Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP438 Other People's Money - The Sports Tech Market
Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment, with co-host Matt Rogan, co-founder of Two Circles.
Today the subject is sports tech, with our guest Dugald Macdonald co-founder of Sportable.
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Hello and welcome to other people's money. Our regular series on sports investment with my cohost Matt Rogan. Who's co-founder of two circles today. The subject is sports tech. And it's relationship to the investment markets with our guests do gold MacDonald co-founder of Sportable.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:and the question that comes up every single time at the end of the meeting is, can you put it in a golf ball?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yes.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:of course, Pete wants to say, well, the compression in a golf ball is X and it's already good technology. I'm just like elbowing people. I'm like, the answer is yes. The answer is yes. You want people to dream the vision of what as big as it possibly can be. Think the art of the possible is absolutely there. I think
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Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:We're into this series, Other People's Money, I've really enjoyed it because I don't know much about this world. So it allows me to ask almost idiotically simple questions. And we've gone around with, we've looked at private equity and we've talked about the nature of the deal and due diligence and the sort of games that people can play on, around the table. And we keep bumping into what's the sports tech market like. In terms of the, what does it look like from an investment perspective? What types of money are out there and what sorts of decisions need to get made? And what the implications of the source of money are, I think is, again, a question we keep getting asked. Getting back into now, whether that's at an Uber, not Uber literally, but just a bit, the very multi billion dollar end, whether it's a private equity minority partnership into the NFL or whatever it is, through the whole of the marketplace. And then you get to sports tech and the sports tech, there's a lot of excitement. And you can imagine how many press releases someone like me gets sent where they've raised money from somewhere and it's always, there's a sort of cast of people whose names appear on these, things, which are sort of either famous invest, sports investors, acronyms of private equity groups or investment groups, and then some
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It's very rare that you hear the other end of the story in terms of what happened to the investment, but you get, there's always a lot of noise at the beginning. So I'm really fascinated by it. And I just, First of all, I want to say hello, Dugout. Thank you very much.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:for having me.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And as ever, Matt, welcome back.
Matt Rogan:hello. Nice to be here. Looking forward to this one.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, absolutely. And I think we need to kick off with what is sportable because I could do it and you don't want your brand in my hands, frankly. So let's just jump that stage and let's talk about, let's get you talking about what is this thing. Give us a bit of the origin story. Just also what it is and what you want it
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Fantastic. Well, we can, you'll have a glimpse into the, the pitching mindset seeing as we're going to be talking a little bit about that today, but you know, at its core, Sportable is a data and insights business, right? So our key thesis is that there are data hungry stakeholders in sport whether it's in the broadcasting space the betting space, the fantasy sports space, anything that touches on fan experience and deepening the connection with fans, naturally being able to articulate, The performance of players and teams in a meaningful way through statistics, through data or through the associated content that those things generate is gonna be valuable. likewise, you have the players on the field, that human performance element, whether it's at the elite end or at the youth part of the market data, as we know I'm sure one of you is gonna be wearing a device today, whether it's a Fitbit or a Whoop or an Apple watch. it, facilitates competition, whether that's competition with the players around you or competition with yourself, it has become part and parcel as we know of every form of sport. And so naturally we see a lot of value in, in that market, underpinned by, a desire to always want an edge, particularly at the elite level of the market. So being able to celebrate skill and tactical insight through data, is inherently valuable. Our path to getting those insights, our path to becoming the de facto data and insights platform in the team sports environment is slightly different though. If you want to create critical mass on a data and insights platform, you have to have exclusive and valuable data to start with. That's what draws people onto the platform. All underlined by affordability at the end of the day, right? The unit economics have to work. And so for us, our Data Insights business is powered by our own data collection technology, right? So when we were starting Sportable nearly eight years ago, what we observed is that there is no shortage of hunger for data. It's just that the means of collecting it and then distributing it are limited in lack. scalable infrastructure. So what we did is we actually developed our own data collection technology. It's a sensor based technology, RFID to be specific and this sort of manifests itself in a series of beacons. We set up around a field or a stadium so it can be set up in minutes in any training ground or stadium in the world. And then that can collect data from sensors that are embedded on players and embedded in balls. And that allows us to articulate stories around skill, how good you are at kicking, passing, and throwing. We collect data on the spin rate of a ball. The speed, it's location in three dimensions and then we collect data on the players, the same telemetry data. So speed, orientation acceleration and decelerations. And so that tracking system then offloads that data in real time to our analytics engine. An analytics engine then distributes The curated form of that data, right? Raw data around spin and speed is not that interesting. Being able to turn that into something a human being can understand intuitively is key. So we take the raw data, turn it into a statistic like a kick, a pass, a throw, and that really helps them go into a performance lens. You start to aggregate data, right? What was the pass speed over a course of a season? Has it decreased or is it increased? Are our coaching technique working? Or are we using the raw precision data to enforce game rules? So can we take that capability and start to, use it for officiating a ball crossing the line in football? You whether the ball's touched in flight in a game of rugby or a forward pass, which is the so all of that. All of that capability, the technology and the hardware, feeling into a data and insights platform, that's an inherently scalable proposition. We call that a solution in a suitcase. And what we do is we approach teams or leagues with effectively a subscription based model, right? So you're going to pay on a per game basis to access the data for fan engagement. You're going to pay on a per game basis to use it for officiating or for a performance analysis. And then that's how we build a scalable revenue stream. Underlining, our go to market strategy is the fact that we also commercialize the data. So as you can imagine, that's this data while it solves problem is also valuable in a commercial sense. Whether it's for, the gaming community to provide to bring more people into the funnel through exciting new content and widgets or whether it's a sponsorship advert a sponsorship advert. We've all seen, Wimbledon, I think it's done some of the best branding I've seen is on the Hawkeye application in cricket with spec savers so very tongue in cheek, but in, in the world of sports sponsorship today where, you have these multi billion dollar groups, Clamoring to get closer to fans. These are naturally going to be. tech companies and tech companies want to tell data and technology stories. So there's a great application there.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So are they just in that scenario, would they be white labelling your
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Exactly. So you've got to, it's a, it becomes a new naming right within the inventory already held by by a league. So to give you a good example
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:in rugby.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:so in the six nations, our smart balls have been deployed across. Guinness Six Nations, TikTok, and the Autumn Nations Series for the last, nearly two years. But you don't see Sportable there. Those smart balls are providing live statistics to air, graphically represented every time a record kick is achieved. Longest territory gain or longest hang time. And that pops up on the screen as a widget. So. Seconds for hang time, meters for territorial gain, and then it's white labeled by SAGE. So you will recognize that name as, the key the key sponsor in six nations. Now, and really that is a, multi billion market cap software analytics focus on the accounting market, right? So now they're able to tell a technology story, get closer to their audience. In a more meaningful way. So that's been a really successful case study in that and that's effectively underwriting the cost to the league. which can then pass on the benefits of the performance data, the officiating applications in time to, to their officiating groups and to their teams.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So when you're selling if you go into the rights holder, given that Sage case study is a really powerful one, it's really interesting and live. Moment. Which door do you go in? Do you go, because I can see a supply side to your business where you've got the coach performance end of the rights holder or a team getting excited about this, we need this, moaning to the CEO, the competition have got it, blah, blah, blah. But then you've also got the demand side. And then that becomes a commercial question where it's a sage. Activation waiting to happen and the commercial team won it. And quite often when we have people coming on, who are sort of in the supply chain in sport, they quite often get frustrated or confused about which door to go in and they waste a lot of time going in the wrong door. Where, what's your sort of journey on that
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:So I think that the first part to that is, is how do you get to the leagues and the teams? Well, let's focus on leagues because that's where the inherent scale come from, right? So, and the way you can monetize data in, in many ways. So the first step is actually, so we've built a lot of our commercial strategy around our ball partnerships. So I touched on in the introduction, we embed sensor technology into balls. It is, it's not easy, but we've created a patented methodology for doing it in such a way that you don't change the dynamics of the ball. You don't change the weight, you don't change the balance. So you keep the integrity, which is of course key when you're working with the most You know sensitive group of people in the world. These pro athletes can, they can detect the tiniest changes, whether it's acoustic or whether it's actual feel in the hand or from the foot to the equipment they're using, right? I mean, it's, it, they are one of the most sensitive groups of customers on earth. So we've perfected that methodology and it's very valuable, not just in unlocking a data stream for us to then work with our lead customers, but also for the ball manufacturers. We're creating a digital. product out of their analog product. So what once was a rubber or leather product has now got, digital capability, right? And so that's going to be very valuable in our shared customers hands. So they're incentivized to, to work with us, to get into those teams and those leagues, right? So our first step is, working, going hand in glove with those ball manufacturers and having a credible introduction. from one of their credible partners, which in some cases will go back hundreds of years, in terms of the relationship. If you think about a company like Gilbert Rugby, or in your case, Matt Gray Nichols, right? Culturally relevant organizations as much as they are, commercial. So that's our first step. Then the second step is then kind of working with the league And this might happen a little bit beforehand in terms of, sort of our team understanding a different part of the segment, right? So the pyramid a sport. So where we sit, whether it's the elite end in that challenging environment. So we'll sort of have a sense of what's driving adoption there. And then we'll come with them, effectively show them the spokes on the wheel, right? So you've got the spokes, the performance spoke, the officiating spoke, or to be quite frank, the commercial spoke, the revenue generating application. And so it's, it can be varied. So to give you an example, I would say that six nations was a shared was a shared prioritization of the performance data and the commercialization of that data, right? I think those things went hand in hand. And I think generally looking at the market now, I have come full circle to know that the sort of perennial demand And driving force of adoption is around performance. It's just always going to be a key part of what you have to get done to to be successful in the environment. But then there are other environments we've just launched and are coming to the tail end of our first deployment in the AFL W in Australia. Part of the overall umbrella of the AFL, one of the biggest sports leagues in the world incredibly innovative, but they have four or five officiating. So, Problems based around the ball, right? It's much, much like football ball crossing. The line is an issue. A ball touching an opposing player's hand before crossing the line is a big swing on the point six to one point a ball Going over the outs over the top of the post where a human being can't quite detect from the right angle Is a big swing six to one point and it's consistently a highly controversial moment during the season, right? Always big games decided always a lot of fans taking taking to social media. And so that was quite a straightforward one. It was about game integrity. We want to be able to just be able to provide the game with the right level. And then quickly follow behind that is the commercialization because you've started to, educate on the benefit of the technology and naturally it is a fantastic window for a brand, to tell that story. So those are two, two examples of completely different approaches. And then in in American football. Commercialization of data in the gaming space has been our biggest driver at league level. So, that then distills into a team, quite a varied team, I guess, is the next thing for us is who've you got on board to sell? Because there's just so many, there's so many places to do it and you've got to prioritize and that obviously sends a ripple all the way back into your product teams and engineering teams and where you prioritize and, what comes first.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I've just got one question. I'm going to let Matt jump in. Is. Barrier to entry just in terms of the ball manufacturers why they can't do it themselves.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:It's a good question and I think it's it's similar that it's the same question that could be asked of all data and tech I think more broadly in sport is why doesn't AWS do it or Google do it? That's I think that's it's always worth, that's your existential threat in many ways. So specifically to the ball manufacturers, I think the first thing is cultural in the sense that they've built, most of them have built apparel brands, right? That these are consumer focused organizations. They are, of course, harnessing technology in, in, in many ways, but culturally it's not necessarily embedded, right? I think the second thing is obsession over a problem in its, rawest, nichest form and then turning that into a scalable, is not something big corporate organizations necessarily have bandwidth and investment to do, right? Typically what they will do is they will acquire a set of technologies if they think it's going to create a, resilience in their commercial model or if it's got a competitive edge over, one of their, one of their peers in the market. So that's not to say it's not possible. It's certainly been it's been done. A number of the ball manufacturers have launched, Their own sort of, versions of ball tracking technologies typically in the consumer space leveraging that consumer relationship they have. But all of those end up back in a sort of OEM environment where they're working with a technology company behind the scenes, which is great, I think. Anyway, because, you need to leverage every bit of scale when you're a young company. So, I think that's the first one. The second one is IP, being a small business you've got to, you've got to identify your core competencies quickly. So in our case, it wasn't just integrating a sensor into the ball, which we patented. Right? So the key piece that we did was we didn't want to create any disruption to the manufacturing or supply chain for all of these ball manufacturers. So we created a model where they could quickly integrate without changing processes or systems or people, given the sheer spectrum of how balls are made around the world, whether it's India or Vietnam or Ohio in the U. S. So, so that's a key piece of IP. And the second is the ecosystem in which it operates, right? So you've got a tracking system. Of ours, which is set up. It's portable. It's wireless, which is revolutionary in our space because that allows you to be scalable and flexible. So that's another layer that you'd have to go and create. to get to that data and get to that scale. And then you have to have the full value chain. You've got to have the data and analytics engine and then the content applications that bring the data to life. So what I didn't mention is we also have all the software and visualization technologies that can be plugged into broadcast graphics and plugged into teams, their tablets or into their their software infrastructure. So that, I think that's all to say that money and time can do it. But underlying it is, it's your obsession on solving the problem that I think gives you that the defensibility.
Matt Rogan:And Dugout, so you kicked the business off, so you co founded it with somebody in Pete, who has that deep engineering, deep tech background, had worked at NASA so literally rocket scientists. And as you say, it's not an, it, that's a very expensive thing to do. All right. So to talk us through where investment came into that journey for you. So what points did you decide, okay, well, we're running this lean, but now we do need to look at some external funds coming in so we can keep that amazing product hotline you've talked to live and vibrant
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:I think, One of the things we are as a hardware business, right? Whether, it's part of our USP. And as they say in the VC market very creatively, they say hardware is hard, so because you have to manufacture things, it's. Yeah, we'll come to that in a bit. But because you have to manufacture things, you have to create it at, the expensive iterations of hardware. It's so different from creating a software product. We understood immediately that we couldn't fund that ourselves beyond the prototype level. So it was, we were very realistic in the early stages that we had to get funding. I would also say that There was somewhat degree of romance of the idea of going on the road and pitching and raising, venture capital and doing a grand tour, so, I think we got into it quite early. We probably spent a year in 2015 doing the prototypes in our spare time. So while we were doing our day jobs And then early 2000, late 2015, early 2016, we sort of hit the road. And UK was actually our first stop. We met a great group of early stage sort of angel investors in the sports. Media and technology space. One of them I know I can mention Aiden Cooney, who's the founder of Opta. He was our first investor alongside one of his early partners, Rob Lowe, and they gave us the credibility. They gave us the confidence and that little injection of capital just to get us on the way.
Matt Rogan:and that, at that point, what are they buying? They're buying, so they're buying a finished prototype or are they buying two really capable people with a dream and a belief they can make something Are you just good at selling?
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:And I hope that Aidan and Rob agree with me on that, but yeah, I think if I look back on it now, the beginning of our business, and this is traced back to how we started. So, you mentioned Pete and his great pedigree in engineering. Actually, the idea started while he was working for NASA. In the US, he was working in Idaho and as we all know, Idaho is a big hockey country, so in his downtime, he was watching an ice hockey ice hockey game, and he he saw a huge body check on the ice and he thought, would that kill me? And instead of stopping there he was, they started to work out from first principles, the magnitude of impact. And they used that sort of as a computational comparison, which was boxing punch versus hockey versus rugby scrum versus a SpaceX rocket taking off on a launch pad. And that was, that's, I think, the very human that you sort of desire is creating reference points, particularly in sports. And so he told me this, and it was amazing, sort of. Moment for me, which was why, why don't I know how hard my favorite rugby players are smashing each other. I was thinking circus hammer up lights on TV. And we haven't got to that, but that was the initial idea was can we capture impact and that actually then was the thread that we pulled on, which is. Well, if this is a really meaningful set of data, whether it's on the fan side or on the health and safety side, what else is missing? And so our big realization was that the underlying approach to collecting data at scale wasn't being, there wasn't enough attention on it in sport. Typically what was happening was tech coming from off the shelf from other industries to be retrofitted.
Matt Rogan:And so you're telling that story to Aiden, he's seeing your capable people, and I guess he's sort of buying it, buying into the fact that you two together can
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah, and I think that was the, he then challenged us and Rob challenged us with two, two further things, which was, okay, that on its, niche offerings on their own are just going to be. Same, but different to where the industry is. It still is today to someone. It's just kind of a myopic focus on one problem. So they challenged us to focus on two things. One was, can you actually collect the data from multiple sources? So ball player, so to be able to synthesize a one stop shop, so to speak. And can you do it in crowded environments of 80, 000 people in a stadium? That was something at the time it's become more and more commonplace now to do, but. Seven years ago, that was a real challenge in collecting data from biometric sources, right? You have a lot of interferences, as we all know and even the best stadiums in the world still. Wi Fi connectivity, it's an RF catastrophe.
Matt Rogan:And so by the next time then, so you're doing your prototype, you answer yes to their challenges, I'm assuming. And then. You decide, okay, we've got a prototype. We know it works. We've got some believers in the UK industry. When do you next go out for investment? And what's the premise behind that? Is it about we've got a viable model now we need to scale it? What was the
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:So, we always, well, we always, it was always about where do you start in sports and I think our DNA is in rugby. I think if you look at our business it, a lot of it's associated with the rugby market and it was very intentional as a place where it's really difficult to collect technology and it's very difficult to do it really affordably, right? So that was a big, that was a big choice for us to start. So as a next step, it was, where do you go improve all of those kind of key things? You can deliver the data in real time. The data is accurate and you can show it in a kind of commercial sense. And so we did. Our first sort of milestone was can we do it in a big stadium that's indicative of the largest in the world and can you do it with a lot of people? And so we picked it was the varsity match, Oxford and Cambridge 2016 or 2017. That gave us that case study and we had a, we actually just, we took one of the boxes, we brought a bunch of people from within the industry. And we were porting all the live data onto a really fun user interface showing the players in real time, which at that time hadn't been done outside of like the NFL. So this is on a very affordable pop up in installation. And it was a sort of seeing is believing type of trial. So that was the first major moment. And then it was, okay, we've proved the concept. Now we need to go and raise money. And we did a two and a half million pound raise from, their wider angel, angel network.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I just got a quick question on at this stage, just so while we capture it while we're here, Is. your projections of what the size of the potential market was, the projections of your place in the market as defined and looking back, were they accurate and does it matter? I guess is my question. So again, we get a lot of people coming on and saying, well, the TAM is blah, blah, blah. How, just talk me through that. How you, when you look back on those, how accurate were they and were they?
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:I think from addressable market perspective, Even we've been surprised about how quickly the market's grown because I think one, underscored by COVID that, the desire to diversify from a revenue perspective. And two, I think the conversions of other major technology streaming technologies certainly, allowed us platforms to democratize statistics and data and content more broadly. So there's been an acceleration, I think, in, the accessibility of this stuff, which means your market's going to get bigger than necessarily the numbers you can count in a direct in a direct model. In terms of our accuracy of predicting our success on that, I think, I'm not going to say it publicly that I was very accurate because in early stage business, you typically tend to miss, your lofty targets early on. But I think that certainly we've come back to that in a big way though. So, the early stages was exploration, trying to find that fit experimenting with different models in different segments. And in that sense, we were quite lucky in being able to. Articulate the end story and the necessity of investing in the technology and needing to keep doubling down on that, right? Because particularly in our space, and you use that word expensive, Matt, it is expensive. So you've got to, you've got to be able to show light at the tunnel, but at the end of the tunnel, but Sometimes, that's not necessarily best proved through revenue or top line. It's best shown through a really core engagement with a particular customer. That is that you can show is a scalable customer group as well. And so, in terms of that traction, we started in rugby and that naturally made the business look small because rugby is a smaller addressable market, no matter which way you cut it. But! The credibility of building a very robust product, whether it's that ball integration method, whether it's, the reliability of the data going into sensitive stakeholders like broadcasting companies. Having done that on big stages meant that when we got to really large markets, whether it was, it's the football, we're six months into our, I'll go to market there American football, where we're 12 months in, it's given our customers a lot of confidence. So we've caught up a lot of that. Those, that early stage those early stage misses.
Matt Rogan:So if I hear you, if I can just talk that back, I think you spent the two and a half million scaling and building a really credible model in rugby. And then was the point in terms of saying, right, there's a broader opportunity here in other sports and therefore other geographies, if you think about something like American football. And that was the point we went out again to find the next level of funding. And didn't you look external to the UK as
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yes. So I think, yeah, so then we obviously had the COVID speed bump which came along you, nothing you can do to plan for that. But in many ways, good for the business because it gave us a little bit more cloud cover to go and develop the products and move further along and mature those with, without. No one could expect you to really turn up, a massive return in that environment. So, so that, that was a key moment I think for us. And then, yeah, and then that was it, right? It was taking that, that, that package, that product market fit story, and also being able to talk to the later stage investors and saying, guys, The tech risk is behind, right? That's the, especially in that hardware thing. It's so binary of whether it works or it doesn't. And then your catch up periods can be up to 18 months if you've got a problem that, that, that doesn't, that isn't immediately solved. So taking that and then, Really going and saying, well, where is the capital availability going to come from? That's something I'm really conscious of coming from a private equity background is, fundraising is a sales game at the end of the day. It's volume, right? So being strategic and having a presence in the right markets and talking to the right audiences where you're going to have a probability, a higher probability of success is critical. So we really pushed ourselves, I think globally to look where sports tech had high penetration, where it was easier to tell the story and be understood in an environment. I think that's a challenge in a young market like sports tech category. Leadership is hard to prove. And that's why I think coming to that your intro point, which is like, it's, It is underinvested because most investors are sort of standing back. So we were very deliberate. We found great strategic groups Ryan sports ventures in the US three great partners with very complimentary skill sets, very strong ties into the sports ecosystem. So they tick, the those boxes of. Market access and network, which is crucial because you want to get those early stage customers that validate your model and two also going to be a great signal to new investors coming in. And the same could be said in Australia, which is smaller regional addressable market, but actually has an incredible. History of incubating some of the biggest sports tech companies in the world today. So, 15 capital is one of those ones. That, that backed us from an early stage. And so you use those as your sort of anchor points. And they give, when you're not talking to, to, to the true money markets, they're going to give that key piece of, that, that validation that, someone who can't really get their teeth in, don't have time to get, VC doesn't have a time to really get to know your industry, right? And especially ours, which is not yet thematic for most VCs. So it's, very intentional on that side
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I was going to ask you about the difference between talking to sort of specialist sports investors and the generalists and what the assumptions are of the generalists about sport good and bad, and whether that's advantageous or disadvantageous to you when you're, raising money. You know what? Is there a difference? How do they project onto the sector? Because obviously it's a broader point than sportable, but they're looking at sports
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:I think it's changed fundamentally. I mean, it's night and day from when we started to where we are now, right? There's now an established investment ecosystem. I think at our level it's still tiny compared to the global sports investing market, but sorry, investment market. But generally I would say in my experience is that it is, It's always, I've seen a few of these, or how are you different to X, Y, Z? And that's the reaction, is there is a, in, in, Everyone intuitively understands the value, not just of what we're creating, but the space in which we're in, which we're operating. And that's why a lot of everyone's getting into sports. But once they start digging, it's very hard to point to peer companies who've had those multi billion dollar exits in the tech space, on a data collection and a data analysis. Front, you've got maybe two companies that have reached a billion on a market cap basis, so if you continue, if you're comparing yourself to FinTech valuations and businesses around the world, it's, it's tiny. And that's what these guys, a lot of these those VCs are looking for. So
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So who are those two?
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Well, that would be,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Who are the
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:That would be, I suppose your genius sports and a sport radar and as data businesses inherently data businesses are, I think one and a half and two and a half at last look Hawkeye harder to say, but you know, because of its ownership by Sony, but I think would naturally be close to the billion mark if it was a standalone. So you've got. examples of that trajectory, but it's not I think what, if I were to simplify it, you need to be when you're in the rooms of the VC, it needs to be one plus one equals 10 billion. It has to be so simple of who the customer is, how many of them and assuming you're only going to get 5 percent of them, are we going to make You know, at least a 10x on this 10 million, 100 million investment we're going to make. And I think sport it's very hard to show that, certainly on the technology between the four white lines, outside of that in the, Matt, in your space, in the fan data environment. I think that's probably a lot easier because it's a more direct link to a large consumer base. But my experience is that the traditional VC community finds it opaque. It's hard to really break down and establish what the, the major winners are going to be.
Matt Rogan:It's really interesting Dugout, actually, in terms of sort of where the fan engagement Sports tech sits at the moment. I suspect what's happened in the last five, six years is with a lot of frothy capital, probably best described as a lot of fan engagement, sports tech businesses have been invested in under the premise that they are that, their technology. And as their business models have matured, they've started to realize actually, they're not just technology. They need people and it's a technology enabled service in terms of fan engagement that delivering to the clubs, the leagues, uh, and so on. And what that means is they can't sustain as they scale the kind of tech driven valuations that they've generated from their first and second investment rounds. And the investors are thinking, well, we've kind of overpaid for this house now and this mortgage that we've borrowed against to buy this house. So I think it's a really challenging time actually. In the fan engagement side wearing my UK Sports Institute hat. I see a lot of the sort of performance tech start point businesses. I think it's a lot more interesting and vibrant in there at the moment. Actually, that is in the commercial side where I think there's a, it's a bit of a moment of reckoning going on.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:that is, it's, that is certainly interesting. And I've come full circle just in our space. I'm cautious of trying to talk more generally than my own experience, but the, I always thought certainly from an investor perspective is always the more captivating story. And I also thought from attraction perspective, talking about fan engagements monetizing fans. It always resonated with me as the. Or scalable side, right? It just naturally, that's where the money is associated with sport. But in terms of driving adoption, I think, to, to use that word again, perennial, it is the teams, it is the coaches, it is the players actually that are, one, they're driving things forward. They are just, they have a voracious appetite for an edge. And as a result, they're always going to push the boundaries. And the flip side of that is in our case. You can't be a commercial proposition and expect teams and players and coaches to adopt something if they don't think there's a benefit for them or if they think it's gonna, if it has any impact on on, on their performance. And I mean, impact doesn't necessarily mean it to be like how they play. It's, do they have to spend five minutes even thinking about this in the buildup? To a crucial game on the weekend that if it alters that preparation line, it's out. And so I think that's what's been a crucial, uh, uh, mindset change for me particularly. And also I've got great guys on the team who've kind of helped me come back to that, who've been more. Who really see that as the bottom up game building, a strong foundation for the business when that, when the real commercialization can take place.
Matt Rogan:It's funny, like if I think back to Two Circles, people always said to us, well, why are you building your business around tickets when sponsorship checks are bigger and broadcast checks are bigger? But the reality is, broadcasters come and go, sponsors come and go, there will always be games that need tickets to be sold and that's so, what you need to build a, any kind of tech enabled proposition is as close as possible to 100 percent client retention. And so being closer to the game day, actually, for us was the easiest way to do it. How do you,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:got just a, I just think there's a nice build, just, I've got a question about, you've mentioned there about the difference between, a tech business and a tech plus people, or, a consulting type layer or whatever it is the relative values. There's also a B2B. B2C question that I've got, which is about, sports tech, quite often your head goes to, okay, it's a whoop or it's a wearable. And, I interviewed Kevin Kelly about 15 years ago. And he was talking about the quantified self, all of that. And that was, there's a lot of excitement in the generalist market there. I used to wear a Nike fuel band. I don't know about you, but you know, that was and that didn't spin off much data for me, but what's your view?'cause I could easily see if someone came in and said, right, okay, I'm, we're gonna give you a check. But we need it to be in High Street stores. We want it in every ball. We want it Adidas, Nike. We want to do that route. Has that ever been a conversation? Have you been very narrowly focused on a B two Bs? Route and just, let's just talk for a minute about that sports tech bit of the thing, cause that's where a lot of the excitement is, but it's also where I imagine there's a lot of,
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:of broken dreams.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah. I'm smiling because when, uh, when my team hear this, they're all gonna, they're all gonna laugh, particularly Pete, because there's a good analogy where we get we talk the business through in these presentations. It's me and Pete. I'm the, the commercial the, uh, CEO. He's the CTO. So he's talking about the technology and the question that comes up every single time at the end of the meeting is, can you put it in a golf ball?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yes.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:of course, Pete wants to say, well, the compression in a golf ball is X and it's already good technology. I'm just like elbowing people. I'm like, the answer is yes. The answer is yes. Don't you? You want to, you want people to dream the vision of what as big as it possibly can be. And I think so that's, uh, in answer to your question. I think the art of the possible is absolutely there. I think the practical approach for me is coming back to that sort of, where does the rubber hit the road in this environment? For me, the gatekeepers are always your teams and your leagues. And so you want to create that relationship for them, for anything that's going to be consumer facing, right? So if you wanted to do a ball, it's official ball. You don't do a sportable ball. Uh, with a ball partner, you do the official ball of the AFL into the grassroots so that they can compare that player, your kick against your favorite player's kick, favorite pun, okay? That's, for me, that's where the, certainly the blue sky for our business is. And so whether that's on a strictly B2C, where I'm going to sell a device that's endorsed by the AFL and there's an app and you can compare against your player, or it's going to be in a sort of B2B2C layer where we're only licensing the data that technology is built into your local club or your local school. That's still the fork in the road that will come. But that is, Naturally, you have to be looking towards that last place of scale, and that is the inevitable place. I think that's the youth sports, market connecting, the bottom of the pyramid with the top of the pyramid is key. Particularly in the Data is an inherently licensable product. Like it's an a licensable, right, in the same way that, uh, it's currently licensed, to a broadcaster or to a betting company. Being able to license the speed of a pass or a kick down so a young player can compare it on their own device is the ultimate vision for us.
Matt Rogan:does strike me as the conversation we have with Phoenix Private Equity are really clear with us that Don't just try everything that might be the future possibility of the product and half do them. Keep some stuff under the table for the next exit journey or the next investor to come through in terms of, what the next horizon might be for the business.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:If you're sitting on a findable golf ball, then, I'm going to come around your house and, he's saving a fortune, but if that's it, there feel, it feels like, well, that's a huge. Part of the business. And it's quite interesting. I mean, in terms of the speed at which you want to get there. Is this a worry about overpromising in terms of going, when you go to the D2C market, when you get to idiots like me who want everything all the time, as soon as possible, that is going to be problematic? Or is it just a scale? Is it a physical scale thing? Or is it politics of Titleist ain't going to let you do that anytime soon? Because they're selling balls.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Well, I think in that particular case, yes, that's where the harmonious relationship with your ball partner comes to a screeching halt because you're cutting into their, uh, you're cutting into their sales. I think yeah, you have to be very cautious, especially about that sort of thing. That the promised land of what in our case, what you sports is always is presented to be. But I think you've got to think about these things in stages and what, what do you, what would you achieve now? What is my core focus as a business now? It's market share growth. Why? Because it creates. Large data sets, historical data sets that can be monetized many times. And it grows year on year. So that's where the inherent profitability of our business comes from. Right? So that market share then lends itself naturally to being in an position to say, okay, can we create the equivalent data set in a layer below? Whether that's in the challenger market outside of the league or whether that's in a youth sports league and are there models for us to follow that have already been achieved successfully? So if you look at what I think you would need to do there, which is a sort of a land and expand model where you're giving the technology. So you're not fighting, you're not selling devices into a basket of goods in a household where, I don't know how Matt's kids are, but where they are now competing against a whoop or a Fitbit or a, or Xbox game. You're just selling the data. So it's part of the infrastructure of that sport. And there are businesses that have done that successfully using other technologies. So if you think of Pixalot and Veo as examples, they are, or Huddle it's video being, mass. It's the video technology. The actual collection of cameras is being given away effectively, and then they're monetizing a subscription to come onto the platform. So we are cautiously standing back and saying, what are the future? What are the winning, uh, approaches here? How do we have to be very cautious of unit economics because we actually make something. And then what is the most effective way to do it? Because just like with the ball manufacturers, there are much easier ways to get to scale than having to fight for every single customer yourself. So who are the groups that have a vested interest to have automated statistics, uh, and contents on their platforms or in their systems? to give them that extra edge, uh, in the market. And so can we operate through those guys? So being in the pro sports market now gives us a chance to build credibility, to prove trust, to prove value in the data that we're doing. And in the, in parallel work on that larger land and expand model work on economies of scale around the underlying technology, but always thinking of, I've got to monetize, I've got to spread the costs. Got to spread this cost of hardware over as many people and as many uses as possible that's core to how we approach it.
Matt Rogan:best example of that. I always come back to is the fact that on my 18th birthday, uh, Gillette sent me a razor and kind of four razor blades.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah.
Matt Rogan:31 years later, I still use a Gillette razor because I've, to this point, way too lazy to go and try other lasers. It's just, and they were significantly better than the, cheap bit ones my dad gave me when I was 16 and started needing to actually use a razor and I've never gone back. So Gillette have been able to amortize the cost of their razor over 31 years of me buying razor blades off which
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I guess there's a risk thing, isn't there? I mean, it's analogous with your example there about the sage. Rugby, you're white labeled, you go along, you're doing it, and then someone else is doing the marketing the, that bit at the front end, which as we all know is expensive, takes a long time is risky. It's not a game that you don't, if you don't need to be in it, you probably don't want to be in it.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah. No, I think so. I think that Yeah, that's inherently a question You're always asking is what where your name sits in all of this and how you get that brand reputation That's where your question was going rich
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, it's a sort of Intel position that you're building.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah, and that's really, you don't get that reinforced moment. A lot of my investors I got I'll give you an example. I got messages saying, I didn't know Sage made smart balls or they, I didn't know they were competitors of us. And, uh, it was, uh, and it's, It is funny, but it's also not funny because it, it shows that you're just nowhere near building yourself in at a marketing level, which is so crucial. I think then you've got to ask yourself, well, what problem are you trying to solve? And for us, the problem we're solving is creating revenue for the partner. I just need to be able to make sure that that story is heard by the right audience and I think going back to fundraising and getting being successful in fundraising is where we've become good at it is when we've acknowledged really who we are and what our core competency is and really like really getting into articulating that value prop. So we're going through a brand re foundation exercise that you guys, will do well, but. We had on there initially, we are we give, it's the fans, it's the, and I was, and actually we don't talk to fans. We talk to technology companies in sport. We talk to the leagues directly. We do talk to the coaches and the teams, not really to the players. So is there's a reckoning where you have to be sort of, right. Okay. Maybe that really cool identity. That you have in your mind or that the investor wants to think of because it's that scale. That's not who you are. But you there's plenty once you focus, you actually start to become, I think, more successful and just say, right, that's the real problem we're solving.
Matt Rogan:You talked, if I could just. Quickly, I really wrote down when you said it, what we get from our investors currently, and I think it was in the context of Ryan, you mentioned, we get complimentary skill sets and market access and network. So what are the skill sets they've brought into your organization you didn't have? What are the mirrors they're holding up to? We go, actually, yeah, we've got to improve in this space now, if we're really going to be one of those billion dollar businesses,
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:I think so. So on a strategic level there's a market credibility and understanding piece that you can bridge, right? So I think as a list, let's maybe it's not the right way, but as a rest of world company, like that's how they deem us in the U S how do you need to become, it's that age old thing, whether it's music or whatever it is, but to make it, you've got to look and feel like that. And I think that's that, it's being able to. pull back the layers of the real truth of the relationships, the processes, the regulation. And so that's, that credibility allows you to sidestep first order mistakes that cost you dearly. And hiring is a good example of that. How do you leverage people who know the industry and know the skill sets required to really execute well. That, that's a nice, um, that's a really important part of getting sort of culturally embedded, I'd say, and then, but I'd also say that's on the strategic side, there's another full swing, and I think a big change to us in our last, in our pre, our recent Series A has been the addition of, die in the will, uh, VCs, Venture Capital Business, and they have brought a really clear focus on financial governance, uh, and transparency and financial systems. That is also, that's a nice counterbalance, I think, uh, which is, you're building a business, really, how are you going to make it methodical, what does the sales engine look like, um, how do we create accountability, not just for you as the leader, but for you and the rest of the team in the organization and so those two things side by side, I felt right now we've got a, an amazing mix we feel potent.
Matt Rogan:I think that's so much the public service announcement part of the podcast, but I think that's so fundamental. Just talk to so many people in the UK and the States who have gone with sports specific. Investment route on the basis of, market connections and market access. But being promised that by people who haven't grown a business in their lives and actually just spent their careers talking a big game, so, so they haven't got the market access they've been promised, but, and they've learned nothing because they haven't been, the investor hasn't been through the journey before in terms of all that discipline and skill and things you talk about in the context of the venture capital investor. So if you can have a balance of both, that to me seems a. A good blend to point to at Series A.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Let's talk about the bubble question, because I think whenever it's almost become a, a cliche that when you get to sports tech as the sports tech conversation, because it's a sports tech bubble. I mean, I'm interested in bubbles generally. And just in terms of, how they develop and the sort of psychological aspect to it, what does it look like from your point of view? cause there's, the question is, has it burst? If it was one, is it still one? And, but just give me a sense of where you are in that.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:yeah, I think it's certainly been tempered. I think the last 12 months, particularly, we've with interest rates running up, you haven't the ability to raise money easily. Has definitely put the brakes on, let's say bubble level investing. I've certainly in our sector, right? You've got a lot of young businesses that are struggling to raise money. Cause it's become so much harder to access that capital. And because, people are scrutinizing it against other investments, whether you're a family office, uh, or whether you're a VC The tone changes, which is, oh yeah, we'll put the money in. It's like, no, who's your lead investor? Who's reading that around? Everything, our profitability is now our big KPI again, so I think that's the natural macro environment has certainly just put the brakes on, uh, I think enough for it not to be something that's a sort of runaway train. In our space, I don't see. I don't see a bubble of crazy investments in the reckless kind that you'd see on front page news, and I think that's always a precursor, right, when you're, like, the NFT trend type of stuff, not that I'm criticizing, but that's where you go into, it's when that comes crashing down and people's hands are really burnt that I think you've got, that's the bubble bursting, and that's bad for everyone. So, I think we're in a. Sort of in a stabilized place. And in the next six months I think we're going to have a slower rebound than people have probably anticipated 12 months ago. That's been stretched. So, yeah, I think it's tempered at the moment. I wouldn't say this. I don't see lots of money flying in, not in our space, certainly. And I don't see I look around at our peer companies, the leaders in the space I don't see, uh, I don't see behavior that, that suggests that people are well over promising beyond what their products can do, what the market's ready to adopt. So, I'm, I'm fine with our kind of, our trend as it is, but I think What I would, what I am, let's say worried about is the sport bubble, uh, more generally, and it's not something I'm an expert on, and so would be hesitant to talk about, but a couple of books written in the last six months, I think are well publicized. It's a topic on, on, on a lot of podcasts that, that I, that I listened to. So it's those those headwinds of. On sports, broadcast deals, all that sort of stuff, which I'm not an expert in, but that's what would worry me as being the bubble type of thing. The knock on effects of those mainstays of the of the economy, of the sports economy going down, that then really hammers the rest of us.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:One of the things that sort of encourages people is the celebrity investor we mentioned at the beginning and in sport. And this is, this is a question about the States as it is, probably more than it is here, but it's obviously happening here as well. But then when you see I was having a conversation with Lalit Modi. About cricket and in the IPL. And he then shared, just the uplift in player salaries in the IPL this time around. And you've got the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, again, a massive uptick in their media rights from 25 billion to 75 billion. Now that money, there's a question here that what happens to that money when it gets to the players and then it seems to then go through the players into Sports tech and investments and they are becoming investors in their own right. Some are very good. Apparently I've never, people mentioned Kevin Durant. I've no line on whether that, you know what he's good at, but he seems he gets a good reputation. Others are just being ripped off. It's like a version of the old footballers pub, they're just the money goes and they lose it. And then, whatever. So you can sort of see that it's a market like any other, but one of the recipients of this money is this is the sports tech area, because it's sexy, because it's it, they think they know And they, they, what, they put their face to it. I never quite know what the nature of the deal is and whether how much money is involved in their trading celebrity VIK for actual money. And what, how much benefit that actually brings rather than, there's a halo perhaps again, what's the sense there. In terms of just that relationship, because again, you mentioned there about the sort of, there are big question marks and we all know what they are in terms of media rights valuations in terms of going forward, but there's still a very large amount of money coming into the industry and quite a bit of it is going to head in to your sector at some point.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:yeah. I would say so. I think it's I think that the key, uh, underpinning those investments is influence, how they can influence the outcome of the business using using that, that, that IP as you describe it. Again, yeah, I think there's always the great announcement, what the type of deal was and how much equity the founders gave away to, to get the name on board. It's certainly not a cash at a market rate value, right? That's, we know that. It's still, I would still question how much of that percentage, of a hundred million salary is going into the sports environment versus going into a typical investment vehicle being led by the best investment houses. Uh, if you were to use your MBA example in the US is a large percent of that going back into sport or is that the speculative 10%? Yeah. I don't know. I've certainly in our peer groups around here, we're not, I don't see a lot of investment and I don't see a lot of huge amount of capital, certainly not in the early stage to Series A. I think you see that more as a As larger syndicates of investment getting into those scale up growth stage businesses. I think that's where the weight really can be added. And pull together that, that network effect that, a great name will bring on board. So, yeah I for me, the jury is still out on that. And also how important is it? It is, it would be my would be my question. If I was looking at, diluting my shareholding for a for someone coming and what, how much, how can I measure that ROI? And again I bring it, it comes all the way back to your other question, Rich, which is, where do VCs see, how do they look at your market? How they look at the space, how investable, what's the capital availability. And I think if it requires an individual to create a network effect, an individual to define, create a binary outcome on success. Or at least influence it heavily, you don't have a multi billion dollar business, right? If they're buying it at market rate like everyone else and they're clamoring to get in, because they've got FOMO that's a different, that's a different factor altogether. But, uh, yeah I'd say, the biggest investment houses, and we all know the household names, the Axels or the Sequoias. They don't require that, right? They just, they want to see, uh, a founding team that can just execute, uh, exponential growth with no regulatory barrier, no political barrier that's, that, that's the key. That's what you've got to come back to.
Matt Rogan:I think the athlete space, we're only just beginning to understand how to make the most of athletes to grow the size of the sports bubble. It's really interesting seeing WSL's new deal yesterday, where they've actively sought to engage the female footballers themselves with providing content to help. beyond traditional rights so that they can grow the value of the league as a whole. And with the right education, I could see them being fantastic ambassadors in that regard in the same way that UK sport has worked very differently with British Paralympic and Olympic athletes, uh, in the last cycle to tell different stories. And I think you'd need to be crystal clear to your point, Dugout, on what value is it we're actually looking for these athletes from beyond, if there's any kind of discount on the sort of regular value of the equity that we're giving away, then what's the tangible value that goes against it? There are some examples I think Andy Murray's done a couple where he has a very clear and focused role that he's adding. And I've talked to a couple of the founders of the businesses that have said he's had it, but he needs to be really clear where that is and holds an elite athlete to account like you'd hold anyone else to account.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Yeah, absolutely. But I think it, it can only benefit the industry if, those athletes are involved and engaged and have, uh, have skin in the game on the other side, I suppose, not that they don't have enough skin in the game, they've got plenty on the line, but I think it, it, it sort of, it creates that commitment around, uh, the ecosystem too. So I do see your point there, Matt.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right. I'm just going to sort of head us towards the end. And I've got a question here, cause it's interesting where you've got, you've and thank you for sharing the story. Cause it's really interesting, the stages and the levels and the different types of money. Come into a business over time. I've got a question. I was wondering about when you felt most vulnerable because all of this is about balancing risk. And reward and taking money in, taking a bet on the next stage. What do you think? Where, and COVID, you're not allowed to say COVID cause that's, it's too obvious an answer.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:I think there's, uh, there's financial vulnerability. There's your own personal career vulnerability are probably the two areas that I go to. So financial vulnerability, we've, we've all been there. You've all, we've all had one month, the runway. I think you have to, that's just about stealing yourself and your, ability to go and, execute and get the remaining capital to close your rounds, et cetera, et cetera. And so, I've had those moments. I think probably most vulnerable I've ever felt is in, uh, Because I'm not on the technology and product side, I'm on the commercial side, there have been those lulls, particularly brought on by a hardware based business, where you're waiting to deploy, waiting to get into the game with the customer, you're waiting to make money, you start, you're waiting to show investors. That curve and that the models working and that's been the hardest moment. Those are the hardest moments for me. And this is, three, three, three or so years ago would probably where that was most pronounced, which is the, what the hell am I doing with my life question? Right? And I'm sure Pete has had, I know he's had the others, but he's in right in the middle of doing right. And I'm supposed he might have the same because as the product gets more boring and stable and replicable and scalable, it's less of the innovation to do, so maybe he's going to have a crisis
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So do you think he has, he feels a greater sense of control in those moments than you do? Do you think, is that, do you think he's less stressed because he thinks, okay, I've got this, I've got, it's something, it's within my power to do something, whether it works or not.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Absolutely. I think particularly with him is, he's a master of pulling rabbits out of hats too, from a tech perspective, right? There's almost his engineering pedigree spans from mechanical engineering to nuclear engineering. So his ability to. Dive into a problem, whether it's on the analytics side or on the hardware side. Even in the deployment of the technology side, he just, he can master it. And he's got a, uh, uh, an engine that goes far beyond most people. So I think there's, there, there is a, there's a comfort in that. And being able to execute and just find and solve solve, solve problems, whereas I'm less, so I'm all about, I'm almost entirely about the outcome, and so if we're not getting to the outcome or I don't feel like we're getting to the outcome it's, uh, there's a great deal of anxiety
Matt Rogan:I mean, look, the three of us have all been gainfully employed by other people, haven't we? And we've all chosen to set our own thing up. And for me, at least, and what sounds like for you, Dugout, and I think I know you're rich, for you as well, that ultimately it's because we want control.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah,
Matt Rogan:And whenever we put an example in environments where we don't have that control whether it's a business deal or whatever. That's where I feel the stress and the angst did through the whole two circles journey and still do. Entrepreneurs struggle, I think, with a lack of control, which is why we've got to get the investment deal right.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Exactly. That's the cash and the capital is the oxygen to get yourself to that point of stability. It's a big thing, actually, that control piece, Matt, in terms of, I won't say our interviewing process, but certainly in, in like the way that we talk to our team and the way we interact with them is a heavy emphasis of being able to operate without. All of the information and all of those controls and, uh, just prioritize speed and making, decisions without having the complete picture, which is hard for anyone. It's very hard for scrupulous engineers, particularly, so, getting that, getting the right balance of the checks and balances of that decision making is good, but it's certainly a cultural thing that you have to get right in the early days. So I think we've got a good balance there and I will. Make the note that I don't have this, the vulnerability has left. Now the vulnerability and anxiety is, are we going to meet the potential of the business? Is it going to be is it going to be what
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:something's got to keep you up at night.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Exactly. Yeah. Actors not,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It's got to be something. It might as well be that.
Matt Rogan:had a baby six weeks ago. So it's probably that.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, well,
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:much space for worry between those two feeds.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:puts a few things in perspective. Listen, Dugout, thanks you very much for your time. Really appreciate
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Oh, thanks guys. It was great.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And thanks Matt, as ever, till the next time. Other people's money.
Matt Rogan:Pleasure. See you soon.
Dugald Macdonald, Sportable:Cheers guys. See you soon.