Podcast Alert: J.J. Gottsch – Austin Gamblers

Transcript

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JJ Gottsch: [00:00:00] I think it makes a huge difference when people know that you’re invested into the community, not just trying to pull revenue from it, but to give something back. And so that’s a lesson that was taught to me early on. We’ve done the same thing here with the Gamblers.

Anne Ristau: Welcome to the Navigating Sports Business Podcast. I’m your host for today, Anne Ristau, Executive Vice President of Consulting at Navigate. We started this podcast to showcase some of the incredible people that we get to interact with every day and the impactful work that they’re doing in our industry.

We hope you learn something about them and something from them in our conversation.[00:01:00]

Today I am thrilled to be joined by JJ Gotch, CEO of the Austin Gamblers. Hi JJ.

JJ Gottsch: Hey Anne, how are you doing today?

Anne Ristau: I’m great. It’s so great to speak with you. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you from the sponsor side and just being completely impressed and amazed by how far PBR Teams has come and The Gamblers in such a short period.

Really excited to hear more about that. But before we do, I’d love to start with you, your background, going back to your playing days at Creighton and TCU was in baseball. What position did you play?

JJ Gottsch: Uh, I was a little bit of everything. I was the classic utility player when I was, when I was a young freshman and skinny and fast, I was a shortstop.

And then as I continued to gain weight and get bigger, as some of us do in college, I got moved into corners playing first and third, and then [00:02:00] eventually at TCU, I actually ended up pitching a little bit. And then the one year that I played throw ball, I actually pitched. So a little bit of everything, a utility player, jack of all trades.

Uh, I was good at everything, but not great at one thing. I don’t think.

Anne Ristau: Was baseball your first true love or did you play other sports growing up?

JJ Gottsch: No, I played every sport growing up. I played basketball and football and track and field and golf. I mean, ultimately I really wanted to play basketball.

Unfortunately, when you’re five, 10, you, you, you kind of get limited in, in your opportunities at that point. And so baseball was just more of a, uh, and natural outlet for me and offered more opportunities. And so that’s the path that I went down.

Anne Ristau: All right. And talk a little bit about athletics and your family.

Cause I understand you do have a very high bar that was set.

JJ Gottsch: Got a couple of Hall of Famers in our family. Interestingly enough, my dad is in the Nebraska baseball Hall of Fame and my mom is in the Nebraska bowling Hall of Fame. So big shoes to fill with both of them. But just, it was a really fun family [00:03:00] to grow up in.

I had two older brothers that were, that were also athletic, but just, it was a lot of fun. I literally grew up in a bowling alley. And when I wasn’t in a bowling alley, I was in the parking lot of Memorial stadium where the Nebraska Huskers played football, where I was in the parking lot of Rosenblatt stadium, the home of the old College World Series.

So. It was a really fun childhood, uh, growing up in an athletic family and all the different opportunities that were afforded there. And yeah, I, I, I’m in one Hall of Fame. I got to be in the Creighton Athletic Hall of Fame. Our 1991 team that went to the College World Series was inducted into there. So yeah, fortunately I got to keep that streak alive in our family.

Anne Ristau: That’s pretty special. When did you get your first job in sports and who hired you?

JJ Gottsch: Well, I mean, interestingly enough, so I guess my first job in sports where I got paid was either, you know, I played professional baseball one year. I played in the Pioneer League in Butte, Montana. I did get a paycheck. It wasn’t very big.

I think it was like $675. So I’m going to act like that was my first, first professional job in sports, but [00:04:00] probably as it relates to this podcast on the business side, I went and did an internship for the Arizona fall league in Phoenix back when Frank Robinson was running the organization. And then I got a call from my good friend Reed Ryan, Nolan’s oldest son, and he had just was retiring from minor league baseball, had decided he wanted to stay in the game.

And was going to purchase a minor league team with his dad and another investor, Don Sanders, and bring that team to the Austin market. And so he called me and said, hey, we’re going to be minor league baseball to central Texas. I want you to be a part of it. And so I moved to, uh, Round Rock in August of 1998.

We had to get an election passed that fall. Uh, we did in the November elections by a landslide started construction of what would then become Dell Diamond in 1999, and then opened up for the first season in 2000.

Anne Ristau: What was Round Rock like in the early, mid to late nineties as this all came together?

Tumbleweeds?

JJ Gottsch: Wow. Wildly different. I know you’ve got to spend some time in Central Texas and Round Rock and in Austin. [00:05:00] And I think when I moved there in 98, I feel like the population was about 60, 000. I think the Austin Metro was maybe 700, 000. I mean, it just wasn’t that big and you could get around everywhere pretty easily.

And to see where we are today, you know, some 25, 26 years later, it’s amazing to see the growth, not only in Round Rock, but the central Texas region. I think the Austin MSA has over 2. 2 million people now, the number of sports teams that we have now, professional sports teams, Round Rock was one of the few that we had at that point now to have not only the MLS with the Austin FC, and I see you’ve got a scarf in your background right there, but then professional hockey, and then obviously professional bull riding.

We’ve got Circuit of the Americas that, uh, just hosted NASCAR on this last weekend. We’ve got the F1 and back that’s annual every year. So Round Rock, Austin, the entire area is wildly different. That’s so much bigger, but, but I love, and I think it’s a great time to be here.

Anne Ristau: That’s a pretty incredible growth over the last two and a [00:06:00] half decades.

You spent obviously quite a bit of time with Ryan Sanders baseball through all of that. What was a highlight? You’ve been through new teams, new stadia, I mean, really some pretty incredible transformations.

JJ Gottsch: Yeah, it was just, it was a great ownership group to work for and to work with, you know, just really supportive with Nolan.

And then as I mentioned, Don Sanders, who was a minority owner of the Astros. When Nolan originally signed with them in 80, so that duo was really the, the, the engine that, that really pushed Ryan Sanders. And then with Reed Ryan, as I mentioned before, and then his younger brother, Reese, it’s kind of a leadership team.

We were really able to build and create a lot of different things. Now, as we talked about originally, our very first project was, was Dell Diamond and the Roudlock Express. Five years later, we did the same thing where I had the opportunity with my wife to go down to Corpus Christi. Again, we needed to get an election passed.

We did. We started the construction of what would become Whataburger Field in 2004, and then [00:07:00] opened up with the Corpus Christi hooks in 2005. That was really fun because the first time we did it in Round Rock, I was young and we were moving so fast and I really wasn’t paying attention to what was happening, which I think when you’re younger, that, that happens a lot.

You’re just kind of going, you’re just doing the job to do it. But the next time, you know, really kind of took, took a, was really intent on making sure that I was pausing and remembering everything that we were doing, kind of soaking in the moment a little bit more. So that one probably had more meaning just because I was paying attention.

But then through the years got to do so many different things. We put on an event called Big League Weekend, where we went to San Antonio and converted the Alamo Dome, which is a building specifically not designed for baseball. We turned into a major league baseball stadium for an exhibition weekend for five years from 2013 through 17 Drew over 75, 000 fans, I think the first year for two days.

So that was a lot of fun. We’ve gotten to be involved in different movie projects from, we were the host venue for The Rookie [00:08:00] that was, that was mostly filmed at the Dell Diamond. We did a project with Justin Timberlake and Jeff Bridges down in Corpus Christi for a movie down there. Numerous TV commercials, concerts.

We, we did about anything that you could try to put in a venue. You know, we did Liga MX soccer. We hosted MLS exhibitions. We hosted Top Rank boxing. One time we even hosted a bull riding event and a monster truck event at the exact same time. That was a lot of fun. So

Anne Ristau: that’s an interesting fusion.

JJ Gottsch: It really was.

And, and, you know, we really. And around 2010, about 10 years into the, into the evolution of the company, we really started looking at ourselves as a live entertainment company, as opposed to a minor league baseball operator. And really how do we utilize these stadiums, our staff and these markets 365 days a year, as opposed to just a 71, 72 minor league baseball games.

And that was really the kind of the thing that catapulted us into not only, you know, utilizing our stadiums and, and bring in [00:09:00] more non traditional revenue, But then we started creating other verticals. You know, we started our own hospitality company. We did the food and beverage at, at, uh, several different minor baseball parks, Circuit of the Americas for seven years, different accounts all over the country.

We started our own sports construction company where we did everything from Little League fields to the Cotton Bowl and Minute Maid Park, but just it. It was a lot of fun because we were able to develop, build, and create a lot of different things, you know, over the 22, 23 years that I was there.

Anne Ristau: That’s an incredible amount of variety, but also such a great example of creativity that I think

probably most folks wouldn’t expect out of minor league baseball and really interesting to see. I think the other probably unique hallmark of the Ryan Sanders baseball team was the deep commitment to the community and something which I think you’ve continued on in your own right. You know, talk a little bit about what that, what that meant in practice.

JJ Gottsch: Yeah, I think that’s really important and [00:10:00] I think it’s a great lesson for anybody is to be authentic. You know, I think fans and citizens. Can see through folks that they’re just coming in for the quick win or wanting to be there for a year or two. But with the Ryans, they made roots there. Not only did we move there, the staff, you know, Reid Ryan and myself and the rest of the staff that was going to work there on a daily basis.

But Nolan himself, you know, who wasn’t a day to day member of our staff was really kind of hands off, but, but it was important enough to him and his family where they actually moved to the area, moved to Georgetown, I want to say in around 2001 and have been here ever since. But that commitment to community, helping out in all the different ways, they actually brought the Nolan Ryan Foundation to Round Rock to be able to have more of an impact with the local community.

But it’s all those things and it’s not just charity work. I think it’s getting involved in the different civic and social clubs. Uh, from your chamber of commerces to your visit, your tourism departments to all the different local, uh, service groups as well. I think it makes a huge difference when people know that you’re [00:11:00] invested into the community, not just trying to pull revenue from it, but to give something back.

And so that’s something that was taught, uh, a lesson that was taught to me early on. And so everywhere that we’ve ever gone and anywhere that we’ve ever

been

project we’ve been involved in with any community, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve really gotten invested into that community. We’ve done the same thing here with the Gamblers.

Anne Ristau: That’s wonderful. All right, so let’s pivot to 2022. You’ve had two and a half decades of executive leadership in some incredible organizations, and yet you joined a brand new team and league, the Austin Gamblers, one of the eight founding teams in the PBR team series as its CEO. What attracted you to the Gamblers and to this new competition format?

JJ Gottsch: Well, I’ve told people this story before, I don’t know that it was one thing. And I think it was probably a combination of a lot of different things. If it would have just been one, I probably wouldn’t have left again. I’d spent 22 years looking for the Ryans, not only just a great business and a great [00:12:00] organization, but a great family that we’ve been able to be a part of for that long.

And we felt like family and probably an organization that I could have stayed, stayed there until I retired. And so really wasn’t looking for anything new or different at that point. And so to jump from baseball. 20 plus years in the game, really acknowledging and playing to, to bull riding, not the natural progression, but the more that I heard about the opportunity, every little thing that I heard kind of helped.

And one was, you know, taking this great sport that had been around for 30 years. And really reinventing it in, in a way that it was going to be more, uh, or easy for the casual fan to consume, you know, because bull riding while simple in some aspects of one rider, one bull stay on eight seconds, the scoring that’s involved on, on how the bull gets scored, how the rider gets scored.

The genetics of the bull, how the different components work, it’s sometimes it’s a little bit daunting, but then we create this team format. And now fans in Austin, they just need to know, did the [00:13:00] Gamblers win or did the Gamblers lose? And so on in Nashville and Phoenix and Kansas City and these other markets, I think it made it a lot more consumable.

And so that opportunity, the opportunity to work for a great ownership group that was being developed with Abby and Egon Durbin and ultimately Michael Dell as a minority investor. To be in the, the company of not only that ownership group, but several others, including Thomas Toll in Phoenix. You look at the Bad Boy Moore Group in Kansas City, when you look at Springfield, Missouri and Bass Pro Shops, and John Morris, Richard Childress Racing and the group in Carolina.

And, and it goes on and on and just a, a really fun group to be a part of and, and groups that you knew that were gonna take this serious and, and really invest in the success. I think the opportunity to be able to be the first sports team to play in the Moody Center. That was a great opportunity for us.

But really for me, it was a pivotal point in my career in that I had just turned 50. And there’s not many times when you get to that age and you’re able to utilize everything that you’ve learned in [00:14:00] your life, both good and bad. And so to be a part of Ryan Sanders for 20 plus years, And to utilize all the lessons in sports business from marketing and sales and advertising and merchandising and all the different things that you do to run a business, to be able to take those lessons, 20 plus years, not just the things that went well, but the things that didn’t go well, and then to be able to do it in the city where I live and to be able to start and launch that and not have to move my family, pull my daughter out of school or anything like that.

It was just a lot of those things I think really became attractive when you put the whole package together. Again, it was a little, it was still crazy. My wife and I were just sitting next to each other. Cause those were the days when you were still kind of sitting by each other working, working, working remote.

We’re like, are we really doing this? To the point of, I actually signed on before I ever met any of the owners. And that was the, pun intended, that was the gamble that we decided to take. And I can tell you, you know, some two plus years later, It, it was one of the best things I ever had to have the opportunity to [00:15:00] do, to be able to be a part of this organization, not just the Gamblers and who we work for and who we work with, but the PBR and these other teams that we get to compete against.

It’s been, been an amazing ride.

Anne Ristau: That’s truly ground floor on absolutely every dimension. And I do think it’s noteworthy. You know, certainly the early founders and investors, you know, some of the most brilliant of the generation and just seeing the names coming in with the two expansion teams this year does feel very poised for growth ahead.

All right. My, my next question, which I think I asked Sean Gleeson three years ago, is PBR mainstream or subculture and who drove the Yellowstone audience?

JJ Gottsch: To your first question, I think it’s somewhere in between. You know, because, you know, as we’ve gotten involved into this now, and I look at, at just my set of friends who before we got involved in this may or may not have heard of the PBR, but I know they, they weren’t sitting at home on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons watching are [00:16:00] now having watch parties and are now calling me saying, Hey, it’s cool.

It going to be competing at this weekend’s event or who is Dalton going to be riding. Or what, what is Jose’s highest score? You’ve got people that it’s. This sport is wildly addicting, not just for me as someone who’s, who’s had to really jump into deep into the pool and try to understand the sport, but It’s made it so much fun and it’s so easy now to, again, to consume for folks.

And it’s, it is, it’s addicting. And so I would, I would tell you that I think it’s somewhere in the middle. And I think it’s starting to skew probably a little bit more towards mainstream. You know, when you look at the jump from year one to year two from in arena attendance for the team series, and then what’s carried over to the individual season, when you look at the numbers on CBS that are averaging over a million unique viewers, I don’t know, for every broadcast and then on those weekends when we’re NFL adjacent, somewhere between 2.

2 to some weekends being over 3 million people. Those are real [00:17:00] numbers. You know, that, that takes you from being, you know, something that’s not to something that is, that’s main, those are mainstream numbers. And so I think, and then kind of to part two. I think, you know, the timing of this with the appreciation and love for, for the Western sports and Western lifestyle and Western heritage, you know, utilizing Yellowstone as that vehicle.

And then what, what Sheridan has done with all those different, all those different brands and concepts and those spinoffs, you know, it’s just a great time. And I see us, especially here in Austin, because even though we are in the center geographically, the state of Texas, we are the capital. You know, we’re not a traditional Texas town, as you know, and most people from Austin aren’t from Austin.

They’ve moved here from California or Chicago or New York or other places. And we’re almost this gateway drug for someone that’s moved here and wants to be Texan, wants to be cowboy, but, but also, you know, didn’t really have a reason yet to get a hat or boots and now they can because they’ve got their own professional bull riding team.[00:18:00]

Right here in Austin that they can go root for. So it’s just a, it’s a really fun time to be in this space. You know, I think, I don’t know how long the Yellowstone craze is going to last. I think they, you know, potentially the last year when there’s some other series, but, but, but I think it’s a great time right now and we’re excited to be a part of it.

Anne Ristau: Yeah. I mean, real numbers, incredible growth. You talked about Yellowstone maybe coming in. How about The Ride though? That was also well timed and I believe there’s future episodes or series coming.

JJ Gottsch: Yeah, The Ride’s great, uh, docu series that, uh, in partnership with Prime Video and Kinetic Productions, that really chronicled the first year of the team series, and I think probably, one, it was a great documentary, but, but it is probably the best way to explain the team series if somebody’s just to watch that.

Watch that docuseries, but we’re really happy with that. I think it was a great job of, of storytelling, obviously with, uh, the Gamblers being one of the three teams featured and Jose and Zeke and Dakota at the time, I think it really gave a [00:19:00] peek into kind of what the life of the bull rider is like, not just for the rider himself, but for his family, you know, for his wife and for his kids and for his parents.

What they go through, not just from a physical struggle each week, but mentally as well, and what it takes to be a bull rider and to support a bull rider. So that was a lot of fun, you know, I think at least for the first month or two, I think it was in the top 10 for sports docu series, uh, on Prime Video.

And talking with some of the brass at PBR, it sounds like that series two could be for this coming up season, that we could have a second season of The Ride coming up. So that’s great. And then going back to, you know, kind of Yellowstone kind of tying that back together through a partnership with Sean Gleason and his team created with Cole Hauser, he is now the voice of PBR for 2024.

So whenever you watch one of the individual season events or the promotions for the world’s finals that are coming up in May, you’ll see snippets of Cole and him kind of explaining, you know, what it means to, to be a bull rider [00:20:00] and to enjoy and watch bull riding. They did a little, a little snippet video of him as well, but it’s, it’s been fun to tile those different things together and, and really ride this wave right now.

Anne Ristau: I love that. And talk a little bit more about these riders because they are risking their lives every competition. Who, who are these riders and how do they become introduced to the sport?

JJ Gottsch: You know, again, as we’ve talked about, I got to play baseball, I got to work in baseball and some of the finest human beings in the world, but one of the biggest things that I’ve noticed in my transition to bull riding are, are the people at all levels, you know, from the coaches, the stock contractors, our fellow GMs, everybody that’s involved with the sport, our sponsors that are kind of Western sports team sponsors.

But I think at the end of the day, it all comes down and back to the riders, you know, because without the riders, you wouldn’t have a sport. And so. The courage and the dedication that it takes to be a bull rider, you know, these guys for, for the longest time in the sport that’s been around for over a hundred years[00:21:00]

really aren’t doing it for the money. You know, for these guys, it’s something that’s typically passed down from generation to generation, and there’s a lot of pride and respect that goes into it. But you know, for us on the executive level, it’s, it’s an odd thing because, you know, unlike any other sport or a lot of businesses, you know, outside of being a police chief or a fire chief or someone in a military command.

You know, there’s not many other jobs where the people that work for you are risking their lives. And, and that’s the case with bull riders and the folks that go out and put on our game, our uniforms or the other uniforms for any of the other teams that these guys literally are risking their lives every time they put their hand in the rope.

And so just that in and of itself, it gives another level and layer of dedication from our end to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to support them from ownership and management, team operations, everything that we do, you know, we want to give our riders the best chance of [00:22:00] success. So that that’s all they have to worry about is the ride and nothing else because that in and of itself is so dangerous, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really impactful.

And, and it just adds a different level of when you’re managing an organization.

Anne Ristau: The other aspect that I think is really interesting as you came in with the team series is, These riders for 30 years had only ever competed as individuals. Talk a little bit about what you and what coach Michael Gaffney did as leaders of the organization to bring the team mentality.

JJ Gottsch: Yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. A sport that’s been around for over a hundred years, it was one bull and one rider and that was it. And, and really they didn’t, nobody else had to count on them. They didn’t have to count on anybody else. And so conversely for me, my entire life had been growing up in, in team sports, being in and around teams and being on teams with people that you like, people that you don’t like, but having to reach a common goal.

And all those different things and, and riding, you know, working for someone potentially that you don’t like, all those things that you learn in team [00:23:00] sports. And so that was one of the biggest things for us is how are we going to create a team culture in a sport that’s been primarily individual since day one.

And so as we looked around to different, you know, thoughts and ideas of how we could do this, should we bring in, you know, another team sport coach, you know, should we bring in a, you know, Mike Krzyzewski or, or, or Mike Tomlin or somebody else from sports and bring them in and teach these guys and, you know, you know, for a lot of our guys and they’re, half of them are from Brazil,

so they don’t know who those people are anyway. And so we really looked at, all right, what, what groups or organizations are, are great at team culture and team building and have to, and, and really tough, dire situations. And then we thought about the military, thought about special operations. And so through some connections that we had, we were able to get in touch with some different members of the Navy SEALs, uh, specifically Michael Cirelli, who’s here in Austin, part of the Legacy Expeditions, writes for, uh, Men’s Journal, uh, SEAL Team 6 guy, uh, does a lot of, uh, speaking on leadership.

He’s a thought leader and just a [00:24:00] great human being. So we, we got with him. He basically put together a program for us in year one where he brought in different special forces guides, different leadership folks. Talk about the importance of working together as a team. Talk about the importance of counting on each other.

Everything from classroom work, to we actually would go out and do different team building drills. They took him out on Lake Austin, which is right here outside of our offices, and got him on a barge. And to watch these little bull riders trying to kind of push these bars together and then have these guys barking at them, but it’s been great.

And I think all the teams, I think maybe everybody went out, went about it a little bit different, but I think all eight teams to this point, and I know that the two new teams coming in will do the same thing, I think have done a great job in building team culture. And I think all of us were surprised at how well it’s gone and how open the riders ultimately became because at the beginning they weren’t, you know, at the beginning they’re like, I don’t, you know, what is this team thing?

I don’t understand what it is. Why would I [00:25:00] want to be on a team? I want to control my own desk and I don’t have to worry about this guy, you know, screwing things up for me.

Anne Ristau: Literally the definition of a cowboy, I believe.

JJ Gottsch: Truly, truly, right? And so, I mean, and, and for those that have watched The Ride, you, you listen to some of the guys talking about that.

Eli Bosbender, who was with the Oklahoma Freedom at the point in that time, talked about, I don’t get this team thing, you know, I don’t understand what it is. But by the end of the season, and when we were doing a promo tour on, on the series, he had talked about how fully bought him. And I think that goes for almost everybody in the league.

And it’s, it’s been really neat for these guys because you know, when you really think about it, it’s when you, when you win as a team or loses a team, it’s just so much more impactful as opposed to if it’s just by yourself. And so it’s been fun to see, you know, not only the success that we’ve had with the Gamblers, but throughout the league.

And how this thing’s caught fire, but I think that’s ultimately also helped in the development and the ultimate expansion now from going from eight teams to 10 teams, as you talked about before. [00:26:00]

Anne Ristau: And do you find that that also has helped galvanize the fan base because they have a full team to cheer for, to support, whether it’s their town or, you know, their riders that they follow?

JJ Gottsch: Absolutely. And I’ve noticed it probably more recently than not, um, because with this year, this kind of special year 2024. Going into an expansion draft, one of the things that happens is you need to create a level playing field for those two new franchises coming in. So one of the things that we have to do is that each team’s got to make some of their roster available.

So we’re able to protect three guys, each team is, but that means there’s a lot of guys that aren’t protected. And as soon as that list came out of who was protected and who wasn’t, I, you know, we took a little heat online from why aren’t you protecting this guy and where are you protecting him to when I went home, I can tell you that my daughter is probably my biggest critic.

She’s 10 and she, she can tell me everything that I think that I know and everything that I don’t know about bull riding and why I should keep certain [00:27:00] riders. So I think that in and of itself was kind of the big indicator to us that this thing is working. People are understanding who’s on the team and why they want them on the team.

And so that’s been fun to watch.

Anne Ristau: Definitely a tough challenge, but certainly great to see the growth and, you know, definitely a trade off that you had to make. As you are heading into season three, what are you most excited about?

JJ Gottsch: I just think the continual, continuous expansion, not just with the teams, but with the fan base.

You know, the first year we kind of all had an idea of how we thought it was going to go, but then year two we felt a lot better about it. But really just the growth and for us, I’m at, you know, speaking here in Austin, the growth in year one, not just in numbers Anne, but an actual fandom. So we, we obviously saw a big uptick in terms of number of people that came to Moody Center in year two compared to year one.

But the biggest difference was just seeing the fans, one, how many folks are coming [00:28:00] in their Gambler green, their black and green are merchandise numbers. But then The actual cheering at the home events. And then what’s really crazy is in Western sports, I think, you know, for a hundred plus years, there was never a cowboy or cowgirl or any athlete that was ever booed, but with this team series, it’s interesting because when the home team gets announced and the opponent gets announced, the fans booing the opponents, never in the history of Western sports have athletes gotten booed, but now they are.

So it’s just that increase in fandom. Probably more than anything is what I’m excited about. You know, I think what’s going to happen with this expansion draft, the new writer draft is going to be great. We’ve got a new generational talent that’s going to be entering the draft this year. And a guy by the name of John Crimber and a couple of really good young athletes here, some kids from Brazil and just the continual growth of this thing and people following it and just kind of seeing where this thing goes.

Anne Ristau: Yeah, and, and certainly markets like New York, PBR is not new. It [00:29:00] might not seem as, uh, hand in glove as Texas, but, um, I think Madison Square Garden has been selling out PBR for long, long time, am I right?

JJ Gottsch: Yeah, MSG is, is usually the first event of the year of the calendar year in January. And honestly, one of my favorite events to go to.

And I think some of it’s just due to supply and demand to whereas, you know, there’s so much rodeo in Fort Worth and Houston and in Texas and in the Southwest that sometimes it maybe gets a little diluted. But when you go to New York and you go to MSG, not only is it everybody from the Northeast, but what’s really neat is the international contingent, folks from England, Germany, Italy, France, that, that is the closest and easiest PBR event for them to get to, and they’re cheering for everything.

You know, as we talked about in the team series, they’re typically cheering for the home team, but you know, at these, the MSG events, they’re cheering for everything. They’re cheering for the bullfighters, they’re cheering for the clown. They’re cheering [00:30:00] for the pickup man. They’re cheering for the bulls. I mean, it’s just, there’s so much energy and passion, you know, much like New York, you know, when you get off and you can kind of feel that energy once you get into MSG for a PBR event.

I mean, with all due respect to all the other events, including our home event at Moody Center, the MSG crowd, it’s, it’s electric. And so excited to see, we’re going to be going back to New York for a second time in the fall and Brooklyn, barclays center will be the home arena for the, from the New York team there.

And then we’re going to South Florida being in just outside Fort Lauderdale for the South Florida Freedom Team. So excited about those two markets adding on to the original eight that we do. And, and it’s just. Again, I think the PBR has done a great job of selecting and putting these markets, putting them up for success.

Anne Ristau: I love that. And it’s also pretty impressive that in just two years, franchise value is 600%. Wow. That’s a big number. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. That’s a great one.

JJ Gottsch: You know, I think that I saw an, uh, uh, article in the [00:31:00] SBJ and that, you know, it, it was really fun to be able to get in the ground floor of this thing where we did.

Um, but what’s really exciting is to see where this thing’s gonna go. And I think that. And as we’ve talked about before, the folks that are involved in this, Sean Gleason and his team have done a great job curating and bringing in some quality owners that are not only just, not just Western sports folks, but entertainment backgrounds, different successful businesses and bringing a lot of different things to the table, um, that I think are really a voice for growth.

And so, you know, I don’t know that we’ll expand probably in 25, probably not, but there’s a chance that we may expand again in 26, 27, 28, So, again, hoping for continued success for these two new teams as well.

Anne Ristau: I’d love to move into a rapid fire as we close out. First one, most memorable game or competition that you’ve played in?

JJ Gottsch: I would say probably one of two things. I grew up in just outside of Omaha in a little small town called Dali. And every year I went to the College World Series from when I was [00:32:00] born all the way through, you know, I think in 52 years, I think I’ve missed College World Series twice. Uh, my freshman year of college being introduced and going out to the foul line and being able to look in the stands and see my family and friends and everybody that I grew up with probably was, was the most memorable.

And then in an adult life, kind of being able to remember more as we talked about the night the Corpus Christi hooks won the first Texas league championship was, was always memorable.

Anne Ristau: Very cool. Is there a sports moment from history that you would have loved to see live?

JJ Gottsch: I’m a huge Muhammad Ali fan. And I just remember in the old days of boxing.

You know, kind of like flying, you see the pictures in the old days of everybody wearing suits and dresses and all, you know, looking nice. I think I would have loved to have gone with my dad, maybe a, you know, when I would, if I was in my twenties, but to go with my dad to go to a Muhammad Ali fight would have been great.

Anne Ristau: Who would you most love to see at Gambler Days this August at the Moody Center?

JJ Gottsch: Oh, you Anne!

Anne Ristau: Awesome. I’ll take that invite.

JJ Gottsch: All the folks that are [00:33:00] listening in, you know, I don’t know, you know who we haven’t had yet is Minister of Culture, Matthew McConaughey. So maybe he’ll show up this year.

Anne Ristau: Okay. Send that invite.

That’d be an excellent guest. Although he might want to compete for the voice. All right. This is a fun one. You versus AJ. Bit of a test for AJ. See if he’s listening. Who would win? Sports trivia.

JJ Gottsch: Probably A. J.

Anne Ristau: Poker.

JJ Gottsch: Me. I’m a gambler.

Anne Ristau: Down the clown.

JJ Gottsch: A. J. Really? You’re a pitcher. I ruptured my bicep tendon. I can’t throw right now.

Anne Ristau: Okay. Ping pong.

JJ Gottsch: You know, I would love to lie to you and tell you that it’s me, but it’s not. I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s enough time on this podcast to tell you the story about when A. J. and I kind of broke in at the Oklahoma City Convention Center around two in the morning and like

Anne Ristau: I don’t want anyone arrested because of my podcast, especially my boss.

JJ Gottsch: Yeah. I’ll just tell you this, for anybody listening out there, some friendly advice, don’t play against AJ with any kind of a paddle sport in bet [00:34:00] money.

Anne Ristau: I think that’s great advice. All right, AJ, you got three out of four from JJ. That’s pretty high praise. JJ, last one. Who is your hero?

JJ Gottsch: You know, I would, I could give you the stock answer of, you know, my mom or my dad or brothers or anything like that, which I love them to death and they’re obviously huge influences in my life.

But I think probably going back to one of my earlier answers, Muhammad Ali, you know, really not only what he had to go through to become champion, but then once he became champion, Utilizing his platform to do something that was important to him. And then ultimately his whole, you know, beyond that and kind of what he became in his second life and his third life, fourth life, just a truly inspiring American and inspiring person.

And in terms of any type of athlete, like he’s probably somebody that I would look up to and, and, and turn my hero. And then I’m also a big history nut, so Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s my guy.

Anne Ristau: Oh, I love the reinvention. I think that’s something we all can aspire to. [00:35:00] Thank you. Again, this is Anne Ristau with Navigate, joined by J.

1. Gotch, CEO of the Austin Gamblers. Thank you so much for joining us on the Navigating Sports Business Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out. My email is anne@nvgt.com and you can connect with us on my personal LinkedIn or on the Navigate page. Thank you again, J.

JJ Gottsch: Thanks, Anne.