Curious Conversations, a Research Podcast

Travis

How much of an economic impact do you think professional sports teams have on their communities? It doesn't take an expert to know that there's a lot of money in professional sports. Heck, if you've bought a ticket to anything recently, you've probably seen this firsthand. But I'm curious if that money, in fact, trickles down to the local communities in which these teams live more can play. And thankfully, Virginia Tech's Jadrian Wooten is an expert in this very subject.

Jadrian

the economic impact of most professional teams, even most college teams, is really relatively small. what ends up happening is when people talk about the economic impact, they look at the scene and they go, There's this many people, they spend an average of this much money. Here's the total impact. And the problem is that it's really hard to see the unseen that is those people who Don't get the money instead.

Travis

Jadrian is a collegiate associate professor with the Virginia Tech Department of Economics. His research focuses on economic methodologies as well as the economics of sports and labor. So he was the ideal person to talk to about the economic realities related to professional sports on everything from the cost of ticket prices to why do we always seem to need a new stadium? And of course, How much money from professional sports actually ends up in our communities?

I'm Travis Williams and this is Virginia Tech's Curious Conversations.

(music)

Travis

I think right off the bat, what I'm so I guess curious about, what led me. to you is your work with economics, but also your your interest, your study of sports and the connections there. So broadly speaking, if it's even possible to put this in a nutshell, what do you what do you think sports can broadly teach us about economics?

Jadrian

Is such a fascinating question because when I went to grad school to get my PhD in sports econ, this is always sort of pushed down. They're like, don't do sports econ because it's not real. And then I did it anyway. And then now anytime I get to give introductions, that's the only thing people actually care about. Like they're so excited to hear that I'm a sports economist because it like piques their actual interest. so big picture. I I like to say that economics can analyze sports, and sports is a good place to study economics. One, because the data is readily available. And we just have so many sports nerds that are calculating, they're keeping track of so much data that we can't do that in a lot of other settings. but then the other nice part is there's a lot of formal rules, which are also really important for economics. So if we think about studying economics of like the healthcare industry, you know, what we do in the United States is very different than what we do in Europe, and different states might have different rules. But if we want to study what people are doing in professional football,

 

It's very easy. The the games are the same length, the fields are the same size. Like there's a lot of there's a lot of rules that actually make it really easy to analyze. so I love being a sports economist because you get to study a bunch of different things and it's really nice and clean compared to other things.

Travis

Yeah, it I mean, it probably also is maybe one of the places where economics seems so tangible to to at least me. It's funny to me that people kind of pushed that down when I feel like this is the conversation that a lot of my friends have all the time is how can you believe how much money these people make or how much money this was or how many tax dollars are gonna go to build this thing? And so one of the things as I was getting ready for this interview, I can't remember if it happened before we originally did like a pre pre recording interview or not, but the LA Lakers got sold. I'm sure you saw this because it was like a record breaking sale. I think it's twelve was twelve point five billion dollars, which is I can't even wrap my head around that. but what stuck out to me was the guy who sold them, He only owned the team for like a little over a year, and He think he paid 10 billion. And so it seems like we're at a place with sports where the product, the sports product itself, doesn't actually have to be that great for people, the owners, to be able to make money off of that. And I'm just curious from an economics perspective, what's going on there? Because in in in my in my world and very basic world, it's like good product, you make money, bad product, you don't make money. So what's happening there with the sports world?

Jadrian

So yeah, it's I've I always this is always a fascinating part. So I teach sports economics at Virginia Tech and the students bring in the exact same questions. Because I think when we look at sports as a fan, we get a very different perspective than when we look at sports from like a research standpoint and investing standpoint. So as fans, we sit there and go, I would love for my team to invest in a winning product and to get great players. And you know, as a fan, I I want them to dump money on my team and I don't want them to care about profits at all.

I just want to have a championship. And the owners are doing the exact opposite. I think they do right. They would like to win. Absolutely. But you don't have that many owners that are just like, I'm going to dump a ton of money into the team. It's an investment, right? They're going buy it and they're going to own it for a set period of time. If they're not making money every year, every season, that's okay. they sort of know in the long run, whenever they're ready to sell it, five years later, 10 years later, it's going to be it's going to pay off sort of all those losses.

So they're willing to lose a little money season to season, but they're not gonna lose a ton of money. they know that they're gonna make it back later. So it's almost like we like to say it's like investing in a product that is you're just having fun with it. You get to sit up at the owner's suite, you get to meet celebrities, you get to have a good time. If you win, that's great. but the end goal really is, you know, for a lot of these owners, it's selling it down the line or passing it on to their kids so that they can sell it down the line and then sell it for billions of dollars.

Travis

Yeah, has it always been that way with sports? Like have they always been kind of a foolproof investment?

Jadrian

No, no, no, this is really more like probably since the nineties or so. the old versions, like teams didn't sell for that much money. you know, it's part of the problem, I guess, if you go like sort of before the nineties, you had competing sports leagues. So, you know, owners were trying to jump into different places. So the most famo I mean, obviously there's the AL and the NL in baseball that eventually merged in the nineties. So you did have these sort of two separate leagues that were happening. in football, you had the USFL, which I think is only around for like three years, but they were trying to compete with the NFL. So There was competing products. And so you didn't buy a team sort of just to invest. Like you needed to actually make money so that you would have a team the next year. Like you needed that money to keep paying players. since sort of the 90s, we've had this consolidation. We have second leagues, but they're just they're not as powerful as they were sort of in the 70s, 80s, 90s. You think the NBA and the ABA, obviously the NL and the AL in baseball, the two football leagues, like almost every league had competitive leagues today. There's no second league. It's major league baseball. And then you've got the sort of the bananas doing their own kind of weird thing that's not actually competing. in foot professional football, you have the NFL, but like you don't the spring leagues are completely different. They're not trying to compete. I I you know, I'm not a huge fan of basketball, but I I to my knowledge, I don't think the basketball has a second league. I think they own the second league, the G League. and so it really is an investment opportunity now there's not a competing league that's sort of taking away profits.

Travis

Yeah, I think the only one that I can remember really in my lifetime that was relevant at all was the XFL. And it was not it was not relevant for

Jadrian

Yeah.

Travis

the good product necessarily on the field. It was relevant for all of the wrestling culture and everything else that it attempted to bring in. so that's really that's really interesting. It's almost that it almost sounds like that there is a little bit of a maybe a monopoly when it comes to the highest level in in in our country of professional sports leagues.

well, I am also I guess really curious because this is coming up. It comes up every every year, it seems like that the professional sports leagues specifically want a new stadium. And they are they are they're asking people to help them with this new stadium. And I'm I'm asking this question after the first question, which is we know that they're making a lot of money here, but then when we go to the stadium question.

 

That money doesn't seem to translate to the stadium. So what what are the economics related to to building a new stadium in a in a city look like?

Jadrian

It's this is one of the fascinating things. There's a there's a subset of sports economists that get really deep into this space, and I am so appreciative that they exist because they dig into some of the wildest contracts that team owners can can think of. so I'll be very upfront. There are team owners that are happy to pay for their own stadium. I will say that is a minority group of owners. a lot of other owners, you know, li they're businessmen. They all, you know, it's businessmen or business groups of businessmen.

Who are very savvy and they realize they have a product that the local market is willing to pay for. and so a lot of times they go to cities or they go to counties and they say, Look, we need a new stadium, this old one's falling down. We want you to pay for part of it because we're adding value to the community. That's usually the sort of the phrasing that they do. just like, you know, we add value with parks and we add value with a new rec center. we want the city to help offset some of this cost so that they're not paying the whole thing.

And so as a result, we usually see situations where cities or counties are paying half the fill half the bill, a third of the bill, two-thirds of the bill. They're paying some part of it. and so then as a result, if somebody else is paying a chunk of it, the price of those stadiums tends to get bigger and bigger and bigger because somebody else is subsidizing a part of it. the owners fully, they could afford it. They're they're billionaires. They they can afford to build a a stadium, but it part of it is why would you if somebody else is willing to pay for it?

And you have a really nice opportunity to say, look, if you're not going to pay for it, there's four other cities. They would love a team. I'll move if you are not willing to pay for it. And so it's a really sort of good example, kind of two things at once is you have a product that you know is in high demand in your area. and it's not that somebody else is gonna swoop into that city and and fill your spot. Like that's your territory until you leave. and so there you can sort of drive up how much they're willing to invest.

And then the second part is there's this sort of you know, incentive part of stadiums are gonna be very expensive because somebody else is paying for part of it. And so you're gonna overspend on those stadiums too.

Travis

Yeah. Is I wanna ask you about those local impacts, but I guess before we get there, I'm curious why do they need stadiums so often in professional sports leagues? Because I say that because I live in Christiansburg. I grew up here and we've always had Lane Stadium. And so what is it about professional sports leagues that may make them wanna need why do they need so many new stadiums?

Jadrian

You know, I I will say that I I'm fairly c you know, I don't know. Lane Stadium is sort of iconic given its age. And there are a handful of sort of college stadiums that are those sort of older stadiums that have a tradition to them. A few of those exist in professional leagues. You know, you think baseball has Wrigley Field. I would have said Yankee Stadium, but they replaced Yankee Stadium. but Finway, for example, right? There are a couple older stadiums that exist. but for the most part, new stadiums can generate new revenue opportunities for teams. If you've ever been to Finway or even you know, I'm the the Bears Stadium, the what's the name of the Bears? Soldier

Travis

So soldier field?

Jadrian

Soldier Field. there are not that many opportunities for the teams to have like luxury suites, you know, behind the scenes tours. They try to weave those in, but brand new stadiums, you can carve out more spaces for luxury environments. and so you can actually sort of sell upsell these experiences to people and sell them for more money.

Versus on a college setting, like you can. We have suites at Lane Stadium, the you know, there's suites at the baseball stadium. but realistically, it's it's one of those situations where like you can't do that too much. you you do sort of have a much smaller fan base for Virginia Tech football than say Charlotte, and what they have as theirs. And so because you have more demand for NFL football games in Charlotte, you can sort of extract extra money out of them.

And so part of it is, you know, every probably 25, 30 years, a a team goes, This stadium is a dump, it's falling down, we need a new stadium. And when they build a new stadium, what ends up happening is fans come back and they go, This is a beautiful stadium. I'm gonna go spend lots of money at the stadium. And then the stadium doesn't look so nice and it gets a little older. you know, the these stadiums are not necessarily built as a we're gonna build it for a hundred years and build in tradition. But the ones that were built in the 1920s, 1930s, they were. They were built as a

This will be a permanent stadium for a hundred years. And so they were built with that tradition in mind.

Travis

Yeah, so there's a little bit of like keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to the the stadiums, it sounds like.

Jadrian

A lot it, right? Like they go, Well, this this team has this feature in it. You know, they've got a massive Jumbotron. We need that too. you know, I and you hear this all the time where I think a new stadium opens and they're like, We have the largest LED screen in the conference. And you're like, Does that really matter? Like none of I I'm gonna go on a limb and say, right, no, I don't think there are Virginia Tech fans who are like, Well, our screen is too small, so now I'm gonna go be a Duke fan because they have a bigger screen. Th that doesn't happen. And then truthfully that doesn't happen in the NFL either. but it's one of those weird like they want to be able to brag about the biggest, nicest, newest stadium. these are very rich individuals who like to show off their very nice stadiums and teams. There's I think there's some vanity in there. And I think that's reasonable.

Travis

Yeah, I mean that that makes a lot of sense. And you know, I who am I to say how a billionaire spends their money? You know, that's I I can't I can't really speak to that. But it is it is a very interesting concept. And I'm I am curious, what do we know from an economic standpoint about the local benefits of having a professional franchise in your city?

Jadrian

Very small. The impact is incredibly small. You know, it's this is a this is one of the hardest ones I think for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. And like I'm gonna be just as guilty. I when I go to games, I sit there and I go, Am I really right like, am I right about this? But it's one of those I know the data and I trust the data is telling me the sort of the true story. so the economic impact of most professional teams, even most college teams, is really relatively small. it exists and there are definitely people who benefit but the problem is that there's all these people who don't benefit and it's really hard to see them. and so in an economic sense, we have a phrase called the seen and the unseen is it's we're not very creative in naming things, but it's called the scene and the unseen. and the main idea it's it's an old philosophy from hundreds of years ago. and the idea is that it's very easy to see economic activity. So if you show up to a game. It's very easy to see all the people in the stands and go, Well, look, they're buying beers, they're buying hot dogs, they're buying jerseys, they stayed at a hotel, they ate at a restaurant afterwards, they were tailgating in the parking lot. Like it's really easy to see all the dollars. And so what ends up happening is when people talk about the economic impact, they look at the scene and they go, There's this many people, they spend an average of this much money. Here's the total impact. And the problem is that it's really hard to see the unseen that is those people who Don't get the money instead. So a really great example is if you're living in Charlotte, let's say you're from the area and you're driving from the suburbs downtown to go to a game and you eat at the game downtown. Well, you're spending money downtown, but you would have spent money in the suburbs. And so really the money that's spent downtown, that restaurant is definitely benefiting, but your hometown restaurant's not. And so when we start to think about it from a calculation standpoint, you're getting more money in one location, less money in another location. So your net effect is actually zero dollars. we can think about that from even people who are coming from out of town. Yes, they're spending money, but they weren't spending money back home. when we think about people coming from out of town, then we want to think about who's not in the city. So there might be people who live downtown near the stadium who do not care about the football game at all. Those people on a football weekend go, I gotta get out of here. This place is too crazy. I don't wanna spend my money. They would normally spend money downtown, and now all you've done is replaced. An out-of-town visitor with an in town visitor, again, sort of a net zero impact. And so once you start thinking about these unseen portions, it gets you start to realize that maybe the impact is not as big as what we say. somebody coming downtown, staying in a Marriott hotel, yes, they're gonna spend maybe twice as much money, three times as much money. They're gonna raise those hotel prices. but the people who work at the hotel, they're not paid two times as much, three times as much. they're paid, maybe they're paid a little bit more, but they're not gonna be paid triple what we're paying for a hotel room. And then some of that money leaks out of the city. So a Marriott and Charlotte, some of that's gonna stay there, but some of it's gonna flow back to the Marriott headquarters because of profits. And so we call that leakages, that money is spent, but then it doesn't stay there. And so you can't count their full hotel bill because that full all that money's not staying in the area. So there's all these little little ways that we can sort of pick down and say that the economic impact is probably pretty small compared to what they actually say.

 

Travis

That is that is really, really fascinating because it sounds in a lot of ways like you're moving money around more than you are generating more of it. And it it just reminds me of we often have you know, out of town tournaments and games and stuff in Christiansburg. And that's always one of the things that they're like, Well, though these people will go to restaurants and stuff. But I I'm definitely guilty of this and I may not be a right of this about this, but I always will tell my wife, I'm like, Well, Texas Roadhouse is packed regardless. Like, and they can only get they only have so many tables. If they're filled by us or by people from somewhere else, I don't know that it makes a difference to them.

Jadrian

Yeah. And you know, the same as it's not just sports, it's also, you know, Broadway shows if there's some big show, a concert that comes to town. And this is where I say I'm just as guilty because I, you know, you see a lot of headlines about like Taylor Swift and the Errors Tour and all the money she generated. I went I went to one of them. And so it was really challenging even to give these stories because in my mind I'm going, Well, I paid for a flight, I stayed in a hotel, got I went to this city because of the concert, but then at the same time there were people who lived there that go, I gotta get out of here. And it is this just sort of substitution of there's only so many space for people. And so like if one person comes in, somebody else has to leave.

Travis

Yeah, it is definitely harder to feel things that we can't see, that is for sure.

Jadrian

Yes.

Travis

well you mentioned going to some of these games and some of the ticket prices. I know I looked into a going to a football game recently, a professional game, and I was taken back a little bit by the prices. and I went back after that and I looked at some other games. It could have just been the game that I was looking at. I mean, I know games are different. but I'm curious, have we seen maybe in the past five years, maybe post COVID, have we seen A sharp rise in ticket prices?

Jadrian

So this is definitely across the board since the pandemic. There's been increases at professional games, college games, movies are more expensive. you know, sort of all sorts of experiences have gotten more expensive. Some of that is inflation-based. So things are naturally more expensive in the economy, but we've sort of seen increases in ticket prices for a lot of things at a rate that is much faster than what we would suggest for the economy as overall. And a lot of the explanations for that really are can kind still blame the pandemic for some of it. during the pandemic, a lot of individuals got to work from home. And so we saw savings rates that we like, we just we had not seen savings rates like we had ever, really. People were saving 20, 25% of their income for about a year. And so if you think about it as like that, you they weren't able to go to the movies, they weren't able to go to football games and basketball games and concerts. And so all that money had this sort of pent up demand. And so when things came back in 2020, or sorry, 2022, that's when people really started to come out and they go, look, I've been locked up for two years. I want to spend money and have these experiences that I didn't have. And so some of it is they had the money that they could spend. And then some of it was also this driver of I want to make up for the time that I did wasn't doing things. And so we saw this really steep increase, like kind of right in 2022, 2023. And part of that is I think you know, team owners. Have basically said, well, they were willing to pay for it in 2022. Why would we drop the price if they're still willing to pay for it? And so one of the things that tends to happen is when we get new prices, we update it, it's called updating your reference point. We remember the old prices back in 2019, but sort of we know that you know when I looked last year, that was the ticket price. And so it's not surprising when the ticket price is the same. And so we tend to, it's very rare that prices ever come down. So once we saw that real spike in sort of twenty twenty two, team owners said, Well, there's no reason to lower it, let's just keep selling it for the same prices. So yeah, they're really high compared to what you would have seen ten years ago, but they're roughly on par with what we would seen over the past couple of years.

Travis

Okay. I was wondering if it was just me. I'm glad that it's not. but that price referencing it makes it makes a lot of sense because I'm no longer shocked when I go to like a gas station. But I always everybody who's around my age will talk about, you know, remember back when we paid under a dollar for a gallon of gasoline? Like we can all curr we can remember it, but

Jadrian

Yeah.

Travis

we're just it's like we don't feel it anymore when we go there.

Jadrian

Yeah,

it's it's you compare it to last week, you go, it's a it's a little cheaper than the last time I filled up. That's great. and we Yeah, exactly.

Travis

Yeah, I bought more groceries, so I got more points off this time. Is is maybe for me what's happening there a lot of times. Well, I I love the fact that you talk about economics in such a fun way. And I know that you're also the co-host of a podcast where you have a lot more discussions in this, I think, same vein. it's called Economics Happy Hour. where

Jadrian

Mm-hmm.

Travis

can folks catch that at?

Jadrian

Yeah, so we're on pretty much any podcast platform that you're probably listening to. So we push everything out through Substack so that that way if you want to read our show notes or read graphs that we're talking about in there, we have it there. So you can always listen in Substack, but we're also on Spotify and I know Apple Podcasts on there. I think there's been some consolidation in the podcast industry. So I'm not I I think Google Podcast doesn't exist anymore. I think it's moved over, but it it's pretty much the main podcast area. So it's economics happy hour. I do it with my friend who is at the Susquehanna University up in Pennsylvania. And so we have been doing it for a couple of years, just just like this, just talking about economics and different different things that are happening and things that how are we looking at it from an economics perspective versus somebody else?

Travis

And you also have you also have an email newsletter that you send out every w I don't know how you do all this work actually. But tell us about your your email and how folks can get subscribed

Jadrian

Yeah.

Travis

to that too.

Jadrian

So I also read a weekly newsletter called The Monday Morning Economist. it this is also from the pandemic, so it's everything seems to come back from the pandemic, and I'm pretty sure the podcast was probably a pandemic idea too. so during the pandemic, right I wasn't able to talk to my students. You know, things were happening, but we were stuck online, stuck on Zoom. I I do think there's benefits out of Zoom. Obviously, we're able to talk and have this conversation thanks to

the probably a lot of it thanks to the pandemic of getting comfortable being on on these types of calls. but during the pandemic I I missed that opportunity to talk to people. And so I started a Substack newsletter. And so you can find it, I think it's MondayEconomist.com is the short version, but Monday Morning Economist will take you there. And it was really just my I my ideas that were floating around and and saying how can I take what's happening in the news, in pop culture, on social media, and how can I explain it through an economics lens. So I've been doing that since twenty twenty one.

So it's been man, I I really should know the exact number. So it's whatever five years times fifty-two articles. I've I've written every week. There's one week I did not write an article. and I and I'm happy to say it was the week I was moving to Virginia Tech. so the movers came on a Monday, and so I I I did not I I put an article out and it basically said, No news today, because the news is I'm moving to a new university. And so that's the only one that doesn't have a real sort of a a real article.

Travis

That is outstanding that you're able to do that much work. And a good sign that you don't know the number because it means you're having fun doing it. You're not just, you know, you're not just ticking off boxes there. well,

Jadrian

Yeah, it's a kind of fun.

Travis

we've talked a lot about economics and how much we we s we spend at games and all these things that go into them. But one of the things I really do appreciate your about your approach to this is that you enjoy sports and you like to go to sports. And I know that you've been on a a quest to see a lot of different stadiums. So This is a two-parter. I'm curious about how many stadiums have you visited so far,

Jadrian

Okay. Yeah.

Travis

and what's been your favorite?

Jadrian

Pulled up this data before we started to make sure that I could give you a the most accurate number I can. I will round it off. It is approximately 240 stadiums. So when I started the my stadium quest is what I called it. When I started it, I was in grad school, so it was 15 years ago. the goal was to see every Division I football stadium. And then over time, I I realize it's really hard to get to stadiums in a lot of these cities, especially You know like I could pick on Blacksburg. It's it's this is a it's a it's a tough place to get to if you're not in the area. And so I realized it was gonna take me a lot longer to hit all those stadiums. So I said, you know what, well why don't I just include some other things too while I'm there? and so I'd go to college stadiums, professional I'm sorry, college football stadiums, professional football stadiums, professional baseball stadiums, and professional soccer stadiums.

So I I I've added I've expanded my definition of my stadium quest, and that's where I get to the 240. it makes it way easier than I can go to a city and catch a I can catch a baseball game followed by a college football game. I can kind of do everything in a September. So we're 240. My favorite is gonna be, I'm gonna give you the the economist's favorite answer, and it's gonna be it depends. so I'm gonna make you come back and tell me which sport do you wanna know? Because the answer depends on the sport.

Travis

Okay. Well give me give me one of each.

Jadrian

Okay, so professional baseball, very easy. It's PNC Park in Pittsburgh, the Pirate Stadium, I believe is one of the most beautiful stadiums I've ever seen. And I will caveat that with so anybody who's listening, I have not been to Wrigley. And I'm aware I need to go to Wrigley. I have been to Finway. I think PNC Park's better than Finway. I've been to St. Louis. I think PNC Park is better than St. Louis. Those are usually the ones at the top of the list. So I I will admit I've never been to Wrigley. I'm I'm waiting to get a game. It's on my bucket list. So PNC Park, you can see the bridges out in the outfield. Beautiful stadium. I wish they invested in the team in the same way that they've invested in the view. So PNC Park. So okay, that's professional baseball. Professional football, I'm gonna be honest, they all look the same to me. This is probably a bad, a bad question. They they're all new, right? So they've they're all, I should say they're all relatively new. I've never been to Soldier Field. It was raining the day that there was a game, and I wasn't gonna sit I was not gonna pay $200 to sit in the rain to watch the Bears play. So I've not been to Fort Yes.

Travis

And we just talked about whether they keep building new stadiums. So we've explained this.

Jadrian

Yeah, and so it's you know, I haven't been to too many NFL stadiums. if I had to pick one, maybe I I kinda like Four Field in Detroit. it's got this sort of neat it feels like a stadium that's wrapped or like a bubble is wrapped around the stadium. So it's got these arches, so it feels like you're walking into an old stadium, but it it's covered, so it's pretty nice. So I'll go there, professional baseball, professional soccer. It's in the same vein. A lot of the MLS stadiums are all pretty similar. They don't look that different. If I had to pick one, maybe Philadelphia. To be fair, I will say I've not been to very many. but they're also some of them play in NFL stadiums. So like the Charlotte MLS team, I'm not gonna give them that's that's not their stadium. so I'll go Philadelphia, same idea. It's got a bridge, so maybe I'm just I'm really into bridges. It's got a bridge over one of the corners that's neat. College football.

I am gonna bundle together stadium and environment in this one because I think that's really the that's what makes college sports really unique. There's some great historical stadiums. You know, I've I've been to Ohio State, I've been to Michigan, I've been to the Rose Bowl, I've seen the Coliseum, like I've done sort of the big ones. They're fine. I'm gonna mix them together. I'm gonna say West Point Army is probably the coolest stadium combined with an experience. So you're actually on the military base at West Point. You have to go through the gates. There's the, you know, they're in there with their full army fatigues guarding the roads. They will not let you to you cannot tour campus as a visitor. but what was neat is you sort of get to drive through West Point and then their stadium is set up. They've got a little lake next to the stadium so you can sort of see over it. But it's really neat to see. I mean, those, especially if you've seen Virginia Tech football games, the core in the corner is such a cool part of it.

And then just imagine like their entire stadium is the same. And instead of a flyover with jets, they're doing flyovers with like black cock helicopters. Like it's just it's sort of a cool experience compared to other ones. So I'm gonna go army as a combination stadium plus experience.

Travis

That is that is awesome and I think that that's a very smart way to play that card because you know, you could have played the homework there, but instead you play the army card, which hard for anybody to disagree with you there. So well played.

Jadrian

Well this there's you know there's yes, this so the that's what makes I think college sports really cool and NFL is you can give me you know you can give me the Lambeau leap and say like that's what's so special about Green Bay. Like that's not that impressive. College sports is pretty cool because there are these sort of moments where you think about Inner Sandman for Virginia Tech, you think about Country Roads for West Virginia, you've got dotting the eye at Ohio State. There's these sort of traditions that are really cool that go along with it. But Yeah, there was something it was just something really different about about the army game that was I the combination of being able to drive through the stadium, it's it's very that part of New York is very pretty. it yeah, it was it that's one that is memorable to me. Like that and I I might just be maybe I'll maybe I'll put the homer side of it is maybe I've been at Virginia Tech long enough that the some of the appeal is not there. I've only been to one West Point game. So maybe if I if I lived there and I went to several games, maybe it wouldn't have been so cool.

Travis

It's fair. Sometimes we get we get comfortable in our own environments and we forget how the cool they are.

Jadrian

Yeah. part. Yeah.

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