Chris Pearlman, CEO of Aggregate Sports

00:00

Dave Almy

Chris, your early years were spent primarily on the agency side, right? You did a little work with ProServ. I mean, that's a boy. If there's a classic name in sports business, ProServ is probably it. You went to Premier Sports Entertainment, Little White Van Wagner after that acquisition. So I think a lot of people often talk about the lessons they learn in their formative years in sports business. And I'm wondering what sticks with you today that you learned back then at the onset of your sports business career.

00:36

Chris Pearlman

You know, when I was at ProServ, one of the first kind of company wide meetings I ever went to in my career, it was like a company brainstorm where they were talking about putting. They wanted to lean in to the importance of clients and how the clients are such an important part of the business. They would get this discussing, literally putting on the business card at Proserve the phrase that they. I remember it to this day, the phrase that they were going to put on was cult of the client. And I think it kind of morphed all to me into culture of the client. But they wanted to talk about just how important their clients were. And you know, and that has certainly stuck with me.

01:17

Chris Pearlman

They ended up not doing it, but it was more just to the mindset of the organization and the direction that they wanted to go.

01:23

Dave Almy

Kind of nerve wracking for you that you thought you joined a cult for a minute as the new guy.

01:28

Chris Pearlman

Just exactly what have I got myself into a job. It's like, but the mindset of, of an agency when you're representing, you know, properties and people, it's the clients are our lifeblood, right. It's their success is our success and you know, without them we wouldn't exist.

01:47

Dave Almy

And it's kind of interesting too with Pro Serve, you're dealing with individuals, right. So you're building relationships with the athletes and all those kinds of things. But that really carries over to beyond that, doesn't it? Right. It's a skill set that when you learn it at an interpersonal level, really carries forward when you're dealing with big businesses too from that standpoint for sure.

02:08

Chris Pearlman

And proserve did have a, obviously most known as a, you know, a, an agency that did athlete representation, but they did have a property representation business. They were one of the first agencies to do naming rights. They did corporate consulting back in the day. And you know, I think that, that kind of mindset is super, super important. And you know, when you have an agency, you're existing to help other. Whether it's people or leagues or federations or teams or whatever it might be, you need to go in with that mindset. It's really about them. It's not about you.

02:45

Dave Almy

It's almost a screwy little business that way. From the standpoint of your whole business, like growing. Your business is totally predicated on the idea of growing other people's businesses.

02:53

Chris Pearlman

No, for sure. That's exactly right. That's what you sign up for on the agency side, without question.

02:59

Dave Almy

Now, I've hosted a few people on this show who've been on the agency side and enjoyed it, but then they kind of got this itch. Right. They've been working alongside sports teams and properties and things and they go kind of maybe want to have my hands more firmly on the levers now. And you did this. I mean, you made a big pivot at one point when you left Van Wagner and you went to go work for Swansea City Football as their. As their coo. Now, that is a. That's a pivotal.

03:36

Chris Pearlman

Yep.

03:37

Dave Almy

How did that come together? And then I'm interested in how it both met and did not meet your expectations.

03:45

Chris Pearlman

Sure. Well, we could have, certainly we could have a podcast. This could be a one question podcast and I could.

03:50

Dave Almy

Volume three.

03:52

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, exactly. Well, it came together actually because the group that was buying Swansea City at the time, guy by the name of Jason Levy and own DC United. And were in the pitch process, or I was in the process of helping to pitch van Wagner representing D.C. United for Stadium naming rights for what would ultimately become Audi Field. And I was having conversations with Jason and pitching our services. And throughout the course of our conversation, he was. I'm a big. I should preface this by saying I've always been a big soccer fan. And, you know, people who work in the sports business are sports fans, generally speaking. And I've had the good fortune of working on behalf of a number of different sports and properties. I've always had a special place in my heart for soccer and I followed the sport closely.

04:39

Chris Pearlman

And as I was pitching our services for the naming rights assignment, he was asking me a million questions about the Premier League. And he had said, literally, it was like an hour and a half into a lunch were having. He's like, I'm actually looking to buy a Premier League club. That's why I'm kind of needling you with these questions. And I said literally almost half jokingly, like, well, if that ever comes to fruition and you're looking to somebody help run the Club, let me know.

05:06

Dave Almy

Kidding. Not kidding.

05:07

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, long story short, you know, six months later, I see him again and he said, chris, you know, good news, we won the naming rights assignment. So they were a client of ours. He said, chris, you know, when you said that and were having that conversation that you would be interested in doing that, it's like, were you being serious? Because. Because I'm about to close this deal. I didn't even know the team at the time. I'm about to close this deal, and I am looking for somebody to help to run the club. I was like, let me. Let me have a conversation with my wife, who's. Right, who's gainfully employed and does, you know, a very nice job in New York and two kids at the time, 9 and 10.

05:43

Dave Almy

Right. So this is a pretty big decision.

05:47

Chris Pearlman

It's a big decision. And in hindsight, I sometimes I think back about it, I was like, geez, I don't believe I made the decision kind of with such confidence, but I did. And I knew it was a. It would be a wonderful opportunity, both personally, professionally. My children were young enough where it wouldn't have it. I didn't think, I think a detrimental impact on their development, probably a positive impact. I was hopeful. I didn't know how long would be for, and a host of other things. But, you know, ultimately it. It turned out to be a wonderful decision to go do that.

06:19

Dave Almy

And how, you know, as someone who's clearly an obviously steeped in US Sports and US Sports business, what struck you about working overseas? Because, I mean, as much as you can kind of talk about it, Premier League fanship is. It's a different animal altogether.

06:40

Chris Pearlman

So here's a call coming through. I apologize.

06:43

Dave Almy

No, don't worries at all. So how did that manifest itself? Was there like a holy mackerel moment for you when you got over there and sort of felt the passion of it that was different, or the expectations of it were different. How did that really land for you when you were. When you were arrived at Swansea?

07:00

Chris Pearlman

I mean, I guess in. In a handful of ways. I, I would say, first and foremost, the fact that I'd be walking down the street in, you know, the city center and people would be stopping me wanting to talk about the club, you know, randomly. I, you know, Swansea's. Swansea is not a bad. It's the second biggest city in Wales, but.

07:22

Dave Almy

Yeah, the second biggest city in Wales.

07:24

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, but, but it's not a massive city.

07:27

Dave Almy

All right?

07:29

Chris Pearlman

You know, I. People knew who the club is, the center of attention there. And, you know, a lot of people knew who I was. So that was, you know, I think that's just, you know, that would happen quite a bit and that was not unusual.

07:45

Dave Almy

And you're also introducing American business practices to a club that's rooted in, I mean, I don't Even know, like 200 years of tradition or however it's going to be. How, how was that received and how well did it go in implementing the kinds of things that you knew would be successful that you wanted to do?

08:06

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, I, I would say, I guess handful of interesting, both business wise as well as, you know, I guess culturally.

08:13

Dave Almy

Sure.

08:14

Chris Pearlman

On the business side, I found myself just some adjustments that you need to make when you're over there. Just differences in culture, like having a meeting, board meeting about the stadium. And I say in the meeting somebody brought up an issue that was a pretty complex issue that it turned out weren't going to be able to find a solution for it. I said at the meeting, we need to table this for another time. We need to table this conversation right now. And I knew we'd pick it up later. Tabling it in the U.S. To my knowledge, was like, put it aside, talk about it later. Tabling it there means we're putting it on the table. We're talking about it right now.

08:50

Dave Almy

We're talking about it right now.

08:52

Chris Pearlman

Let's table the issue. And everybody's like, okay, let's keep talking about it. I moved on to the next thing.

08:58

Dave Almy

Damn Yanks.

09:00

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, that's just, I guess, an example that way, you know, other things. I went over there to the thought process being at the time, Swansea had been in the Premier League for I think six years in a row, had been run by successful Welsh business people who weren't necessarily sports marketing people. And the thought was if we put the right resources and infrastructure behind the operation, we can really take advantage of the global exposure that the club's receiving. And we began to do that. You know, there are some things that were looking to do what were very successful in. You know, 40% increase in commercial revenue, more deals with global brands. All that stuff was good.

09:45

Chris Pearlman

Other things that you think are going to work don't work necessarily, like wanting to get fans into the, into matches earlier, supporters showing up earlier, doing fan zones outside of the stadium. Do you think that's going to be a big thing? You know, trying to enhance the match day experience, more activity in and around the stadium, things that'll help Here and there in the US could be game changing over there. Cultural changes like fans don't come into the stadium earlier, you're at the local pub having their pints. They're going to come in 10 minutes before kickoff. You can incentivize to try to come in things like that. You go in with grand ambitions and the reality is sometimes, you know, I, I in some ways did not understand the culture well enough. You know, you learn, you live and you learn.

10:36

Chris Pearlman

Some of the things work well, other things not as well. But that's part of the experience.

10:41

Dave Almy

Yeah. It's a fascinating thing when you're going into an established property in a very culture bound way to. How do you take what you know is a great practice and you've seen it work otherwise and manage it for their K. I can't even imagine. It's just a, it's an ongoing learning process as you try to combine those two sets of assets together.

11:05

Chris Pearlman

For sure. For sure.

11:07

Dave Almy

Yeah. So, so with Swansea for a few years come back, you have a cup of coffee. Managing both DC United and Swansea for Cap 11 and then there comes the idea about aggregate, the aggregate sports group. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead.

11:26

Chris Pearlman

I was gonna say. So I guess taking a step back had the. So Swansea got relegated between my second and third year in the UK and that changed things significantly.

11:38

Dave Almy

Right.

11:38

Chris Pearlman

You know, who knows if they were still the Premier League, perhaps I'd still be there. But getting relegated changed kind of the remit of the role. And I began to think about okay, you know, I move my family over here.

11:52

Dave Almy

Yep.

11:52

Chris Pearlman

To work for a Premier League club. It's a different Being relegated offered a very interesting personal learning experience, different kind of business model. But you know, the, the, this is along with answer to your question. One of the things I realized, I saw this when were in the Premier League and I certainly saw this once we'd been relegated. And I saw kind of the impact of relegation on clubs and the difficulty of doing what we did, which was building an internal team to monetize the Premier League exposure where clubs of a similar size had not done that. Right. Not many have done that successfully to compete with the Man United's and Chelsea's of the world. And I began to think why aren't other club. I knew now why other clubs weren't doing it is because they didn't have the people yet promoted and relegated.

12:45

Chris Pearlman

s to do this now. This was in: 2019

13:33

Dave Almy

Perfect timing.

13:34

Chris Pearlman

Exactly, exactly. So once Covid came, I pivoted this concept and that aggregation model, which I thought was one that made a lot of sense for a lot of different reasons, could work in other ways as well. And I had, through my previous life at Van Wagner, had a number of different relationships in the Olympic national sports governing body space. And that became the business model and plan for aggregate sports to start.

14:07

Dave Almy

Yep.

14:08

Chris Pearlman

Instead of aggregating rights in European football, do it in the US Olympic space, which became, you know, which is much more manageable at that time for a host of different.

14:18

Dave Almy

Was there a reason why, I mean, you said you had contacts with national governing bodies and things like that. You felt like you were. Had your feet firmly planted in there. Was that the reason to pursue that? Or was there something particularly appealing about the way NGBs operate? Or is it kind of a confluence of both?

14:35

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, both, both. You know, NGBs are, you know, by nature, they're not for profit organizations. They exist to help the individual sports in this country oversee them, provide them structure, help them grow, help, you know, train the athletes that go on to represent the US in the Olympics. But these organizations, generally speaking, from a business perspective, are not. They don't have the infrastructure that, you know, professional leagues and teams in the US have. They need that kind of help. They need help creating revenue, they need help on the business side, they need help with their media rights, they need help with sponsorship and media sales. So that. So I thought there was. There was a. There was a bit of a parallel there for sure.

15:15

Dave Almy

You knew there was a need and you knew also that you had the people to be able to reach out to be able to explore that need. And I mean, it's. The idea of aggregation is such an attractive one. Right. Because you look at, you know, whole greater than some of the parts. I mean, I'm even like, literally, I think the first line on your website, to be able to package those for sponsors and media properties. Right. Everybody wants to deal in volume rather than, my God, let's go create 10 different deals with 10 different NGBs so I can pull my hair out kind of thing. But it's hard. It's hard rolling those up those. Each national governing body has a way of doing things, and, you know, they have different expectations, different wants, different needs.

15:55

Dave Almy

How do you find success where others may have stumbled in the past, pulling these pieces together, I mean, I don't want you to give away like arrogant secret sauce or anything, but like, I mean, it's, it's charged, it's hard. Right? These are, these are, can be challenging organizations to deal with sometimes.

16:15

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, I guess. You know, first and foremost, I should mention I've got a wonderful business partner that I embarked on this journey with, deroan, with whom I had worked at Van Wagner years before. And, you know, he's as good as it gets in the business. So surrounding yourself with good people is super important. We've been very fortunate with the quality of the NGBs that we've worked with. And that's important. You know, what we sell is of great value to brands. Not easy to sell. I'm not saying it is, but when we do make that connection with the right brand, it works for the brand. And that was where the model we thought would make sense is if we find the right brand and the right connection and show them that it works, we would have some success.

17:02

Chris Pearlman

And it's not always in selling them collectively, although that could happen. It's often more because when we take our properties to the marketplace, very often, most often it's on an individualized basis where we're pitching the demographic and, and reach and specific, you know, niche of whatever property it might be to, whatever and why it makes sense for that brand. And, and it's very property specific at first, so. But where we've had some successes with one brand and one property, making that connection, doing a very good job and having our partners at the properties do a very good job in helping to bring these deals to life and provide value for the partners and then taking that and extending that partner across other properties that we have.

17:52

Dave Almy

So, yeah, they sort of get their foot wet with one and start to see what the potential is. And I'm assuming it probably doesn't hurt to have someone and an organization help guide that success so they're not feeling around in the dark as they create these partnerships and how to exploit them effectively.

18:07

Chris Pearlman

Yep, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So, yeah, so we've we, we've been, we've been very, very fortunate in that regard. We've got, you know, some wonderful properties that we represent and some super brand partners who have trusted us and you know, put resources behind these partnerships and have leveraged them and it's been good for the NGB for sure. It's been good for the property and you know, we get the benefit as well.

18:34

Dave Almy

Let's talk about that idea of partnerships for a second because it's changed. I mean, partnerships have changed a lot in just the last 10 years really when you think about it, right, you got new categories, expectations are through the roof on both sides, right? The properties want to see more revenue coming from the sponsors, have higher expectations on what these kinds of things can deliver. How do you prepare both sides of the equation, both the NGBS and the sponsors to prepare for that new marketplace? How do you, how do you manage expectations on both sides? Is that a conversation you actively have?

19:18

Chris Pearlman

Without question. I mean, you know, it's, you hit the nail on the head. It's, it's. The marketplace has changed considerably. I think, you know, one of the first things we did or one of the things we've done over the past few years is we've expanded our capabilities to help address this. So we started a media rights consultancy where we can help, you know, with the Olympic Channel going away, NBC Sports Network going away, getting this content distributed for a lot of these properties has become a little bit trickier. Providing a resource for us to help do that for them. Right? To help guide them through that, to make sure that their content can get distributed effectively so it can be monetized effectively from a sponsorship standpoint and so people can still have access to it. So that's part one.

20:04

Chris Pearlman

From a sales standpoint, it's broadening what the offering is. That's a lot more. Social media is part of the partnership packages, incorporating athletes in a much more significant way because they have their own, you know, ways to connect with fans through their social media channels. So incorporating athletes into deals. There's a lot more custom content that's being developed in coordination with the property and the brand and looking for creative ways to do that. It's not as easy as it was in terms of, hey, you know, you're on NBC this weekend and you get a 30 second spot and it costs X amount of money and you'll be, have some signage there that, see it's, that's still a part of it, without question, but we do have to get more creative and extract value from these other areas.

20:51

Chris Pearlman

And it and you know, we've been fortunate, we've been able to do it in a lot of instances. But, but it. You have, you have to be thoughtful and how you do it, you need to have properties that are willing to work with the brands to come up with the right solutions. It needs to make sense, it needs to be organic obviously to what the property is, is doing already. But, but we've been able to do it fortunately.

21:17

Dave Almy

I think you hit upon a really important point. There is how do you change to meet the moment where I think where a lot of agencies get stuck is operating in that long time. Tough word, but transactional mindset which is here I'm going to pair you with the Olympics and you get these spots and you get the right to do the following things and you know, we'll facilitate all that. Now it's okay. Here's this property. How does this appear on socials? How does the athlete use it? How can we create campaigns that sort of weave in and all this kind of stuff so that you separate yourself from all the noise? This is an important skill set to have.

21:53

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, yeah. And I should also mention, you know, it's not just REM and me, we've got bigger team that helps to do that. You know, one of my old clients, Ramsey Baker, who used to be the CMO and then became the executive director of U.S. Figure Skating, we hired who works for us in Colorado Springs and he is our point person with a lot of the Olympic federations we work for. It's good to have somebody internally who understands that world really well and could help kind of be a bridge between what we're seeing in the marketplace and what the NGBs go through on a day to day basis and help to tell that story. So yeah, I don't know, there's a magic formula for it.

22:35

Chris Pearlman

And what works for some, one property may not work for another, works for one brand, may not work for another. But we're certainly diligent in trying to figure it out and uncover the opportunities and where we can leverage them.

22:51

Dave Almy

s are obviously quite clearly: 2028

23:10

Chris Pearlman

n we started this business in: 2020

24:01

Chris Pearlman

Another European city where I think we're poised to do well across a handful of sports and it all builds to L A. I think it's just, it's going to be on everybody's radar a lot more. Because it's L A, because it's the US More brands are going to want to have an association with it. You know, our value proposition and sell to many brands is through the properties that we work with. It's an association with the movement, with a more Deeper Association. 365 days a year at a number of different elite events. And there's a chance to be part of that. You may, you know, sometimes it's an Olympic partner who becomes partner of these Olympic federation, of these NGBs, which is great. Other times it's not. And it's a brand who's a competitor to some of the Olympic partners.

24:45

Chris Pearlman

It's a great way to do it anyway, so that's, I guess it's a long winded answer to your question that you know, we see a lot of activity building in the coming years up to LA in 28. And by the way, not just that, obviously with the Salt Lake Games, you know, following six years after that. So I think the Olympics will remain, I think, a very attractive property for a lot of reasons. For a number of years you talk.

25:13

Dave Almy

About launching aggregate with your partner Rem Durohan, who you guys met back at Van Wagner. So can you talk a little bit about that, like your partnership with him and how you guys approached launching aggregate and like, you know, compatible skill sets where you guys had to kind of figure out who was going to do what, like how did that process unfold for the both of you as you sort of said, hey, let's do this.

25:39

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, so I always say that the best sell, I ever made in my career was when I was at Van Wagner and REM was at ESPN and were looking to bring on a salesperson to property sales group. And I, I, through a colleague I knew at espn I was like, who is the, who's the best sales planner you have? Who's probably not going to, it's probably a little too young to get promoted over the next few years, but who you think is ready to do it?

26:06

Dave Almy

You had your, you had your filter.

26:07

Chris Pearlman

Ready and was, was introduced to RAM and convinced them to leave the company confines of ESPN and go to Van Wagner. And he's, I mean, and I saw it right from the beginning when were working together at Van Wagner. You know, he's honestly probably the hardest working person I've ever come across in the business. He's, he's probably, you know, the most, one of the most professional people I've ever worked with across my career. He's, he's diligent, he's super buttoned up, he's very committed. He understands the marketplace really well. He's got a lot of, he's a phenomenal salesperson, he's easy to hold, he's the whole deal. Outside of my parents, he visited me in Wales more than anybody else he came across when I was in Swansea. He went to a handful of matches. So you know, we obviously remained friends.

26:58

Chris Pearlman

When I left Van Wagner, when I left Van Wagner he took over the group that I had been running. So when I was looking to start this business, obviously he was the person that I thought of.

27:08

Dave Almy

It's so important to have that pre existing sub text communication that you can have. It's a known and we're heading out on your own path. I mean there's so many unknowns to just be able to have a couple rocks you can lean on where you know exactly what you're going to get. It just sort of removes that whole bit of brain power that you need to focus on other things, isn't it?

27:32

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, yeah.

27:33

Dave Almy

I saw a quote of yours about the importance of relationships. We just talked about REM and you know, his background and clearly that's obviously a skill set of yours and I'll read it to you. He said stay in touch with people, do it proactively but do it in a genuine way. It's such a over the top important point in this industry in particular that I want to give you a chance to expand upon that a Little bit. Right. That idea of being proactive but genuine.

28:07

Chris Pearlman

Yeah.

28:07

Dave Almy

Right. Can you tease that one out a little bit?

28:10

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, yeah. It's your point. It's like, it's, it's. It's an obvious thing you think about. And, And I, I remember when I was in college, I thought I was at one point going to be a lawyer, and I was.

28:22

Dave Almy

You got off of that horse pretty quick.

28:25

Chris Pearlman

And I was in. In a class, and there was a lawyer that came in and he was speaking about his experience in law, and he was. At the time I was in college. So everybody who's older seems like they're a lot older, but I think he wasn't that. So I think it's probably in his, like, late 20s, like, at the time. And he was talking about what he liked and what he didn't like about. About. About law. And he said that the most difficult adjustment I've had to make is not the fact that I don't need to be a good lawyer, although I am. He's like, what I'm judged upon is not how good I am at being a lawyer, it's like how good I am at brilliant. Bringing in new clients and keeping our other clients happy is like.

29:04

Chris Pearlman

And, and if I can tell you guys one thing, it's the importance of networking in life and in business, and that's. That's in the field with law. That's not necessarily a field where people think about. It's important. As important certainly as sports or other, you know, business, to sales, to. To build relationships. So it's, you know, it's. It's a life. It's a life lesson that's. That's kind of stuck with me. And, and the beauty of the sports business is, you know, you have the opportunity to socialize with people in a. In a. In some great settings all the time in fun places. And, And I tell this to young people all the time who are trying to break into the business. You know, a piece of advice. And it's the one piece of advice.

29:48

Chris Pearlman

Like, it's, you know, nobody wants to seem like they're a robot and they're doing it in an inauthentic way. The cool thing about our business is there's a lot of fun people with great personalities you want to hang out with. It's great to be friends with the people that you're transacting with. I still do business literally with people that. When I, When I left proserve, I went to ESPN for a handful of Years I was a sales assistant there and there's like assistant, you know, media buyers at agencies that are now like, you know, super high up that I still do business with. We've got to some fun events together and I know their families and all that stuff. I mean, so it's not going to be fun, it's not going to be real if you're not doing it in a genuine way.

30:30

Chris Pearlman

But you need to invest the time into doing it and I could do a better job at it and I'm sure, you know, but it's, it's, it's so important and you can't do it enough. You really can't do it enough.

30:42

Dave Almy

And we talk about it all the time from the standpoint of just don't be the friend who only calls when they need to borrow your pickup truck.

30:48

Chris Pearlman

Exactly. Yeah. No, it's true. You know, you check in and it's same thing from a, you know, from a sales standpoint. You know, you don't want to always call people when you want to sell them something.

30:58

Dave Almy

You want to, don't be a relief pitcher. Every time you're brought in, you're pitching something. It's just not, that's not the way that this industry, you have to be interested in the people, the companies and the interest. Like, you know, we talk about it all the time like your biggest asset is curiosity. Just like, hey, what's going on? I heard, saw this thing that your DI's are doing that's kind of interesting. How did that come about? And again it goes back to like the top of the conversation. Like if you're not learning in this industry, it's probably start time to start thinking about doing something else and talking about doing something else. Like, look, I want to wrap up with sort of the question.

31:31

Dave Almy

I mean, when you start your own company, you start off with like, this is what you think the path is going to be and rarely does it ever follow that exact path. So I guess I'm curious as you think about where you are with Aggregate today and where you started the company, where has it met your expectations and where's it kind of surprised you a little bit about where you've ended up and where you're heading going down the road.

31:59

Chris Pearlman

That's. Yeah. I would start with the surprising thing. Maybe it's not surprising. I probably spent a little too much time on administrative things that I hadn't anticipated. I Guess maybe I anticipated but the reality is a little bit bigger than the anticipation of it. I wish that weren't the case, but I guess it is. The marketplace has obviously continued to evolve, so that's kind of changed what our, how we sell and you know, our partly Covid related, you know, the ability to reach out to people and say, hey, I'm going to be coming through town, can we get together when I'm there for a cup of coffee or whatever. People aren't always in the office and things like that. So it's a lot more virtual which makes it more difficult to make connections with people.

32:50

Dave Almy

Oh, particularly as guys of our generation like we grew up with the face to face and knocking on doors and this like. Can I send you a link? It's just.

32:59

Chris Pearlman

Jason. I know, I know the flip side is there are those instances where you never would have, it would have been hard to have the meeting anyway. So you probably are be able to get like FaceTime more than you otherwise would. But the connectivity is a little trickier.

33:13

Dave Almy

Yeah, different skill set.

33:16

Chris Pearlman

Yeah, different skill set. And you know we're, and you know we're constantly, and this is an important, you know, part of having your own business. Just looking to diversify and grow and do different things and you know, always exploring new things and kind of the meteorites consultancy extension that we did is an example of that. We've tried a few other things and we're looking to try a few more different things over the next year or two as we begin to expand. You know, it's, it's, it's fun. I enjoy it. You know, I, I wake up every day excited to go to work. It's, you know, talked about REM earlier. It's really great to do it with people who you like, who you enjoy working with, who are, you know, in the foxhole with you.

33:57

Chris Pearlman

Hiring good people, having good people that you work and being a mentor to people internally, some young employees that we hire who are going to be superstars in their own right as they flourish in their careers and helping contribute to their future success is something that, you know, very happy to be a part of. You know, as my father told me when I was looking, when I was thinking about being a lawyer actually, he said, Chris, you know, whatever you do for a living, you have to do it for the rest of your life. You, you better, you want to make sure you enjoy it. Maybe that's what I was realized I wasn't going to be a lawyer. Like, make sure you enjoy it because you have to wake up every day and go to work and do it.

34:37

Chris Pearlman

He just retired actually, last week after 54 years of work. It's, it's, it's true. You know, I look at the smile on your face. I know you love what you do. You talk to people who are in the business on a daily basis and you get to hear these great, you know, stories of different people come from different backgrounds. It's fun, you know, it's fun to make what you do for a living something that you enjoy.

35:06

Dave Almy

So I'm with Chris Perlman. He's the CEO of Aggregate Sports. Chris, I want to thank you for the time today, but before I let you go, I'm going to put you in the lightning round. These are questions that are. The supercomputer over here has churned them out using whatever we call AI over here, which is probably my dog tapping on the keys of the laptop. So are you ready for the lightning round, Chris Perlman?

35:34

Chris Pearlman

Yes.

35:34

Dave Almy

Okay. You and I Both played Division 3 college lacrosse in the Northeast in the 90s.

35:39

Chris Pearlman

Nice.

35:40

Dave Almy

On a scale of 10 to 1, how insane is the position of lacrosse goalie?

35:46

Chris Pearlman

Eleven.

35:47

Dave Almy

Yeah, it's probably up there. That one goes up to 11 for sure. And the people who play that are not right in the head. And I'm speaking about my son who.

35:54

Chris Pearlman

Played lacrosse gully too.

35:55

Dave Almy

Okay, so you also, like you mentioned you played soccer and lacrosse in college. Did you play lacrosse like a soccer player or soccer like a lacrosse player?

36:06

Chris Pearlman

I was. Well, let's put it this way. I fancied myself to be certainly a better soccer player than a lacrosse player. I'd say probably on a national level, just because there's probably not as many top level lacrosse. I'm probably a better lacrosse player, which is like, I was a soccer specialist who just happened to be able to play lacrosse, but I was probably better than other lacrosse players. You know, I was never known for my speed in either sport. So, you know, I think my, my slow feet were more of a hindrance in soccer than lacrosse.

36:41

Dave Almy

All right, so we'll call it sort of an equal blend based on the lightning foot speed you brought to the table. How about that? All right. All right. So as someone who deals with national governing bodies for Olympic sports, what advice would you give to the organizers of Modern Pentathlon to Make their sport even more amazing.

37:00

Chris Pearlman

Oof. Boy. Difficult.

37:02

Dave Almy

Hang gliding, maybe.

37:05

Chris Pearlman

Cool. That could be cool.

37:07

Dave Almy

I feel like it's time to mix it up a little bit. Maybe you take the horses out, put hang gliding in. It's a. It's a. It's a. It's a thing for me, everyone. I really want to explore the. The modern pentathon potential.

37:18

Chris Pearlman

Interesting.

37:19

Dave Almy

Okay. Yeah, just. Just file that one away.

37:21

Chris Pearlman

We can have future thought.

37:22

Dave Almy

Okay, next lightning round. For the next version, what city would you award Olympic Games to? That's. Never had them.

37:30

Chris Pearlman

Oh, boy. Geez. New York. That'd be really cool.

37:34

Dave Almy

That would be actually really cool. That would actually be really cool Now. And that brings us to the last one as we're recording this. It's about 25 degrees in New York City today, where you're. Where you're based. So your preference. New York City on the hottest day of the summer or on the coldest day of the winter?

37:52

Chris Pearlman

Hottest day of the summer. I have this conversation with my kids all the time. I'll take hottest day this summer. I know my wife will certainly take coldest day of the winter.

37:59

Dave Almy

Oh, okay. There's some duality there. Understood.

38:03

Chris Pearlman

Yeah. My older son, who's at University of Chicago, we'll take coldest day of the winter by clearly gonna be going to school tonight at Rice. Next year in Houston. We'll take hottest day this summers. He's on my team.

38:16

Dave Almy

You guys got that? Chris Perlman. I really appreciate the time.

38:18

Chris Pearlman

Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it. It was great.