended up beating the Romanian champion in our first game, which was, like, the most
• 8:41
  surreal experience.
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  Right?
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  So going on to do that, going on to have, first international victory, you know, first victory
• 8:48
  here, first playoff appearance, first playoff victory, and making it all the way to the
• 8:53
  championship, for us, was like having four championships in the first season.
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  You know?
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  Like, all of those were so, important, and monumental and just the experience of seeing a
• 9:03
  team find its footing.
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  And now we're now we're in this position where it's like championship or nothing.
• 9:09
  And that's such a crazy shift in mentality and such an inspiring to see inspiring thing to see
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  it after only five months.
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  You know?
• 9:15
  Yeah.
• 9:17
  Yeah.
• 9:18
  Pretty pretty incredible run that you guys had this year and obviously that you've been on for
• 9:24
  the last several years kind of, you know, chasing this down.
• 9:27
  Is general manager you feel like the role that you could stay in and finally maybe put down a
• 9:34
  a bit of roots in in this position and helping to grow this until you get to that championship
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  and really investing that time and energy in one specific job, although that job itself has
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  very many hats to it as well.
• 9:49
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  And that's, you know, that's a huge part of why I took the role is because there are there are
• 9:54
  a lot of things that you can do to influence the game throughout the entire Balkan region by
• 9:59
  being a general manager in teams here.
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  So for instance, the the league that we're currently a member of, the DAFL, includes
• 10:06
  Serbian teams.
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  It includes Bulgarian teams.
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  And, actually, as of about forty eight hours ago, now Turkey is involved too.
• 10:13
  So ITU from Istanbul is involved.
• 10:15
  So being a general manager in a league that's growing rapidly, that the leadership of all the
• 10:20
  teams, all our general managers and presidents work very closely together on everything from
• 10:25
  our the foundational documents to to regulations to new teams to, localized
• 10:32
  marketing, all that sort of thing.
• 10:33
  It's definitely the kind of role where if you want to both build a team and set a standard
• 10:39
  for how a franchise can grow, you know, and that there there are examples of success in
• 10:44
  other parts of Europe, and it's just a matter of replicating it within your own specific
• 10:48
  market.
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  But then also having an influence on how American football is viewed throughout the
• 10:53
  entire Balkan region.
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  You know, most of the countries here have some version of it, but trying to build some kind of
• 11:00
  meaningful stability across multiple seasons hasn't is really rarely been accomplished in
• 11:07
  this entire part of the world.
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  So, yes, there's there's more than enough to do as a general manager here that affects not only
• 11:14
  this specific franchise, but the league and just the greater concept of American football
• 11:19
  outside of the big five countries in Europe that that have it.
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  You know?
• 11:24
  Yeah.
• 11:24
  There's just so many challenges.
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  Getting a viable product on the field that can win football games is obviously a first step, I
• 11:30
  think, but then you have to grow a fan base.
• 11:33
  You you have to bring people out and maintain that visibility throughout the year, football
• 11:38
  being a shorter season than most.
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  How are you staying in people's top of mind?
• 11:43
  How are you building community around the team now?
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  And especially now that you've had some success, I hope that it it tends to go a little
• 11:50
  bit easier, but all of these jobs fall on a a you know, to your plate, and they may get
• 11:55
  delegated out over time to to different people.
• 11:58
  But, you know, you have to be worried about all of this and the scheduling and the you know,
• 12:03
  whether it's arena deals or whatever.
• 12:05
  What kind of stadiums are you guys playing in?
• 12:07
  Yeah.
• 12:08
  Pretty much all the fields we play on are converted rugby because it's kind of the the
• 12:12
  closest analogous sport to us would be by.
• 12:14
  Right?
• 12:14
  So almost all of our games are rugby.
• 12:16
  We've I think two games this season, we converted soccer fields instead.
• 12:20
  But yes.
• 12:21
  And and kind of in the way that most Romanians view it is that it's a version of rugby.
• 12:25
  That's how they think of it, which, I mean, a lot of the world kind of use it it's you know,
• 12:29
  it's just it's rugby with helmets is kinda how they how they view it.
• 12:33
  Romania is a very kind of interesting entry point for American football in the Balkan
• 12:37
  region too because even though it is post Soviet country, it is more American centric.
• 12:44
  Right?
• 12:44
  Like, Romania has very close relationships with France and with America.
• 12:48
  English fluency is extremely high here.
• 12:50
  American culture kind of leads the way.
• 12:53
  You know?
• 12:53
  And, yes, there there you will see some remnants of kind of the Soviet Russian world
• 12:57
  here too, but not in the same way that you see in a place like Serbia.
• 13:00
  Right?
• 13:01
  So when it comes to trying to, get fans, to to remain involved, you do have the benefit of
• 13:07
  that.
• 13:08
  Like, anything that is branded American is, like, intrinsically and inherently interesting
• 13:12
  here.
• 13:13
  And even when we've played, like, one of the fields we played on, I think, twice this
• 13:17
  season, is a field that's next to, like, a technical university.
• 13:21
  And just even the fact that we were doing practices there or having games there, you see
• 13:25
  people who are going from sports complexes or from classes who you were just enamored with it
• 13:30
  as soon as they saw it.
• 13:30
  What is this?
• 13:31
  Or I've only seen this in movies.
• 13:33
  It's probably the most common thing you've seen.
• 13:34
  You know?
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  Like, they're like, oh, I've I've seen varsity blues or I've seen Friday night lights, and I
• 13:39
  can't believe it's here.
• 13:39
  Right?
• 13:40
  So the cool thing for us is that we're not having to swim against the current at all.
• 13:44
  Like, people are very accepting and interesting and fascinated by it.
• 13:48
  It's just a matter of trying to kind of, you know, pierce the veil when it comes to there's
• 13:52
  the supremacy here is obviously soccer.
• 13:54
  That's I mean, that's Europe.
• 13:55
  Right?
• 13:55
  And the most of the world, that's gonna be the case.
• 13:57
  But even, sports that aren't that big in in America, like handball is probably number two
• 14:02
  here.
• 14:02
  Right?
• 14:03
  So it's just a matter of trying to trying to compete with those larger forces.
• 14:08
  But even that, we've had we've had some some pretty good success of converting sports fans
• 14:13
  in general into at least, you know, their their first touch of seeing what American football is
• 14:18
  like because this part of the world just also doesn't have super robust sports media.
• 14:22
  You're even even with the the larger soccer clubs or the or the larger handball clubs,
• 14:27
  they're not, like, they're not drowning you in content.
• 14:29
  So you can still get your your voice out there as a smaller niche sport.
• 14:33
  You know?
• 14:34
  Yeah.
• 14:35
  It's it's crazy to to identify football as a niche sport, but different It's
• 14:40
  so difficult to wrap my head around it.
• 14:42
  The the first the first time I I realized that I not in Kansas anymore was when I started
• 14:47
  reaching out to sponsors.
• 14:48
  Now saying, hey.
• 14:49
  We've got a football team, and I you know, I'm an American.
• 14:51
  So, like, all you have to say is we have a football team and a company will put their logo
• 14:54
  on your jersey.
• 14:54
  Right?
• 14:55
  And then just the resistance of them being like, yeah.
• 14:57
  Well, we don't know what that is.
• 14:59
  And then I was like, oh, okay.
• 15:00
  Yeah.
• 15:00
  Yeah.
• 15:01
  Yeah.
• 15:01
  I'm not, you know, I'm not in California where I could just say the word football team and
• 15:04
  people give you money.
• 15:05
  Yeah.
• 15:07
  Well, and that's a huge challenge to try and overcome.
• 15:10
  Right?
• 15:10
  And something that it it just permeates all of American culture, right, from high school
• 15:15
  Friday nights Yeah.
• 15:16
  To to college on Saturday, to the pros playing every single Sunday, and the NFL just
• 15:22
  dominating the media landscape for at least nine months of the year.
• 15:26
  Right?
• 15:26
  We get a little bit of a lull May end of May and and through the summer.
• 15:30
  Right?
• 15:31
  But then August, training camp start up and the NFL is back to the top of the headlines
• 15:35
  everywhere you turn.
• 15:37
  How interesting to kind of leave that same sport, different location, and you're having to
• 15:43
  kinda start from the ground floor of, like, this is a American football, and this is how
• 15:49
  the sport is played.
• 15:51
  So I'm wondering on the you know, to help grow the game, is there some stuff or and maybe you
• 15:56
  didn't have a chance to do it this year, but in the future, doing more kinda youth camps and
• 16:00
  things like that to be teaching that younger generation and creating your fans early on
• 16:05
  instead of trying to turn over, you know, guys that are in their fifties, sixties, or
• 16:08
  seventies to say, hey.
• 16:10
  We're just gonna start with the kids.
• 16:12
  We're gonna grow this game right alongside them.
• 16:14
  And as they get older, hopefully, the game continues to grow on that scale as well.
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  Absolutely.
• 16:19
  So the team has had a youth flag component for many years, which is where a lot of the even
• 16:26
  some of the younger existing players that we have now came through that.
• 16:29
  So a big key for us moving into next season is to, you know, have that be a more robust part
• 16:35
  of the program.
• 16:36
  Right now, it was more of, like, you know, kids of players or friends of family members, that
• 16:41
  sort of thing, but really developing more of a pipeline from youth to teen and then and, you
• 16:46
  know, kind of into the main game.
• 16:48
  There you know, some of our partners, especially especially on on the the flag
• 16:51
  football side, have been making really great inroads with bringing flag football into high
• 16:55
  schools throughout the country.
• 16:56
  And that's, you know, that's a huge part of it too.
• 16:59
  Even if it's even if flag football is the only introduction, it it ends up being a gateway
• 17:03
  toward the main sport for us.
• 17:05
  You know, flag football throughout the Balkan region is expanding really rapidly, so we
• 17:09
  definitely wanna be a part of that.
• 17:11
  And then also the, like, teen and into college market is an interesting category for us as
• 17:15
  well because we see that there are a lot of, a lot of things where we kind of have to teach
• 17:19
  people how to be fans of the sport.
• 17:21
  It's very different than than how fandom works here and how fandom around sports works here.
• 17:27
  Like, one prime example is we have a big initiative that we're working on for next
• 17:30
  season to kinda teach the concept of tailgating.
• 17:33
  Right?
• 17:34
  Because here, people love to grill.
• 17:36
  People love beer.
• 17:37
  People love going to games early, but they don't put that together into I'm going to grill
• 17:42
  in the parking lot outside the stadium to go to the it just it they just don't understand what
• 17:46
  we're talking about.
• 17:47
  Right?
• 17:47
  But they have all the pieces.
• 17:49
  And when you explain those pieces, they're like, oh, I've seen that before.
• 17:52
  Right?
• 17:53
  So, like, teaching that teaching the concept of, like, a college bar having the game on is
• 18:00
  there there's no there's no such thing in American football here.
• 18:03
  Right?
• 18:03
  So it's interesting.
• 18:04
  We're building the fan infrastructure, and we're kind of teaching this is how we are fans
• 18:09
  in The US, and there's almost no resistance to that.
• 18:12
  Everyone is very curious about how that process works.
• 18:15
  Right?
• 18:16
  Like, the concept of going to a game two hours early to grill and have some beers and hang out
• 18:21
  with family and play some games just doesn't exist yet.
• 18:25
  That kind of infrastructure around the game, people are very fascinated by that.
• 18:30
  This concept of that the show begins before the game is very new here, but we see that as a
• 18:35
  huge opportunity and even flag football as well.
• 18:39
  You know, there have been there have been some plans for as a part of the DAFL season.
• 18:43
  Danube American Football League is the league.
• 18:45
  We're a part of DAFL to have some, like, like, kids flag football, like, open camp type stuff
• 18:51
  on game day.
• 18:52
  You know?
• 18:53
  So trying to, like, build this whole show around football is a lot of fun.
• 18:58
  It's real it's it's really cool.
• 18:59
  You know, these things we take for granted in The US are very, very novel concepts here, and
• 19:03
  that's a lot of fun.
• 19:04
  Yeah.
• 19:05
  I did.
• 19:05
  And that's just incredible.
• 19:06
  Like, in the same life, you can go from where it is a piece of just it's hard to be American
• 19:13
  and not have football be some part of your life.
• 19:15
  Like, you have to be, like, actively avoiding it to not have any touch points with it.
• 19:20
  And even then, it's almost impossible.
• 19:22
  Right?
• 19:23
  You know, the the gear and people are always wearing it.
• 19:25
  We're always talking about it.
• 19:27
  It dominates the media.
• 19:28
  Right?
• 19:28
  The to then go to a place where they're like, what is it?
• 19:32
  Right?
• 19:33
  And how do you play this is is super intriguing to me.
• 19:37
  I I can't help but smile at the thought of, like, tailgate you.
• 19:41
  Right?
• 19:41
  Like, we're gonna teach you how to do this.
• 19:44
  I'm I'm already racking my brain thinking of ways that Scene Project Sports Network can be
• 19:49
  involved in teaching people how to party at football games and be harassed because yeah.
• 19:54
  Hey.
• 19:55
  If you need help, Hassan, you can't do everything, buddy.
• 19:58
  We would love to help train these fans up and show them what really being a fan of the sport
• 20:03
  because it is so much different.
• 20:04
  And if you're brand new to the game and you don't grow up with it, that it can be difficult
• 20:08
  to learn.
• 20:09
  The rules are a lot different than a rugby or a soccer, and and and in essence that the fandom
• 20:14
  is different then.
• 20:15
  Right?
• 20:16
  So there there's so much that has to go on, and you get to be, like, right here, row, ground
• 20:21
  floor of all of this.
• 20:23
  So who knows where this goes over the next ten years because I think you have a real
• 20:27
  opportunity if you have more people that are like you understanding that, look.
• 20:32
  You're not going to create successful franchises unless you are able to do this, and
• 20:37
  you're not gonna have a successful league without successful franchises.
• 20:41
  So it all starts with, hey.
• 20:42
  Getting flag football into the local high school and middle school and get these kids
• 20:47
  playing and and touching it, and that's going to organically build that thirst for Yep.
• 20:53
  American football that which then turns into fandom.
• 20:56
  Whether it's the the Bucharest titans or another team inside of there or they find a pro
• 21:01
  team in the the NFL that they end up rooting for.
• 21:05
  Growing the game of football, I think, is something that gets lost that, you know, having
• 21:09
  just spent a week in the golf world that they do very well.
• 21:12
  Like, the PGA of America, especially, does very good at just growing the game of golf.
• 21:16
  We don't care what league it is and or anything.
• 21:18
  Right?
• 21:18
  Just growing that game.
• 21:20
  And I think if that mentality is taken on by the entire league, you're going to see it pay
• 21:25
  dividends over the next five to ten years as these younger fans, you know, become adults and
• 21:30
  then start having families of their own and building new traditions is really what you're
• 21:35
  doing.
• 21:35
  Yeah.
• 21:36
  Absolutely.
• 21:36
  And and another thing that, you know, we took a few stabs at it this season, but next season's
• 21:41
  gonna be a big one for us, is really play it's like playing heavily into player stories.
• 21:47
  Because a part of what's kind of missing from from the fandom here is the teams are seen as
• 21:52
  sort of a monolith, and this this happens a lot in in niche sports.
• 21:56
  Right?
• 21:57
  Where you say, okay.
• 21:58
  I I back this team or that team.
• 22:00
  But there aren't a lot of stories behind, like, why or or who.
• 22:04
  You know?
• 22:04
  Like, if someone, you know, comes from New York and they tell you, oh, I don't like Saquon.
• 22:08
  Then you're like, oh, is it because he left the Giants?
• 22:10
  Or is it because you know, like, there's there's kind of backstory.
• 22:13
  Right?
• 22:14
  And those backstories of players here are not a part of the general, like, discourse and
• 22:19
  narrative even among people that are fans of the sport.
• 22:22
  Like, yes, people might have a favorite player or they might know someone personally on the
• 22:26
  team, but that kind of storytelling is something that, like, is very rare here, very
• 22:31
  new here, and there are really fascinating stories.
• 22:34
  And, like, leaning successfully into rivalries is a difficult thing here too because in a
• 22:39
  niche small sport, a lot of the rivalries are, like, deeply personal, like, people who didn't
• 22:44
  like each other in high school, like, that sort of thing.
• 22:46
  And we're trying to build more of the concept of, like like, this year, we had a lot of
• 22:49
  players who came over to our team from Bulgaria.
• 22:52
  There's a a team in Bulgaria called Varna Sharks that didn't play this year.
• 22:56
  And because they played with us and because we played against the Sofia Bears in Bulgaria,
• 23:01
  there was a rivalry there.
• 23:02
  There's a rivalry of, like, you kind of have this mercenary group that went up to Romania
• 23:06
  and is now fighting their own.
• 23:08
  We really leaned into that during the season.
• 23:10
  And, like, that was just such a novel concept.
• 23:12
  Everyone was like, wait.
• 23:12
  What are you doing?
• 23:13
  Like, why why why are you making a big deal about this?
• 23:15
  I'm like, that's how you so you get people interested.
• 23:17
  You know?
• 23:18
  Like yeah.
• 23:19
  Yeah.
• 23:20
  The those human elements are so important.
• 23:22
  And and if it makes one if it makes one fan that much more invested in the product, then
• 23:27
  then it's already won.
• 23:28
  So why not dig into it?
• 23:30
  And maybe that's exactly where SPSN can fit in, even covering it from The United States that we
• 23:36
  can dig into those player stories and the rivalries and help to create a little bit of
• 23:40
  that.
• 23:41
  And if the local media won't pick it up, then we'd be more than willing to follow I mean,
• 23:45
  what's one more sport to follow, Hassan?
• 23:47
  Exactly.
• 23:48
  Yeah.
• 23:48
  And it's it's amazing.
• 23:49
  It's it's a lot of fun because you'll see that there's kind of this interesting thing with the
• 23:54
  development of American football throughout the Balkans.
• 23:56
  You you kind of have these these beer leagues that take it semi, you know, semi seriously.
• 24:01
  Right?
• 24:02
  And then you have teams that are really legitimately trying to be forces of growing the
• 24:06
  game here.
• 24:07
  Right?
• 24:07
  And and this is on the tackle side, on the flag side.
• 24:11
  Like, you know, right now, we're seeing, teams from Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia that are all a
• 24:17
  part of at least on the flag side or a part of Balkan cups that are all coming together to
• 24:22
  really professionalize this.
• 24:23
  We've had great relationships with the Hellenic League in Greece, who just launched their their
• 24:28
  flag football league for the season.
• 24:30
  They're starting in October and running through into March.
• 24:33
  So this this whole part of the world definitely wants to take, a greater role in defining what
• 24:38
  American football is in Europe.
• 24:40
  There's so much talent here.
• 24:42
  So, yeah, we're we're we're happy to have any partner that helps to tell that story because
• 24:46
  what we're doing here is very, very fascinating.
• 24:48
  It's an interesting case study for the sport globally, definitely.
• 24:52
  Yeah.
• 24:52
  I think it's great.
• 24:53
  And because you have, you know, the that that Southern European, right, that area and and
• 24:59
  really a gateway into the Middle East, and not that we're changing the entire world over, but
• 25:04
  you're really in a a a interesting part of the world geographically.
• 25:09
  Right?
• 25:10
  A a a a gateway into all of that that if something gains popularity in that area, it's
• 25:15
  going to travel out and to travel further than really something that may be popular in a a
• 25:22
  France or England in the part of Europe where you are just kind of isolated out there on on
• 25:27
  the Western on the Western edge of Europe.
• 25:29
  So, yeah, very interesting to see the growth that's happened in just a short amount of time.
• 25:33
  You know, I think we first spoke right before the season kicked off or maybe after you'd have
• 25:38
  one one game under your belt and to see how much growth that not just your team, but the
• 25:42
  entire, you know, organization has grown in that short amount of time.
• 25:47
  Really incredible.
• 25:48
  And I think speaks to the momentum that you're building and that is kind of coming along now
• 25:53
  with a lot of these initiatives, and it's a longer game.
• 25:56
  And I guess that's why I know that, you know, you'd you've moved around a little bit and have
• 26:00
  been a bit of a chameleon for a while that it feels like you found your stripes a little bit
• 26:04
  now.
• 26:05
  Right?
• 26:05
  You're settling into this and understanding your role maybe more now than ever.
• 26:10
  Yeah.
• 26:10
  And and Romania is such an incredible market.
• 26:13
  Bucharest is such a hidden gem of a city.
• 26:15
  Know, You they call it the little Paris.
• 26:17
  It's a very beautiful place, and it's it's large enough that we're even able to have a
• 26:21
  very multinational team, which helps us a lot with everything from working with other
• 26:25
  countries and other governments, all all the way out to our players taking our version of
• 26:30
  football back where they come from.
• 26:32
  This just this season alone.
• 26:33
  We had American players, German players, a player from Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, germ
• 26:39
  like, everywhere.
• 26:39
  You know?
• 26:40
  So we're we're definitely in a position where it's a frontier, but not a backwater, and
• 26:44
  that's what's and that's really what the most interesting part of this is.
• 26:48
  Right?
• 26:48
  Is we get to build something that is influenced by a lot of different places and then also, you
• 26:54
  know, do everything we can to get this right so that we can be an example to other places as
• 26:58
  well in in the coming years and decades.
• 27:00
  You know?
• 27:01
  Yeah.
• 27:02
  Just incredible, man.
• 27:03
  And we're we got a front row seat to it now at SPSN, so we're really thrilled to have you on.
• 27:09
  Hassan, everyone can go find everything@accoladessportsmedia.com.
• 27:14
  Correct?
• 27:14
  That is correct.
• 27:14
  Yep.
• 27:15
  Absolutely.
• 27:15
  Yeah.
• 27:15
  All of our projects are
• 27:16
  on there.
• 27:17
  Mhmm.
• 27:17
  Yep.
• 27:18
  Fantastic.
• 27:18
  Well, I really appreciate you spending some time with me here today.
• 27:22
  I I know that you guys came up a little bit short finishing runner-up, I guess, losing in
• 27:27
  the championship game this year.
• 27:29
  But from a team that had never won anything quite literally before that now to have this
• 27:35
  under their belt, I love how that mentality has changed overnight to championship or bust.
• 27:40
  We're not here to just show up anymore.
• 27:42
  We wanna win it all.
• 27:44
  And when you do, it's gonna do nothing but continue to help grow this game even more, not
• 27:49
  just in Bucharest, but, across the DAFL and beyond.
• 27:54
  Absolutely.
• 27:54
  Absolutely, man.
• 27:55
  That's the that's the vision.
• 27:57
  Everyone's really excited and locked in about it.
• 27:59
  We know it's, it's not gonna be easy at all.
• 28:02
  You know, it's it's tough, but, in this part of the world, every every success is magnified,
• 28:07
  because, you know, almost everything you do is record breaking.
• 28:10
  So it's just a matter of getting our story out there, you know, staying locked in and and and
• 28:15
  being able to bring the the brand of football that we know would make the most difference in
• 28:19
  this region of the world, to the fans, and really create some interesting opportunities
• 28:23
  for players.
• 28:24
  Because, really, for me, the most, rewarding part of this has been being able to to give
• 28:30
  this platform, to new players, to players who've been playing for a long time and just,
• 28:35
  know, never imagined it going this way, never imagined, you know, people in The United States
• 28:39
  talking about their team.
• 28:41
  All of these things are new, and I know it's, you know, you know, context and perspective is
• 28:44
  is kind of a tough thing.
• 28:46
  You know?
• 28:46
  Like, you you you sometimes you get what you've always wanted, and and you kinda forget that
• 28:50
  how much you dreamed about it.
• 28:52
  But, yeah, it's just it's been really, really incredible to tell the the story of these
• 28:56
  players.
• 28:56
  The players are amazing.
• 28:57
  The people who helped found this team and have stayed with it all this time, deserve all the
• 29:02
  all the support and and and credibility in the world.
• 29:04
  And I'm really, really happy to be a part of, you know, telling that story globally.
• 29:08
  Incredible.
• 29:09
  Well, I'm really happy to have you on, with us anytime.
• 29:12
  We'll be obviously in communication over the course of the off season here, making some
• 29:17
  plans so that we can come in with you guys and really cannonball into it next year and being
• 29:23
  ready to cover the entire league and to provide some of that coverage for you would be an
• 29:28
  absolute blessing for us as well.
• 29:30
  Hassan Moore, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 29:34
  Congratulations on a very successful season.
• 29:36
  Thank you for being part of the scene.
• 29:38
  Yeah.
• 29:39
  Thank you, Bubba.
• 29:39
  Always a pleasure, man.
• 29:40
  And we'll, we'll definitely have to connect in the near future because I've got some, some hot
• 29:44
  projects over the next couple of months that are gonna be gonna be really, really
• 29:47
  interesting for your fans.
• 29:48
  Yeah.
• 29:49
  We're gonna make it happen.
• 29:51
  We'll see you.
• 29:52
  Sounds great.