3rd Degree the Podcast #365

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Third Degree the Third Degree Ned Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree Nap Podcast. Third Degree the Third Degree Nap Podcast. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Good evening, Dallas Fort Worth curious soccer fans. We have some exciting, interesting news for all of you that are interested in teams other than FC Dallas. It's been a big day, a seismic day with news in the market for the other leagues and other teams in town. So we at Third Degree are throwing together an emergency podcast. This is episode 365 of the podcast. Joining me tonight is none other than the always on top of everything, joyous Brit, Dan Crook. How's it going, Dan? [00:00:59] Speaker C: You know, just getting some surprise news today. It's so exciting. [00:01:04] Speaker B: You've been enjoying your England work in the World cup so far. [00:01:08] Speaker C: So far so good. Yeah. We'll see if they don't stumble over Democratic Republic of Congo though. [00:01:15] Speaker B: It's been. It's been an amazing World cup. And I'm trying to cheering for your England too, in the sense that I picked them to win it. So obviously USA first for me, but I would be happy to see them go all the way since they were my pick. [00:01:25] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I was. I was all optimistic about it and then I saw Argentina play the other day and I was like, yeah, I'm not sure. [00:01:36] Speaker B: And then France play. [00:01:37] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, I can be in denial about France. That's easy. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, some really good teams left. All right, well, here is the big, huge news. If you're turning into this podcast, you probably have heard this, but Athletico Dallas has acquired the Dallas Trinity franchise. Now, to be a little specific about the technicalities of it, Dallas Trinity franchise was given back to the league and Athletico Dallas has acquired it under a new corporate heading called USL Dallas LLC that now will run both of those franchises. So the Neil's are no longer involved with Dallas Trinity. The family that did own Dallas Trinity found Dallas Trinity. There were some lovely quotes from both groups of owners in the. In the press release about the transfer, but the bottom line is that this is now the same ownership group run by Matt Valentine and Sam Morton that now own both of these franchises. So, Dan, what is your instant reaction to this seismic shift in the landscape? [00:02:38] Speaker C: I think the first thing is it seems a positive. You know, anything that can kind of forward soccer in the area is a positive. And sometimes that is grouping assets together. You know, we've seen with Dallas Trinity attendances tail off slightly, you know, visible losses. So bringing two USO franchises under the same umbrella that will play at the same venue to you know, share resources as we've been talking about all along. Hey, why aren't they pursuing a stadium deal together? Why aren't they pulling us pooling resources? You know, now they can have a single sales staff and you know, and branch off more into. Maybe the technical staff will be separated but more of the operations can be, can be, you know, together. [00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the great ways this will benefit both franchises is essentially a lot of the front office pieces can be put together under one umbrella if you will. You can consider it like sc Dallas and North Texas sc where North Texas SC doesn't have anywhere near the amount of staff. There's only one or two people that are technically on their staff only. And really they're using the greater or organizational staff. These teams will be more equivalent than those two. They're not going to be apparent in second team like, like North Texas is with FC Dallas. But there's, they will be an economy of scale in that regard and as you mentioned, they're having the ability to negotiate with the two teams as a collective, whether it be with the city of Dallas or whether it be with sponsors or whether it be with other key stakeholders and power players in, in the market, the league. Having two franchises gives you more power stake within the league. So there's a, there's a scale here that will really benefit both of these organizations that I think plays off really well. And one example of that might be for just to talk about something really quickly. Dallas Trinity training opens next week. They will be going back to Hockaday but Dallas Athletico. Dallas just broke ground on two training fields at the Dallas Soccer park, what used to be Moneygram. They just broke ground on two training fields. And I was talking to Sam Morton today and he says that eventually when those fields are dug in and developed, you know that Trinity will at some point come train at Dallas Soccer park just like Athletica will. So again there's, you know that, that's a park that they have control of and operation of. So the costs are effectively nothing relative to Dallas Trinity who was paying rent at, if you will, at Hakad School. So that's just one example of how you can put your the things together and come up with a way to make it more valuable and more manageable for both of the franchises. [00:05:29] Speaker C: Yeah, and I think just benefits wise, you know, Hawker Day is it's just a school field. It's, you know, it's not necessarily all facilities and everything else. Whereas what Atletico could potentially offer is you know, a facility for trainers and Everything that just kind of gives it more of a professional feel. And I think actually you kind of touched on the city a little bit. Obviously the city of Dallas is, is losing the Stars, The Mavs are moving out of downtown. All these, you know, downtown and South Dallas is kind of, it almost feels like from a headlines hemorrhaging sports teams. There's obviously not that many to lose, but suddenly you've got two professional sports teams that play in Fair park that you can, you know, lump together and say, hey, here's, you know, here's X number of committed dates per year for professional sports. You know, suddenly you've, you've got a much, a much bigger bargaining chip than, than two individually. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, we, you and I both know that Trinity, not Trinity, excuse me, Athletico. Now Trinity, they're planning on to build some sort of structure out there at that Dallas soccer park that'll include things like locker rooms and changing areas and such things. We also know Atletico has this bar and club for supporters down near the Cotton bowl that now will presumably have some Trinity involvement and be available for trinities sort of march over to the games like they do for Athletico's planning to do. Obviously, when you're talking about even the use of the Cotton Ball, having both those franchises are on one to one roof, because I remember when there were some initial talk about various things Athletico can do, a couple of people at Trinity were like, how come we weren't able to do that? Well, now you're going to be able to have those two things together. Negotiating with the city, you have a different sort of scenario. It just really, even even talking about dealing with usl, you know, having two franchises under your umbrella is going to give you, you know, two votes, not the league sort of level in terms of when, when you're giving your feedback into what should be happening in various leagues. So it's a massive change, a sea change. You know, we'll see which direction the clubs generally go. One thing that is, that is on the forefront that I was talking to Sam about today. I asked him specifically about Academy and he confirmed that they're obviously aggressively going to be looking at a girls academy set up now as well. I don't think that would happen, you know, overnight. The new seasons for youth are starting, you know, end of August, so I doubt it would be in place by that point. But you know, I imagine they'll be looking to over the next year sort of roll that out as well. There's some stuff we'll get into and, and when we get into our conjecture and pure speculation section, that'll have some impact on this level as well. But you know, you're looking at an organization that's going to have a broader spectrum appeal across the entire Metroplex because they're going to have these two teams moving along and, and the. At the end of the day, Dan, you know as well as I do that revenue control of the venue is the massive things for the survivability and the profitability of teams at this level. You know, something will need to be done with the Cotton bowl relative to Athletico and Trinity having their own venue. You know, the Cotton Ball is a midterm, let's call it solution, not a long term solution for this franchise. Now for two franchises under the one given umbrella. And that's where as you talked about teams leaving the city, maybe they'll even have some leverage that they wouldn't have with the Stars and the Mavericks both leaving. [00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah, very possible, particularly for an appropriately sized venue. Obviously the Dallas Wings has been in talks with the city about, about its own venue. If it doesn't play out of the AAC permanently, you know what that becomes in regards to the renovation of the K. Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center. So there was some talk of Atletico Dallas kind of latching onto the practice facility and getting the four soccer fields that they'd planned there. So I mean, you know, it could be, could be part of a growing empire of youth soccer fields for, for Atletico. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Now the, the this fall mini season that Trinity is going to have starts on August 15th. As I mentioned, camp opens this week. This, not like today or tomorrow, but like a week from now. They'll play Tampa Bay son at the cotton ball at 5:30pm in their first game. That is such a short, tight window and we're going to get into the sort of speculative part of the podcast now. Be very clear, this is where Dan and I are going to start making guesses about, about what we think is going to happen based on our experience in the market. So from here on we're not reporting anything. Don't anybody quote me that I said they're doing something when we're just talking about the possibilities of it. So with that game, that first game being a month and a half away, that's just a six week preseason away. It seems quite likely, Dan, that they would be unable to change much in terms of brand. I think it even mentions that Trinity is going to continue with that brand into this season coming up. But do you think going forward, Dan, and they Talk a little bit about honoring the brand and all that stuff. Do you think it would behoove them to have the singular Athletical Dallas franchise brand, or do you like a maintain maintaining the separation between the Athletico and the Dallas Trinity brands and maybe even continuing that? Do know you down to the academy level, or would you see some sort of joint branding perhaps being in order? Where do you feel about that? [00:11:00] Speaker C: I think the separation of brands between a men's and women's team is important because the second you have an Athletico Dallas women's team, it becomes secondary to the men's team, and they even have one already. [00:11:14] Speaker B: They have a women's team. Yeah, it's. It's plays amateur level. It's not professional. [00:11:18] Speaker C: Oh, okay. Well, yeah, yeah. [00:11:20] Speaker B: As a perfect example of not being secondary to the men's team. [00:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:24] Speaker B: So [00:11:26] Speaker C: I think, you know, I think they could harmonize the brands, but I don't know. Dallas Trinity has got a. It's got a solid brand identity in terms of the use of Pegasus boots, you know, everything else in between. I don't know how much you want to really meddle with that. You could certainly, you know, maybe adapt colors or do something where, where you make it a little more harmonious between the two. And you, you have a visual link, but I don't think you necessarily need to go, all right, let's stick a wolf and a snake on top of the Pegasus and. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:02] Speaker C: No, no, change the font to the Athleticofont. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Curious to see. I agree with you. By the way. I, I don't like the, the name branding of like Athletico Dallas Ladies. I mean, it works for their secondary team as it is. Now, I prefer like, like you say, a complete separate branding in this particular scenario when the teams are, relatively speaking, equivalent in the organization. I would, I wouldn't mind a little col to bring Trinity in a little more line with Athletical Dallas, but I think they should maintain them. The interesting question for me would be what you do at an academy level. Do you do something combined like a Dallas Athletico Trinity, like a Dallas at or something, or do you just continue to keep one brand for one academy and one brand for the other academy? It's an interesting question. I, I don't know enough about the youth landscape to know which would pay off bigger. It may be that there's a particular value to a girls club being called under the woman's name Dallas from D. I don't really know. Obviously it's a tougher landscape on the girl side because of the Dominance of solar in particular. And you're also fighting with FC Dallas, where on the boys side you would just be fighting with SC Dallas. The other men's teams in the area, boys teams in the area are not quite. Not really as strong as FC Dallas. [00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I think where neither is like a really massively established name in, in youth soccer, obviously Atletico on the boys side is. Is the remnants. Is the wrong word. You know, is kind of the. Evolved from Renegades. You know, they still have the Renegades logo on the sleeve. The, the D.C. united logo with an R in it, as Armand pointed out to me one day and I will never now not see. Yeah, so yeah, I think they're not in a position where there's a heavily established brand, you know, like say FC Dallas came in for, for Sting. Not that that would happen, but you know, Sting soccer is a, is a 40 year iconic brand in, in girls soccer. You couldn't just say, all right, you're now FC Dallas girls. You kind of have. In those situations, you, you really need to. To keep the status quo to a degree. But yeah, there's. There's not really a dominant. There's not really a dominant brand on either side here. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Yep. I think people will be shocked to learn that this deal came together really, really quickly. Only in the last maybe three weeks or so this has happened. This is a very, very fast moving situation. This is not something that took years of negotiating. This was something that happened really quick. My speculation is that the Neils were looking to move on and, and USL was like, hey, let's call 80 and see what's up. And it did in fact happen really quickly. I imagine that's kind of how the conversation went with a season six weeks away. Dan, here's my question to you. A new owner, likely, usually kano's gonna want their own general manager and coach, perhaps with six weeks away to the season. Is there a time to do such a thing? Do you. Or do you think there's enough quality with Petrocelli and Thackeray that the new owners would be happy to leave those guys in place? [00:15:09] Speaker C: I. I would say they are doing a good enough job to leave them in place. They were starting to kind of build something together. They'd had half a season. It was obviously the start of a lot of turnover in the team. Nathan Thackeray's got those North Carolina links, UNC links, you know, Chris Petrocelli, half of half of American women's soccer. The thing for me is Chris Pretrocelli is to The Neil family, what Shellas Heinlein was to the Hunt family, you know, they were the coach at SMU and, you know, in a very formative time and, and that was the first call to make and a very smart call. I think Chris Baccicelli was the best acquisition that Dallas Trinity made in season one by a very long distance. You know, it's. New owners always want to put a, put a thumbprint on it is. The only thing is I don't know that they've had any experience in, in women's soccer at any level. So obviously, you know, they were, they were all involved in, in, you know, boys youth soccer, but it's. It's a slightly different game. You need to have different, different people involved. Now obviously, you know, we went to their initial announcement and there was a virtual who's who of, you know, academy boys and girls soccer in, in dfw. So they obviously have the contacts. It's just how, how they make those work, when they make those work and how quickly they can spin anything up if they do need to, you know, have a transition or if they just say, hey, this, this part of the business was working, we're going to leave it as it was. [00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a certain value to the consistency of maintaining those two guys or the whole staff, really, because they would have been over the last month or two, since the end of the season, they would have been going out and maybe even before that. If you're talking about Petrocelli signing players, lining players up, I mean, like I said, the camp opens in a week. Right? We should. We're expecting announcements of players to happen. And any minute now. The previous seasons, like we've talked about this on MLS a lot. The previous season's contracts ran until today, June 30th. Right. Tomorrow, July 1st, everyone is free. Just like in MLS. The card run till December 31st. Right. End of the year. So it's really this week we were expecting to start, see announcements of player moves and signings as they process through the league. So you would think some consistency of those coaches that brought those players in that are going to be in six days, seven days, doing a camp would have some value. On the other hand, the athletical guys have some pretty strong ideas about what they're doing and doing things their own way. And they might want to really quickly say, this is no longer what was, this is what is now. And that connection to the Neil family with Chris Petrocelli does give me a pause that they want to be like no, no, we definitely want our guy, whatever level. So I, I, I'm not, I, I agree with you of the, the value of, of a consistency, but I'm also, I'm not going to be at all shocked if there is a change and a fast change just because of the way the, the, the fact that there's not been like a really tight relationship between Letico and Trinity. They've, they've been okay and there's been a little bit of tacit working together, but not much. So I would just sort of keep my ears open for a surprise. Even though I think the benefit would be to stick with the current. Especially because you have this six month fall season. You could easily just maintain it for that. You only have to get to December, right? Like, you don't have to go past that. You know, you can just see how it's going or sort of a caretaker vibe. But then again, maybe those guys wouldn't want to be caretakers knowing that a change was coming, perhaps. So it's a, it's a complicated landscape for sure. [00:19:14] Speaker C: I think also there's a gamble both ways because especially for players that are potentially coming in, you know, they're, they're evaluating the club, the club's not just evaluating them and they can see, all right, you know, Petrocelli coached, he was quite open that he didn't want to. Pauline McDonald comes in, she doesn't, you know, she lost a season, Petrosali's back again for half a season, gets Nathan Thackeray in. There's a lot of chopping and changing. So then, you know, if you, if you change a coach again, if you change a GM and you're only in season three, some people are going to look at it as, you know, we're, we're building a house on a foundation made out of sand and it's just not, you know, there's, there's no stability. Some other people are going to say, hey, they went first round of the playoffs two years in a row and they made some moves to try and move it forward. You know, I think if, if Dallas Trinity was a little bit more of a tenured organization, then maybe that, that gamble looks worse. But I can only really look to like Brooklyn fc, you know, with all the stuff that happened there in the first season and then changes they had in the second season, everyone kind of looks at them as, oh, you're the resident shit show. You know, Dallas training doesn't want to be that athletico. Dallas doesn't want to, to have that so, you know, whatever move they do make, it needs to be impactful. [00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think too there's a component, Dan, that any player that would have been signed over the last month or so, month and a half, whatever you want to call it, would have signed with the idea that PetroSize the GM would have signed with the idea that that crew is the coach. And if you yank that out at the last second, you might have a half your roster might be like, what the hell did I sign up for that I now have somebody completely different running things? But it may be also that the owners aren't going to care. [00:21:10] Speaker C: Yeah. I also wonder actually now you say that obviously someone signs for FC Dallas, they sign a major, they sign a contract with Major League Soccer and they're basically assigned to FC Dallas. That's not the case in USL Super League. So, you know, there's, there's a. Yeah, we haven't had a sale of a team yet. We've, we've obviously had, you know, a team go away very quickly, but we haven't had assets transferred and assets in this case being player contracts. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:41] Speaker C: So, you know, is there an avenue that they could say, hey Lexi, you're not working out for us, you know, or is there an opportunity that someone else could say, oh, actually now I'm not so tied down as I was and I'm going to explore something else? [00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And now that you've mentioned Lexi Messimo, that that might be a way, if you are really interested in getting her to buy back in, would be changing coaches since Thackeray benched her and we talked about how hard it might be to get her back 100 buy in. A coaching change might do the trick on that. You know, especially if you ask her, her take on, you know, who's coming in, give her a little feedback, you know. [00:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean you could, you can look at who, who was with her and in solar or ut, you can obviously, you know, her, her dad is, is a well known presence in, in local women's youth soccer. You know, do you bring him on board? Do you bring some people in from, from that, that element of it and try to really build not only the team but the organization kind of around your, your star asset. [00:22:43] Speaker B: It's going to be fascinating. All right, so the last for me, the last big topic I want to talk about, Dan, is perhaps the perceived value of the, this sale, what it may have cost to get this franchise. Now this again is pure speculation on our point point. We may eventually get some sort of sports Business Insider report on it all this kind of stuff. But this is not right now something Dan and I have tacit information on. But we sort of know the landscape a little bit. So I'm sort of. We know for a fact, I know for a fact that no one in the Super League has yet turned a profit. No franchise has. So I think that in general terms, relative to the value of an NWSL franchise which we know are selling for $100 million, that Dallas, that super, super sorry, USL Super League franchises in general probably do not have an immense value in terms of like what it would cost to obtain one, what an expansion fee might be. So I, I tend to think that particularly with. Since we know no one has turned a profit in this league, we know that means that regardless of how much money Dallas Trinity lost over the first two years, they, we know that they did lose money, they would have on their books remaining debt in a sense to, of contracts their contract they owe to the, with the stadium, the contracts they owe with the, the merchandise companies or the, or the jersey companies, the contracts they owe with players. Right. Those have a debt value on your books that need to be paid out as part of the operation of the franchise. I'm not suggesting that they have some crazy huge debt load from something else like trying to build something, because we know the Dallas Trinity has not done anything like that where they haven't financed a stadium or anything like that. They don't have that kind of debt. So I sort of am assuming at this point that the price of this franchise is likely just the willingness to take on those internal functional debt loads of the franchise. That there's not much of a cost beyond that. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't believe that we're going to read like the athletic will pay 20 million to get this franchise. That's not how I think it's going to go down if we ever do learn. So how do, how do you feel about that? [00:24:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. So this, that is a very common thing in non league soccer in, in the uk. You know, you're really taking on debt from someone and you, you're really doing them a favor in, in doing that. You're not necessarily, you know, if you are exchanging something, it's, it's a token amount. It's. No one's making a ton of money. You know, we can look at like the, the most recent NWSL sales, but you know, you've got people like Michelle Kang buying into the league. They're not buying into USL Super League. You know, in season three, NWS also has like a decent set of media rights deals. You know, there are teams that have actual assets. Dallas Trinity only assets are really leftover merch and player contracts. That's it. [00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:48] Speaker C: You know, they, their office was the family's office for Churchill Capital. I think is. They didn't have like the, the bar thing situation. Atletico has. There was no, you know, there's, there's nothing there that's training around. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. So some. More likely they're. They're inheriting a bunch of credit. So. Yeah, I just, I couldn't see a way that someone would particularly, you know, if you say that they handed it to the league and the league kind of said, you know, there's a good chance that the league said, hey, we've just lost one club this summer. Can. Can you help us not make it too? [00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah, perhaps that's a bit of a technicality, but it is true that the, the Athletico did not directly purchase this franchise from Dallas Trinity. They got it from the. Through the league. You know what that means in terms of reality? I don't know. Maybe that's just a technicality, but that's officially how it happened. You know, I, I don't. I don't think that there's some greater complication there other than just that's how it functions on paper. Perhaps, perhaps that's just how USL wants to control their franchises and maybe they. To see them bought by other owners in the leagues in, in one of their other leagues swapping franchises around. Maybe that's part of their belief. So it's hard to really know without being in those rooms ourselves in those conversations. [00:27:10] Speaker C: It's possible. But I think you can also look at what happened with nitech Sports and the Austin B franchise where, you know, it. They didn't do it. They. They acquired that franchise. Right. Didn't do anything with it, let it set dormant and then gave it back to the league. So the league wants to avoid a situation like that where they are losing clubs. They want to have, you know, they want to have a team turn out on the field at the Cotton bowl for the start of the season. So if that means they're approaching different groups in the area, you know, realistically, that's, that starts with who to who they're actively dealing with. And one of those parties is. Is athletic idalis. [00:27:51] Speaker B: Yeah, certainly not. The league's not going to want to see a second franchise fold in the Same off season. Especially not one that was making all the noises as if they were continuing and they were welcoming back players and all that kind of thing. You know, obviously they have a pre existing relationship with Atletico Dallas owners and know what those guys are bringing to the table and the value that they can bring to the table and the assets they can bring to the table. They have a larger ownership group that includes other people than just themselves, you know, so it's probably a, a case where the league felt really comfortable with that rather than sort of having look like two teams went under in the same aeb. [00:28:25] Speaker C: I'm sure there's, there's also a little bit of pressure from the city there because the city are putting in that nearly $600,000 subsidy for Athletico to. Sorry, not for Athletic. Well, they are for Athletico as well, but for Dallas Trinity to use the Cotton Bowl. So, you know, there's definitely some. Hey, you'd also scratch our backs and in turn, you know. Yeah, you want stadium land? We have land. We have planning permission. [00:28:51] Speaker B: So yeah, it's, it's a fascinating situation. So I think dad and you and I are in a lot of ways on the same page that overall we think this is a really fantastic bringing together of two franchises. Obviously the Neil's did a, a great job of getting this thing off the ground in that sense. And if it wasn't working for them, Athletico is a really good ownership group who seems to have a really good grasp of the market, you know, and the lay of the land around here and those bringing those two things together and the, the way you'll be able to, you know, I don't think it'll reduce any costs on the Athletical Dallas side, but you'll be able to share those costs across the two franchises. Certainly with the way the front office portions will be able to be able to do both organizations, you know, one ticket staff, for example. Likely. [00:29:36] Speaker C: Well, also it brings an Athletico Dallas entity to the field sooner, which I think is, is big for them because we've talked about, you know, did they potentially announce early? You know, they do very well to kind of keep their name out there. They, you know, they're using the World cup. Well, they're attaching the name to different things, but until the ball was kicked, you know, there's, there's always that merchandise company versus soccer team, you know. And you know, they obviously acquired a UPSL team. Okay, great, cool. More power to you. It's just that obviously doesn't move the needle for anyone. So no. You know, even if it's just having Atletico Dallas tents in and around the Cotton bowl for game days for USL Super League. Yeah. Getting that cross promotion. Exactly. You know, Dan Hunt shout out to personally sponsor the local World cup bids so that FC Dallas got all those activation opportunities but didn't have to drop. Drop the dime themselves, you know, so they're kind of getting that same thing. They just, you know, instead of being at Fair park for the watch parties, it's the other side of Fair park for Trinity games. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Well, it's been a seismic day. Obviously the landscape has shifted massively on a big picture future level. On the micro level, Trinity is going to open camp in a week and play in six weeks. So, you know, short term, you know, could we see some changes in the coaching staff? Maybe. Could we see some changes in the front office staff? Certainly, we'll see how that plays out. Could, could it cause some players to bail out that might have agreed to come in? Maybe. I don't know how. You know, what, when it, once the deal is signed, is it signed? I don't know if it's not, if it's not activated because it's not July 1st, does that count? I mean, who's to say? So Karen Trippier is to say, yeah, could be a rapidly, rapidly shifting landscape for Dallas Trinity over the next couple of weeks or month, but they're gonna have to kick a ball in six weeks and needless to say, we'll be paying close attention to what's happening around this club. It's going to be absolutely fascinating to see how it progresses. I mean, listen, it's been fascinating in the Dallas Fort Worth for a couple of years now. We still know of this Fort Worth thing hypothetically coming together. We, we obviously this brings D Athletico and Trinity together, brings them back, both of them, to a Dallas, Dallas, Dallas sort of mentality as well. So, you know, the, the landscape is ever changing in this town and, and with the World cup bringing new exposure and new metrics that FC Dallas is seeing go through the roof. You know, it's going to be a crazy time ahead and I think it's going to be a lot of fun to go on this ride. [00:32:24] Speaker C: I think as, as well, you mentioned, like with the World cup, obviously now there is the, the, the drive to get the final for the Women's World cup here in 2031. You know, we know Dallas Trinity wasn't the most active really at anything. They were, they were pretty passive in, in their attempts to do most things, but they were, you know, they were there. They, they would have a 10 events for the 2031 final bid. Atletico is very much a go out and grab people presence and now they are attached to that. And that is exciting. [00:33:00] Speaker B: That is exciting. Yeah. Big, big Women's World cup next year in Brazil. That'll be fun too. So it's going to be a good year for soccer with this half season for Trinity and then when season ends they're going to have that half season as they flip their calendar. But for, for Dallas Trinity athletico purposes, they're both going to be on the same within a year calendar going after the end of this December. That'll be a nice alignment of their opportunities and businesses as well. So it's going to be a fun landscape. All right. Anything else? Dan, you got anything else on this deal? I think we pretty much beat it to death. [00:33:37] Speaker C: No, I think, I think that's it. It's, you know, it's looking good. We've got some security in, in local soccer, which is always a good thing. [00:33:46] Speaker B: The very last shout out was that Trinity should definitely bring Amber Wisner into their front office staff. She's been spending a couple of seasons working as an assistant Petro Sally trying to build up her resume to work in a front office. She's absolutely phenomenal, knows everybody, knows the game. So it would be who them in my opinion to keep her in the org. If they can do that, that would be good. [00:34:06] Speaker C: Oh, it would be stupid not to because I mean that, I mean her and her husband have seemed pretty settled up in prosper ways. I mean keep them in the area. [00:34:17] Speaker B: All right, that's today's emergency episode of Third Degree, the podcast to dissect the athletico Dallas purchase of Dallas Trinity. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that. Dan, thanks for being here after the Mexico World cup game to hash this out real quick. [00:34:31] Speaker C: I appreciate you. Thanks. I'll pretend I watched any of the games today. I took a day off. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Huge day tomorrow with the men's U.S. men's National Team going. I'm very excited. [00:34:41] Speaker C: In England. [00:34:42] Speaker B: In England. How was that going too? [00:34:43] Speaker C: Sorry, it's 11:00am yeah. [00:34:45] Speaker B: Oh, oh, I'll be up. I'll be ready. I haven't missed the game yet. [00:34:47] Speaker C: Oh no, not for year. It won't be 11am but no, no. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Gosh, that could be really early for me. [00:34:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:54] Speaker B: All right, we'll talk to you. Well, not next week, you know, later in the end of the month, end of July probably as we get this whole thing going back as the World cup wise down because FC is not really playing and third Degree is not really podcasting. So if more news of this level or something similar breaks, we will do another emergency podcast. But that's it for now. Talk to you soon. Dan Forgot to whisper. [00:35:18] Speaker A: 3rd degree the 3rd degree N podcast 3rd degree the 3rd degree n podcast 3rd degree the 3rd Degree Never Again 3rd degree 3rd degree Nap. Sam.