Build It

Andy Hayes talks. A lot. The sound quality on this episode is pretty poor, sadly. This is mainly due to Nik forgetting to plug his microphone in. So apologies for that.

All good things must come to an end. So, too, must poorly produced podcasts. Back for an unprecedented third appearance on the pod, John & Nik begrudgingly welcomed Andy Hayes back to Build It Towers. There's a lot of talk about administration. And dick bags. If you're Andy's mother, might want to give this one a miss. We'll be back in the Fall. Maybe the Winter. First, we have soccerballs to play!

From July last year, new NCAA legislation cleared student-athletes to pursue name, image & likeness deals. As a result, every college athlete in the United States – across all divisions and sports - is now able to make money from endorsements and through a variety of other ventures, over-and-above the scholarship they receive from the college. According to ESPN, it is estimated that a typical NCAA athlete could be able to earn anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000 annually from their NIL; whilst also estimating that an All-American athlete could earn anywhere between $500,000 to $2 million per year in social media endorsements. This is obviously a huge issue in the minds of so many players at clubs like ours across the country, so we sought out the best mind that we could find, Zach Fisher, Marketing Specialist and former Collegiate Athletics Director of Marketing. Strap in!

Dennis is a guest we have wanted to have for a long time. His "Open Source Soccer" concept was a catalyst for so many in US lower league soccer today, including ourselves. In this conversation, we talk set up nightmares, on-field success, off-field trials, and there is an unseemly amount of talk about folding t-shirts.

#HerGameToo is a campaign started in 2021 in the UK. It is run by a group of female football fans aiming to raise awareness of sexism in the game. In this episode we speak with Jenn Ramczyk as she works to launch the campaign in the US. Find out more  #hergametoo Jenn : @jenns_design https://www.facebook.com/hergametoo/ https://www.hergametoo.co.uk

We spent an hour in the company of Christian Franek, who heads up Palm Beach Breakers. We speak about their super-distinctive lines of merch, what it takes to progress from local rec leagues to a national system like NISA, and what exactly day to day management of an amateur club looks like. Strap in!

Listen in as John and Nik talk with Ivaldo Basso of @SteelCityFC1 Ivaldo is a straight talker who pulls no punches about what growth the club looks like for his club.

Our guest this week is Jesse Cole, founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas, an independent baseball team playing in the Coastal Plain League. The Bananas have been awarded Organization of the Year, Business of the Year and won the CPL Championship in their first year.  Fans First Entertainment has been featured on the INC 5000 lists as one of the fastest growing companies in America. His teams have welcomed more than one million fans to their ballparks and have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, ESPN and in Entrepreneur Magazine.  The Savannah Bananas currently have sold out every game since their first season and have a waiting list in the thousands for tickets.

Our guest this week is Arik Housley of Napa Valley 1839. Having robbed DKCU of a place in the next round of the Copa Insignia, we connected to discuss the club, the community, and how to grow a club in the current environment. Full disclaimer here, technical issues which may or may not be related to my idiocy, meant that we are missing the first couple of minutes of the conversation. Apologies for that. All you need to know is that Arik and his colleagues elected to join the NPSL from the origin of their club in 2017. Sorry!

Our guest today is Dorian Lair, General Manager of Snohomish County Football Club, situated to the North West of Seattle, Washington. Fun fact, the movie War Games, which listeners of a certain age will be very familiar with, was filmed in art in Snohomish High School.