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Type of Venue Announcement for 2024 Worlds's Strongest Man · The Best Experience

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M you're listening because the best experience what the Dick con Best. All right,
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this is the best experience Ms. Dick Best and the Dead. And
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we have a special guest today, Mitch Mitt. Thank you yesterday. Hey,
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this World Stars man he runs in social media and it's Mitch Ladner.
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Mitch, my apologies, I'm just saying I'm talking twisted today. But before
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we go any further, I'd like to thank our sponsors. Barbelle Apparel,
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an athletic where engineered for performance with a tailored athletic fit, Refine clothing for
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an athletic body type, Evolution Athletics, Supportive, supportive, geared company owned
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by Brian Shaw, four time World's Strongest Man. We believe in all athletes
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and support their journey towards greatness. First form our missions to help real people
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get real, real long term results. And if you want to get coached,
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if you want to have Nick show up to your event, well guess
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what. There's a link in the notes. Fill out the application, fill
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out the form and we'll get in contact you. Because it's got ten time
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World's Strongest Man competitor, Master's World Strongest Man, World Championship, Powerlipp gets
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the fuck what if you want to get hooked up, you want to get
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with Nick, you can do this. Just fill up the link in the
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notes. All right, With all that said and done, Yeah, let's
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let's get into today's episode. How do Yeah, I'm gonna get I'm gonna
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get signed out Nick. Okay, Well we'll get some training in with you.
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We'll do some coaching. That's it. Yeah, you'll be out doing
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a couple of years. That's it, some serious size. Um. Thanks
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for having me. It's always good to talk to you, Nick, and
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uh, it's it's it's always fun. Uh did you did you catch a
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World trunks Man on CBS earlier today? I did? There were good?
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Watch it he too, there were good. I know. It's I just
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gotta be quiet because I don't I don't want to do any spoilers. But
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you know, it's very dear tomorrow to watch it. So it's it's just
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fun to watch the special moments that are that are coming out. There's no
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spoilers anymore. Like we put out the line results and now that's purpose cool.
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I mean, uh, I know, like like even associated with World
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trungs Man longer than I have, and I know like a lot of you
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a lot of your time at World Trunks Man, it was like, you
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know, hush hush, and like you mean the time I almost got home
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because the site that we had that my wife phone was a chat form and
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people were putting stuff in the chat form that we had nothing to do with.
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Yeah, it's crazy. Like, um, when I started a World
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strong Sman, like the first year, like it was really just like observation.
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And one thing I noticed is like it doesn't matter what anyone says or
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does, like fans of a strong Man or fanatics like, and the information
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is going to get out there. And what I was seeing was like on
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on websites, like the scores were almost right like so like I went to
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my bosses, I'm like, like this information, Like you're not gonna be
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able to hold it back. Why she just put it out there and like
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accurately. So you know, obviously now we do the live results on our
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website and those are automatically updated. But yeah, you don't have to know
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spoilers, you know. And that's the thing too with the day and age
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now, everything is instantaneous because everyone's got a phone, everyone's live streaming,
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everyone's recording, so even when we were there, like you could see everyone
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posting social media stuff right away, like the thing of live streaming now and
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like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, everyone's updating everybody. So like
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a lot of the times when we were recording, when we were watching or
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one with things were going on, you could literally hear people giving commentary while
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the events were actually happening. And you know that's the thing too, is
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avid fans that love strong Man want that information right there, right then because
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they can't be at the event. And that's that's actually something that's gonna come
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up today. Yeah, I mean, I I think social has um like
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we hear it too, like World shrungis Man's not an event, it's a
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TV show. That that's not the case. It like it is an event
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with a TV contract, And I think social has really kind of dragged World
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shrungis Man into that next evolution. Uh, you know, it's a two
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way street. It's not like we're broadcasting one way. It's fans are involved.
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Fans are you know, bugging the producers of the show so much that
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they bring back power stairs, right. So there's a lot of responsibilities that
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come along with that, but I think overall it's great and like example of
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it is like this year we gave a press pass to UM, this like
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social influencer. I think he competes at like the Champions League UM, but
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he basically reached out to us and he's like, look, I have a
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channel UM World shrungis Man content has never been really available in Spanish language.
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Can I come and just post on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and just update
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fans in Spanish? And we're like, yeah, so we gave them a
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presspass, and I mean to your point been, uh, you know,
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that was great for a huge segment of fans who've traditionally been left out.
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It's like the ancillary content of like, hey, you know, this is
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what I saw today. So it social has been great for the sport overall.
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But yeah, I mean it's influencing it's future definitely. Yeah, No,
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definitely, like I said, and it's heavy in there too because like
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for most fans that have never been to a World Strongest Man, this last
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one that just happened to Myrtle Beach was beyond epic because the amount of like
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no one was prepared for how many people were really going to show up and
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you. And the thing is is like the amount of ladders in the Tri
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County area were completely There was steps, tools, there were you know,
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seven footers, there were twelve footers. People were standing on top of trucks,
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people were It wasn't chaos, but it was just like, oh my
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god. Everybody was really there to dial it in because they got an earlier
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an earlier like placement, like hey, we're gonna be in this area,
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and then the date was released and then it gave everyone absolutely an opportunity to
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like coordinate to actually get themselves there. And that's one of the things that
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I love to see in strong Man is like more people really participating in and
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enjoying and cheering on because sometimes that roar of the crowd was just so insane
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because you could just hear, you know, even though it was Brian's last
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show, you could hear people just like rumbling every time he was on on
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that stage. Hey man mark last years. So yeah, which was pretty
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amazing, which I mean, I couldn't missed that I have there for that.
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But a lot of things fans don't seem to understand, and MITCHI can
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reiterate this because I'll said is it's it's it's a competition that is paid for
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by a television network, you know, and they're paid to put the show
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on, so it's their material. There's other sporting events and other federations that
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actually are they are doing the opposite. They're paying for them to come in
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film and to do the things and then broadcast it. So there's the difference
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between the two. And so it's kind of meat that we're in this position
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that they want our show, so they pay for our show, and but
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we have to be at the UM their schedule for when they put it on.
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And that's what the fans really kind of need to understand, is it's
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a television show in the end that it's put on by broadcast television. Is
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that is that something about? Right? Yeah, I mean it's a I
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would say that World Chinese fans the only strength competition with a TV contract,
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and right it is not dissimilar to the NBA or PG two or any of
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these yet, like IMG Media, who owns and has always owned Worlds trying
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this man since it's infancy, UM has a long term contract with Viacon.
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The apparent coming here, CBS. I don't know if you can hear the
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dog or not. Yeah, Uh, CBS and Channel five in the UK,
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so uh, you know, for X amount of years they dictate when
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and where all this this content is going. And like, not speaking for
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other federations, but one of the biggest like things that we get is like,
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why can't you know we live stream? Others do live stream and CBS
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and it's just it's not the same. Like they're paying for airtime, which
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which is not uncommon in sports. A lot of your niche sports and uh,
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you know, growing sports will pay for airtime. I think the best
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story of this is, you know, UFC has always done pay per views,
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but they were trying to like get into the mainstream h Dana White and
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Lorenzo and all them, Like they paid for time on Spike TV and the
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TV shows an Ultimate Fighter that led to a big TV contract with Fox,
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and you know the rest is history. So it's not a time and it's
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not a slight or anything on other federations, but it's not the same,
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Like we're not it's not similar at all. So the other thing I would
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say about that is is we pay very close at tension to what the numbers
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are. Endeavor has a massive analytics department that you know is running analytics on
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like box offices and all that kind of stuff for our WMEE M division and
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their running numbers on live spores and everything too. What they see is is
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the die hard fan base is tuning in for these live streams that are free,
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and it's not the number it needs to be in order to go back
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to CBS and say, hey, we think you should five stream this.
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Because another thing that fans might not appreciate is that the cameras there, like
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the big cameras that are taking since i'll say, a world Shaunisman, those
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are not the same cameras who would use for a live stream. And on
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top of that, the people with the headsets that are running around and saying
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like you know five four three two, you know whatever, cheer for the
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camera, like yeah, those are different. Those are different producers than you
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would use for a live stream. So if we wanted to do both,
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like that's possible, and I think we're moving there, like yeah, it's
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funny. Like my boss, I don't know if she wants to be named,
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she's she's always elected to do these kinds of opportunities. Nick, you
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know her you've known her as long as than I do. Like she did
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Suppress around World shaunis Man, and she said in those interviews like, you
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know, what do you see a Royals shaunis Man in five years? And
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she said, live stream on X network. So like it's it's not.
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No one wants it to be live stream more than walshongs Man, but but
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we we operate in reality and well stungs Man is a very expensive show to
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put on. Uh. CBS has been an incredible partner for us, and
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you know where we miss out on that. You know, let's say Diehard
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live stream audience. Last week are the Memorial Day weekend when the Group one
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aired on CBS, it got nearly a million people watching it. And not
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only that, but it was a huge increase over last year in the eighteen
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to thirty four mail demo. I think it was up fifteen percent, which
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which that demo is a very important demo when it comes to advertising. That's
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what auto makers and everyone is buying. Right, So that's a huge,
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uh, you know, selling point for us, Like we get to go
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back and tell our athletes, like, hey, we're giving you the biggest
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platform and we're helping grow the sport because a million people tuned in. Uh.
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And not only that, but I would say that there were two golf
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programs on CBS before and after obviously that is a CBS owns golf here in
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the US. The world Sharnispan numbers are higher than than those two programs.
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And that's what we like to hear. And you know a lot of people
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will say, like, you know, antequated metrics, whatever, But what
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that says is people intentionally tuned in to watch Worlds trune fan nearly a million
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million people just for a group one. So when we get to the final,
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it's it's going to be you know, two three times at and uh
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and yeah, I'll leave it there and and and that's the thing too,
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is like like said, it's it's the sport has always been there. The
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sport is always growing. But the thing is is like the evolution of everyone.
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I think everyone's more wanting to tune into the shows now because there they
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know the results. But even though the results, you still didn't watch it.
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You know what I'm saying, You still want you want that feel,
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that that that glory and that expectation that comes from it. It's just so
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insane. I think of where it's gone from and where it started to where
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it is now. It is night and day. It just keeps getting better
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every single year. And the natural progression of this, it's just going to
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keep keep growing and growing and growing. And yah, you know, especially
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if guys like Mitch running things from behind the scenes a little bit, oh
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yeah, okay, and everybody else, um the pictures and and the and
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the and the reels and all that stuff. Yeah, and then just from
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where we've gone social media wise to just the way the athletes are treated now,
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I mean just all the way around. It is just an amazing production
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that just keeps getting better every year. And I appreciate it from the inside.
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Um having been there and competing in it ten times, just how hard
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you guys are working and I really appreciate that. So I just want to
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say thank you. Uh No, all things goes to, uh, you
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know, the team that that brought me in because this was all their vision.
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Uh and Nick, like I know, like like you and you know
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Thailand or the Philippines, like the athlete tent was just like you know,
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like I always never around for that part, and uh, you know,
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so it's always interesting, like so we do have like a little bit of
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a generational divide in like our athletes who never saw that. And it was
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like me, yeah saying it was saying it was probably the roughest as far
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as that goes, because there were no it was a harder degrees and one
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hundred percent humanity and no no cooling anything. I mean we were in China.
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It was just that that was to see what they have out to where
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you could go out into those conditions and not have an issue because you can
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go get away from the heat. So it's it's like I said, I
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really appreciate how far it's come and where it's going. Terry told me the
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food in China. You know the best part of the biggest thing I can
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remember from China and the food was because I mean we all lost probably twenty
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pounds there. It was it was rough. Um what was Brian pocket up
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to Berry Franklin, I walked food and they got him in a car and
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sent him over to the Dolphin, which was a restaurant there that made American
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food. And he came back literally with a stack like this of hamburgers.
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Every day shuttling the food back and forth from that place for a lot of
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us was but they still they still stepped up and took care of it.
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So that was that was pretty cool. Yeah. I I never met Barry,
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but um but like I'm curious, like how many fans like die hard
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fans of of World strongs Man and Trungman in general know who Barry Frank is.
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Yeah, because he's the creator, the original producer of it. Yeah,
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he created he created what is what became the sport of strong Man.
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And it's crazy like he um uh, Like it's always interesting like having to
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or not having to, but you know, occasionally having to explain to an
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athlete that the trophy that like you came here to win is the Barry Frank
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Trophy and uh um yeah, just a legendary like TV producer who created World
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Strong is Man and then went on to create what is now the well like
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he he like he is the architect of the modern day Olympics. Uh.
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He was an executive producer for American Gladiators. So it was funny I was
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talking to Avian Singleton like he was in the ESPN thirty for thirty as like
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an actor, like doing recreations for the American Gladiator one, and I texted
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him like, did you know that? You know, one of the guys
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who like helped create American Gladiator also created a strang Man and Roald shrimps Man.
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And he was like, you know, blown away, like it's a
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small world. Yeah it is, It truly is. But I just he
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was the nicest man to me. I mean, he really was. And
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I remember we got on the bus in China and the press guys were sitting,
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which they weren't supposed to be on our bus. One is in one
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seat, ones in the other seat, and Elizabeth comes up and is asking
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the moves so her husband can sit down because at that time Barry was getting
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jorking. It wasn't moving too good, and you know, the guys are
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like just completely ignoring her and not paying attention. Remember walking up and grabbing
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the guys camera, moving a back four seats and then point for him over
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here, and the guys standing up, going you can't do that. This
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is John. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm just trying to get
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barious seat on his bus. Yeah. It was fun because he worked on
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the Olympics. That's why world shungest Man goes by the Olympic like representation role.
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I do get asked out a lot by especially the UK athletes, like
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why can't I wear a Whales flag? If I can't wear a Scotland flay,
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it's because the world shungert Man follows the Olympic one. I mean,
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if it went up to me, we go by FIFA rules. But it's
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not up today, it's up to bear. Oh that's awesome. But yeah,
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so I had I mean, I had so many amazing experiences with this
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over the years. I truly have. But it's it's kind of it's kind
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of neat because you got some big, big, big stuff to announce too.
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Yeah, well we'll break it on the best experience. So fans keep
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on asking us when where everything about next year? Like it's crazy. Um,
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Like I'm not the one posting, Like we have a team who works
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for us that are incredible at social media. But every once in a while
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I'll poke in and look at the dms and we just we have one hundred
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dms like in the last few weeks asking us when and where, Like I'm
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trying to like plan a vacation for my dad or something like that. So
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we don't have those announced. I don't want to get anybody hopes up,
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so we're hoping to announce those like in the next two or three weeks.
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Um, A lot goes into the host city dates all that kind of thing.
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So where we are in the process is it's down to a few cities,
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um and in the next two or three weeks won't ask cities dates and
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uh you heard it here first based on the crowd that came, which I
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mean, Nick, you've been a part of orlsringa Spans where like two hundred
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people showed up. So been it's been been when you say that, like,
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no one expected that crowd that includes us. So, um, you
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know, we put out the information early last year, asked fans like please
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show up, and the fans responded. So we don't want anybody having to
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buy ladders this year, uh our next year. So uh so what we'll
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do when we announced the dates uh in location, we'll do that at the
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exact same time. UM. We'll also set up a like email like sign
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up for the email early access for tickets because the planet as of right now
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is to have like an outdoor stadium experience outdoor stadium. Uh. It's particulars
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are still in the works, Like you know, I don't want to,
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but it'll be it'll be ticketed in some form or fashion, like how fans
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are arriving. Because look, from from our perspective last year, Uh,
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we we had like an estimate in our head, like this is how many
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people we think we're going to show up. This is you know, based
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on like hotel bookings and all that kind of stuff. Uh and uh from
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from like cell phone data and what the fire department and Myrtle Beach told us
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was over the course of four days, it was over thirty thousand people.
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Yeah, so it's yeah, well most of that was on the weekend,
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so I think on like Sunday it was like eight or nine thousand people show
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it up. And uh like we can't have that because uh like it probably
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wasn't the best fan experience. Um and and we can rectify that. So
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now that we know that there's a demand, we can offer a better experience.
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So um, you know, I think the VIP is a huge success
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in part because of you Nick always lending your time in the VIP section.
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We'll do VIP, we'll do ticket and then uh you know, there might
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be a you know still that free to to come and standing room only kind
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of situation. So so that's why we haven't announced anything yet. Uh,
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Like I said, there's a lot that goes into it. I'm not kidding
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the team when they have so um the reason why, Like you know,
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last year, let's say, for example, we announced location and then it
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took a long time to announce dates in that time period, Like we have
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to book a hotel because like, uh, the second we did announce dates,
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like the hotel situation and a myrtle beach like everything got gobbled up.
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So we have to block out those hotels first. Oh yeah, the whole
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hotel. And I'm not going this goes into it, like we have to
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send a team like site visit and like all this kind of stuff. And
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they had like one consideration when we do book these hotels because like keep in
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mind, like it's not just the thirty hotels and you know alternate hotels,
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it's all of our staff. But the thirty two hotels, let's say we
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have to make sure that like the hotel is like the toilet's connected to the
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ground, not the wall. I'm dead serious, Like that's a consideration.
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So like there's so much that goes into this. Yeah, that's happened.
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That's top of the straight down the ground. Everyone's a big boy here,
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you know what I'm saying. Yeah, so remember what didn't happen to me,
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but I remember. It's uh, it's a real consideration that I don't
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know if other sports have to make. Oh yeah, the hotel basically,
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yeah, that's like I feel like we could look about all this kind of
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stuff. Oh yeah, you need to start jotting us down for the memoirs
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of talking about like setting these events up, because means there right now,
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you know, there's a lot of people that love to know the ins and
25:22
outs and behind the scenes because just like you said, it's like no one
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would ever really think about like, oh, that has to be consideration because
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you know, the average person's not worried about that. Well. I remember
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there was a year where and this was one of the years we were in
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Africa, a few of the guys have to go down to the pool area
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because the stalls are finally big enough for them to go in there. They
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could use the bathroom in their room because it wasn't the area that the toilet
25:48
was in, and it was a beautiful hotel, but they just couldn't get
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the wide load scamp back in. It's crazy too, I mean, like
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at the bathroom is like the first thing, uh that my boss checks and
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like like she was saying that, like she walked into one. Not only
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was the toilet on the wall, that like the shadows too songs. She's
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like, no, this is not gonna work. Yeah, oh yeah,
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you're working with super super super size humans here. That requires so much space,
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you know, like I was under consideration the bed sizes for the majority
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of everybody here too. Well. I think the average hype now is six
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foot six and I think the average weights three. Yeah, it's crazy.
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I mean I'm I'm six foot and I think, um, I think the
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shortest guy competing this year was my heart m hm yeah yeah, trying to
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think it was. I think I was Paul Paul Paul from the UK.
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He just won the World's Strongest uh UK. Yeah. I think, like,
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uh, there were there were a couple who were like six foot six
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foot one. I think, like to your point, Nick about the average
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height and wait, that's actually probably down if I had to guess, I
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just like watching it. You know, you're era, But I think that's
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what makes Alexei Novikov even more impressive. To be honest with you, I'll
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agree with that. Yeah and both yeah, yeah, a new style.
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The straw Man Hooper is a big dude, but he's not like a like
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a three hundred and seventy three hundred and eighty pounds on freak show walking down
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the straight. He's he's three thirty three forty, but it's it's a solid,
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well packed in weight that he's running around with. So yeah, both
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of them. It's just it's amazing to watch those two guys, those guys
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compete. I just absolutely love watching him go, I really do. It's
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uh, it's always interesting. Like I was watching so Alexei's group is on
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CBS, so I was watching that and uh yeah, he who's pretty beat
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up after like the loading race, and like at the time, like we
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were getting so many comments about that being a light loading race and people have
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just forgot it was in the sand. Yeah yeah, yeah, so a
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lot of guys didn't even finishing it or got close to not finishing it.
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But yeah, uh that's always an interesting one of Uh well, there were
28:22
a couple of things I saw that I was just like why are the guys
28:26
making it harder of themselves? Yeah, the opera size, the log well
28:30
you know what I'm saying, Well, like how many guys picked up those
28:33
logs and it slipped down their bellies? Would why wouldn't you wear a regular
28:40
belt and just wear it loose so the catches on it. Because at the
28:44
slide you just run straight in chest height and put the thing on the platform
28:47
and run back. Everyone was everyone's rutting their their hands around it and Alexei
28:53
just picked it up by the ropes. Yeah, exactly, the like that,
29:00
that's why we do partner with someone like you know giants life who um
29:04
you know have multiple events through o the years and uh they they know like,
29:11
hey this this probably should be lighter, and it's the first event,
29:15
Like we don't want to like kill these guys in the first one. There's
29:19
twelve more or eleven more. Um, so uh, you know, as
29:26
much as people say otherwise, we know what we're doing sometimes sometimes. But
29:33
that was a fun fun metally to watch. It really was. I mean,
29:37
the guys who thought about what they were doing excelled. The guys who
29:41
were just like in ridiculous say also excelled. So it was fun to watch
29:45
and everyone, you know, like the only a handful of people really set
29:48
themselves up, adjusting the implements, adjusting putting them so they can grab them,
29:53
you know, pre talking them, getting themselves ready for for that,
29:56
you know, to hook and go. And it was just and two.
30:00
You wouldn't think the sand, like you know, obviously sand's gonna always be
30:03
difficult to be running. But that was one of the biggest things. You
30:06
saw people sliding, You saw people like misstepping because I guess what these might
30:10
be light, but you know, you gotta you know, a three over
30:12
three pound man picking up an additional like ninety pounds, you know what I'm
30:18
saying, it's going to sink you just a little bit more into that sand.
30:22
It's it's for me. It was a throwback like as a as a
30:26
kid watching the world trying to fan like sand. Sand is always there,
30:30
like the beach. Someone from our team posted the uh, I hadn't seen
30:37
this before, but Magnus Sanelson doing that like the shield, but it was
30:41
in the sand, like Nick, like that was your event, Like I
30:45
can't immagine doing that like on an like uneven surface flat on a surface that's
30:52
not flat and then you step and you sink in. Yeah, that's gonna
30:56
be pretty awful. That will be a test that you're gonna have to suffer
31:03
through that one. There's just no way about it. Everything's gonna cramp by
31:07
the time you drop the shoot. So yeah, yeah, you know,
31:11
and thank god that, Like the weather was pretty much except for the last
31:14
day, was like spot on for every day, you know what I'm saying.
31:17
It was just just warming up. It wasn't like unbearably hot. It
31:21
was just you know, a good temperature around. The humidity too, like
31:25
that. That's one of those things that it's always a killers. You never
31:26
know what the humidity is gonna be. But like it wasn't that bad that
31:30
those days were there. Yeah, I mean like that that plays a huge
31:33
part in it. Like there was there was just one location that wanted to
31:37
have World hungres Man I believe next year, but like it was it would
31:45
basically be like putting our guys in like an oven for for six days,
31:48
and like it just you know, we have to say no to this kind
31:52
of situation. So um, yeah, I mean there's so much that goes
31:57
into this. It's not just like I pick location and we'll be there on
32:01
this day. Yeah, I wish for the best, you know what I'm
32:04
saying. We're gonna be outside, you know beach. Myrtle Beach was great.
32:08
You know, obviously I'm not breaking any news here. People. I
32:14
think we've we've said this, but maybe it's a reminder to people, like
32:16
twenty twenty five will be back in Sacramento. Sacramento is a great host city
32:22
too. But it's funny every time we do the site visits and all that
32:24
kind of stuff in Sacramento, like it's great weather and everything, and then
32:29
just the last two times we've been there, the heat wave historicata. Wait
32:34
yeah, yeah, yeah, I actually live not too far from Sacramento,
32:38
so I'm in the in the North Bay area and Nick stayed with me when
32:44
we went last year to Sacramento, and that was actually my first actually attending
32:50
World Strongest Man and it was just just amazing. I just it was record
32:54
he it was blistering hot, but man, it was so exciting, you
32:59
know, I'm saying, it's it's really fun to see like the footprint of
33:04
World Shungersman two. Like when we go to a city, um, you
33:07
know, the after effects of fans that have been exposed to it that become
33:13
fans. So like Sacramento wasn't really necessarily I think it is fair to say
33:16
like a hot dead of strong fans. Um. But it's funny, like,
33:21
you know, we launched the like our team launched, like the merchandise
33:23
world Shrungsan Merchandise, and what we've seen is a lot um a lot of
33:30
like orders like shipping orders and everything have come from Sacramento and and like,
33:36
um, you have to think that having an event there impacted that and somehow
33:40
you know that Yeah, no, definitely, you know what I'm saying.
33:44
And like even with last year, you know, I didn't know for the
33:46
majority of strong Man like it was just free to just show up. And
33:51
you know, like once I found that out, I was literally telling everybody
33:53
in my early you guys all got to go. We've been I've been going
33:58
this this whole week. It's this weekend, the main event, the finals,
34:00
And it was just, like I said, amazing. I had a
34:02
lot actually a good amount of my friends and family that just came down to
34:06
actually support while we were there on those finals for Saturday Sunday, And like
34:09
I said, it's just the same thing with Myrtle Beach is like, you
34:13
know, you can't expect. No one expected that crowd, but you know
34:15
it's like everybody knew just come show up. You guys announced that you put
34:19
out the information earlier. It's on the website, look free to show up,
34:22
come do this. And you know, people showed up in the numbers,
34:24
you know what I'm saying. And and like everywhere we went in Myrtle
34:28
Beach, it's like you're being bombarded, You're being what's called because like,
34:31
first of all, Nick is whose Nick is? So like we can't even
34:35
go to a gas station. We can't even go to a store, We
34:37
can't even pump gas without like are you I'm like, yes, yes he
34:40
is, you know what I'm Then and like that was a whole weekend,
34:44
so like every time we went to a restaurant, everything that was pretty amazing.
34:49
But I mean I took the time to meet everybody was it couldn't less.
34:52
I was running for the bathroom that we had a video for like four
34:57
I think it was like I had a trim of video down from four hours
34:59
of just Nick shaky hands and kissing babies, you know what I'm mean?
35:04
It's it's uh, that's where my my respect for for Eddie like originates,
35:09
like like it's there and then there it's like, oh this guy deathletive.
35:15
But but it's it's first, it's and foremost it's just how um like kind
35:20
and welcoming he as the fans. Because we went out to dinner one night.
35:22
It was like him flex and a couple of people and like, uh,
35:28
usually, like I work with a lot of professional athletes, and like
35:30
their rule is like I'll take a picture of it, don't bother me while
35:35
I'm eating, which I think is it's fair like that I would never walk
35:39
up to a a party or anything like that while they're eating. Uh.
35:43
And my advice to anybody listening to this is leave people around while they're you
35:46
know, having that. But even then, like people were walking up mid
35:52
bite and like asking him, and Eddie always said yes to those situations,
35:57
even though you know, even if you could tell like he didn't want to,
36:00
he knew that like seeing him randomly and Mertle Beach, you know,
36:04
for the sixteen year old kids probably uh, you know, something that are
36:07
going to talk about for for months, so exactly in sparts and interest,
36:12
Yeah, and Nick, I think like that's what makes you special too,
36:15
Like you sat there in VIP and said hello to every single person there.
36:20
M yeah, I love doing that. I love, you know, giving
36:25
my appreciation back to the fans because about them, we don't have anything.
36:30
So this sports went very good to me. I've had a lot of fun
36:34
at it and I get to make a living at it now, and I
36:38
absolutely anything I can do to help the sport move forward and make it better
36:44
for the guys coming up than it was for us, because where I've seen
36:47
it start to where where it's at now is night and day. Different.
36:52
Yeah, different, I think like been talking about too, like the evolution
36:59
too. Like when I came in, it was like, let's make a
37:04
plan, like a five ten year plan where we want this to be.
37:07
The first one on the list was hey, like we need to invest resources,
37:14
time and money into elevating our current list of athletes. So because ultimately
37:22
they're the biggest influencers in the sport, the people who are competing in it,
37:27
And what we saw was like there just wasn't a lot of infrastructure there
37:30
whereas like you know NFL, you have see anything you compete in this there's
37:35
someone there to help you with social or provide you content and all that kind
37:39
of stuff. So that was like step one. So we got a lot
37:43
of the guys verified. We still try to have like a couple like seminars
37:49
a year, like we have like with people who work at Instagram, people
37:53
who work at samp Chat and all that kind of stuff, just to give
37:55
them direct lines into the worlds with advice. Yeah, well, working on
38:02
another one coming up, but like that really is like, hey, um,
38:07
you know, if you have three thousand followers, but you compute a
38:09
World Strongest Man, here's how we can get to ten. And here's how
38:13
you can you yourself can start getting money from sponsors who may or may not
38:19
sponsor World Shrongest Man. So that was like you know step one. Step
38:22
two is like let's start going after NFL fans or soccer fans or or anyone
38:28
who just generally has interest in fitness, because what we see is like when
38:31
they're exposed to World Strongest Man or strong Man in general, they become fans
38:36
immediately because it's it's just a very relatable sport. It's entertaining that the personalities
38:45
in it are awesome. So you know, NFL fans vaguely know what World
38:51
Strongest Man is, but like, let's just let's saturate that that audience,
38:54
so you know doing things like uh, power Slap, like that's intentional for
39:00
us. Yeah, we had a great time. Yeah, it's funny,
39:05
like a little bit of the backlash we got out of that. I'll tell
39:07
you the story of how power Slap came to be. Someone on Dana's team
39:14
called me and it was like, Hey, we're gonna have this super heavyweight.
39:16
We're actually in need of like big dudes. So like before we go
39:22
and like started asking like casino, it's like, who's your biggest bodyguard?
39:27
Would you be able to introduce us to a couple of guys who compete at
39:30
your competition? And we're like, yeah, let me make some phone calls.
39:36
So power Slab is owned by Dana White, not UFC, but it
39:43
uses at USC infrastructure stuff. So we were at the Apex Theater everything yet
39:47
Yeah, So I immediately I called my colleagues on the UFC Social team.
39:53
It's like, all right, if we're gonna send them two people, can
39:57
we send them early do a workout at the Performances Institute. I called Flex
40:00
and I was like, hey, if we send two people that Vegas can
40:04
go on your podcast. So I said all this kind of stuff up and
40:07
then they called me back and they're like, yeah, Dana's obsessed with this
40:09
idea of using World Shrunks fan athletes, but we're catchers. So I immediately
40:14
called Evan, who I know is a huge UFC fan. Like I have
40:17
like a like a like basically a bio on pretty much everyone who compete,
40:24
and I know, like in that Evan is a huge UFC fan. So
40:29
for me, it was, hey, uh, you know, we can
40:32
send Evan to Vegas with this awesome experience, put him up in a hotel,
40:37
you know, if he can do this stuff with Flex and the UFC
40:39
team and then he happens to see this power slap stuff too. So uh,
40:44
as much backlash as we got, like it was still a great I
40:46
do it again. Um, that's great exposure. It's great exposure, you
40:52
know, because we own UFC, Like it ended up being a lot of
40:55
content that ended up on World Shucks Man episodes, but we do these kind
41:00
of cross pollinations year around all the time. They just might not you know,
41:07
be owned and operated property. So we don't get that much content.
41:09
But we'll send guys like like Tom Stoltman's going to Wimbledon uh in three weeks
41:15
the day after Royal Abert Hall. And because because two months ago he called
41:20
us and I was like, hey, I'm a huge tennis fan, which
41:22
you know I'm gonna be breaking news there. So he's going to be two
41:28
things. Yeah, we're sitting in Tom to hang out at the IMG box
41:32
at Wimbledon. Uh and and part of that it's like, yeah, do
41:37
it, but just make sure you make content around you being at the Wimbledon
41:40
where White I guess, yeah, that's it. You know, I'll volunteer
41:45
now if you ever need somebody to pick up of one card. Well,
41:50
Formula One's are going to be in Las Vegas. They're redoing the whole roads
41:53
and we were actually talking about that, like we're trying to get a hold
41:55
of somebody at Formula one to do some kind of event where it's like,
41:59
because Nick, I want to say he's like the unofficial ambassador of Las Vegas,
42:02
because you gotta remember it. He lives in Las Vegas. He's the
42:06
official strong man of Las Vegas. There's no one stronger in Las Vegas than
42:09
Nick, and you know, Las Vegas is the hub, and like there's
42:14
always events, there's always casinos, there's always these things that are happening.
42:17
And I'm like, I'm always like even the Raiders are in there. And
42:21
I'm like been trying to like reach out to strength and conditioning coach because I
42:23
want to get Nick to train with the pro Raider athletes there. You know
42:29
what I'm saying, And and and you know, do this cross pollination because
42:31
like I said, Nick is Las Vegas and people don't remember, like if
42:36
you're seeing that movie Casino Nick Nick, Nick was not in the mood but
42:42
a personality, you see what I'm saying. That was Lefty Rosen Fallen,
42:49
Anthony Splots with a story basically, and I played baseball to Anthony Splots Virginia.
42:54
There was a scene where there was a baseball team. Yeah, I
43:00
was on that. I was on my baseball team. We ha uh.
43:06
This sounds like you're what you told me how you met Dana White. M
43:09
M. That's it. It's pretty neat. Yeah. I was just like,
43:15
hey, I's going Clark, you know, eighty six, and his
43:20
face he's like I got in trouble. I had to go to Clark.
43:29
Well, Uh, I'll shoot some texts. Nick, one of my good
43:34
friends just became uh senior director social with the Raiders. Yeah, I said,
43:40
you know, yeah, you know what. The one of the other
43:45
things too is Nick actually just started uh gunsmithing. Here we go. You
43:52
know what I'm saying, Because there's a famous gun range in Las Vegas called
43:54
seven oh two. You have a famous gun called the Quadzilla. So it's
43:58
basically for it was a four aks, four m force connected together and you
44:04
shoot all for at the same time. It's a fully automatic machine exactly.
44:10
Can you imagine a whole bunch of strawman just they're just rambo style. Uh.
44:17
It is funny, like um yeah, I'm not gonna say names because
44:22
I'm sure you know some of them don't want to be, you know,
44:25
thrown out there with it. But it is always funny. The European guys
44:30
when they come to World shungs Man, a lot of them go to the
44:32
gun range. So I think there is something there in like Marshman Schiff or
44:37
something we could probably do. But but no, I mean with with endeavor,
44:43
they're like like Taste of London is in three days, Like It's funny,
44:50
like how much throughout the year we just you know, it's there's something
44:52
in the city who and we know world shungs Maan athletes are there, We'll
44:57
throw them VIP tickets. So I know Jackson is owned by Endeavor that's going
45:00
to be in Vegas here soon, so we'll connect to you there. Um.
45:07
But yeah, and then like the third thing that that I think,
45:10
like we sat in our course is like how do we increase participation and like
45:15
on the grass of the roots like level. So I mean it's it's not
45:22
a mistake that I think I fancy you know, us highlighting you know,
45:27
professional strong women like on our channels like one. I don't think we can
45:31
scale this sport without women being involved. Um. And and you know,
45:38
if you're like myself six foot and never going to be someone who can come
45:44
close to competing a real strongs man, well you know, uh there's OSG,
45:49
there's there's all these other things that you can do weight class. Uh.
45:53
You know if someone you know, like yourself, Nick or Mark who
45:58
wants to get in it later in life, like there's master so uh,
46:01
you know you can compete in this. And then as a fan still watch
46:07
um you know world Shown's man in the same way that like a lot of
46:09
people played high school football and never got past at and then love the NFL.
46:15
Um So like that's I would say, like, we're not there's not
46:20
like a all right, we're doing with one, we're doing with two,
46:22
we're doing with thirty. Like those three things are in motion. I would
46:27
say, we're just now getting to like this three we're you know, um
46:31
where, like I guess that's now kind of our focus. And again with
46:36
someone like giants live that who who operates let's say OSG. We can now
46:43
kind of promote that and and and kind of bring alongside that that third group.
46:51
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, and that's a that's it's just
46:57
hurricanes make it interesting. But they moved it this year. Yeah, I
47:02
know, so that's gonna be really cool, which I can't wait for that.
47:06
That's gonna be fun. I'm still kind of staying retired. So but
47:13
stranger things abouppen, you know, you know, like someone squatting seven seventy
47:17
one last weekend at making the news. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
47:27
enjoyed your videos of the Dragons player. I would say, like that's been
47:31
a cool um, like collaboration for me personally with Flex and I'm glad,
47:38
like that's kind of taken. Yeah yeah, and there's gonna be a lot
47:43
more of that stuff too. I'm gonna get down there and then I think
47:45
the range where I'm actually a range shooting officer, So it's the range.
47:52
It's it's like a mile and a half away now, so I'll be probably
47:57
when I get off work at the range heading over there to do a lot
47:59
more train and stuff. So oh yeah, exactly. I think we actually
48:04
have another video coming out pretty soon with Tray when he hit those one forties
48:09
coming out pretty soon at Dragon's Laird. Yeah, Trey's one of those I
48:15
think there's so much potential. I mean, obviously there's obviously the competition side
48:22
and potential, but um, it's it's funny, like going back to the
48:27
Powerslap thing, it was like okay, Heaven obviously column and I think like
48:34
all I said was do you want to meet Dan White? And he was
48:36
like yeah, like yes, you know, not desperate. We were actually
48:45
trying to work on a different collaboration for Trey. We were gonna send Tray
48:49
to the Professional bull Riders World Finals. Uh, like they're big vans of
48:55
Tray. Like they have a nationally like published like magazine, like people can
49:01
pick it up at the grocery store, and like they have like a He's
49:05
like the center like story of like this one because like you know, it's
49:09
like a Western lifestyle thing. So so they're big fans of Tray and they
49:13
wanted to trade, to come out and pull uh like a bull, like
49:15
a semi with like the bowl trailer. Yeah, it fell apart, and
49:21
then we're like, all right, trade, what do you want to meet?
49:22
Dan White? But I think I think trade and Evan too. I
49:30
mean I think Evan obviously, but um, there's so much more like storytelling.
49:36
We can do betray and everything, so um and actually ate a two
49:40
foot five pound burrito all all of us. Yeah, he was a vega.
49:46
That sounds miserable. It was day minutes it was gone. And then
50:00
I a little bit fast, a little bit slower, a bit faster than
50:02
trade, and trade it all down. The difference was is Ben was okay.
50:09
Trade was fine in about two hours, was hungry again, and I
50:14
was full For about the next day and a half. I was done,
50:19
just done. I was wrapped. It's funny because like as like you know,
50:23
an average person, you know, I like food, and he talked
50:29
to these guys and it's I was like, oh man, I wish I
50:30
could just eat what I want. And it's always funny because like they're like,
50:34
no, I actually hate eating, like it makes like it's it's a
50:37
chore to get sick of it. You really, you really get sick of
50:43
it. I mean I did Jake Cutler's podcast and he was talking to me.
50:46
He was, do you ever get sick of eating? I'm like,
50:49
yeah, but not like you, because I mean he had to take in
50:52
so many calories, but they're all clean. You don't necessarily have to take
50:57
as clean as food as he does. So you know, like Brian's trick
51:01
is Brian will throw in cheesecake. Brian will have a couple exercilices of cheesecake
51:07
and pick up another five hundreds of thousand calories right run off, right off
51:12
the rip. A lot of the guys will do stuff like that and pick
51:15
up you know, an extra two three thousand colaries a day from eating a
51:19
dessert or something like that. Where Jay's was actually just straight good food and
51:23
mats. That's so much more cheering and so much working sound much more worried.
51:29
It's uh, you know, it is always really funny too because like
51:32
as you know, like a couple of days before Weald shrunk Maan are usually
51:37
like media and like that kind of stuff, and like there's always like one
51:42
or two people like we have to like chase down and being like hey,
51:45
no, you gotta get your portraits and all that kind of stuff. And
51:49
it's always because especially these you know, the people from outside of the US,
51:53
they come to atal shrinks man, and like they it's like in mass
51:58
like a twenty twenty eight or whatever, We'll just go to Chief Scake.
52:04
Yeah and for a while. Yeah, they'll always be someone to go to
52:12
chase down. The best it is it's like hurning cats, getting all of
52:15
us into one area at the same time about one of us running off.
52:21
It really is like it's the best. Like I think I have the best
52:23
job in the world, Like I love working on a world shongers man,
52:28
but it is like hurting cats. The only thing I would say is like
52:31
that where I have the advantage is like when a guy gets locked out at
52:37
their Instagram account or ask a question about like how do I get verified on
52:40
TikTok, they'll usually come to us. So like it's like, all right,
52:45
uh, we'll talk TikTok when I need you to send me that's a
52:47
video telling people to tune in even exchange you know what I'm saying. I
52:55
mean, these these athletes are the best to work with a cross any sport
53:00
I've ever worked in. And uh yeah, I mean like I'm I'm optimistic,
53:05
I'm bullish on the future of the sport um and and like to the
53:09
fans that you know, uh might be asking for more, like it's it's
53:15
hard for me to tell them like patients, Um, we're gonna get there,
53:20
I promise, but uh, like the passion that they show I think
53:23
is is um like evident to like where it needs to go. So yeah,
53:30
it's a double edged sword. Yeah right, But I mean, like
53:32
like I said, from where it's come to where it's going now and then
53:36
a few years from now, it's gonna be just that much better. And
53:39
so if they have the patience, you guys are gonna get there, and
53:43
then the sport's gonna get there and everything that you're ask fort, I mean,
53:47
you just I mean correct me if I'm wrong. You just said they're
53:51
gonna do it in the open seated stadium, but you're gonna register online for
53:55
the tickets, but you're not charging for the tickets. Is that correct?
54:00
Um, the we'll see what the stadium looks like. I like that's all
54:07
being like rendered and like talked about vendors and stuff that'll be ticketed. So
54:12
that'll leave so um. So the payoff here is you know, you're going
54:16
to get secure a viewable see, a viewable see that'll come along with you
54:24
know, whatever it is that you know, we're able to determine in the
54:29
next couple of months, um, and then they'll be like a free to
54:34
stand in this section over here kind of situation. I think we're reluctant to
54:38
make it an entirely ticketed situation just because there are fans who you know,
54:45
might want to travel from Washington State and that does have you know, financial
54:52
ramifications to it. But you know, hang out over here and what sport
55:00
is looking up for the water of the people of their fans helpful. So
55:07
that's amazing. Well there's that too, Nick, But I mean, like
55:10
I think we're also like you can't we everything we do like has to have
55:15
some kind of sustainability to it, Like we can't just overnight say yeah,
55:21
we're gonna take a world shrunis Man and put it in Madison Square Garden because
55:24
you know, in three years if that doesn't work out, like then we're
55:29
back to zero. So everything we do is like calculated in a sustainable matter
55:32
of like you know, we can we can do this this year, and
55:36
we can make this sleep the next year and then see I make those baby
55:39
steps and to the fans, like you know, they we went from maybe
55:45
a thousand people in twenty twenty two to thirty thousand people and twenty twenty three,
55:52
like one, no one was imagining that, but like that's ultimately a
55:59
positive thing. We show that that's possible. And now because of that,
56:02
let's have ticketed, guaranteed seating and then we can go from there. That's
56:07
it, and and then there's going to be an announcement. You said in
56:13
about a week, Yeah, I would say probably in the next like within
56:17
the next month. And everybody listening pay attention, you know what I'm saying.
56:23
And are you guys gonna place that waiting less email when you make the
56:28
announcement or are you guys gonna actually just kind of throw it out there now
56:30
and yeah register yeah, well let us uh like this is a rolling thing.
56:40
Yeah exactly. I wanted to be able to give some break, some
56:44
news on the best experience, right. Yeah, but I don't think we're
56:49
there quite yet on any kind of formal announcement. Um. But yeah.
56:52
The idea right now is that when we do announce here in the next month
56:57
this summer, we'll have the location to date and you know, information about
57:04
like hey, it's just going to be a ticketed event, so that you
57:07
know that if you make the trip over it, like you're gonna not have
57:10
to buy a ladder. Yeah, it's so it's so funny, Like at
57:16
the after party, Fish was like just laughing the whole time. It's like
57:21
I signed so many laughers shout out. Shout out to the guy who asked,
57:25
h Adam Visious sign this ladder, Well there, he wasn't the only
57:30
one. I signed a few ladders as well. I think I put my
57:36
hand on while traces. Yeah, it's uh like it's it's a it's a
57:43
positive that, uh that we had more fans than we expected. I think
57:49
it's an amazing thing. So to all of you the show. Thank you
57:52
and continue to do so. And I'm looking forward to seeing you all next
57:58
year. That's just gonna be a lot of fun. And I still keep
58:02
getting better. Yeah, that's it. Thanks thanks to thanks to you for
58:08
everything, match, thanks for coming on the show and saying this. Yeah
58:13
everyone that knowledge. Yeah let me know. Uh, I'll let you know
58:20
about Barrett Jackson and uh Raiders but uh but um no, this is always
58:24
great. Nick. I'm always appreciative of uh, you know you lending your
58:29
time and and h taking care of our guys on there in Vegas and and
58:34
yeah, absolutely we'll keep We'll make sure everybody has a good time. But
58:38
stay that's it, you know I'm saying, and get some serious training in.
58:43
Yeah, it's it's funny. Like the last bit about that was,
58:46
you know, we we set up Trey and Evan and Nick was like,
58:51
you know, I live in Vegas and yeah, hold on it, like
58:52
I'm trying to get you there too, So um yeah, it's it's always
58:59
good. But but Nick was like, yeah, you know, I felt
59:01
like I had to go and make sure they didn't get in trouble. So
59:07
thank you. Well, you know, the older generations got to watch that
59:10
younger generation and guide them in the right way, you know, And I
59:15
was I was gonna go. I ended up having like a meeting in New
59:20
York. I didn't be out there for it, and uh, like I
59:22
was talking to my colleagues at UFC, I'm like, hey, like,
59:25
uh, make sure like Evan and like they were like they were helping.
59:30
And then I was like, Nick, please, So I felt like they
59:34
were in good hands. But they definitely were. They definitely worked a great
59:37
time. And thank you so much for that, really seriously, thank you.
59:42
It was a great experience. It's funny they're both uh they're both license
59:45
UFC got them license for um a lot of state Athletic commission. So yeah,
59:52
so you need anybody uh to to ref uh mm a fight or anything
59:58
like that. I know, you know what I'm that's awesome. Thanks for
1:00:02
having me on. No, thanks, thanks for being on. And Mitch,
1:00:07
you know they're they're Nick has a famous saying. He says it after
1:00:09
every video. And the thing is, it's beautiful words that I always tell
1:00:13
people to live by. So Nick, please let the people know. Well,
1:00:16
it's always like sharing, subscribe and go for the world's strongest man.
1:00:21
If you don't do it now, which I'm sure you do, link in
1:00:23
the notes, link in the notes, and as always, train hard,
1:00:27
train smart, and be the best you can be. Full your best experience
1:00:51
what the thick can best