The Realest: Turning memorabilia into recurring revenue

speaker-0: you Hello and welcome to the Sports Loft podcast where we hear from the people who are driving innovation across the world of sports, media and entertainment. I'm delighted today to be joined by Ski, the CEO and co-founder of the Realist. Ski, welcome to the podcast. speaker-1: Thanks for having me, Charlie.

Great to see you. speaker-0: Absolutely. Now the realist, as I would paraphrase it, enables rights holders to very much capture and monetize the moments around memorabilia, turning physical items like match worn assets into, you know, the authentication and then helping people monetize that and indeed fans collect it. you presented at the Sports Loft Summit last year to greater claim and you recently closed a, was it $12 million Series A?

So pretty chunky round of funding. to enable you to go and do some very cool things. Put it into your own words. Tell us about the Realist.

What's the product? How did it come about? speaker-1: Sure, we built our product, number one for fans, number two for rights holders, and number three to kind of modernize this industry. Collectibles are obviously exploding.

The numbers are undeniable. We've seen a little bit of modernization and trading cards just really rocket charge the market post-COVID, right? Like it really accelerated a trend that was already there. We really wanted to create a focus on the memorabilia landscape and not only modernize that industry, but protect fans.

It's an industry that's been historically riddled with fraud that utilizes old school platforms and methods and authentication. And we wanted to also bring the rights back to rights holders. It was oftentimes a kind of a shady gray market area. It also didn't appeal across multiple generations.

It didn't have affordable products. points for entry for new consumers. ⁓ consumers were being tricked, myself included, which is one of the reasons that I launched this business. We just thought there was a better way.

you know, fans want to be closer than ever to their idols. And we allow teams a new mechanism not only to generate newfound revenue, but to really engage their fan base while telling a sustainability and upcycling story and creating all these ancillary benefits. speaker-0: So talk to us a little bit about how you help authenticate the product. So I know that it is the jersey that Ronaldo was wearing.

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. mean, our foundation at the core, are an authentication business. When I looked at the landscape, one, as a collector, and two, as somebody I had to fund in the collectible space where we made 25 investments, we were buying million dollar sports cards and pieces of memorabilia, we realized that the only organization that we felt was doing authentication right was Major League Baseball. They deployed this witness-based authentication program.

They'd been doing it over 20 years. They have it every game, multiple authenticators on site collecting every bowl that's being used, jerseys, dirt. And they did it to protect their brand. Fans were being defrauded to the FBI over here in 2000, found $100 million in fraudulent baseball memorabilia.

In fact, Tony Gwynn, his estate, is one of our clients. He's one of the reasons the program was started. He walked into his own team shop and saw a fake autograph of his in there. Right?

So the team was... And they're like, ⁓ we got it from this guy who had them and it wasn't real. And we were just blown away that, like, there is a way to do it. It's on-site authentication.

It's been proven and baseball has proven it. Why every other rights holder is not doing that. Not only does it generate a lot more revenue, but it really is about protecting their fans. And we saw lawsuits happening amongst major NFL teams.

They were being sued by actions of sometimes players or equipment staff. And it was just the wild, wild west. And for us, Everything we do starts with authentication and we've built really a second to none system that serves as part third party auditor. There's a reason that you don't audit yourself and you hide these big audit firms at the end of the day for teams.

You don't want to have that liability and you need to have a transparent touch point and protecting chain of custody is everything, right? People. underestimate that. And everything that we saw on market just fell short, which is why we decided to really build the world's best authentication company as a foundation of what we do.

speaker-0: So if I go on the Realist website, which I was earlier, and there were some signed jerseys that were worn during games, there was NFL jerseys and things from the Club World Cup, cetera, talk us through the process from getting from that jersey being on the players' back to actually being on the website. speaker-1: Absolutely. We are directly partnered with leagues, with teams, with rights holders, with even states and players. We typically, we have two levels of authentication.

Our highest gold standard means we have an authenticator on site that is collecting items. We've built a mechanism with their training staff to sometimes covertly mark the jerseys and collect them postgame. Sometimes we put different trackers in there. Our authenticators are there watching the match.

They have line of sight on that. They collect it after. It is as in-depth as it comes, and it's typically run by off-duty law enforcement personnel. We've kept it actually as even a separate entity.

We call it truest authentication. Our authenticators have no quotas to fulfill, no upside. They are there simply to evidence collect. It's routed in law enforcement procedures.

And we then, once we obtain the item, we secure it. We then apply covert and overt markings that consumers can see. And it also allows us to be the only parties that can validate these items in the future on secondary sales as well. But we truly deploy and do all of the work.

And actually, all we really need is approval. It takes a lot of the work off organizations that have historically done memorabilia and that require kit managers or equipment managers to fulfill this and get all these things done. We actually make life easier for them while protecting teams. speaker-0: And so from the point that it's been authenticated, then what happened?

It goes to a central warehouse. How does that all work? speaker-1: Yep, each system is different, right? We customize it and work with our clients on that.

But high level, yeah, we send it to our central fulfillment facilities. It then goes through our intake process where we document, we batch it, we load it in. And then it goes live on the site for fans to be able to own this moment and this memory and important history in their life. speaker-0: And are you taking all the photos?

Because I know when you and I have spoken before, presentation of the memorabilia has been a big thing for you. So how do you approach that? speaker-1: Absolutely. Again, we looked at this as a relatively like kind of sleepy, quietly large industry.

There's been a number of not only companies, but individuals that have sold game used game worn items for decades and decades. It's kind of been like under the radar, but enormous transactions happening. mean, we've seen baseball jerseys sell for nearly $30 million, basketball jerseys over 10 million. You know football jerseys as you all have seen nearly, you know, ten million dollars like there There's a real industry that's out there.

It's not small We wanted to to also modernize that and onboard new generations and demographics of collectors that weren't currently in this kind of small buying pool of people that were in the know on that and Part of that comes through the customer experience and it starts with presentations. So yes, we've hired photographers from fashion backgrounds to elevate the way things are displaced and productized Part of our hitch to the industry is if you look at how even cultures have sold their history over time, we're looking at Roman gladiators and going to museums and framing that.

We should be preserving these assets of that because that's kind of what a lot of these sporting moments are in that era. And it starts with presentation, with photography. So to answer your question, Charlie, yes, we take on the photography and the presentation to just make sure everything is displayed at the utmost brand. And we work with the biggest brands in the world.

We think that their product should be presented as the greatest items in existence. speaker-0: So when, as a fan, if I'm buying off the realist website, you're doing the shipping, you're doing the transaction, you're taking the money, you're distributing it, you're taking care of the entire operation, speaker-1: We handle it end end for partners. That's part of our beauty, right? It doesn't make sense for most teams, and several have tried, right?

Running auctions in GameUse is terribly difficult. Not only do you have to get through the authentication and the building out what that looks like in a secure, trusted platform that really shouldn't be yourself, the same reason you're not auditing yourself, right? But also, it's a lot of work. And even for teams that run their own retail, where you can take one picture of a jersey and sell 100,000 jerseys of a star player, Every item that we do is one of one.

And also, there's so many different types of items, different type of collectors, the way and the theory behind sale of that. It's big enough to matter, but it's not big enough. mean, we've raised over $16 million to date to build this in. While working with a team that has done this, my co-founder, Venico, is one of the major league baseball teams for 16 years.

Howard on our team was working at baseball before they even had launched this program and at launch. We have this expertise that is really, really unique and second to none in the market. And that's where we realized, yes, there is an opportunity for us to come take this on. And we'll maximize it for partners without them having to do any work.

And we can handle everything from inception on site to fulfillment, and even sales in the future, secondary sales on those items, which our partners participate in. speaker-0: And explain to us a little bit more about how the secondary market works, both from the perspective of the owner of the product who's now reselling it, but also for the team whose product it was originally. speaker-1: Yeah, for us, everything we do should not be for business use case. It should be done for the number one important party in there, which is the fan, right?

They're ultimately the reason that we are here, that teams are here, that players get paid so much. So we think on what can benefit them. We saw where memorabilia has a history of transacting over and over. There's a life cycle of it.

We think on average around five years that people keep it. They either get sick of looking at it, they want to upgrade, they decide they've had their moment with it they're ready to move on from it. A lot of places, there's not really a simple way for them to liquidate it. But it really starts with the foundation of our authentication.

Because we are there at the inception of when the item is being collected and used, and when that moment is made, that is where our multi-layer technology comes into play. The reality is with holograms, with RFID chips, with NFC chips, all of those things can be cloned, can be backdated. Somebody could even sew them out of one jersey and another and... With this much money at play, we've seen everything happen.

Our system, with the covert and overt markings, kind of pairing that we do is unique to us. And especially because we are there on site, we're not giving letters of opinion. We are truly the only people that can validate items in perpetuity. And by doing that, if a fan wants to sell an item and another fan wants to buy it, we can serve as that intermediary, not only from a platform perspective where it's happening on the site that they're already used to and the team is branding.

but where we come and validate and protect that new consumer and back it with our money got guarantee on everything. So people know and can buy in confidence, not only in the primary market, but on future sales to know that that item hasn't been tampered with. if it comes to us, we inspect it, we validate it. Even if we notice the hologram is the same, but it's been removed or applied or something seems fishy on that, we will not process that transaction.

We'll send it back to the owner and we'll refund the new buyer of that. We are really here to protect the fans, which we think is more important than anything else to our partners. speaker-0: Are you finding that there's lots of items that are appreciating each time that they're getting resold? So effectively you've got like an asset that is going up in value.

speaker-1: Absolutely. And one big question that a lot of rights holders have is, should I sell this now or should I hold onto it? It's only going up in value. We think the entire market is going up in value first and foremost, right?

Like, this is not slowing down. This is only accelerating. The beautiful thing about our platform is you don't have to make a bet on what player is going to go on to be a future superstar or not or timing on that. You want to tap into the moment as quickly as possible, typically, to sell those items.

And then what happens is we see people like, rebidding an item, sometimes within minutes of an auction ending or weeks and these jersey sales happening again and again and again. And again, it's only unlocked through authentication because we are there on site. We can truly validate that. We are able to allow this kind of infinite resale window and be the first and only in the industry to do that kind of based on our technology.

speaker-0: if it was the team that sold the item originally does the team also get a cut as when it gets resold each time? speaker-1: Absolutely. We build their platforms, it's sold on their platform. They don't have to do any work.

It's in essence a perpetual royalty stream that they're able to get and that otherwise doesn't exist. speaker-0: And so just building on that idea of who gets a cut, there's something amazing happens, an amazing goal is scored, it was the player who scored it. You've got the team who was involved, you've got the tournament that organizes it, you've got your doing the authentication. How do you build that relationship between all of those different factors, all those different players in there?

Because if it wasn't for each one, none of this would actually exist. speaker-1: 100%. Historically, we'll take it back. Memorabilia has been something that's been under the table.

mean, the way items have been acquired, it's been through venue workers, different things, right? Like friends of friends. It's been super shady. And most of the actual rights holders, all of the people that you named, have historically been left out, right?

They haven't made anything from that. For us, we work with our partners. There's clear kind of control on who owns which type of items. And we've built, again, this is kind of what we've done and set precedent about with our partnerships with the world's biggest leagues associations, players associations, to figure out how those things split.

That is part of our advantage is we have precedent, we have the knowledge. I mean, even if you look at our funding round, it was backed by one team, which is the consortium backed by the NFLPA, MLBPA, MLSPA, WMBPA, number of other rights holders organizations. And, you know, part of our pitch and one reason that we've had so much success with them is we want to involve everybody. There is, you know, as you said, multiple stakeholders in that.

And there's also different ownerships based on the different types of items. And we think that we have kind of solved this issue for a lot of others. At end of the day, we are a client services business. And we will do as our clients direct.

But we kind of have enough precedent framework to understand how to get all parties to the table. And if we think done a good job in kind of aligning and getting all rights holders paid. speaker-0: And give us a feel for the of the types of clients that you're working with. So Philadelphia Eagles is one that I you mentioned last year when you presented at the Sports Loft Summit.

Give us a feel for the breadth of organizations that you're working with. speaker-1: Absolutely. mean, we're fortunate we've worked with as big as it gets, right? We did the entire Club World Cup with FIFA here last year.

We represent teams across the NFL and NBA. We represent players associations like the Major League Baseball Players Associations, entire leagues like Unrivaled, TWHL, the PGA of America. So we did the Ryder Cup. We even represent movie properties.

We do things like Gladiator 2 we did. We did Wicked 2. ⁓ Artists like Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg. kind of anybody that has a deep fandom that wants to connect with their fans in an elevated way and it's best in class we work with.

speaker-0: So what's the most in demand items? I say, looked on the website, there's various match worn shirts, but there's equally, you know, there was a used champagne bottle on the site from the Ryder Cup. Now I assume that was the European team, obviously, but you know, what's the sort of stuff that you're finding is really driving demand? speaker-1: Everything, right?

mean, jerseys, balls are kind of like historically the most obvious, right? The most in demand, especially from key moments. I mean, people love anything. They want a piece of it.

I mean, we are really proud of how we productize things. We make net relics, as you'll see with some of our partners, where we really elevate it. We don't just like cut it up and put it on there. We create it in a cool product that people are proud to display.

It's really important for me to create things and have products at every affordable price point. I referenced when I was a kid. You know, I wanted a baseball card, a King Griffey Jr. baseball card.

It was the most popular one, and it was like $100. I could not afford that as a kid, but I could buy a pack at a couple bucks and be happy. A lot of that is kind of left in memorabilia and cards. It's just become about numbers and money, and we don't think that is healthy for the industry or grows the industry.

That's why it's so important for us. Not only, like, don't get it twisted. I love setting all-time record prices. We own record sales prices in a number of categories.

But we're equally as excited about selling products like that that will be somebody's first memorabilia purchase because this is making them a lifelong fan. And that's where collectibles and memorabilia is so important to teams too, because if somebody is staring at their desk and looking at the logo or a product from a team, they are just building that brand affinity and brand loyalty. And by the way, those people ultimately become someone like me that as I have had success in my life, I've been able to go out and...

acquire very high value items, but start somewhere. It's not starting with these hundred thousand dollar plus items. And for us, it's not only like building our business, it's growing the entire category. So that's really, really important to us and how we approach the business.

speaker-0: If you were to talk to a team or a league that has no memorabilia strategy whatsoever, where would you start? speaker-1: I you have to start, right? It's happening with or without you. That's part of this.

I guarantee you any club that we talk to or that is out there, even if they're not doing it, I can go find items. I can go find a game worn or match worn jersey, a ball, something from them. They probably haven't had the rights. So you need to control that from a brand protection and a liability perspective.

And like, look, revenue is obviously a foundation, but at the end of the day, what we do matters more to a lot of our partners from a fan engagement perspective, from a brand building perspective, even an upcycling and sustainability perspective. When we're taking things like banners from stadiums and turning those into tote bags, that's taking away a cost center. It's taking away something that you have to declare for sustainability purposes and turning it into a fan data touch point and a revenue touch point.

while also building fan loyalty. And a lot of our partners are like, we don't even care about the revenue. That's great. Let's do what's right and engage our fans in a deeper way.

that's really where I think once organizations understand not only the financial benefits that can come, because there's others out there that provide that, but really the full scope of services that we provide across an organization, it really becomes a no-brainer to implement. We think we built the most robust and secure authentication platform and turnkey ecosystem for the industry. speaker-0: Now, one thing I've always been very intrigued by is actually the reaction of various fan groups to the memorabilia.

Now, there are obviously some fans who are going to be super excited. I get to buy the shirt that a particular player was wearing. However, could it also be perceived that actually they've even got some maybe unpopular club owners cashing in on the history of their club? How are people presenting these sorts of things?

mean, often do... the proceeds go to like a club's foundation or how do people approach that sort of stuff? speaker-1: It can be. We work in charity side all the time.

We love that. It's really, look, it's up to clients on what they want to do. But look, sports is a business. There's a reason they don't give tickets away for free.

There's a reason that they sell merchandise and they don't give jerseys away. This vertical is happening again with or without them. People are selling that. We think it's actually better to protect the fans and to fans of our organization, even if you're not a buyer of that, seeing and being able to preserve these stories and these memories is important for generations to come because it's building fans.

We think also the ability to help teams make more money so they can go sign more players and be better for that is there. I mean, there's instances, right? We've helped do stadium reclamation projects. in some, they're like, fans are like, I already paid for my season ticket.

Why would I pay for this seat? And that's where we come in. Like, look, actually costs money to take these things out. And like, would you rather have your ticket prices go up?

Or if the team can make money on these other things, you don't have to buy that. Nobody's forcing anybody to buy those things. And again, the last thing is just doing it in an elevated way where we storytell and present. We think it's obvious and it's going to become a standard.

whether we like it or somebody else likes it or not, that would be our kind of response. speaker-0: How do you think about your sort market expansion? was especially thinking internationally, you mentioned before that you presented at last year's Sports Off Summer and you were very, very well received. What geographies are you looking at on your radar and where do you see this as a priority for you in terms of internationally?

speaker-1: Absolutely. mean, started in North America, which is the most mature memorabilia market in the category. And now we're seeing other markets catch up to that very, very quickly, right? For us, we've already expanded into Japan.

We opened a pop-up store there and have had some initiatives with the Major League Baseball Players Association. We did that given kind of the explosion of some of the Japanese players, namely Shohei Otani, and kind of cross-border jumping with that. And I think it's obvious for us looking at Europe as the category that we are hyper focused on for the future, especially with our backing. We think that obviously that sports fans in Europe memorabilia has been historically underserved and we've built when we want to bring the world's best authentication and platforms and operating system over to that.

So you guys are a key, key player in that. That's why I've been spending the time to build the relationships. And we want to do it the right way. We want to do things authentically, organically, especially when we enter new territories.

So a lot of it is knowledge and research. And that's why we've been very methodical with our entry into Europe as a whole, right? Like we're learning a lot about the different markets and what fans react to. And best football leagues in the world are in Europe.

Even Americans now, as football explodes here and the World Cup comes here, they are paying attention to that over there. We want to help also bridge that gap and introduce some of the European brands to the American audience. And long story short, we're excited to make some announcements in the coming future and things that you'll see when the time is right. speaker-0: And I mean, there are structural differences, right, between European sports and US sports.

Do you think those structural differences though have an impact on the way that you need to approach market entry? speaker-1: Absolutely, right. Every market is different. And that's important because, you know, our authentication is core.

But the types of products that we make in the UK are going to be different than the US. The European football fan is different than the American football fan. And we want to do things that speak and resonate to them. Let's take Japan for reference.

We'll take Europe off the table, right? Like, the Japanese market is far different than the US. Different economies, different types of product lines, and also just wildly different. in terms of the way that people operate.

And we came in very authentically and organically with not only the MLBPA rights, but bringing in, you know, leading families in baseball in Japan, doing things not necessarily just for the revenue, but to build brand, build credibility, to provide value to fans. So we have a long-term play and a long-term vision for what that is. But again, we want to start... in a way that is scalable and that builds that authenticity.

We think you can always grow up. It's tough to just come in over the top and build that core credibility and authenticity. ⁓ And at the end, we understand culture, I think, better than anybody else in the landscape. And we want to do it the right way and build it really brick by brick in a way that is authentic to the core.

And it's not only amongst territories, it's amongst individual cities and markets where clubs play, right? Like what works in... London is not going to work in Manchester, is not going to work in Berlin. Every market is really unique and we're really cautious and we want to do it in a way that's scalable and beneficial for all.

speaker-0: Now you mentioned the fundraiser that you've done recently and there's some pretty big names in there, know, like PGA of America, the One Team Partners, Alicien Park. How did you approach fundraising round and what is it that you are looking at those particular investors to be able to bring to you? speaker-1: Yeah, mean, look, as a startup founder, I'll say a couple things. mean, the first is you need capital, obviously, to operate.

And at the end of the day, if you don't have capital, you can't get out there. That said, if you can take capital from strategic parties that add value beyond just putting in a check, you'll do that every time. When we went out to fundraise, again, we targeted rights holders. We targeted experts in their category and people that could add those benefits.

And the thing that I'm most proud about is like, yes, we have some great names and some, you know, some of the most respected brands in the space and teams on our cap table, which is amazing. But all of these partners are people that we've worked with. Like the PGA, we were working with them and they believed in us so much and liked us as much. Even after working with them, they want to put their money where their mouth is.

Alicia Park, she's the ownership group behind Dodgers and Lakers here, again, two of. maybe the most storied franchises in each sport right now. They are backers of us, right? And we worked with them first, which made this all the more natural.

And I think that really validates what we do. Again, you can kind of raise money one time and put those things behind it. But the fact that all of our existing investors from our seed round have doubled down, and also these new investors are people that we've worked with along the way, they're not just like new faces, I think says everything and really is the strongest signal our business can send. And we're very lucky to just have a really, really smart team around us.

speaker-0: So as you've been running the business over the last few years, what's been the biggest learnings for you? I mean that partly actually running a technology business within the sports industry, but also how you've seen the sports and the memorabilia market. What have you learned from that? speaker-1: Yeah, mean, a number of things.

Like when we actually first, the idea for the business is a startup, right? Was we always wanted to get sports, but we actually, especially given my background and my history in entertainment and music, our initial plan was let's really just start with music and focus on that. And then we'll get film and TV. We will be the dominant player and own those landscapes, which really don't have any memorabilia.

And then we'll go after sports after that. And. What happened is like a startup, right? Like you jump in the situation and you know, there's a famous Mike Tyson quote where he says, you know, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.

As a startup founder, it is your job to adapt and see what happens. And we started having some sports conversations and they just took off. And from there, it just exploded. And our thesis was a little wrong.

We actually thought like, ⁓ sports is a little more mature in memorabilia than those other sectors. We'll get others first and then... And we think we have the best protocol. We knew we had that.

We knew we would get sports later on. But the appetite was ripe for sports, where there were enough partners and leagues and teams that were like, no, we understand. They may have done some stuff in memorabilia, but they wanted to take it to another level. And our platform and our authentication was built to kind of be interchangeable.

It doesn't matter if we're at a music concert or a sporting event. In fact, if you look at the Super Bowl last year, we had three clients there. We had ⁓ Philadelphia Eagles, who were authenticating the actual game things. We had Kendrick Lamar, who we authenticated his entire wardrobe, every set piece, everything that went into the show, which was the most watched, you know, halftime show of all time at the time.

And then Serena Williams even too, who was dancing in Kendrick Lamar's outfit. So we took her, know, Chucks, her outfit that she was wearing. And I think that really shows like it's... It doesn't matter, like there was really not much difference from sports and music.

We're still collecting, documenting, going through that same process. Just the clients change. But sports has shown a clear need for it. And there is a little more historical, I guess, experience in sports with it.

And there was just a demand. There was a clear need that we found from teams who wanted to enter this space. And that's kind of where we've exploded. We still do music.

We still do film. and all of that, but sports has clearly been our key driver to date for a business, and we think will be for the foreseeable future. speaker-0: And how do think that sports landscape's evolved whilst you've been working within it? Are people putting a higher premium on certain types of products?

Are there teams who are valuing certain things more? What have you seen change? speaker-1: Absolutely, it's exploded from something that people really weren't paying attention to. Most teams didn't have any deals.

The ones that did, it was almost treated transparently like liquidation. They were like, ⁓ somebody is going to pay us to take these jerseys at the end. Sure, why not? They weren't thinking of it.

And now what is happening in every conversation is there's multiple players in the field. It's clear that this is here to stay. There is significant. sales revenue and pipelines on that.

Almost every sports organization now has some experience, has been talked to about it, and is looking at it. Some faster than others. Some have already done things. Some are actively running programs.

And some are trying to find the right entry point for that. But in the last, transparently, two years, it's gone from something that isn't on the radar to something that the most senior people, like I got a call from the president of one of the biggest teams in the world yesterday. And it's literally at the highest levels who are looking at like, what do we do? What's the strategy?

We were told you're the person to talk to, right? And we're also finding a lot of teams that have experimented or done things in the past now want to take it to another level and really own the fan data, own the platform, create more than, you know, just the typical historical like jerseys, maybe balls, items, and expand into a lot of other categories. So it's rapidly evolving from that. And that's why.

We are running and doubling down, there is no shortage of vision and goals and announcements that we have to come. speaker-0: And we can't do a podcast like this without mentioning AI at some point. But the context for AI in this case seems a little bit different in the sense, and the way I'm thinking about that is there's all this content out there that frankly nobody knows whether it's correct or true. Basically AI generated slop.

Almost what you're doing with the realist strikes me as the opposite. It's kind of like, is there more value on something that is physical and you can touch and you know is true in the context of a world where actually so much of it is now you're not sure what's true. speaker-1: Charlie, you nailed it. AI for us, we look at it as two ways.

Being able to dictate what is real versus what is fake is going to be one of the biggest challenges for the next century, right? And for us, with our process of being on site, I mean, look, the challenge with historical things like even photo matching or putting in chips, especially when bad actors try a lot, there's a lot of tools where you can very easily duplicate that. We cut that out and we think that is like one of our core values and that's something that AI cannot replace.

It has to be humans. There has to be that layer of touch. I mean, that's why we played sports games. Otherwise we would just watch video games.

There's a reason players play and it's clear AI is taking over. We think there's also like people that want to hold physical items and touch these. And again, what I say is when I look at these items behind me, it's not only like the perceived value. For me, it unlocks a memory.

And having physical, tangible assets, especially in this era of AI, we think is going to be wildly, wildly important for us. that really is, you know, I don't want to say we're a hedge. We use AI as a business. how we've been able to scale and grow really quickly and operate efficiently.

Like we have a hundred million dollars in the bank because of the business operating tools. We can leverage that, but from full, you know, from our authentication footprint and what we do, like those things. We always are deploying and going after the newest technology, but there still is something tangible about these moments. again, the thing that I say is, you know, what got me into this was, you know, my favorite team growing up in a small town in ⁓ Minnesota was watching the Twins win the World Series as a kid.

That's what this trophy is behind me. It's what some of these balls and these items are. And it doesn't just represent my favorite team. It represents my memories of my childhood.

When I look at that, I remember and I feel like I'm... six years old again. remember, you know, my mother who passed away and being there and going to games with my father and like, it's not just the game. And that's what we think is so magical about memorabilia when done right, is there's going to be somebody with this confetti we have from the Super Bowl from the Eagles that looks at that and remembers 20, 30 years from now being at that game or even watching it on TV and where they were with their family when they watched the trophy rain from that and like, of course it's their favorite team, but That actually isn't why they're buying it.

They're buying it because of the memories that it unlocks and the joy that it brings. And that's where we are here to provide and why it's so important for us to have a breadth of categories that everybody can participate in. speaker-0: think it's time to wrap up, but one last question. Which gets more, a match worn Ronaldo shirt or a match worn Messi shirt?

speaker-1: I think it depends on the situation, right? Like, situation is everything, but if you're taking the top of each, I think it's going to be messy at this point, right? I think it was the last World Cup that really... stop the argument.

also, I would think the paths that they've chosen, one coming to America and one going to Saudi Arabia have affected their collectible and memorabilia markets just from a pure eyeball perspective. Again, the majority of collectibles and memorabilia landscape is in America, and we see messy a lot more than that, right? So I think that actually, for those reasons, that's why I would go with messy, but can't go wrong. And if it was a Ronaldo jersey from, you know, I was at the Euro final in Paris when it went to overtime, he got injured in the sub, but like that jersey would be more than a messy.

you know, MLS Jersey, obviously, so context matters. speaker-0: Well, nothing is going to be more than a match worn wolf shirt. that's spot on. with that absolute delusion on my part, Ski, thank you so much for joining us and tell us all about what you've going on with the realest, is, you know, we've seen firsthand is a fantastic business.

So best of luck with everything for the coming year. And thank you very much for joining us. speaker-1: We already know that, right? Appreciate it, Charlie.

Thank you so much. Can't wait to see you over there soon. And good luck with the next sports law summit. Such a great event, I just got to say.

So kudos to you, and thank you for having me here. speaker-0: That's brilliant. So next thing to say thank you to all our listeners. I hope you enjoyed that.

Make sure to check us out on LinkedIn and check out the new website. And with that, thank you very much and we'll see you all soon.