Inside the future of the CEBL with founder Richard Petko

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to the Canadian basketball show. Your go to spot for the latest news stories and analysis on Canadian basketball. I'm your host Lee Ban Osman. We got a good guest joining us in studio. Some may know who he is but a lot of the work he does is behind the scenes, behind the curtains. It's the owner of the Niagara River Lions and one of the founders of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. Welcome to the show, Richard Pekka. How you doing? [00:00:32] Speaker B: I'm good. Thanks for the invite. I feel like the wizard of Oz now when you say that working behind the curtain, pulling the strings, pulling the strings and you find a little old shrivel old man. [00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you brought the league what, almost nine years ago. The CBO exists because of you. You Mike Morale founded it, I think was it 2017, October was when you guys announced it officially and I wanted to have you on just talk about like the nitty gritty of like business in basketball in Canada, owning a franchise, bringing a whole league to this country and yeah, like did you even like think nine years to this date, like the league would grow to this point, [00:01:09] Speaker B: you know what the division and the dream was there and honestly had no idea where it was going to end up. I, I thought when we started it we had, you know, it was a small core of people involved. I thought we had the right people because we had business minded people, not just basketball minded people. And you know, I was like, you know, we want to have 10 teams, 12 teams go coast to coast, big cities etc, and we're almost there. And like you said, this is season eight right now. And it came fast. It came, you know, we had a boom. We had it. Ottawa, Montreal moved Guelph to Calgary came on and then Winnipeg was a big addition and, and we're there now and a couple, you know, we had. The Ottawa team is owned by an Australian guy. I don't know if you know that an Australian sports group audit. They're the owners. You know, Montreal is owned by. They live in Montreal. He's a Quebecer and. But a guy from France whose grandfather and father owns the right chole I think is the name of the team in first division France. Yeah, he came, immigrated to Canada. He runs a little business there and he's like, he got into the league. So we have international owners. We have. All the big cities are basically covered, to be honest with you. There's a few larger markets, Quebec City out there. You know, downtown Toronto would be a dream. We were talking earlier but where to play is really tough. [00:02:40] Speaker A: The raptors obviously. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Wow. Man. If the Raptor just said we want to have, we'll shut down 905, we'll put a team in downtown Toronto, we'll run it out of Coca Cola or whatever and be amazing news. Because having something like that behind you, financial backing knowledge, backing tribal knowledge, be unbelievable. But. So we've gone a lot. We've gone very far. We got a long way to go still. But our goal has always been to grow and our goal has always been to be around in 20 years and 30 years to have that Wikipedia there that somebody's looking in 2050 and at CBO they'll see there and you know, maybe they'll see that little thing founded by Richard Peko. Obviously they won't know who that is, but, but it'll be wow. And 25, 30 years of champions. On the, on the results. [00:03:29] Speaker A: Do you feel like 20, 30 years is attainable at this point? Like where you guys are at eight years, the way the, the CBL is run right now? Yeah. [00:03:36] Speaker B: So the, the issue with pro sports in Canada, not just basketball, is you lose money, right? You have to grow the product. You have to create fandom. You have to be crucial big in your, you have to be community based. There's no doubt about it. You can break even, you can make money, you can lose money. Junior hockey, there's 60 junior hockey teams in the CHL around through Canada. Between the OHL, who I know a foray fact, maybe 15 make money every year. All these teams are in their 70th year, 80th year. So you have down years, you have break even years, you have positive years. You need that like the fire in the hearth and earth is the word. I'm not sure, but you need that fire in there. An owner who's willing to sometimes lose money, but also build the product, build the fan base, build the fandom. And I think right now we do have a group of owners that is dedicated to the game and is dedicated to the business. Me personally, you know, I meet with sponsors in Niagara because right now the only team I own is Niagara. This, this whole thing started like you said. We launched with six teams. Basically I own all of them. I was the main investor and we sold them off. Right now my, my hand is Niagara. I go to that board meeting, there's 10 owners, 10 owners arguing, 10 owners agreeing. I got one vote. But I'm dedicated to it. I'm, I'm open with it when we talk to sponsors and this, we have to grow the brand. We need to make Money, we need to break even. We're growing it and we're in there, so we're committed. And I see that with my fellow owners. Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker A: For a guy like you, what got you into like, I want to own a, a basketball team, Like I can tell you. And what were you doing prior? For people that don't know, let's say [00:05:17] Speaker B: I made some money. I made some money doing real estate investing. I own a dental supplies business, of all things. And I was in student housing, et cetera. And I had a partner named Mike Skirt. It's still my partner. We have a whole bunch of student housing rental housing in Thorold, Ontario, which is by St. Catharines. Brock University is our main student place. Where we get that market from. And the story started 11 years ago. I was a season ticket holder to the Mississauga power in the NBL. I was one of their 49 season ticket holders, maybe. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Oh, you're dedicated. [00:05:49] Speaker B: I was hardcore. I live right by the thing. And I went there and in the first year I met John Wiggins. Remember John? [00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:55] Speaker B: You know Big John? Yeah. I met Henry Chow, the owner with the Raptors. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:59] Speaker B: And I got to know them and I'll be honest with you, I was like, this will never work in Mississauga. The market just isn't right. Not for the nbl. The Toronto Raptors suck up all the energy in the gta. It's just, it's a fact. But St. Catharines, myself and Mike were like, they just finished a $50 million arena, brand new. And we thought, why don't we buy a franchise, try and make a business of it, bring a team to Niagara region. And that's what got the, that's what got the started the ball rolling. It was, I like basketball. I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm not, I'm not passionate. I watched the NBA playoffs this year. I didn't watch a regular season game. I watched. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Most people don't. I'll be honest. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The youth today watch what a three minute little highlight reels. But it was like, you know, we build this thing and we were thinking community wise as well. There are advantages when you own a sports team. You get to meet the mayor. You pick up the phone, the mayor's gonna meet you. You're gonna. When you go to the business association meetings or whatever, you're kind of the lead speaker. Sports is sexy no matter what. So you get that benefit. It opens doors. And being in the rental housing business and construction business, we had a lot of you know, quid pro quo, you know, you're gonna put up some, we're gonna buy drywall from you, buy some season tickets, you know, it is. So we had a little base, we knew we could grow and we thought we could build that thing. And frankly, in a smaller community, we believed, and it's true. You can build fandom. There's nothing sucking the energy in Niagara region. There's Niagara Ice Dogs and the ohl and nothing else, pro team wise. And that's how we got involved with. We went into the nbl. I stayed there for three years. It was really hair pulling. That league was in turmoil all the time. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Tell me about that, because I know you talked about it being like you were dissatisfied, wanted to branch out and like it folded, I think in 2023. Right. And it's branched into the Super Basketball League or whatever that is. [00:07:58] Speaker B: It's the BSL now, which is four teams and they have two teams from the states who come up. And the two teams in the states play at high school gyms and don't pay their player. Whatever. It's a hodgep. And funny enough, the Sudbury 5kW Windsor, they put on great shows. They play in real arenas. They still try. Then they brought these American teams. They're literally playing in high school gyms. So it's strange, but that's another story. [00:08:19] Speaker A: What made you dissatisfied? [00:08:21] Speaker B: I went to my first board meeting at the nbl. I walked in and Henry Shao was like, I'm folding the Mississauga power. The Raptors 905 are coming into the arena. I made a deal with them. I'm like, okay, that's a great meeting. And Halifax also was on the ropes in that first meeting. And I'm like, what did I just buy? What did I just buy into? Right? And it was turmoil after turmoil. There was, to be honest with you, there was no head office. There was a commissioner, David Magley, great guy, human, nice, great human being. But you can't run a league by yourself. One person. Some teams would help with the accounting. We'd have cash calls. You know, you got to set up a schedule. You have to do refs, et cetera. No business plan at all. None. Every year we start the season at a different time. This year we'll try Boxing Day. Next year we'll try November 1st, we'll try January. They weren't. There were no real fixes. And after year one or two, I was like, no, this isn't going to work. When you bought a franchise, you bought a three year kind of agreement that you had to play for three years and I started digging around. My background is European. My parents are from Slovakia. I travel there a ton. I knew, I met, I knew how basketball there works. It's very structured. Games on Wednesdays, games on Saturdays, 52 game season, boom, boom, boom, boom. Cup games, Central head office, FIBA clearance letters for players. The NBL is considered a rogue league at the time. And there are other ones where you don't have to clear players with fever or whatever, which on some was a benefit. You could just take a guy. But on the other hand, guys would step up and leave in the middle of the year and say, screw you, I got a deal in Portugal, you can't do anything. So by looking at how other leagues are operated, it wasn't that hard to see how to do the proper business model. And frankly, I brought it to my fellow owners at the nbl and there would be some investment that was needed. Nobody wanted to invest in it, Nobody. Some people questioned everything. And I'm like, don't question me. Like, the German basketball league's been doing this for 40 years. I didn't invent this, you know, like, let's say this type of game or let's play this or even FIBA rules. We were, NBL was playing NBA rules with our own rules. Like we had board meetings because some of the guys were basketball guys. And we had different. Like one year we eliminated three in the key and we went zone, like the zone. I wasn't even part of the meet. I was like, I don't care about why are we changing the rules. Like every year there's a book, the FIBA book, the one the Olympics uses the whole world. These should be our rules. Oh, you're crazy rich. And people want to see more basketball. I go, do you have studies that people want to see 48 minutes of basketball. Does it sell tickets? It was all just, you know, part of my English. Throw shit on the wall and see what sticks, right? So that's what frustrated me. I created a proposal. It was shot down. I finished my three year term. And that's when kind of sat down with my president at the time and Mike and said, you know, can do two things. We just fold the sucker or we can try and do the cbl. And didn't flip a coin or anything. But it was like, screw it, let's do this thing and go for it. [00:11:25] Speaker A: Tell me about those conversations with Mike. Morale. When it comes to like getting the league started, what was those like and what made you excited about it? [00:11:33] Speaker B: I don't know. You Never had Mike on, I think. But Mike's story isn't. I met Mike like eight months. I met Mike in season two, let's say. And I knew Mike from football. People ask me, what's your favorite team to this day? Toronto Argonauts. That's how old I am. You know, nobody likes CFL in Toronto, but that's my favorite friggin sports team. But anyway, so I knew him right from the CFL days and I knew he had been the players. He was the president of the CFL Players association. And I met him in a setting, a business setting. And I bounced the CBL ID off him. I said, I'm in this basketball thing, what do you think? Just randomly, randomly I talk, like talk to him, you know, and we started chatting, we stayed in touch and I don't know, it was kind of like if this, everything goes, you know, this thing might need a commissioner, it might need someone to help me out and that's gonna be. And it'll need someone to run the business so. Because at the end of the day, I just told you. What did I used to do? I built rental housing. My partner and I, you know this, I sell dental supplies, I sell the floss on your teeth or whatever. I'm not a marketing master, I'm not social media person. So I knew that no matter who starts this has to have a business mind, know how to run it and then be able to hire the right people that to be an office, it was, you were investing in something. And you know, Mike Moriali was, he was smart. He's not, he was, he's not dead. He is smart. He is, he was dynamic. He's got a great smile, he's a great people person. He's got a grain on his shoulders. And we grew, we grew, we grew. To be honest with you, when that first press release came out, I would say October, he wasn't all the way in still. He was like, he was finishing, he was working somewhere else and he was finishing up then. And a couple weeks later he's like, I'm in, I'm in. And I'm like, okay, you're in, you're the commissioner. And handed him the kind of the keys to the kingdom to start it. And he went out there and started building the league by. You know, we needed six presidents for six teams. Well, we needed five because River Lines had one. And that's how we started. And he was the, the guy going out there. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Was it difficult getting investors to. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Well, I was the investor, so yeah, then. [00:13:37] Speaker A: But did you try to branch out in terms of like or was it just like, I'll do this myself? [00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah, basically was, I'll do this. I'll be. When we launched, I invited the NBA old teams. I invited the three or four better owned people who are wealthier than me by far. There's some guys who had money in the NBL and still do and they're like, no, screw you. [00:13:56] Speaker A: What was it? They just didn't like the. [00:13:58] Speaker B: No, we're gonna. Oh, they didn't like summer. They didn't like FIBA rules. Maybe they didn't like Richard Petko. They're like, oh, we have to get an office and hire people, have to spend money. Okay, guys, whatever. We're just going to keep our league. We see where their league ended up, right? So it really was me and six teams. And the investor idea was more like, as we sell a team, we'll get money and that'll. And that new owner is going to pay money towards the league for their. We have annual dues or annual fees and. And that's what it was. There was no way, you know, there was no VC fund you can go to in Canada. There's no private equity out there. I knew some people, I'd asked around and you know, we're like, they say Canada has a dearth of free money. There's in the States, people throw money at you in some businesses and things. You can find someone. Canada is very hard, especially if you're not connected. I'm not, I'm not from some old money family. My parents are immigrants. You know, I built everything. And if you don't have real good connections, it's hard to come by funds in this country, especially for crazy ideas like a pro basketball league. And so that was the plan was sell off the teams and that creates revenue to come in to cover some of the initial costs and, and then those teams run and operate themselves. [00:15:10] Speaker A: What was like the first, like kind of major break breakthrough for you guys where it was like, wow, this is turning into something. It's catching steam. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Getting on TV was big. Our first season we were on cbc, so we were on cbc, went to tsn, now we're back on cbc. Mind you, the playoffs that are starting on Thursday are going to be on TSN and cbc. It's going to be a mix. But from going from the NBL days where teams were live streaming their own games on YouTube and some games weren't line streamed and you know, imagine 11 years ago how live streaming looked. It was crappy. To our first year we had YouTube stream, but we had CBC and we had 10, like 10 regular season games. And the playoffs were on terrestrial, real cbc. And that was like, wow, you know, and that was a Mike Moriali thing. He had the contacts. He got in there open doors and got that to happen. So that was really. That was like a first big home run. I'd say, yeah. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Why was the summer model so important? Tell me about that. Where it's. [00:16:11] Speaker B: The original model was stay in the winter. Believe it or not, when we first started talking about it, myself and a couple people that were involved with the Niagara River Lines, this all started as a river lines project. And we were like, how would we do it? In the original schedule, there had been, funny enough, there'd been a couple meetings back to the end. I'm talking about the NBLC more than the cbl. There had been one owner in the NBL who had brought up summer, the guy in Halifax, and it had been shot down every time. And his point was, you know, if you play in the summer, there's no. And it's true, there's no hockey. My rent goes down in Niagara, for example, Friday nights and Sunday nights is hockey, and Saturday, sometimes there's an event. So again, you don't have good nights. You have Wednesdays and Thursdays. Every single survey study shows playing on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you're gonna get less revenue than you get on a Friday or Saturday. Some arenas literally didn't want to deal with you. If you call around Canada right now and want to start a pro basketball league, they'll tell you who to call. There's going to be some venues you're going to call. They're like, no, if it's winter, we don't need you as a tenant. We don't want to deal with the changeover cover. The. Some places don't have even the ice cover. You got to put this black stuff, then you put the floor. Yeah, I would say a bunch of places don't have it. So finding even six markets is hard. And so that was the first thing. Then we realized, yeah, let's not compete with hockey, let's not compete with getting venues. And that then morphed into the concept that there are really good Canadian players who in the summer off season, I knew them, we knew them. Are working out at LA Fitness, paying a personal trainer, trying to find gym time. I used to play pickup basketball with Richard Amarti, my favorite Canadian basketball player of all time. You know Richard? Yeah, he's an interesting guy too, man. And you know, he Would play in gyms, trying to find time. And, and when we started reaching out, they're like, what you mean you'll pay me to play basketball in the summer and I'll get to practice against pro ballers and that. And so we knew we could get good Canadians to come to play. And then frankly there's 9.7 trillion American players you can pull from and the quality level is very, very high. You're getting Canadian guys who are starting in division two, Division one, Europe and they're not, you know, you know the numbers. They're making €70,000, 40,150. That's not retirement money. They still got to make money. And playing in the summer allowed them to make some extra coin. Lets them high level practices. They got to travel, see Canada. You know, we treat our players well. You know, we fly them, you know, when Niagara plays Vancouver, they're going on a plane, you know, they're not taking a bus ride for nine days or something. Per diem, they're treated like pros. And so we knew the quality of the game would be very good. And that those two things is what happened with the summer model. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Year one to now. What is something that you're really proud of that's changed drastically where it's like wow, I can't believe we were doing this in year one to year eight. Now it's like, so I would say [00:19:26] Speaker B: it's not a cb. There's nothing. What I'm proud of personally is how many people have gone from CBL teams to higher up positions. We lose people every year. We lost a couple people to the American Hockey League team, now that's opening in Hamilton because it's an affiliate of the NHL and they just can pay more money. We've lost people to other leagues. We've lost presidents to the Women's Soccer League. For example, our Montreal president left and went to the Montreal Roses they're called. And of course she should go. She got double the money. The NWSL, the NSLs came in with big bucks. I think for some people it overpaid salaries. But creating opportunities, we lose people all the time. We don't lose them because they suck. We lose them because they've proven to be good. So the CBL has created an environment where that, that back room stuff that you don't see, the marketing, the ticketing, the administration, we're losing people. And I'm proud of that. Like I shake the, you know, you meet us 20, you're 27, so you, we hire some 25 year old, maybe second year out of university, took some sports management course. They're in for two years. They're really. You know the word rockstar? Then they come in, you know, I gotta go. I got an offer from whatever. Even the Raptors have hired people from us. I'm like, congratulations. I will kick them out the door. You know, like, go, this is your future. And that's what I'm proud of. I'm proud of the people stuff. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Is there, like, what do you think is the biggest challenge from, like, cbo, maybe reaching that next level right now? When you look at the league itself, [00:21:01] Speaker B: the challenge is building fandom. We're a new league. So you. You have, you know, you're a basketball guy. I get into talks with some of them and, you know, everyone's got an idea. You know, you guys should go out and sign, like, some superstar or, you know, Corey Joseph's about to last. Two days ago, I heard a guy talking to me, you know, Corey Joseph's close to retiring. You know, I guess you sign him and, you know, that'll get more fans in the seats and everything. I'm like, no, it won't. You know, nobody cares. People come for the entertainment, family, community. Yet 2% of our fans are basketball, like, hard. You know what I mean? Hardcore fans that I care about the [00:21:40] Speaker A: product that I'm like that. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And they lose. [00:21:42] Speaker A: I'm gonna go cry. [00:21:44] Speaker B: I love those people. Like, we were talking. We'll talk about earlier, Like, I said that you should talk about the league or do the thing. There's 2, 3%. The rest of our fans are. We have built it through youth basketball programs, through community, going to events, and that's really what you have to do. And actually, you know, we're. Geez, what do we know? 11 years as River Lions, AUCBL, some of their teams are five, six years. It's gonna take a decade. It's gonna take you 10, 15 years to build this. We do an annual school day game, which is elementary school kids. [00:22:15] Speaker A: And that brings in. [00:22:16] Speaker B: That's. So we sell that out. 4400 kids show up. The kid's in grade three. So think about it. When is he gonna be able to buy a ticket with his own money? Right? [00:22:23] Speaker A: It's gonna take a while. [00:22:24] Speaker B: But then they come in grade four and they're coming in grade five. And like, I tell everybody they remember. And you know what? We have, people. They are Raptor fans, and they're River Lions fans, or they're Raptor fans and they're Scarborough Shooting Star fans now you're getting the double allegiance, but that's gonna take years to build. And that's where. That's where you got to do a good job. Fandom, building fandom. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Why do you think some of those Western Canada places in the CBO have done so well with. I feel like the crowds they draw is pretty. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty unique. [00:22:56] Speaker A: Like, I look at it like a Saskatchewan, like a Manitoba. It looks like it's pretty packed. [00:23:02] Speaker B: It is, man. Winnipeg, he sells out the Lower bowl. He has 7,300 people a game in Winnipeg. Vancouver sold out three games this year, 4,900. So I think this is a culture that's a. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Is it? Because there's no basketball there, really. [00:23:18] Speaker B: That's part of it. We really are. So if you even look at the numbers, if the Raptors, let's say, are on Sportsnet and they'll tell you there's 380,000 viewers tuned in, but then they look at it regionally, it's like 364,000 are in the GTA people in Vancouver, Edmonton, the numbers aren't massive. It's same with the Blue Jays. If you look at a typical Blue Jay game, 90% of the viewers are GTA based or whatever. And the rest of Canada is not watching it now. Yeah, when they make a World Series finals, everybody goes crazy. They watch. So out west, the newness of the basketball helped, but this, this is just my personal opinion. It's also a cultural issue. I think western Canadians are more American when it comes to sports. Then what the hell are we? Ontarians? What are we called? [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good point. I've never heard this raised. So they care about their. [00:24:12] Speaker B: You know as well as I do, you go to the States, you meet some guy from Ohio, he's got his high school ring here, his university ring there. He's still donating money to the friggin Buckeyes or his whatever school. And then on top of that, he's a Cleveland Browns fan and an Indians fan and he's got. And it's. And they'll talk. And in Toronto, you know, half the people are bougie in this city now, you know, you know, that's a joke I like to make. Hey, 20% of people in the city haven't lived in the city for more than 10 years. New immigrants or other Canadians. So that's not there. And you know how it is. You go to university, nobody cares. I went to three varsity football games when I went to U of T Right. Western Canada is different. They wear their heart on their sleeve. More went through sports. More people care about the Oilers, the Flames. You go to Winnipeg like you go to bars. The Winnipeg Blue Bomber games is up. The jets game is up. The guys more you see more swag in the streets. And I think they're tighter knit communities. Obviously they're cities of all. Winnipeg's 800,000, Edmonton's 1.5 million. Calgary's getting big. When something gets big here in Ontario, it dilutes itself out. And you find just that sense of sports equaling community engagement is bigger in Western Canada. [00:25:29] Speaker A: You don't think that's possible ever here in Ontario? Or is it just mainly the Raptors, the Leafs, the Blue Jays? [00:25:35] Speaker B: I'm a real cynic. I don't. I think, I think Toronto it just as a positive. It's so cosmopolitan, so big, you know, you can get. You can lose your job tomorrow. You'll find another job. It's a great place to live for all the crap people put on Toronto. It's the number one place in Canada to live in. I know people are gonna say, yo, Toronto lover. I'm not. Yeah, I take Calgary. Second, everybody loves Vancouver. I don't like Vancouver, but Vancouver's so expensive. Just don't like it's ugly. It's a bunch of condos along the water. I took, you know, every. Everybody craps on the Gardiner Expressway, bro. You drive the Garden. There's no city in Canada. You can drive downtown on a highway. You want to go downtown. Vancouver, it takes 45 minutes. But Toronto is just so big. We get so many new immigrants every year. You get people moving around and that sense of community, it's really hard to create. I find. I really do like the Mississauga 905. They're also eight years in. If they get a thou. They struggle to get a thousand people in there. And you know, to that concept. Oh, people love basketball. People. 905 is one level from the NBA. If you're a basketball sneaker head, you should be there worshiping the games. They're not there because they haven't connected with the community. And it's really hard. I'm not saying anything bad about them. It is hard. And I find that here in Toronto everything kind of funnels up to the big boys. The Raptors, the Leafs, the Jays and everyone else is scrambling around trying to build something. If it's small, it's harder. Just harder here. [00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tough. I wanna also talk about. I had Victor Rasso on The podcast. Yeah, a few months back. And he raised some of the issues, I think. [00:27:19] Speaker B: He. [00:27:19] Speaker A: He coached for what, two years, won two championships with you? [00:27:22] Speaker B: Vic coached every year. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Every year. [00:27:24] Speaker B: This year he finally. He's seven years. Yeah. He's been the cbo took a step [00:27:27] Speaker A: back, I think one back to back. [00:27:29] Speaker B: And then we won back to back. [00:27:31] Speaker A: And then, yeah, he departed. He had some. I don't know if you listen to that podcast. [00:27:35] Speaker B: I didn't listen to the podcast. [00:27:36] Speaker A: He had some thoughts just about, like, the cbo, just some changes that are happening. I don't know if you said this in specific, but on top of, like, import rules. [00:27:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:46] Speaker A: Like, I think each team now has a maximum five international. [00:27:51] Speaker B: So we're allowed to have five international. Might as well sell Americans. Yeah. [00:27:54] Speaker A: So six overall on like a 14 roster, is that correct? [00:27:57] Speaker B: Man, you're asking me basketball questions. [00:27:59] Speaker A: I don't remember exactly the number, but. [00:28:00] Speaker B: No, no, it's five imports. We're allowed five imports. And then we have the one U Sports player. We bring a U Sports, put it on every team. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:06] Speaker B: And the rest have to be Canadians. So it's. [00:28:08] Speaker A: What are your thoughts on that role where it's like bringing. Because not even just him, but I've talked to other people and saying, oh, wow, there's not many opportunities for Canadians to be on these rosters. But. And with adding, like, teams now are, like, looking for imports because they want to strengthen the team. And it's like, let's be real, America has a lot of top talent. Right. So it's like, let's bring that over here and let's be competitive. What are your thoughts on. [00:28:30] Speaker B: So put it this way. Vic and I do have differing opinions, which is great. That's how it should be. I think we have it good right now. A 50 50. Because basically it's 50 50. I think it's right. I'm going to look at it. I look at it a very. A few different angles. If I'm a consumer and I'm asking you to pay $35 plus HST and Ticketmaster fee, I want to entertain you as a owner and not just with the cheerleaders and not with the cool stuff we do in the Kiss Cam with the basketball. I want you to see the best basketball you can see. And to your point, there are a lot of very good Americans who are better than Canadians. And especially at price points in the behind the scenes, when you look at salaries, you know, for the same amount of money, you get a better American than a Canadian because it's a supply demand thing. There's only so many Canadians. Some Canadians can ask for more money. The CFL sees the same thing. Wherever there's a Canadian spot, they make more than the American just because they have the quota system. Yeah, we, we've kept it. We have it. I think we need it because it's true. Our, our goal is to provide a place for Canadians to play basketball or have an opportunity to play. I also come from it. When I speak to people like not speak to others, I'm like not, not that I'm holy here, but seven years ago there were this many video, this many Canadian jobs. Now there's 10 teams with five, six. So 60 Canadians are playing basketball because of something that I started and now 10 owners are operating and the owners are investing money into this and there's 60 Canadian basketball players. So we've already created a lot of opportunity. We're looking to grow the league. There's no doubt we would like to expand. That's going to be even more opportunities. So when our, you know, our goal isn't, our job is pretty well done, I think, I think we provide quite a lot of opportunity for Canadians to come and play and show their skills. And it's a point of contention, you know, it's, the numbers are different too because some of the basketball people or even your casual viewers probably might know is if you go and play in German, Bundesliga or Slovakia, where my background is and I know the league there well, three imports, nine locals, but nobody tells you the nine locals, three of them are actually like 19 and under. Because in Europe there's no U sports, there's no rep teams. The teams develop the players. So a 12 man roster. Some teams have four guys under 19. They play two minutes a game. But that they got their three Americans and then they have their European, sorry, their locals who yeah, are not making a lot of money, aren't the greatest players and some of the basketball is crappy. You'll see some American just blow by somebody on defense, let's say, or not American. You'll see a Canadian blow by some German on defense who's 21 and nowhere near as polished. I don't think that would work here. I don't, you know, our system is completely different. If you're good in high school, you're going to prep schools like resanger high school. Then you're going to university. You're coming out a polished player at 22. And if you're not polished, you're going to third division Europe. You're retiring, you're going to work a peer leader courier or you can come to this league. So to, you know, because that's what people say. Oh, in Europe there's only two imports allowed. It's a different animal and it's a different quality of basketball. [00:31:59] Speaker A: We also talked about potentially like people come for the. Not for the players specifically. [00:32:06] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Do you feel like if you did have where it's like. Because sometimes I think some people would argue, hey, why should I care if there's six or five American players that I don't know that played at a Division 1 school that are really good, like talented but like how do I grow attachment when like, you know, they might leave in a year. Right. Or they might go to this other opportunity. Well, that comes. [00:32:28] Speaker B: The whole thing we need frankly the fans have to be attached to the team. It's not American or Canadian. Everyone in the C bill is on a one year deal that year. We do have a, we have the amount of player movement you could imagine from that. Now mind you, in the River Lions we have a core of three guys that have been around now for five years. Nathan Ko, Khalil Ahmad. Geez. Who's the third guy? Wait, Lufile's there now. Javon Blair was there for four years. So we. And then yeah, if you look around, everyone's moving. But if you look at an NBA roster, it's about the same thing nowadays. [00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:58] Speaker B: You know, do you wish that was the case though? [00:33:00] Speaker A: Because you guys are doing it, you guys have continuity and do you think that helps also? [00:33:04] Speaker B: No, I, I think Teddy Allen, like. Yeah, I don't know if you know Teddy Allen plays in Winnipeg, right? He's there now in his third year. He's become, he's become their name player coming back. And guess what? The fans love him as he's also crazy guy, man. He's fun guy. They love him. They don't care if he's American or from Djibouti or from Germany. He's entertaining, he plays great ball. He's now in his third year. So yeah, there are every team. Mitch Creek and someone else came back in Vancouver. Every team now has a kind of a two to three man core. They're keeping everybody else is being plug and played and that's what's happening. And I think that's now normal. Like NBA rosters aren't stable for crying out loud. Baseball is unstable. Even hockey. [00:33:51] Speaker A: What's it like with the league? You have now how many owners, right? [00:33:54] Speaker B: 10 teams, 10 owners. [00:33:56] Speaker A: What's that like when everyone probably has a different opinion? No. [00:33:59] Speaker B: What do you mean? We have Kumbaya meetings and we do yoga and we're all in agreement all the time. [00:34:04] Speaker A: What is that like healthy, you would say disagreement at times. For. For a pro league where some people want one thing, some people want the other. What is that like? And like maybe what are the biggest debates that are happens among owners? [00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so yes, of course we have all of our own opinions. I like to use the analogy. When I started the cbl and then when we started selling teams, my goal actually was I want to sell. It's all business. I want to sell to people who are wealthy, richer than me and smarter than me. I want to be the dumbest guy in the room because that's how you get better in life. You learn from smarter people. And we've done a really good job at that. Actually. There are now rich people. Smart people are usually type A personalities and have their opinions as I do. So yeah, our meetings are like that. You know what we get on a lot of things. We agree a lot of easy stuff. Some other things, yeah, the player import rule, things like that. Every year is a bit of a talk. We went from 20 to 24 games last year and this year we did 24. That's been a talk. Hires have been a talk at league level, like in the back office type of stuff. People you have to hire and. But everything gets straightened out in the long run. And the good part of it is that I like about it is we do not focus on the basketball, we focus on the business. I will sit in a boardroom and talk about dollars and cents and making sure we make money so that the CBL is around in 50 years. I'll sit there for six hours for two days in Winnipeg. This year we were in Winnipeg for two days was our board meeting. Central Canada, you know, we did it. We hashed out everything. I don't want to talk about, hey, we're going to change this rule or that or this or that or no, but business, we get there. So yeah, you get heads clashing, but there's, there's no animosity at the end of the day. Zero animosity. It's just differing opinions. And you know, everything has a vote at a board level and Sometimes the vote is 9182, but usually we're like 100 after a nice healthy conversation about it. [00:36:07] Speaker A: You talked about that board meeting. Any insight from that? What was the biggest takeaway from that? [00:36:11] Speaker B: I'm not allowed to talk about things. What do we talk about? No, like we, you know, we have a head office. We look at the head office's functions. Did it make money, lose money? How are national sponsors coming in? You have to, you know, we are the HR department. You know, we have a president, a CEO, we have a cfo. We have to look at things like that. Schedule, season, the basics. Basics, you know. Yeah, it's just. Gosh, I wish I had the agenda right now. I can't remember. Right. [00:36:41] Speaker A: Can't share that though. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Can't share it. No, no. It trusts me. There's no. We're not, you know, we're not killing JFK or something or whatever. Nothing special like that. [00:36:50] Speaker A: What's it like to. Now you talked about it. You're getting more wealthy owners, right? Yeah, some that have deep pockets. Yeah. How do you manage that? Where like maybe some have deeper pockets than the others than. And keeping it competitive. [00:37:01] Speaker B: Salary cap question, Lamont. Yeah, so actually that has been a big one. Our salary cap has gone up over the years. We have a designated player rule. So we actually have a player who's out of the cap. Know we're not signing LeBron James. We have, you know, I don't know if Teddy Allen right now is a DP or not. I'm not sure I know who our DP is. Khalila Mod. So. And frankly at the beginning the league was ran very tight, etc and some owners came in and they're like, you know, guys, you know, there's got this guy and they're gonna ask for a bit more money and they are better players. And it's true, they are. So that was a. Not a bone of contention, something we spoke about. So. Yeah. So if you go from the fact we had a hard cap before now, what the cap has gone up. [00:37:47] Speaker A: What is that at? [00:37:47] Speaker B: You know, roughly it's per game. So I think our cap is 10 grand per game. For your roster, CBL players are paid per game. [00:37:57] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:37:57] Speaker B: So whereas in Europe you get paid by the month. [00:38:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:02] Speaker B: €4,000amonth. €1500amonth. In CBL, we pay by game. That was actually a Mike Moriali thing when he came in. Cause that's how the CFO works. That's how football pays. And then per game we have a per game cap, don't get me wrong. 910. And then the DP player part of his salary is in the cap and anything out of it is out. So there is a. Obviously there's a mechanism where a couple guys can pay a Lot for great players. Has it won them a championship in the last two years? No, because the river lines one and I can tell you we are the poorest team right now. We run at the cap and under. We actually had a money back last year and no, we haven't done it. [00:38:40] Speaker A: What does that say? [00:38:42] Speaker B: That says exactly that. We had one coach, Vic Rasso, seven years, six years, whatever it is. We went to the F. We had the final Four this year we don't have anymore. We used to do the Final Four format. We were in the final Four every year. He won back to back titles. We lost two championships. We had him. He was coaching GM continuity. I told him, you know, I'm never. No one's going to fire you, Vicky. You're, you're, you're the not. You're part of the thing. Khalila Mod now is in his fourth year with us. KO in his third fourth year. The hard he we always have three four year guys there. He brings. We also treat our players well. They become part of the community. We, we have them live in our student housing in Thorold or in small apartments. They're out there on the street buying pizza, walking places. Fans see their faces, meet them. They're humble guys. They're not multi millionaires. We pick the right people and then other we have a, you know, Kimball was here, our head coach. Now we have a system and a culture and Vic Kimball was our captain last year. He was our coach this year. He's kept it alive when he signed. I don't know if you know Eddie eor remember him. So Eddie this year didn't come and play. He was supposed to play, man. He backed out, he didn't play. He was going to bring a team from a player from his France team. I remember I was talking to Kimball about why do you want to bring him? No, Eddie said he's part of us, he's one of us. Literally how he described him got to come play for the River Lions. So there's a culture you have to build. And I had a conversation with David Asper last year and he's the owner of Winnipeg and he's one of those guys who's smarter than me. You know David Asper's whatever his family is a scion of Western Canada and, and Winnipeg. And the 1 real like was a compliment he gave me is I'm changing everything, Richard. We're doing the River Lions model. I'm hiring a Canadian coach because he had American coaches. I already hired a Canadian and we're Going to hardcore, you know, build that culture here and have someone local. And I'm not flipping guys anymore. And main thing was, yeah, he brought in a Canadian coach. And that's another aspect people don't realize. Forget the players. We have 10 teams and that's 10 head coaching jobs, that's 10 assistant coaching jobs. Then there's another. And nowadays, yeah, there's seven. We don't, you know, there's all these assistants, there's a Cairo job, there's a physio on the team. That's everyone's Canadian. Everyone's either is increasing their knowledge, becoming part of pro sports. So. And then we have ticketing reps and everyone's Canadian, everyone's there. So our CBL is building knowledge jobs everywhere, not just the player part of it. So when they, when people just talk about players. Okay, good talk about players. But don't forget, we made coaches and we have coaches gone to the G League from cbl. That was their gig before then. We have G League coaches who've come to us, but we've moved even coaches along, assistant coaches along, referees have moved along, have moved up their FIBA rankings. So the CBL has promoted Canadiana in many different ways. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Do you feel like you guys are kind of like the. I would say the outlier. But do you feel like in a few years like every team realistically can compete for a championship? Like when it comes to. Financially wise. Yeah. Is that a concern? [00:42:03] Speaker B: You know what? When they did the designated player rule, I said, guys put it on. Pay a guy 20 grand, 30 grand a game. Unless that player is LeBron James or Kevin Durant. They will not make a difference because there are so many good basketball players nowadays. And one guy will not make a difference no matter what, no matter who he really is. We're don't get fascinated by the one man. You got to build a team, build a core. So yes, I. Not that I think I know that some teams have looked at their numbers and now they don't. Let's say overpay or over. Over Hope. I don't know the word to use. But they know that you have to be pragmatic when it comes to players. And one guy doesn't make a difference and the other one is they don't sell tickets. We. We had a. Who's. Who played for. He's a Canadian. He played for the Celtics. He had a cup of coffee for the Celtics. Chris. Kris was the way he spelled his first name. I was gonna ruin the pod. We had a good thing going Here forgetting his name. Chris Joseph. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Isn't that him? [00:43:07] Speaker A: I have no idea. [00:43:08] Speaker B: He played for the Celtics 52 games. He's a Canadian. Yeah, we had him for the River Lines back in our NBL day. So about eight years ago. I remember we were look him up. K R, K R I S, J O, S E, P H. Yep. [00:43:20] Speaker A: Know exactly. Talking about. Yep. [00:43:21] Speaker B: And anyway, my president was all excited. His agent call, you know, NBA, nobody cared. We didn't have one extra fan because of it. And guess what? He also wasn't the best player. Like he didn't change the game, he didn't dominate, nothing like that. He was, he actually was gone after seven or eight games. We had a kid from Kansas State come there, starting point guard. I think he was drafted second round, four games he lasted. A coach cut him because there's. It's not just about how you, how your talent is in a five minute workout session. It's all about team chemistry. Building. [00:43:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Talking about building. You built this with Mike. Morale. He's like synonymous when people think about the cbl. Yeah. What'd you think about his departure? And I'm guessing you probably had conversations with him. [00:44:04] Speaker B: That was a big one. So yeah, that. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Were you shocked? [00:44:08] Speaker B: I, I wish Mike had stayed, but the cbl and the owner angle and the way we all interacted had changed a little bit. And frankly, yeah, we were in a different spot. The owners. I think Mike is a great builder. I'm not saying he's not a great manager. He's a great manager, great builder. But he definitely. That was his niche, his forte, his strength, building something. And frankly there were some owners who probably were like, you know, Mike was great and everything, but maybe we want to do a different direction. No one's firing anybody here. No one's this. But new contracts were coming up and everything and there might have been a little bit of a pivot there. It was a lot of talking about it, a lot of that discussions. Nobody. No animosity. Again, I would say I would just be like, it's a business and some things have to go in a different direction at times. And. And again, no man or person is bigger than the business either be it me or him or anyone else. No team is bigger and we keep moving forward. I always think of moving forward, roll forward. You know, don't forget what happened in the past because you learned from your mistakes or you learn from your successes as well. But you have to keep moving forward. You know, what did you think that [00:45:29] Speaker A: he brought that was unique, that helped the league out. [00:45:32] Speaker B: And Mike is a great. Well, like I said, we had the CBC contract because of him. Some sponsorships came because of him. Mike lights up a room. He's a great presenter. He's got vision. He. He takes risks. You know, handsome guy, big smile, good handshake, smart guy. You know, Scarborough shooting. I don't know, like you haven't had. That's a good owner you could bring in. If kids have a Nico Carino in here or Sammy. Those guys didn't know each other. We. Sam, not me. Mike was talking to Sam Ibrahim. And Mike was talking to Nico and [00:46:10] Speaker A: OVO and brought them together. [00:46:11] Speaker B: He brought them together. That was his thing. And he had a lunch meeting when I brought them together, created that. [00:46:16] Speaker A: I go to a lot of Scarborough games and I like the atmosphere there. [00:46:18] Speaker B: The culture. Yeah, yeah, that's. He's building the culture there now. They've really. They've really stepped it up these last two years, especially with their foundation. I know they have big plans. Not big plans. They're. They're hoping to revamp the. The gym there and make it more of like a put in the middle 4,000 seater. If they do that, I think it'll be a. A game changer for them as well. But that was something Mike saw. Nobody saw that. He put it together and created that happening. So he's a problem solver. Big time problem solver, I would say. [00:46:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Anything that's changed since his departure, you feel like, still early? [00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. No, nothing's changed. You know, like some people, we don't have a commissioner. Let's say that title doesn't exist. We have a president and CEO, Tyler Mazerou. [00:47:03] Speaker A: What does that kind of change that role again? [00:47:06] Speaker B: It's like some basketball people and some traditional people were like, how are you gonna play with our commissioner? And someone. It was like, the commissioner is a title, It's a person. And there is that, but we still have. It's more, I think, a visual for disciplinary stuff. But we're still playing. We're still doing well. We still give player fines. We're doing these things. We do press releases if they have to be done. Otherwise it's internal. There is a. Because I know. That was one of Victor's things, right? He's like, without a commissioner, this place is gonna go haywire. Go. No, I don't think so. And it hasn't. And it's a different title thing. So we move forward and we tightened up financially as a league because we have a head office. And then we have our teams. Teams fund the head office. The head office also gets funding from national level sponsors and partners. And it's got to also be tight on finances, let's put it that way. And a commissioner in that disciplinary job of it. It can still be done with a president and CEO. Not like it can't be done. And that's been a change the way we operate administratively. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Good to know. Is there a criticism that you see about the league that you're like, you guys don't understand when it comes to this aspect that you see. Maybe I don't know. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Nobody online. I know. Maybe because it's me. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:24] Speaker B: And they don't want to say. Nobody really criticizes me. Like no one Arizona. [00:48:28] Speaker A: About the league itself. [00:48:30] Speaker B: No. Like if some uninformed loser somewhere writes on Twitter, oh, these are just some scrubs trash or something, I'm like, yeah, whatever. Okay, go play one on one against them and talk to me later. Right. So that's not that. I don't think there's. I think to your point, why do you guys play in the summer? And then when I explain to them, again, it's an opinion. Like, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. So I don't think that's a criticism. I think you guys should play 32 games. Well, I would love to play 32 games, but I also want people. I can't sell 32 games. [00:49:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:06] Speaker B: So I would say there's suggestions by people like the. Like the Corey Joseph sighting or whatever it was like I could do. Yeah. I don't think it'll work. You know, I met Anthony Bennett a couple years ago in Brampton. He was at a game. I was joking with him. Anthony, you never come to the league. And he's like, man, I make too much money in China still. Right. I think he was still making like a million two years ago. Right. And I'm like, but you gotta come back, play for the community and all that. I'll see how it is. I see how it is. But it'd be great if he played. But same story. He's not gonna sell millions of tickets. Or it might be a little ticker along the bottom of tsn. [00:49:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:40] Speaker B: CBL signs former number one draft. And then it just goes into oblivion. And then the next score comes along the ticker. Right. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:46] Speaker B: So I don't know, like, maybe people are scared of critter thoughts and suggestions come my way. I don't think anyone criticizes even the import thing. Right. So it's I guess it's a wordplay thing I'm talking about now and I, I'm happy to talk about anything, to be honest with you. [00:50:02] Speaker A: How many years is the league kind of looking ahead like planning wise? How much of that the vision of honestly? [00:50:08] Speaker B: 3. [00:50:09] Speaker A: 3. [00:50:09] Speaker B: I would say we have a. The good communist system was a five year plan. Five year plan in Russia. So we're at a three year plan that correlates with even when we sign national sponsors now. So in the beginning, you know, we were new. All you could sign was a one year sponsor. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Who are you? [00:50:26] Speaker B: Why should I sponsor your league? Why should be a partner now? It's like we have traction. So yerba. I always get the word wrong. Yerba Madre is our official yerba matcha drink or whatever that we have. And that's a three year deal. For example, the CBC TV deal that we signed this season is three years and potentially five. So when your partnerships are three years now, you can start planning out three years and that's what we, we do. But basketball wise there's no large changes. It's the business becomes more that you're planning. Three years and cycles of that. [00:51:03] Speaker A: Ten teams in the CBO. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:05] Speaker A: Is expansion like another 100%? Considering looking into that. [00:51:09] Speaker B: I would love to have it. Yeah. [00:51:10] Speaker A: Any areas that you're like wow, this would be interesting market or that the league has like considered. [00:51:15] Speaker B: So to me we have an expansion committee. So that's again we have that type of thing on our board. And for to be a good expansion, every market is possible. Funny enough, if you have the proper owner who's got to be rooted in the community. That's one thing we found is having someone rooted in the community matters. You can have two, three owners or a bigger guy away and. But someone's got to be local. That helps big time. Someone's got to be committed financially and okay, I shouldn't say every market. It's got to be a decent sized market without like Quebec City would be amazing. For example. I'll give you a strange one. People still talk about Hamilton, guys should go back to Hamilton. But a team there in Hamilton Coliseum back. Well we were there in Hamilton for three years and the crowds weren't the greatest. They were, you know, it was hard to sell a ticket to Hamilton, there's no doubt about that. And now you're going to go back there and you got to look at this way. Hamilton tie Cats. Hamilton American Hockey League team. Hamilton, whatever PWHL hockey team they just announced. Yeah, Hamilton Forge Professional soccer team and the Toronto Rock Lacrosse plays in Hamilton. So that's five pro teams. So if you're Lee Bond's chicken and ribs shop on the corner, you got five guys coming to knock on your door tomorrow, hey, why don't you partner up with us and all this. You can't partner up with a six, you know what I mean? It's so any business in that town, be it a big place or Subway or McDon, there's saturated with teams. So you also have to have a market that's not uber saturated. [00:52:52] Speaker A: Yeah. What makes a city so attractive in your eyes, like for venue. [00:52:57] Speaker B: Venue. Venue is important. So that's, to be honest with you, that's probably the biggest thing holding back basketball in Canada. If I had a limited amount of money and you see what MLS did in the US 20 years ago, they said we can't play in these NFL stadiums, we don't sell 68,000 tickets. And now every team in MLS almost in the US is playing in a 25,000 seat, beautiful European style arena, covered fans. And that's one of the hard things in Canada. Like I said, some venues, everything is ice, everyone's on ice. So that hurts your scheduling. Some venues don't even have the COVID So they don't even do it. A lot of old venues in Canada, we don't. Again, you see America, when I heard the OKC Thunder are building a new stadium. Sorry, they've already started building it. Next to Paycom, I'm like, paycom would be the second best arena in Canada right now. And they're gonna demo that thing and have a brand new one. Who does that in Canada? You gotta run an arena to the ground in this country before the government gives you a dollar to build a new one or private equity. So the venues hurt. And that, that holds about. So you have to have a good venue, you have to have a good population base, good business base. And that's about, that's really it. And sorry, I came back. In a perfect world, we'd all be playing in 4,500 seat basketball only arenas, no ice. So fans will be tighter in better lines and you could still make a business of it. You can run volleyball tournaments, basketball tournaments, and table tennis, pickleball. You run that thing all the time, little concerts, right? But the venue would be so cozy too. The fan experience I think would be amazing. [00:54:38] Speaker A: How hard is it to get like approval for that? Like a venue of that? [00:54:40] Speaker B: It's not approval, it's money. Man is you're looking 30 maybe 30 million bucks to build. 30 to 50 million. Right. It's not cheap to build something. [00:54:49] Speaker A: And yeah, when it comes to sponsorships, how difficult is that in Canada? You talked about it too. [00:54:55] Speaker B: Extremely. [00:54:56] Speaker A: Like, how much of that, like, is you just, like working the phones and just on calls, trying to get like, [00:55:03] Speaker B: you know, you were saying, we're looking to get some sponsors here for your show and everything. So, you know, it's tough. It's. Everything is hard. Nothing's easy. Tickets don't sell themselves. Tickets sell tickets. Partnership, partnership, same thing. It's very hard. You know, even as a league level, when we talk about league and succeeding, you know, we don't have a national bank part, like nationally. I'm just speaking nationally. We don't have a national shoe partner, a, A national bank partner, a national rental car partner, a national car partner. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Why not? [00:55:34] Speaker B: Is it just the amount of competition? [00:55:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:37] Speaker B: So the, the PWHL came in the last three years. The women's soccer came in the last couple years. Believe it or not, World cup this year was a big. You had all these companies be like, well, we've already allocated. We're going to allocate our whole budget to World Cup. Even if it was like, they did a lot of guerrilla marketing on the side where if you're not a World cup sponsor, you could still sponsor soccer. So that there's a lot of ways to say no when you're a sales guy walking in there, right. And a lot of them are valid. And cebl, it's growing, it's new. And I heard a good line from somebody, nobody ever would get fired doing a $1 million a year partnership with the Toronto Maple Leafs. There hasn't been a person fired for that. Even if it didn't bring a single click. If you walked into CBL and gave us a million dollars, you can get fired for that. [00:56:26] Speaker A: They'll look at you twice and be like, really? [00:56:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So first they'll question you. And then if, oh, you didn't bring in 10,000 new clicks or follow, you're done. You can throw gobs of money at the Jays and the Leafs. Nobody's been fired doing that. And so when you walk into these places, nobody wants to lose their job off either. And it's real easy to just give money to the Jays, the Raptors, the Leafs, the NHL, a CFL team, and that's all right. [00:56:51] Speaker A: But do you feel like companies are, like, seeing basketball as like a, Like a. Differently than it did maybe 10 years ago? And yes. So has, like, sponsorship now Gotten. [00:57:01] Speaker B: They're seeing basketball grown. Yeah, they're seeing the basketball is growing. Definitely participation. [00:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:06] Speaker B: But for us, I think I want to, I'll take it back to that whole thing about community and fandom again. We come in there and we're like, forget about the River Lions and having your advertisement up here and we do some Instagram posts. We also, last year our coach Kimball went to 100 schools. He did 100 school visits. We're in the community, man. We had a discounted March break camp. We have, we did a few PA day camps. We teamed up with, don't get me wrong, might be the Pelham Panthers. We teamed up with a couple of minor basketball things and we do coaching in camps there with them. The players come, the coaches come. [00:57:42] Speaker A: That goes along. [00:57:43] Speaker B: We're in the community. Right. And so if you're, if you're Bob's lumberjack yard, you know, Bob might be like, you know the same thing. You got some pros there. I don't care about them. Forget about the pros, man. Think about the kids. Think about community. We're growing the community. We're out there and we, and you, you know, you partner with us, you're being represented by us and we're going to do a good job representing both our products and both our mantras. And that's what, that's what business wants. Nowadays, everyone is about partnering, being local, [00:58:13] Speaker A: Uber local for you. What numbers tell you whether your franchise is healthy or a franchise is healthy. [00:58:21] Speaker B: So you want to know the bit I don't mind sharing numbers to run a CBL franchise? Kind of. [00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Just like in general, like when you're looking at other teams across the league, you're like, okay, I know they're doing well because of this. [00:58:31] Speaker B: Oh, attendance wise. So we are an open book. We share each other's ticketing numbers, we share each other's sponsorship numbers. Obviously that's, you know, privileged information. So we see that it creates a good little bit of internal competition as well too. Right. And it also, but it also creates this where my president, like I, I love Vancouver. Vancouver. Those two owners bought that team. It was called the Fraser Valley Bandits. They played out of Abbotsford, they moved it to Langley, changed the name of Vancouver. Brian and Kevin have grown that thing to like 4400 people a game now. Young fans, like courtside, like kind of like a Raptors game. 30 year olds, 27 year old, hip kids wanting to go to the games. And I see their ticketing numbers and all that and they're doing Very well. They've built a great product. And when we have a question, our president Michelle Biskup calls their president and it's like, how did you guys do this? How'd you guys do that? And we share information because we see how well they're doing, just not on the YouTube but because we see each other's numbers when it comes to, you know, if there's any investors out there, anybody who wants to buy a team or whatever. You need a CBL team budget runs from like 2.1 to 2.7 million bucks a year. And then you can do the math yourself. You know where tickets you want to be selling tickets for 35 bucks a pop. Courtside is obviously different. You want to be bringing in over 400 to almost a million in sponsor locally. If you can do it matters how big your market is. That's kind of how that's what basketball costs in Canada. A real professional product. You're not doing it for less than 2.1, 2.2. [01:00:16] Speaker A: Do you feel like any franchises are doing like making money? [01:00:19] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah. There's teams making money. [01:00:22] Speaker A: Did you imagine that and like eight years to use? [01:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, when we were selling franchises, the business model is there. There are real numbers. If you sell this, you do this, these, you maintain your costs, you should make money. And there are franchises making money, there's no doubt. And some that are one or two that are break even or close to and everyone is on an upswing as well. And, and you got to look at it this way. There's about 25% of NHL teams don't make money. There's what, nine teams in the CFL. So eight don't know, seven don't make money. Two make money sports. It's, you know, it's hard, it's a break even money, losing money making business. Some years are good, some ohl like I told you, out of 60 teams, 15 consistently make money. Maybe so but what you're buying obviously is increasing in franchise value. You're buying being a really different part of part an important person in the community. You not just for your own ego, but also in a sense like we get invited to every charity event United Way. Everybody wants to partner with you not because of you, but because of you've built this brand. And you are in today's day and age, you know, there's sports is what everyone gravitates to. You know, you go somewhere, all you ever see is where you from? Orlando. And if you think about Orlando, you're gonna say Disneyland. I Picked the wrong city. But you're thinking about the magic. [01:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:51] Speaker B: And then people. Area codes. Right. That's the big thing now. I'm from the 905, the 41 to 305. But what else different when North American school places. All we talk about is your sports team or your area code because you saw in a rap video or something, right? [01:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:03] Speaker B: And. But that means you're in. You are the community, man. You are the. You're the beacon of your community. When you own a pro sports team. That's why you have to be careful too, about your players, about how you act about. I get some of that, right. I think we're under too much scrutiny in general. Not us, but even sports guys in general now. It's really crazy with them being on. Being able to be videoed all day long. [01:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:23] Speaker B: But it's a very unique business to be involved in because you're the face. There's. There's nothing like it. There's literally, you know, where, where are you from? Chicago. Oh, there's like a McDonald's on the corner. I know. No, no. People are gonna do. Oh, yeah, I know. The Bears or this or that. And that's, that's how you, you talked [01:02:39] Speaker A: about teams breaking even, doing well. How do you maintain that? How do you not. I don't want to trash on. How do you not become the nbl? [01:02:48] Speaker B: So you run a business professionally. You invest in people. We have. We have a corporate sales rep guy in our business and he's got a. Then we have someone below him ticketing. We have two ticketing people year round doing group sales, doing voucher pack, etc. Once the season ramps up, we bring in a one part timer. We use interns as well. And believe it or not, they call you on the phone if you've been to a River Lions game. We have your email, your Gmail or we have your phone number. [01:03:21] Speaker A: That's how you keep in touch. [01:03:22] Speaker B: And you know, we were hoping to have a home playoff game. We're not going to have it. I was in the office on Tuesday. We had everyone in the office, including our president was on the phone calling the fans, saying, Thursday, August 6th, we may have a home game. Phone calling. Would you like to buy tickets? Can I put you down? And on a big whiteboard, tickets sold today, Tickets sold this week. Little mini competition. Liban versus Richard versus, you know, whatever. It's. Nothing sells itself. That's how you sell. You literally have to sell tickets. [01:03:57] Speaker A: You have to go into the community doing the work itself. Yeah, I want to get to some rapid fire before I let you go, asking me some business related questions, maybe basketball related questions. To biggest risk you've ever taken. [01:04:10] Speaker B: Biggest risk I've ever taken. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Whether it's in business, whether it's in basketball. Running the Niagara River Lions. What's the biggest risk? [01:04:17] Speaker B: I think running. Starting the cbl. [01:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:20] Speaker B: Financially? Yes. And reputationally. Yes. And success. Yes. [01:04:24] Speaker A: What could have happened if like say [01:04:26] Speaker B: something could have folded after one year? [01:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:28] Speaker B: Could have been. Were you prepared for that? [01:04:31] Speaker A: I guess, yeah. [01:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't hope it. It would have been easy to shut it down after one year. Yeah. I could have, you know, literally opening the doors and thinking that you won't sell tickets or nobody cares. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Biggest business mistake you've ever made. Because I feel like people think, wow, they look at you, the cbo, eighth year. This is, it's all, it's all sunshines and rainbows. But you know, there's probably mistakes. [01:04:57] Speaker B: So no matter what the CBL's cost me so far, the team, I look as an investment. So we're not going to say it's a mistake yet. And then when it's a mistake, it's gonna be a tax write off. At least I'll get some money back from my tax IO. But this is a. My, my answer is going to be dumb. Unfortunately, I've lent money to people I should not have lent money to personally. And you know, my wife kicks me in the butt about that one too. That I trust too many people out there and so that isn't really a business thing. But again, I'll. Someone's listening. Be very careful with who you lend money to. To a sob story or to a, to a big. To a. To a business plan or whatever. Yeah, some of the. So you'll get kicked in the butt. [01:05:40] Speaker A: Hopefully it's not to the level of Steve Ballmer aspirations. I don't know if you heard about the, the saga. I think he invested like 50 million and then now the people behind it are. Are in prison. So lost like 60 million. [01:05:52] Speaker B: Well, if you believe his story. I don't know. Or that all went to Kawhi Leonard. [01:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [01:05:56] Speaker B: That was just a great investment in a broken down basketball player. Sorry, sorry. Toronto fan. His hardest 2019. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Next question. Hardest decision you ever made as an [01:06:04] Speaker B: owner in basketball or just in business. Hardest business decision. Not gonna say who, but firing people. I hate to do it. [01:06:16] Speaker A: Are you just like. I just gotta be straight to it. You're not, you're not doing your job to what we need right now. [01:06:22] Speaker B: I just gotta be getting. Sorry. Doing the firing. Yeah. Getting to the decision's hard. And then doing it. I got a lump in my throat, man. I'm so scared. I'm a little. I don't wanna use a P word. I'm a little baby. A little baby. I'm scared. [01:06:35] Speaker A: What's the best investment the league has made? [01:06:37] Speaker B: Best investment the league has made that [01:06:39] Speaker A: has maybe paid off till now, although [01:06:42] Speaker B: our numbers are still not huge? Video. We, we. We. Believe it or not, some of the fines we gave this year are that the video production of teams isn't good enough up to snuff. And I think that's very important. You know, this year our games are on CBL, YouTube, CBC, YouTube, CBC Sports, CBC, GEM, everywhere. And it has to look professional. And, you know, you're gonna find this one funny. I have people. Friends. Like, friends, you know, how's that league of yours doing? How are your games going? I'm like, shut the F up, man. Like, don't. You know, let's talk about something else. But okay. And it's like. And it's. By the way, it's like now. You know what I mean? When's it starting again? Well, we're in the playoffs. And then I'll be like, you know, I'm gonna send you a link to our game. I literally. I'll email you or WhatsApp you my YouTube link to our next game. And I've had like, what it looks like that. That good. [01:07:41] Speaker A: Wow. [01:07:42] Speaker B: Because it looks good. You know what I mean? It looks good. And I think that's. We. We made that a kind of thing from day one at cbl to get that. To do it as good as we can on a budget. You know, Dome Productions is Dome productions. That's a 35k drop per game. We. Not that, you know, but for five grand, four grand, six grand, you could do a great stream and everything. You got to have the right people. Evan Costner, don't know if you know him. Greatest AV guy in Canada. Evan. All of that. And that makes things look professional. And, you know, I'll put like, again, funny enough, I was watching TBT recently, I've been watching it. That looks amazing on YouTube. But I know in the States you get double the quality for half the price because Canada just doesn't have enough competition. But I feel good about it when I see. On the other hand, I see TBT has 43 people viewing. You know, we're in the hundreds. And sometimes at a thousand I'm like, man, we're doing better than them. But they just look so damn good. If anyone watches it, they're like, wow, this is sick. [01:08:42] Speaker A: Most underrated Canadian basketball market in your eyes. Well, this is CBL franchise that you're like, wow. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Most underrated Canadian basketball. Well, nobody would think Winnipeg. [01:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:54] Speaker B: I still think today if you went. Because in Winnipeg it's not just that fans are showing up. His merch numbers. David's merch numbers are. They're beyond the roof. [01:09:04] Speaker A: I'll be honest. I've seen a lot of like Winnipeg just jerseys, gears out of probably anywhere. Yeah. [01:09:09] Speaker B: Freaking anywhere. And you go through the city there, it's like Sea, Bears, Jets, Seabirds. They are passionate there, man. And you see it on their YouTube numbers. They have like when the Jets. Sorry, when the Bears are playing a road game, that YouTube has like 30 more than our average. And then, you know, people commenting on the YouTube. Some games there's three guys chatting in the comments on a SeaBears game. It's like 30 guys chatting, putting comments and, and I mean talking about the players in the game and like, man, Teddy's shooting only 22% from 3 today last year. I'm like this guy's hardcore fan. Right. And nobody would think that. [01:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:45] Speaker B: No one. [01:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah. One piece of advice you give someone wanting to own a pro basketball team in Canada or anywhere in Canada, maybe, [01:09:54] Speaker B: maybe across the world, owning a pro basket, patience. Don't do the basketball. So I don't. If you ask me who is on the Niagara river lines right now, I do not know our own roster. I don't know all 10 guys. [01:10:09] Speaker A: That's not your job though. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Not my job. [01:10:11] Speaker A: You get people to do. [01:10:12] Speaker B: Not my job at all. And as much as I will lock myself last game I had to go into another suite by myself because we were down. I don't know if you saw so for anybody. We were down 27 points. We won the fraking game against Ottawa Y when we were down 27. I. We were in a suite that game. We went upstairs. We have. I have kids that run around. So I like. I had to go to the next door suite that wasn't sold. It was closed because I the f bombs of this, the anger coming out of me and like this guy would be better than that guy. But then I know at the end of the game, no, my opinion is I'm not a basketball guy. So no matter what, do not get involved with the players. If you're going to do it in Canada, hire a Canadian Coach, Hire a Canadian GM or hire a Canadian GM and coach to save money. And that's for the basketball part. That's it for the other one. Hire a good president. Be ready to fire a president if you have to. You'll know right away within six months to a year if they're a good person. And then just sit back and you help the way you can help if you're a local business guy. You go and get local guys to buy season tickets or some sponsorships. Stay in your lane. Don't get out of your lane. Do not, you know, never, never been in a locker room. Richard Peckler's never been. I'm sorry, I've been in the locker room two times. Both championship victories when we came in and threw champagne on our heads. Never walked in there. I know some of our owners have come in there maybe a little bit, little tipsy and just laid the, you know, some F bomb you got. That's just embarrassing for yourself. Don't do that. And on the business part, if you made money, you know, Brian in Vancouver made money. He's a mining guy. He's mining prospector. He doesn't go into their, you know, marketing and Instagram meetings. Stay out of that. That's not your lane. [01:11:59] Speaker A: If you were starting CBL again today, is this something you'd do differently? [01:12:04] Speaker B: In a perfect world, if I was to start the CBL today, I would start. I would start it with somebody else's money. But I don't mean money, I mean like hundred million dollar type money. And I would do the same thing. I would go concentrate, six, eight teams and I would, I would. Man, it'd be hard. I would love to be able that. Back to the venue thing. Here's a team, we have a five year plan. We already talked with the city to build our 4,000 seat venue. That would be the one thing. There's another one angle that would be great to do, but it's really hard now and it goes to this club basketball. So, you know, you probably know exactly. In Europe there aren't really club teams. You know, if you're in Hamburg, Hamburg owns the club system. When you're under eight, you're playing for Hamburg. They might have a hundred little clubs, but everything funnels up in Europe. And I really would love to do that in Canada. You think it's possible? No. Well, there is a way to. Okay, how you would. So I look at our region. Niagara Falls. Niagara region, we got 12 municipalities, doesn't matter. But we have about Pelham Panthers. I Should know the name Niagara Falls Fury I believe. Let's say we have six good youth programs. A couple of them are parent run non profit, some are for profit. So we made a decision a few years ago. A few years ago we're like let's start the river lines or not start. Let's think about it. But then what? Then it's going to be really hard to go to the Palham Panthers and say listen, you guys want to buy 500 group tickets for a game, we'll even let you play on the court, which we do. And you want to partner with us and spread the word. They're going to be like F you. You just started your program right? Or you want to work. So it's almost like you would need the bag of money. That 100 million, that would be kind of an angle you could do that. You would go to boom, boom, boom. I'll buy you all out. Yeah, if it's a private business, I'll buy you out, I'll keep you around and let's really build the night you play in Pelham, Grimsby, whatever it's you're all wearing River Lions. We're all River Lions. And guess what? You know that kid who's nine when he's 19 ten years later is going to be on the end. One kid's going to or two or three are going to be on the end of the friggin bench playing for the Niagara River Lions. That I think would be a dream. I would love that. But that should have started from day one with more money and now it's a little harder to do. [01:14:24] Speaker A: I think it's still possible now that you established yourself in that area. [01:14:27] Speaker B: I know how to do it. I know that you need money how to do it. You have to be committed again. You'll need a party, you need a part, you need a person in your organization. I was going to run all that [01:14:36] Speaker A: has all the connections and the connections [01:14:38] Speaker B: some teams are starting it. I know that some of the teams are starting in the less developed markets out west and that's one thing that if a new expansion team comes in we actually recommend we like are you able to do this? Maybe we've been at telling or asking them because I like for 100% it's a great way to do it because then you have if you could build a program with 3,000 kids under you and they're all River Lions, they're all going to be fans you're and face it, those things are private businesses, they actually make money. I Put it this way, I lose money. The Niagara runs lose money. We're open about it, we still lose money. But the private little basketball guys, they make money. There's more money to be made in running youth basketball than running a pro basketball team in Canada right now. The long run, you'll probably do better in pro basketball if you do it right. But in the short run, me and you can start up a gym right now, the Petko Ausman Academy. We'll put ourselves in some UA tournaments, U9, U12, and we'll make money. Well, you know, I don't want to do it, but I mean, it's easy, right? Yeah, but that's something CBL should build for. [01:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah. You talked about, you mentioned the next expansion. Should we expect expansion soon? I know it hasn't been announced. [01:15:47] Speaker B: Nothing's announced. Should we not announce anything? [01:15:51] Speaker A: Should we expect something, I don't know, in the future? [01:15:54] Speaker B: Let's put it this way, Richard Petko hopes by 2028 we'll have a couple teams. That's my hope. I, you know, you had 10, maybe with the right owners. I would love four more teams or six more. I think it's doable. Yeah, I think we have a good template now and the CBC thing has really helped the way they've been, they've been a great partner and they're a great streamer with CBC GEM and CBC Sports. You can put all your games, you get out there, people are watching and I, you know, we all know we need, I think we've all agreed in the board we need to expand. Some want to expand slower than others, some bigger, some faster, some at different price points, some at different concepts. You know, the NBA Europe is starting now, or who knows if that's going to start, whatever. And even they've realized it's not that easy to sell a team. And they're looking at selling teams, they're looking at giving one year licenses or two year licenses. That's actually how Euroleague off is operated. You know, there's a little different angles that potentially could grow. So that's, you know, then you want to, want to hear the crazy one? Why not go to the U.S. you know, Mary, hey, that gets talked about. There's a lot of, you know, intricacies about it, but whatever, it's an interesting one. [01:17:13] Speaker A: We'll see. [01:17:13] Speaker B: I don't think that'll happen. But it's just, you know what, that's the beauty of it. We talk about everything. And if there's one thing the US doesn't really Have a legitimate FIBA pro league run at a high level. I'm really surprised nobody doesn't try to start one. I think it could work. But that's for Americans to figure out, not for me. [01:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Last question before I let you go. What do you hope the cbl. Where do you hope is that maybe five, ten years from now. [01:17:43] Speaker B: I hope we are an established part of every community that we're in. And I don't mean just the basketball. I mean that when you're at the Christmas Santa Claus parade like we have a float. I know I just seen Scarborough had a float. They had a float. Yeah. And exactly. I when the United way we started up this year this funny enough just a month ago we after one year it's a while to get a charitable foundation going. But we have a. The River Lions foundation is official River Lions DOTS riverlions Foundation CA if you want to donate and that already we're teaming up with other charities to become a good steward in the community. And not just about basketball, just about even financial literacy. When. When Kimball goes to schools he talks about financial literacy to 10 year olds. I talk to that my nine year old as well. And also improving the community, fixing up basketball courts, cutting the grass around and little things like that. So to five years that obviously full stadiums. I love like people in the seats, everybody coming, enjoying the game. I would love to be more relevant. This is like a person. I'd love to be more relevant on TSN and Sportsnet. But I've come to realize those guys care about themselves and their product and you know my kid plays baseball. My nine year old, he's really good at it. Actually I'm not the biggest fan. It is boring no matter what. The shot clock has improved it. But you turn on sportsnet. I am as a. Okay, as a. I pay for Sportsnet. Right. So it's on my cable. And then as I'm not a super, I'm a Canadian, whatever for me to turn on and watch every friggin night. Sportsnet 1, 2, 3 and 4 are showing a Blue Jay game. Yeah, they have four channels. Can you not show something else? [01:19:35] Speaker A: Right. [01:19:35] Speaker B: And then the game ends and then Sportsnet Central comes. Oh my God. We're never going to be on Sportsnet now, are we? My league. [01:19:41] Speaker A: What else? [01:19:42] Speaker B: But no, this is. But this is a valid argument. I've told it to my guys. And then Sportsnet Central comes on and OMAC and Tim. I love Tim. Tim McAlv. Yeah, they were this which should be a show doing highlights. Does The J highlights. And then they talk about this game for neither eight minutes. And along the. And the ticker is like showing, you know, Ryan Gosman was traded. And then. And then finally they talk about another baseball game. And. And so you're 30 minutes port set central, it's being 9, 29 minutes of MLB. And meanwhile there's other sports, if I'm not mistaken, in this world, there's other Canadian leagues. There's a. Like this. I know it's not just me. The cbl doesn't go on the ticker on sportsnet. The Canadian cpl, the soccer league doesn't go on the ticker. [01:20:25] Speaker A: Why not? [01:20:27] Speaker B: Because they just want you to be brainwashed and watch the Blue Jays. It's nuts. It's simple. They don't. They don't want you to want to. Trust me, if they gave, if they bought us as a contract, we'd be on the bottom of the ticker tomorrow there. And TSN's in the same. In the same echo chamber of itself. You go on TSN. Sometimes all TSNs are showing the same event, which blows my mind. And then they'll be out there and you know, they'll be raw. Raw Canada. Rah, rah. This will show you, you know, the basically all you sports finals now are only streamed terrible. [01:21:00] Speaker A: And I cover you sports and I think how do you get invested interest [01:21:04] Speaker B: into Bro, you're 20, we spoke. You're 27. I'm 54. I grew up CH TV, channel 11. Every Saturday had youth sports game of the week, either football or. Or basketball. That's how I know Vic Stad, Joe Rasso. Joe. I saw Joe Rasso screaming at the McMaster rotters. I grew up watching that guy. I just scream at the players. It was awesome. TSN used to show the Vanier cup, the basketball final eight, this. It's all freaking streamed now. And we both know it's still not the same. You don't get the same viewership. And it's. I think our. I honestly, our Canadian sports networks let us down and you go to the States, it's a different. You go to Europe, it's. You turn on Eurosport 1, Eurosport 2, they're showing cycling for two hours, table tennis for two hours, Euroleague basketball game. Then they're showing a handball game and then this and my. Like Slovakia has three sports channels. Little country, 5 million people, everything's on it. The Slovak soccer league, the Slovak Hockey League, the Slovak Women's Volleyball League. Yeah, they don't make any money. And there's four people in the stands. They're showing it on Friday night at 8pm I'm watching my, you know, someone I know play. And here it's the same crap on the same time, like major league stuff, but nothing. And nothing Canadian. So that's the other one. Like is hockey Canadian anymore? I think the NHL has six Canadian teams and soon to be 28American teams. And to your point, how many Canadian. It's all Europeans, Americans, whatever. Baseball. We have one Canadian team and this stuff is what's put on our sports networks. The Blue Jays. Is there a Canadian, you know, and there's 10 Canadians, all baseball. So now you're getting into my Crawbo sports stuff. But I think. But you asked me where I wish we were at. Yeah, I wish in 10 years on the bottom of the ticker and not just us, there should be a CPL should be there. The CBL should be there. I think Sportsnet sometimes doesn't show the CFL scores on the ticker and that's because it's on tsn. It's their competitor, right? Come on, man, it's Canada. You got to show both. It's not a sport. Meanwhile, you're blasting MLB scores. There's do I give a crap who the hell the Cincinnati Reds beat yesterday with? I don't be rude. With a bunch of Americans and Dominicans and this playing in another country, another league. And you're putting that on the bottom. But not my score. And the Scarborough shooting stars spent 50k on a float yesterday in Carabana supporting a Canadian cultural frigging event. A Toronto event. And these guys, they want to pump MLB to me from Americans. Come on, man. [01:23:44] Speaker A: Richard Peko. That's the perfect way to end off this podcast. A guy that has invested in basketball in Canada, founded the cbl, the owner of the Niagara River Lions. Everything you just said I agree with. I fully stamp. Something has to change and I can't thank you enough just for joining the show. We can have a full three hour conversation about what we just discussed. [01:24:08] Speaker B: So that's another day. Call me and I'm here. I'm in Mississauga. I'll come down anytime. [01:24:13] Speaker A: Make it happen. I can't thank you enough again just for for joining the pod coming to the studio and appreciate your time. [01:24:18] Speaker B: Thank you very much. [01:24:19] Speaker A: This has been the Canadian Basketball show, your go to spot for the latest news stories and analysis on Canadian basketball. My guy Richard and we out.