eSports ft. Matt Arden - Head of Content and Media at NBA 2K League

 You're listening to the red cast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alfred.
 Hey, guys, what's up?
 It's Ryan Alfred host of the red cast.
 We are in part six or seven.
 Not sure, Riley.
 I'm having a hard time keeping up,
 but of the esports series.
 It's been a good one had a ton of interaction.
 And today, I'm super pumped to have Matt Arden,
 head of content and media in the A2K League.
 Matt, great to have you on.
 Thank you very much for having me.
 I appreciate it.
 Appreciate it.
 Can I, do I drop three time in me winner?
 I mean, do I start there?
 Like, I got a better you up here.
 I want some good stuff.
 If I didn't win it with the NBA 2K League,
 it'd done county work.
 All right, all right.
 So excited to have Matt on.
 We shared a few stories from a mutual friend.
 The voice, one of the voices of,
 if not the voice of NBA 2K League,
 Scott Cole, good friend of mine and Uber talented.
 So, so great to have that connection.
 But, you know, what's what's going on, man?
 You know, ESPN 2 every week,
 almost every week.
 Lots happening with you guys.
 Yeah, it's been crazy.
 I mean, you know, you and I were talking,
 you know, before we, before we hit play
 that I hesitate to say that this period has been fun
 because it's obviously for so many more global
 indications has not been fun.
 But I think that we've made a very good run
 at making the best of it.
 And we have found the silver lining and all of this.
 And I think, you know, in a weird way,
 it's been, it's been bearable
 because we've had NBA 2K League to lean on.
 And I think that, you know,
 I think we're always really like outwardly focused
 on the fans.
 But it was weird how when we focused internally
 on how we're going to battle this whole COVID situation
 that we realized what fans we are of sports
 and of esports and of the 2K League.
 And for us that work on the league,
 it's been, it's been great for us too
 because it's been a, it's been an escape for us too.
 It's been, you know, it's, it's kind of saved us.
 It's exactly right.
 I mean, I, I never do how much I miss sports
 until the gap between the NBA.
 And I don't, I'm not even a huge MLB fan,
 but I was like, you know,
 Braves are down the road from us here in Greenville,
 you know, quasi Braves fan.
 And I'll catch, you know, a few innings here.
 I'm like, I was missing MLB.
 So you know, like, I'm sorry.
 I mean, that does not the biggest baseball.
 But I was just like missing the sports.
 So I was like praying for the golf
 to not to get canceled when it started back.
 Dude, I was, I was watching Cornhole
 was following us on ESPN 2 a lot of nights.
 And I was, I was glued to that when we went off air.
 Anything competitive,
 anything that feels like sports we're in.
 I've never watched as much Korean baseball
 exactly a.m. in my gym.
 Then it was I'd have it on ESPN in the gym.
 And lots of Korean baseball.
 And I'm like, really like rooting for these guys.
 And I'm like, you know, it's cool though.
 Like with all that, you know,
 again, trying to find this overlining.
 Like now I kind of have like little fandoms
 with like certain Korean baseball teams.
 And I have like the ability that it's given us to,
 you know, expose us to different sports and different people.
 Like for me, look at the core of a storyteller, right?
 And to understand some of these new stories
 and really interesting people and understand their backgrounds.
 All that's been super cool and a weird way.
 And again, I don't like, I would like us to get past this
 and I would like to not ever have another COVID era.
 But it has exposed us to some really cool things
 and it's been, you know,
 there have been some cool moments.
 So, you know, I'm not going to, I don't want to throw it all away.
 I love it. So let's start storytelling.
 You open the book perfect for me.
 I love it.
 I know that's your background.
 I know again, we mentioned the Emmys,
 but let's start there a little bit.
 You know, your background and storytelling and producing,
 then maybe, you know, teeing off right to 2K League.
 It kind of, you know, maybe give you a little bit of that back history of,
 of Matt and kind of your, you know,
 what led up to where you're at now.
 Yeah, I mean, look, I got really lucky in college.
 I, you know, I work my way through college,
 working in sports media at Virginia Tech.
 Go Hokies. Sorry, I know you're a Clemson fan.
 I worked at, you know, the newspaper and the radio station,
 the TV station down there and then got,
 I landed an internship at the time at WRC in Washington for
 the George Michael sports machine, which at the time he was the,
 you know, biggest syndicated sports program on Sunday nights globally.
 And I learned a lot from him.
 And, you know, the biggest piece of advice he ever gave me was that,
 like, your college degree is great,
 but don't try to prove to everybody you can write circles around them.
 You want your stories to be embraced by everybody in America.
 Like, you know, his whole thing was mom,
 mom, pop beer can better understand what you're trying to say.
 And that's sort of, you know, how I approach storytelling as an executive producer.
 And started out as a sportscaster on air.
 And then found myself incredibly lucky to get hired down in Atlanta,
 lived in Atlanta for 11 years and worked for the majority of that at Turner Sports.
 And Turner Sports was amazing for me in so many ways.
 One, it was, it really introduced me to the MBA product.
 And I got to work on MBA a ton as a big part of my career.
 Got to meet my wife, which I would, you know, no offense to the league,
 but I would put her above the MBA.
 But it's a close race.
 And I got, you know, down there, you know, as part of my maturation in storytelling,
 I got exposed to two very important people in my growth.
 One was Ernie Johnson.
 He and I, I was on a show with him.
 He hosted the show that handed off to my show.
 And he was really instrumental in giving me a lot of advice.
 And it was always very kind to me.
 And you talk about Scott Cole and some of the shared friends that we have,
 that, you know, Ernie Johnson and Scott and those guys,
 homework was always the thing.
 Do your research, know your homework, tell the story the right way.
 And, you know, he really hammered that home with me.
 And then the other one was Craig Barry of Turner Sports, who's still there.
 Craig was a huge influence on my life.
 He hired me to see SSU down there as employee number one.
 You know, as the first sort of being hired under him as a PA.
 You know, didn't know much, but learned everything from him.
 Were these like Dominique Wilkins Spud Web days?
 Are we talking about that?
 I'm not quite that old.
 Okay.
 All right.
 I'll say that my second year, I won't, I won't give you my age,
 but I'll say that my second year in CSSU was the LeBron and,
 and mellow draft years.
 So that'll date me a little bit.
 Yeah, the fool.
 So anyway, you know, Turner Sports, great to me.
 Craig was great to me.
 I learned a lot down there, shared time with some incredible writers and producers,
 you know, mainly Drew Watkins and Matt Masteller.
 And, you know, we all came up together.
 And then my wife got a job offer in New York City.
 You know, I grew up in Virginia.
 I lived in Atlanta.
 I'd never lived north of the Mason Dixon really.
 So I was like, all right, let's try it.
 So I quit my job.
 I moved to New York.
 I worked for a great company, right when I came to New York called Maggie Vision,
 who does a lot of work with ESPN and does the SB's NFL honors.
 And then went the agency side, you know, went brand side for a while
 with a company called Screen Vision.
 And then I've known with the NBA for the last, you know, year and a half or a year over.
 And kind of felt like a homecoming honestly,
 because they spent so much my career working on the NBA product that it was,
 you know, it just felt like the after, you know, eight years or seven years in New York City,
 it felt like I finally landed at a home.
 It was where I was supposed to be.
 It's been great.
 What's been the, you know, transitioning from the NBA proper to 2K league,
 you know, the video game side, which obviously the games, I mean,
 it's gotten so realistic.
 Like there's so much crossover like we said,
 it's got calling the games and everything else like in the league,
 like the reality's there.
 But what was that transition like, you know, from it was it probably more seamless than you think?
 It was to a degree, the biggest thing I needed was an education in esports.
 You know, it's a very tight community.
 It's a grassroots community.
 And I am an outsider to a degree.
 I mean, I play video games.
 I have an Xbox.
 But to say I'm a gamer would be false, at least at the time.
 You know, I'm a casual gamer.
 And this is a real endeavor.
 This is a real practice.
 And this is a real career for so many.
 And so gaining education, earning the respect of the players and the league,
 gaining counsel.
 You know, our managing director, Brynn and Donnie, he was incredible, you know,
 getting me up to speed.
 Sam Osfahani, who had the role before me, who now has OS studios here in New York,
 he would spend time with me and teach me some of the ins and outs that I didn't know.
 Our own internal team, a guy in my team, TJ Canty, he's incredible,
 gave me a ton of knowledge, really filled in the gaps.
 And then some outsiders too, Ariel Horn, people like that.
 You know, I saw it a lot of counsel early on to learn the esports side of it.
 Because where you're talking about the transition from the NBA side,
 the part that was easy was storytelling, storytelling and unlocking a great story
 and telling a great story and giving people an incredible visual representation of a sport or a game.
 Those fundamentals remain.
 But it was making sure that I was being authentic.
 And I really needed to learn core values and where players and teams and leagues come from.
 Once I sort of started to get that education, the storytelling became a little easier.
 And it became much more automatic for me.
 I didn't have to think through it as much.
 And look, the NBA is an awesome company, you know, resources and people to help you walk through these things.
 It's really a great place to work.
 And the transition was made seamless for me.
 I didn't have to fight too hard.
 So talk, you know, down that path.
 And I do want to talk about some of the content of it enjoying that on the YouTube channel.
 That's where I digest it.
 The frenemies watched that from last night.
 So he really interesting the stories of the players and all that.
 And there's such a lot of storytelling that I see there.
 Being in the business, it's really great.
 But talk about your role and like, what are the goals ultimately?
 Like, what does success look like?
 Like, both your role and then what does success look like in that role of content media for you guys?
 Well, look, you know, we're a small team, right?
 We're a startup within the NBA.
 So I think, you know, success is a number of different, you know, platforms.
 And for our marketing team or our league ops team, for our league overall, for our players and teams,
 there's probably different benchmarks that, that, that mark success.
 But I think for the content and broadcast team, it would be, I'll put it this way.
 When ESPN came on, you know, during all this.
 And we're on, you know, obviously the app all season long.
 And we've been on ESPN too a number of times.
 Success for us actually looked like them saying, hey, we're interested in this.
 But what, you know, can you guys produce a show, you know, that belongs on ESPN?
 And our answer was yes.
 And they looked at our product and we looked at our product and everybody went, wow,
 you guys are producing a real thing here.
 And so I think that, that was the first measure of success for us.
 Was that we're, we're not producing in a way that we feel we can get away with it.
 In fact, in many ways, we're overproducing and, and, and making it much more beautiful than it probably needs to be.
 And that felt really good to us.
 When, when ESPN said, sure, no problem.
 Let's get you on air.
 That felt like a really big measure of success for us, both creatively and artistically and for this narratively.
 And I think that's, for us, that's the goal, at least on the content and broadcast side is to continue to make really compelling content despite the restrictions that we're faced with now with COVID.
 And, and keep pushing forward narratives because honestly, our players and our teams are awesome.
 They are some of the most compelling characters I've ever worked with in my, you know, 22 years and sports in, in broadcast.
 If we can continue to, to push those stories forward and find partners that help us tell those stories, that'll be successful.
 Yeah, I love it.
 And so, in kind of the production now, I'd love to go down that path with the, you know, maybe using that, obviously, the most logical ESPN 2 connection.
 I'm sure we could spend the entire episode talking about what it takes to pull that off or what brought that together.
 But I think it would be fascinating just to understand maybe a little bit to give our listeners kind of just how complex and or what that, what is happening.
 You've got announcers at home, you have, you know, everyone I imagine is remote in some way.
 Maybe you have a core team, but talk to us about some of that production.
 So we had about, you know, three or four weeks to figure out how to go from an arena in Hell's Kitchen that has a broadcast facility built in it to producing the same level of, you know, content of broadcast quality from 30 living rooms in two countries and in 22 states.
 So, yeah, it was a big deal.
 No big deal.
 No big deal.
 The first question was.
 Is there an app for that?
 Ironically, yes, there is.
 Some of our stuff is that based.
 It's, there's this really cool app I have my, my iPad that, you know, I can pull up all of our camera angles and I can literally call shots from home.
 But, you know, first off was always, you know, game sanctity is always the first question.
 So first off with us was League of Apps and their incredible team, you know, Daniel Brad on that side of our league.
 They made sure that.
 And our obviously our partners take to.
 They made sure the game was going to be stable.
 We could do it.
 We knew we could pull it off from a gameplay perspective and then it was okay.
 Let's stack the broadcast on top of it.
 And what we did was we ended up building 23 mobile broadcasting units.
 So, you know, we call them fly packs and essentially we said, what are the base materials we need for someone to broadcast from their living room?
 And, and we got this stack of components in our partners at de facto who produce or show with us.
 We're incredible at helping us synthesize and figure out what are those, what are those core elements?
 And we built 23 fly packs and we sent it to the 23 teams.
 And then de facto, then, you know, figured out a broadcast strategy that would take in all these feeds, understanding that they're going to be coming off of 23 different Wi-Fi signals, strengths.
 You know, whatever they're, it's all completely variable.
 And it's not only variable by who has what bandwidth available, but then what's the weather like?
 What's the traffic light in that region?
 What's, you know, it's insane.
 So we built it all into a hub.
 And we've got it being produced half in Vancouver, de facto headquarters.
 And the other half, our core on the back end is out of Toronto.
 At the Roger Center there.
 We've got our TD and our A1 sitting in a room there and making sure that whatever gets pushed through the pipeline on fiber that goes to our platform partners, whether it's ESPN or Twitter YouTube.
 That they're getting a concise, mixed, sync, official, you know, HD product.
 And that's how we run our operation.
 And, you know, we have, we have three and a half weeks to figure it out. So that's, you know.
 Yeah, right.
 And then not to mention your point.
 Scott is in South Carolina and his home and the casters at his home in Illinois.
 So we had to build, you know, two more five packs for them.
 And then we built two spare five packs we bring in Julie and Viani or area of power sometimes as guest casters.
 So we have these floating flag packs that we use when we want to bring in extra voices.
 And then we figured out, you know, how can we integrate Skype and any other way to sort of connect to broadcast to bring in special guests.
 Our, our, our graphics department are going to use a company called hyzer or any map of cloud out of Houston who built a show that would look like it.
 We produced it in a, in a broadcast facility, but it's being, you know, run out of everybody's living room.
 And I'm here in New York and half the team is spread out across New York in a different places.
 Now we're making it work.
 I'm hearing a story with the story here.
 I hope someone's documenting what, what it took to make.
 I think if we go back and document it, we're all going to get PTSD.
 I think we just got to keep moving forward.
 Exactly.
 So talk about the partnership with, with ESPN, you know, what that's been like.
 I mean, I can only imagine those having the eyeballs and I know that you've, you've had other on your content before COVID.
 But what's that been like? What's that done for you guys and what's been the reaction to the, to the more mainstream live broadcast?
 Look, it's, I can't say enough about them as partners that the people that we work with on the ESPN side have been absolutely awesome.
 And I think, you know, we were, we worked incredibly hard to be ready for whatever eventuality came during this process or incredibly proud that they thought the product was a great product to put on the area.
 And, you know, since the initial announcement, ESPN has picked up an additional 21 nights on ESPN to alone.
 And of course, we're on the app the whole time throughout the season.
 So I think that's a testament to how we've been able to work together and how we've been able to grow the product together.
 They've had input on different advancements in different, um, content storylines in the broadcast that do hide ESPN to and we take those suggestions.
 Very seriously, and we've, you know, we've, we've in many ways, when we're on air with them, we're, we're working on the show together.
 And they've just been awesome creative partners and.
 From the linear side, we're really proud because we're obviously meeting a new audience, you know, every night that we're with them.
 And we're, we're hearing that feedback and we're seeing people come back, you know, from the ESPN to broadcast into, you know, we'll find something on Twitch chat and we'll find them following us as we go, you know, on different platforms on different nights.
 Like anything in life, right? It just comes down to opportunity and we're just really proud that we were a given the opportunity and that we were prepared to step up to the challenge when the opportunity was presented.
 So I, we've been overjoyed with what we've seen with them.
 What's, you know, the future stories, both on broadcast and like I mentioned your series on, you know, I digest on YouTube.
 Locked in, yeah.
 But talk about maybe that and that's what, you know, sponsored by AT&T will give them a shout out.
 Appreciate it.
 They seem to do a good job with it.
 So, and, and I've enjoyed kind of getting, I'd love to know, you know, what brings to life those stories and, you know, obviously the players themselves, like you said, are so dynamic or more than, then you've maybe even realized.
 But what kind of goes into kind of bringing those stories to life?
 You know, one is, I appreciate the shout out for AT&T, but the truth is they just have a lot of credit because they're not just a partner with a name on the show.
 They, they've really helped us produce the show this year because locked in as a series, we created last season and we spent a lot of time and effort traveling and shooting and filming and, you know, it's, it's a full on immersive production for 18 weeks.
 How do you make that show and season, you know, how do you give that show a season two when we're all, you know, isolated a quarantine.
 AT&T became an active participant in the production communication and they gave us, like, we're at like 20 different, fully loaded prepped phones that they shipped to us with AT&T service.
 So we use those phones to record the show. We ship them to the teams or players. They're fully ready to to upload the footage back to us to a server using AT&T service.
 All the footage for the most part is shot on these AT&T phones and they became an actual production partner, you know, to solve this problem with us.
 And which has been amazing because we figured out how to produce, you know, a full show during a time where we couldn't be face to face with anybody.
 We talked about sacred cows, production quality, like all these things that have been there for so long that like, oh, we have to shoot it with the 4k and like this.
 And I got to have, you know, I got to have craft services over here and all, I mean, good grief. It's like the reality is that if you, you could tell a story where the content makes the story, the quality is secondary or fifth.
 It isn't, it isn't. I will fight back. I'll argue with you on that one for one reason. One thing we said going into this was we're going to get a lot of free passes. We're going to a lot of excuses for quality.
 And I don't know if this makes it fun to work with me or difficult to work with me, but I refuse to accept any of those excuses.
 We still dedicate a ton of quality to, I don't know if you hear my computer dinging, but you know, it's 502. So obviously there's emergency somewhere.
 I saw, I'll start over there, but I, you know, the dude is all I'll fight you on that a little bit in that, in that, the quality matters. And so we have an incredible production partner in a company called mall media here in New York City that does a lot of our shooting edit, all of our edit.
 And, you know, we dedicated the same energy to the craft as we would have otherwise. We just recognize that we were doing it a little differently, but we still dedicate a ton to the edit in graphics and sound mix and design.
 And we want to make sure that we're still producing high quality content despite the free pass that might be out there collectively in the greater ecosystem.
 We're still going to push a really high quality product. And I think you're seeing that and locked in and to answer your second question about like where we find those stories.
 One is we're, we're just really dedicated to paying attention to more than just the X's and O's. And we've got this great guy.
 Graham Borden is our community ambassador. It goes online by Black Frank White. He's, he's, you know, knows everybody in the community knows everybody in the 2k community in the 2k league and he's a huge asset to have on our team.
 Because he can bring those stories to the surface for us too. Hey, you guys really got to look at this person. You guys really got to look at this team.
 Have been talking to some players over here and they're doing this really cool thing. And so we're able to unearth stories in this very organic way because it's all coming from a very real place.
 You know, we're not just making cold calls to teams and being like, hey, you got anything cool going on.
 We actively know what's going on by by continuing these conversations. And so we chase down a lot of these stories that you wouldn't normally hear and be aren't necessarily tied to wins and losses and X's and O's.
 I love it. It's, um, and by quality, I don't mean time in production, but more.
 I know you mean smart, whether it's a smart book or, you know, a 20,000 or 100,000 R red camera.
 It's true. But what we're learning is what we're, I wouldn't say we're learning, but what we're, what, you know, guys like me and you are finally being able to affirm is that a good story is what matters.
 There's no more tricks. There's no more bells and whistles. It just draw a truth. That's what matters.
 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Is, um, what's the, um, it's so hard to think past COVID and not that it even matters necessarily, but what's what's kind of the future hold for you guys with with with the league.
 And, you know, what can we, is there anything you can share that we should be expecting as far as content or stories or different things like that?
 I mean, look, you know, growth for us is, is, you can see it in real time, right? Season one was 17 teams. Season two is 21 teams.
 Season three is 23 teams with the first international and traditional esports franchise, you know, Genji Shanghai Tigers.
 So our Tigers from Shanghai and, you know, international qualifiers. So I don't think there's any, any gray area there.
 I think it's pretty easy to see that, you know, active hint that we want to be a truly global league with divisions in Asia and Europe.
 And Genji was a huge first step in that, you know, they're obviously helping us even with player identification, you know, in different regions.
 And so I think that from a league perspective is what you're already seeing from the content broadcast side, I think, you know, just continue to get bigger and better, you know, we have a virtual studio now.
 So that's been a fun thing coming out of this COVID era, but I think we'll continue to experiment with virtual technologies and remote productions, even when we don't have to because now we know we can and there's and there's tons of value to it.
 And I think just, you know, obviously continuing to find more distribution platforms that, you know, want to play with us, you know, ESPN has been a great example of that.
 We've got EGG and Southeast Asia and Sports, Net and Canada.
 We've just been able to make really great relationships and find some cool distribution that's given us access to a whole new audience, you know, in different places.
 So I think you'll continue to see that, you know, that level of growth, I think.
 And as far as production, you know, in process, you'll continue to see more 101 content so we can explain the game and the league to people who are joining us for the first time or in the first few times.
 I love this series 24 seconds with with Autumn Johnson that sponsored right to so I think we'll see more content like that with, you know, quickfire snackable learn more about our players.
 We've got this new series behind the screens with Jeff Eisenband, which takes a deeper dive, you know, spends more time with players and understanding how they became to became these sports professionals.
 I think those are important source to tell.
 And you've got the final four episodes of locked in still in production.
 So I don't want to give away too many hints on those, but you see so far storylines and story to and I think, you know, later in the season, you'll see storylines that are tied to more to our core principles and some of the pillars of our own, you know, growth.
 And what we can do with these sports in the gaming community at large.
 So, you know, just a couple of things to work on from our living rooms.
 Just a couple. Just a couple. Are we going to see more linear with with these sports? It seems like it's coming fast.
 I mean, as a whole seems like that's the next frontier maybe or amongst many.
 Yeah, I think you'll see I think it'll become much more part of the, you know, general fair.
 You know, you obviously see Finn coming online here in August soon.
 I saw the delete teaser trailer for G4. So I guess that's coming back. So I think, you know, there's, I think all the signs point to greater opportunity for greater distribution for these sports and gamers.
 So I'm encouraged by everything we're saying. And I think, you know, we're we're right in the mix with it. I think we're an awesome product that I, you know, hopefully we find homes in all these places.
 Yeah, is is, you know, the interesting thing with these sports is just so the ecosystem is so large with the games and the segments and the, you know, I mean, I know the foundation is with more of the shoot them up games as I call them.
 And, you know, but and speak. I'll go down that route to I have asked every guest that we've had on. I have four boys under the age of 11 and they all are gamers.
 So, do they have a future career in this like my 11 yard.
 So I'm asking every guest. Is this, you know, it seems like it might be closer than it ever was. But is this a career path.
 But esports for sure. I mean, look, and I think even broader than gameplay. I think what we're realizing is that like, you know, marketing professionals and league operations and developers and, you know, I think the career paths that esports has opened up is so much broader than just becoming a gamer and a professional game player.
 You know, everything from people who were used to traditional television production to content creators to, you know, CRO, CMOs, like, you know, these are businesses that are going to continue to grow. And I think that the multitude of careers that can be attached to esports is limitless right now.
 I would say 100% this is a, this is a career that that'll be there for them when they're ready to join the workforce and take my job from me.
 Yeah, all right. Well, we'll see. Hopefully we're both retired and on a beat somewhere, but probably we're about the same age.
 What do you, what's your perspective on the whole, you know, free sports and the growth and, you know, like, is it, it seems like the mainstream is here.
 I still wonder and I don't want to get into like the whole issue of violence and all that, but like, it just seems like, and that's why I love what you guys are doing it.
 I'm pushing my kids more into the sports side. I think it's the end of the day. I think, you know, people hurt people games don't hurt people.
 And, you know, it's like, you got to teach them right for wrong and all those things. But is that going to be a hold up for brands and things?
 You know, I mean, the violent side of it. I mean, it seems like it could be. I don't know. I don't.
 As a father, I think, you know, I'd probably answer it differently than, than, you know, as in my role. But I think ultimately what we're finding is two things. One, I would say, with all that aside, I just, I love our product.
 And I love that we're ready for everyone and we're having a good time with a great sport.
 But I also think that when you talk about the mainstream, I don't know that there is a mainstream anymore. I think there's something for everyone down. I think niche markets are important.
 And so whether or not everything that we're talking about becomes globally massive, everyone, you know, tons of eyeballs.
 I don't know what the future looks like. I don't even know what, you know, what ratings look like in the future doesn't necessarily matter because I think niche markets and powerful niche markets will be very interesting to the future of media.
 And so we're just going to keep cranking on the thing that we love. And we are really happy with the, you know, with what we're seeing so far.
 And we're just going to keep grinding because our fans love it. We're finding new fans every day and we think we're providing a really cool product and we're focused on that.
 I love it. I love it. Matt, man, it's been awesome. I appreciate your insights, your, you know, transparency with everything going on with the league.
 The storytelling is awesome, whether it's remote or not. I don't think the average I would know because the stories are compelling. The players are compelling.
 The league itself, you know, seems limitless for where you guys can take it. So really appreciate your time and coming on today.
 Thank you very much for having me. I mean, I appreciate the opportunity. The fact that you guys have taken notice of it is really cool. So thank you very much.
 Yeah, it's been great. Hey, this is Ryan offered host of the Radcast really appreciate Matt Arden coming on today to talk all things NBA 2K League follow more just Google NBA 2K League.
 They're right there at the top. You can learn more about the league and everything that going they have going on and go follow their series on YouTube. It's great content.
 This is Ryan offered. We'll see you next time to listen to full episodes or to contact us. Visit us on the web at the Radcast dot com or follow our host at Ryan offered on Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.